Topic: Awareness

How To Be Compassionate With Your Compulsions

My friend, Jane, has a very high pressure job, plus she travels a lot. On a Friday morning recently, she arose feeling stressed and anxious about her weekend trip out-of-town. When she got to work, she had a conversation with one of her co-workers that did not go well. Then, when she got to the airport, she discovered that her plane was delayed for many hours. Jane had a traumatic childhood and has struggled with overeating for much of her life. So what did she do to soothe her anxiety and stress? She ate. Then she got angry and berated…

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Exercises to Develop Your Attention Muscles

Stephen Levine, author and spiritual teacher, once told me that focused human attention is as powerful as taking a magnifying glass and putting it right above a leaf with the sun shining through it. Even weak winter sun will start a fire on the leaf. In other words, focused human attention is phenomenally powerful. Focused attention is the ability to have your attention and your immediate experience come together. How do you bring these two things together? It begins with curiosity. Curiosity is becoming interested in what is going on right here right now without needing it to be any different…

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As Is, I’m Here

During a weekend recently three big challenges came up for me and and I used one of my favorite mantras over and over again, “As Is, I’m Here.”  Saying “As Is” reminds you of the willingness to allow yourself to be exactly as you are in this moment. It invites you to let go of struggling with whatever is (your usual mode), so you can move into the place of healing that comes from allowing yourself to be exactly as you are. “I’m Here” reminds you to be keenly attentive to what is, in a way that invites your heart to be open to…

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Harry’s Perfect Moment, A Tale of Practical Enlightenment

It was a Monday morning and Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed. He knew something was different, but he had no idea that today he would have a “perfect” moment. Donning his cotton robe, Harry made his way to the kitchen and started his day like he always did by preparing breakfast for his wife and two young sons. He got out the usual supplies – knife, cutting board, bowl and fruit – and laid them on the butcher-block center island. Suddenly the morning took a new twist. There was a break in his routine. The…

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Welcome Yourself Exactly As You Are

Welcoming means accepting yourself exactly as you are and also accepting life exactly as it unfolds. It is the ability to allow all of it, including all the parts of yourself and your life that you don’t like, and letting it all flow without getting hooked into the stories created by your mind. Welcoming is not trying to make your life any different than it is.  Easier said than done, right? I know it's not always easy to welcome and accept life, especially your challenges, because you have been conditioned to continuously judge yourself and others. This is the inner voice…

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Do You See What You’re Missing?

My eyesight, or lack thereof, has always taught me lessons. Back in 2008 and in my recent book, From Type A to Type Me: How to Stop “Doing” Life and Start Living It, I shared my experiences of having poor eyesight before receiving my first glasses. I learned a lot about myself through my microscopic view of the world due to my near-sightedness. Then, once I had the right glasses, I began to see the beauty and interconnectedness of the world. Now my eyes are ready to teach me the next lesson. A few years back I received Lasik surgery. For…

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How You can Find Healing that Lasts

How would your life change if you trusted that your challenges are a part of your journey home – back to yourself and back to Life – instead of feeling that your challenges are here because you have done something wrong or you are being punished or God fell asleep on the job? What would happen if your illness, your difficult relationship, your demanding boss, your compulsions, and maybe even your troublesome dog were showing up in your life to help you heal? The healing you long for comes when you discover how to play the warmer, warmer/colder, colder game. Remember that…

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How To Use The Mantra, “Just This Much”

If you watch your mind, you will see that it goes into the past or future all day long.  It especially loves to go into the future and when it really gets activated, it moves from a whole different place.  It will convince you that that you can’t do it right, or you can’t do it at all, or something bad is going to happen, and the thoughts go on and on.   These thoughts are just not true because we don’t know what is going to happen.  All we have is this present moment, but you can begin to see…

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How to Honor Your Survival System

We all created a finely-crafted survival system to bury or numb our pain when we were young.  We had to, as it was absolutely necessary for survival.  Life was too scary, and we didn’t have the skills to meet ourselves in our hearts. Our survival system can include compulsions, such as drug and alcohol abuse, shopping, work, sex, the Internet, busyness, self-judgment, and chronic worry.  I think about all of those years that I shut down the pain with food, drugs and alcohol.  In one year alone, I gained 97 pounds.  I would have died of the pain if I…

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In This Moment You Are A Perfect You

Where did you learn what a perfect body looks like? Where did you learn what is beautiful? Where did you learn what is ugly? How old were you when you came to these conclusions? We were walking down the street in Paris several years ago to find ourselves taken by a body image considered to be "beautiful." We were looking at the street lamps in front of the Paris Opera House. Built in the mid-1800's, those lamps are supported by statues of naked women. These castings done in the Neo-Baroque style are curvy with rounded bellies and by today's standards…

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These Things I Know to be True

What I know to be true is no matter how turbulent the roller coaster of life seems to be, or however many times I swing from one emotional high, to any emotional low, this life is a precious gift of experience I honor and treasure - no matter what form it appears to take. I know that whatever I know is only a point of view based on a past history of experiences, with every single point of view hiding in the minds of all, being equally unique and valid to their past, as similar or as different as it…

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How To Let Your Brilliant Being Shine

I recently came across one of my favorite poems, My Brilliant Image, by the fourteenth century Persian Poet, Hafiz: One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you The Infinite Incandescence That has cast my brilliant image! I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing Light Of your own Being! Hafiz is telling us that the astonishing light, the brilliance of our own being, is already with us.  We are filled with great light that permeates everything.    Brian Swimme, Evolutionary Philosopher and Co-Collaborator of the documentary…

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The Zen Master and the College Professor: Letting Go of What You ‘Know’

Transformation, self–realization, enlightenment – is not understandable through what you already know. In fact, what you already "know" is keeping you from discovering what is possible. There is a story that demonstrates this idea: There once was a college professor who was interested in learning about the study and practice of Zen. He decided that the best way to do this was to find a Zen master to interview. Being struck with an inspiration, the professor did his research and found one on the Internet by Googling, "Zen Master". The professor shot off an email and made an appointment. On…

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Sometimes My Fears Get So Intense

Sometimes my fears get so intense. It’s like my heart is in a vice grip and it’s squeezing all of the optimism and positivity out of me. Fortunately this has happened enough times over my lifetime to know that those fears are not me. They are not my truth. They are seeds that were planted at one point or another and I choose not to give them my power any longer. This is why I celebrate my fears and the anxiety that tends to come with them. Because when it’s on the surface, in my face and surging through my…

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Change Your Focus – Change Your Experience

I recently had the honor of interviewing Neil Findlay on The Empowerment Show. In his episode, we discussed his charity work. He helps children living on the street in Madagascar who may be as young as five years old. No resources. No education. No future. A situation he could only describe as hopelessness.  He also works with teens in Australia who often turn to drugs and alcohol due to their family situations. The teens have access to everything - food, shelter, education, and technology - yet there the suicide rate is rising. Suicide is rare in Madagascar where living conditions are…

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You Are Not Your Results

I like to think I was a control freak, but I guess I still am. Back in the old day I was a micromanager, taking responsibility for every aspect of a project even if it wasn’t mine. I would stay awake at night worrying about outcome. I would plan and scheme what else I could do to make the project work. Fortunately, for the most part, I have released much of those tendencies. My next challenge is releasing my focus on outcome for things that define success for me. Many a sage says to release the outcome. It is about the journey not the…

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Living the Downward Way – Through the Senses to the One

To truly know what it means to be human, to feel fully alive, is to deepen awareness of our interconnectedness with the greater web of life. This awareness is innate; we are born with it. But as we are indoctrinated into the social and technical complexities of the industrialized world, maintaining that awareness requires conscious effort. Our innate human senses are dulled by the assault of distracting forces in our hyperactive, social-technological systems. Such is life in the human-built world. But life can be richer, more glorious and refined, when we use our eyes, ears, nose and skin to return…

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The Next Step in the Mindfulness Revolution

We can stop the busy mind and come into our calm heart. Instead of always thinking, our awareness can be open, soft, and present. No matter what are the circumstances of our day, the details, frustrations, and desires do not need to constantly occupy and overflow the river of our awareness. We do not need to live in constant stress. Meditation can bring us to the beauty of the moment, simple, and free. There is an alternative to our minds constantly on the go. There is simple peace. Meditation brings us back to the river of our own being without…

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Working for a Living

Recently whenever I talk to a client or friend about their job, I hear: I have lost the passion for my work. My co-worker undermined my project. It seems we only shuffle paper and no longer provide anything of true value. My boss took credit for my work. I have to work overtime again, without pay. There is too much work to do. I am completely overwhelmed. Once again, I had a nervous breakdown in my office. There are many reasons we feel this way. The economy tanked out in 2008 and led to layoffs but the same amount of…

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Bouncing with Style: Better Boundaries

Yesterday I read a book about boundaries. Why? I had to for one of my upcoming shows.  Much to my delight, I started understanding what that bandied-about term meant in relation to me, my family and friends, and my kids. Even my dogs will benefit from my reading the material. We hear a lot in the media about boundaries. Gotta set boundaries. That’s a boundary violation. I have firm boundaries.  I have no boundaries. But what does that really mean? I started thinking about how boundaries are being erased as we groove into a society where personal choice often trumps the rights…

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