December 7, 2014 People literally pray for their team to win, or for all the lights to turn green when they’re late for a meeting. I don’t think it works that way. I don’t believe the powers that be are spending much time on making sure the minutia in my life is taken care of …
Buddha Or Big Hot Mess
November 30, 2014 My mom’s not doing so well. I’ve known for a while now that there isn’t much more time to let her know just how dear she is. To let her know that she’s often been the reason my eyes sparkle and my heart sings. On some days I’m OK with it. With …
What Happens When You Drop The Labels?
November 17, 2014 Life doesn’t make much sense to me without the idea of an organizing principle. My experience is that not only is there an organizing principle, it’s benevolent. (In spite of what often seems to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary.) I notice when I cooperate with it I’m led in more satisfying directions …
What Do You Want?
November 8, 2014 I sat this morning with the intention of answering that question for myself. Here’s what I got: I don’t want or need wisdom, advice or opinions—although each is sincerely valued at times. What I really, really want in my life is people who want to interact with me, look forward to interacting …
Stay With The Questions
October 29, 2014 “I had learned that all of the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble…. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.” –Carl Jung, from the Introduction to The Secret of the Golden Flower Here’s my take-away from what Jung said: Lighten up. Give it time. Start fresh …
Honey, I’m Home…
October 19, 2014 “…now I can relax and just be myself”. Hmmm…turns out not so much. When my son was pretty young I had an epiphany. I realized I would never talk to a friend the way I sometimes talked to him. When I got my way I was a happy, pleasant housemate. When I …
Vulnerability
October 11, 2014 ‘To be vulnerable is to live; to withdraw is to die’. Krishnamurti ‘We are never more powerful than when we’re completely vulnerable and have nothing to defend.’ Robyn When we aren’t ready to look at or accept something about ourselves we build defenses, but that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist. Our …
Take Your Own Advice
September 30, 2014 Just read Sam Harris’s quote that ‘wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice’. We know what to do, right? And we don’t hesitate to share what we know with anyone who will listen (solicited or not). The problem is that although whatever advice we give would …
The Pause
September 22, 2014 Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor E. Frankl Think before you act. Take a breath. Count to ten. Those phrases are used so often you hardly hear them. But they’re over-used …
Getting Over Myself
September 12, 2014 I suspect that all the problems of the world could be solved—okay, maybe not ALL the problems, and maybe not actually solved—but at least minimized, if only more of us could figure out how to get over ourselves. What if nobody was married to the idea of being ‘right’ or even believed …