Category: Blog

The Dreaded Black-Or-White Thinking Turned On Ourselves

September 2, 2018

We need to get past our black-or-white thinking. We all learn some version of right and wrong when we are growing up. The problem is many of us get stuck there and never move beyond this type of thinking. I’m not saying there aren’t right and wrong. It’s important to be able to do some critical thinking about things – even ourselves at times, but if you just land on a set of strict rules and apply it in any and every situation, you’re missing the point. First of all, you will consistently ...  Keep reading

From Compulsion To Choice

August 29, 2018

There are many things that compel us. I would say we are driven from within by our unconscious fears, desires and needs more often than we actually make conscious choices. That is a scary thought – it means we are not actually choosing from our deep and thoughtful selves. We are just slaves to the forces ping-ponging around within us which are trying to ensure our safety, comfort and self-preservation. You are driven to work and do because you want to make sure you earn rank, esteem and ...  Keep reading

Flex Your Resilience Muscle

April 21, 2018

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who display resilience and people who do not. The thing is you can be one or the other at any given moment. The difference between someone who is resilient and someone who is not is that one displays resilience and the other does not. 🙂 Faced with a challenge, the resilient one pushes herself across the threshold into the unknown. It’s like jumping out of an airplane. Either you launch yourself out or you don’t.

Take addiction for example. ...  Keep reading

Continual Rebirths

April 18, 2018

Life done well is the continual process of reinventing yourself. Sometimes this happens in a sad way – as in a mid-life crisis: finding a new wife, a new life and maybe a new car. Sometimes people just take on a new outward appearance. Your outward appearance can be a reflection of an internal process, but recreating yourself is more than just changing how you look. It is undergoing real and thorough transformation. Some people age, but do not really grow. They stay rigidly attached to “the ...  Keep reading

Transformation through Self-Denial (Avoiding Compulsions)

February 20, 2018

There is this space where you can hold yourself and experience transformation. You and everyone else have anxieties which drive your behavior, especially compulsive behavior. Your compulsive working, eating, talking and fidgeting are all moves to stop the feeling of anxiety or neutralize it. We believe that feeling anxiety is “bad.” If you feel any anxiety at all, it should be comforted or go away. What if you tried to avoid doing any compulsive behavior at all? Don’t look at your phone, ...  Keep reading

Creating Something Beautiful: The Synthesis of Our Pain

January 24, 2018

Creativity is the only thing. We all enter these states of confusion, disrepair and darkness at times. These can be particularly distressing if you don’t know what they’re about – what you can mine from them or what their meaning is in your life. But the secret is in the sauce: making sense of and meaning of your brokendownness. It’s about what beauty you can make from the ugliness, the despair. All beauty emerges from darkness. What else is life about?

I often say the only thing that ...  Keep reading

Brokendownness

January 15, 2018

And I wonder if this broken-down-ness is supposed to be. Everything created enters a state of disrepair at times. Your car breaks down – you kind of expect that, but there’s brokenness in the natural world, too. Sometimes things do not work just right. Babies are born with deficits. There is disease in the human body, and turmoil among people and wildlife alike.

And we look out from this perfectionistic perspective, thinking we are going to reach a place where everything works perfectly. ...  Keep reading

Growth through Connection

October 26, 2017

The only real way to grow is through connection. Sometimes we think we need to pressure, prod, or push growth by telling people what to do or making a plan to which they must adhere. The only real growth in the natural world around us, though, is through cells connecting with one another. There is no real laid out plan for how plants should grow (except maybe their DNA – the plans are encoded within), and there is not someone there demanding they straighten themselves up and reach out further ...  Keep reading