Thought you might find this interesting. Madisyn Taylor is co-founder and editor in chief of DailyOm and is an up and coming author that’s just published the book, DailyOm: Learning To Live.

Here’s a quick synopsis of it:

Wouldn’t it be great if we were born with instruction manuals? Each one would be different based on what we needed to learn, but the basics would be the same: how to create healthy relationships, how to deal with sorrow and pain, how to reach our goals, and how to know what we want to do with our lives when we grow up. DailyOM: Learning to Live is the next best thing to a personal instruction manual: a guiding light to reassure us that we’re on the right path, and to help fix us when we feel broken.

You can download the first 45 page here »

But in the mean time, here are a couple of her articles. Poignant messages with an in-your-face attitude!

Hovering Around The Sun — Avoiding The Center

by Madisyn Taylor

It is funny to imagine our lives as things we spend a lot of time avoiding, because it seems like that would be impossible to do. Our lives consist of everything we engage in, from showering to sleeping, but also a lot of busywork that distracts us and keeps us from looking within.

Experiencing life from the inside means taking time each day to simply be alone and quiet in the presence of our souls. Many of us are so out of practice that it is almost unnerving to have a moment to ourselves. As a result, we may have stopped trying to carve out that time to take a seat at the center of our lives.

One of the reasons why it can be uncomfortable to sit with ourselves is because when we do, we tend to open ourselves to an inner voice, which might question the way we are living or some of the choices we are making. Sometimes the voice reminds us of our secret, inner yearnings—dreams we thought we had forgotten.

When we already feel overwhelmed by our busy schedules, the idea of hearing this voice can sound exhausting. However, its reflections are the cords that connect us to our authentic selves, and they are the very things that make life worth living. When we continually avoid connecting with our lives, we risk losing out on the very purpose of our existence.

To begin the process of being more present and less absent in your life, you might want to set aside just a few minutes each day to simply sit with yourself. This does not mean watching a movie or reading a book, but taking time daily for self-examination in order to avoid the avoidance—to be with yourself in an open way.

After a while, you may start to enjoy this part of the day so much that you make less busywork for yourself so that you can spend more time at the center of your own life, rather than hovering like a planet around the sun.

…

Unblocking The Ally — Habitual Anger

By Madisyn Taylor

Sometimes when we feel anger, it is coming from a deep place that demands acknowledgment and expression. At these times, it is important that we find healthy ways to honor it, remembering how dangerous it is to repress it.

However, anger can also become a habit, our go-to emotion whenever things go wrong. Often this is because, for whatever reason, we feel more comfortable expressing it than we do other emotions, like sadness. It can also be that getting mad gives us the impression that we have done something about our problem. In these cases, our habitual anger is inhibiting our ability both to express our other emotions and to take action in our lives.

If it is true that anger is functioning this way in your life, the first thing you might want to try is to notice when you experience it. You may begin to see a pattern of some kind. For example, you could notice that it is always your first response, or that it comes up a lot in one particular situation. If the pattern does not become clear right away, you could try keeping a journal about when you get angry and see if you can find any underlying meaning. The good thing about a journal is that you can explore your anger more deeply in it—from examining who in your family of origin expressed a lot of rage to noting how you feel when you encounter this emotion in others. This kind of awareness can be a formidable agent of transformation.

Anger can be a powerful ally, since it is filled with energy that we can harness and use to create change in the world. It is one of the most cathartic emotions, and it can also be a very effective cleanser of the emotional system.

However, when it becomes a habit, it actually loses its power to transform and becomes an obstacle to growth. Identifying the role anger plays in your life and restoring it to its proper function can bring new energy and expansiveness to your emotional life.

If you enjoyed these 2 articles, Madisyn is giving away the first 45 pages of her book for free.

Click here to download the first 45 pages of DailyOm: Learning To Live »