Admit It and Save Your Life

Admit It and Save Your Life

As children, many of us were shamed or condemned for being wrong or not knowing. With that shame, a wound forms, usually a core wound. As adults, we carry that shame when we are wrong. If we are afraid to feel that shame, we may try to never be wrong. More often,  we...
Trauma and the Emotional Muscle of Honesty

Trauma and the Emotional Muscle of Honesty

Honesty is a muscle we have to exercise, or we lose it. It takes work to be honest because many factors work against honesty as a default response. Being honest especially requires emotional resilience, because what’s true is often not easy to stomach. In this...
Tai Chi (Chuan) for Sanity and Longevity

Tai Chi (Chuan) for Sanity and Longevity

Each morning I practice tai chi chuan (“tai chi” exercise), I first engage some qi gong warm-ups. Then, before practice, I do the salutation to the form. The salutation itself is beautiful and meaningful, as one fist joins an open palm (Yang within Yin) and they...
The Tragic Irony of Shadow Projection

The Tragic Irony of Shadow Projection

Irony Shadow projection Blind spots Accusation as confession Hypocrisy All five are synonymous dynamics. They all hinge on denial, which creates a blind spot or shadow, which is eventually projected as toxic hurt. Such a person also commits hypocrisy because they are...
A Heart-Mind Compass for Troubling Times

A Heart-Mind Compass for Troubling Times

Learning to discern what is true is crucial for our times. I like to call relatively certain, carefully vetted truth, the “most likely truth.” It’s the level of certainty we have about most hot topics these days.When you don’t know how to identify objective truth, you...