Seven Simple Ways to Reduce Your Smartphone Dependency
My eighteen year old son recently left his smartphone for a flip phone. He had become so dependent on his little screen that he was neglecting important things like real people, sleep, exercise, and reading. Read More
What is Your Practice for Being Purposeful?
This is a comfortable period of time in my life. Chemo is over, I am not traveling too much, work is rewarding, our family is healthy, and we will all be together soon when our Read More
Want to Live a More Purposeful Life? Try This for a Week.
Many years ago, my wife and I were traveling in Ecuador. One night, we came across a distressed man sitting alone on a curb. He was very drunk and bleeding from an artery in his Read More
How Cold Shower Shavasana Can Change Your Life
The other day I was in the parking lot of a yoga studio as a class filed out. Apparently someone had parked in a way that blocked one of the student’s cars. When she saw Read More
Disengage To Re-Engage: Mindfulness Is (a) Clutch
Neurocircuitry may be neurocircuitry, but we don’t have to run on automatic. ~ Jill Bolte Taylor
Upset, stressed, triggered, anxious, frustrated, overwhelmed, bored, stuck? You have the ability to step back and choose a more effective Read More
Six Reasons Mindfulness Improves Decision-Making
First of all, it is important to say a bit about what mindfulness is. Mindfulness is the skillful use of attention. It is the practice of intentionally bringing awareness and acceptance to what is happening Read More
How to Find Peace (and Sleep) When You Find Yourself Spinning In the Middle of the Night
Many of us who have taken on responsibilities — business, family, personal growth — find ourselves spinning at night. Our brains are on overdrive. We may be processing the events of the previous day, the Read More
The Power of Mindfully Owning Your Choices (and breathing)
I just got off the phone with a client who, like many of us, is incredibly busy. She is starting a financial company, and her to-do list is endless. She left a successful career with Read More
How Kevin Love Has Moved Us One Step Closer to Healthy Acceptance of The Human Condition
Recently DeMar DeRozan of the Toronto Raptors acknowledged publicly that he has struggled with depression. Following that, Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers came forward about his experience with anxiety and panic attacks.
I am very Read More
Cultivating a Good Life: How do You Remember to Practice?
How many of us have yelled at someone we love because we feel that they are being unkind? The thing we value is kindness, and yet we are being unkind in its defense. This is Read More
Good Life Practice: The Value of Compassionate Self-Evaluation
Maybe you want to reply to emails in a more timely manner, eat less sugar, spend more quality time with family, spend less time surfing the internet, exercise more regularly, listen more effectively to others…
Whatever Read More
We Can Stop Trying to Get Rid of Stress and Anxiety and Do This Instead
There have been times in my life – especially in my twenties and early thirties – when I felt utterly overwhelmed and ill-equipped to cope with what I was experiencing. Depending on which of my Read More
Mindfulness in Real Life: From Anger to Compassion at a Four-way Stop
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ~ Dalai Lama
Today I approached a four-way stop in my town where a large truck had arrived just before me. I waited a moment for the truck Read More
This is What Alexa Put in My Cart When She Heard Me Talking at Dinner
Before you go any further, I should warn you that telling this story gets a bit grammatically and punctuationally challenging, so read carefully.
Last year, my sons gave me an Echo dot for Christmas. It sits Read More
We Can Do This! How Kindfulness Can Save the World
I see it everywhere – gestures of all different sizes done on the behalf of another. These moments combine the awareness and acceptance of someone else’s needs along with the willingness to act. I call Read More
Mindfully Finding Space for Emotions in Difficult Times
The morning after the mudslides in my town, I was walking on the beach looking at the thousands of timbers that had washed up. These trees had been carried out to sea by debris flows Read More
How to Transform Your Life in Twenty Seconds
Commuting to work, caring for family, making financial plans, negotiating office politics, preparing meals, keeping up with the news, dealing with health issues — there are many possible demands on your time and energy. In Read More
Connecting with Unconditional Love in the Face of Uncertainty: Lessons from the Midst of a Wildfire
As I write this I am evacuated from my home in Carpinteria, California due to the Thomas Fire. We are safe, but flames fill the landscape on three sides of the hill where we live. Read More
Leadership: Giving and Receiving Feedback With Self-Compassion
Seven years ago, I left my teaching job and started a coaching and consulting business. I had no idea how to market what I was doing. I began by sending out a mass email through Read More
Mindfulness and the Power of Beginning Again with Gratitude and Kindness
This is a really good time of the year to think about what you practice on a daily basis. One of the reasons I love mindfulness practice is because it has many benefits – greater Read More
How To Be More Flexible In Your Thinking And Relationships, And Why It Is Really Good For You
It is difficult to express how much gratitude I feel for all of the wonderful lessons and reminders about human potential and human connection that I have received. Most recently, these lessons have come during Read More
“That was so cool!” The Transformative Power of Simple Human Kindness
Earlier this week I was getting my haircut at my favorite barbershop in Santa Barbara – Willies. It is no frills and I love going there for three reasons:
They are in no hurry. This Read More
How to Take A Mindful Approach to Unmet Expectations
Today I am sitting in a chair getting treatment for leukemia. The prognosis is very good, but the path is more complicated than I had expected. This leads me to think about the human experience Read More
Gratitude & Awe — A Mathematical Argument for Practicing Them Daily
My son and I just watched an episode of Cosmos and talked a bit about the chances of human existence. Then we considered our own personal existence. Inspired by our discussion, I did a bit Read More
How to Remember to Love
Fear, anger, distraction, boredom, annoyance, resentment, pettiness, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, stress – these are all normal parts of the human experience. Try as we might, we cannot find a permanent or healthy escape from them Read More