I realize that this is where I’m supposed to share my life story in a nutshell—or at least offer the highlights, my biggest epiphanies, and my qualifications for writing about wisdom. Instead, I’ll put it simply: I hurt.

I hurt a lot, for a long time, and I caused it.

When I was younger, I carried around numerous victim stories to justify my negativity and misery. After years of suffering, I realized I truly was the cause—no one and nothing else made my life hard.

I was the one thinking undermining thoughts. I was the one drowning in overpowering emotions. I was the one dwelling on the past. I was the one who moved around all the time, hoping to escape myself. Eventually I realized that I was the only one who could change how I experienced the world.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy—that I’d have to let go of certain things and make certain choices over and over again. And so I do, in as many as moments as I can, knowing I will never be perfect—but finally accepting that’s okay.

I started tinybuddha.com as a community blog in the fall of 2009, after tweeting quotes through @tinybuddhafor more than a year. It’s a place where people of all ages share how they apply wisdom to everyday life—a space where people write authentically and sometimes vulnerably about the challenges we all face.

Though people often ask me about the numbers—the Twitter followers, the page views, and the unique visits—that’s not why I run Tiny Buddha. I do it because engaging in this way connects us on a meaningful level and allows us to make a positive difference in each other’s lives.

I run Tiny Buddha because I’m done hurting alone. The world’s a far brighter place when we choose instead to heal and thrive together.

More on Why Jonathan Brings Credibility and Fresh Perspectives to Personal Growth and Balanced Living.

Dr. Jonathan Ellerby is one of the most credible and accessible personalities today who can help people of all backgrounds to bring real change and vitality to everyday life by making timeless spiritual tools, alternative healing, and modern psychology simple to understand and easy to apply.

People are calling Jonathan “a guide to inspired living today”. Having travelled the globe, and earned his PhD in comparative religion with a focus on healing, Jonathan has researched, experienced and applied spiritual philosophies and practices in diverse settings, cultures and faiths. With deep compassion, humor, and down to earth common sense, Jonathan’s world of experience allows him to embrace the world as an author and teacher. Dr. Ellerby helps audiences to sort through all the mixed messages of self-help to find what matters most, and what works.

Jonathan is the CEO of the Tao Wellness Center and Inspired Living Community in the Riviera Maya of Mexico. As the leader of this world-class event center and residential development with a focus on wellness (opening January 2012), Jonathan’s impact on the world of well-being and practical inspiration has expanded into the community and corporate arenas.  The former Spiritual Program Director for the acclaimed Canyon Ranch Health Resorts and a Hay House author, Jonathan has appeared in diverse TV, radio and print settings including Larry King; the Yoga Journal; Ladies Home Journal, New York Times, Woman’s Day, WholeLiving Magazine; CNN, Montel Williams Radio; Martha Stewart radio and several documentary films. Author of the international best-selling “Inspiration Deficit Disorder,”  “Your Spiritual Personality” (CD set) and international best-selling  “Return to the Sacred: Pathways to Awakening,” he has two new books to be released in 2011!! 
With a background as a spiritual counselor, senior healthcare executive, hospital chaplain, business consultant, Interfaith Minister, and a counselor to celebrities and CEOs, Jonathan brings a rare perspective with both depth and breadth. Jonathan views himself first as a husband and father, and he too faces the challenges of living a life of balance and meaning in a world of stress, change, and reaction. He understands changing diapers and managing a mortgage as well as he understands ancient cultures and the psychology of the spirit; Jonathan is as at home in the remote villages of Africa as he is in uptown Manhattan. Recently, Jonathan and his family have relocated full time to the Mexican Caribbean.

Stay tuned for his new two releases in 2011, and his upcoming events in which he will be speaking alongside personal growth legends Jack Canfield, Don Miguel Ruiz, and others.

Please contact us for more details about Jonathan and his work:

connect@jonathanellerby.com

I not only had the pleasure of recently interviewing Dr. Jonathan Ellerby about this exceptional enhanced book for Apple iPad, but Wiseologie Media Group that I am a partner in had the honor of helping create and publish “God Works, Why God Is Nothing You’d Expect and Everything You Need.”

In my interview with Jonathan we speak about this unique book and what Jonathan refers to as the God Stigma.  Just what is the God Stigma–simply stated it is our willingness to admit that we believe in a higher power, and we trust in that higher power but when it comes to expressing our feelings with others about our beliefs in “God” there is a real stigma in society.

This new book not only addresses this conundrum that we are all faced with, but it explores our inner beliefs, values and how we might shift these patterns and beliefs in a way to support our spirituality.

Jonathan expresses that one of the underlying factors associated with the “God Stigma” is our fear of expression and that it is important that we disgard that fear to take on a God-consciousness or God-understanding.  God is not an idea to be debated, but a feeling, and experience to be cultivated.  To debate about the nature of God for too long implies a lack of true awareness, because God, like love, is something so real to those who have felt it, and yet impossible to explain or analyze to those who have not yet fully been struck.

So, if we are responsible about it, then the key to a helpful conversation in which God is referenced, is to first know that God is best felt, not explained, and then, out of respect, to ask, “What is God to you?’

If you are truly interested in exploring “God” from a spiritual context and don’t want to get ensconced in the idea of  separation, that frequently takes place when we open up to others about our beliefs in “God” then I recommend that you download a copy of  ”God Works” for your Apple iPad.

In this new enhanced book author Jonathan Ellerby explores the true nature of “God”.  The real heart of all energy, matter and awareness, and to talk to God as a divine friend who is in charge of all things and also happens to be infinitely wise and powerful.

For more information about “God Works” please click here to be directed to the Apple Store to purchase your copy.  Our you can watch a couple of video’s with Jonathan Ellerby that are also part of the book by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful interview, and that you will experience a very immersive and engaging enhanced book especially created for  the  Apple IPad.   Jonathan speaks from his heart about how “God Works” and you can watch a video introduction by clicking here.

He first book Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships shows how to support the long-term health, well-being, and intimate partnership of mothers. Many related articles and other resources can be found at www.NurtureMom.com. He co-founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, www.WiseBrain.org.

Dr. Hanson’s latest book is Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom with Rick Mendius, M.D. (New Harbinger, Nov 2009).

Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and other great teachers were born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s. Then they used their minds to change their brains in ways that changed history.

Well-referenced and grounded in science, the book is full of practical tools and skills readers can use in daily life to tap the unused potential of the brain—and rewire it over time for greater peace and well-being.

With a Foreword by Daniel Siegel, M.D. and a Preface by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., Buddha’s Brain joins the forces of modern science with ancient teachings to show readers how to have greater emotional balance in turbulent times, as well as healthier relationships, more effective actions, and a deeper religious or spiritual practice. The book shows readers many effective ways to light up the brain circuits that relieve worry and stress, and promote positive relationships and inner peace.

If you can change your brain, you can change your life.

Rick is a weekly contributor to psychology-today.com. He leads meditation groups and teaches at Spirit Rock, Sati Center, and other organizations. He and his wife have two children and live in Marin County, CA.

I personally love book that are designed to get us to think from our heart, and not our head.  ” The Seeker, The Search, The Sacred will truly inspire your heart center.  The book offers the reader a collection of universal spiritual quotations that the author has collected over the last thirty-five years.  They are divided into three distinct categories, within which they are presented chronologically–from the earliest to the most recent.

Guy starts the book off with a great quote from Walt Whitman’s classic work “Leaves of Grass”. And I quote ” Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world? Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur to every life; the something never still’d–never entirely gone? the invisible need to every seed? It is the central urge in every atom to return to its diving source of origin, however distant.

As Guy writes ” In the first of these four lines, we’re asked a vital question: is the a part of us that longs to know–that’s willing to seek out–what lies hidden just beneath the thought–tossed surface of ourselves? If our answer is “Yes”, then Mr. Whitman goes on to suggest what awaits us there in that great, undiscovered country of our innermost Self.

In my interview with Guy we explore the wisdom of the Mystic Masters and the timeless ideas and what they help us reveal to ourselves.   These timeless ideas are designed to ignite and allows us to remember our “seeds of fire”–discrimination, intention and illumination.

Please join with me in a wonderful interview with an amazing author and man with ageless wisdom.  Guy will share with us timeless insights, thoughts that will stur our soul and settle our hearts.

This book is part of a much larger vision and quest for author Guy Finley called One Journey.  It is Guy Finley’s vision to allow his readers to share their insights, vision and wisdom at a new his new community based website One Journey.net.  You can be connected by clicking here.

encourage your to visit the website and watch the great video–it will truly inspire your soul.

Finley is the acclaimed author of The Secret of Letting Go and more than 35 other books and audio programs that have sold over a million copies in 18 languages worldwide. In addition, he has presented over 4,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 25 years and has been a guest on over 600 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, Wisdom Network, and many others. He is a faculty member at the Omega Institute, is featured in the new hit film Beyond the Law of Attraction, and was recently the Keynote Speaker at the 10th International Conference of Science and Consciousness.

Finley is Director of Life of Learning Foundation, the renowned nonprofit Center for Self-Study in Merlin, Oregon, and over 200,000 people in 142 countries read his popular “Key Lesson” emails each week. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations.

Guy’s career reached this point through a circuitous path. Born into a successful show business family, he is the son of late-night TV and radio pioneer, Larry Finley. His childhood friends were the sons and daughters of the most famous celebrities in the world. As a young man, Guy enjoyed success in a number of areas including composing award-winning music for many popular recording artists including Diana Ross, The Jackson 5, Billy Preston, and The Four Seasons, as well as writing the scores for several motion pictures and TV shows. From 1970-1979 he wrote and recorded his own albums under the Motown and RCA recording labels.

Throughout his youth, Guy suspected there was more to life than the type of worldly success that led to the emptiness and frustration he saw among his own “successful” friends and colleagues. In 1979, after travels throughout North America, India, and the Far East in search of truth and higher wisdom, Guy voluntarily retired from his flourishing music career in order to simplify his life and to concentrate on deeper self-studies.

In addition to his writing and appearance schedule, Guy presents four inner-life classes each week at Life of Learning Foundation headquarters in Merlin, Oregon. These classes are ongoing and open to the public.

I was recently introduced to author Scott Dinsmore’s work through Leo Babauta who is the founder of “Zen Habits“.  I spoke with Scott and his enthusiasm for the work in the personal mastery and human potential movement and it is amazing.  He has an ebook entitled “Live Off Your Passion–A Guide to Finding Passion and Getting Paid to do What You Love”

In my interview with Scott we discuss this guide book that he has developed, and his passion for helping other finding meaningful vocations and to living  fuller and more engaged lifestyles.  Scott has distilled some of the greatest teaching of all time into a very easy to use guidebook that if followed will help one explore their values, vision, mission and align with their greater calling.

Scott likes to refer to life as an experiment, and try things until we find what really excites us.  It is not important if it is a lot of little experiments or one big experiment, but the key here is to experiment try new things, explore and enliven yourself in the wonderment of what is available to you.  Take risks and go for it!!!

Scott encourages his followers to try new things and realize that nothing is impossible.  In his guidebook he encourages his students to attempt to do physical things that they maybe never thought possible.  He says that you will be surprised with what you really can do.   It all starts with the first step, and Scott’s guidebook ” Live Off Of Your Passion” is a wonderful resource and starting place.

Our author Scott Dinsmore truly believes at his core in what his is doing.  He believes that if we can get enough people doing what they love that our world would have an amazing transformative shift.  People would be happier, more productive, innovative and compassionate.  I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a great opportunity for all of us…and all from having people do what they love and believing in what they do.

If you would like more information about “Live Off Your Passion” please click here to be directed to Scott’s website.

Also Scott is offering an opportunity to obtain a 24% discount or $30 off the regular price.  To obtain your discount just  enter the discount code personalgrowth when you check out.   Please check out Scott’s work, I know you will glad you did.

Behind the empire Time Magazine called the “publishing phenomenon of the decade” is America’s leading expert in creating peak performance for entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, managers, sales professionals, corporate employees, and educators. Over the last 30 years, his compelling message, empowering energy and personable coaching style has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals achieve their dreams.

Affectionately known as “America’s #1 Success Coach,”Jack has studied and reported on what makes successful people different. He knows what motivates them, what drives them, and what inspires them. He brings this critical insight to countless audiences internationally—sharing his success strategies in the media, with companies, universities and professional associations.

Jack is a Harvard graduate with a Master’s Degree in psychological education and one of the earliest champions of peak-performance, developing specific methodologies and results-oriented activities to help people take on greater challenges and produce breakthrough results.

His proven formula for success reached global acclaim with his most recent National Bestseller, The Success Principles™: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. This new standard in self-improvement contains 64 powerful principles for success utilized by top achievers from all walks of life and all areas of commerce. The Success Principles —and the entire empire of “Principles” books, products, coaching programs and branded retail merchandise —is Jack’s most recent offering to the more than 100 million readers he currently reaches worldwide.

His other best-selling books — The Power of Focus, The Aladdin Factor, Dare to Win, You’ve Got to Read This Book!, and The Key to Living the Law of Attraction , — have generated millions of bookstore and Internet sales, and have launched complementary products such as audio programs, video programs, corporate training programs and syndicated columns to enthusiastic individuals and corporate buyers. His audio program,Maximum Confidence, has sold more than 350,000 copies through Nightingale-Conant alone.

He is the Founder and Chairman of The Canfield Training Group in Santa Barbara, California, which trains entrepreneurs, educators, corporate leaders and motivated individuals how to accelerate the achievement of their personal and professional goals. Jack is also the founder of The Foundation for Self-Esteem in Westlake Village, California, which provides self-esteem resources and trainings to social workers, welfare recipients and human resource professionals. Jack wrote and produced the Goals Program, a video training program for California welfare recipients. To date, the program has been responsible for helping 450,000 people get off welfare.

The ‘gangs” intention is to have fun, but to also make a significant contribution to the well-being of humanity.  The mystery and adventure inherent in this book reveals that there is now an opportunity for choosing the actual course of our evolution.  Along the way we are ment to experience the joy that comes from recognizing who we really are.

As the authors state ” the world is facing multiple crises.  We are calling upon you our readers, to become Agents for Conscious Evolution.  What that means in terms of expression will be different for each and every one of you.  What you need to know is that each of you is essential to ensure that life on this planet evolves in a positive direction.  We invite you to focus on what is going well in your immediate world and to overcome the fear and inertia that grips all of us from time to time.

If you want to learn more about how to become part of the “Golden Motorcycle Gang” movement and to explore the concept of Conscious Evolution I encourage you to click here to be directed to the Golden Motorcycle Gang website.  I have also listed several other websites that will enlighten you about becoming part of this movement.–Barbara Marx Hubbard—Shift Movement—Birth 2012.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful interview with Jack Canfield the author of the “Golden Motorcycle Gang“.  You can click here to be directed to an overview video at YouTube.

Olson has traveled extensively throughout Europe; lived in Austria, France, and Germany; and attended Oklahoma State University, the University of Vienna, Oklahoma University, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and the Kansas City Art Institute. He holds a degree in business administration, and is currently studying sacred geometry and the experience of living in the heart.

As a practicing philosopher, Olson has worked most of his life to unify his understanding of material things, ideas, and spiritual energies by embracing concepts that are in harmony with one another, and when justifiable, eliminating those that create conflict.

A former church deacon and farmer, as well as a state and national winner in 4-H, Olson starts with a core of conservative farm and Christian values, and into that integrates the complementary perspective of Eastern religion, the liberal perspective of Europe, the wisdom of ancient Egypt, the facts of science, the discipline of business, and the unique spiritual insights offered by modern revelation.

Following the unifying guidelines of philosophy and drawing on his wide-ranging education, Olson has made it his mission to help bring the planet’s masculine and feminine energies into greater balance, and therefore into a more peaceful state, through his advocacy of whole-brain thinking.