On this website you will find lots of articles, free audios and video, and other resources to help you with personal development, growth, and/or healing. Whatever you struggle with - be it stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, or addictive behavior - this is a place to find tips and tools to support you.
Give Yourself a Gratitude Boost
Tuesday, April 9, 2019 · Leave a comment
Give Yourself a Gratitude Boost!
In Uncovering Happiness I talk about how people’s #1 bad habit can be surprising – our thinking. Before we fall into procrastination, stress eating, isolating, habitually engaging our Smartphones, or any other addictive behavior, there’s an underlying thought. The thought is usually something akin to I need to get away from something uncomfortable or occasionally I want to elate this good feeling.
One of the most powerful ways I have found to change the atmosphere of the mind is a very simple practice to give yourself a gratitude boost!
Now, before your eyes roll you need to know this, you might notice thoughts arising like, “not this gratitude stuff again, I’ve read this in a thousand places.” If you notice similar thoughts ask yourself, “what is the net effect of this thought?” Does consider it incline you towards this practice or away from it?
4 Mindful Ways to Start Your Day!
Tuesday, April 2, 2019 · 3 Comments
Try 4 Mindful Ways to Start Your Day!
How we start the morning often sets the stage for how the rest of the day unfolds. Life has a habit of throwing us curve balls in many forms – a heated email, a fender bender, or a failed deal that you were really hoping would work out. Anything can happen in the present moment, and how we start our day can significantly influence how we respond to various situations.
These 4 mindful ways to start your day can help you deal with life’s inevitable ups and downs.
Do a Mindful Check-In
How to Mindfully Work with Difficult Emotions
Tuesday, March 26, 2019 · Leave a comment
How to Mindfully Work with Difficult Emotions
When many people hear the word mindfulness they might picture someone sitting serenely on a meditation cushion on a pristine tan wooden floor awash with peace. While there may be a sense of inner peace at times, mindfulness is also about learning how to work with difficult emotions.
The question that is often asked goes something like, “Sometimes I feel angry, anxious, sad, confused, or afraid when I meditate. How do I accept or let go of my emotions?”
The Joy (and Power) of Play!
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 · 7 Comments
The Joy (and Power) of Play
Children play. Nobody has to show them how to do play, they’re just born knowing.
But as adults, we become so disconnected from play that we forget what it is and how to embrace the joy of play. Psychiatrist Stuart Brown, who founded the nonprofit organization National Institute of Play in California, says: ‘Play is an ancient, voluntary, inherently pleasurable, apparently purposeless activity or process that is undertaken for its own sake, and that strengthens our muscles and social skills, fertilizes brain activity, tempers and deepens out emotions, take us out of time, and enables a state of balance and poise’.
Play is happening when you are so engrossed in something you enjoy that you lost all sense of time and don’t want it to end. It’s where that inner critic finally shuts up, self-consciousness fades away, and we can open up to new possibilities.
Play opens up a more flexible mind, beckoning us to seek out novel thoughts and actions in response to the task at hand. Play builds physical, emotional, social and intellectual development. As we continue to play, we become more flexible and creative in the way that we approach things and therefore helps us foster a resilient mind.
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Facing Fear as Waves in the Ocean
Tuesday, March 12, 2019 · 1 Comment
Facing fear is one of the things we all experience as humans. While it’s a natural instinct to protect ourselves from harm, fear can also hold us back from connecting and engaging in life.
If we are able to slowly face our fears, understand that they are a part of ourselves that feels insecure and in pain; we might begin to change our relationship to them. The moment we notice we’re at war with our difficult emotions is a moment we’re sitting in the space between stimulus and response. The choice, possibility and freedom we experience in that space is The Now Effect
Is it possible to touch a place of presence where fear is just a wave and you are the ocean?
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