In retrospect, I realize that a significant portion of my life has been spent in a state of waiting—waiting to heal, waiting for life to improve, and waiting for life to progress. Throughout this journey, I discovered that the pace of change is often excruciatingly slow. There were moments when it felt as though my circumstances would never change, however, I have come to understand that, indeed, things do improve, and life does eventually move forward. More importantly, I ha

It seems that when life gets tough our first instinct is to try harder, which makes sense, we're conditioned by society to think that if something isn't working it's because we're not putting our all into it. If we feel like our life is unraveling because we're not doing enough, we think we need to do more. If a relationship isn't working we frantically try to put it back in place. If circumstances are beyond our control we panic and try to fix it even though it's out of our

I think it's fair to say that what we all want most in this world is to love the life we have. But what does that mean exactly, and how do we get it? Clearly it means something different to each of us, however, how we get it is pretty much the same... 1. Radical Acceptance Most of us want a life filled with love, joy, fun, fulfillment, success, family, adventure, purpose, and meaning. It also seems that we never get to have these things without going through some rough spots,

Anyone who's been through anything hard knows it always takes longer than we think to get through it and on to the other side. Especially when we've been broken physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. Sometimes the wait is excruciating, and sometimes it seems as though things will never get better. However, once we get past it we soon realize that we may have lost some things, but what we've gained in return is strength, courage, confidence, and wisdom, in a word..

I think almost all of us know what it's like to have our life planned out, and then watch as most of it, if not all of it falls apart right before our eyes. Or even if our life has gone mostly as planned, there's always at least a few things that haven't panned out leaving us putting "Plan B" into action. Either way, for most people life doesn't always go the way we think it will even when we put all our energy into plans for the future and expect it to play out exactly the w

We are all born with unique qualities from hair color, to skin color, to likes, dislikes, talents, abilities, etc., so it seems natural that we would be naturally drawn to certain areas in life that peak our interest and suit us on a personal level. With this in mind, wouldn't it be wise of us to nurture and embrace each other for these unique set of qualities instead of trying to fit us all into one shape or size? Abraham Maslow, an American Psychologist, spoke of encouragin

We've always heard the saying, "Leave the past behind and forge ahead" when we're ready to move on in life, however, I don't know if we want to leave everything behind, because if we did, we would probably be missing some important stuff. Even if we're leaving mistakes, regrets, or just a bad situation all together, we can recognize, and should recognize that everything that happened can serve a purpose if we let it, and that purpose is something we will want to bring with us

The other day I listened to a Podcast from Martha Beck on The Gathering Room where she was talking about coming home to peace. She said the only way you can get everything you ever long for is by letting go of how you expect life to be and, instead, letting life bring it to you. As I let this sink in I realized this is what they are saying when they ( those enlightened people) are talking about not being attached to things. I was always a little confused by this because of co

There's no doubt that life can be messy at times, and even when it seems to be going well, it usually doesn't take long for things to pile up again. For most of us, it seems, we always think that once we get everything taken care of and put in place, life will be easy sailing. However, I think we all know that this rarely seems to happen. It's a constant work in progress trying to stay aligned with the life we want for ourselves. However, never fear. We have strategies to he

I think we've all been in a position at one time or another when we've needed the love and support of those around us. Sometimes we're simply having a bad day, however, other times we may have truly lost everything, or completely hit rock bottom. Either way, the love and support of family and friends can make a huge difference in how we are able to handle our situation and whether or not we're able to heal and move forward. It's also important for us to have people in our liv

These days we live in a world where there's so much information it's hard to know what's real, what's fact, what's truth, and what's complete lies. Some people spread lies on purpose to induce fear, and some people spread lies thinking they have accurate information, however in reality, it's just something they've heard someone say and they took it as truth. So how do we know what's true? Honestly, sometimes we don't, but what we can do is do our own research and use critical

With springtime upon us we're beginning to see new life budding all around. In almost every culture, spring is the symbol of new birth and new beginnings. It has certainly been a season of new beginnings for me and I'm grateful, more than ever, for a chance at this. Looking back, however, it's interesting how we sometimes hold on to things for dear life when what we really need is a change. It's hard to see it when we're in the eye of the storm so we find ourselves fighting w

Every January, as the new year arrives, we begin by making plans, creating goals, and writing down a list of new years resolutions. This is a good thing as long as it's realistic and motivating, not a source of discouragement. It's always helpful to think of ways we can make ourselves, our relationships, and our lives better and more fulfilling, as long as we realize change doesn't happen over night and, instead, is a work in progress. It's also helpful to make plans for the

The Way Of Integrity by Martha Beck was one of the biggest influences on me when I needed to make some big changes in my life, and it gave me the courage to do so. In the book, Martha explains that being in integrity isn't a self-righteous thing, but a way of living life as who we truly are. The dictionary defines Integrity as, "the state of being whole and undivided". When we let ourselves relax into who we truly are, we'll find ourselves becoming aware of what's going on wi

It seems like it takes a lifetime to find which life path is right for us, and once we do, it takes constant focus to stay on it. It feels as though we're playing hot and cold most of the time, feeling our way through the dark, and, at times, finding ourselves on everyone else's path but our own. At my age I'm beginning to realize, we're not doing anything wrong, this is just how it is. It's all about learning as we go, and when we feel lost or find ourselves off our path eve

Happiness for Beginners, a book by Katherine Center has made me stop and think about what true happiness really means. In the book she talks about how it's not the wanting that makes you happy, but the appreciation of what you already have that's the key. If the wanting made us happy we would never be truly satisfied because the minute we got what we wanted, we would be inclined to go looking for something else. In the book, she also talks about the power of positive think

Do you ever have those weeks where It seems like no matter what you do to try and work things out so that everyone and everything is taken care of, things still go wrong? And then to make matters worse it feels as though nobody appreciates the effort? And to top it off with some people are even annoyed by it? It's hard not to feel underappreciated, undervalued, unheard, and misunderstood when things like this happen because no matter how much we may try to explain, few peopl

I'm the first one to agree that doing things for other people without expecting anything in return is not only noble, but healthy. Using...

It's interesting how most of us go through life searching for the life that's uniquely ours. We all want a life that feels true to us,...

Although we're well aware that we are each born with unique qualities, personalities, temperaments, features, likes, dislikes, etc., and...