By Kathy Bosman “Unlike self-criticism, which asks if you’re good enough, self-compassion asks what’s good for you?” ~Kristin Neff My husband and family were my world. Although I’d found joy in my passion of writing, my heart revolved around my marriage. I thought we were happy. Then one day, he dropped the bomb: “I don’t love you…

By Aisling Peartree “Comparison is the thief of joy.” ~Theodore Roosevelt If you are suffering from the painful sting of envy, know that you are not alone. I was there too, for a very long time. Envy can be a crippling emotion. For me it has been connected to my depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It has…

By Kaylia Dunstan “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” ~Dorothy Day Throughout my life it’s been really hard to admit when I’ve felt lonely. I’ve been through intense periods where I have been without others. I’ve been surrounded by…

By Michael Davidson “He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius At the end of August I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. This was my second major move in a year. In both cases, I was separated from almost my entire prior social network. After college, making friends seems like…

By Charlene Anestis “I don’t know a perfect person. I only know flawed people who are still worth loving.” ~John Green Do you ever wonder if that voice in your head is right? Do you re-live events, scouring through every detail to look for places where you went wrong in your actions? Do you ever walk…

By Alicia Rodriguez “At the end of life, the wish to be forgiven is ultimately the chief desire of almost every human being. In refusing to wait; in extending forgiveness to others now; we begin the long journey of becoming the person who will be large enough, able enough and generous enough to receive, at the…

By Dina Strada “To forgive is somehow associated with saying that it is all right, that we accept the evil deed. But this is not forgiveness. Forgiveness means that you fill yourself with love and you radiate that love outward and refuse to hang onto the venom or hatred that was engendered by the behaviors that caused…

By Lori Deschene “Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama If there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s that we want to feel happy; and on the other side of that coin, we want to avoid hurting. Yet…

By James Gummer “Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama Some breakups are so bad that they make you hate the sunshine. It’s up there gleaming, looking down on you, being all sunny despite the fact that you feel like…

By Alana Mbanza “No feeling is final.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke I met him the last semester of college and was instantly attracted to him.  I was definitely attracted to him physically, but it was the way he sat in class with such quiet confidence and mystery that made me long to know him. I practically drooled…

By Maria Stenvinkel “We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.” ~Marianne Williamson I’ve struggled with it. Letting go, I mean. I’ve struggled with moving on from my past. I’ve struggled with ridding myself of guilt, shame, and grief. I’ve struggled with freeing myself from…

By Nicole Barton “Everything in the universe is within you.” ~Rumi When I was twenty-three, I lost my job through chronic illness. I thought my life had ended, and I spent the next few years an anxious, panicky mess—often hysterical. Eventually, I took off to scour the globe for well-being techniques, and searched far and wide for…

By Stephanie Deni Let’s face it, we can’t always have what we want.  There will be times in your life when the person you desire simply does not desire you back.  When what you’re seeking is not seeking you and it can be really devastating and at times, quite difficult to get through and get…

By Anonymous “Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~Ruth E. Renkel My last breakup was on April 16th, 2012. I remember the date because on the evening of April 17th, as I sat with a blotchy red face and tears in my eyes, my dad told me I soon would…

By James Leatherman “No feeling is final.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke I’ve battled depression for most of my life. In my younger years, it gripped me pretty frequently. I was first hit with suicidal thoughts at the age of fifteen, and it scared the bejesus out of me. I was young and dumb and had no idea…

By Craig James Ruvere “Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.”  ~Walter Anderson Society has a series of unwritten and sometimes unspoken laws they expect both males and females to abide by without question—a perceived set of standards and…

By Steve Kaminsky With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit,  He started to sing as tackled the thing  That couldn’t be done and he did it. —Edgar Guest   I’ve always believed in the adage “actions speak louder than words.” I’ve never been one to seek…

By Brittney daCosta “The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of…

By Audrey Meyer “You must love in such a way that the other person feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh Conventional notions of what it means to love are populated with expectations for reciprocity, which often gets us into trouble. I know this personally, because whenever I have “freely” given my love and it has not been…

By Zachary Goodson “Our thoughts create our beliefs, meaning if you think about yourself a certain way for a long enough period of time you will ultimately believe it.” ~Anonymous You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re a loser. Imagine thinking this way about yourself every day. No exaggeration. That was me. When a girl didn’t want to…