Watch this awesome video from Ted.com! Ms. Brown is a superb speaker and makes excellent points about connection, authenticity, vulnerability, and joy.

Many smart people think with their brains. They perceive, analyze, compare, join disparate ideas, theorize, and experiment. They often reach quick conclusions that sound reasonable as the information falls into place inside their head.

Thinking – depending on how careful the thinker is – can have weak spots, too. Thinkers can get sloppy. Like reaching conclusions too quickly and then clinging to them rather than continually seeking new information and adjusting opinions accordingly. Just because something sounds reasonable doesn’t make it correct, and opinions may gravitate toward previous experience and perceptions, which may have little or nothing to do with new information and situations. Continue Reading »

In the past few weeks I’ve run into a couple of those magical people whose presence alone seems to shift reality to a higher plane. Everything suddenly feels lighter, easier, more clear. I laugh more easily. Ancient wounds stitch together and heal effortlessly. Life seems worth living.

I’ve known a few such people in my life. I met the first one, Laura, when I was 16; though it took many years to fully appreciate her influence on me. Continue Reading »

Lately I’ve been more keenly aware of human suffering. Another neighbor came down with cancer and it’s not a gentle thing. I ran into an old friend today who told me she got diagnosed with some disease that will turn into cancer in ten years if she ever eats anything white again (okay, not quite that extreme, but close). I see kids struggling to figure out how to just be okay, adults with anxieties they can’t quite shake, tons of people wondering how they’re going to pay the bills for the next year, and today, when the ad for my Christmas books went out to 200,000 people, the web page it drove people to was down almost ALL DAY. I was gone, ironically, at a book signing at the university book store, or I might have noticed.

Way to put that in perspective, eh? My little problems are NO. BIG. DEAL. That’s what I wanted to say today.

Sure, I was disappointed. That glitch probably cost me hundreds of dollars which I could certainly use. Or not. I’ll never know. All I can do is sigh, maybe say “Darn it,” and continue on. Seriously, it’s no big deal. Continue Reading »