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…

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…

This morning I awoke grappling with fear.  Ugh.  I could feel it in my chest and in my head.  I wasn’t conscious of it as much as I was simply in it.  In this early morning state of mind; I was all wrapped up in my fear.  It was me, I was it.  My chest was tight, my head occupied with fear’s narrative.  And though this fear was attached to a specific situation in my life, it was functioning as a lens through which I was now seeing the entirety of my day. It weighed me down and made everything seem scary and a bit unhinged.   

Then in a flash, I understood something I’d never understood before.  This fear, the one telling me “Be careful. Don’t get too invested. You’re  gunna get hurt.” was actually trying to protect me.  In an instant upon this recognition, the grip fear had on my morning loosened a smidge.  It’s as if there was the tiniest opening that hadn’t been there only a moment before.  In that moment, as I was making the coffee, some impulse had me listen beyond the suffocating narrative I was caught in and I understood for the first time, that my fear had assigned itself to be my protector.  I think I actually smiled.  I became conscious of my fear; listened, got its intended message and it relaxed a bit.  I was no longer my fear.  My fear was no longer me.  Read more…

What is it about the mind that has us continually going back to it for validation, approval, and diagnosis?  Is it really the resident expert on how I am doing on a daily basis?   Is it the best resource on the progression towards my goals?  And most importantly to me, does my mind really understand the deepest longings of my heart and the beauty of the path that I am on?  Can it truly grasp the arc of my growth and comprehend the depth of my transformation?

The process of transformation is layered, dimensional and mysterious.  It is not fixed.  There are leaps forward and setbacks.  There are intense growth spurts followed by periods of stillness or stagnation.  And all of it is vital to the process.   Transformation can happen in an instant and it happens over a lifetime.  It is a force at work.  It is like a river carving its way through hard rock.  To the casual observer (the mind), it might appear that nothing is happening but take a look at the fossil record and quickly you see that the force that is that river has most definitely transformed that rock. Read more…

The world needs all of you.  All-of-you.  Not just the pretty, polished, just-right parts of you but also, the darker, in the shadows, rougher, gutsier, raw and messier parts of you.  You know why?  Because life is about color.  And in those parts of you is where the color is, where the energy hides out, where the rubber hits the road.  It’s when we exclude parts of ourselves that we get into trouble.  When we push out, reject, shame or otherwise banish them from our lives, they get louder, uglier and destructive.  At the very least they turn into a low-level hum of discomfort or anxiety.  So when they present themselves, bring them into the light.  Greet them with a friendly “hello” and integrate them.  Our job as our friend Rumi suggests, is to be a host to all that arrives (see his poem “The Guest House”).  When this is the place from which we come, when we endeavor to make all parts of ourselves feel welcome and heard, they soften becoming allies instead of villains, they reveal their hidden messages and power to us, they begin to show us where they came from and how they are meant to help, not hinder. Read more…

We do not live out our lives in a vacuum.  In the arc of each lifetime there is a line between everything; a thread that connects each of the paths we’ve taken, the choices we’ve made, the jobs we’ve had, the friendships won and lost.  When you follow this thread back to its source you discover that it connects us to who we are, what we want for ourselves, to what lights us up.  Everything expressed within a lifetime is manifested from the individual, the self, the soul.  I believe our choices are born from our values; the very things that we desire and live to express.  Each choice has at its base a connection to something meaningful to us.  The art is to follow the connections, to see the relationships between our choices, to discover what they reflect about us and then to see where they’ve been pointing us. Read more…