Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

This is not your usual piece about gratitude. I am sure you’re familiar with all the benefits of having a regular gratitude practice. Chances are you, as a reader of this blog, have a gratitude routine of yours. I was one of you. I have been regularly gratitude journaling for over a year now. I have experienced all the promised benefits of it myself. Gratitude journaling has helped me reduce my stress, get better sleep, and feel more energized. It improved my mental well-being so much that I even started a social media page to encourage others to practice gratitude. However, one day, things changed. Expressing appreciation for what I had started making me feel bad, selfish, and guilty. What happened? On the sixth of February, my home country was hit by two immense earthquakes. A region where millions reside was completely destroyed. Thousands of buildings collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of people were trapped under the remains. Cities were wiped out. In the entire country, life

“We have to bear our own toxicity. Only by facing our own shadows can we eventually become more light. Yes, you are kind. But you ’ re also cruel.   You are thoughtful. But you ’ re also selfish. You are both light and shadow. I want authenticity. I want real. I claim both my light and my shadow.” ~Kerry Mangis Many of us can recall the painful moments that have shaped us. As we grow older, we become intimately aware of all the ways we were hurt, wronged, or betrayed. I think it’s a natural impulse, to number these moments and process them in order to heal. I reflected on this when on my way to the California River Delta—a peaceful marsh-land setting located between the Bay Area and Sacramento that I often sought refuge in. The night before I’d watched an episode of Thirteen Reasons Why that had dealt with the theme of the contradictory elements that live inside each of us. How difficult it is to arrive at a clean summary of good or bad o nce you’re made privy to all a person has b

“True emotional healing happens by feeling. The only way out is through.” ~Jessica Moore Have you ever loved someone so much that you could no longer see who they really were? Or have you ever been young and naive to the danger that surrounds you? I’m the first to raise my hand and say I did that! I’m a person who trusts people until they give me a reason not to. Trust Trust can be broken in so many ways by those you least expect it from; those you love and thought loved you. In some cases, it may not be that they don’t love you, but just that they have had a temporary moment of madness that has hindered their ability to think clearly—who knows? But whatever the reason for their betrayal, it can cause so much pain that you feel it in every part of your body. You know the kind of pain I’m talking about, which is so intense that it feels like you’re being pricked with needles. It’s not a nice place to be. Story Time For me, that moment came on a quiet night in June 2009, which wa

“I always wondered why it was so easy for people to leave. What I should have questioned was why I wanted so badly for them to stay.” ~Samantha King Do you feel afraid to speak your truth or ask for what you want? Do you tend to neglect your needs and people-please ? Do you have a hard time being alone? Have you ever felt panic and/or anxiety when someone significant to you left your life or you felt like they were going to? If so, please don’t blame yourself for being this way. Most likely it’s coming from an abandonment wound—some type of trauma that happened when you were a child . Even though relationships can be painful and challenging at times, your difficult feelings likely stem from something deeper; it’s like a part of you got “frozen in time” when you were first wounded and still feels and acts the same way. When we have abandonment wounds, we may have consistent challenges in relationships, especially significant ones. We may be afraid of conflict, rejection, or bein

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” ~Willie Nelson Few things have the power to totally transform one’s life as gratitude . Gratitude is the wellspring of happiness and the foundation of love. It is also the anchor of true faith and genuine humility. Without gratitude, the toxic stew of bitterness, jealousy, and regret boils over inside each of us. I would know. As a teenager and as a young man, I lived life without gratitude and experienced the terrible pain of doing so. Outwardly, I appeared to be a friendly, happy, and gracious person. I could make any person laugh and I was loyal to my friends through thick and thin. However, beneath the surface an intense fire raged within me. Despite receiving boundless love and attention from my wonderful family, I was inwardly resentful about my adoption as a child. For many years, three bitter questions ran on repeat in my mind: Why did my birth mother give me up for adoption when I was only months old?

“ Everywhere you go, there you are.” ~Unknown I have heard this quote many times throughout life, but that was it. I heard it, thought hmm , and moved on. Well, here I am at the age of thirty-nine, and I am really starting to see and understand it. I first started noticing this idea showing up over and over again recently, at a time of a change in my career . I went from an ER nurse to an RN in the transfer center. So bedside nursing to office work. I noticed one day, as I was sitting in my new, quiet office area looking at the board of the ER in epic (which shows how many patients are currently in the emergency room), there were about ninety-eight patients in a forty-four-bed unit. I felt as if I was actually in the ER. I felt horrible on the inside, and felt sorry for the patients, nurses, doctors, etc. Then I thought, What the hell am I doing? I am in an office; I am not down in the ER. If I am going to experience the same feelings in this office as I would have in the ER, then

Hi friends! I’m excited to share that the inspirational Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit 2023 starts next week. This FREE event takes inspiration from the Dalai Lama’s vision, kindness, humility, and wisdom to explore how we can navigate our increasingly uncertain world with compassion and virtue. If, like me, you’d like to help create a world with less pain and move love, this is a perfect opportunity to learn the skills and strategies you need make a positive difference. Sign up today for free to access 20 expert presenters and join thousands of people around the world who share your hope for humanity, in this incredible event happening next week, March 16-20th. Over five days, Lion’s Roar and Tibet House US are bringing together an esteemed panel of Buddhist teachers, experts, spiritual leaders, and activists to explore a wide range of key ideas spanning compassion, meditation, and wisdom—including the power of meditation to fuel societal change, ethical action, and how we can

“You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in the sad, the gain in your pain, and what makes you grateful, not hateful.” ~Karen Salmansohn The 2010 decade was difficult for me. Hardly a year went by without someone close to me passing away . When the tragic decade started, I was in the midst of my residency training and free time was a luxury I did not have. When I graduated and became an attending physician, I was too busy caring for patients on my own to take a break. In 2018, my world was shattered when one of my best friends died unexpectedly. The sudden shock of it left me feeling helpless. To counter my feeling of despair, I worked even harder to take care of patients in need. Shortly afterward, my father-in-law was diagnosed with a recurrence of his cancer. Over the next year, my husband and I spent whatever free time we had flying across the country to see him. We watched as he slowly deteriorated until he took his last breath in 2019. Instead of slowing down, I k

“Sometimes just being there is enough.” ~Unknown It felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like someone was holding me by the neck, against a wall, and the floor might drop beneath us at any moment. I’m describing a panic attack , but this has actually happened to me before—being held by the neck against a wall, that is, not the other part. Growing up I experienced many moments like that, moments when I felt unsafe, physically and emotionally. There were countless experiences that reinforced to me, over the years, that I couldn’t let my guard down, because at any moment I could be hurt. So I learned to be constantly anxious, eternally on guard, ever ready for a threat. I learned to be tightly wound, my fight-or-flight response permanently triggered. And I learned to see minor threats as major problems, because that’s another thing I learned as a kid: Sometimes seemingly small things could make other people snap. Unsurprisingly, I grew into an adult who snapped over small things all the t