Like millions of people around the world, I’m a fan of Deepak Chopra. But for me it wasn’t reading his books or hearing him speak or seeing him on Oprah that did it—it was getting to know the man himself. Over the last couple of years I’ve developed considerable respect for Deepak’s sheer ... Views: 774
I rang Lao Tze this morning to ask his help sorting through the befuddlement I'm suffering at the hands of the media and its endless stream of bad economic news. I told him I was confused about current events, didn't understand what was happening to the economy, and was half blinded by fur ... Views: 587
I’ve briefly touched upon the Odysseus protocol in the past.
The name comes from Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus and his ship are about to pass through the Siren-infested waters. On the one hand, he knows that hearing their song will spell his doom. On the other hand, he’s dying of curiosity and ... Views: 1688
Question:
Within my circle of friends, all but one of us has a boyfriend. When we go out it's all the couples...and me. I love being with everyone but sometimes I feel so alone within the group. It's as if a spotlight is on me screaming "I'm the only one that doesn't have someone." What's the ... Views: 513
The key points to remember when looking at the lines on the palm are that lines shift and change and that the quality of a line is one of the most important indicators of a line’s meaning. Some authors state that they view the lines as energy power lines or as rivers as a way of understanding ... Views: 3558
We human beings tell stories. We scratch them on cave walls, drip them on canvas, speak them, write them, film them, sing them, and dance them. We use stories to entertain, educate, illustrate, instill, to remember and to share. What a wonderful things they are. Children will pile up more books ... Views: 732
I am a youngin’. A spring chicken, if you will.
The world is my oyster and I am ripe for the pickin’. I have never been more ready to go than I am right at this very moment and let’s go, time’s a-wastin’, let’s move people.
It’s just that there’s this picture on my wall.
And it stops me ... Views: 834
The same dynamic is at play in our national and private yearnings. We want the same illusion of moral constancy in our politicians as we do in our marriages.
But we inevitably find our leaders have feet of clay. And it’s common for couples to not even know what’s going on in their very own ... Views: 914
I write a Tuesday column for the Huffington Post. In my most recent column about “Why rational thinking is not all it’s cracked up to be?” a reader commented that my example of a paranoid client was not a good one as paranoia is not rational. I did not say that it was, but used it in the ... Views: 3288
I consider myself an optimistic person. When I was a very little girl the movie Pollyanna hit the screens and I loved it, and I took it in on a cellular level.
Pollyanna starred Jane Wyman (Ronald Regan's ex-wife), Karl Malden (one of the most dynamic actors of all time), Hayley Mills (loved ... Views: 572
Audacity is essential to entrepreneurs, artists, inventors, and other creators and innovators. This posting, written by my colleague and collaborator Julie van Amerongen, celebrates Audacity.
Jeff
“Success is the child of audacity.” ~Benjamin Disraeli
I hope that whoever writes my eulogy ... Views: 1033
Like many around the world, the last few months for me have carried a sense of uncertainty and quite frankly, stress.
As an entrepreneur of a young company that I feel totally passionate about, the decline in the global economy has been unsettling. I am fortunate to have a stellar team at ... Views: 620
When it is all said and done, when you have done your work, done it well, and “tilled the soil” of your success, one thing remains: To trust that the “what” you have done will bear fruit. Trust is an inner knowing and a “focused surrender” that things will work out.
Martin Luther King Jr. ... Views: 582
Part One
During the next few weeks I want to introduce some of the transformational power tools I use as a coach and today I want to start off with my favorite one,
yielding, or, the power of giving in.
My first conscious encounter with ‘yielding’, or better the lack thereof, was in ... Views: 557
I used to be a competitive rifle shooter for my University in England. I have several Oxford ‘Blues’ as a result, and was the captain of several teams. We'd shoot at paper targets, nothing else. And that’s why I feel I can say something about guns now.
A newsletter I received today stated that ... Views: 871
It had been 3 ½ years since he last stood in this very spot. He didn’t remember the light reflecting so uncomfortably in his eyes back then. He shifted back to his left. It was 3 ½ years ago that Jack had stood in front of the giant Zoltar-like machine, looking a thousand time more confident ... Views: 558
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Above is one of many thoughtful quotes included throughout the book I just read by Julia Cameron, author of "Finding Water, The Art of Perserverance." If you are blocked in any way from doing what is ... Views: 666
It can be so important to be in the right place at the right time. Networking can happen anywhere. It happens in four phases: Mingling, Mating, Meeting, and Matching. Let's explore each phase together!
Phase 1: Mingling ---> Phase 2: Mating ---> Phase 3: ... Views: 982
The sand mandala is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and also destruction of mandalas made from colored sand. In the ritual, a group of monks create an elaborate and very intricately designed piece of art using colored sand. The artwork holds much symbolism, and is ... Views: 779
There is much written about how our good intentions help others. But can your good intentions really reach someone who is not physically present, and how do we know this? In this column, I will present the current evidence that discusses this phenomenon and provide some explanations as to why ... Views: 710
The recession is frightening and overwhelming for many of us. Jobs are scarce. Housing is a mess. And the difficulty of making money threatens our comfort and leaves us feeling anxious and stressed. At times like these, we may hear advice columnists tell us to "visualize success" or to "imagine ... Views: 1524
One thing no one (except my husband) knows about me is that I am in a self-induced midlife crisis. I fantasize about having a day once a week in my home entirely to myself. I would then have uninterrupted time to write, read, and watch The real Housewives of New York City without my husband ... Views: 575
If you are experiencing itchy eyes, a dry, raspy throat, sneezing, sinus headaches and tiredness, and it’s spring, chances are you have seasonal allergies. What happens in the spring? The earth comes alive, bursting with new growth and the wind is spreading the news. Commercials bombard us with ... Views: 609
It comes as no real surprise that the seven deadly sins are not equally seductive for men and women. A recent study from the Vatican ranks the most common sins by gender, based on collected confessions. The notion of 'sin' is based in Catholicism, but let's forgo a theological discussion in ... Views: 1087
It’s hard to find much good news nowadays, surrounded as we are by doom and gloom attitudes and news at work, in the media and in conversations. However, I see at least 2 important areas where the current trend is positive for us as a society: Housing Affordability and Humility.
First, as a ... Views: 488
Five commercial airliners have crashed or crash-landed in just 10 weeks. It began on December 20th when Continental 1404 slid off a snowy runway in Denver. Now, Turkish Airlines 1951 has gone down while landing in Amsterdam, with nine lives lost and 50 seriously injured. It's enough to make you ... Views: 660
In this article, I'd like to share an extremely important idea from the world of cognitive therapy. It is an idea that I use in most of my psychotherapy sessions. To illustrate it, let me begin with a model called the ABC's.
The ABC model is a framework that was developed by a psychologist ... Views: 995
“A man doesn’t learn to understand anything unless he loves it.” Goethe
There is a guy banging his head against a brick wall. When asked why he is banging his head against the brick wall, he pauses and says because “it feels so good when I stop.” It is a silly story of truth for millions. We ... Views: 767
Some coworkers recently went looking for some alternative deodorants after hearing that the levels of aluminum in common products can cause complications with lymph nodes. There are several other concerns related to health when it comes to ingredients in beauty products used on the skin around ... Views: 1838
Joseph Campbell said “I don’t believe that anyone knows what sex is. It’s the greatest mystery in human life…” Starting here, I believe is the most honest place for thinking about books on sexuality. It assumes that we give up our notions of right and wrong about sexual preferences, practices ... Views: 1322
I don't own a scale. I never have. I have been lucky in life in that I haven't had to deal with weight issues, until recently. Last year, due to stress and anxiety, I began to lose weight without trying and people close to me grew worried that I was becoming anorexic or bulemic.
I laughed at ... Views: 978
Almost every day we come across some news or another about the atrocities of the Talibans in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Most of us have been viewing this issue as some incomprehensible disease in a remote and perennially troubled part of the world. The truth is, as we have all come to learn ... Views: 985
Everything you do in life depends on your level of energy! It cycles from low levels to medium levels to high levels and then back to low. It powers your movements, your thoughts, your feelings and even your responses. Contemplate how almost nothing may bother you when your energy is strong and ... Views: 811
Meaning is an association of what is now with what once was...
Take a look at any object in your immediate environment: say, you are looking at a "so-called" (I'll explain the "so-called" parenthetical in a few moments) cup. Say, I picked it up from your desk and asked: "What is this?" You'd ... Views: 704
Most of us begin our days with a continuous list of things we need to do to keep our lives running smoothly, but we rarely take time to note all the things we don’t need to do. For example, we don’t need to figure out how to breathe. We don’t need to find a way to make sure the earth continues ... Views: 1349
It seems clear that the question of torture won't go away. It would be easier to talk about moving ahead. Images of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo belong in nightmares. As a physician, my personal nightmare is of the doctors who stood by during torture sessions to monitor the victim's vital signs. ... Views: 1150
Question:
I have another question. Tree of Knowledge in Christianity: So Adam and Eve symbolically eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and then they saw they were naked. Since I was a young girl I have been searching for Truth. I equate truth with knowledge. Then this new thought ... Views: 560
When the higher incorporates the lower into its service, the nature of the lower is transformed into the higher.
-Meister Eckhart
When someone’s back “goes out” where does it go?
My experience working hands on with thousands of people from over 50 countries has shown me that “out” is ... Views: 2914
Over two decades ago, China's largest pro-democracy protests in history ended when military tanks rolled onto Tiananmen Square (translated literally as ‘Gate of Heavenly Peace’) and armed Chinese troops opened fire on the crowds (of over 1 million people) in the largest pro-democracy protest ... Views: 987
Mindlessness equates what is with what is expected to be: when on auto-pilot, the mind rounds up and approximates reality into already-familiar patterns and categories. Hence, the “if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck,” conclusion.
The result is what Buddhists ... Views: 656
Question:
I am 32 and single. I have great things in my life - career, family, friends, house, car, dog. The problem is I find myself "waiting" for the next phase which, for me, feels like getting married and starting a family. I feel constant pressure and like time is ticking away which is ... Views: 893
In ground-breaking research earlier this century, Nobel laureate Dr. Wilder Penfield, attempted to "map" the connections between specific parts of the body and particular areas of the brain. He wanted to see, for example, where the "wires" from the hand led to, and where the connections to the ... Views: 1048
Haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry, is a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. In Japanese, this convention is a must, but in English, which has variation in the length of syllables, this can sometimes be difficult. In other words, do your ... Views: 1003
Has anyone else had it with the woe is I economic reporting?
Yes, I understand that the world economic situation is precarious.
Yes, I understand there is much higher unemployment in the United States right now than in the recent past.
Yes, I understand that the Obama administration has chosen ... Views: 601
Sometimes we have to be patient and sometimes we have to get moving. Wisdom is knowing which time is which and when to do what. I know, easier said than done. But we all know when we've exhausted certain possibilities -- and quite possibly ourselves -- in the course of finding out. Wouldn't it ... Views: 703
Many people have told me not to be so open and vulnerable in these notes to you because they say it weakens my leadership position. I say that's BS. You know why? Because I believe that the new-school of leadership doesn't just show you their good side, they show you all sides. So here ... Views: 832
Today's reactions to the swine flu virus include: school closings, threats of borders closing, people being told to stay off planes and trains, high school sporting events canceled.
The natural response to fear is to contract. This contracting behavior shows up in all types of animal species, ... Views: 832
Hope you all had a wonderful Earth Day, however you celebrated it. I was originally going to write a blog on 5 films to watch in honor of Earth Day but never got around to it (though if there is one you must watch it is BBC's Planet Earth series -- I have never seen anything more fascinating and ... Views: 814
“Happiness comes when your work and words
are of benefit to yourself and others.”
~Buddha
Archaeologist, architect, author, horticulturist, inventor, paleontologist, and statesman – the one-man Renaissance that was Thomas Jefferson was born into a well-healed family in 1743 in Albemarle County, ... Views: 851
Question:
I'm new to meditation and have trouble getting into the gap between my thoughts. It seems that every time I try to meditate, thoughts keep running through my head. I can't make them stop! What can I do to still my mind so that I can enter the gap between my thoughts and begin ... Views: 527