I wonder how much residual resistance remains from our caretakers telling us to sit still when we were kids. The directive was an imperative that had punitive consequences if not heeded. When we try “to sit still”, is part of the restlessness rooted in this formative experience of admonishment? Remember the challenge of trying to…
For three months, I questioned my every thought and every action – everything. How I brushed my teeth, answered the phone, opened a door, spoke to a salesperson. One day I was dicing onions and asked myself, “why am I cutting these this way? There are other ways. Why do I do it this particular…
By Mark Hannan Can you think of anything that stays the same, which does not change? The core nature of the universe is change. Everything changes. Everything. No moment is the same as another. Cellular changes occur constantly. Nothing remains constant. In many ways stability is a delusion, a way for us humans to exert and…
Morpheus and Iris Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, 1811 . There is basically no difference between the waking state and that of dream, except that one seems more stable than the other. Only after there is awakening in the form of enlightenment is it realized that the waking world itself is indeed nothing but a long dream resulting…
Often guilt and shame are confused, misunderstood, and therefore minimized, repressed, or swept aside completely. The best writing on the topic appeared in the Atlantic Monthly February 1992 in a lengthy article simply titled Shame, by Robert Karen. Much of this writing is a paraphrase and quotation of that article interspersed with my own process of healing and the re-writing my life story – past and present.
