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My pastor friend has a fascinating exercise in his sermon about openness to change.  He asks the members of the congregation to remember a time in their lives when they said they would never do something, and then to spend the next three minutes telling someone the story about when they did it.  It gets a lovely response every time. People laugh and marvel and shake their heads in…

Einstein didn’t know his own phone number.  He said that he never felt compelled to memorize it, as he didn’t plan on calling himself.  This was not a punchline, it was simply smart energy management. That phone number was just one of many dumb little things that could have taken up more of his psychic space than it should have.  But it didn’t. Because he respected his mind enough…

There is an inverse relationship between pain and preoccupation.  The more we hurt, the more we will compulsively pursue distractions.  And not minor manual distractions like eating, picking our noses, playing with our phones and biting our nails.  But real emotional, intellectual, spiritual and financial distractions that have significant consequences.  The scary part is, when trapped in the briars of our obsessions and addictions, we don’t realize just how…

Shakespeare told us that there is nothing either good or bad, but only our thinking that makes it so.  What a profound relief to know this.  His objectification of the human experience is an ideal tool to help us practice loving acceptance. Because once we realize that there are no bad thoughts and no bad feelings, only healthy and unhealthy ways of expressing them, then we can finally start…

Going to college in the midwestern, a guy who wore a nametag every day was about the most deviant and bizarre and conspicuous person walking the streets.  People viewed my little sticker as a social faux pas at best, and a crime against humanity at worst.  Which is not a judgment against them. Just example of what happens when you unleash your weirdness in the wrong place.  Because when…

Each of us is subjected to the nonstop jabbering of other people’s unsolicited opinions, advice and feedback.  We can’t avoid it any more than we can avoid the law of gravity.  But unless we are properly boundaried, we will quickly become flustered, flattened, enraged. The opinions of others will erode our belief in our inherent worth and activate the sharp terror of a lost confidence in ourselves.  It’s bad…

While eavesdropping on a conversation between two friends on the subway, one woman made a comment that baffled and bothered me.  She was describing the relationship with her spiritual guru, sheepishly admitting the following: You surrender your life to this person. They make a lot of big decisions for you. And it’s so easy to give them too much power in your life.  Sounds more like manipulation than leadership. …

If we treated others like we treated ourselves, we wouldn’t have any friends, probably get fired and maybe even go to jail. What’s your favorite way to beat yourself up? If you’re like me, you can often be too hard on yourself. I’ve been working on the skill of self compassion for many years. This is a workshop I recently conducted on the last day of my thirties. It’s compendium of…

Our apparent belief in the power of honest dialogue is deeply delusional.  Our leaders have built this enduring faith that once we spark a substantive, mature and meaningful discourse across the nation, one that creates an open forum where people can engage in introspection and thoughtful discussion, then we can expect all of our grievances to be righted instantly.  Excuse me, but when was the last time that strategy…

Selling earnestness in a cynical world is a risk.  If we decide to become an agency of sincere expression, assert our incorrigible hopefulness and act wildly enthusiastic, for many people, them’s fighting words. To the extent that we might be shamed and alienated for our honest and heartfelt way of experiencing life.  Happens to me all of the time. I’m a highly sensitive person whose earnest affections have been rejected…