Blog

Video Summary: Social arenas are a way to become part of a community, find friends, or find a relationship. A social arena is a gathering of people that ideally meets on a regular basis. Social arenas might include a yoga class, church, meet-up group, meditation class, wine bar, or coffee shop. There are two ideal qualities of social arenas. The first is that it has people there that we can connect with and have things in common. And the second thing is that the activity we a

Video Summary: What are your standards of interaction? One of my standards of interaction is treating other people with respect. I've done a lot of work on myself to truly respect myself and other people. I have a standard that we respect each other in the interactions that I am in. The second part of having a standard for your interactions is being willing to take action to preserve that standard. A standard is essentially establishing an agreement with yourself. You could s

Video Summary: Summertime on the Medicine Wheel is a time that we try new things in our new way of being and a new way of navigating through life. We use trial and error to find out what works and what doesn't work. We discover whether the things presenting themselves to us are new doorways or repeats of old patterns. So we're learning, sorting, and noticing things. And we need a way of becoming aware and noticing what's going on. Say, I notice myself in the old pattern. If I

Video Summary: I want to contrast true compassion with what I call misguided compassion. Misguided compassion has been called other things, including codependency, caretaking, and enabling. But I'm going to use the term misguided compassion because it's specific and contrasts nicely with true compassion. So let's start with true compassion. True compassion occurs when we empathetically sense and feel what another human being is experiencing and offer acceptance, support, and

Video Summary: When we're not consciously choosing what we do and how we move through life, we act from our old patterns, belief systems, and conditioning. So if we're not conscious and aware of something, chances are we're on automatic pilot and being governed by our old belief system. And even when we are aware of something, but not making a conscious choice to act on that awareness, we're going to be controlled by that old belief system to some extent. So there's huge valu

Video Summary: I encourage people to walk with their hearts open. It's a big ask as it can be emotionally painful. We’re living in a world that can break your heart. Just following the news and working in a hospital, my heart gets broken on a daily basis. So how do you walk with your heart open in a world that breaks your heart? When we stop intellectualizing, medicating, and distracting ourselves from feeling, we begin to feel things at a deep level. The upside is we get to

Video Summary: I did a video blog four weeks ago that I called Two Intentions. The idea of the two intentions is that even though we're in a new space and have a new intention for our lives, we may still have a residual old intention as well. We may have an old and a new intention, both creating doorways. Our old intention is sometimes generated unconsciously by our old patterns and issues. And so, even though we're in a new space, we could be experiencing old doorways. And y

Video Summary: When I speak about intention, I like to refer to it as a partnership with life. In other words, I offer this intention and then life, and I am collaborating to unfold that intention into my life. I used the word life when I wrote my book, but it can be Spirit, the universe, God, Jesus, your Buddha nature, or your higher self. This relationship with spirit is perhaps one of the most fundamental relationships that we have. When we go to risk or step out of our co

Video Summary: The summer solstice, also known as the first day of summer, happens this Wednesday, June 21st. The summer solstice is a big deal in earth-based, aboriginal cultures. It marks the time that the dynamic energy of summertime and long days hits their peak. I like to talk about the summer solstice in terms of the Medicine Wheel from my tradition. In my earlier spirituality, I used to look to the Medicine Wheel to tune into the energy of nature and the earth. As I al

Video Summary: When we go through a significant change in our lives, our spiritual orientation changes. What I mean by spiritual orientation is where we see the world from and what part of our mind and being we are using to navigate the world. An example includes moving from an intellectual, perceptive, and upper chakra orientation, where you see things as they are. You see your truth, your connection to life, and the illusions of who you thought you were. You may realize, “O

Video Summary: There's this phase of creating something new in our lives when we are actually drawing from two intentions- an old intention with our old patterns and old way of being, and a new intention with our new way of being. Even though you may have worked hard to let go of the old patterns and old way of being, sometimes it takes a little while to shake it out of your system. So what happens is when you put out an intention, or in this case, two different intentions, t

Video Summary: When people interact with you, they offer you their gift. Granted, sometimes it may not feel like a gift. You could call it their offering if you prefer. It's what they offer you at that moment. My premise for this video is that the gift or offering people make is the best they can do at that moment. So you may say, “Well, geez, he said he was going to show up, and he didn't, so he certainly could have offered better. You're telling me that that was their best?