When you’re feeling insecure, you typically don’t notice the hundreds of people around you who accept you just the way you are. All you notice are the few who don’t.

In what way is the fear of rejection holding you back? How would your life be different if you didn’t (subconsciously) care what everyone thought about you?

To answer these questions, we must understand that the vast majority of our fears and anxieties amount to one thing: Loss.

We fear:

• Losing our youth.
• Losing our social status.
• Losing our money.
• Losing control.
• Losing our comfort.
• Losing our life.

We also fear, perhaps more than anything else, being rejected by others. This kind of fear is widespread and debilitating if [Read more…]

Everything We Need

Jose’s wife, Maria, was born in a one-bedroom, stand-alone home on the outskirts of Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  It was a fine little home, but her father, Oscar, wanted a “real” house.  So, he worked two jobs—a 60-hour-a-week factory job, and then another 20 hours or so a week as a carpenter.

Oscar saved 50% of his income for over a decade to build his family a four-bedroom house—like the ones in the better parts of town.  He put half his family’s savings in a local community bank, and he tucked the other half away in a safe he kept hidden on their property.

On the morning Oscar planned to break ground on his family’s new house, the local community bank shuttered its doors, just hours after law enforcement declared the bank was running an illegal (and uninsured) Ponzi scheme.  90% of the deposits Oscar made were lost.  Then, the very next day, their little home was robbed at gunpoint.  In exchange for his family’s safety, Oscar offered [Read more…]

This morning, over coffee, one of my good friends spilled her guts to me about all of her failed attempts to find the perfect man.  Although her story is about her unique personal experiences, I couldn’t help but feel like I had heard the same story told by others in completely different circumstances a hundred times before.

It’s a heartbreaking tale about the endless quest for perfection that so many of us are on…

The Perfect Woman

Once upon a time, an intelligent, attractive, self-sufficient woman in her mid-thirties decided she wanted to settle down and find a husband.  So she journeyed out into the world to search for the perfect man.

She met him in New York City at a bar in a fancy hotel lobby.  He was handsome and well-spoken.  In fact, she had a hard time keeping her eyes off of him.  He [Read more…]

by Christina Rasmussen, author of Where Did You Go?

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
—Tuesdays with Morrie

In the days, weeks and months that followed my 35-year-old husband’s death, I swung between mind-numbing grief and an insatiable search for him, for his essence.  One moment I was painfully sad, the next moment I was hunting for his ghost, spirit body, soul—anything that was him.

Even though I’d been brought up Greek Orthodox, my religious background didn’t help me.  In fact, immediately trying to apply my faith to my dire circumstances actually deepened my doubts about what faith really meant to me, my two young daughters, and life in general, that someone we loved dearly was now in a place called heaven, or the afterlife.

The journey that started the day my husband died has been the most important journey of my life.  I spent those first few years after his passing barely surviving.  Living day in and day out inside a [Read more…]