Stephanee Killen's Blog: Buddha Breaking Up Blog

I just found out that my latest article went live on elephant journal . I started writing it six months ago--thought about ditching it all together. Funny how a piece on the power of words could give me such trouble. I'm still not sure it expresses what I have to express, but that's the thing about words....

I was in a car accident on Saturday--right before this article went live. Thankfully, it wasn't serious, but I thought again about a line from this piece, which maybe I'd written rather automatically: "If these were my final moments with the people I love, would I want to leave them with my silence or with my words? Can I fully express what is in my heart with the understanding that I am promised nothing, can promise nothing and yet still wish to communicate the connection and beauty I feel in a moment?"

Check out the article, THE ART OF SPEAKING FROM THE HEART. And please share.

My last boyfriend—let’s call him James—had a nickname for me: Darth Vague.

(I’m certain he meant it as an endearment!)

James was perpetually accusing me of being unclear. This confused me because, before being with him, I’d rarely had a problem being clear.

I tried to pretend that this new vague version of me was out of some saintly desire to be perpetually positive, but that wasn’t the truth. In reality, I was petrified that I would say the wrong thing—the “wrong thing” being the thing that wou...

I was recently interviewed for the website “Land of Books,” and it is by far my favorite interview–and a completely crazy pairing, since the interviewer, Ognian Georgiev, is a Bulgarian sports journalist, TV commentator for fight sports (boxing/kickboxing), and author of a book about Olympic weightlifter Galabin Boevski (a man imprisoned for [alleged] cocaine trafficking in Brazil). What does that have to do with relationships? (Well, some might say the weightlifting and imprisonment parts….)...

The second edition of Buddha Breaking Up: A Guide to Healing from Heartache and Liberating Your Awesomeness is now available, re-released by Parham Press just in time for Valentine’s Day! (Consider this a pre-emptive strike!)

In celebration, the Kindle version is available

FREE January 22 – January 23.

Get your copy now!

The second edition of Buddha Breaking Up: A Guide to Healing from Heartache & Liberating Your Awesomeness is now available. In celebration, the Kindle version is FREE today and tomorrow (Jan. 22 - Jan. 23). Check it out!

I am grateful for…

Ask me on a good day, and I’ll rattle off all the things I’m supposed to: A roof over my head, food in the refrigerator, work, car, health, family, still breathing….

Ask me on a bad day, and I’ll rattle off these same things, but they’ll come with a load of negative qualifiers. Suddenly, all I see is scarcity and reasons to be afraid.

The truth is that listing off the items for which I should be grateful feels hollow.

Things could be worse—I am well aware. But I’m also well awa...

I am a mess.

How do I know this? Exhibit one: around midnight last night, I burst out of my front door in search of the source of the music rattling my windows—and my precariously upheld sense of calm.

I’m in Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms and a thin, sagging t-shirt shouting, “What the Fu**?” And there’s my new neighbor, sitting on his front step smoking a cigarette. “Have I been rockin’ too loud?” he asks, coming over.

I take a breath, put on a smile, try to act like I wasn’t just about to have a...

I am so thrilled to have my latest article published on Huffington Post!

{excerpt]
Being in love shouldn't feel like I've run off with the circus. That's what I tell myself every time I start jumping through hoops, walking a tightrope, or spinning plates on my head from the saddle of a unicycle. Love's only task is to undo me. Simple? Yes. Easy to accept? No.

Why? Because I want love to do something. I'm waiting for it to perform magic! It's not a rabbit from a hat I'm waiting to see, either. It's happiness. It's the end of my suffering.

I'm 36, single, and resigned to joining a nunnery. Not really, but that's what I tell my friends, who all roll their eyes because they know I would last precisely seven seconds anyplace where I have to renounce sleeping in. But they are just as disappointed in love. It's hard to maintain faith. True love is that illusive unicorn -- and by this age, I'm wondering whether I'd better just find a pony and stick a cream horn to its forehead.

Deep down, I know it's not my feelings of love that are to blame. It's my ideas of what that love should be doing.
[Read More on Huffington Post]

Being in love shouldn’t feel like I’ve run off with the circus. That’s what I tell myself every time I start jumping through hoops, walking a tightrope, or spinning plates on my head from the saddle of a unicycle. Love’s only task is to undo me. Simple? Yes. Easy to accept? No.

Why? Because I want love to do something. I’m waiting for it to perform magic! It’s not a rabbit from a hat I’m waiting to see, either. It’s happiness. It’s the end of my suffering.

I’m 36, single, and resigned to joinin...

It’s 2 am, and I’ve just finished Episode 55 of The X-Files (my current Netflix obsession).

I haven’t had to argue with anyone over what to watch in 27 months.

That means boxing on HBO Go some nights or, lately, DVR’d episodes of Alaska: The Last Frontier, where I’m learning how to hunt moose in case I should ever find myself living on a homestead in the wilderness—I could, you know! Or maybe I’ll pick up and go to Miami, where I’d live in a one-room apartment in Little Havana (¡La Pequeña Haba...