There are two truths to bad habits: 1. Everyone has as least one 2. They are hard to break. 

Even though bad habits plague everyone, very few people understand how bad habits affect their life. They keep you from living your life to the fullest. They are preventing you from achieving those goals you have set for yourself. Bad habits jeopardize your good health, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Bad habits are a waste of your time and energy. 

Why do you still have those bad habits? Perhaps that’s not the most important question to answer right now. Instead, you need to ask yourself this -- is there anything you can do to change? 

Why do you have bad habits?

Before you think about kicking those bad habits in order to change for life, it is crucial to understand how you got them in the first place. Understanding the cause of those bad habits will help you get rid of them for good. Changing for the better does not come easy. But...

When something is difficult to understand, the easy way out is to shove it aside and take on another task. But doing this over and over again puts you in a situation where you don’t learn anything new. 

It is essential not to take these challenges lightly. They may be challenging to start, and they will remain like that unless you give it a try. You may have a bad habit of passing on hard tasks to others or ignoring them altogether. 

However, is this wise? 

Of course not.

How To Create Space For Learning With Joy

Just saying that you’re going to change yourself and your mindset is not enough. You have to take action. Decide to take on difficult tasks and actually do so.

Instead of focusing on how difficult they are, focus on what you can learn from each one. After all, it is the learning that genuinely makes the task worthwhile, not success or failure. 

How do you push yourself to do what you consider difficult?

Allot time every day

When you include...

Expressing ourselves as fully as possible is a fundamental reason that we came here to this planet. Our ability to express ourselves comes THROUGH our personality that we have chosen. More fully embracing our character - not hiding it or artificially changing it - releases much-trapped energy within us and allows us to feel more authentic emotions like joy and acceptance.

The problem is, essentially, that we live in a world that - on its surface - does not appear to support authentic expression. This illusion is SO STRONG we reinforce it by rewarding complicit and compliant behavior as well as ignoring or estranging behavior outside of what is considered the mainstream. The systems of business, politics, and governance are set up in this way - contributing to a society that is void of the personality and individual expression relative to its potential.

This is changing, much assisted with the advent of the internet and social media, where people can be rewarded - socially or...

How mentally stable are you? This is perhaps one of the scariest questions you’ve been asked. And if you feel threatened by the question, you are not alone. 

Everyone is dealing with their own drama in life. However, not everyone may be open to talking about their mental health crisis. Judgments from others when they find out you are not as stable as they thought you were makes the situation much worse. Feelings of shame can prevent people from seeking help. Time and again, they’ve been subtlely told that it’s best for them to keep quiet, “man up,” or “keep a strong upper lip.” 

While some may be able to thrive on their own, many others are like you. They need help, and asking for help is a courageous move. 

How To Move To A Better Mental State

Everyone wants to be calm, focused, and energetic. But it is essential to understand that nobody will feel that way all the time. If you are pushing yourself despite...

Do you find it hard to give away stuff you own, but don’t need? Is it difficult to say no to something cute that you see at the mall, so you end up buying it? Buying beautiful things is fine, but if you are doing so every day or every week, then you must stop and reflect. Has shopping become an addiction? 

Perhaps the more important question to ask is this -- what makes you buy so many things you don’t need? What do you get out of owning them? 

Even though you might think you still have relatively fewer things than other people you know, it does not help to have more stuff than you could ever need. When you look at your house now, you know that there are a lot of things there that you don’t use and do not need at all. 

Some of these things may have been gifts from well-meaning friends or family members, but you know you are guilty of buying a lot of stuff that you don’t need. Buying them made you feel good about yourself, and you...

 While relationships are, in general, places for delight, love, and intimacy, there is another side that is rarely explored. For some, relationships become spaces where they are shut down emotionally, hardened towards love, and turned cold. There is a constant struggle for people to keep an open mind and an open heart. 

Just like no person is perfect, no relationship is perfect. But everyone can try to be more open about how they feel. When you open up your heart to the many possibilities that could happen, that's the only time you learn how to love everything about your partner. 

What would life be like if people learned how to be more open to each other instead of shutting down? What would happen if people worked on building a real connection with others instead of being in a relationship just because it is convenient to have someone around?

The Challenge of an Open Heart

Open heart meditation is a great tool to use when you want to start connecting to others. It...

Feelings of anxiety should never be dismissed as if they are not important. Most of the time, people feel anxious because they fear they might be in danger. When someone senses danger, their body’s automatic response is to either face it or run away from it, also known as the fight-or-flight response. However, chronic anxiety and anxiety disorders come from someone’s perceived danger, whether that threat is actually present or not. 

In moderation, anxiety is not necessarily bad. In fact, it is a person’s natural reminder that they might need all the extra help they can get. But when it gets overwhelming and painful, that’s when seeking advice from a professional may be necessary.

Are You Suffering From Anxiety Disorder?

Have you ever submitted yourself to a social anxiety test? Perhaps you have thought of it a couple of times in the past, but you never really gave it serious thought. Maybe you’ve even suffered an anxiety attack but didn’t...

How many times have you thought about the word surrender? Perhaps you heard it while were practicing yoga. Maybe you heard it a little louder during a church service. Or maybe you heard it in a song during your meditation practice. 

The meaning of this word depends on how you want to look at it. It is inherent in human nature to resist instead of surrender. For some people, they do not like the idea of surrender because, for them, this means giving up. It could also mean letting go, and for some people, this can be very hard to do. 

Surrender does not always mean to relinquish control or give up the power that is in our hands. As scary as it may seem, there is a positive side to surrender. Sometimes, it is all that people need to do to actually gain what they have always wanted in their life -- peace of mind and heart. 

Teaching yourself how to surrender does not mean giving up on what you want. Instead, it is telling yourself to slow down...

 Anxiety at work is a real problem. It not only flows through your work life but into your personal life. For example, what is the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning? Perhaps, instead of enjoying the birdsong outside your window, your first instinct is to check your phone for messages or work-related emails. You then compose a reply to that email before you get out of bed. You may worry about what the day holds for you, which distracts you from enjoying your coffee or your family.

You are still not wide awake. Everything is blurry from sleep, but you know you have to get up. You need to get up and push yourself to prepare for work. After all, that’s what you do every single day. But how do you reduce stress and anxiety at work so you can enjoy the rest of your life?

Is Workplace Anxiety Real?

To say that communication is overwhelming in this day and age is an understatement. Technology has provided us with a lot of means to express ourselves and...

Happiness is fleeting. It is something that a lot of people yearn for, but don't consistently experience. Sometimes, one's happiness is the only thing that gives meaning to their lives. So when they do not achieve it, that's when it truly becomes a problem. 

When you are so angry that you want to throw a punch at your neighbor's kid who keeps throwing stones at your house, you forget about boundaries. You become so self-absorbed that you forget how your actions affect the people around you. 

How would you feel if it was your neighbor who punched your kid on the face? You would be angry and out for blood. You inhabit the feeling of anger as if there is nothing in this world that could make you happy. 

You get angry, but then the feeling goes away. It is the same as when you feel happy. It's like you are happy one minute, and then you are not satisfied the next. 

They say that a happy person does not worry about if he is happy or not because he knows that he is....