Author: Joel

Shame Revisited

June 4, 2016

In all the talk about the dangers of shame, we can start to think it is something that can and should be eradicated altogether. If that were the goal, we might be tempted to think everything we do and are is okay and even great. We all know that is not true. You do some terrible, selfish, unloving things sometimes, and so do I. You are full of imperfections and contradictions. So am I. It would be a positive step to no longer prop up our egos and reach a higher degree of honesty with ...  Keep reading

Middling

April 25, 2016

Our desire for perfection can be damning. It leads us to constant unhappiness, feeling as if something is not quite right. We always expect to have life the way we want it and when life does not cooperate, we enter depression. The reality of our lives is that we are basically always in this middling position – always working toward our ideals and seldom attaining them. When we do attain them, the satisfaction is fleeting. We rest on the top of the mountain for a moment and then set off ...  Keep reading

Connections

January 31, 2016

Our connections with one another are all that matter. When everything is stripped away, what will be left is your essence and my essence (who we are) and the connection our essences can have – on the soul level. There are so many things in this life which present barriers to our souls connecting: our defenses that keep us from having intimacy, our covetousness, our hatred, our possessions, even ...  Keep reading

Grief Support

January 28, 2016

Supporting someone in grief is probably more about what you don’t say than what you do say. This can be a little off-putting and frustrating because we always want to be so helpful. We ask what we can do because there is usually not much we can do and we know that. We also ask what we can do because one of our greatest impulses when someone is in pain is to comfort them. Comforting someone when they are grieving, though, is often preventing them from going through a natural process through ...  Keep reading

The Difficulty of Intimacy

December 31, 2015

To truly be in relationship is a difficult thing. Our greatest desire is to be connected and intimate with someone and so, consequently, our greatest fear is that will not happen. This fear plays out in the many ways we throw up defenses that prevent intimacy from occurring. Why do we do that? Because we are afraid of rejection, abandonment, not getting the relationship we desire. Even when we have what seems like opportunity for intimacy, we protect ourselves from it to avoid risk. The risk is ...  Keep reading

Being Kind

September 27, 2015

It is actually quite a difficult thing to be kind. If you are going to be truly kind, you have to be very present in the moment and work to put yourself into the world of those around you, understanding them in order to avoid judgment. If you don’t pay attention, your default will be to act and react based on the prototype or standard to which you hold yourself and everyone else and you can easily become a tyrant. Our demands for perfection create ...  Keep reading