The lessons of life are awaiting us all. To the impatient come opportunities for patience. To the cowardly, opportunities for bravery. To the distracted, opportunities for focus. Whatever the defect, life steers us in the requirerd direction so that we may transcend it. We need but pay attention to what the lessons are. Why else [...]
I don’t know of anybody who is entirely free of addictions. Sure, not everyone drinks or smokes or does drugs. Those are just the obvious ones. But there are also more subtle addictions that fly under the radar. They were first given a name by Ken Keyes, Jr. He called them addictive demands. Let me [...]
Words have power, and by giving shape to thoughts, can determine the tenor of a person’s life. Whatever the purpose and whatever the form — written, spoken, or silent – thoughts, as words, leave their impressions on the mind. And in so doing, they become the primary force in the shaping of our lives. Consider [...]
Journeys inspired by ideals are assured of success. But so many journeys are nothing but aimless wanderings. Some of us have a map. Some of us don’t. Some of us make progress towards our destination everyday. Some us seem to forever be diverged from where it is we want to go. What creates this difference? [...]
To explore how we can increase the power within I want to revisit a quote from Rumi: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” These few words hold one of the greatest keys to unlocking the power [...]
I’m always looking for new personal development resources and I just came across a couple good ones. Jarle Husefest is putting out some great content and resources like free ebooks and generating some serious traffic. Do yourself a favor and check out his site. I have really enjoyed reading his free download of The Master [...]
“The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life.” – Carl Jung Knowledge of the essential varies from person to person. When I was 27-years-old I shared an apartment on Venice Beach, California with an old philosopher, a man [...]
No one wants to feel or be called irresponsible. But until a person finds purpose in life, then the life being lived is one of irresponsibility. I don’t mean that in a judgmental way. But if a person does not express in his or her life what the soul most earnestly wants to express, then [...]
Last night I attended a reading group. The group reading focused on suffering and spirituality, or more specifically, the role of suffering in the process of spiritual awakening. It seems that suffering is often the precursor to entering the spiritual path. One person said that when she worked as a director of a cancer clinic, [...]
Today I decided to write a review of Making a Good Brain Great by Dr. Daniel G. Amen. And the reason is simple: It’s an important book. If you just consider the high percentage of elderly people in the United States with Alzheimer’s disease you will probably agree with me. I only became aware of [...]
If you watched The Secret, you might remember seeing a vision board being used as a tool to manifest envisioned reality. This past weekend my wife and I visited my sister in the Washington, DC area. I noticed immediately she had turned the front of her refrigerator into what I would call a spiritual vision [...]
If you ever need an example of what personal magnetism is, I once read that Henry David Thoureau walked 20 miles to hear Emerson give a lecture. What was it in Emerson that had the power to inspire Thoreau to walk so far? After all, there were thousands of other people much closer who would [...]
Freedom from reactions becomes more of a priority when it is seen how often reactions imprison us. Everybody wants to be happy but most people don’t give the proper attention to what makes them miserable. So much unhappiness comes from reflex-like reactions to circumstances. Sometimes we react to what people say. Sometimes we react to [...]
Saying yes to life can make such a difference in its unfoldment. For instance, I am swimming in abundance this week. After a less than desirable start to the week with someone stealing over $3,000 from our checking account, things quickly turned around. After accepting the fact that it happened, I took the necessary steps [...]
I often find that my next step in life is revealed by living in the present moment, wholeheartedly, enthused, and unabashed. How so? Because it is in those moments that I am free from the limited perspective of my mind. Consciousness takes over control of life from the mind in those moments. Imagine that you [...]
Self-esteem gets a lot of hoopla in self-help circles these days, and that’s fine. but its also possible to go beyond self-esteem. There is no doubt that a person who has a high opinion of him or herself is happier than the person who doesn’t. However, there is another dimension to being that reaches so [...]
Viktor E. Frankl was suggesting conscious awareness when he wrote, “Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.” I hear a lot of people say they would like a chance to live life over again so they could get it right. OK. What do [...]
I have been on both sides of the continuum on self-confidence. I remember being so nervous speaking in front of one of my college classes that the teacher forced me to enroll in speech therapy. But a few years later I was regularly winning speech contests in Toastmasters in the Los Angeles area. I even [...]
Personal development is self-defeating if you attend to one dimension of yourself at the expense of another dimension. At best you will experience lopsided growth. At worse, you will become dysfunctional and obsessive. All areas of life (emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental) work synergistically with each other. When one area suffers, they all suffer. That [...]
A holistic health lifestyle is a lifestyle dedicated to wellness, achieved with awareness and conscious choices. If you are living such a lifestyle you are someone who enjoys taking charge of your health. You don’t take it for granted. You cultivate all aspects of your life-the spiritual, the physical, the mental, and the emotional. Energy [...]
Consciousness is the definer of our reality. I know this from my own personal experience from when I was only 21-years-old. In my case, a brush with death deepened and expanded it overnight. What normally is a long and gradual process happened quickly. I witnessed the results. I felt it in my inner being. Bliss [...]
Writing as therapy is a topic as close to my heart as it is possible to get unless you are the Love Doctor Himself — or a heart surgeon. Believe me, I shudder as I write the word surgeon. Am I superstitious? You bet. Do words have power? Does the moon wax and wane? Many [...]
What if all of your desires came true? Better than that, what if they came true instantly? It would be sort of like having unlimited wishes from a genie in a bottle. Do you think you would be happy? You would probably have the house of your dreams to live in, the most exotic car [...]
Wholeness is the foundation of the holistic lifestyle. To live such a lifestyle is to look in the mirror of the mind and see who we are. And to see who we are – infinite consciousness – is to experience the highest of all experiences: self-realization. Why is this state of being so hard to [...]
I saw a billboard on the way home from our vacation that said “Believe in Yourself – pass it on.” I can’t remember ever seeing a more helpful message on a billboard in my life. What a great message. It creates all kinds of possibilities. Doors open that normally stay closed. Worries disappear. Productivity soars. [...]