Our January guest speaker in The Little School of Big Change Graduate Community was Gary Crowley. Gary’s written several books. In one of them, From Here to Here, he talks about how awakening to enlightenment is the direct result of freedom from the illusion of the separate, volitional self. In other words, there is no
I just finished giving a series of talks to an amazing group of people in Germany and Switzerland. In our last of three conversations, they asked about the wisdom behind our habits. How can I say that habits and anxiety are wisdom in action? Their experience of habits and anxiety–most people’s experience, no doubt–was full
You’d like to be painfully stuck in a habit, addiction, or compulsion? Do you want change that feels like a tenuous, uphill battle? You’re in the right place! I’ve felt stuck in several of my own habits and I’ve talked with thousands of people who say they are stuck in a habit or addiction themselves.
Three of Gwen’s immediate family members died, and two of her remaining family members cut off their relationship with her, within a 10-month time span. A month after the third death she asked the not-at-all-rhetorical question, “How do I get over this?” “What do I do? How do I heal myself from the trauma of
Your brain is an appliance. A physical apparatus. It’s a little like the Play-Doh Fun Factory (which is modeled after a pasta maker in case you aren’t familiar). You select an extruder plate (an extruder plate is one of those things that looks like a stencil with shapes cut out) to place over the opening.
I bet you’ve tried change the hard way. Pretty much everyone has. The hard way is where you fall into one or more of these traps: You consider your habit or unwanted behavior a huge problem; it looks like a personality flaw, a weakness, or maybe even a disease. It hasn’t occurred to you that
There is nothing in the world that can’t be worked out by taking things one…moment…at…a…time. There are no unanswerable questions and no unsolvable problems. There is no angst or anxiety. All is ridiculously well when you simply Stay Here and do what occurs to you in this very moment. It doesn’t have to be right
Back in the early 1970s there was a psychology experiment done at Stanford. It’s been dubbed “the marshmallow experiment”. Here’s the CliffsNotes version. Kids around the age of 4 were brought into a room and sat at a table. In front of them was a single large, fluffy, delicious marshmallow on a plate. The experimenter
I’m at a substance abuse treatment center this week, sharing a deeper understanding of habits, addiction, and mental health with their staff. The unintentional theme of our talks so far has been about our “machinery” (i.e., our brain) versus what’s bigger than the machinery. See, machinery can be a bit wonky. Machinery can be a bit
I don’t have enough space here to list all the wonderful things about the book, Whose Mind is it Anyway? by Lisa and Franco Esile. But I’ll list a few: This little book sneaks essential truths about human life into a FUN, quirky, creative package. You’re likely to experience an inner space and quiet–the voices
