The second agreement is Don’t Take Anything Personally. The first, Be Impeccable With Your Word, asks you to watch what leaves your mouth. This one asks you to watch what you let in. Personally comes from persona, the mask an…
The Four Agreements are Toltec wisdom guides as popularized by shamanic teacher and healer Don Miguel Ruiz. The first, “Be Impeccable with Your Word,” speaks to our capacity to have integrity with our words. Impeccable is a heavier word than…
I write these blogs not just because I’m an educator, but because I also need to remind myself what I already know. We don’t live in a world that cultivates awareness, mindfulness, gratitude and a whole host of other qualities…
“Decide what to be and go be it,” in that exact wording, is The Avett Brothers, from Head Full of Doubt / Road Full of Promise, 2009. The instruction underneath it is about nineteen hundred years older. Epictetus, in the…
What if everyone was my teacher? What if not only those I respect, but everyone had something to teach me? What if the lover who just left me, the person who cut me off while driving, the people who irritate…
As a holistic counselor and Dance/Movement Therapist, safety plays a large role in my work with people. We all need a safe harbor to come home to. When we don’t have that, we are never able to fully rest. But…
We are biologically predisposed to notice what’s wrong, to look for the negative as a means of preparing for it. It’s an ingrained survival skill which has become overdeveloped, particularly in the Western culture in which we live. I mean,…
Often in my work with adults, I help them to reclaim some of the characteristics that were lost from childhood: the capacity to play with abandon, to be completely engaged in the present moment, to not care what others think…
The phrase “Don’t Take Life Too Seriously. Nobody Gets Out Alive Anyway” is a funny little adage that speaks to an important practical and spiritual lesson. It belongs to Elbert Hubbard, who put it better in 1900: “Please do not…
In order for a body to be at its best, it needs healthy food full of vital nutrients. When we feed our bodies unhealthful food, they will function, but not as well, and the long-term harm begins to pile up.…
The flip side of comparing ourselves to others and finding ourselves ‘less than’ is comparing ourselves to others so we can feel superior. Here too, the way to work with our comparing states is not through judgement but compassion. It…
I woke up this morning, got online, and discovered a peer of mine was running a workshop well-received enough that people are flying in to take it. I could have been joyful for her success. Instead, in about five seconds,…