For Love

A bold choice is one that is free of the influence of our prior choices. Is your brain programmed for independent thought? You decide. While we are aware that we want to think for ourselves when it comes to being influenced by others, we fail to see our own brain bias. For all the focus on free will we fail to see that we do not have independence from our own thought processes. We are anchored in previous and reflexively allow what was to determine what will be. In my life, c

None of us can afford to sit in doubt... My daughter recently shared with me that whenever she changes her answers on a test she changes them from the right answer to the wrong answer. I remember having the same experience when I was in school. At the time, I decided that I would never second guess myself on a test, but translating this strategy to the rest of my life was a bit more complicated. Second guessing is the flip side of doubt. Doubt is what feel before we take act

The purpose of communication is not to resolve conflict but to rise beyond it. Conflict manifests in many forms but in truth it is all the same thing. From all out war to a tiff with our spouse the root cause of conflict never changes. It is not disagreement but communication failure. Getting lost in the content of our conflicts obscures the cause which inevitably leads to further divide. We have gotten to the point where we think disagreement is conflict. Not so. Most of us

We don't heal fear, we go beyond it. I was musing the other day as I entered the airport that I should check my emotional baggage before boarding my flight. My debilitating fear of flying sprouted up in my teens. I bowed out of travel opportunities, missed my grandfather’s funeral and when I wasn’t making excuses for why I couldn’t go anywhere, I was sitting at the bar in JFK at 6:00 a.m. trying to get a grip on my panic. Anxiety was my life and it sucked. Fear sucks. Coping

Transition is not about the passage of time but about an open mind. In our culture it has become a lost art. Being that school is beginning in all its strange forms and COVID is keeping us in a palpably permanent state of flux, I am reposting this article - not to ease the discomfort, mind you, but to understand it and harness it. Transition requires an open mind. This means suspension of expectation, of needing a particular outcome and, most of all, of judgement. Not somethi

Your mind is not your friend unless you actively train it to be one. Reprogram or Bust: Whether we are aware of it or not we spend our life in a state of cognitive deficit. I am not talking about brain damage or learning challenges. Rather, if our brain is a computer this cognitive deficit download is a virus. The virus works likes this - under the noble guise of setting goals, it causes us to put joy on the back burner while we instead focus on the deficits of what remains t

Insecurity is Essential Our weaknesses are our greatest strengths. When we figure this out we harness the unlimited power of who we truly are. Insecurity is not something to eradicate but to appreciate.The other day my daughter was having a virtual panic attack as she felt insecurity resurfacing. It had dogged her not that long ago and she felt that she had worked through it but now she was devastated to have it reappear. Her frustration comes from a common misunderstanding

Whether you think you can or think you can't you are right. (Henry Ford) Such is the nature of beliefs. You get to choose the ones you want. Choose wisely... ________________________________________ My son made an impromptu appearance this week from boarding school because his dorm was succumbing en masse to the Norovirus. We stayed up till 2 in the morning talking about life and more importantly the meaning of Life. He drew me out of my blogging dormancy to write to you a