Blog

What is 'Love' Anyway?

9/17/2017

The concept of ‘love’ has always been problematic for me.

When I was 19, I sat on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building with a girl I was dating. Her scented head rested on my shoulder as she murmured ‘I love you.’

She turned her big eyes towards me and my chest clenched.

‘Don’t say that,’ I said.

‘Why not? Do you not love me?’ Her eyes quivered.

Here I had a choice. I could say what she clearly wanted to hear or I could speak my truth.

‘I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know what love is. It’s a word, right? But what does it mean? If you watch John Hughes movies, which I do, then Love is some romantic ideal. But that can’t be it? I definitely have feelings for you, but I don’t know if it’s love. Or even if what I consider ‘love’ and you consider ‘love’ are the same thing. It’s a sensitive subject and I would want to make sure that we’re on the same page.’

I spoke my truth! The date ended moments later.

Creativity, Anger, and Compassion (aka 'I Am Writing a Book')

9/2/2017

Big News: I am writing a book.

When I say ‘writing a book,’ what I mostly mean is ‘telling people that I am writing a book in the hope that I will actually write the book if enough people think I’m writing a book.

Every once in awhile, I sit with a pen poised over a neatly lined journal or in front of my computer with the intention to write. I set this intention with an elaborate ritual that involves burning sage, meditating, and psyching myself up with affirmations.

‘You’re a good writer.’
‘You have something of value to share.’
‘Your story matters.’
‘You can do this!’

Sometimes I even bounce lightly in place while muttering these phrases, like a boxer about to go into battle.

It’s weird, trying to approach creativity from this positive, affirmational place. To enter into a creative space with love (or at least compassion)(or at least mild affection).

A few years ago my creative ritual looked a bit more. . .violent.

Energetic Leaks: what they are and how they may be sinking your ship

8/2/2017

I came across this poem by Hafiz recently that prompted me to reconnect with the concept of energetic leaks. First, here’s the poem:

Barely One You Wish to Harm
There are only so many people you can
Carry in your small boat before their
Weight sinks you.

A hundred you can carry whom you love.
But barely one you wish to harm.

Using the metaphor of a boat to stand in for one’s life or soul, Hafiz suggests first that there’s only so much that any individual can carry at any given time. That makes sense. It’s the nature of a boat to sink if you load it down with too much weight.

According to Hafiz, however, not all weight is created equal. We can carry 100 people whom we love, but barely one we wish to harm. The weight of those we wish to harm, and of the emotions that wish brings along with it, is 100 times greater than the weight of the emotions associated with someone we love.

Which brings us to Energetic Leaks.

Why It's Dangerous to See Meditation as a 'Productivity Hack'

6/19/2017

Mindfulness meditation is having a Moment.

According to Fidelity Investments, 22% of employers offered mindfulness training progarms last year. That number is expected to double in 2017.

Harvard scientists have found that meditation conclusively and positively changes brain structure. And the Harvard Business Review reports that mindfulness meditation reduces stress and helps practitioners rely more on executive functioning over impulses.

Aetna, the health insurance company, calculated that it gained $3,000 in productivity per employee that went through a mindfulness program. That constituted a eleven to one return on investment!

As the research builds, apps that promise increased productivity, decreased stress, and deeper connection proliferate on mobile platforms: HeadSpace, Insight Timer, Simple Habit and others make expertly guided recorded meditations available anywhere and anytime.

This is all great. I’m a meditation and breathwork facilitator. I’m not going to say that more people meditating is a bad thing.

However.

An Invitation to Trust: A Story of Slavery and Freedom by Hafiz

6/4/2017

In Hafiz’s poem "Bring the Man to Me,” a Great Teacher has a vision of a slave who has fled a cruel master.

In the vision, the man runs through the desert, feet still bound and hands still shackled.

The teacher sends one of his disciples to find the man and bring him to the teacher for help, healing, and support.

With instructions not to speak to the man, the disciple sets out to find him. Less than two hours later, he arrives at the cave where the teacher had seen the man in his vision. The slave huddles inside, trembling.

Remembering that he has been commanded not to speak, the disciple tries to communicate that he has come to help the slave. It doesn’t work. Probably because the slave is terrified, still tied up, and hiding in a cave.

The slave tries to run and trips. The disciple is ‘forced to subdue’ him. I imagine that the slave is slung over the back of a horse like a very scared bag of grain.

At this point, the poem becomes so beautiful that I’ll just quote it (or at least Daniel Ladinsky’s rendering of it):

The Flag: A Story of Art & Healing

5/25/2017

I’m sitting at a long wooden table in a firehouse that has been temporarily repurposed as an artist studio and maker space. All around me, people are engaged in acts of creative sorcery.

One person alchemizes cardboard into a hat shaped like a boat.
Another glues gills onto a fish sculpture.
A third cuts, slices, and hot glues pieces of cloth to make an intricate flag.

These people are not kids; they’re adults. Extremely accomplished, talented adults. I’ve been invited to join them on a 5 day adventure of creativity and community off the coast of Newfoundland. Over the past two days, I’ve told stories around a campfire, lead the group in an opening circle, and seen some of the most stunning landscape I’ve ever encountered.

So far, it’s been great. Until this detour into art-making.

Off the Mat: Why I prefer to facilitate breathwork in non-traditional spaces

3/24/2017

A few years ago, I read a story about a guy who was diagnosed with hypertension, high blood pressure, and early stage heart disease. When the doctor shared the diagnosis with him, the guy protested: ‘But I do yoga every day! How can my body be so out of whack?!’

The doctor was also puzzled and, curious, he decided to do a small experiment.

He hooked the patient up to a monitor and followed him to a yoga class. Here’s what he found:

Breathwork: Four Levels of Healing

3/21/2017

There’s a bit of a mystique around breathwork meditation that is not entirely necessary. The intention of this post is to share a bit of what you can expect during a breathwork session.

For folks who have practiced breathwork a few times, this might help create some context for your experience. For those who haven’t, it may answer some questions. Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Here we go. Breathwork works on four levels:

Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Every time we do the practice, it’s working on these levels in different degrees.

Sometimes it works to physically retrain the breathing mechanism of our body. Or we may be overwhelmed by the physical sensations it provokes. Tingling, constriction, expansiveness, temperature changing. The experience may be all about the body.

5 quick ways to destress and reconnect with your humanity in challenging times

2/20/2017

According to Psychology Today, Americans just broke a new record for anxiety and stress. If you’re into breaking records, that’s very exciting. For the rest of us, it may just be a confirmation that we’re not alone in dealing with that near constant tightness in the chest and knot in the stomach.

When the world goes topsy turvy and a swirling atmosphere of division, outrage and chaos becomes more pervasive, it deepens our stress and can affect us at at every level of our lives.

It can disturb our sleep, eating habits, and behaviors. We can start to define ourselves by our relationship to unfolding events. We’re protesters! We’re victims of a rigged system! We’re builders of a new, more just society!

It’s exhausting, numbing, and overwhelming. And, frankly, it’s dehumanizing.

While it’s true that adopting a daily meditation or yoga practice and exercising several times a week and watching your diet and drinking 10 glasses of water per day and cutting down on coffee and starting a garden will all help reduce stress. . .sometimes there’s just not space in the day for all of that. So:

Two Alternatives to The Hero's Journey

2/10/2017

If you’ve seen Star Wars or just about any Disney animated film, you’re familiar with the Hero’s Journey: An unlikely hero is thrust into an adventure by an Inciting Incident and must confront Challenges, usually three of them, to find the Holy Grail. In the process, the hero undergoes an initiation and comes of age, bringing wisdom and power back to his or her home. Along the way, the hero meets mentors and friends who provide crucial guidance.

The ‘Hero’s Journey’ sprang from the writings of Joseph Campbell, a mythologist who examined thousands of myths and stories from all over the world. He believed that the journey was a ‘monomyth,’ a deeply ingrained structure expressed across cultures and languages. You can learn much more about it here.
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with Campbell’s structure. What has happened, however, is that a slavish adherence to the Hero’s Journey has resulted in the proliferation of entrepreneurial, social impact, nonprofit stories that, essentially, all sound the same: