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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…

Here’s the thing about transition.  Everything takes longer than we think it will.  And even though there is a certain amount of peace in knowing that, after a few weeks or even a couple of months, no matter how busy and fulfilled we keep ourselves along the way, there is this creeping dread that seeps under the door like a fog.  Its number one job will be trying to…

In a conversation between two comedians, one fat and one thin, the larger of the two teases his newly skinny colleague. You shouldn’t have lost all that weight. There’s nothing funny about a physically fit man. It’s lame. Nobody wants to watch a healthy person do standup comedy.  Sadly, this is more than a punchline, it’s an honest illustration of how healthy and happy individuals are not interesting, newsworthy…

People’s only wish is that some simple, incontrovertible solution will magically appear and solve all of their problems.  That would take them off the hook. It would absolve them from having to do the dirty work of confronting themselves.  Unfortunately, human beings are more complicated can that. Nobody is black and white. Each person is alive with longings that cannot be satisfied by simple, prefabricated answers. One size fits…

Packnett, the fashion designer and leader in the police reform campaign, once gave an impassioned presentation on making change in a digital era.  The definition she offered for the word protest was: The act of telling the truth out loud in public.  It’s an inclusive reminder that each of us can take a stand in whatever way suits us. Because if it moves the issue forward, it’s a successful…

Susanka writes in her groundbreaking book that a discordant or unwelcoming entry sequence convinces us that we don’t like the house even before we have set foot in the door.  We simply dive in without any consideration of the path we are taking, she says. And the experience of entering our own inner world may takes some time if it’s done properly, but once we have set up the process, each…

The fact that the universe is not built to care about us, the fact that our deepest dreams are often met by silence, the fact that the door of the world is regularly slammed in our face with heartless indifference, and the fact that many of us feel like biological riff raff spinning senselessly on a tiny rock in a corner of an uncaring universe, none of these realties…