“They” Don’t Care About You and Me

Mindfulness empowers you and me to care and make real change in the world. Big business. Government. Religion. Each of these entities, separately and combined, are the “they” of the world around you and me. Each uses money, fear, faux-power, influence, and the bully pulpit to sway you and me to their ideals, buy their products, elect their officials, accept their morality, and the like. This is both subtle and blatant. Big business tends to be blatant, utilizing advertising to

The Gratitude Of and From Giving

Tangible or intangible, giving powers positivity. About every 6 months or so, my wife and I purge our space. I come from a long line of pack rats. Not hoarders, nobody lives in piles of utterly useless junk. Pack rats. Both sides of my immediate family – my mom and stepdad and my dad and stepmom – have a lot of stuff. Some, of course, is useful stuff. Other stuff, however, is either sentimental, valuable but not useful, or a

Communication Is Never Just Words

Communication styles vary in many ways. It’s never just the words you use. Even the written word can convey a degree of tone, intent, and attitude. Communication is a complex mechanism of expression employed to convey ideas. It’s how you and I can share notions, agree and disagree, and expand (or, frankly, shrink) our overall knowledge base. Communication can be both internal and external. When you are thinking about this, that, or the other thing, you’re communicating in your head.

Why the Language You Use Reflects Your Approach

Connecting mindfulness more clearly. Words matter. What you say often reflects your inner being and provides insight into your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach. Approach is a recent addition to my view toward active conscious awareness – i.e., mindfulness. Yet, on close examination, it holds up with the rest of the bits and pieces that go into it. Thought is where everything that makes you, you, begins. Not only that, but thought is how all things in the world today,

How Do Your Choices and Decisions Make You, You?

Why are choices and decisions so powerful? You’re bombarded with frequent, loud, often overwhelming messages about conformity. Do this, be that, follow the herd, or get voted off this island Earth. Contribute as expected or be judged as lacking, wanting, and less-than. Formal schooling is all about learning how to learn for the first 6 years or so. Then you start applying that to the actual gaining of knowledge but to a lesser degree. Facts, figures, and things necessary to

What’s So Positive About Getting Shit Done?

Getting shit done feels good. When you’ve given something you’re doing a ton of focus and energy, and then finish, how does that make you feel? Have you ever put a great deal of effort into a project, and after it was done, felt a sense of elation, relief, and/or completeness? There’s something to be said for the power of getting shit done. Yet it’s all too easy to get so caught up in the various acts of doing that

You Might Get Broken, But You Won’t be Beaten

Not unless you give up or choose to give in to suffering. Life is unpredictable in so many ways. One moment, everything can be dark, distressing, and deeply unpleasant. Then, the next moment, it can be brilliant, exciting, and deeply joyful. Most of the time life falls somewhere between these extremes. The modern world is obsessed with extremes. So many things are viewed as either/or, rather than the far vaster middle between them. It’s all black or white, never mind

How Can Negativity Possibly Be Empowering?

Negativity is an unexpected teacher. Positivity, the opposite of negativity, is empowering. In a fear-based society, overloaded with fake lack, scarcity, and insufficiency, positivity is necessary. There is, however, a catch. You can’t have positivity without negativity. The mistake that toxic positivity makes is its utter denial of negativity. Toxic positivity tells you to blot out negativity, ignore it, put blinders on to it, avoid it, and disregard it. That is, however, impossible. Shit happens. No matter who you are,

Why Does Everything Come With A Lesson?

Learning is essential to your life experience. Everything you do, everything that just happens, every experience you have, anyone you meet, anywhere you go, will teach you a lesson. Some lessons don’t manifest immediately, others are instantaneous, and still others appear one way but turn out to be another. Even the greatest minds to ever live, the smartest, wisest, and most educated on the planet today, and those who are yet to come can’t and don’t know everything. Nobody can

How Can Anger Generate Positivity and Empowerment?

Recognize, acknowledge, choose, and do. Despite the many flaws and awful dialogue in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Yoda utters one extremely deep and useful nugget of wisdom. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Just about everything you do is inadvertently checked by our fear-based society. The bombardment of messages telling you to fear this, fear that, be afraid of them, and on and on, quickly overwhelms you. Much of that fear targets your

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