Religious

“I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ~Diane Ackerman  I’m in the business of watching people take risks. I observe them tackling challenges, fear, and discomfort, and sometimes, “making […]

Living in the hyper-individualist society that we do, it’s easy to forget our obligation to those around us. Often in the West, we are taught to prioritize ourselves in the unhealthiest ways, to ‘grind’ as hard as we can to achieve wealth and status. We are taught, between the lines, that our first responsibility is

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know” ~Pema Chödrön We are all works in progress. We all have skeletons in our closets that we may wish to never come out. We have all made mistakes. We will all make mistakes in future. We all have our scars. None

Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions in life, unsure of what your true purpose is? I know I’ve been there before, back in my twenties when I felt lost in the world, desperate to do something that mattered, and afraid I was wasting time. I think these feelings are fairly

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are” ~Carl Jung Yoga is often celebrated for its physical benefits: greater flexibility, increased strength, improved circulation, and so on. But nothing could have prepared me for the transformational effect that yoga has had on my mental health and well-being. I was diagnosed with

“The antidote to loneliness isn’t just being around random people indiscriminately, the antidote to loneliness is emotional security.” ~Benedict Wells Emotional security. The feeling of being at home in the presence of another. Safe to be who you are, good times or bad. Feeling seen and seeing the other clearly, accepting the other’s whole lovely

“The problems around us are only compounding. We will need to rediscover our trust in other people, to restore some of our lost faith—all that’s been shaken out of us in recent years. None of it gets done alone. Little of it will happen if we isolate inside our pockets of sameness, communing only with

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.” ~John Muir The sign comes into view. I make the left-hand turn, driving slowly through the rusty gated entrance. The sound of gravel beneath the tires makes me smile. I flashback to driving my go-kart on our gravel driveway. I park my rental

“People only see what they are prepared to see.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Abuse is a funny thing. I don’t mean humorous, of course. I mean the other definition of funny: difficult to explain or understand. Abuse shouldn’t be difficult to understand. If someone is mistreated, we should be able to clearly point a finger and

“Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz The other day, I told my adult niece that I regretted selling my downtown condo several years ago. “On no,” she said. “You told me back then that you were finding the lack of light was getting