Tag: connection

Nerves and Non-violence

May 2, 2026

Your nervous system is perfect. It has been honed over many years to keep you safe and to help you interact with others in meaningful ways. You may think you are overly sensitive at times, but there is no such thing as being too sensitive (or too emotional). You just need to understand the task: to utilize your nervous system’s powerful precision to respond to all the stimuli you encounter in the world. You deserve the chance to figure out how you feel about everything, how everything that has ...  Keep reading

Being Fluid

March 11, 2026

The world can make you hard. Over time, as you consistently brace yourself against what threatens you, the rigidity calcifies in your muscles. The world is harsh and demanding, but you have also been harsh and demanding toward yourself. You have constructed a set of rules (knowingly or not), against which you are always measuring yourself (and others). That has only served to close you off to the world around and protect you from landing and lodging yourself in the world as your most authentic ...  Keep reading

Growth

Reaching Out

November 22, 2025

Anytime you reach a paradox, or what appears to be a dead end or an impasse, it is time to reach out for something new. This is a creative process because what you are reaching out for has not been revealed or discovered yet. It is reaching into new space and adding complexity, like cell mitosis. Complexity is what will help us now. There is too much “it has to be this way or that way,” in our discourse, too much blunt application of principles.

If you are going to build something beautiful, ...  Keep reading

Breathing/Oscillating

January 11, 2025

All of life is a steady, rhythmed breathing in and out. That process occurs without any thought or intent on your part, and yet, it is the thing that keeps you alive. Your whole life, you oscillate between utter breathlessness and lungs full of air, aching to be pushed out. Life happens because of the movement from one to the other and back.

Our lives are made up of the coming and going between two poles on many dimensions. Everyday, you wake up and move forward with the day’s activities. Then ...  Keep reading

What You Will Find in Meditation

December 13, 2022

You can meditate if you believe in God or if you don’t. Either way, meditation/contemplation is a hopeful practice. We meditate because we believe there is something “out there,” or “in here” (inside us), or “way down at the bottom of everything.” You are attempting to connect with that thing. If you practice meditation on a regular basis, you will find something. For some of us, it helps to imagine that the universe has consciousness and personality. We ...  Keep reading

Grace is Pervasive

March 27, 2021

When I said I was deeply Christian, I wasn’t just saying that. Grace is the number one reason. Most of my life, I have been captivated by the phenomenon of grace in the Christian story. Maybe it’s because I was a guilty child, but maybe it’s because grace is a revolution in thinking for all of us. Maybe we are just built to be big containers for grace. When you drink from that well, a big reservoir opens up inside you and grace is the only thing.

It is just the most beautiful story. You ...  Keep reading

The Practice of Silent Contemplation

September 12, 2020

We must practice this inner contemplative work to connect more deeply with our reality. Especially now, there is a strong tendency for us to focus on and get involved with things external to us: policy, politics, the current crises, and the others around us – some friend, some foe. If we are to engage with others and our environment in an effective way, however, we must work toward becoming non-violent, peaceful and powerful within ourselves, which ...  Keep reading

The Foundational Spiritual Practice Of Receptivity

January 12, 2019

As I outline some foundational spiritual practices, I think it is important to note that I tend to approach the spiritual life from an utilitarian perspective. Rather than attaching myself to specific prescribed rituals from specific traditions, I try to abstract the meaning and essence from some common spiritual practices and reduce them down to their most translatable forms. I believe spiritual practices should be repeatable and customizable to many different lifestyles – not prescribed, ...  Keep reading