Personal Growth | With an Open Heart

Apr 2

Important Message to With an Open Heart followers!!

Hello all 5,000+ of you! It has been A WHILE since I last wrote! I sincerely apologize to those of you who had become daily/weekly readers who were let down by this. I’ve been dropping the ball with not only the blog but Facebook, and Twitter as well.

But please hold out! With an Open Heart will be back and up and running soon! I’ve decided to move my blog to WordPress.org, which will change a few things for you, but not much. The plan is for it to be better than ever! The only problem is that the learning curve for customizing a blog on WordPress.org is WAY over my head! I’m trying, but with all of my other commitments, it’s taking a while.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, kind words, enthusiasm, and patience with the many ups-and-downs throughout the last year. I’m working to make With an Open Heart more than just a blog, and more of a vehicle to help people around the world improve their lives, so stay tuned! New beginnings are just around the corner!!

You can continue to follow through the wordpress reader, twitter, Facebook, google+, tumblr, or email.

Thanks again,

With Love,

Nina

Mar 19

3 Comments

A New Perspective on Making a Career in Your 20s

I just completed a guest post for a great blog called 20 Somethings in 2013: Stories of men and women in their twenties about my experience in the career world since graduating from college. When the author, David, first asked me to write a segment about my journey thus far, I was a bit apprehensive and surprised. Why? because my journey as been very different from most of my peers. I wrote back to David and explained that I would be happy to write something, but I wanted him to understand that my experiences, and choices have been very different from my peers and I wanted to make sure that he understood that others may not find my story as helpful or insightful. To my surprise, David still wanted my contribution. Pretty cool! You can check it out HERE.

One of the great aspects of this blog is that it features posts written by twenty-somethings who discuss their experiences and opinions about beginning a career in this economy. There’s a lot of diversity which I really love about the featured “20 somethings”.

If you’re in your 20’s, just starting out, or simply interested in the many careers and career pathways people are seeking in todays world, I recommend checking it out. It has a lot of great information as well as great bios from other 20 somethings.

Jan 7

2 Comments

Out of Your Vulnerabilities Will Come Your Strength: Where there’s pain, there’s growth

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 2: Out of Your Vulnerabilities Will Come Your Strength: Where there’s pain, there’s growth

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”

― Andy Rooney

Pain Exists. Life can hurt. And sometimes, life can hurt A LOT. But this pain is for your benefit.

How many times have your heard it, “Life is not fair”. It’s true. Life is often unfair. We often get the shaft. Good people sometimes find themselves in bad situations, and painful experiences. While others, who you may believe live horrible lives always seem to get the “best possible scenario” in life. Don’t worry, karma has a way of working things out, sometimes you just have to be patient. Now don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not saying go ahead and resent people or wish bad things upon them. That’s wasted energy (and bad karma). Rather, don’t waste your energy, because the universe will take care of them. You have more important things to do with your life.

Let face it, sometimes, life is PAINFUL! Sometimes, it hurts so much, you feel as though you can’t go on. Perhaps you’ve even had a few nights where you’ve cried your eyes shut (I know I have). You may think, “Why? Why? WHHHYYYY???!!” Read more

Jan 4

24 Comments

The Story of the Lotus Flower

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 1: The Story of the Lotus Flower

Given that The Awakened Heart Project is about helping you release your fears, to grow, to discover, to learn and to awaken, the story of the lotus flower and its symbolism seems like the perfect place to start this journey.

The lotus flower is a beautiful flower that can be found all over the world. But the start of this flowers life is not as beautiful is one might image. It’s unlike many other flowers. When the lotus first begins to sprout, it is under water, making its home in lakes and ponds in areas where the water remains fairly still on the surface. But underneath the surface, the lotus is surrounded by mud and muck and by fish, by insects, and simply dirty, rough conditions

Despite these conditions, Read more

Dec 13

6 Comments

Where There is Heart, There is Plenty…

Consider your actions of today or this week? Do you do the kinds of things that come from the heart? Many of us, do things for others, but only feel resentful afterwards. But what if we only did things from the heart? Or better yet, did the things for others we don’t want to but never feel resentful. Think about it for a moment. What if you stopped choosing resentment and simply did things because you felt it was right, and you wanted to? I’m not saying, stop doing things for others if you don’t want to (although that is your choice and I do believe in freewill), I’m saying, do these things, but instead of negative thoughts and feelings, feel joy, pleasure, and happiness. You likely made a Read more

Dec 10

2 Comments

Cultivating Your Garden of Happiness

Have you ever thought about how complex and detailed your brain is? Or how many processes your brain go through on a given day, or hour, or millisecond? It’s infinite. The brain is much like a computer that never sleeps. It seems simple on the outside, but inside it makes up our bodies largest organ consisting of some 100 billion nerve cells that control every aspect of our conscious and unconscious body processes. But, if you think all of this happens without any conscious help on your side, you’re mistaken.

Think of your brain like a garden. It needs to be tended to. It takes work, commitment and maintenance. If you want it to flourish, you need to water it, to feed it some sunshine, some fresh wonderful air, and even some healthy nutrients too. Not to mention, you need to get rid of those weeds! And not just on the surface; rip those weeds up from the root! Or what? They’ll grow back and they’ll spread (damn you weeds). Yes, your mind is a bit more complicated than just a garden, but it still needs the same kind of tender love and care. Read more

Dec 4

Truths to Remember Daily

Sometimes these things get forgotten in our busy lives, but they’re important to remember each and every day. Take risks, know who you are and always have the courage to be just that, and don’t worry about what others say. Be true to yourself. Always.

Yoga Is Not Just a Workout, -It’s About Working on Yourself

“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.”

Yoga for me is very much a love-hate relationship. I love how I feel afterwards, and I love how my body changes and the strength I feel when I practice regularly. However, I hate when I take a few months off and I suddenly cannot do the poses the way I want to. Or, when I feel exhausted just halfway through a class. And I hate how much I struggle to remain “present” and calm, and compassionate with myself throughout each class. Doing a physical activity that is calm, and requires mindfulness can be difficult. I’m a runner; I want to put my headphones, listen to upbeat music, and run a few miles. Yoga is just the opposite of that. So for me, yoga is a challenge. Read more

Sep 11

2 Comments

The Battle Between Good and Evil

We all have both negative and positive attributes. We have good and evil sides. Most of us would readily admit that those negative aspects of ourselves, and our lives, are ones in which we wish we no longer befriended. Despite this truth, we often struggle to escape from the evil which resides so close to our hearts and our minds. It is no easy task to escape it, I know. It becomes apart of us. It’s so easy lose sight of the good at times, especially during times of grief and sorrow. But remember, that we can only breathe life into the things we feed. Read more

Aug 9

Find a Place of Peace Within Your Mind and Heart

Do you meditate? In this busy life, finding a place of inner peace can be difficult to say the least. We are constantly overwhelmed with stimulation, thoughts, judgements, responsibilities, etc., etc., etc. We all need moments of quiet. Those moments of escape. Meditation can give you that. It’s a practice that is truly just that; a practice. But the more you practice, the easier, more rhythmic it’ll become.

Anger of the Mind is Poison to the Soul

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it

~Seneca

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About two weeks ago, I was out with a friend for dinner. We had a nice meal, discussed our days, and then I headed home to pack for my trip to Trinidad. On my way home driving through downtown Minneapolis, I spotted a bicyclist a little ways ahead me. He was swerving between lanes, biking in the car lane rather than the designated bike lane clearly marked to the right of me, and seemed to be oblivious to other cars on the road. As the distance between us grew smaller, and I was coming up behind him, I began wondering what direction he was planning on going when we reached the red light up ahead. Was he going to make a right hand turn at the light like I was planning to do? Read more

Mar 21

2 Comments

Changing Requires a Paradigm Shift. No one said it was going to be easy!

This morning I came across this post by A Thousand Shades of Gray discussing the paradigm shift we go through as humans whenever we’re in a process of personal transformation and growth.

Kurt Lewin developed the Change Theory that is today, the epitome of change models. Lewin is also regarded as the founder of Social Psychology and contributed vastly to the field. On the most basic level, Change Theory describes the process of change that occurs in humans, society, organizations, etc., as conscious and in three phases: Read more

Mar 20

6 Comments

What Are The Consequences of NOT Moving Toward The Unknown?

Even if we can’t physically see it, everything in this world is constantly changing one way or another. Everything. Some of us embrace change, and choose to move toward unfamiliar grounds, while others try desperately to hold onto familiarity, -to comfort. What is it that makes one person fearful of the unknown, and the other excited? Is it nurture? Is it biology? Although I have not sought out research on this topic, I’m willing to bet it’s a combination of both.

I recently reread a silly book I was given years ago by my cousin and came across an old fable on the topic: Read more

Mar 11

5 Comments

[FEATURED POST] You Are What You Think! Think Happy to BE Happy!

Each day, roughly 60,000 thoughts will cross your mind. What are you thinking about? Are your thoughts positive or are they negative? Do you feel happy most days or sad? Of these 60,000 thoughts, it’s up to you, to make sure that 59,999 of them are not wasted on negative, self-defeating thoughts.

We’ve all heard that you are what you eat, right? But what about You are what You think? Every thought you have creates a physiological response in the body. Read more

Mar 7

The Perils of Being a Perfectionist

Almost everyone wish they could change something about themselves, or their lives at some point. It’s normal I supposed to not be completely satisfied. Some of us are perhaps more satisfied than others. But what happens when we’re only satisfied with perfection?

If I had to use one word to sum up my most prominent thought the last few weeks it would be: Perfectionism. In fact, I would say, if I had a stocker, it would be Perfectionism. It just won’t get away from me. I’ve been a self-proclaimed perfectionist for years, and frankly, I think I liked it; Perfectionism was a friend of sorts. But over the last year, I’ve become aware of just how annoying, and clinging, and rigid, and judgmental, and selfish, and cruel this friend really is. Perfectionism is a total Bitch! Read more