We reach for relationships because we long for many things. We long for acceptance, affection, companionship andappreciation. We want to be seen. We need to be heard. And so, we reach. We reach to form relationships so that these beautiful needs, our beautiful needs can flourish. We reach so that we can know love.

How do we achieve this? How do we create the kinds of relationships that fuel our lives? How do we cultivate deep connections? It begins with us. It begins with our willingness and our ability to create a deeply connected relationship with our self.

Acceptance experienced from another is born out of our acceptance for our self. Appreciation from the ones we choose to love has it’s genesis in our appreciation for ourselves.

In fact, the more we are able to meet our own beautiful needs, the more the people in our lives have to build upon. When we refuse to meet ourselves within our own heart, when we starve ourselves of our own love and attention and companionship, our loved ones – no matter their commitment to us – are rendered powerless.

In order for us to feel their love, it has to have fertile ground upon which to fall. That fertile ground is tended by us. That fertile ground is our responsibility.

When we take beautiful responsibility for our own beautiful needs, when we become stewards of our own inner relationship, a space gets created for the relationships in our lives to actually begin to move in powerful new ways.

So how do we get from here to there? Read more…

Recently at a lecture I attended, the speaker relayed the following story from her life: A six year old girl was asked, “Pretend you were in a room full of scary tigers. What would you do?” The little girl paused for a long moment and then responded, “Well … I’d just stop pretending.” 

Ah, the power of the mind. Just as it can conjure the scariest of scenarios, so too can it release them. Hold that thought for just a minute or two while you read on. What I want to chat with you about are the three wicked step sisters, Fear, Doubt and Worry (well, that’s a little dramatic but I think you get the point) and how to change the way you relate to them. 

To set the stage, a little gift from the poet Rumi entitled, “The Guest House:” This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice - meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

The premise: We all deal with fears of one kind or another but most of us haven’t a clue what to do with them or how to be with them. Mostly we employ the strategy of fight or flight. When we feel a worry, a concern, a doubt or a fear, we either go to battle with it or run for the hills (how’s that working out for you?).  BUT alas, there is another way. There is a way to be with the heavier side of our emotional selves; a relationship that redefines what it means to be the glorious feeling being that you are.  Read more…

We hold and we hold and we hold; our grip so tight, the blood leaves our hand … and in one of those breathless, gripping moments we wonder … why am I not seeing the very thing I am longing to bring into my life? It never occurs to us that the very thing we’re holding on so tightly to is the very thing blocking what we long for in our life. It might be a belief we hold about ourselves or a habit that no longer serves or a relationship that has long since atrophied. Whatever it is, we’ve become more committed to what has been leaving no space for what we’ve dared to dream of. There is a story about a little monkey. He gets his hand stuck in a jar because he won’t let go of the nut he’s grabbed onto. This little monkey has made his little nut more important than his liberation, more vital than his freedom. He doesn’t get it. Truth be told, sometimes we don’t either. Because truth be told, most of the time we don’t even realize what’s happening; we don’t realize that we’ve prioritized what’s in our hands over what’s in our hearts, what’s here and now for what might be. And the rest of the time? Well, we’re just plain greedy, we want the old and the new. But let’s take former and leave the latter; the greed, for another time. Let’s explore how to break through, to get unstuck, to unleash the beauty that lives in our own imagination and in our own hearts. Let’s explore how to bring what is in our hearts and minds into the world.

I say it all the time; we’re wired to evolve, to change, to dream, to reach, to want, to transcend. It’s in our DNA. But too, we’re wired to resist and hang on and fear the very things we find being born in our hearts. It’s a bit of a paradox and it can be maddening, that is, unless you simply accept the contradiction as a sort of necessary tension to the whole birthing process. But let’s say you haven’t gotten this far yet. Let’s say you’ve simply identified something you want to change or bring into your life. And let’s say in spite of the best laid plans, you’ve had little luck at the manifesting part of your vision or idea or longing. In short, you’re stuck. Two things you know for sure: you know what you want and there’s no sign of it. What are you supposed to do? How the heck do you move past this point?

Entering stage left, our hero:  The Well Placed Question. Read more…

 We always have a choice; we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us and make us feel increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder.

- Pema Chodron

Pema expresses to me, the perfect description of the grateful heart; the willingness, the bravery, the audacity to see all of life as a gift not just the pretty parts but all of it. When we make the choice to live from this bold place, we become strong and balanced; positioned to see the gift in any circumstance. Wow. Who doesn’t want that?

Some science behind gratitude. From research done at SMU in Dallas Texas: The results of a study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved. McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another. 

Get Your Gratitude on. When we’re beginning a gratitude practice, we begin with the gifts in our life; the people, love, health shelter of our life. Many folks do keep a gratitude journal to bring awareness and attention to the bright spots in their life. For another approach, check out Gratitude Log 

Gratitude is a muscle. Take it to the gym! Work it out, folks. When you do, you will begin to see yourself, your relationships and your life in a brand new way. Interested in doing some heavy lifting with gratitude? Look for unusual places to get grateful. Experiment. What would happen if you got grateful for a reoccurring challenge or for that place you always get stuck when you try to break an old habit or take a relationship to the next level? What if right there and then you said “even for this I am grateful!” What would that shift in perspective do for you? Try it out sometime and just notice what happens. If you’re like me, you’ll feel a release of tension and you’ll start to access your natural curiosity. Curiosity is like emotional lubricant helping you get unstuck.  Read more…

At the moment of writing this post, we stand at the precipice of summer. With Memorial Day behind us and the long stretch of warm months ahead, comes a little tinge in the brain, a little skip in the soul. For some of us it’s more like a loud gong of a bell – for others it is the slightest whisper of a long ago memory. You see on some level summer means play. Summer is about a shift in our mental state. Summer has a call to our deeper, more playful selves. Are you listening? Will you answer the call this time? Or will you, like so many of us, put your head back down to your desk and get on with the work at hand ignoring the impulse to play and the call of fun?

In my work, the most referenced thing lacking in people’s lives is fun. This got me thinking about fun and more importantly, play. What is the power of play and why is fun so freaking important to people? I did a little research and get this, it turns out that play is as important as sleep. Read that again. What?? It’s true. We’re biologically programmed to play. It supports memory, creativity, reduces stress, and builds trust and safety between individuals and within groups. A playful brain is a happy soul. And we’re talking about play that is not driven by a purpose; it’s simply the act for the act’s sake. In his work on play, Stuart Brown says that if its purpose is more important than the simple act, it’s probably not play. He also says that the opposite of play is not work but depression. Yikes. (Check out his talk on TED). Folks this is huge. Play is not simply fun, it’s kind of essential to almost everything we do! Read more…

Once upon a time I was a little boy on a road trip across West Texas with my family. We were headed probably to California or Wyoming or New Mexico. We were a traveling family; always off to some cool place. My folks would have made great pioneers; unafraid to pack up the kids (there were six), an erroneous grandparent and the dog and head out west. On this particular leg of the trip, I was sitting in the seat behind my father who was at the wheel of our family’s station wagon. West Texas can be quite desolate. “Pretty” is not a word that you would use to describe it. Vast sections of West Texas are flat offering, over massive stretches of distance, no discernable changes in the landscape. As a child in the back seat of our car, already a day and a half into the journey, West Texas challenged me. In that moment, it seemed to be endless and grim. There was nothing to look at, it seemed. Nothing. I was from Houston you see, so I looking for drama. I wanted craggy peaks and cacti the size of skyscrapers, tumbleweeds, ghost towns. Then breaking the silence and the monotony of the landscape, my father spoke five short words; “There is beauty in everything.” It was one of those moments. And though I was one of many in the car that day, his words were intended for my ears I am certain. His words were truth. His words changed my life. A perfectly synchronized moment. Me, lost in the landscape and in my observation of what seemed to be so bleak; my father, in his own moment, the same landscape – a different experience and his wisdom to speak of it. “There is beauty in everything.” His words fell inside of me instantly changing the way I saw and experienced that moment. Transformation in an instant. Any moment can be the moment.

Read more…

What do you want more of in your life? How ‘bout more happiness or good God, how about greater ease in relationships? What about clarity and confidence in your choices? Belief in yourself and in the world? The answer to all of this is kind of simple. Just tweak what you’re feeding yourself on a daily basis. Eliminate some things and add others. Mix it up.

• You have a creative self. What are you feeding it?
• You have a spiritual self. What are you feeding it?
• You have an emotionally intelligent self. What are you feeding it?
• Many people believe that God, Spirit, the Higher Self dwells within. Do you connect to it?

We’re all used to the concept of how what we eat impacts our physical and mental health, right? In this diet loving culture we live in, you can’t hardly go 22 seconds without a new study or perspective on the relationship between our diet and our wellbeing. On the one hand all this focus and attention can be maddening. On the other, maybe all this attention speaks to something much deeper. Maybe, it’s not really just about food and drink and exercise. Maybe the conversation takes center stage because as a culture, we’re waking up to the bigger conversation which is about how we’re feeding ourselves in all areas of our life. Maybe as each of us grapples with the undeniable facts regarding our food diet we will make the leap to consider how we feed ourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If we can accept that a diet based solely on processed food leads to all sorts of yucky things, can’t we then see that a life lived in front of the television or on a steady diet of newspapers and entertainment magazines might result in some equally nasty things (actually, do an internet search on the connection between TV and depression – yikes)?

Can we become emotionally and spiritually anemic? Read more…

“Any resolution or decision you make is simply a promise to yourself which isn’t worth a tinker’s damn until you have formed the habit of making it and keeping it. And you won’t form the habit of making it and keeping it unless right at the start you link it with a definite purpose that can be accomplished by keeping it. In other words, any resolution or decision you make today has to be made again tomorrow, and the next, and so on. And it not only has to be made each day, but it has to be kept each day for if you miss one day in the making and keeping of it, you’ve got to go back and begin again. But if you continue the process of making it each morning and keeping it each day, you will finally wake up one morning, a different person in a different world, and you will wonder what has happened to you and the world you used to live in.”   Albert E. Gray (1885-1942)

If you’re headed out to make a change in your life, make sure you pack a bag with a few things because you’ll need them along the way: an understanding of the process of change, an engaging purpose or reason for the change, a healthy supply of desire, and a creative, tenacious and persistent attitude. Read more…

Moments. Our life is a collection of singular moments. Within each moment lies the richness of an opportunity to be you, fully expressed. Life, in her infinite generosity has found it simply impossible to resist the temptation to rain down upon us an unlimited number of opportunities packed within the moments of our lives to be who we are and expand who we are and practice who we are becoming. Within each moment we have the chance to explore what it means to be us, to try once again to be authentically ourselves, to come at this expression from another direction, to open our voices and our hearts and explore our own profound potential. Sometimes we nail it. Sometimes we miss the mark. And when we do, all we have to do is pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and turn and step into the next moment. Because rest assured, there is Life smiling at us arms wide open calling us back into the space of her next offering to us. She is not punitive. She is not a score keeper. Life has our back. She wants us to “get it right.”

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”   Oscar Wilde Read more…

“Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa feelings” as the song goes. I’m not sure most of us have the slightest clue what to do or how to be with these things that seem to surface within us at the most opportune and inopportune times. Like star crossed lovers, running towards each other across a field of wildflowers, feelings can sweep us up and spinning us around, turn the most bland of moments into a blissful, thrilling wondrous experience. Or perhaps they might pull us in close, hold us sweetly in their embrace cooing us into quietness and tranquility. But that’s on a good day. Because in a moment they can turn. We might go to bed feeling centered, strong and optimistic and awaken only to find that the forgotten dwarfs, Cranky, Disgruntled and Guilty have set up camp at the foot of our bed. (“Who invited them, anyway?”) Indeed this world of feelings can be a perplexing one, one that leaves us scratching our heads and feeling powerless especially if we have drank the Kool-Aid that says we’re supposed to live in an inner world reigned over by feelings of happiness and joy (I for one, drank that particular flavor of Kool-Aid and have been dealing with the results for most of my adult life). Read more…