When Love Feels Like Pain: Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Does everything feel like too much these days? Get When Life Sucks: 21 Days of Laughs and Light for free when you join the Tiny Buddha list. “Sometimes the person you love the most is the one who teaches you the hardest lesson about yourself.” ~Unknown I once thought that being in a relationship meant […]

4 Parenting Lessons I Didn’t Learn in Graduate School

I spent nearly a decade in various professional roles that led me to believe I was a “child expert” before ever becoming a parent myself. Before becoming a mother, I had values and expectations that felt thoughtful and well-intentioned, but then I experienced what I can only describe as aggressive humbling from the moment I […]

Leadership Lessons From the Mat

Several years ago, my daughter and I enrolled in an Aikido self-defense class for women. We expected to learn how to protect ourselves through forceful, strength-based martial arts mindsets, skills, and strategies. Arriving at our first class, we were primed to practice blocking, striking, and overpowering opponents. Instead, we were introduced to a philosophy of […]

Teasing, Taunting, and Revenge: Lessons in Injured Pride

When The Ohio State University, a mega land-grant state school and a perennial football powerhouse, takes the field against a charter member of the Big Ten, the elite Northwestern University, the stadium buzzes with good-natured score-settling and rivalry. From their side of the field, Buckeyes’ loud cheers press the point that the Wildcats haven’t any […]

Three Lessons for Bringing Gratitude Into Your School

When asked what it felt like to receive a thank-you note, fourth-grader Leilani* at Sunset Beach Elementary School in Hawaii responded, “I feel good because someone cares about what I did. I feel like people care about me.” When she considered what it felt like to see someone else receive a note from her, she […]

5 Lessons About Change I Learned from Moving to a New City

“You may not be able to control every situation and its outcome, but you can control how you deal with it.” ~Unknown I recently moved to Florida, a decision thirty years in the making. Growing up in Haiti, I always longed to return to a warm climate. I remember being on our layover in Miami […]