Happiness & Success
Achieving Happiness Through Acceptance of Life
The quest for happiness often leads to frustration, as many fail to realize that the...
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- Written by: Jon Bowers
Sometimes trying your best isn't enough; when the situation demands it, you need to be perfect.
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- Written by: Mary Hayes Grieco
Shame is an unhealthy and extremely toxic emotion that makes a person very sick inside. It plays out in families and in society in a self-destructive and violent way, and it is at the root of addiction as well as all forms of abuse. You can heal your shame...
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- Written by: Anne Tucker
Many individuals experience dissatisfaction and doubt in various life areas, leading to paralysis in decision-making. By understanding where doubt originates and refining personal decision processes, one can break free from this cycle. Embracing a more effective decision-making approach can restore flow and align one with their true path.
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- Written by: Carl Alasko, Ph.D.
Living with anxiety and fear creates unhappiness and despair in all our relationships. However, most of us suffer from too much anxiety and fear primarily because our communications provoke these destructive emotions through criticism, accusation, punishment and humiliation. So reducing the anxiety and fear caused by...
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- Written by: Yasmin Anwar-UC Berkeley
Fox squirrels are a lot more organized than we thought—storing their stashes of nuts by variety, quality, and possibly even by preference. A new study is the first to show evidence that squirrels arrange their bounty—at least 3,000 to 10,000 nuts a year—using “chunking”...
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- Written by: Dennis Merritt Jones
We have little control over the future. And the future is where we tend to look for our security, seeking the assurance that everything will be all right. The illusion is that we have control over many variables in our daily life and that...
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- Written by: Jude Bijou, M.A., M.F.T.
Being too self-critical is rampant in our society. We beat ourselves up over real and imagined imperfections. Whenever we criticize ourselves, we compound the issue. We turn one problem into two -- there's the social blunder, a poor financial decision or disapproving glance in the mirror -- and the demeaning self-loathing that follows.
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- Written by: Karen Casey
Acceptance of your fellow travelers has the power to change the journey for everyone you meet today. Its power isn’t restricted to just the interchange between two individuals. It permeates the encounters both of these individuals have with...
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- Written by: Barbara Jaffe, Ed.D.
In my younger years, I focused on unimportant issues, punctuated by worry and anxiety. My perfectionist attitude and fear of making mistakes forced me to assure everything was in order, often making unimportant events a priority, for I was concerned about how my life looked to others. I am not proud of my focus, but it is the truth.
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- Written by: Thubten Chodron
In order to stop pointing out others' faults, we have to work on our underlying mental habit of judging others. Even if we don't say anything to or about them, as long as we are mentally tearing someone down, it's likely we'll communicate that through...
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- Written by: Roger Housden
Comparison is one of the ways the ego solidifies itself — either by making us feel special or small, which are two sides of the same coin. Thomas Jefferson captured this in one succinct sentence: Remember that no one is better than you, but that you are better than no one.
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- Written by: Briana Borten and Dr. Peter Borten
Contrary to popular belief, you are more than your accomplishments. And conversely, you are more than your failures. Attaching your self-confidence to the outcome of your actions is like attaching it to the weather...
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- Written by: Chris Grosso
Man, am I good at putting on a front. I’m guessing most of you, if you were really to take an honest look at yourselves, could probably relate. Now, when I say “putting on a front,” I’m talking about the me I let others see versus the me that’s underneath that exterior, the guy pretty much no one knows...
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- Written by: Barry Vissell
Do you ever feel unworthy to receive good things in your life? It’s not an easy question to answer. Some of you are in touch with your feelings of not deserving. Some of you are not. I dare say that feelings of unworthiness are present in most of us...
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- Written by: Barbara Jaffe, Ed.D.
No mother, no parent, can prepare for the tormented experience of the death of a child let alone begin to heal, even slightly, without help. Like many children born to fill a void in a family, I grew into a chubby, anxious little girl, with my desire to please not only my mother but also everyone.
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- Written by: Ray Dodd
Often, we just can’t forgive. Although we may want to completely let it go, the debate in our minds and the emotion tied to the event are too strong, especially when the offense has occurred repeatedly over a long period of time.
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- Written by: Pam Grout
How many times have you had a good idea only to keep it to yourself for fear of looking like a crackpot? Well, this fear of appealing foolish is crippling. Worrying what other people think squelches our joy, our fun, and all those good ideas our planet needs.
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- Written by: Mark Coleman
A very common example of the ubiquitous nature of the critic is the phenomenon of “imposter syndrome” — the feeling that you don’t deserve to be where you are in life. It’s estimated that 70 percent of people have imposter syndrome.
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- Written by: Ciara Greene, University College Dublin
Human memory does not operate like a video tape that can be rewound and rewatched, with every viewing revealing the same events in the same order. In fact, memories are reconstructed every time we recall them.
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- Written by: Nicola Phoenix
Feeling accepted seems to feature so highly in our lives. We set such great store by how others perceive us. Even amongst people you would count as close acquaintances, do you let them see the real you?
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- Written by: Jayne Morris
Perfectionism can prevent us from acknowledging the best in ourselves because our attention becomes focused on overly obsessing with the worst in ourselves. As a result perfectionists often beat themselves up with negative self-talk and self-defeating behaviour.
