I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
I help busy people do inner work.
I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
What keeps us young isn’t our looks… it isn’t our physical fitness… it isn’t our knowledge of trends, fads, and what’s cool.
What keeps us young is flexibility. Yes, flexibility in body, but maybe even more so: our flexibility in mind.
Flexibility in mind allows us to adapt our definition of looks as we age; it allows us to redefine what physical fitness means as our bodies change; it allows us to move fluidly, unapologetically, confidently forward into new domains… ones that keep us thinking critically, curiously exploring, and growing in understanding.
Those who obsess over one very specific look, try to freeze their face, skin, and body on that look… and chronically live referencing a past that makes them more and more miserable the further away from that one look they drift.
Flexibility allows us to let go of specific definitions and live in the present. Which allows us to learn how to glow brightly as we are—without any taints of comparison lingering around.
Who we were then and who we are now are not two versions to be compared… but an iterative version that should be cherished and honored.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And if your eyes are tainted with a certain definition of beauty… how are other people’s eyes supposed to see the present version of you? Because believe it or not, our eyes create a filter that all other eyes must pass through. And if that filter is one of self-consciousness, disgust, and doubt… then that’s what they’ll see.
But if it’s one of self-confidence, acceptance, and grace… then how could others not see you in a similar, youthful light?
The beauty of a garden is the beauty of the plants.
If we looked at the plants and pointed out all of their flaws and compared how each was better or worse than the others… the garden would turn ugly.
But if we looked at the plants and appreciated each for their uniqueness and how each contributed to a more diverse array of colors, textures, and smells… how could the garden be anything but beautiful?
This life is tough. Ground yourself into something stable.
Something you can push against; something you can count on to be there; something strong enough to help you bear the weight life puts on your shoulders.
Bearing a heavy load is tough enough… add in an unstable floor? A ground that constantly shifts? An energy that’s unpredictable?
And you’ll constantly be topsy turvy tipping and stumbling whatever it is you’re trying to hold.
The weight will fall and make your ground even more unstable… it will crash into other people’s grounds… it might even leave you injured and unable to bear any load until healed.
Before you bear the weight life tries to put on your shoulders… yes, ground yourself into something stable.
If work is unstable, ground yourself in your home life.
If your home life is unstable, ground yourself in your work.
If both are unstable, ground yourself in yourself. And build a sacred practice of meditation, movement, and connection into your day/week that you can count on.
But one thing is for sure: Don’t try to take on more weight if you’re already off balance. Find proper footing on a ground as reliable as cement. Take on life from there.
Words are the colors you use to paint the picture(s) of your mind.
And as much as you might want to step into a Caribbean color palette with sky blues, lush greens, and warm yellows…
Choosing words that paint dark browns, deep reds, and harsh blacks will elicit a much different kind of picture.
Hate is not a path towards love. Love is a path towards love. And the colors of love are the words you should choose to paint with.
Resentment is not a path towards peace. Peace is a path towards peace. And the colors of peace are the words you should choose to paint with.
Anger is not a path towards happiness. Happiness is a path towards happiness. And the colors of happiness are the words you should choose to paint with.
And each day is a blank canvas. Your mind has access to an entire array of colors. Which will you choose to paint your day?
There are moments, oh so brief and fleeting, during everyday happenings, that connect us to the infinite.
It’s right at peak extension of our morning stretch and just as we scratch the precise location of a butt itch.
It’s the moment when the temperature of our shower hits just the right degree and just as we exhale calmly from feeling most refreshed.
It’s that first sip of coffee, brewed exactly to our liking, and the moment our nose catches its aroma as we close our eyes and carefully breathe it in.
It’s our hands cupping warm ceramic in frigid air or the feel of cool water moving mouth to throat to stomach on a sweltering hot day.
It’s that moment during a hug when we’re pulled in tighter or the moment during a kiss when you both decide to lean back in.
Rather than rush through these moments in an effort to get more quickly to the next… What if we lingered there instead?
What if instead of taking these moments for granted because they’re less than .01% of our day… we made them something we appreciated with as close to 100% of our attention while we’re there?
Maybe our days wouldn’t feel like such a blur. Maybe the moments wouldn’t all vanish behind the off putting comment, criticism, or some kind of fear.
Maybe what’s happening in the .01% is really the only thing that ever is happening?
…Maybe it’s just about us being there.
At our core… these are truth. These are nature. These are pure.
Everything that causes us to struggle is lies… nurture… tainted.
Sitting around, knowing you’re entitled to the pursuit of happiness isn’t going to do much for you.
But understand that there is a real happiness that comes from pursuit.
When your eyes and mind are fixed on a goal and you’re problem solving, critically thinking, collaborating, exploring, trial-and-error-ing, iterating, building, growing…
You unlock a type of whole being happiness… one that isn’t in vain like a temporary pleasure… but one that activates almost every part of you—mind, body, spirit—and renews itself again and again and again…
Just don’t get so caught up in pursuit that you never give yourself any time to feel the happiness that’s present at each step along the way.