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…

“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…

Ah, change, change, change. We’re all after change.  We want to change our hair or change our clothes.  Change our spouse or change our house. We gotta change the way we drink or change what we think. Decrease how much we eat and increase the time on our feet. We wanna change the way we pray and for God’s sake … change what we say. Change the time we go to bed or change our name from Bernardo to Fred. Change our job, change our face, change our beliefs, can I change my race? Stop this, start that, more of this and less of that. Change, change, change. And then just when we grow tired of changing ourselves our gaze does a soft slide to the left and then an ever slow slither to the right. Looking through the scope, we set our cross hairs on some unsuspecting fool next to us, press the restart button and begin the whole process over again.

We all buy into the need for change. Our culture is built on it. It’s like somewhere along the way each of us signed a contract to never (ever)be satisfied with ourselves, our lives or each other. We’re not enough or we’re too much. I should be more like you or even better, “can’t you just be like me?” Either way, we come out the looser. 

Here’s the deal, the way most of us come at change carries the imbedded implication that something (and most of the time it’s us) is wrong or broken; a nagging, ever present sense that something needs to be fixed (“I’m not sure what it is, but give me a minute and I’m certain I can figure it out.”).  And with that implication comes judgment, a nice dose of shame or guilt (you get to pick) and a sweet slow dance with self denigration (who invited her anyway?). When our core belief is we’re wrong or broken, then when we reach for change, we reach out of fear or disgust or worse, just plain ‘ol unconscious habit. Read more…

Questions are powerful.  Our brains are hard wired to find their answers.  Ask yourself a question and your brain begins searching for the answer.  Let’s do a quick experiment … ask yourself the following question: “Where are my keys?”  Now watch as your brain gets you the answer.  It works with any question.  Notice what it feels like when you ask this kind of question: “Why do I always do this?”  If you’re like me, maybe your anxiety level goes up a bit – perhaps your breath shortens.  That’s because that kind of question really does not have an answer.  It’s a trick question.  Its very structure keeps us locked into a certain place or stuck in an unwanted behavior.  The thing is, your brain does not realize that.  It does as it was asked – it goes in search of the nonexistent answer.  It goes, and goes, and goes in circles.  And with the increased frustration produced by this endless loop, we ask the same question setting up the same dead end cycle which leaves us stuck in the same pattern that brought us to ask the question in the first place.  And we wonder:  Why don’t we move ahead or break out of that pattern that is so clearly wrong for us?  It’s because we’re asking the wrong question. Read more…