Expectations and To Do Lists

We are so very bad at it.  It’s amazing.  It’s as if we’re seeing our goals reflected in a hall of mirrors in the Fun House at a carnival and we’re setting our expectations and creating our To Do lists based on that reflection.  We’re either setting goals way too high so they are completely…

Feeling Wisdom

Somehow we learn that strong emotions are like wild animals.  We can have them in our world, but in very controlled environments, with lots of training, and tons of escape features so we can get away at a moments notice.  You know, because they can turn on us. They never stop being wild, right? That’s…

Running Towards or Running Away?

There is no one key thing that makes a relationship work nor is their one that causes them to fail.  I dysfunctional relationship can work for decades because the individuals are dysfunctional in exactly the right ways for each other.  As the old rhyme goes “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat…

Anxiety & Desire

“While many people engaged in meditation claimed to find it made them more relaxed, I made a somewhat different discovery. Admittedly anxious to begin with, I stumbled on a rather odd realization: The opposite of anxiety is not calmness, it is desire. Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are…

Step Towards Desire

We all have things we want.  Things we want to be when we grow up, things we want to do on that bucket list, things we want to achieve sooner rather than later….  We have these desires that we label “If Only…” and then we stick them in a box and put them aside.  You…

Narrative Challenge

Narrative Challenge: The 1 Page Auto-Biography Telling our personal stories or narratives to others is important.  Our lives matter and we each have wisdom to share. However, when we tell someone our stories, we have an agenda (good/bad/meh) which informs how we tell them and what details we include, what we emphasize and what we…

Tho’ Much Is Taken

I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and…

Stuck On How

Life can be very much like a puzzle. There are all these things that need to get done, that we want to get done, that we should get done, and of course there are the things we call our real life which is the reason we’re doing all these things, but somehow all the things…

Let’s Talk About It

You can’t talk yourself into being changed. You can talk yourself into a process that will change you, but talking won’t make you take the actions and it won’t keep you at them past when it’s new or exciting or fun. Talking won’t conquer the fears that you’re avoiding. Actually, talking is something people do…

That’s Just Part of My Character

Is it?  Is it really?  People tend to excuse issues they have, struggles and reactions, hot buttons and behaviors, by saying that it’s just part of my character or that’s just the way I am or that’s just the way I’ve always been.  We don’t say this around the positive things such as intelligence, talent,…