As physical beings, we have finite capacities. There are limits to our bodies and abilities. Apart from altering our bodies, thereby increasing our abilities, we are limited.

For example, there is a certain amount of weight that I can lift. If I were to lay down on a bench press I could probably lift somewhere between 150 and 200 pounds. (I give a broad estimate because I haven’t been in a bench press in 20 years or so.) That amount is my limit. If I really was bothered by that limit, I could increase it. I could work at it every day and exercise focusing my energies on how much I bench. But in the end there would be a structural limit, and dietary limit, etc. There are physical boundaries to what this body can do. And within those boundaries my personal ability is limited by how much focus I put into that area.

As an aside, I want to clarify, I am a strong advocate of thinking outside of our limits so that we don’t artificially limit ourselves. We have a tendency as humans and more specifically as westerners to undersell ourselves. We have many capabilities far beyond the limits we hold ourselves to in our minds. But this article isn’t about releasing artificial limits, it’s actually about being aware of real limits when it comes to our emotional energies.

The Olympics have just ended. They were a big deal in my household. We record every highlights show and watch the sports we are excited about. It’s amazing to see people performing at their physical limits. After spending years training to become the best in their sport, they gather as a group of ‘excellent peers’ to compete for that bright shining moment of glory. As they show themselves to be the best of that day. As a performer I am sure it is nerve racking, stressful and overwhelming. Their lifetime of training, performing and repeating will forever, or as long as people remember, be summed up in the actions they perform in those few short minutes of stage/screen time.

As a spectator it can be feel much worse. If you allow yourself to invest in each event, picking a hopeful that you want to win, and then tying your joy or sadness to their performance, it can be quite draining. Then you add to it the wonders of modern television and a DVR. You’re being whisked away to a new sport every 3-5 minutes. Picking a new winner, hoping for the best, moving to the next… And on and on.

I enjoyed the Olympics very much, and I plan to watch summer Olympics again in 2 years… However, there was a lot of emotional energy and angst tied into the experience and thinking about that gave me pause. What are the limits of our emotional energies? And where do we spend those energies? When my energies shift to something like the Olympics does another area of my life suffer from the void generated by the redirection? Or do I spread myself too thin giving emotion to all the usual recipients but lacking in quality of quantity?

I don’t have answers to all these questions. It’s not as simple to measure my emotional boundaries. Saying I can bench 150 pounds does not equate to, I can care about 20 people or things. It can not be measured in exact terms. Like illness, it is usually best acknowledged by the symptoms as opposed to seeing the illness.

When I am fighting a cold, I don’t see the virus or my immune system waging war. But I do get a fever and I do have a running nose and a sore throat.

Likewise when the Olympics end there is a sense of loss and some sadness. Oddly this is often accompanied by a sense of relief as well.

But enough about me. Over to you:

Where do you send your emotional energies?

How do you sense your boundaries?

When do you know you’re spread too far?

Lastly, and most importantly, how do you make sure the people that need you and depend on you get the quality of your emotion they need? Instead of just sharing the leftovers?

Namaste,

Kevin

It’s interesting watching a child create. I’ve learned a few things by watching my children building and comparing their behavior to my own. And it is interesting the striking differences I see.

At some point I was told that my creations must be original to be interesting. I often am halted in my quest to create by fear of being redundant. This has already been done, that has already been created. Even writing my blog today I was stumped trying to come up with a ‘new’ idea. What I’ve learned from my children is that it’s okay to repeat others and yourself.

A child creates without apology. It’s okay if you don’t like it, the creation isn’t for you (well sometimes it is), and this is their creative journey not yours. They create without shame of repetition. A child doesn’t mind if they’ve already created 100 towers with their building blocks. In this moment, with these blocks, they are building a tower. The past doesn’t matter. They are enjoying the process.

When we are being creative and building, as adults, we seem to wrap ourselves in so many boundaries. We have filled our heads with what is possible and what is impossible. We have constrained ourselves with our thoughts about what will be well received and what will be rejected. We mentally box ourselves into a corner and then say “now create!”

True creativity and freedom comes from releasing the boundaries, real or artificial, and allowing the creation to flow out of the act of creativity.

When you are trying to create remember your childlike state of mind. Remove your limits. Unleash your restrictions. It’s okay to be clever, but it’s more important to Be. Don’t stifle your creativity with expectations or restrictions. Creativity must flow like a river.

Allow space for the process and accept that failure is all in your mind. Creativity is it’s own rewardl

Namaste,

Kevin

I was walking down the sidewalk in San Francisco Monday, and I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young men.

“Don’t Hesitate, if you hesitate your worst fears come true!” He was speaking earnestly and with strong conviction. What he was saying wasn’t an idea he had just come up with, I could tell from the way he spoke that it was part of his foundational beliefs. It was part of his truth!

I could tell he believed this with all his heart and to him it was how the universe operated. We all have many beliefs like that. Some of the beliefs are so ingrained in us that we can’t even articulate them, but they are part of the fabric of our lives. You could almost argue that they are part of our operating systems, when X occurs we respond with Y. These ideas are part of our foundation and they dictate how we function and respond to the world around us. But what if they are wrong?

I’m not saying that the young man on the sidewalk was wrong, and I’m not saying he was a fool. But I am saying that he’s grabbed onto a specific interpretation of the events in his life. At the risk of over analyzing the statement, I present this. There are situations where I have charged in boldly, without hesitation, and my worst fears of come true. There are also situations where I have hesitated and my worst fears have come true. Therefore, worst fears coming true result from a function independent of hesitation. But in the mind of this young man, a correlation has been drawn and will no longer subject itself to dialog, this has become a fact. And this is where we enter Dogma.

Dogma is defined as: a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

With a little artistic license around with word “authority”, dogma can become anything where we understand it to be true and aren’t aware that it is up to us to change. The idea that something is a universal truth and unalterable may very well start in our own minds. We may be holding ourselves up to rules that we have made up, that have no reality to them and that simply hold us back, AKA, dogma.



The world is changing. Or more specifically the world continues to move. However, by our very nature, we desire to stand still. We seek solid unmoving ground to anchor ourselves into. We find a ‘truth’, it stands up to verification, and we deem it infallible. Over time it is integrated with our core and we use it to make decisions, but the truth isn’t always the same as what we held onto. While we hold firm, the world keeps moving.

So I encourage you to be a person of strong convictions. Stand firm on your beliefs. While at the same time, being aware of your convictions and allowing your most sacred convictions to be the subject of inquiry.

Don’t become untethered, thrashing about like a small boat on stormy waves. Do allow yourself to model a kayak on a river deftly navigating the rapids, flowing with the world around you.

Namaste,

Kevin

Everybody loves a good retreat. You get away from your life and your stuff and your worries, I guess let’s call it all baggage, and you get to change your prospective. Retreats can all be different. Some are designed to go inside and learn more about you. Some are designed to go outside and learn more about the natural world. And some are focused around bringing together a group of people with something in common, as you learn about those around you, you learn about yourself.

Retreats can even be as brief as stepping out for a lunch break.

New knowledge is fun, it can change your ideas about how the world operates, or make you see the world in a new way. More importantly, it can change your ideas about how you operate. You can become aware of a new side of coin you even know existed. Retreats can be fun, powerful, emotional, moving, trans-formative. But then you go home, you return to your normal life.

The epiphanies are real. Your prospective shift was real. But being home is… well, it’s just like going home… It’s safe, comfortable and habitual. “Yes, I see that angle on the world and understand my view will never be the same, but this is what I’ve always done before, no need to change that.” You think to yourself. You fall back into old habits, steady patterns, old ways of living.

It is interesting the way we form habits. We can find the world has changed and we aren’t aware that our practices are no longer serving our best interests.

My favorite example of this is the story of shortened roast:

Jane was preparing a roast for her family. As she prepped it for the Oven she got out her baking dish and seasoning and large kitchen knife. Carefully she carved off a large thin round from each end of the roast exposing the red flesh inside.

As she placed the prepared roast into the oven, her inquisitive daughter asked, “Why do we cut the end’s off the roast.”

The mother paused and thought and replied, “Well that’s the way your grandma taught me to do it.”

Being the inquisitive girl she was, the daughter decided to call grandma and ask why she did it.

Grandma’s instant reply was, “That’s the way my mother taught me to do it.”

Luckily, for the whole family, great grandma was still alive and she still had her wits about her. So the girl went to visit great grandma and asked, “Why do we cut the ends off a roast before we bake it?”

Grandma Replied “My pan is too small for a full roast.”

So 60 years later, with a new pan large enough to fit a full roast, everyone was still cutting off the ends because they though that was how it was done. Habit instead of awareness.

So when you get home from your retreat, or your day, or your trip to the gym, and return to your normal life. Think about what you’ve learned and how you might need to setup some new habits to replace the old.

We’ll never be free of habits. We are creatures of habit and pattern and ritual. But the trick is, with a little awareness and repetition our new habits can replace the old habits.

A few ideas:

1) Make a checklist of things you intend to do, and set an alarm to look at the checklist.

2) Make the old habit harder to do: Example, watching too much TV? Take the batteries out of the remote control.

3) Rearrange your things: Example, move your desk to the other side of the room. Open a window. Play new music. Break the mold.

Epiphanies are not to be wasted, they are powerful, motivational and rare. When one comes to you, write it down, make the paradigm shift stick, embrace the gift the universe has given you.

Namaste,

Kevin