Dealing With Pain & Suffering: A Helpful Perspective

I had a vision. Well, NOT a vision, actually, because I was seeing REALITY… just more clearly. I was at a silent meditation retreat, about 6 days in. I had been spending 15 hours a day in walking, eating, sitting and wakeful meditation… kinda like a training camp for the mind. Observing every detail of…

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How Do I Get Unstuck? Bloom Where You Are Planted!

Summer is here and nature is blooming: bougainvillea, jasmine, jacarandas…  Are you blooming too? Or do you find yourself stuck… or worse, wallowing in toxicity? Let’s take a tip from the season: “Bloom where you are planted”  ~Mary Engelbreit  Bloom… This is the easy part. Don’t wait, don’t think about it, don’t plan it. Don’t…

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How Do I Change My Beliefs?: Harnessing the Placebo Effect

What if what you believed about yourself came true… because you believed it? What if the most effective and long-lasting cure for anything was… your thoughts? Wow. You are powerful. Recent studies at Harvard’s Program of Placebo Studies and elsewhere are proving it.  Here are the facts, as reported in last week’s Wall Street Journal: A…

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Santa Says: “Don’t Be Good!” From Unhealthy “Giving” to Authenticity and Love

What is it about the holidays that can be so bitter-sweet? Dealing with family issues and personalities that trigger you in the worst ways… Being around the people you love the most but who may not “see” you for who you truly are. And then there’s the “giving” season. Maybe you long to help in…

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Healing Your Vision Naturally: A True Story

The Optometrist was clear. “There’s no way to improve your vision without surgery,” he explained, going through a whole medical explanation of why this was so. And as he diagrammed and didacted his voice sounded more and more like Charlie Brown’s school teacher: “Wah wah, wah wah, wah wah.” My mind, on the other hand, was taking a ride…

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You are Perfect, Exactly the Way You Are: 7 Transformative Lessons From My Sexy Grandma

It was some kind of magical paradise. Glitter on the ceilings, hot pink carpet, full-length mirrors everywhere and a (tastefully) nude woman, back arched seductively, painted on the bathroom wall. It was Grandma’s house. And magic was in the air. Mixed with utter restfulness and a dash of food-induced lethargy. As we travelled from California…

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Coping Skills: How to Deal with Anxiety, Depression & Overwhelm

My body is tense and uncomfortable, looking for distractions… Caffeine? Perfect! Sugar? Bring it on! Text messaging, videogames, Facebook? Even better. My mind is shifting, circling without landing anywhere… one thought to the next distracted thought. Conversations and people around me are like magnets, drawing my fickle attention. I feel like someone dropped a handful…

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Spring is Here! 3 Steps to Clearing Your Mind & De-Cluttering Your Internal Basement

Internal clutter feels a lot like external clutter… It’s there and you know it. You don’t want to deal with it. The more you don’t deal with it the bigger it seems. And now there’s a secondary list of the things you need to do but can’t until the original clutter is dealt with. You’re…

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Slow Down! Why SLOW is The New Fast

Oh, it used to feel so good, so empowering. An adrenaline rush, really.  I could be writing a 5 year plan, on a conference call and communicating in hand-signals to my co-workers, all at once. Forget walking and chewing gum! I ran down the hallways to the fax machine, swung into my boss’ office, a…

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Overcoming Fear: Accepting and Integrating Your Shadow Self

“What I know from this daily journey  is that fear increases pain.  What I don’t know but I suspect is that pain IS fear.”  Shrieking and cowering on its hind legs, the Gollum-like cat bares and gnashes its fangs, hissing. Although free to roam in a beautiful garden, it is frozen in its tracks writhing…

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