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Wire Your Brain to Compassion & Wisdom

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Here is a simple but powerful meditation that helps unravel our negative habitual and reactive postures. This simple meditation helps “hardwire us to wisdom and compassion.” The effort only takes a few minutes a day. This trains your mind while imprinting the memory of love on the psychophysical level. Research has shown us how the brain is pliable and responsive to such mind-training. This meditation gives your brain a positive memory to retrieve when life’s circumstances trigger a pain story. This simple practice assists in the undoing of negative belief systems (and assumptions) that are hardwired into us. Our brains are wired to take care … Continue reading →

ASSUME THIS

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Our agreements and beliefs along with their supporting assumptions which are based on our history prevent us from taking risks, reaching out and making something remarkable happen. I refer to these as the pain stories we carry around with us. Up until now you may have been using much of your energy (consciously and unconsciously) to perpetuate your pain stories. In these stories, you carry around assumptions about why things are the way they are and why you need what you need, as well as your assumptions about everything and everyone. Our pain stories may have originated with acerbic events, … Continue reading →

The Spiritual Writer

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Sometimes the word “spiritual” trips us up. That can be a good thing – means we may be slowed down enough to ask, just what do we mean by spiritual? Religion often tells us what our spiritual experiences should be as well as how to have them. We take all sorts of actions in the name of some god or religious belief. This then causes uncounted suffering on people, animals and nature. So, I would steer away from organized religion in its attempt to arrange your heart and mind, and in its often insistence that you stay in line (or … Continue reading →

MAYBE, NO, YES

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Anything lingering in your life (like this long winter) that begs for a jolt of energy? Does it seem that the internal winter is also lasting too long? If so, here is a simple way to do some internal spring-cleaning that will generate positive movement in your life. Don’t wait on the external thaw or the “Yes” from someone else to make those desired strides in your life. If you want to receive the big YES from the outside world (Yes we want to publish your book, Yes I want to exhibit your art, Yes I want to spend some … Continue reading →

Portrait of an Adult Bully

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Most Adult Bullies would be diagnosed with Narcissist Personality Disorder. “Narcissists often seem to be the people who have everything– talent, wealth, beauty, health, and power . . .” (James F. Masterson, M.D. All following quotes are his as well.) He goes on to demonstrate how this personality disorder is based on a defensive false self that the individual must keep inflated (at all costs). This cost always includes other people. Underneath this defensive false self is someone who is miserable and deeply insecure. Continue reading →

How Bullies Bully

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Abusers will also “gaslight” their past. They typically have a history of failed relationships that they loudly blame on the inadequacies of the other. Bullies tend to jump from one relationship into another, not being able to handle the responsibility of solitude and aloneness. Basically, they need someone close-in to bully. Continue reading →

The Antidote to Indifference

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Indifference turns us away from situations that are innately intimate and often uncomfortable. We may choose indifference because we somehow want to shut out people or experiences from getting into our hearts and minds. I learned in my youth to use indifference as a way to protect and defend myself. In my indifference I could walk away without having risked anything. Where it may have protected me in some past lethal situations, to have this as a habitual response only holds me back from true intimacy. Indifference prevents me from truly exploring places and peoples, and even the internal landscape of my own heart and mind. It makes me less vulnerable.
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For the Writer in You

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“Not words of routine this song of mine, But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring.” –Walt Whitman After the making of breakfasts, and the hours, days, years of working, after the losses and dealing with aging or sickness, after putting the baby to sleep, getting the daughter off to school, after the love-making and the arguing, after the garden has been planted, weeded and harvested, after the son has been married and the animals vaccinated, after the house has been repainted and tree planted, after the second diploma, after teaching others, healing others, after the filling of … Continue reading →

True Grit

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We need grit for everything from making that thousandth breakfast to finishing the novel. We need grit to raise a child well. We need grit to raise our self properly. We need grit to keep to our meditation practice. We need grit to create something new among all our losses and mistakes. We need grit to fight against the voices that try to steal our spirit. Continue reading →

In the Name of Love

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You can claim all sorts of hideous actions as patriotic or loving when they are neither. Apparently you can “love” someone you don’t even respect. When you hold an affinity for someone, respect is part of the equation. I am not suggesting that you replace saying, “I have an affinity for you,” in place of, “I love you.” Just the same, if you did it may lead to a very intriguing and worthwhile conversation. In comparison, the words “I love you” are thrown about like compliments at a wedding. We build assumptions on the words, “I love you,” while too often lacking in an authentic connection with the other.
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