“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” -Carlos Castaneda Every June, I perform hypnosis and magic shows for high school drug-free all-nighters. Driving there, I’m often exhausted and resistant. Yet when I hit the stage, I get a surge of happiness and energy that lasts for hours after the show. Where does energy come from? How can we …
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“Being half-assed doesn’t work, no matter which cheek’s left.” -Werner Erhardt I remember hearing this metaphor for the first time decades ago and thinking it was brilliant. Two people ignoring the tension between them; leaving some big secret unspoken…like trying to ignore an elephant in the room. It’s crowding them out, but they pretend it’s not there. All the while, it’s sucking the oxygen out of the room. An unsustainable recipe for relationships. Well, there’s …
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“Awareness is the alchemy that transmutes fear to power, labor to laughter, and anger to love.” -Dr. Steve Taubman I don’t usually take requests…but a wonderful and devoted fan of my work asked if I’d say a few words about my understanding of transmutation; a fascinating power we all possess yet seldom use. I jumped to the task, because this is a topic that lives at the core of my teachings. …
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“The highest form of intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti One of my Living in the Present attendees recently wrote me about how to overcome the habit of sleeping through his alarm. When the clock is close, he hits the snooze button. When it’s far away, he just covers his ears and ignores it. Even a chorus of multiple alarm clocks won’t get him up. When he finally does arise, …
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“Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.” -Marshall Rosenberg When I was sixteen, a teenage fantasy came true. My friend, Shelly Silver, with whom I’d been flirting at school (doing a pretty good job of sounding sophisticated and knowledgeable despite my woeful lack of experience with the opposite sex) came over to my house for lunch, and let me “fool around” with her. It started abruptly …
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