“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” -Dalai Lama

Most of the time when I feel overwhelmed, stressed, frustrated, or angry, it’s because I’m obsessing about my circumstances–everything that feels unfair or insurmountable and all the ways I feel powerless to change them.

In this state of mind, I inevitably stress other people out, whether I talk about my challenges or not.
It’s there, spoken or unsaid. It gets in the way of my ability to really be present with the people I love, and it affects their state of mind.

I’ve realized that the surest path to feeling more peace is recognizing when I’m challenging other people’s–when I’m drowning my interactions with my personal struggles instead of creating a positive space for myself and the people I encounter.

We’ll always have problems in life, and if we’re not careful, they can suffocate our relationships.
Today if you feel burdened by your struggles, realize that stressing won’t create solutions–it will just create more problems, for you and others.

The alternative is to breathe–to value collective peace in the present more than individual control over the future. Ironically, this often makes it a lot easier to identify solutions.

Lori Deschene (tinybuddha)