There is something fundamentally challenging about gratitude that goes beyond remembering to practice it. If I truly admit how damn fortunate I am, I usually experience a myriad of feelings: pure love, then guilt, and then sheer terror. Guilt and terror? That might surprise you. After all, we practice gratitude to help us become more […]

I recently watched an excellent documentary on dirt – or soil, to be more precise – called Symphony of the Soil. The film offers a different way to think about agriculture, challenging the “rules” of the past 7,000 years and presenting a true paradigm shift. It was definitely worth the watch! The film got me […]

In modern Western society, we often find ourselves in a permanent state of unfulfilled desire. We are offered continuous distractions and stimulations that mimic reality, such as mass leisure, mass culture, and mass media. Constant intrusions and interruptions – now the norm in our culture – drive up stress, deplete mental and emotional reserves and […]

Living under old belief systems that keep us stuck can be automatic for us. Mindfulness practice and other tools that assist you in accessing the power of your whole-brain can help you identify these destructive thought patterns so you can move forward instead of just spinning in place. When we become aware of them and […]

Judging ourselves. Others. It’s true. We all do it. A lot. “That person is beautiful”. “That person is mean”. “I’m not good looking enough, rich enough or thin enough”. “I’m right and you’re wrong”. We can all relate to having these judgements and with little awareness find ourselves literally stuck in these belief systems/thought patterns. […]

Did you know that imagination is one of the most important attributes of the human brain? Think about it. Without imagination, Steve Jobs wouldn’t have created the iPad. Picasso would never have created his dazzling works of art. Without imagination, we wouldn’t have anything that nature hasn’t already provided for us. Wikipedia describes imagination – […]

Through patient and animal studies, it has been discovered that the two hemispheres of the brain see and respond to the world in divergent manners. Why is it that an organ whose job it is to communicate divided? The left hemisphere sees things narrowly and focused, while the right views the whole. This was advantageous […]

(For those of you who understand the title and photo reference, I applaud your superior taste in film.) 😉 We recently had to move. We were given just over two weeks’ notice that our old office needed “unforeseen renovations”. Gulp, cringe, yikes. We made it through these last two weeks intact and grateful – but, […]

As a therapist, I’m constantly asking people to practice compassionate curiosity about the places that scare them. I believe that people are inherently good and intelligent. That’s why I’m so interested in those moments where we find ourselves acting “out of character” or doing something that we know falls short of our values. Fortunately, I […]

The written history of flamenco only goes back about 200 years, but there are oral accounts of flamenco that are much older. There is much debate about “what is true flamenco.” My aim is not even to attempt to answer that question, which is a very slippery slope indeed. Rather, I would like to share […]