I often say that it is not our issues that are really our biggest difficulty; our biggest difficulty is the issues we have with our issues. We often cannot even get to addressing the issue at hand because we are so burdened by our judgment for even having an issue in the first place. When…
It has been a month since my last blog and within that time I have packed all my possessions into a cargo van, moved back to California to assist with my ailing mother and moved in with my sister and her family. Instead of a 3-bedroom home, my possessions now occupy one room and ¼…
There is a difference between having been victimized and being a victim. To have been victimized is an event (or events) that happened in a specific period in the past. To be a victim is to take on an identity that affects how we interpret our current world and the interactions within it. Victims: Focus…
Skepticism gets a bad wrap, especially for those of us who follow The Path of Lovingness. To be skeptical is not to be beady-eyed and always looking for the wrong. As the root of scientific inquiry, skepticism is more about being neutral and staying in the “what else is also true?” frame of mind. When…
Always doing our best doesn’t mean we need to get trapped in the rigidness of perfectionism, because the reality is that our best will change from day-to-day. If I am grieving or depressed, my best might be just getting up and taking a shower. Doing our best allows us to feel both satisfaction and self-respect….
We make assumptions every day, all day long, and we’re usually not even aware that we’re doing it. Saying don’t make assumptions is a little silly in some ways, because it’s what we naturally do to try and make sense of the world we live in. Where assumptions really tend to cause our own suffering…
Humans are narcissistic by nature. We live our lives as if everything is all about us, unaware that most of the rest of the planet’s population thinks the world revolves around them too. When we are stuck in the ego state of believing that others’ actions are caused by us, we cause our own suffering…
The Four Agreements are Toltec wisdom guides as popularized by shamanic teacher and healer Don Miguel Ruiz. The first “Be Impeccable with Your Word,” speaks to our capacity to have integrity with our words. To be impeccable with our word is no small thing. It requires a level of mindfulness in our day-to-day interactions and…
The instructions “Decide what to be, then be that,” like many adages, is an oversimplifications of profound truth. The adage does not say “hope what to be” or “want to be,”, it says decide. Hoping, wanting, intending, wishing…none of these really have a lot of power to change much. It is when we make a…
As a holistic counselor and Dance/Movement Therapist, safety plays a large role in my work with people. We all need a safe harbor to come home; When we don’t have that, we are never able to fully rest. But rest is not our purpose. Our purpose is to follow our purpose, then to rest so…
