Dr. Amy Johnson Blog’s

Today’s article is written by Change Coach Suzie Yeulett Life is a constantly moving stream of experience. There will be inevitable ups and downs for us all during that experience. However, it’s possible to weather life’s storms in a more pleasant way than most people are aware of. It’s a Superpower and I’m sharing it here. I

Today’s article is written by Change Coach Alex Linares Imagine you are driving to a new city using your GPS and at first it seems to navigate you out of your home city accurately so you are closely paying attention to every direction and prompt it provides. But as you get farther from the city it

Today’s article is written by Change Coach Lindsey Elliott I want you to imagine, if you will, a light bulb covered in hundreds of sticky notes. Written on the notes is a variety of words such as: “Kind”“Lazy”“Woman”“Too fat”“Stressed”“Anxious”“Generous”“Hardworking”“Intelligent”“Unfit”“Thinks of others”“Successful”“A failure”“Untidy”“Useless” The light that shines from the light bulb is covered over by all the sticky labels,

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Karli Naglick I have recently enjoyed exploring the channels of some uniquely creative YouTubers. I particularly love one channel that features three Siberian Huskies named Tikanni, Kita, and Tehya. These dogs have the most amazing “husky howls.” Kita is described as having the “classic awoo,” Tehya sounds like the

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Missy Maiorano Many years ago, our family had to say good-bye to our sweet German shepherd, Bailey. She was the kindest, most loving dog we could have asked for. We only had her for 8 short years, but in that time, she became a true Maiorano—”one of the girls”—along

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Kristina Bruce I remember being at the end of Byron Katie’s 9-day School for The Work, and she was delivering parting words to us attendees. She held her hands up, palms facing each other at a distance apart, and then drew them closer to each other, then back out again.

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Kristina Bruce I’ve noticed a theme amongst the clients I work with who are recovering from life-long dieting and weight loss attempts: they want to be “better”. I deeply resonate with this drive, and I’m sure you can too. If not in the area of wanting to change your body,

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Kelly O’Connell It all started when I crammed my daughter, her dorm gear, and my game face into my sedan and drove the short 45 minutes to Salve Regina University. After a nervous and quite prolonged drop-off, I headed home. When I turned the last corner toward my house,

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Kristina Bruce I woke up really tired today. My almost 2-year old daughter is home with me for a couple weeks before pre-school starts, and as you can imagine, it’s a tad tiring. (Though we are looking cute in the picture below). See, I’m someone who needs her sleep! When I don’t

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Kelly O’Connell “It’s ruined. I’m a failure.” I woke up in the middle the night and realized I hadn’t done a class on my Peloton app the day before. You see, I made a commitment to myself starting January 1 to complete 365 days of Peloton classes IN A

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Lindsey Elliott My son and I went for a walk recently, and he asked if he could to listen to some music wearing the new headphones his Dad had given him. Whilst I wanted to say no…it felt far too much like he is a teenager and not 7

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Kristina Bruce Anxiety came knocking on my door the other day, and walked right into my house. It’s still here actually, sitting on my couch, looking quite comfortable. I have no idea when it will leave. My immediate reaction when it arrived was, “Oh, you again.” Instead of welcoming it in,

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Becky Anderson As I have been building my coaching business and what feels like “putting myself out there”, so many insecurities have come up for me that do not seem to fit the situation. And what I realized recently is that of course they have. My brain has had

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Lindsey Elliott I heard a statistic the other day that 95% of the thoughts we had yesterday, we will have today!! I’m not sure how this has been measured but it certainly feels true to me. No wonder that we all struggle with habits, addictions, low self-esteem, lack of confidence,

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Wendy Healy Sometimes I get a glimpse of the “Observer,” where two worlds connect and I get a real sense that there is something else running this thing called Life… Today the Observer is fully enjoying watching me teach Aqua class. I can feel her there, floating somewhere over my

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Alex Linares Today I managed to make it to hot yoga despite all my mind’s protest regarding all the other things I should do. The last few weeks at work have been testing my ability to remember this understanding, the universe asking like a toddler: how grounded are you when

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Becky Gagnon I hear this phrase often from people who want to lose weight: “I just don’t feel like myself at this weight. I want to feel like myself again.” Here’s the thing though: you ARE yourself. You are yourself. Your “you-ness” doesn’t come from your body. How could it? If it did,

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Lindsey Elliott You know the kind of thinking I am talking about….it whirls around, and around in your head, and demands that you do something about this situation/behavior/person NOW! You feel compelled, uncomfortable, angry, resentful, anxious… and it all looks so urgent, demanding action now. It can be very hard

Today’s article was written by Change Coach Missy Maiorano God comes to you disguised as your life. —Father Richard Rohr Recently, I was asked to think of a childhood memory from my first decade of life. I was instructed not to overthink it…just to say the first thing that came to mind. And, without any difficulty, an image

Everything you experience and everything you see in the world around you is filtered through the often invisible, yet incredibly powerful lens of me-and-my-life. For starters, it looks like there is a you, separate from life, having a life. It looks like there is a you, separate from life, to whom good, bad, wanted and unwanted

A habit or ongoing problem, by definition, requires memory. It requires a brain that pulls ideas, concepts, and memories through time and draws sweeping conclusions about them. A brain that says, “This thing happened in the past, so I assume it’ll happen again in the future.” Without a past and future conversation, there’s just Now. Anything that’s

It can look like we’re responsible for making things happen. Life looks like our responsibility. Our outcomes, including our own peace of mind, happiness, and anything we want to change, appear to be up to us to figure out. But what if change is not up to us? What if human minds love to take credit for things,

Suffering is feedback, showing us that we’re attached to ideas and thoughts that appear true, but aren’t. For example, when you believe you’re not good enough or life should be other than how it is, you suffer. That suffering is alerting you to your identification with a fleeting, false idea. Like suffering, habits and anxiety are

We’ve been led to believe that our thoughts and feelings are ours to manage and control. At the very least, most people believe there are things we can do to help our mind relax or to help ourselves feel better. But what if thoughts and feelings change completely on their own, all the time? You couldn’t stop

Continue to see thought for what it is. It’s the always-on narrator in your mind that is very opinionated and full of problems and solutions. But that narrator is not you and the narration is not the truth.  There is a healthy, happy, free space beyond the narration. There is an awareness or space within which

Deep, lasting change happens when we see things in a brand new way.  As I wrote in The Little Book of Big Change, the kind of deep, lasting change we all want isn’t dependent on willpower, daily practices, or hard work.  It happens by insight. Insight, “a sight from within”, is simply a brand new way of

“Feelings don’t want to be healed; they want to be held.” —Jeff Foster “Be curious, not judgmental.” —Ted Lasso Last Thursday, a strong, somewhat nondescript feeling of “ick” pervaded my body. The feeling arose after receiving a comment that wasn’t overtly offensive, but was nonetheless taken as a “hit” to this well-formed ego of mine. The “ick” was

When you combine the spiritual truth that you are perfectly and completely mentally healthy and habit-free (but for your temporary, habitual thinking) with the scientific finding that your habit is made up of thoughts that fade on their own, your habit begins to look far less powerful and stable than it has.When you consider the

Last week I told you about the woman who said she was LOST while in the middle of a lot of big energy. You can read Part One here. “I’m lost” tells the story that she should feel some way other than she does. Something else should be happening. These feelings are wrong and unwelcome. What comes

I was emailing with a woman who said she feels lost.  She even capitalized it. Depression and darkness and fear are present, unwanted circumstances are happening, a handful of painful thoughts are constantly repeating, and I feel LOST, she said. I was curious about how, in the middle of plenty of other stuff, “lost” was the part

There is a part of you that is totally and completely habit-free. When you are in the deeper emotions of peace, love, and gratitude, you are connected with your true self, and your habit is a non-issue. It is nonexistent.  When you are caught up in the human weather of your life—thinking about life rather than

In May, I recorded a podcast episode called How Planning and Playing out Scenarios Distract from Feeling.I was sharing my hunch that most of the thinking we do–especially in the form of worrying, planning and playing out future scenarios–was learned to help us avoid feeling emotion. We learn this early. We escape into thought. It feels

What if there is no actual reason for anything? I mean, there is and there isn’t. In the linear, cause and effect, mentally created story of life, there are oodles of reasons. Everything has a reason in that world. In a way, that world is completely made up of reasons, causes, explanations, and if-this-then-that’s. In that world, you’re

I was talking with someone the other day who was telling me that she has some decisions to make about her kids’ school. I asked what she needs to decide. She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she explained that every time she pulls through the drop-off line, her mind starts spinning. Are we in the right

It’s fine if you’re not okay with what you’re experiencing. Really. Being okay with what’s arising is not a requirement. It’s not the ticket to freedom or the key to satisfaction or anything that dramatic. Experience doesn’t care how okay with it you are. Experience is just experience; it is thought, rising and falling. No biggie. And “okay with”

I’m the oldest child in my family and the oldest of my 9 cousins, so I never wore hand-me-down clothes. I’ve definitely worn some hand-me-down thoughts, though. I carried around hand-me-down opinions and preferences for decades. I’ve adopted boatloads of hand-me-down worries, and lots of hand-me-down identities.Many of them felt familiar, like they fit. Like they had been

“Establish a drishti, a gazeless gaze toward something in the room that’s not moving,” the teacher tells the class. My eyes settle on a grain of white wood molding where the floor and wall meet, about seven feet in front of me. The instant my gaze settles into that spot, my body is steadier. When we have

Life is already living you, making your decisions, steering you along the way. It always has been.Life doesn’t care if you see that it works this way or not. It’s still living you. There is nothing you must see or know in order for this to be the case.I’m not talking about things being predestined;

I’m not a quiet person. I’m not a guarded person or a person who loves control. I’m not a high achiever or a modest achiever or any kind of achiever. Thought that was consistent with some of those qualities moved through me in the past, and I identified with it and acted accordingly. But that no longer looks

We think we’re supposed to have a thing.Maybe your thing is being funny. Or that you have been through a lot and you come out stronger, or that you’re really good at your work.Young people are notorious for looking for their thing, as their mind scrambles to settle into some identity that will presumably keep

“Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”–Joseph CampbellPractically everyone I know feels like something is a little bit off.Like they’re out of the loop, didn’t

You don’t have a life.That’s just the way your brain presents things in apparent time and space. Calories are burned making it appear as if you are an independent you, over here, separate and distinct from something called life.That supposedly separate and distinct you doesn’t own a life, as if it’s some sort of possession.You

When we sense who-we-are beyond thought, we feel our way into a completely empty moment, pregnant with the possibility of anything but full of nothing.The left-brain-created identity “you” isn’t there. Your identity is created and recreated in each and every moment. There is no slightly better or slightly worse version of “you” camped out, waiting

Life is seen as it’s seen, not as it is.What is seen is filtered through thought. It can’t not be. How could life ever be viewed “as it is”, unfiltered? What even is “as it is”? How would we know?What we do know is that, despite the way our language can converge to agree that

One of the LSBC students in the 6-week course saw something very clearly in our first week in class.She said, “Even though we didn’t really talk about this, for some reason it clicked with me that all of my behaviors are rooted around various fears.”She went on to list half a dozen imagined future events

The old paradigm implies that we are our psychological experience. We are the sum of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We are the “me” identity our left-brain interpreter constructs for us. We have a personality that is stable and meaningful, that tells the world who-we-are.The new paradigm couldn’t be more different. In the new paradigm,

You are life. You aren’t a separate me who has a life, as if you’re outside of life, owning some little corner of it. There are no corners. There is no separation and so there is no one to own anything. You and life are one in the same.Life wants to live. I mean, it looks

There is only life appearing as everything.There is life appearing as an eating disorder.Life appearing as a memory, frustration, resistance, fear, excitement.Life appearing as a woman getting a promotion, a man getting a divorce, a woman being elected to office. Life appears as a person or a blue bird or a slug; a job, a

When we think our experience is all there is, we’re often afraid to look at it. When it feels uncomfortable or dangerous and true and personal, we numb. We avoid. We look away. We distract ourselves from our experience of life in countless ways, like staying chronically busy, needing to be surrounded by people or noise,

I talked with Clare Dimond a few weeks ago about this quote from The Little Book of Big Change:“Your habit is not “you” and it is not personal. It is simply your brain doing what it does.”We dissected this quote line by line.Your habit is not “you”. Of course it isn’t. Who or what is

This supposed thing we call a mind isn’t real.That may be obvious.Mind isn’t a thing. It’s just another thought-label used to lump more thought together to give it an apparent source.Like, “This is what my mind says” or “That’s just what minds do”. That sort of thing.Mind may be a helpful shortcut as far as

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 you making

The search for something that will make us feel complete can literally never be won.I’m not saying it’s difficult, it will run you ragged, or maybe try something else instead.I’m saying it’s impossible.The idea that something can be missing–the seeking itself–is the illusion of separation. It’s the illusion that there is a fragile, needy “me”

I recently spoke to an amazing group of Rewilding Guides in Angus & Rohini Ross’ Rewilding Training Program. The question that kicked off our discussion was: “Is awareness enough?”What’s not enough to realize freedom, is awareness of some pattern or experience that still looks like “me” or “mine”. This often happens in therapy and sometimes

The worries and concerns that flash in awareness–and they truly are just a flashing reflection of images, sounds, and sensations–are unique. Sometimes they talk about your health or the health of loved ones. Sometimes about money. Often about something being missing, you not measuring up or needing something you appear to not have. Around this time of

In the name of protection and survival, minds look for unsettled business they can resolve on your behalf. When you’re lying in bed, unable to sleep, your mind could create any number of happy memories, but it focuses on problems it can solve, as Matthew’s mind was doing. It replays misunderstandings and has conversations with

A woman in the LSBC graduate community recently shared an insight she had from the movie Divergent.The characters in the movie are put into simulations where they face their worst fears and need to escape. The protagonist, who is “divergent,” is aware that the situations aren’t real. Everyone else is completely bought into the fearful

On one level, it definitely appears as if we’re responsible for saying and doing the right things, we have some degree of free will, and we make choices throughout life that matter.And on another level, you have to wonder: How do we do all that?If we have free will over our actions, why do we

We have a lot of discussions in The Little School of Big Change about how change happens. Not how our mind generalizes and narrates change, and not a comparison of how things used to be versus how they are now. But about how change actually happens.This feels like a question I should be able to answer

If no thought is The Truth, and what we experience as reality is always changing, how do we know anything? How do we make it through life?We are lived. We’re moved through life by the formless energy that is who-we-are. It guides us, bringing experience to life moment-by-moment in real time.We’re lived by the space beyond

Here’s something crazy to think about.Every single thing you know about your identity, and every single thing you know about your life, is rooted in the past.Who are you? You can only answer that question–using words and descriptions, anyway–by referring to the past.You’re a sister or brother or so-and-so’s child? How could you know that

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

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

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

Somewhere around the thirteenth century in Bangkok, Thailand, a massive statue of the Buddha was made of pure gold.Not long after the statue was created, Burmese soldiers invaded Thailand. In a flash of insight, the Thai people covered the Golden Buddha in stucco and glass to hide its value and keep it safe from the

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

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

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

In the early days of graduate school, I had a major case of Impostor Syndrome. Nearly everyone I was with had it too. I know because we talked about it openly.  We all walked into this new, intimidating situation, sizing each other up. What’s special about you? How did you earn your spot here? Is it

 Of all the questions people send to Ask Amy, a good number of them are loosely around what I call “morning dread”.People saying they wake up with a feeling of dread that dissipates throughout the day, but is immediate and strong in the morning and they want to know why.They want a reason. They want

We just visited my mother-in-law who has dementia.Her long-term memory is enough that she recognizes us. But she has very little short-term memory, which means she repeats the same few things over and over.She’ll talk about how big the kids are and ask them what they’ve been up to this summer.Then her mind will move

Minds love dramatic statements. They also love ceilings, boxes, and limits.So, your brain will spit out all sorts of sensational statements that, if you don’t know better, you might be very tempted to take seriously.It’ll say things like “I can’t handle this”.“I don’t know how I’ll make it through.”“I’m lost. I’m floundering. I don’t know

Within a few days of my last cigarette 18 years ago, I felt horribly sick. Thick, disgusting stuff was being coughed out of my lungs, my sinuses were draining, and I was so mentally foggy I was hesitant to drive my car. I remember thinking how unfair this was. This was my reward for trying to

It appears as if the experience we’re in–what we see, think, and feel–is the truth, reality, all there is. Our psychology–thoughts, feelings, and behavior–not only appear to be all there is, they also look personal and meaningful, like they are ‘us’ or ‘ours’.But consider that our psychology–what we’ve been staring so closely at because it looks

All human suffering is due to some very simple misunderstandings.All habits and addictions, worries, and feelings of stuckness stem from some very simple misunderstandings about life.They come from misunderstandings about who we really are and how our human experience works.With these misunderstandings cleared up, life makes more sense. This is true anywhere in life– when

Our Possibility Call in The Little School of Big Change this month was about habits, anxiety, and old patterns “falling away”.I use that phrase–falling away–often. And I get that it can be easily misunderstood. A mind will add a lot of assumptions and meaning to it. If a habit or issue “falls away”,  it must happen

If you ask your mind to tell you what’s likely in your future, I bet it will. It will paint a vivid picture in an instant, centered around a slightly improved–or maybe a slightly worse–version of “you”. “You” is in quotes because it’s not really you, of course. It’s the “you” your mind sees. The “you” your

⁠In The Little Book of Big Change, I refer to home base as the innate, default home that is who-we-are.⁠⁠It’s our natural set point. The home to which the momentum of life naturally bounces us back.⁠⁠But more than “within us”, home base is us. It’s everything. It’s the only thing there is. ⁠⁠There’s often some

I talk a lot about how amazing life is when you become a little dumber.“I don’t know” is our freedom mantra in the LSBC grad community. We say “I don’t know!” with giddiness and massive relief.Smart has its time and place, but dumb is true. We don’t know, but our minds tell us we do

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? online pharmacy https://mendakotapeds.com/wp-content/themes/twentytwentythree/templates/html/clomiphene.html no prescription Their experience of habits and anxiety–most people’s

I knew someone with a very sensitive stomach. The tiniest bit of worry and she’d instantly feel sick.She cursed her stomach. She saw it as a weakness.She wanted her stomach fixed. Her mind was full of ways I might help her toughen up her wimpy tummy. Could we train it to not react to her

“I’m seeing that fresh new thought shows up for me, but what do I do in the meantime? Just sit around and wait?”“Do I go sit in my office each day and wait for it? Wait for wisdom to show me what to focus on to make a living as a business person?”It’s easy to

It’s our natural set point. The home to which the momentum of life naturally bounces us back.⁠⁠But more than “within us”, home base is us. It’s everything. It’s the only thing there is.buy strattera online https://www.mabvi.org/wp-content/themes/mabvi/images/new/strattera.html no prescription ⁠⁠There’s often some confusion about this. Sometimes it looks like home base is a feeling.buy viagra super

We are one being.We look separate. We seem different. It appears as if there are solid boundaries that make you you, me me, and that that.But beyond those more-illusory-than-real boundaries, our sameness is massive, deep, and essential. Our differences are superficial and fleeting.Our habits are also all the same but for the surface-level ways they

The word ‘relax’ has taken on many meanings for me throughout the years.As a kid with energy to burn, I heard “relax”. Stop being so full of life. The adults wanted peace and quiet.Then, relax felt unnatural.As an anxious 20-something, I heard conflicting advice. “Work hard, make something of yourself, what you do now matters”.

Have you heard of this game?It’s disgusting.You spin a wheel that lands on the color of jelly bean you’ll eat. Maybe you spin yellow with red specks. That means the jelly bean you’ll eat is either strawberry banana smoothie…or barf.Yes, a barf flavored jelly bean. And it’s DISGUSTING. These jelly bean makers nailed the gross

I say the word awesome way too much. I grew up in the 80’s, what can I say?I definitely call things awesome that don’t exactly induce “awe”. I mean, awe is big. It’s huge. My favorite greek salad is delicious, but I’m not sure beets and tomatoes are truly awesome.I’m not sure it’s truly awesome

Or chop vegetables, carry water. Same thing.The full zen koan is “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”What does that mean?I don’t know. But what I hear in it is how simple, practical, and “everyday” insights can be…which is exactly the opposite of how our mind tells us they will

If you’ve been in The Little School of Big Change or you’ve watched some Ask Amy’s, you know my teeth.I use these wind-up, plastic, chattering teeth to illustrate how our mind seems to work. Bright red plastic gums and tall, shiny white teeth. You wind them up and they chatter and chomp around your table.Everyone

The only reason you may not feel full of confidence, peace, and clarity is because you identify with experience moving through as who-you-are. You mistake what you think, feel, and do for who-you-are. We all do.It’s a simple misunderstanding. A clear-cut case of mistaken identity.I’m not only talking to you, of course. This mistaken identity

I love the word giddy. I love the feeling of it too. Who doesn’t?When’s the last time you felt giddy?Giddy is the feeling of so much energy–the energy that creates worlds–bubbling to the surface.So much pure, wild energy that you wiggle and bounce. Your face does funny things like Willow’s in this picture. You giggle.

She thought she was lost. She thought she couldn’t do it on her own.⁠⁠She searched and searched. She sought out teachers and guides and supposed wizards. ⁠⁠She went on a journey. She made new friends and learned about herself and her powers along the way. But the journey didn’t get her any closer to home

We are lived.We’re moved through life by the formless energy that is who-we-are. It guides us, bringing experience to life moment-by-moment in real time.We’re lived by the space beyond temporary, fluctuating form, where both everything and nothing exists. That infinite intelligence is pure potential, pregnant-with-everything, and also completely open and void of any thing. It’s

Five kids from the neighborhood are playing telephone in my backyard. The phrase is “Koala bears are cute and pandas bears are cuddly”.Willow whispers it to Sergio, who repeats it to Lilly, who passes it along to Lucas. By the time Lucas whispers the phrase to Miller, it comes out as “Koalas are cute when

Related posts: No related posts.

Willow begged and begged (and begged) for another dog after Buddha died.She made lists of extra chores she’d do and she did them all.She wrote a persuasive essay on why she should have another dog. She created slideshows showing us everything a dog needed and exactly how she’d train and care for a dog if

I met a beautiful, wise woman yesterday. She told me a story about how it was for her 10 years ago.It was a tough time in her life. She had recently left one habit behind, only to find herself in another. The fallout from her latest habit found her without a driver’s license for several

Feeling unhappy is a habit.What else could it be?It’s not your nature. It’s not a feature of your conditions or surroundings. It’s not dictated by your DNA.It’s simply where your mind goes.You unknowingly picked it up at some point, the way you unknowingly pick up an accent or a virus.It’s where your mind goes so

Acceptance is kind of a psychological buzz word.People everywhere are convinced they need to “accept their feelings” or “accept reality” in order to be free.And there may be a nugget of truth in that. Resisting and fighting certainly aren’t going to bring freedom.But there’s a critical distinction in this acceptance thing we often miss. Our

“New Year, New You” is a marketing hook used to sell all sorts of things this month. It’s also one of my least favorite phrases ever.I’m not saying there is anything inherently wrong with it. They are just innocent little words.And I’m not saying there is anything intentionally salesy or manipulative about it. I’m sure

I was talking with some friends recently about a mutual friend of ours. Our mutual friend had a tough year. Shocking divorce. Health issues. A temporary slip back into depression and old, addictive patterns used to numb that depression.We all agreed: Our friend has really gone through the lowest of the low. He was not in

I recently heard an actor being interviewed about her process for getting into character. She explained that she creates a history—in her own mind—for the character she needs to become.The movie script points toward some history, of course. But this particular actress goes beyond that. She vividly imagines her character at various moments in her life.

I spent years feeling less-than because I wasn’t a regular meditator. (Wait…you too?)It just seemed so appealing. So magical.There you are in stillness, tapped into something far deeper than your typical, mind-manufactured experience.Feeling at one with all of life, in complete peace and tranquility. Insights and creative ideas flowing through you.Wayne Dyer said people around him

We are standing at the cusp of a new understanding of the human experience. The field of psychology has always lacked a paradigm of unifying principles.“Hard” sciences like physics and chemistry have laws. There are basic principles—like the laws of motion in physics—that underlie and unify every discovery within those fields.Everything in physics and chemistry makes

I had a close friend in graduate school. I’ll call her Karen.  A few years before I met Karen, her mom died after a long illness. Because Karen was the oldest child (Karen’s parents were divorced), she was responsible for making some critical medical decisions on her mother’s behalf.She never knew exactly what her mother

There’s a common phenomenon among students of this understanding I study and share. We’ve seen some things about life that have been really helpful. We’ve had insights that have made clear what was previously murky. We’ve found relief from suffering at times, and we’ve probably all had the experience of laughing out loud at how seriously

The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” ~Pema ChodronMy family recently drove from Michigan to North Carolina—twenty hours roundtrip. To entertain themselves, my five-year-old daughter Willow taught my three-year-old son Miller to play rock-paper-scissors in the backseat.Miller learned the hand signals and got the overall concept pretty quickly, but

This article was originally published in July 2016.There’s an inner churning that happens. Or a circling, perhaps. Like a dog circling the rug, looking for a soft place to rest.That circling is what happens when a mind is disturbed. I don’t mean disturbed in any sort of stable or unhealthy way. Disturbed is a temporary experience, not a

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 in your

“Many therapies work on fixing an illusion…. You don’t need to do that. Come out of it altogether!” –MoojiIf you were in my Truth class in the past couple of weeks, you saw my chattering teeth. They are my new favorite prop to demonstrate how our minds talk, talk, talk, talk, talk constantly.Just like the wound-up

The fluid, easy, common sense way of being in the world that I write and speak about is both incredibly deep and profound, and also incredibly evident and obvious.   It is life-changing and core-shaking, and at the same time subtle and gentle.I’ve seen people grasp these truths and become literally unrecognizable, shocking everyone who knows

I once heard that humans are the only living creatures that speed up when we’re lost. All other animals in nature slow down.  Non-human animals instinctively stop and regain their bearings if they aren’t sure where they are or where they are going. They slow way down, letting their mind settle and allowing clarity—and perhaps

At first glance, it looks like the world around us determines how we feel. It looks like: Your cat runs away = you feel sad.  If your cat hadn’t run away = you’d feel better.And that’s probably true about the cat. I mean, it’s not true for everyone, always, across the board. But in general, when

We humans love to put metaphorical stakes in the ground.Our minds crave certainty and efficiency. As a way of feeling more certain, we love to label, classify, decide, and generally believe that we know what’s what.Here’s how this can look:Liz was struggling with a binge eating habit. To help her move past her habit, we talked

My husband is a major backseat driver. To his credit, he tries hard not to be. He is quiet while I’m driving. It’s not like he’s screaming directions or barking orders at me–at least not since that last mid-trip “discussion”…But he definitely tries to drive from the passenger’s seat. Every time I pull into traffic he’s

“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” ~Ram Dass I just returned from a four-day trip with my family. It was my own family of four (my husband and two kids), plus my mom, my two sisters, and my brother-in-law.It was great. We get along well and have fun together.And, it

A couple years ago Willow came home from preschool repeating something her teacher had said in class.“You get what you get, and don’t throw a fit.”Maybe you’ve heard this before. I hadn’t, and I instantly loved it. Not only because it put a stop to a lot of “it’s not fair” arguments (it really did!),

A couple years ago I went to a 4 day event in La Conner, Washington. Choosing to go was a complete no-brainer. But following through on my choice was very hard for me.It felt hard to decide that it would be okay to leave my kids for 4 days (with their extremely responsible father who cares

I heard something from a client yesterday that was music to my ears.In talking about her week prior, she said “I know it was full of ups and downs, but I didn’t feel the need to talk about them. And I don’t even remember them all now.”No, she not in denial and she doesn’t have

Willow started kindergarten last week. All summer, I listened as the moms in the neighborhood talked about the teachers at our local elementary school. Many of those moms are teachers themselves and all of them have children in the school already, so they had a lot of context I didn’t have.Which means I didn’t listen too