Ever notice that we seem to have more than one self at play? We catch ourselves acting spiteful, jealous, envious and petulant, but know inside that it’s not who we truly are. Here’s my best stab at describing what’s going on. We have multiple selves. There are various ways and systems of thought to slice…
You’ve tried everything. Therapy, yoga, positive thinking, meditation, exercise, and fasting. You’ve been on retreats that promised the kundalini serpent would rise up and awaken you. You’ve opened your third eye, cleared your chakras, done past life regressions. Maybe you’ve tried psychedelics. You expected that everything would change. But guess what, at the end of…
I intend to write this reflection in two parts, tracking the spiritual progress of our protagonist, Siddhartha, and then riffing on some possible meanings for our own spiritual journey. I must be one of the very few who had never read Herman Hesse’s classic novel, Siddhartha. It’s based (sort of) on the life of the…
In my last post, I wrote about the deep roots of shame. I was invited by a reader to write a post about how we exit the hell realm of shame. The first step is to realize, and I mean unambiguously realize, that we are not the cause of our shame. Which is to say,…
In the early days of psychology, emotional and psychological “disorders” were associated with our nerves. A “nervy” person today is thought to be somebody who either acts without fear (“nerves of steel”) or acts boldly but perhaps thoughtlessly (“she has some nerve”!). But the old timers understood that when it comes to how we face…