Ancient Wisdom, New Story
These articles draw on the world’s wisdom traditions as well as modern psychology to recast personal stories, pointing new directions for personal growth and self-exploration.
The Case for Overcorrection
When our actions don’t seem to be hitting the mark, it can make sense to try a biggish shift to ‘move the needle’ rather than tweaks that fall short of making a noticeable difference.
Lighten Up, Francis
We each have a contracted, defensive, uptight piece of us that we might name Francis. Remind him of the one rule he needs. A hip-pocket sense of humor can be a super-power.
Is It Broke? Don’t Fix It. Reinvent It!
If your assumptions and habits are all invented and they are not delivering the life you want, why not reinvent them?
Some Challenges Outreach Success
We would all benefit from a close look at the things we’re using to distract us from aspects of our work and lives that seem too painful for us to bear experiencing directly.
Rhapsody in the Key of L
Live: Engage, Explore, Experience, Express, Expand, Enjoy (a little E digression there…)! Also ache and cry and grieve and long. This is it, and it’s all for you.
The Perfect Frisbee Toss
owers and catchers. Please excuse the modesty failure, but we are. I’m trying to apply a couple of meta-truths from that excellence to other areas of my life.
Life Purpose
Influences
These writers have helped me immensely. Maybe you would benefit from visiting them directly. In addition to those below, I recommend Alan Watts, Matt Kahn, Matt Licata and J. Krishnamurti.
Bruce Tift
Tift is a gifted therapist and practicing Buddhist. He helps us understand that we needn’t pathologise disturbing experience. We organise our lives around personal discomforts that seem unbearable, but we have capacities our child-selves didn’t, and we can now work with all experience.
Lisa Feldman Barrett
A former therapist, Feldman Barrett is now a neuroscientist challenging outdated views of the brain and mind. The brain’s predictions create our world, based on socially-inherited concepts. But we can update our conceptual library and re-cognise our reality.
Don Miguel Ruiz
Ruiz is a Toltec sage who gives an ancient ‘Western’ take on Eastern wisdom and spiritual growth. When we see our own dream (or story), fear loses its grip on us. When we love ourselves as we are, our relationships are no longer a search for what we already have.
David Deutsch
Deutsch is a physicist and computational scientist who places learning above knowledge. His ‘Many Worlds’ interpretation is our best explanation of quantum theory. I love his view of our ever-growing mastery barely scratching life’s mystery.
Mary O'Malley
O’Malley goes beyond Stoicism to show how what’s in the way is The Way. She shows how a few powerful assumptions, which she calls spells, shape the story through which reality arrives for us, and she invites us to use our bodies to overcome those spells.
Alan Watts
Part philosopher, part entertainer, Watts is my favourite guide to the spiritual journey. He translated the East for us and integrated it with Western thought. I most appreciate his Taoist writings and his invitation to insecurity.