What would happen if you let the pause be uncomfortable? Let your child be who they are? Let the sickness run its course? Let your advice go untaken? Let your parents be disappointed in your decision? Let yourself compare unfavorably? Let the person in the […]
Can you imagine? Being wrong for hours, sometimes even days was life before the internet and our ability to pull Wikipedia out of our pocket. Before portable computers and our instant ability to resolve factual disputes, writer Ben Tarnoff points out in a New Yorker […]
As the official gratitude holiday, Thanksgiving comes with some hefty expectations for feeling grateful, mightily so. It’s a good thing to do — good for the head, good for the heart and for the good of all, which science has proven beyond doubt. But there […]
“In my own worst seasons, I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window.” – Barbara Kingsolver, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, essayist […]
The framework I describe here is a process for remaining intact amidst all that comes at us over the course of a day, a week, a month, a lifetime. Every morning, we wake up and set about our day. In the hours to come we […]
Every morning, we wake up and set about our day. In the hours to come we will experience a continuous stream of pressures testing our in-the-moment soundness of mind and body. For example: Minimal pressure: You’re walking down the street and come to a crosswalk. […]
When you think of luxury, what does that word bring to mind for you? It instantly gets me thinking about 2,000 thread count sheets and a mattress that feels like sleeping on a cloud. The time and ease of mind to luxuriate in them. Food […]
I hear shouting coming from inside the courtroom then a girl bangs through the doors with the bailiff striding after her. She’s furious. “I told him I didn’t know my phone was on, but he wouldn’t listen!” I’m sitting on a bench outside the courtroom […]
Some new neighbors moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago. They are loud. They disturb the peace. They set off firecrackers. Illegally. I regarded this as a big problem. I wanted the old neighbors back, the formerly invisible ones. These new ones need to […]
Being able to navigate the overwhelming nature of distress is complicated by the way it focuses our attention right down to a pinpoint, confining us to a very small parcel of real estate in our mind. In this reduced space our entire field of vision […]
I’m writing this while under the influence of a meager five hours of sleep which means I am seriously under-resourced. (Not my fault; I gave a full 8-hour allotment my best shot.) Five hours may sound like a bonanza of sleep for some* but at […]
The worst part about life under the dominion of a toxic friend is the way that person manages to move in and take over your mind and body. A co-worker caught in that toxic dynamic started having chest pains so severe she had to go […]
Be cool. 