Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/KQ71g8OyevI/

“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brené Brown

Do you have parts of yourself that you’d like to change? Maybe even parts of your personality you’re a little embarrassed by?

I do.

And if I started to list them I probably wouldn’t know where to stop.

I can be a complainer and whiner. Even worse, I sometimes turn into a martyr and feel sorry for myself. Other times I’m overly impulsive and have been known to have a really erratic temper.

But the thing is, we’re not our behavior. Often we know when we’re not acting our best and if you’re like me, you’re exceptionally hard on yourself.

In the past when these less than noble parts of myself raised their whiny heads, I cringed and felt ashamed. It seemed proof that I had not traveled far at all on the road of self-discovery.

For instance, I often write about mindful living.

Yet in the past year I alienated an editor and lost a writing gig by not thinking before I fired off a rather rude email.

I hurt a friend when I wasn’t sensitive to the things happening in her life.

I’m an advocate of eating healthy, organic food yet twice in the past month I bought a bag of Fritos and devoured it.

Who the f*&% am…

Source: http://greatist.com/eat/ugly-fruits-and-vegetables-are-coming-to-a-store-near-you?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

Photo: Imperfect Produce

We’ve all passed over crooked carrots and bruised apples at the grocery store. (If we’re going to pay that much for produce, it better be perfect.) But ugly produce is totally safe to eat, and now it’ll be available at Whole Foods in Northern California and Giant Eagle stores in the mid-Atlantic states.

Misshapen foods are usually much cheaper than their counterparts—reason enough to stray from your discriminatory ways. At Giant Eagle, for example, you can score a 4-pound bag of blemished navel oranges for $2.99, a whole $2 cheaper than the conventional kind.

Purchasing ugly produce also helps with our major food waste problem. Nearly 40 percent of food produced in the U.S. each year goes uneaten, in part because certain fruits and veggies are deemed too unappealing for store shelves. Being less wasteful and getting more bang for your buck seems like an obvious win-win to us.

(h/t NPR)

…

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/qeUNDUj69sI/

“Develop a mind that is vast like the water, where experiences both pleasant and unpleasant can appear and disappear without conflict, struggle, or harm. Rest in a mind like vast water.” ~Buddha

When I think about having to be happy all of the time, I feel a certain kind of pressure. Sure, it’s different now then it was. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t cycles when I question everything.

Sometimes I can catch myself thinking that everything would magically fall into place if I had all the success I want in my career, the happily-ever-after relationship without any issues, or anything else I seemingly need.

Happy enough that I didn’t care, I’d walk around like a beaming light where everyone saw my radiance and adored me.

It’s a noble wish. I can envy those who seem happy all of the time and seemingly have it all together. The problem is, it’s a dream of perfection. On a day when I don’t feel happy or like a dark cloud is passing over my head, I can feel I’ve failed at life.

The pressure to be happy actually makes me unhappy. And when I feel sorrow or pain or depression, I can fear it’ll never go away. I worry the prize of arriving to this Big Beautiful Happy Life isn’t mine to have in the first place.

Here are three things I…

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/08/469515295/tests-say-the-water-is-safe-but-flints-restaurants-still-struggle?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

Listen to the Story

All Things Considered

4:29

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed<input class="embed-url embed-url-no-touch" readonly value="” />
Close embed overlay <iframe src=”http://www.npr.org/player/embed/469515295/469692288″ width=”100%” height=”290″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” title=”NPR embedded audio player”>

Transcript

A sign at the Westside Diner in Flint, Mich., reassures customers that it serves uncontaminated water pulled from Detroit’s drinking supply.

Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
…

Source: http://greatist.com/move/these-videos-will-totally-change-your-idea-of-step-aerobics?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

We’ve found our newest workout obsession: step aerobics. We can see you rolling your eyes, but hear us out. These aren’t your grandma’s Jane Fonda videos. Phil Weeden’s Xtreme Hip-Hop step classes are full of intense cardio moves and songs that make us want to get up and dance. Someone call Channing Tatum; we have a whole new step-up addiction.

Check out our favorite Xtreme Hip-Hop videos:

(h/t Popsugar)

…

Source: http://greatist.com/live/vaccines-and-booster-shots-every-20-something-should-get?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

Shots aren’t just for childhood checkups. Many of us in our 20s are due for certain booster shots, Wanda Filer, M.D., president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told The New York Times. You need a tetanus and diphtheria booster every 10 years, so if you last got one as a teen, you probably need another.

Adults should also get a pertussis (a.k.a. whopping cough) booster—and be vaccinated against meningitis and HPV if they weren’t previously. The HPV vaccination (you may know it as the Gardasil shot) is an important one, as it protects against cervical, head and neck, and anal cancers.

These recommendations are general, so you should talk to your doctor about specific shots related to certain health conditions or travel plans. The CDC also has an easy, personalized quiz to get you started.

(h/t The New York Times)

…

Source: http://www.niashanks.com/shut-up-and-do-something/

A gentle nudge doesn’t always get you moving in the right direction. Sometimes what you really need, is a punch to the throat. And you’re in luck! Today I’m handing out mint chocolate chip ice cream cones and throat-punches, and, as the saying goes, I’m all out of ice cream cones.

Normally I’m well mannered and delicately put you on the path of least resistance to reach your goals. “Yes, go this way, please. Careful. Don’t trip.”

Sometimes that approach is beautifully effective. Other times, it’s not. Sometimes it’s best not to be polite or soft spoken. Sometimes a more aggressive approach is needed and, when that time arises, well …

Prepare, my friend, to receive a proverbial throat-punch.

Guess what: We complain too much. I know I do, because I discovered that recently. (I read A Complaint Free World and was astounded to realize how much I complain every day. I suggest you check out this short book on the topic: Click here to grab a cheap copy; that’s an affiliate link. I dare you to take the no-complaint challenge posed in the book: Go 21 days without complaining. It’s significantly more challenging than you realize, and you’ll likely make the same sobering discovery I did: you complain more than …

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/08/469551768/how-in-trouble-are-bluefin-tuna-really-controversial-study-makes-waves?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

Atlantic bluefin tuna caught in fishers’ nets.

Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images

Bluefin tuna have been severely depleted by fishermen, and the fish have become a globally recognized poster child for the impacts of overfishing. Many chefs refuse to serve its rich, buttery flesh; many retailers no longer carry it; and consumers have become increasingly aware of the environmental costs associated with the bluefin fishery.

But a group of scientists is now making the case that Atlantic bluefin may be more resilient to fishing than commonly thought — and perhaps better able to rebound from the species’ depleted state. In a paper published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers suggest that fishery managers reassess the western Atlantic bluefin’s population, which could ultimately allow more of the fish to be caught.

<img src="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/06/08/img_5834_sq-3ffd6111dec0eb509af946a657a2902fbb2e032e-s100.jpg" class="img100" title="Pacific bluefin tuna for sale for $2.99 per pound at the fish …

Source: http://www.fannetasticfood.com/2016/03/08/why-i-show-up-early-for-yoga/

A few months ago, I started doing one small thing differently: showing up a little early for yoga class.

It had started to occur to me that while yoga is my calming happy place (see also: Why I Love Yoga), I was often cutting it really close on timing, showing up to class with seconds to spare, harried and stressed. I was joking with it about a friend awhile ago, about how running late for a yoga class seems like the ultimate irony – “I have to hurry up and get there so I can slow down!!!!”

So one day I decided I’d start showing up early for yoga. Not crazy early, but about 10 to 15 minutes. Early enough that I’d have time to calmly arrive, put my stuff away, change if I needed to, and spend at least 5 or so minutes lying down on my mat and chilling out before class started. It’s something simple but it makes such a difference.

<img title="20151009_115456" style="border-top: 0px;border-right: 0px;border-bottom: 0px;float: none;padding-top: 0px;padding-left: 0px;border-left: 0px;margin: 0px auto;padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="20151009_115456" src="http://www.fannetasticfood…

Source: http://www.sonima.com/yoga/alex-auder/

In the early 90s yoga in New York City was considered fringe. Neither the hip avant-garde nor those in the corporate world were interested in wellness practices, and they certainly weren’t chanting to Hindu deities. But Alex Auder—who’d grown up in the 70s and 80s in the Chelsea Hotel, and had traveled around with her mother, a Warhol superstar with a penchant for adventure, known by her high-frequency spiritual energy—was. At 17, Auder started practicing at the newly formed Jivamukti Yoga School in the East Village in New York City, where dancers, models, and hippies alike came to learn yoga from the studio’s co-founders, Sharon Gannon and David Life.

After a hiatus from the practice, while at Bard College in upstate New York, Auder moved back to the city in 1994.“I was very depressed, aimless, and had no idea what to do with my life. Then one day, I suddenly remembered yoga. I went straight back to Jivamukti.” Over the next two years, Auder became a teacher at Jivamukti, opened her own studio, now called the Satya Yoga Center in Rhinebeck, New York, and eventually became a senior teacher at one of New York’s premier yoga studios, Kula Yoga. She went on to run her own boutique studio out of her West Village apartment before moving to Philadelphia in 2015 with her husband and two children, where she opened the Magu Yoga School in Mount Airy.<img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-14020" src="http://42qvfh3mv3rb2buuh1o…