False Self

Endure Nothing and Nobody

I’m grateful to my mentor and therapist, Andrew Feldmar, for this principle. When he first dropped it on me I remember being speechless. I could hardly imagine putting it into practice. It’s wisdom spread through my system like a time-release capsule. Here’s why I think it’s so hard to accept, let alone practice. When we … Read more

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Privilege the true over the good

From the time we arrive the world wants us to be “good”. It’s easier for our parents, for our teachers, for just about everybody—except perhaps our selves. Al Gore wrote the Inconvenient Truth over twenty years ago, related to the environment. But it could be applied to our own development as human beings. We learn … Read more

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The Longing to Feel Alive and Addiction

Joseph Campbell once wrote something to the effect that when people say they are searching for the meaning of life what they are really searching for is an experience of being alive. This felt experience of being alive, and the realization of its absolute value is what I call “intensity”. We all come into the … Read more

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I Shall Not Want

The most beloved Psalm in the bible is the 23rd, which opens with “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”. I always thought it meant that wanting was wrong. I read it as an injunction. “You shall not want”. If “the Lord” is my shepherd the spiritually realized individual shouldn’t want (or need) … Read more

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Busted! The Deep Roots of Shame

I had a terrifying dream a week or so ago, which I ended up taking to my therapist. I’d been selected to play a couple exceedingly difficult classical piano pieces. The problem is that I don’t play the piano. There is an audience of 200 colleagues who are eagerly waiting from my virtuoso display of … Read more

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