about this kind of setup: a child who lives in constant suffering as the cost of utopia. If there’s nothing but this life, how do we generate our accountability to all the life that will follow us? I was very young when I started to pull at the threads of the story. In the same way I slowly outgrew the delightful carrot-stick mythology of Santa Claus, I have slowly outgrown the idea of a punitive god waiting in a future heaven, and that my access to eternal peace and joy is predicated on my Earthly behavior. That story felt and feels like a narrative for people who want to judge but not be judged, who want peace without the rigor of practice, who want heaven wi... posted on Jul 12 2023 (5,266 reads)

calls to mind Ursula K. Le Guin’s parallel between writing and falling in love and Italo Calvino’s reflection on how literature is like love, Rose considers the singular allure of love above all of life’s other satisfactions: However satisfying writing is — that mix of discipline and miracle, which leaves you in control, even when what appears on the page has emerged from regions beyond your control — it is a very poor substitute indeed for the joy and the agony of loving. Of there being someone who loves and desires you, and he glories in his love and desire, and you glory in his ever-strange being, which comes up against you, and disappear... posted on Jul 14 2023 (2,588 reads)

an integrative health movement, someone who has widened the path that Lissa and I have walked. I just wanna take this moment to recognize her and all those who have done work in healing the earth, healing ourselves, expanding science, spreading wisdom and love on all sides of the bedside, so to speak, because we're really all learning and growing and healing together. It is a pleasure, Lissa, to be in conversation with you today. Lissa Rankin: Oh, thank you so much. It's a joy to be with you and to see you again. And I'm in the woods in California, so I apologize for any tech glitches as well. Where I live we only just got pretty decent wifi during the pandemic beca... posted on Aug 28 2023 (3,736 reads)

outbreak of ocean diseases that happened so close together, it almost seemed that the ocean had mirror neurons activating our own. After all, Marco Iacoboni (2011) says, “We live within each other.”  Author Michael McCarthy (2016) believes “There is an ancient bond with the natural world surviving deep within us, which makes it not a luxury, not an optional extra, but a part of our essence…the natural home for our psyches where we can find not only joy, but peace. And to destroy it is to destroy a fundamental part of ourselves. Should we lose it, we would be less whole…less than we have evolved to be…we would find true peace imposs... posted on Sep 26 2023 (3,398 reads)

Love" posts here... September 7th, 2018 I was surprised and honored to be invited as a keynote speaker last month in Atlanta for an innovative national health care organization. A few years ago, my brother introduced me to his friend, the CEO of this company, via e-mail. He is a remarkable leader and writer who follows my cancer journey with kindness and support. We agreed I would focus part of the talk on the terminal cancer diagnosis and how I stay positive, even joyful, despite this challenge. I knew the team was young, and I wanted at the very least to be interesting, and if possible, inspirational. I knew it was not going to be easy to simmer my life&rsq... posted on Oct 31 2023 (54,772 reads)

of hosting my mother raised me on begin to thaw. I started letting people bring things when they offered, instead of saying oh, no—we’ve got it taken care of! and then sweating my way through an entire Saturday of cooking. And as I relaxed into a pattern of preparing food with my guests—often for the first full hour of a dinner party—I felt the welcoming warmth of an ancient practice come into my home: gathering around the hearth to enjoy cooking and eating together, as a community. Gathering Should Be a Family Affair Speaking of things being better together, over the past month I’ve come to believe that whenever possib... posted on Nov 8 2023 (3,153 reads)

me, 20 seconds. And what it does is it takes that moment of ventral and it marks it in a different way. Because it could be. It could just be cat jumps up, you say hi, you move them on, and you’re done. You don’t get the same benefit that way. So look for a micro-moment. So everybody who’s listening to us right now, if they want to look for a micro-moment, where they felt just this momentary sense of OK-ness. It’s all it needs to be: OK-ness. Doesn’t have to be joy, wonder, awe, just OK-ness. And then hold that in their act of awareness for 20 seconds. And that does something very different with that experience. It wires it in in a different way. And once... posted on Nov 12 2023 (5,490 reads)

of others, but rather the Three Conditions of your soul. These are the conditions that make you human, keep you alive, and open you up to a world of infinite possibilities and the fulfillment of knowing what you are here to do and be. I wish you so much blessing, success, love, and guidance in everything you are going to experience in your life. Shine like the sun and be a light for everyone in your life. Only you have the power to create the better you. Use your gifts and live your most joyous life. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Do something today to show your commitment to living that life you once considered a myth. If you’re happy, you’re helping. Let intention, joy... posted on Feb 13 2024 (4,616 reads)

have the capacity to deal with it. Because your anger, your disappointment, is part of you, don’t fight against it.” Instead, he advocates, “return to the breath.” Once you are there, ask yourself and others big questions to reboot and begin the path of self-recovery. Part of the gift that Julien’s father was referencing is the opportunity to reconsider what is important, to rediscover our real strengths, and to perhaps choose a path that would be more fitting or joyful—in other words, a personal transformation. As research by Jack Mezirow and others finds, when self-transformation occurs, we adopt a new definition of self, a new passion for life, and a ... posted on Apr 3 2024 (4,421 reads)

we’re stuck in that comparison spiral. Once we remove the shame of “they’re right, I’m wrong” from our brains, we have more space to nurture our own friendships and our own communities at our own pace. It’s hard to do that when you’re beating yourself up. So once you’ve talked yourself down from the ledge, ask yourself: How can I reach out to the friends I do have or want to have? How can I connect with them further? How can I find more joy in the friendships I have? How can I set more boundaries and communicate better with them? And perhaps: How can I let go of the friendships that aren’t making me truly happy? ... posted on Apr 5 2024 (1,969 reads)

practices, supply chain practices, etc. We measure them and we verify it. They're in over 80, I think it's now close to 90 countries, 160 industries, all with this one uniting vision, which is to redefine success, in business and in our culture.There’s  another element of this I’d like to share,  demonstrated by the founders of the European B Corp community. See the confetti flying down  over what was likely 150 people celebrating — there's just so much joy. They are just in the most joyful state  celebrating what they're doing, both individually, with their individual businesses, and together. They realize they can't transform the economic syst... posted on Apr 16 2024 (2,155 reads)

in the pursuit of larger aims may foster personal growth. In addition to encouraging resilience and social connections, practicing patience builds self-regulation, self-discipline, and deferred-gratification skills. Developing these strengths of character is likely to benefit individuals in many life domains, including in future periods of self-exploration and subsequent purpose cultivation efforts. Finally, patient individuals may be more likely than impatient individuals to enjoy the search. Patience enables us to savor the process of figuring out what matters most and how we want to meaningfully contribute to the broader world. It allows us time to celebrate the small suc... posted on May 1 2024 (4,376 reads)

literature and folklore, the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement began in 1958. An energetic young teacher at Nalanda College — a school for well-to-do students in Colombo, Sri Lanka — took his students to a village of the poorest of the poor to experience life on the other side of the economic and class divide. The goal was for each individual who participated to come awake in his or her own way, to perceive the suffering of their host families, know the power of service, and the joy of working for the common good. Biographers and scholars, however, can trace the roots of this movement to practices and ideas introduced long before 1958. In fact, Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, the teach... posted on Jun 21 2024 (1,900 reads)

I said, grinning back.  Each day for that entire spring, we walked a wide circle around the porch to the car. Dan took to clucking at the robin and saying, like a mantra, over and over, “You’re safe. You’re safe.” He named her Gertie. When Gertie was in situ, she scrunched down and peered at us as we rounded the porch, her tail a dark smudge of smoke against a forest of peeling cedar clapboards.   The way Gertie followed us with her eyes gave us all joy. She looked grumpy but also somewhat accepting of, or perhaps just amused by, our humanity.  I like to tell my kids that these wild mothers were teaching our family that lives sometimes get ... posted on May 27 2024 (6,043 reads)

a thousand miles with these horses, and believe me when I tell you nothing slows you down to the rhythm of the Earth, nor to the rhythm of the soul, quite like living and moving slowly with horses as your companions. These journeys are not trail rides ending with a gallop off into the sunset; they are a long, slow, quiet unraveling of ego and self as the needs and the intuitive intelligence of the horses, the Earth, and the soul rise to guide the way. Reverence has the quality of awe and joy, in that it sneaks up on you and takes hold of your being from a mysterious realm within, the source of which you have no personal control over. Dare I say it cannot be cultivated, only tended to ... posted on Jun 28 2024 (2,247 reads)

local labor that we feed. in exchange for the work.” “The concept here is not charity,” Jeff said. “It’s just helping them help themselves. This is just regular Joes trying to help other regular Joes in another country is what it is. Education is really the tool for getting peace in the world in my mind.” “If you have an ability to help someone, it’s wrong of you not to do it,” he said. “And what is discovered through that is a joy to give. It went from me just trying to help one African out to us trying to help a whole West African country. It just took a hold and kept on going.” Mrs. Letela Inspires School Gardens ... posted on Jul 7 2024 (2,390 reads)

time I get discouraged or frustrated, and those times exist a lot, I have to plug back into my resolve. I ask myself, “What am I here to do and how do I get there?” The answer is, “I have to wake up.” People are suffering a lot. Climate change is going to really hurt us and we’re just at the very beginning. When you touch that, you ask, “How can I make it hurt less?” Bela:  But how do you actively do that, make it hurt less? HS:  What I enjoy most right now is storytelling and that’s where music and puppets come in. There is a very sad story happening right now with the breakdown of the planet and the suffering of species. I t... posted on Jul 5 2024 (2,311 reads)