“We have to open ourselves up to receive what wants to shine back.” — Jessica Dore.
I came across this line recently in the book, Tarot for Change, by Jessica Dore (2021, p. 17). It’s a sentence that has lingered.
There are questions and curiosities that might naturally follow from a sentence like this. Among them are curiosities such as: in any given moment, am I opening or closing right now? In what ways? (And is this opening or closing wise, helpful? Is it helpful in some ways and not in others?)
In any given moment, we can ask ourselves questions about our attention: “What is my attention focused on right now? Where is my attention going? Is my attention focused broadly or narrowly? Is it moving around or is it stuck on one thing?” In any given moment, we can also bring curiosity to what emotional tone is going with our attention. Read more ›
In the sweet little book written by Thich Nhat Hanh, A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in FourPebbles (2012), Thich teaches a meditation in which we imagine ourselves being something such as a flower, and we imagine feeling a quality of that that thing within ourselves. (For example, in the case of the flower, he invites us to image feeling freshness.) Read more ›
Aware that sometimes there can be overt, covert, external, internal, intentional, and/or completely unintentional and inadvertent messages that may lead one to wonder if there is something wrong with them Read more ›
“Sleep is not an optional, lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. It’s a life support system….And the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, and the safety and the education of our children.” —Matthew Walker, Talk at GoogleRead more ›
The book, The Heart and the Bottle, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers (2010), wisely begins, “Once there was a girl much like any other…”. The story is about someone and something common—someone and something understandable, relatable. Read more ›
When people express feeling unsure how to proceed with working on something they are desiring to work on in their lives, and when my input about this conundrum is solicited, one of the responses I sometimes give is akin to this: to proceed, begin where you are and go from there. Read more ›
Earlier this fall, I stumbled across and read the autobiographical book, 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life, by Cami Walker. Cami became very ill and subsequently received the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis when she was 30 years old. As she shared in the video I link you to below, this experience changed her life forever. At the same time, through hard work, serendipity, and the prescription of giving away 29 gifts in 29 days, she also found a way to come back to herself and back to others. Read more ›
Compassion can be understood as having two components: (1) a sensitivity to suffering in yourself and others, and (2) a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent this suffering. This means that compassion also involves two different sets of skills, processes, and orientations. Read more ›
The book, Treating Psychosis: A Clinician’s Guide to Integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Compassion-Focused Therapy, and Mindfulness Approaches within the Cognitive Behavior Therapy Tradition, has been recently released. Read more ›
