Worst Case, Best Case, Doing Nothing and Having a Plan

November 17, 2011

I was recently listening to a smart guy talking about how we get paralyzed by fear and uncertainty. He was teaching how to use fear and uncertainty to clarify what we want and move forward. For example, let’s say your inner voice is nudging you toward leaving your current partner but you’re really unsure. You [...]

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If nothing ever changed, could you be as happy as you want to be?

November 10, 2011

The power was out on much of the East Coast last weekend.  Some people were really affected by the outage. You’ve seen these people—the ones who end up interviewed by the local news or The Weather Channel. Their lives are put on hold until power is restored. They have no say in when their power [...]

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It’s happening FOR you, not TO you

November 3, 2011

When something isn’t going the way I think it should, I try to remember it’s happening for me, not to me. What’s the lesson this thing is here to teach? How is this helping me grow? How is this situation perfect? It’s another way of asking all those questions, except its statement, not a question. [...]

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How to Get a Miracle (and How I got over my First Love)

October 27, 2011

After 4 years together, my first love and I broke up during our first year of college.  It was mutual and somewhat expected. I took it surprisingly well at first. Until—just a few weeks after our break-up—I found out he was already dating someone else. Someone we both knew. Someone he had been friends with [...]

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The Lies We Tell

October 20, 2011

I was recently interviewed for a story on The Lies We Tell Ourselves, which got me thinking a lot about our common, everyday lies.  There are classic and pervasive lies, like “I can’t” and “I’m too busy”. “I can’t” and “I’m too busy” are lies because there is almost nothing we really can’t do or [...]

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A new form of suffering-repellent

October 13, 2011

I’ve found a practice that is suffering-repellent. Be like water. That’s how Wayne Dyer puts it. DO be fluid and easy and fill in the cracks; DON’T be firm and rigid and unyielding. Yield. Don’t concretize and solidify your thoughts. That’s how Pema Chodron puts it.  Soften around your thoughts, don’t harden around them. Be [...]

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What was your most useful failure?

October 6, 2011

My friend posed this question on Facebook. I love it. What was your most useful failure? I’m sure I’ve had a lot of life-saving failures. But two come immediately to mind: 1) Abhorring my first career out of graduate school. I was a trial consultant helping corporate defense attorneys craft lies to win their cases [...]

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I Choose to live in Easy World

September 29, 2011

I read a book by Julia Rogers Hamrick called Choosing Easy World: A guide to opting out of struggle and strife and living in the amazing realm where everything is easy.  Wait a minute…we can just opt out of struggle and strife? There’s an amazing realm where everything is easy? In a sort of epiphany, [...]

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Are you harshing your own buzz?

September 22, 2011

All the coolest research says making small progress on the way to a big goal makes us happier than actually reaching the goal. When we reach those stepping stone mini-goals, our brain rewards us with a quick hit of dopamine. In case you’re not up on your neurotransmitters, dopamine is the bringer of pleasure and [...]

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Success is sooo much more likely than failure

September 15, 2011

You might not believe me at first but I swear it’s the truth…. We’re infinitely more likely to succeed in life than to fail.  When you really think about it, much more goes right than wrong. Even on your worst day ever. This doesn’t feel true because—in a totally protective and adaptive way—we’re inclined to [...]

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