“Great bar conversation -- what is harder? A half marathon or staying quiet for 10 days? And how many people actually can answer that with any credibility?” A friend of mine posed this...
Close to 30 years ago, my friend Jenny told me she had gone to a silent meditation retreat. “What the hell? Why in the world would you do that?” I asked. Jenny and I hadn’t been in touch...
Today is finally the day to share my “dream come true” story, which I hinted at on Facebook and in last week’s newsletter. I wanted to be absolutely sure it was really happening before...
It's February, the time of year when Hallmark and the rest of pop culture tell us we're supposed to seek, find, and celebrate love (and buy lots of stuff in the process). I didn’t grow up...
Two weeks ago, I was in a cotton hospital gown, rubber-soled socks on my feet, an IV inserted into the top of my hand ready to receive anesthesia. The surgeon arrived with his Sharpie pen...
Mindful scheduling might sound like an oxymoron. Mindfulness is all about living in the present moment, not getting carried away by the future or the past, right? Yes, present moment...
Happy New Year! I hope all of you are staying warm and safe during the crazy cold snap that much of the United States is experiencing. I’m looking out at my frozen garden as I write, more...
Greetings friends! I stepped off the grid to be present with my loved ones over the holidays. We took the week before Christmas to visit family and ski at Whistler, British Columbia,...
I made the mistake this morning of looking at Facebook before I meditated. As with every “mistake,” a lesson awaited. I had decided to take a day off from my usual 20-minutes of meditating...
My favorite place during meditation is the space between breaths. When you sit in silence, even the breath can sound loud. The space between breaths is utterly still, but somehow deeply...
My college kids came home last night. After a bustle of activity this morning, everyone dispersed in various directions – job interview, haircut, and a run (the latter undertaken by the...
When I was growing up, my recollection is that Christmas decorations didn’t go up until Thanksgiving. That may or may not be true, but I know that over the course of the last three or four...