Blog Posts
Exploring ideas related to life, relationships, spirituality and mental health.
A Broader Awareness Can Lead to Uncertainty
Consistency, in practice and in thought, guides the creation of our stories and narratives. Selecting from the potentially overwhelming data of the world, our stories support what we believe and ignore or actively dismiss that which doesn't. "New" information is...
Life as a Learning Process
Approach life as a learning process and ask yourself "What do I believe?" The result will likely be a cascade of memories highlighting actions, thoughts, and experiences fitting a particular set of Virtues, or Values-in-action. The whole of this cascade will...
Healing from Trauma
Question from Quora: Can one heal from PTSD without using medications? I hear PTSD doesn’t just apply to war veterans. It could be affecting anyone and we wouldn’t know it ourselves unless someone brought it to our attention. Photo by Dan...
An Issue of Interruption
We really need to feel we belong. Relationships, of whatever kind, provide the means for fulfilling that. Interruptions are a way of mitigating anxiety when we're uncertain about those connections.
Feelings Are Always Waiting
Our feelings are not tied solely to any one relationship. The stories we have about them are bigger than any one connection.
Shyness: A Struggle for Social Confidence
Often when making dire universal assessments about our lack of something, it’s more about us not seeing what we already have or are doing, and because of that not growing from a place of presence.
Skills: The Foundation of any Healthy Relationship
There is simply no relationship problem that is different in kind between any form of relationship. The differences are always the particular variables involved, not some issue uniquely found within a particular relationship form.
Cage Match of Values
"Two may enter, but only one may leave." Cage match values. The image of a cage-match is older even than the post-apocalyptic landscape that line comes from, stemming perhaps all the way back to the myth of Cain and Abel, the first murder. There's something...
Growing through Awareness and Forgiveness
Covering the last couple chapters of “The Four Agreements,” we focus on growing awareness and forgiveness, how to identify old and unhealthy agreements, and how to replace them with new ones. Explore how to accept the whole of our lives, including the suffering,...
Stop Being Emotional About Your Emotions
Metaphors for living are numerous; a good thing as they provide the emotional structure through which we interact within the world. Were they shallow and few, our lives would be equally restricted. The multiplicity of metaphor, like the personal narratives carrying...
The Trap of Authenticity
The trap of authenticity, being 'the real you', is the destination of the modern person, pursuing the claim to be put in contact with the singular 'I.' Every step on this journey requires working with the push and pull of social influences, personal beliefs,...
My Success Does Not Support Your Suffering
Triggers are a fascinating part of our humanity. Mentally, a trigger is a perception inspiring an emotional and cognitive assessment. Externally, triggers are any act or situation that provokes a perception. Importantly, what we perceive never holds the entirety of...
The Nature of Love
Popular sayings and cliches abound. Songs are written as odes to and diatribes against. Lives are made and destroyed in its embrace. The forms it takes are at the center of social debate and religious theological musings. The nature of love guides, shapes, cajoles...
Working Through Anger One Breath At A Time
Emily Dickinson wrote: "Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat." In these days of political polarization and the dissolution of relationships based on singular points of difference, it seems on the face of it that anger is quite glutted. On the...
Being You In All Your Social Spaces
Of particular difficulty in a world of constant social media presence and information overload is how areas of life bleed into one another. We carry with us the news, analysis and opinions of those around the globe in the palm of our hand. Each tweet, news headline...
Being Thankful for the Present
The future contains the present that the past was preparing for. Consider that for a moment. For all the time and resources spent preparing for a potential future, it will never be more than what was possible in the present. For all our lamentations and...
Moving Past the Limitation of Sin
We feel lost when, we are so focused on finding the "right" path, that we can't see the opportunities that surround us. We encourage freedom of imagination in our kids because we don't want them to get locked into the sin of bad habits. We entreat each other to...
Identity Trumps Decency
America's most powerful social product may very well be that of the politicized identity. Pick a label, shove the entirety of a person into it, then use this narrow caricature to condemn, belittle, dismiss, celebrate and worship, depending on whether you like or...