Spirituality

There comes a day when you realize you have accomplished nothing because there was nothing to accomplish. I have a strange relationship with readers. Or rather, they have a strange relationship with me through my books. Some of them are new to parenthood, and so they find me musing about the first terribly shocking and […]

  A taste of what I wrote this morning for my next book Paradise in Plain Sight, coming in the spring from New World Library. I forgot the way I had come. —Kanzan The buds appear in early winter and bloom through early spring. Theirs is the perfume of youth, the scent of morning. They […]

When it comes to mindfulness, there are a number of great short practices that help us be more present to our lives. In this post I’m going to reveal three key mindfulness practices that can help us pause, break out of auto-pilot, step into emotional freedom and even open up to a source of connection […]

Whether you like it or not companies know exactly how to get in your brain and control what you’re paying attention to. Everything today is about tricking our brains into a state of urgency. Think about how the news is delivered, “Breaking News.” Or how about how your phones is configured, everything plays to a […]

RIGHT NOW, practice; Breathing in:                 I calm my brain. Breathing out:                 I feel the gift of my body that is here.                           ~ Mindfulness Meditations for the […]

Our most fundamental need in life is to be safe. When we feel safe, the body relaxes, we become more flexible in the way we see life and are generally happier. But throughout life we all suffer different traumas and feel vulnerable. Maybe we were made fun as a child at school, were a child […]

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~ Aristotle I’m not so sure I agree with you Aristotle. There are plenty of educated people who have trouble entertaining thoughts without accepting them. In any intense emotional state we become strict believers of the thoughts […]

Unfortunately, our brains don’t seem to be built to pay attention to what’s good in life, but more to what seems urgent or threatening. That makes sense as fundamentally safety and security trump happiness and well-being. However, having our minds roll around in past hurts and regrets of the past or potential catastrophes in the […]

“Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote a wonderful book, Wherever You Go, There You Are, but perhaps it’s more accurate to say, ‘Wherever you go, here you are.’ At any given moment, whether you’re waiting at a stop light, waiting for a plane to take off, in line for a movie ticket, or getting ready to present at […]

We all have habits that we want to break and that is why I’m thrilled to bring to you today Daniel Goleman and Tara Bennett-Goleman. Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures around the world and has many classic books including Emotional Intelligence which has over 5,000,000 copies in print. Tara is author of The New […]

The reason there is no definitive guide on parenting is because every baby and child is unique and all parents come with unique baggage from childhood and genetics. Becoming a parent is wonderful for stirring up all of those old memories and connections from our own upbringing. Mix this in with our fractured attention spans […]

The new holy bible of psychiatric diagnosis is about to go on sale tomorrow. No matter what our conclusions of it are, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) is destined to be a best seller as it is the defacto guide to mental illness that most all institutions, physicians, therapists, healthcare providers […]

By Leo Babauta One of the biggest reasons we’re not content with ourselves and our lives is that we compare ourselves to other people. Picture it: you see photos of what someone else is doing on Facebook and think your life isn’t exciting enough. You see someone else who has a cool job and think […]

By Leo Babauta I have six kids, ages ranging at the moment from 7 to 20. And while I’m not perfect as a father, I have learned a thing or two from my 20 years of service. I’ve learned to pay attention, to give them space, to accept them for who they are, to be […]