perception

Research is confirming what mystics and contemplatives have known forever: presence isn’t just a spiritual nicety. It’s fundamental to happiness, to health, to feeling truly alive.

And curiosity — that wide-open, wondering attention we had as children before it was quietly educated out of us — turns out to be one of the things that actually keeps us alive, in every sense of the word.

A Simple Practice for Protecting Your Mental Clarity I was in class, packing up after our yoga practice. Around me, other yogis were doing the same—rolling up their mats, chatting, heading off to start their days. And I watched, as I always do, with a mix of fascination and quiet concern. Nearly everyone was doing [...]

Walking in Gratitude There’s something magical about our pre-dawn walks through our neighborhood. Not our neighborhood, but the beautiful streets that border our little corner of the world. Walking through the tree-lined street feels like strolling through a private park, and every single time, I’m filled with gratitude for this gift that sits right next [...]

Life is like a bus. We get on the bus that takes us where we think we want to go. Sometimes we get off and take another bus. As we travel through life’s journey, passengers come and go. Sometimes they are family and friends. When they get on, we are delighted. When they get off, [...]

Once you understand that things are thoughts made manifest, it’s time to take the next crucial step: move things back to thoughts. But not human thoughts—the Infinite’s thoughts. The Journey from Thought to Thing Let’s begin with this foundational truth: things are thoughts made visible. How we perceive the world literally shapes the world we [...]

The Fallen Branch Bridge All trees have stories. They stand as perfect symbols of life’s continuous cycle—from seed to sapling to towering presence, breathing life into our planet and then returning to earth to nurture new beginnings. But this particular maple’s story taught me something profound about transformation and the power of small steps. The [...]

A World Renewed Begins With You. Start now. Have you ever wondered why we spend countless hours arguing with what isn’t working instead of simply resetting what we believe? Since we ultimately see what we believe, wouldn’t this approach make more sense? The answer lies in our conditioning. Breaking Free From Old Programming From our [...]

What’s one problem you can solve today? For years, every few months, when I opened my curtains, the curtain rod would separate and fall down. Until one day, I said to myself, “There must be a solution to this.” And, of course, there was. I took clear packing tape and wrapped it around where the [...]

In the 1970s, my family and I lived on Park Place in Venice Beach, California, in an old two-story house that had been converted into four apartments. When we first moved in, I was pregnant with my second child, and we rented one of the small downstairs apartments. But it was a little bigger than [...]

Perception Rules: Choose the ones you want to live with. One morning, on my walk, I saw a woman walking a dog. Clueless about dog breeds, I just knew it was big and brown. The next time I passed her, coming the other way, she was still walking a dog. This time, it was big [...]

And yet, I will be. I wonder what would happen if we all saw the past as not something to be lived over and over again, but as a past story we once read. What if we could let go of the hurts, disappointments, mistakes, idiotic things, or even the amazing things we did when [...]

It’s Always The Last Time Sometimes we know when it will be the last time. Most often, we don’t. Sometimes we wish it was the last time, but we can’t seem to stick to that agreement to let go. The truth is, it’s always the last time. We will never be exactly the same person [...]

You know how humans think. It’s up, down, back and forth, against something, for something. As humans, we expect to experience everything from tragedy to joy. Do we have a choice? Aren’t we human? Maybe, maybe not. Isn’t human a label for a set of beliefs and paradigms? So what would happen if we didn’t [...]

I was ready to record a batch of videos. I always write a bunch of scripts and record all the videos at one time. That way, I only have to do the setup once. After forty-five minutes of setup time, I was ready to begin. But my test video was beyond terrible. The lighting was [...]

I have renewed respect for anyone who has cleaned out a parent’s home. And a renewed determination to try to make it easier for my children when the time comes. Recently, we moved our mom to a personal care room. It’s lovely, she’s happy, but it is the size of a hotel room. She lived [...]

AI, Prayer, and Jolts Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe? —Scott Turow AI is the buzzword we hear everywhere these days. But of course, we have been using forms of artificial intelligence for years, from GPS to Fitbits to editing programs. Actually, the list is endless. ChatGPT has [...]

The radio and then TV show This Is Your Life was designed to show people that they had many people who cared about them, had a bright future, and had made a difference in people’s lives. Intentional or not. But it did something else. It showed how seldom life turns out how we thought it [...]

I know habits and preconceived perceptions can make us blind to the obvious. However, I thought that I usually have a good grip on paying attention. I enjoy exploring ways to be more effective and finding easier ways to do things that need to be done. So it both surprised and dismayed me that I [...]

Sometimes we—thinking we are human—make things so complicated. And really, it’s not. I believe if we could all put into place a few basic principles, then solutions would be found that would unravel all the issues we face. Of course, we’d have to do it together. We’d have to agree. And often, that seems impossible. [...]

One day, the magnificent multi-trunked tree in our backyard gave us a warning. We came home from our early morning shopping, and one of its massive trunks had fallen. It chose to fall quietly when no one was home so the sound it made would not frighten anyone. It hurt nothing. Not a single branch [...]

Time doesn’t change us. It just unfolds us. — Max Frisch Even though there is no time, past, present, or future, it’s how we experience life—as an unfolding, a transformation. We can either view transformation as something to fight against or embrace it. And it’s easier, in the long run, to embrace it, to think [...]

When I was in elementary school, I saw the woman who would one day become my dance teacher perform the Red Slippers. At that moment, I fell in love and knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a dancer. But one of my friends told me she taught ballet – she didn’t [...]

We’ll never complete anything, never climb a hill, never figure out something we don’t know how to do until we get started. And sometimes the thing that looks the most daunting is actually the most creative. Fearing what might happen or not happen is a shadow.

Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. — Robert Louis Stevenson How many times have you tried to change someone, or even yourself, and failed miserably? Without knowing a single thing about what happened or what you were trying to do, I know why it probably didn’t work as well as [...]