Writings, Musings and How-To Guides
Get your read on
How to Rewire Your Brain Using the Power of Your Mind
I’m in the middle of doing research for my next book and I want to share some cool info about your nervous system and how you can change it for the better. Many years ago when I read the book “The Holographic Universe” I remember being struck by a study by Alan...
You Need These 3 Voices in Your Head
When we let the ego drive the bus without having other ways of looking at the world, it can drive us a bit mad. One of the most effective tools I know to become a happier person and make sure we’re not only listening to the ego is to cultivate three distinct voices in...
This Email Almost Sent Me in a Tailspin
The term “shadow work” has been everywhere lately. But what is it really? I think of shadow work in terms of healing and clearing the way for better spiritual, emotional and intuitive connections. Shadow work uses strategies or tools to look at the parts of ourselves...
You Are Only Dust, But Yet You Are Also The Creator of Worlds
One of the most challenging things on my path of spiritual awakening is figuring out how to reconcile my awareness of who I really am, an eternal source of energy from a place of pure acceptance and love, with the reality of my human-ness and its associated capacity...
Challenge Stress
I’m about to tell you something that’s gonna upend everything you know about stress. Recent research has found that stress can actually be good for you. And not just on an emotional level, stress can actually heal you physically, too. The problem is we’ve been doing...
Why Mindfulness Meditation doesn’t Always Work
If you’ve tried mindfulness meditation and haven’t been able to stick with it, I think I may know why. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing our attention on one stimulus (like our breath or a mantra) and being mindful of any thoughts or other sensations that may...
Growth Mindset + Mindfulness = Happy Brain
Ready to hear one of my secrets to happiness? This particular trick is one that combines scientific research with a spiritual practice, one of my favorite things to do. This strategy is based on the work of Carol Dweck who researches “growth mindset” and how it can...
My NDE (Near Death Experience)
Just before I was offered the chance to die, I really had to pee. I was 5 months into my chemo treatment and I was a wreck, both physically and emotionally. At this point, I was unable to get myself out of bed, I was nauseated all the time, and I couldn’t keep food...
What is a sensory profile? And how is it connected to trauma?
I used to work as an occupational therapist for children with autism, ADHD, and other types of neurodivergence. One of the most effective treatment tools we had was the sensory profile because it allowed us to look at how school and home environments conflicted with...
What’s the most spiritual emotion? It’s not what you think!
When I first started the study of energy healing, I took a course on the Chinese 5-element theory. The 5 elements represent a cyclic, spiral growth cycle that you can see everywhere around you, from the cells in your body to the creation of new galaxies. Each of the...
How to Make Better Use of Your Time
One of my favorite novels is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let me Go. It’s a sci-fi thriller about the moral implications of human cloning and a few years after it was published, they made a film adaptation. I went to see a screening and afterwards, there was a Q&A with...
What I do when worry takes over
I’ve spent a lot of time worrying the past few days. My worrying always tends to be about the same, familiar topics and it feels involuntary — I’ll be fine one minute and then suddenly I’ll start with a familiar spiral of worrying thoughts. Like a well-worn path in...
Mother Teresa was an A$$hole
Recently, I’ve noticed a theme coming up in my conversations with friends and clients — we’re all sick of being nice. By being nice, I mean doing the emotional labor to make sure our message is coming through in a pleasant way, while also scanning our conversation...
Compassion is the first step
“Before we can be with one another we have to learn to grieve with one another” - Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. At the time, he was speaking about the conflict between the Israelis and the...
How to turn hate and fear into love
One of the most difficult things I’ve done is learn how to love the person who abused me. When I was 26 years old, I made the incredibly difficult decision to cut my mother out of my life. In child abuse survivor circles, this is often called going “no contact” or NC...
The Four Phases of Spiritual Awakening
I had so many responses to my last essay, “You are the boat”, that I wanted to tell you a bit more about what I know about the phases of spiritual awakening. And of course, talk more about the boat! The metaphor of a kayak navigating the rapids and how it relates to...
You are the boat.
I’m sitting in my red kayak, paddle across my lap, staring at the class 3 rapids just ahead of me. I’d pulled over to a calm spot on the river to mentally map my path through the rapid. Three days before this was the first time I’d ever been in a kayak in my life. Six months before this, at 32-years-old, I’d been diagnosed with stage III colon cancer.
You are a spiritual being having a human experience
Years ago, when I first heard the phrase, “You are a spiritual being having a human experience,” it felt comforting and like I was being given a pass from having to feel the burden of being human all the time. Oh yes, that’s right! This is just an experience,...