How can this be even more fun?
This is a question that I am asking myself everyday now, multiple times. “How can this be even more fun?” But throughout the day many people are asking questions more like these. If this feels easy can it possibly lead to success? If this looks like fun, will I get...
Is There a Healthy Place for Sarcasm?
She was sarcastic, elegantly sarcastic. Elegant, because she contrasted it with a loving continence, an easy laugh and warm, watery eyes. She beamed and was welcoming - until she wasn’t. Sarcasm comes from the Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmos), which means “to strip flesh.”...
8 Steps to Effective Business and Leadership Communication
Bolt, Battle, Mend or Stew - What we communicate is our message. How we communicate is based upon our habits and predispositions. How well we communicate is dependent on how completely the audience receives and is able to digest our message. Overview: Communication...
Are You Creating Stress to Justify Addiction?
“Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.” Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1738) I had a screenprinting and embroidery business for 27 years that I started when I was 17. It grew into a 30,000 sq. ft., 100 employee...
When is friendship TOO intimate?
Ask Jeff Anything Series: Jennifer: Hi! May I ask you an intimacy question? I guess I’ll ask about your experience first... Did you have close friendships before you got together with Kelly that - once you were together with Kelly - had to become much less close?...
On Being Available
This was my experiment on “being available.” One of the greatest gifts I received while in Bali last year was a truer understanding of what I am capable of. It is still limited but the awareness I had blew my mind and moved me to a new awareness of who I can BE. When...
Should I focus on attaining my ideal self image or on loving myself anyway?
Ask Jeff Anything Series: T - I haven't been able to get over my body issues since I was 11 years old. Should I focus on attaining my ideal self image or on loving myself anyway? AJA - The problem with those two choices is that you are guaranteeing failure and...
Can you have tolerance? Investigating the possibilities
Shinzen Young in "The Science of Enlightenment" tells of a clinical study of brain waves and meditation. Researchers discovered that novice meditators gradually tuned out a recurring sound but experienced meditators had the same brain wave signals over long periods of...
Anger is a choice. Here’s how …
It’s 2:02 in the morning. I’m up because Ed ate something that didn’t agree with him. Based upon a cursory examination, my best guess is fermented deer entrails. As I started to get dressed to head down stairs for the dog vomit clean up kit, I felt angry....
This is what came out of being a yogaholic.
For those of you who know me, you know I've drunk the Kool-Aid. If Jim Jones had been a yoga teacher, I would have followed him to Gyana. As it is, I followed Paul Grilley to Soquel and got lost in the Yinchanted Forest. I followed Glenn Black to the Pain Forest of...
Who you are being matters more than what you are doing or saying
Right now, who you are being matters more than what you are doing or saying. As I scrolled through FB this morning I noticed something – how many people I see that don’t seem to realize the power they have to change things RIGHT NOW. Not in the future, not in the next...
I Don’t Know – The Words of Potential and Power
“The words you speak become the house you live in.” – Hafiz My most profound insight this year regarding me and my work was: Above all else, who you are BEing determines your results. Our Being is the energetic vibe we are putting off. It can change in a second. Our...
Honey, a Mattress and Dad
Honey in my first cup of tea, a comforting morning ritual. I visited my dad and his lovely wife Carol this week. They didn't have any honey. Actually, I didn't ask if there was honey. I looked the couple of places where honey should probably be and didn't see it. I...
Balance, Tenacity and Spirituality
I've been thinking about a "balanced life". I am in a place where I am hyper-focused and really enjoying it. I am passionate, driven and productive. I feel a deep connection, a love, for myself and what I am doing. I am completely unbalanced. I find myself resisting...
Acts of the Gods, a meditation in two acts…
Act 1: When the oak fell it was loud, really loud. Our conversation amidst the chard, Farmer Johnny and I, came to an immediate stop. Oak trees suck up water in wet years. Lots of water. And if you give it a little thought, you realize that water is heavy. I notice...
Early is after 4am
I got up this morning at 3:45. 3:45 is, even in yoga terms, the middle of the night. 4:00 is the witching hour for yogi's. There is a whole school of yoga devoted to the cycles of the day and their effects on our breathing rhythms, Swara Yoga. You can get an idea of...