A Mindful Life

I met my brother for lunch today, sans food. As we walked along Town Lake on this blustery afternoon, we traversed the terrain of religion. This came up because I asked if he’d been reading my personal blog, in which I’ve been exploring my own spiritual questions of late. He had, and he commented on [...]

I am moved to quote from Markham’s Behavioral Health, a blog I regularly read. David has had intense personal experience with grief, and something he said made an impression. So I’m sharing here, but I encourage you to read his entire post. Grief is not something to avoid, or something to “work through” and then [...]

Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. –Gertrude Stein (1946), in Elizabeth Sprigge, Gertrude Stein (1957)

My last post touched on one aspect of modern living that creates stress — compressed time. This post considers another factor that contributes to stress. We are bombarded by information from all directions. There are many modern tools that contribute to this, and among them is the television. Television is a powerful medium and, used [...]

Our perception that we have “no time” is one of the distinctive marks of modern Western culture. –Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner (1991) Time was a river, not a log to be sawed into lengths. –Margaret A. Robinson, A Woman of Her Tribe (1990)

We live in a fast-forward world. Do you ever feel rushed and yet always behind? Exceed the speed limit when you drive? Do you get frustrated when you have to wait in line? Do you go to bed wound up, have trouble falling asleep, and then wake up tired? When you drive, do you tailgate [...]

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth. –Katherine Mansfield (1922), The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)

Today I moved forward toward a goal, and suddenly it seemed as though the heavens opened up and provided an opportunity that very closely matches the dream I’ve nurtured. This reminds me of a quote that served as a great inspiration to me twice in my life — when I made the decision to move [...]

Maybe being oneself is always an acquired taste. –Patricia Hampl, in Janet Sternburg, ed., The Writer on Her Work, vol. 2 (1991) We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they run up unannounced and surprise us, come [...]

“Changing Metaphors of the Self: Implications for Counseling,” by Marie Hoskins and Johanna Leseho, Journal of Counseling and Development, January/February 1996, Vol. 74, pp. 243-252. The nature and character of the self can be described in many metaphors. This article explores the variety of metaphors used, first examining the traditional and then the postmodern metaphors. [...]