The V-Word

Seeking inspiration and access to your creative capacity in your life?   Consider yourself blessed to have found Jan Phillips, a woman gifted with the ability to combine the drive to social activisim and her deep access to ancient wisdom. Considered a visionary thought leader and dynamic internationally known speaker, her voice will bring you into the light. Jan is also an award-winning author and...

“This we can all bear witness to, living as we do plagued by unremitting anxiety. It becomes more and more imperative that the life of the spirit be avowed as the only firm basis upon to establish happiness and peace.”   -Dalai Lama

I have been studying the experience of anxiety lately, and thanks to arriving at day 327 of this positivity quest, I am able to be a reliable witness. I am not...

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end….”  -Seneca

It is a new beginning at Good Clean Love. The management team that has been running the business has resigned and the business has fallen again squarely on my shoulders. It was a surprising turn of events that caught me off guard and set me searching for my balance. I knew my frustration with our different communication styles...

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.” ~Hāfez

It is possible that the most universal emotion is fear. Animals, even small insects, have a fight or flight response built in to save their lives. Having the courage to not run and to not defend when fear invades is a form of prayer. Going through the discomfort of uncertainty and not looking for...

“A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.” -Chinese Proverb

How we come to interpret the events in life is everything. This is most especially true at the most unstable moments in life. Whether in the passionate beginnings or abrupt endings of relationships, how we come to think about the transitions and change we experience is the most dramatic influence on the outcome of most...

“We work on ourselves, in order to help others, but we also help others, in order to work on ourselves.”  -Pema Chodron

One of my favorite books of all time is Pema Chodron’s work “When things fall apart- Heart advice for difficult times.” It is the first place I go when things come apart. I am soothed to remember that life is a just a series of circles that build upon each other. The spiral in...

“I think all great innovations are built on rejections.” -Louis Ferdinand-Celine

I was so excited to have a preliminary interview on the Oprah radio network for my trip to Chicago. This chance to share my new book in a place where so many people could learn about it seemed too good to be true. It turned out that it was too good to be true. They rejected me- and I remembered again just how much...

“Know that I am absorbed by my work…These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession. It is beyond my power as an old man, yet I want to manage to render what I feel…” -Claude Monet

The highlight of the time in Chicago was the Art Institute. Walking through the endless galleries of some of the most beautiful impressionist work ever made and having the luxury to stand up close,...

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling  deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”  -M. Scott Peck

I am in a hotel room, in the middle of a city, in the middle of the country where I am as...