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Accepting Fear and Sadness as Normal Parts of a Good Life

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“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” ~Naomi Shihab Nye I knew it was around that time. When I opened my eyes, it was pitch black outside and I couldn’t yet hear the chickens in the distance waking up. It was 4 a.m. again. In the past few days, I have loved this gift of jet lag; transitioning to a thirteen-hour time change has afforded me this dark, mysterious quiet that has woken up inside of me the place from which I write—a place that spontaneously arises when the conditions are such that something flows through me. However, next to me in my bed, my daughter slept soundly. I lay there, paying attention to and feeling my body breathe, sensations arising and falling, and thinking about life—the past, present, and future. As I lay there, I noticed the sweet ebb and flow of my breath and the glorious feel of the air from the fan washing over my warm and rested body. Yet on this particular morning, I noti...
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How Feeling Out of Control as a Kid Led Me to an Eating Disorder

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In many cultures, food is an expression of love. Sometimes, as was the case for me growing up as a child of immigrants, food might be the only expression of love. My parents were not very affectionate or communicative about love. My dad gives classic awkward-dad hugs, where he pats your back with self-conscious uncertainty from a good foot and a half away. My mom hit me so frequently and unexpectedly that my body learned to flinch anytime she got too close. My childhood was punctuated by seasons of my mom’s depression. Ramen and Pizza Hut boxes marked how long a particular bout of depression was. My mom would sometimes go weeks without changing out of her pale pink nightgown or opening her bedroom blinds. During these dark days, if she did get out of bed, she moved zombie-like through the house, no sign of vibrancy in her eyes. And then something would somehow shift. I would always wait in desperate hope for this shift. I would know the tide was turning when the kitchen would come...
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Location: USA
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Last Day for the Feel-Good Bundle Sale (96% Off 11 Life-Changing Tools!)

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Well, all good things must come to an end, and that time has come for the Feel-Good Summer Bundle Sale . Before I give you one last reminder of all this spectacular bundle has to offer… I’ve always believed in the power of one. One realization can open your mind. One shift in perspective can transform your experience of the world. One decision can change the trajectory of your life. The one realization that changed my life nearly two decades ago is that life is not what happens to us; it’s how we respond to it. That led to a shift in perspective: If I am not my mistakes or my struggles, then I don’t have to wallow in shame. Instead, I can be proud of what I do with them. And that led to a powerful decision: to get the help I needed to heal and then help others do the same. I’d spent over a decade struggling with depression, bulimia, and c-PTSD, and I’d gotten help before, but I never truly believed I deserved it. It’s hard to heal if you think you deserve to hurt. But that on...
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Location: USA
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30 Reminders for Sensitive People Who Feel Drained, Ashamed, or Judged

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“Highly sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate.”~Anthon St. Maarten There are some words that get painfully etched into our memories as if with a red-hot poker. For me, growing up, those words were “you’re too sensitive.” I often caught this phrase in the fumbling hands of my shame after someone chucked it at me with callousness and superiority as a means to justify their cruelty. They may have said something vicious or condescending in private, or told embarrassing stories or outright lies about me in public. Either way, the results were the same: I’d take it personally, get emotionally overwhelmed, then either explode in anger or sob. But it wasn’t just cruelty that evoked my sensitivity, and I didn’t cry only when obviously provoked. Well-meaning people, who generally treated me with kindness, would gently remind me I’m too sensitive when I...
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Location: USA
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11 Life-Changing Tools, 96% Off—10 Days Only, Starting Today!

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Hi friends! I’m excited to announce that Tiny Buddha’s Feel-Good Summer bundle is now available for purchase! For the next 10 days only, you can get 11 life-changing tools—valued at over $2,400 combined—for the price of one. That comes to an incredible savings of 96% off! For those of you who purchased the last bundle, I listened to your feedback and aimed to make this bundle less overwhelming, with fewer courses but a higher overall value. Also, just FYI, though you’ll see some of the same faces, their programs are new this time around. I’m particularly excited about the offerings because I know many would have helped me during some of the darkest times of my life. Having  spent years hating myself and self-destructing due to narcissistic abuse, I’m sure could have healed a lot sooner with the help of the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Program—led by Melanie Tonia Evans, one of the world’s leading authorities in this field. As someone who formerly struggled with bulimia for over a ...
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Location: USA
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The Hidden Reasons You’re Stuck (And What to Do When Conventional Advice Fails)

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“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” ~M. Scott Peck Have you ever been in a situation or a stage in your life where you’ve felt physically stuck, as if you’ve fallen into some kind of invisible quicksand that you can’t get out of? Or maybe it’s felt more like you have a thick, invisible elastic band around your waist, and no matter how hard you push forward, it pulls against you, holding you in place? Or maybe it’s like a sky-high brick wall that you can’t find your way through, around, or over? Getting stuck in life can feel frustrating, annoying, upsetting, and confusing. And if you’ve been stuck for too long or at a time when you really need to move forward, you’ve probably found yourself panicking and feeling afraid because if ...
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Location: USA
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How I Embraced Alcohol-Free Living: 4 Things That Made It Easier

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“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” ~Abraham Maslow A few years ago I decided to take a break from alcohol , and I also decided I would probably be lonely, miserable, and boring for the duration of my break. I’d allowed a lot of social conditioning to affect me, and I was sure people who didn’t drink either had no friends, had hit a drastic rock-bottom, or had no fun. I didn’t know if I was going to find happiness or even contentment on the other side of my drinking career, and this worried me. I began to examine those thoughts and feelings around my drinking and brought my behaviors into a sharper focus. It led me to… Awareness (of my drinking habits) I look back and can now and clearly see that I was, for a very long time, a gray area drinker. A gray area drinker is someone who falls into the bracket between never drinking and physical alcohol dependency. Society tends to view problematic drinking in black and white terms. “You’re an ...
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Location: USA
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