When Fear and Uncertainty Arise: How to Cope (A Story)
Renting is a good lesson in stewardship: Nothing is truly ours; we just have responsibility for things for a little while.
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The Human Brain is Awesome. It’s Also Very Limited.
Imagine a culture where people are valued and ranked based on their ability to smell. One in which those with larger noses and more sensitive nostrils, more olfactory receptors, are revered as superior to all others. In this culture, dogs are considered gods, and bloodhounds, with 300 million receptors, are worshipped above all others.
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We Don’t Know Anything, Really
None of us really knows what we’re talking about. Not me, not you, not anybody else. I mean, we know some relative things about living on this planet, but in the big picture, the absolute? Nothing.
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The Lifespan of an Emotion
In neuroscientist Jill Bolte-Taylor’s memoir, My Stroke of Insight, she notes that the physiological lifespan of an emotion in the body and brain is 90 seconds. The sensations—adrenalin, heat in the face, tightness in the throat, rapid heartbeat—arise, peak and dissipate on their own. When was the last time you experienced an emotion for only…
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How to Separate Facts from Stories
We humans are story-making machines. Yet our minds don’t limit story-making to those times when it’s helpful for us. We all tell ourselves and others stories all the time. Often, those stories create pain—and they’re not rooted in fact.
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Snowstorms as a Metaphor for Life’s Challenges
The accumulated snow from the past two weeks finally began melting today, as temperatures moved slightly above freezing for the first time in…what seems like a very long time. As I was walking, I passed the juniper bush in the photo above. It’s right around the corner from my apartment, and I pass by it at…
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Labels are for Jars, Not People
The very first thing I did, on my path to healing, was to stop labeling my brain. This was a huge shift. Labels had been my crutch for years. I’d been an active and eager participant in finding external reasons why I was the way I was. I’d had 12 labels—diagnoses—placed on my brain over…
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There is Nothing Wrong With You
We live in a culture that sells the promise of 24/7 productivity (without even asking if that’s desirable), constant giddy happiness, creativity that never gets blocked, financial wealth and endless sexual vitality. Oh, and perfect pores. That’s not life. That’s what we tend to label ‘mania.’ (Except the wealth and pores parts).
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The Benefits of Inner and Outer Silence
I wrote this post more than three years ago, long before COVID-19. Today, many people are dealing with silence and solitude on a level they never expected (or wanted). I’m feeling powerless to help, so I’m sharing my experiences in dealing with solitude and uncertainty.
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Learning How to Observe Thoughts
One of the foundations of inner peace for me is realizing that I am not my thoughts. In order to do that, though—and this is pretty much the core of everything I practice and write about—I had to learn to observe my thoughts, to recognize that the thoughts exist on their own plane, and that thoughts weren’t…
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My Word for 2017: Allow
I don’t have any particular New Year’s traditions any more. Through my 20s and 30s, I grew tired of resolutions, then commitments and goals—all things that ultimately made me feel bad about myself (usually within about six weeks). In my early 40s, I decided to focus on how I wanted to grow, and then I released…
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6 Benefits of Slowing Down
We all want to matter to others. The mistake is in believing that busyness is a sign of our value as human beings. There’s a saner way to live.
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Tree Portrait 16-Oct-23
From a distance, these trees look uniformly bright pink. Up close, the colors are much more intricate.
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How to Cope with Really Big Challenges
It is possible to find inner peace even when you’re dealing with survival-level issues. In my experience, though, it takes significant time and intense focus.
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50 Thoughts on Turning 50
On the last day of my 40s, I’m writing a list of things I’ve learned so far. (I know, it’s not exactly original, but it is mine.) Without children, a marriage or a traditional career milestones, this birthday has snuck up on me. In some ways, I feel blindsided. And yet, here I am. Arguing…
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An Open Letter to Those Going off Medication
Going off meds is a very personal decision, not one that should be imposed on anyone…nor should anyone be coerced into staying on them.
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How to Experience Music as a Spiritual Teaching
I love music—who doesn’t?—yet it had never occurred to me that music itself could be a teaching, that it could bring people to the place, the experience, that spiritual teachers’ words point to, the transcendence that’s sometimes found in meditation (and often isn’t). But that’s exactly what one song did. As Martin Mull famously said, writing about…
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What an MRI Machine Taught Me About Mindfulness
Note: A friend expressed concern and mentioned that, in the U.S., people only have MRIs if something is seriously wrong. In Canada, MRI is sometimes used in place of other screening technologies; this was just a checkup. Ok, I admit, this is a bit of a departure from the whole nature and walking thing. Bear with…
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