The V-Word

Grief and sadness fill the world. There is so much loss, disappointment and frustrated attempts that impact so many people that I have come to believe that these are not just feelings but real entities that have weight and even take on a form inside of us. One of the dangers of learning to feel deeply is how impacted you are by the feeling experience of others. The Buddhist name for this practice...

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.” -Mary Oliver

 

A good friend of mine recently told me that her resolution for this year was to become more human. She laughed as she shared the story with me, of how some of her friends from Silicon Valley didn’t quite understand the meaning of her pronouncement. “I...

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 am building this renewed writing practice as an extension of my ongoing mediation focus on learning to deeply feel my body. Each morning I bridge the dream world with a guided meditation deep into the felt sense of living inside myself. Breath work is foundational in every meditative practice, because it is the one autonomic function that is also at our command. Just learning how to pay...

Jim took his life on Friday evening.  The last time I saw him, I was at his newest restaurant with my son Luke for a late lunch.  He was there and spent time talking to us, about old times on the soccer team where Luke and his son, Henry played together for many years. We talked about their respective plans for college and he shared more about how he plans menus for his new restaurants. His restaurants had been favorite eating places since we moved here over a decade earlier. I had spent many hours by the side of a...

“Often we cling to our feelings as if they were signs from God- signs of either anointment or of being sent from the Garden. This superstitious relationship is the cause of many kinds of suffering.” -Gangagi

 

Many of us simply never learned the language and truth of our feeling self. We misinterpret our feelings as absolute signs of right and wrong, good and bad rather than the passing experience...

I have a very old Rhodesian Ridgeback for a companion. She is 12-years-old and can still break out on an impressive run when we walk. But when she sleeps, she shudders and her breathing is raggedy. Ridgebacks are smart- some books suggest that they are as smart as a four-year-old child. I know that Coco knows things and that her anxious looks as I walk out the door without her are real. I have...

“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...

If you have been feeling lost and overwhelmed by a world that feels more chaotic with less real connection, don’t miss this life changing conversation with Martha Beck. Her profound wisdom based on ancient human traditions offers the tools to become your own “way-finder”, tools that will help you unlock your own potential for deep transformation in your own life and come home to your true,...