Listening is more than just hearing words. It involves actively paying attention to the speaker, processing the information, and understanding the underlying message. Unfortunately, good listeners are hard to come by today. Most people listen with the intent to reply, and not with the intent to understand and learn. By understanding these different types of…
Consistency in Relationships: The Missing Link to Lasting Love
Consistency in relationships means consistently showing up for your partner or friend, being reliable, and fulfilling your commitments. In today’s fast-paced world, where everything changes at lightning speed, consistency in relationships is diminishing in importance, and it’s become more challenging to find people who maintain a steady and predictable pattern of behavior. With these strategies…
Surviving Culture Shock: How to Navigate a New Place with Ease and Openness
Arriving in a new country or environment can be an exciting experience, but it can also be accompanied by a wave of culture shock. Culture shock is a psychological and emotional reaction that occurs when individuals move to a significantly different environment. Whether it’s understanding new customs, behaviors, or the local language, it can leave…
Zanshin: How it Can Help You Be More Focused and Conquer Scattered Thinking
In today’s information-overloaded world and always-on, staying focused throughout the day can be hard. Yet, we need our minds to be still, focused, and alert to achieve anything lasting. Many Eastern cultures that practice martial arts teach and embrace this way of being, including the Japanese, who call it “Zanshin,” which means “the mind with…
10 Types of Soulmates and Soul Connections and Their Purpose in Your Life
A soulmate is a person with whom we feel an intense connection – where both people experience a magnetic pull to one another. They can be romantic or platonic. Whether or not you believe in soulmates, it’s well worth looking at the people you connect with on a deep level, as it can give you…
Why Spending Time Alone Makes You a Better Friend and Partner
Many people find being alone hard to endure, especially for extended periods. It can make people feel lonely and unloved. But there are many benefits from spending time alone when done in moderation and with intention. With these tips, you’ll learn how to schedule enough alone time to regroup and replenish so that you can…
Right Speech: Mastering the Art of Communication with Empathy (and why it matters)
With the rise of the internet and social media, people have become less empathic in how they communicate. Rudeness and deceptive language are common both in the online and offline world. One way to overcome this is to have a code of ethics that can keep us in check. The Buddhist teachings of Right Speech…
Victim Mentality: Why Blaming Others Holds You Back
A victim mentality is when someone claims that bad things keep happening to them more than others and differs from feeling sorry for themselves right after bad things happen. A person under the influence of a victim mentality blames someone or something else for their circumstances and refuses to take control of their life. If…
Stories We Tell Ourselves: How to Rewrite Yours So It Empowers You
As humans, we’re natural storytellers. Stories help us make sense of the world and organize experiences. We also tell ourselves stories about our lives, building narratives about the past and the present while imagining how it might all unfold in the future. Whether true or false, our stories significantly impact how we feel about ourselves…
5 Signs You’re Outgrowing a Friendship (and why it’s okay)
The bond that we share with friends is a special one. But unfortunately, not all of them last forever. Some friends evolve with you, while others go in a different direction. And that’s not in our control. If you feel that certain friendships may have run their course and you’re unsure if it’s possible to…