We live in the world of appearances. This has become painfully obvious when we hear politicians and the mass media talk about ‘fake news’ in an attempt to manipulate and confuse us. Granted, some news may be fabricated, but the overall purpose seems to be erasing all critical thinking to impose a particular agenda. This is known as gaslighting, which…
Tag: emotional freedom
How To Remain Confident In Spite of Criticism
Nobody likes to be criticized; it usually triggers memories and feelings of unworthiness or lack of love from childhood. Back then you didn’t have much control or a voice, and the adults in your life had most, if not all the power over you. This became what I’ve coined your ‘sense of otherness‘—the inner bully that traps you in a…
What Is the Spiritual Cure For Anxiety?
Do you worry about the prospect of events you judge as negative or the possibility of future suffering? How about past events and the way you responded to them? Perhaps your concerns relate more to a current self-perception—in terms of being right or wrong, perfect or imperfect—and how others see you now. You worry about whether your self-images are getting…
It’s Time To Grow Emotionally & Spiritually!
When the Sun moves from the Tropic of Capricorn (representing the father) to the Tropic of Cancer (the mother), in mid-January, it marks the beginning of the harvest season on the Lunar Calendar. In India, it is known as Makar Sankranti (see Are You Ready To Hit the Ground Running?). It’s when Mother Nature begins to wake up and things…
How Your Need To Be Right Hurts You
The words of French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin have become a New Age cliché: We are not humans having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Unfortunately, what gives us the opportunity to have a human experience is the ego-mind separating us from our divine essence. So what good is it to…
The Spiritual Power of Grieving
Nobody likes to suffer. We all want to hold on to what brings pleasure, if momentarily, while doing whatever we can to skirt around our wounds and uncomfortable feelings. The external world is very fixated on sensory gratification and avoiding the pain that comes from being human—often disregarding the emotional and spiritual price of such disconnection. But life is fluid,…
What Can You Learn From a Squirrel?
I was on retreat a couple weeks ago, in a cabin surrounded by nature, doing my spiritual practices, writing, reading, walking, and often also sitting quietly doing nothing, just taking the silence in. Aside from birds, squirrels tend to be the loudest in this pristine piece of land, continuously chirping and rustling the leaves as they move and run around,…