Explorations of Conscious Reality Creation, Mindfulness, Nontoxic Positivity, and More
Even when it seems impossible, you can find and/or create nontoxic positivity. Travel can be a real mixed bag. On the one hand, it provides many new opportunities to see and explore unfamiliar places and have new experiences. But then, on the other hand, it can be full of hassles, craziness, and unexpected headaches. Because of this truth, travel can be an experience that invokes both positivity and negativity. When you’re far from home and it all seems to be
Action can move you through and beyond your comfort zone in amazing ways. I’ve been fighting a mental block for a while now. Said block has been holding me back, keeping me from taking steps that will get me to the next level I seek to reach in my life. This block has led me to do more with my meditation and mindfulness practices, into therapy again, and to do more to work out how I got here and what
Seeing this for yourself takes work, however. I began writing about positivity one Monday some 12.6 years ago. It was in reaction to endless negative posts on Facebook. It was as if everyone I knew, and even people I didn’t really know, had nothing good to say or share. Over the years, I’ve refined my definition and approach to positivity. It became apparent that much of the positivity out there, though well-meaning, is toxic. On the surface, great idea; in
If your life ended today, what would you regret? I’ve had a desire to cross the ocean and visit Europe for decades. Since my teens. In 2025, my wife and some friends and I started planning a trip to Italy. This was going to be a small group trip. The number varied, but we decided in 2025 to put it off until 2026. We were getting it all together, but unfortunately, we still couldn’t coordinate it. So we are delaying
This is the only way to grow. As you’re reading this, I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I have crossed an ocean to explore not just a country I’ve never been to before, but a continent. My wife and I have been planning to travel to Europe for years. Finally, we took the leap, and we are visiting England and exploring much of what it has to offer. I’ve visited two other countries, but both are part of North
It’s always good to question your beliefs. I began to share this idea for Pathwalking – choosing and deciding the paths you take for yourself – more than 14 years ago. While the core principle hasn’t changed, other elements of it have. Why? Because I’ve learned new things, had new experiences, made new discoveries about tangibles and intangibles along the way. My life has changed in circumstances in more ways than one. That’s because change is the one and only
But that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. It’s far too easy to feel sad, lost, and even hopeless in today’s world. So many things that make no sense have been almost normalized in distressing, depressing ways. It can feel like doom and gloom is all there is. And for some, this timeline is completely awful. Nobody reasonable can deny that. Yet that doesn’t mean that we can’t find and/or create positivity in the world today. This is not some Pollyanna,
Many can’t be avoided, so you get to decide what to do with them. I’ve been doing medieval fencing for about 35 years now. I fence in both single combat (one-on-one) and melee combat (teams of two to more than a hundred on each side). A key statement I learned when I began practicing melee command, was this: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” This applies to life in many ways. That’s because change is the one and only
When you’re empowered, you become more capable overall. It is far too easy to go down a rabbit hole of negativity. Spend any amount of time on any social media channel, and you’ll likely wind up doomscrolling if you don’t self-edit. While this can, on the surface, seem innocuous, it very quickly becomes problematic. That’s because doomscrolling leads to negativity. And negativity, unchecked, disempowers us. That’s because negativity is made of low-frequency energy, which pulls you down and makes you
Applied mindfulness opens you to doing something. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time sitting at my keyboard today, trying to find the words to write, the story I want to tell as I share my weekly philosophy with you. Nothing was coming to mind. Am I feeling depressed? No. Do I feel uncertain? Not particularly, no. Am I sad, hungry, flustered? Nope. Have I been doom-scrolling and making myself feel lost? Not really. So why am I unable to
