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The Truth About Anger
2008-02-19 14:00:00
Is anger ruining your life and your relationship?  The truth about uncontrollable anger - it is really a cover-up for deeper feelings. Anger is not a “real” emotion.  It is what results when we refuse to feel what we are really feeling. ·        Anger is a reaction, i.e., what happens when we don’t deal with the real feeling, whatever that might be. It is a defensive against feeling.  The moment you FEEL, the anger stops. Anger is sadness flipped upside down.  It is always about a loss, an unfulfilled expectation.Feeling the sadness makes us feel soft and eliminates the hardness; as a result, it gets rid of the anger.  Anger wrecks havoc on your body and weakens your immune system.Anger and stress break down the immune system.  We come apart from the inside out; the body being the last place we display the dysfunction.  Anger destroys self-esteem and relationships.Bein...
More About: Truth , The Truth

Living With an Emotional Bully
2008-02-17 14:00:00
Are you living with an emotional bully?  This is abusive behavior that has long lasting effects and can cripple you for life.  This is behavior you can stop. Understand that abusive behavior is psychological as well as physical. Emotional bullies are abusive, verbally and mentally.  Remember, no one just gets up one day and just hits another person.  Abuse is gradual and builds over time.  All physical abuse started out as emotional abuse.  Immediately set boundaries.  You are being bullied because you allow it.Sometime when the abuse has been going on for awhile, you are very isolated, without friends and family.  This is what the abuser is counting on.  Reach out and ASK for help – from anyone who will listen!! Going for the jugular is a sign of emotional abuse.  It destroys people and relationships and nothing good can come of it.When your most sacred secrets are used as a weapon to hurt you, you are being abuse...
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When Commitments Work
2008-02-14 14:00:00
When you make a commitment – can you keep it?  If you’d like to know when commitments work, read on: 1.      There is an ease being with the other person.  You like that person’s company better than anyone else’s. ·        It’s a great feeling to really like the person you are with.  What a relief!!  Like and respect go hand and hand and are essential to loving.  2.      You feel safe.  You know that no matter what happens, the other person would never intentionally hurt you. ·        You also feel you can be vulnerable.  If you can’t cry with your partner, you can never really open.  Knowing another is an honor; there is a sacredness that is acknowledged, recognized, and never broken.  We naturally want to keep commitments when we feel safe. 3.      You feel supported personally and professionally an...
More About: Work

Being Real - Reality Works, Let It Happen (continued)
2007-10-09 15:00:00
When you show up with no agenda, you are ready to receive.  I understand that oftentimes there are very pressing problems, but trust me when I tell you there is no particular subject that will enlighten you, no particular topic of conversation that is any better than any other one.  Any place is a good place to open and enter; life is whole and what had energy will rise to the surface.  Trust this process and that this is what needs to be looked at.  This is the real stuff, based on the sub-text; what we really feel, not what we think. For example, many of you would like to be in a relationship and quite naturally hold a certain physical image in your  mind of what you want that person to look like. Now the problem with that is that if your ideal man is a tall, with blond hair and blue eyes you will miss the short man with dark hair standing next to him, even if that’s your guy.  I mean do we really care what someone looks like if we feel love an...
More About: Reality , Works , Real , Conti , Ality

Being Real - Reality Works, Let It Happen (continued)
2007-10-08 15:00:00
So…if we know we need to be present to experience reality, and the only way to do that is to feel, how do we learn to feel?  We have been so conditioned to think our way through life, we are so hard-wired, that we naturally go through the world believing we can use our thinking mind to make it work. Now I’ve been coaching clients for many years now and when they come and see me they always ask me what tools I use and what they have to do.  They are always surprised when I tell them “no tools”.  They invariably want to tape our sessions, take notes, have homework, journal, do something.  Now these tools may seem noble, but in reality they are just another distraction, a way to stay in your head.  Tools may point the way but they are not the way and any tool that’s picked up at some point has to be put down. I tell them I will ask only two things: 1. They need to show-up and 2. I am going to teach them to meditate and that they need to sit for me ...
More About: Reality , Works , Real , Conti , Ality

Being Real - Reality Works, Let It Happen (continued)
2007-10-06 15:00:00
The key to experiencing “reality”, i.e., “what is”, is to be present, and the only way to do that is to “feel”.  What we are talking about here is not emotions, but that spot in the chest that resonates as truth.  And to do that, we must pull the energy from above the neck to below it.    We can never really know anything with the mind, because the mind operates in the world of duality.  As the Tao says, when we find one thing beautiful, we find another thing ugly.  Only by dismissing one idea, does the intellect or mind accept another.  But to really know something, we have to experience it unconditionally, to step outside the mind.  To test the “realness” of something, we must feel it, and to feel, we must get out of the mind and into the body. The minute the energy settles in the heart, we become present.  At that moment we are no longer one step away from the action; we are the action.  Rather than thinking abo...
More About: Reality , Works , Real , Conti , Ality

Being Real - Reality Works, Let It Happen (continued)
2007-10-04 15:00:00
I’m sure many of you have thought about the concept of reality and even had discussions on the subject.  How many times have you heard someone say or even said yourself, “This is my reality and that is yours.  But reality has nothing to do with what someone thinks, it simply is.  When our life really begins to rock and roll is when our opinion of how it works and the way it really works are the same, they are in sync.  The space between what we think and how it truly unfolds determines the amount of incongruity in our lives.  This incongruity gives us pain, suffering and confusion and is in exact proportion to our separation from reality.  When there is a wide gap between what we say we want and what we keep getting, this is a clear indication that we are not “getting it”, we are not in the flow, not connected to reality. So…if we just think for a minute and remember a time when things just went our way.  We say the timing was right, ...
More About: Reality , Works , Real , Conti , Ality

Being Real - Reality Works, Let It Happen (continued)
2007-10-02 15:00:00
So…after 10 years I left India and the only life I had known for years.  And it was like all this psychological stuff was at exactly the same place I had left it, frozen in time. I began the process of confronting my demons, sitting with the fears.  I saw that pleasure and pain had nothing to do with clarity and that sometimes in the midst of horrific pain we may suddenly get it. I also went back to school and got my graduate degree. I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with it, but I felt it would help me move in the world and create opportunities that I wouldn’t have without it. As I began to honor all parts of my life as equal, no one part being anymore important than any other part, I could sense what being whole felt like.  I stopped partitioning my life – pretending like one part of my life had nothing to do with the other.  I knew I had one heart and if that heart was closed in my personal life, I knew it would affect my rel...
More About: Reality , Works , Real , Conti , Ality

Being Real - Reality Works, Let It Happen
2007-10-01 15:00:00
I wrote Real ity Works , Let It Happen (read chapter) because it was something I was always looking for and could never find.  If you’re like I am, you’ve read hundreds of “new age” “spiritual/self-help” books.  I wanted something different, without the anecdotes, without the endless explanations.  I wanted something straight and to the point and I felt that there were others who felt the same. What kept me going during the process of finding a publisher were separating my rejections into formal and personal rejections, the personal ones telling me they liked the book but invariably suggesting that I tell stories to illustrate my point. A wonderful thing happened when I first spoke with Jan Johnson, the publisher at Red Wheel/Weiser.  The first words out of her mouth were, “I love the tone and voice of the book. I love that it is simple, succinct, and without anecdotes."  I knew that I had a match. I realize that there was no way ...
More About: Ality

How to Meditate
2007-09-28 15:00:00
There are many methods for meditation, but only one way to meditate.  If you do not understand how the mind works, you will never be able to truly meditate.  Everything has a nature and the nature of the mind is to have thoughts.  (The mind is doing what it is supposed to do.) This is important to understand before we begin meditation so we can approach our mind as a friend, and not an enemy. The mind is like a top.  It is spinning so fast, we think it is standing still.  It is only when the mind begins to slow down, (through meditation) that we are able to “watch” the thoughts. Meditation is not about “trying” to rid the mind of thoughts.  When we say, “Do not think of a monkey", what is the first thing we think of?  The problem is not the thoughts, but us.  We think we are our thoughts and feel compelled to chase after them.  This sets up a never-ending cycle of a mind that never stops.  In other words,...

Chogyam Trungpa
2007-09-26 15:00:00
Chogyam Trungpa was a meditation master, scholar, poet, and artist.  He was one of the most influential figures in the development of Buddhism in America.  He coined the terms "spiritual materialism" and "crazy wisdom" and defined the term "warrior" to mean one who is brave enough to face his demons, a true warrior.  Read his books, any of them, and gain insight, compassion, joy and surrender. (Click Here) From The Essential Chogyam Trumgpa: In "Cosmic Joke" he says, " In order to create through the ambition of ego, we must understand how we set up me and my territory, how we use our projections as credentials to prove our existence.  The source of the effort to confirm our solidity is an uncertainty as to whether ot not we exist.  Driven by tis uncertainty, we seek to prove our existence by finding a reference point outside ourselves, something with which tohave a relationship, something solid to feel separate f...

Why Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (continued)
2007-09-25 15:00:00
We all need help when breaking from a dysfunctional relationship.  Here are some methods that have helped me and worked with my clients: Write down everything; all the verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive incidents and write it in long hand, detail by detail.  Read it often. Have a buddy system with a best friend to help you break this addiction.  Call your friend rather than calling your ex. If pushed or abused in any way, protect yourself by calling the police, getting legal help, a restraining order. Do not engage, no matter what!  No calls, no email, no texts, no messages from friends, etc.  This is the hardest thing to do but the one that makes all the difference. Remember how many times you have broken up and gone back and KNOW if you go back again you will just have to repeat this difficult process.
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Why Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (continued)
2007-09-23 15:00:00
When relationships stay unhealthy, it is best to leave them.  But it is not easy to leave what is familiar; we have been doing this stuff for a long.  Brea king from a dysfunction relationship requires courage and stick-to it-ness. To break from this pattern means you have decided to grow up.  You are brave enough to leave the relationship that is not giving you what you want, knowing that it never will, and forge your way into the unknown. So....We become strong and break and then we miss the familiar. This is where we need to use our intellect, our rational mind.  If we’re used to doing dumb stuff, that will feel normal and natural to us.  If we fight all the time, being alone and being peaceful will seem weird at first, but if we can stick to our resolve, knowing it took a long time to have the courage to leave, we will be rewarded. As we refuse to feed our dysfunctional addiction, and stay steady with our decision, no matter what, slowly the c...
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