Even for as long as I have been studying positivity consciousness and working on maintaining a daily practice, it still surprises me that the simplest, seemingly the most basic aspects recede from view. It was upon listening to a Pema Chodron lecture on joy that I realized what was keeping me from experiencing positivity lately. When she was explaining the basic experience of joy, she shared a...
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live...
I have been working on the completing the Positive Change courtyard at South Eugene High School for over 3 years now. Like the long- awaited ending of most things, the resources of time, money and people have run thin and I, like most everyone else, is ready to move on. Unexpectedly, I have had an offer from a small group of boys who have taken on building furniture for the courtyard as their...
“So many fail because they don’t get started – they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.” -W. Clement Stone
Starting things is hard. It explains why so many great ideas go unrealized. To begin, you have to become comfortable with the discomfort of the unknown, to embrace the truth that even the best laid plans often don’t hold up to the uncertainty and chaos that...
“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”-Buddha
Our first response to rejection of any kind is usually shame. It comes out looking like anger and a story of betrayal. It...
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
My father died last weekend, peacefully in his sleep. He was sick and unhappy for a very long time, so while his death was anticipated, the reality of it still surprised me. Even as I worked with hospice and caregivers daily over the last few weeks anticipating the moment, when death arrives, it turns...
Sometimes I can’t figure out how to create a positive relationship to what is happening in and around me. A young woman I know, who has been struggling with a disease they have no cure for, lays in a coma after a brutal procedure to stabilize her neck. Cancer metastasized in another young woman fighting for more time with her young kids. It is difficult, witnessing old age turning diseased and the...
A marked point is the space in the field of chaos where order begins to take shape. I learned about this piece of chaos theory from my good friend, writing partner and social movement architect, Jenn Hirsch. Jenn’s business, Marked Point -named after this theory, (which the less trained eye might call just another marketing firm), is helping me create a Love Movement. It started out as an idea to...
I was in the courtyard yesterday after a long break. This is a space that I have been working on for close to three years now, transforming it into a welcoming, reflective space where kids can go and get a breath and remember themselves and their potential. The efforts were inspired by a series of tragic events, most specifically, the deaths of two students at the coast. They were swept into the...
“I need to write about love. I need to think and think and write about love-otherwise, my soul won’t survive.” -Paulo Coelho
It was four years ago at the New Year that I began my Positivity Quest, which became this daily blog for three of those years. At the same time, I also started a daily meditation practice, regular exercise routines and a high school club. Writing it all down during those...
It has been four years since I began my Positivity Quest in Hawaii. Back here for a quick week, staying with my family who is much grown up over the last several years, has given me pause to reflect on how this work of positivity has transformed me and my life.
First, I think it is important to reflect on the inner work of positivity that began with a prolonged and, at times, desperate attempt to...
“Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” -Ashleigh Brilliant
I have always been restless and prone to being busy. I love my work and have, for so long, confused who I am with what I do that most days I find myself doing from dawn until late into the night. Consequently, it has taken me years to learn the true value of rest. In this way, I am a...
