Life Is Hard
LIFE IS HARD: Being alive means we’re bound to feel alone, lose loved ones, grow old (hopefully) go through some crazy family dynamics, encounter immature behaviors—our own and other people’s—and live with the consequences of our poor decisions. We have people in our community who have been run over by a truck, lost loved ones, been abused by loved ones. Yes, life can be hard, but when we learn to live consciously, instead of contracting to protect ourselves, we expand and celebrate each day we are alive.
Are You Being Too Hard on Yourself or Not Hard Enough?
The short answer is it depends— I recently went to a Qigong class, and the instructor assured the participants that there was no right or wrong way to make the moves. “Hey guys, you’re doing great; remember there is no right or wrong, just do what feels...
How to Reduce Inner Conflict
Do you ever struggle with inner conflicts? For example, maybe you have a particular passion, and you wish you could make a living by pursuing it full time, but your need for security causes you to stay with a job that is not your passion. Or maybe you say that you...
How to Work with Chronic Fatigue, Mild Depression and Erectile Dysfunction
When I wrote the headline for this article I thought it sounded like the opening for a good joke, (A Christian preacher, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi are out on a boat for the day…), but this isn’t a joke and I don’t have a punch line to share...
Surviving The Volcano
“I was sound asleep when I heard pounding on my door, and then the door being kicked in. The man who came in was shaking; he was scared. He hustled me out of bed, pushing me toward the door, telling me I had to evacuate my home. I got out with my purse, the nightgown...
How To Deal With Despair
What emotion do you find most challenging? For me, it’s despair. I leave myself empty with despair. I used to find it hard to see any value at all in despair. Despair is not like anger—with anger I can motivate myself in constructive ways. It’s not like...
The Answer To Life’s Problems
Are you ready for a New Year? How different will it be from last year? Will you be far less anxious? Will you have much greater clarity about your life purpose? Will you free yourself of your negative self-talk? Will you love your partner as well as you’d like to—or...
Can You Hear Me? — it’s so painful not to be heard
Maybe one of the more painful, or even frightening things, is when we are unable to get another person—especially one we love—to hear and understand us. The person listening doesn’t necessarily even need to agree with us—if only they would listen and understand our...
Post Traumatic Thriving
Eight weeks ago I was hit by a truck while crossing a street. I was warned by the “experts” about the likelihood of suffering from post traumatic stress. Nightmares. Anxiety attacks. Heightened reactivity. But that’s not what happened to me. When we...
There is a gift in everything
I have come to believe that there is a gift in every event, every encounter, and every difficulty. Is this true? No, but it’s an example of how I choose to make meaning and it serves me really well. Some times I have trouble seeing the gift, but if I’m willing to look...
What’s Your Story?
We can free ourselves from all forms of emotional suffering, even many forms of physical suffering, when we learn how to change the way we make meaning. But here’s the problem, talking to people about how they make meaning is like talking to fish about water. The fish...
The Story Of All Stories
Once upon a time there was a story . . . a story that helped people to change their lives. The story teller was a man made of sand. Depending on how the wind blew, he would take on different shapes. So everyday he had a different appearance. When I stopped to look at...
Acceptance
The difference that makes the difference. Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about why Live Conscious is different than other forms of psychology, self-help practices and group dynamics. I’ve been in therapy several times over the years— in my mid-thirties I...
Why Not Be Present? There’s A good Reason
Life is difficult There is a simple reason why most people choose to not be present in their lives. It’s because being present sucks—if you don’t like your job, don’t get along with your partner or don’t feel good in your body—and therefore you’d rather be someplace...
Live Well So You Can Die Well
I want to die in the same manner that I am learning to live—with gratitude and a sense of wonder and awe. Wednesday night I got a message that one of my oldest and dearest friends had a stroke. I’ve been a good friend with Jimmy and his wife Katie for over 30 years. I...
The Things We Carry— emotional baggage
Last year I was a lab virgin. This year I’m a lab veteran, meaning I’ve been to a Live Conscious Lab before. Why do the members of our small but growing community refer to these retreats as labs? Because they are places to experiment—to be totally honest, to ask for...
Don’t Waste Your Life
I have a client I’ve been working with for a couple of years who recently fell off the self-help wagon and then found her way back onto it. I share this story with you because, to me, her experience is emblematic of so many people who are trying hard to make the most...
Up Against The Glass
I’ve recently returned from a two-week excursion of channeling my mother. Not what I would call a luxurious holiday, but looking back I see it was a necessary fact finding adventure. And, like many adventures, I found myself in turbulent waters, desolate landscapes...
Can I recover from child abuse?
I left a small child—my child—over 30 years ago because I was afraid to be a mother. I made sure he was in good hands and then I ran away. For years we have pretended that what I did was acceptable because of my own pain and my terrifying childhood. Can my son recover...
Running for my Emotional Life
I am a runner. Not a marathon runner, not a jogger, but an emotional runner. When I find myself in a challenging situation my instinct is to run—others may have the instinct to fight, others will freeze. It’s part of our primitive nature and how we respond to what we...
Healing Ourselves
I think that most of us are chasing ghosts. The ghosts are our unfulfilled needs from childhood. Not getting the love we wanted. The validation we wanted. Not feeling valued. Not feeling safe. So, later in life we pursue ways of healing our old wounds, and many forms...
How To Eliminate Suffering
What lives between the onset of emotional pain and the resolution of that pain is suffering. I am learning to radically reduce the time between the onset of emotional pain and the resolution of that pain—thereby reducing or eliminating suffering. I don’t know if...
Why Do I Hold Myself Back?
I recently received an email from a client asking, “Why do I hold myself back?” Her precise words were, “I continue to feel myself holding back a small part of me … not wanting to fully engage myself. I recognize that I do this in several areas of my life....
Ben Kingsley on Portraying Holocaust History: NPR Interview
Give yourself a treat—it will take less than 10 minutes out of your day—and listen to Sir Ben Kingsley being interviewed by NPR’s Scott Simon in front of an audience at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Kingsley has played a range of Holocaust-related...
How To Deal With Loss
Less than a week ago there was a tragedy in Arizona, six people were killed and eighteen wounded, when a lone gunman violently expressed himself. In response to the tragedy, President Obama delivered a memorial speech in Arizona, a speech, which I believe addresses...
A conversation—What is kindness?
We recently had a gathering at our home and a group of us watched the movie Crash. One part of the story includes two brothers and their mother. The elder son is a detective and the younger son a petty criminal. The mother believes her younger son thoughtfully stocked...
A conversation about life—with and after—cancer.
I’m curious to speak with you about life after cancer. After you first learned about your cancer, my perception is that you began to live more fully than ever before, but I’m wondering if after the first year anniversary you are still living as fully? Jake,...
