“Happy idiot.” “Happy fool.” Somehow, our culture has associated being happy with being out of touch with reality, or just being plain stupid. Happiness ends up being viewed as a drift away from what we collectively understand to be “real:” pain, suffering, the difficulty of everyday life where we work diligently at the grindstone, Sisyphus’ endlessly pushing the boulder uphill. I noticed this as I was riding my bike to work on a glorious Colorado day. I felt happy, open,... Read more
…how does a couple get unstuck? This came up as a question from someone who has been trying tools from my book, The Relationship Ride. Clearly, she and her partner are working hard with the skills, and they find that they still are reaching total impasses. Here’s what she says: “Both of us believe so adamantly that we are right and are not being HEARD by the other and neither will budge. Anger levels escalate.” Have you had that experience?... Read more
I’ve just spent the day with my colleagues at the Boulder Center for Conscious Community. We had our annual Open House and Sampler Day, opening our doors to the public, showing off what we’re up to at the BC3. The fact that today is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 bombings put what the BC3 is about (“A conscious community of co-creators discovering and expressing essence”) in stark relief to so much of how the world is operating right now.... Read more
My partner has embarked on the first month of her commitment to eat better. This profound change has brought me face-to-face with the question of nourishment: what truly nourishes me, and what do I consume that is a substitute for nourishment? This might be easiest to see with food and drink, but it has gone way beyond for me. What about the media, T.V., newspapers, the Internet? The books I read? The music I listen to? The activities in which... Read more
I just returned from a trip out east, where I spent 6 days in the woods in Michigan (for those Michiganders among you, I was in Hart, about an inch in from the bottom of my pinkie on the hand-map of Michigan). I participated in the 36th annual Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, an amazing creation wherein I and around 3,000 other women went to hear music, attend workshops, eat vegetarian food, camp, and be in the vast power of woman-only... Read more
If you think about it, deciding that what is happening should not be happening is a first step into making yourself feel reeeeallly crazy. Criticizing and complaining are the outcomes of this crazy-making stance. Our orientation seems to be: in the middle of an experience to judge it as good or bad, then try to make the bad thing to not be happening by criticizing or complaining about it. “Why do you always leave your socks on the floor?!” Socks... Read more
How many times do you have thoughts like this? “I should have known better…” “If only I’d done a more thorough job of planning, this wouldn’t be happening.” “I can’t believe (the traffic, the weather, the economy, politics, that this person is late, ________ [fill in the blank]).” “I shouldn’t be feeling this way.” “If you really understood me, you wouldn’t be feeling the way you’re feeling.” Or the grandslam: “What is happening shouldn’t be happening.” We seem to share... Read more
I just had dinner with a wonderful group of people. You know the kind of event–we spent hours laughing and sharing and eating delicious food, finally savoring luscious, perfectly ripe strawberries dipped in chocolate. But it was the connection that made for the miracle. All that love flowing around the room made it easy to wonder–how to use the tools we know about living in a higher vibration to actually support each other each day? It’s so clear that life... Read more
Have you felt a bit lethargic lately? Do you notice that your energy is low, that you feel kind of blah, tired out, numb? Instead of wondering whether it really is time for Geritol or to do a thyroid level check, look for a solution in a different place: Where are you not being authentic? In other words, where are you not: speaking the truth, feeling your feelings fully, noticing when you are doing things you don’t want to be... Read more
If you’ve read my new book, The Relationship Ride: A Usable, Unusual, Transformative Guide, you’re familiar with my ideas about Creative Brain versus Reactive Brain. To review these concepts (or just introduce them), humans go into automatic reactivity when we perceive any threat to our bodies or to our selves. When the threat subsides, the chemicals of our reactivity take time to get reabsorbed. We eventually move back into what can be seen as “ease and flow,” the relaxed state... Read more
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