Pay-Forward
PAY-FORWARD: What’s your legacy? We are a ‘self-help’ community but we don’t want to promote self-indulgence. The skills and tools we learn and practice give all of us a unique advantage. As we become more mature, empowered, clear, open-hearted and less reactive, we’re able to make greater contributions to the world around us. Whether that’s being a better partner, parent, leader, teacher, or role model—our goal is to take what we learn in our community and use it, pay it forward, and make the world a better place.
Be More Peaceful
We can learn to be more peaceful and, in turn, create a more peaceful world. I, along with 19 others, have just recently returned home from yet another remarkable retreat, or “lab” as we fondly refer to them. For me this retreat was sweeter than any previous—mostly...
Rumi and Live Conscious
Rumi said: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” What do Live Conscious and Rumi have in common? The beloved Rumi, actually now one of the most widely read...
Post Traumatic Thriving
Eight weeks ago I was hit by a truck while crossing a street. I was warned by the “experts” about the likelihood of suffering from post traumatic stress. Nightmares. Anxiety attacks. Heightened reactivity. But that’s not what happened to me. When we...
Blog Hop
I want to thank Elyn Aviva for introducing me to the notion of a blog hop. The purpose of a blog hop is for one blogger to introduce his or her audience to another blogger whose work we highly appreciate. And also, as part of the blog hop I’ve been asked to...
Being Kind
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” Dali Lama A patient recently shared with me the difficulties he was having relating with his mother. There were parts of her—certain behaviors and attitudes of hers—that he was having difficulty accepting....
How to stop being judgmental
Are we born judgmental beings, or at birth are we pure and pristine—trusting and open? I often hear people talk about wanting to get back to the state they think they were born in, before they became judgmental and fearful. But did such a state exist? My belief is...
The Last Word You Ever Speak
I recently heard a story about a woman who survived the holocaust. When she and her younger brother were being transported by train to Auschwitz, she got upset with her brother for not packing all the clothes that he would need. She harshly scolded him, telling him...
Love or Fear
There is significant reason to believe that we—individually and collectively—are living within a false paradigm. And if we were to make one change in our lives, shifting from fear to love, we would create a new world. Most of the problems we face would...
Goethe quote
Goethe Quotes —— I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool...
Enlightenment Can Lead To Arrogance
What is enlightenment? I see it as a state of constructive contentment. That is, being constructive—making some sort of contribution—and feeling satisfied at the same time. One of the things about this state of being is that it feeds on itself. If I am content and...
Ecology of the Heart | Huffington Post
How does Live Conscious relate to the ecology of the heart? An article in Huffington Post this week written by Radhanath Swami, related spiritual awareness to ecology. It was called, “The Bhakti Way of Investing in the Ecology of the Heart”. The Swami had been...
September 11th Anniversary
Today is the 9/11 anniversary of the attack on America. Did we change ourselves as a result of the attack? We came together for a short while, unified and compassionate—but did it last? Did we use the attack to become better? Nietsche said, “Anything that does...
Why Finding Your Peace Means Less Suffering for Others | Finding Peace |
Ed and Deb Shapiro, meditation teachers and authors of “Be The Change,” write that: “When we are unhappy or angry, then we are also angry with other people and increase the suffering in the world. When we are in pain, that pain gets projected onto...
Ben Kingsley on Portraying Holocaust History: NPR Interview
Give yourself a treat—it will take less than 10 minutes out of your day—and listen to Sir Ben Kingsley being interviewed by NPR’s Scott Simon in front of an audience at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Kingsley has played a range of Holocaust-related...
The Importance Of Sadness: Susan Piver, The Huffington Post
Susan Piver writes in The Huffington Post that allowing yourself to feel sad when you are sad could change the world. “When you look out at this world, what you see will make you very, very sad. This is good. You are seeing clearly. Genuine sadness gives rise,...
Expressing Mindful Love Through Service: Huffington Post
“Expressing Mindful Love Through Service”, a recent article in The Huffington Post, by Ronald Alexander PhD, reminds us that with our conscious service to others, we can improve the quality of our own lives and our relationships. On this upcoming Valentine’s Day...
