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Pew conducted a fascinating research study on the changing religious landscape in this country.  One of the key data points was how the number of religiously unaffiliated adults has increased by nearly twenty million in the past decade.  This growing population has been called nones. As in, none of the above. Resistant to religious classification. Disavowing association with organized faith.  And that’s awesome. Very modern and inclusive.  But the question is, if there’s…

The surreal part about creating art and sharing it with the world is, people have a relationship with your work that has nothing to do with you.  Once your love spills out and they call it art, it now exists in the mind of the audience. It’s all projection. A colorful mirror that reflects back to them exactly what they expect.  People see what they need to see, regardless…

It’s the truest natural law of the universe.  The more we expect, the less we receive.  That’s what happens when we build up a future pleasure in our minds to an unrealistic level.  Whatever the actual event is, it’s bound to be disappointing.  Here’s a helpful quiz to find out just how addicted to expectation you really are.  Do you control situations so that they come out the way…

Asking for help is hard, but accepting it is even harder.  Especially when you’re the rebellious loner free spirit type. The kind of person who insists on doing everything as an expression of their individuality. Someone who reacts independently just to show the world that they won’t be ruled.  That’s me in a nutshell. Growing up, I was never willing to accept ideas for change that weren’t my own….

Each moment of letting go is an act of mercy toward ourselves.  It’s a cleansing process that helps us feel lighter, more liberated and less emotionally claustrophobic.  There’s actually a fascinating study about this very experience.  Researchers found that disengagement from regret reflects a critical resilience factor for emotional health, specifically in older age.  Turns out, seniors who regularly practiced letting go actually activated a neurobiological mechanism that improved their overall…

The problem with a path is, it’s required to be narrow.  It’s in the job description. Paths have borders and restrictions and rules about where we can and cannot travel. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a path.  To me, that’s dangerous. Because the path hypnotizes us into the belief that our life is limited. It destroys the sheer thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next. And it…

When you’re a workaholic, somehow all the warnings in the world don’t quite convince us that it’s time to stop.  Here’s the lie we love to tell ourselves.  There’s nothing wrong with putting in consecutive fourteen hour days if we love the work and it feels like a calling and we’re making a meaningful difference in the world, right?  May as well just keep pushing until our body gives…

Reading recovery literature taught me how to identify a martyr.  They use suffering to attract attention. They view themselves as unfortunate creatures caught in a web of circumstance. Their daily existence is a walking battleground. A montage of crises bookended by catastrophes. And so, overwhelmed with life’s problems, they quickly and easily fly into blind rage over completely inconsequential bullshit. They allow their imaginations to build small troubles into…

How do you come to respect yourself?  Does the journey call for epic achievements like scaling mountains and winning triathlons and building million dollar businesses?  Or does it come from the simple, ordinary and everyday victories you achieve in the battle of being a human being?  Faulkner once said that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself. Maybe that’s where respect for…

Accepting that we need to change is always first step.  But it’s not the only step. Just because we have accepted our problems doesn’t mean we can expect everything to magically fall into place.  We can’t just shake off the problem right away. We have to take our struggle in stride. We have to trust the tempo of our timing. And we have to accept that most growth and…