Category: The Nature of Thought

Thought Doing What Thought Does

We’ve come to expect our mind to behave the way we want it to rather than pausing to understand how minds naturally operate. It would be like bringing Jelly home for the first time and after a few hours saying, “This one’s too hyper. Her bark is too squeaky. She doesn’t work the way we imagined.” It’d

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Sensations and Labels

Several years ago, I was preparing to lead a live workshop, and I went to the venue to check on some logistics. I experienced panic attacks for a long time, but at this particular point, I hadn’t felt anything I would consider anxiety or panic for at least six or seven years.At the venue, I

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It Just Popped Into My Head

Before last week, Miller’s last haircut was in February 2020.He loved his long hair. He loved the way it flowed behind him when he ran. He loved that people called him Malibu Miller and told him he looked like a surfer or a European footballer. He loved that many of his friends wanted to grow

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Worry

I learned to worry at an early age.My mom worried a lot, often aloud, and I had no clue that what she was worrying about wasn’t real. You don’t as a kid.We were going to run out of money. We’d have to eat canned soup every night. We were going to lose our house. My

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Letting a Mind do it’s Job

If you’ve read Just a Thought (now available in the US, by the way!), you know why I find it so important to see what minds do.When we see, we don’t take it so personally. We get to be awake to it even while it’s happening.When we see, we realize it’s love and intelligence whether

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Presumed Identity

Lucy asked, “Doesn’t the fact that my mind is always creating this identity, doling out these warnings and fears, mean there must be something to them? Why else would my mind go there so often?”“What if it’s just the opposite?” I asked back. “If fear and insecurity are innately, deeply who-you-are, why would your mind

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Outside of Your Head, Nothing is Happening

Shhh…Be quiet. Find a right-now moment. Now. This one.What’s happening right now? What’s happening before thought?Before the narrator jumps up and starts narrating this right-now moment, what’s actually happening?Anything?Nothing?That’s what I find too. Before thought, in right-now, nothing is happening.The narrator in your head is the source of “things happening”. It tells a story about

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Tension

This is Bean.And this is how Bean likes to relax, in a full on sprawl, often (though not in this picture), draped over the air conditioning vent.One thing I always notice about my dogs is how deeply and completely they relax. They seem to have no problem falling limp, not an ounce of tension in

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I’m Not Proud of Myself

I’m unbelievably grateful that I am no longer caught up in the binge eating habit that felt so powerful for eight years.I’m grateful that I no longer have panic attacks, near-constant worry, and so many irrational fears and insecurities.But when someone asked me recently if I was proud of myself for leaving these behind, the

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Blast Off

I have a framed picture of Planet Earth, taken from outer space, hanging on my office wall. I love looking at that picture, especially when my mind is caught up in something that feels personal and up to me to figure out. From up in our spaceship, “me” and “my problems” disappear. Concepts like good and

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