Life is difficult.

Life can be challenging.

Life can wear you down.

Live is a breeze.

Life is a joy.

Life is a journey of discovery.

How did you feel after you read the introduction those 3 statements?

How did the next 3 make you feel?

Even sitting here writing them, as I wrote the first 3, I believed them. I became solemn and sober and thought about the challenges in my life. I became so sober that I realized that I needed to go in a different direction. My goal here as a writer is not to bring you down, but to lift you up. To remind you, it’s going to be okay.

So I embarked on the follow on statements. And as I wrote them, I personally became uplifted. I remembered the good things in my life. I thought about all the fun I have each day. My joy of discovery came to mind and how I love to connect ideas that seem unrelated. Just by writing something upbeat I became more positive.

And that leads me to my subject. The rain in pain falls mainly on the brain. When you’re in pain or going through challenges it can be easy to dwell on those challenges. To build a little rain storm over your head and wallow in the winter of your misery. Like all things in life, there is a time and a place for this… However, there is a difference between the actual pain and our perception of the pain. There is a difference between how long the pain lasts and how long our mental news feed runs stories about the pain.

Once the actual pain is gone, the rest is all in your head. Once the actual event has ended you’re really just reading old news stories about things that occurred in the past. And while it is appropriate for a time for processing and a time for mourning. Don’t get caught up in a self generate rainstorm. At that point, it’s all in your head.

The Rain In Pain Falls Mainly On The Brain.

Go generate some sunshine. Make a rainbow. Do whatever you need to, to break out of your funk and into your fun. Laugh, get some exercise, get coffee with a friend, find a friend. Did I mention laugh?

Step outside your head and find where the sun is shining.

Namaste,

Kevin

When you look up into the night sky, you are seeing starlight… Well as long as you don’t live where there is too much light pollution… But work with me here.

So you’re looking into the night sky and you see the light from stars. For you, it’s now, it’s being in the moment. But is it really?

What you are in fact seeing, when you look up into the night sky, is the past. The light from stars, takes time to travel to your eyes. Specifically, light travels at, well, the speed of light. So if a star is 10 light years away, what you are seeing is light that left the star 10 years ago. You’re seeing the past. And for other stars that are thousands of light years away, you’re seeing the ancient past. So when you’re looking up into the night sky, you’re seeing the universe as it was, not as it is. In fact, some of those stars may already be gone. Burnt out from used up fuel or exploded from instability.

So now let’s translate this down to our daily world. Your mind is constantly processing the past. The only thing in the present moment is your body at your location. Everything around you, radiating out from you as distance increases, is farther and farther in the past. So your mind and your senses are all designed to take in things that just happened. We are constantly recording history. So what our mind perceives as the thing that is happening now, in fact happened then.

It reminds me a surreal scene from Spaceballs by Mel Brooks, where they’re trying to find where the hero has taken the princess and instead of looking for him directly, the discover that the movie they are filming, Spaceballs, has already been released to video. So they put in the tape and fast forward to find where the hero is. As they fast forward they accidentally end up at the exact moment in the movie that they are filming.

“We’re at now now.” – General

“What happened to then?” – Dark Helmet

“We missed it.”- General

“When?” – Dark Helmet

“Just now.” – General

“When will now be then?” – Dark Helmet

“Soon.” – General

And likewise the moment we are in, is in fact the moment that just passed. Our bodies are designed to process the recent past.

And this is our constant cycle. This is what we were designed to do. This is how we process the universe.

So you could argue, that in order to be in the moment, we have to actually step outside of the moment. Because what we perceive to be the moment, is in fact history.

Namaste,

Kevin

I’ve heard of a new book that I wanted to share with my readers. I have yet to read the book. The author was on a radio show I listen to and discussing the connection between our intuition and our ability to be creative. The Book is called “Quantum Creativity“. The intention behind the book is to enable people to tap into the creative abilities that are inherent in each of us.

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about our abilities to balance being a core component of our reality. The world at large asks us to “Go Go Go”. Go build something, go buy something, go watch something. Or in other terms “Do Do Do”. Do this. Do that. etc. While mindfulness based practices are always asking us to “Be Be Be”. Be mindful, Be meditative, Be in the moment. And I’ve come to believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

While we are a world that is out of balance on the “Do Do Do” side. The solution is not to be out of balance on the “Be Be Be” side. Our solutions should lead to balance and moderation.

So when I heard the author, Amit Goswami, Ph.D, cleverly suggesting we “Do Be Do Be Do” (giving credit to Frank Sinatra for the original phrasing), the concept clicked with me. His concept is that our creative energies available to us through mindfulness and intuition, cultivated in the act of “Be”ing. Can then be leveraged in our world of “Do”ing. I like that idea and I plan to do further research into it.

I hope you have a wonderful day as you seek balance between the “Do” and the “Be”.

Namaste,

Kevin

I heard an interesting prospective on life over the weekend. As a disclaimer, I don’t prescribe to everything he said. He attributes almost everything we’ve been told to be a falsehood and deception on someone’s part. But I’ve found value in listening to people I don’t agree with, because it helps me understand. That said, I found it interesting to listen to his ideas, and then he shared something profound, and my heart skipped a beat.

The host of the talk show was asking about how we can fix the problems of the world and how we can deal with all of these scary issues around the world. John Lear responded bluntly “You’re not here to change the world. You’re here to be changed by the world.”

I stopped and caught my breath as the idea sank in. “You are here to be changed by the world.”

I tend to get overwhelmed with the problems in the world. And as I processed the thought above I realized that I feel it’s my job to fix them… And while I can make a positive impact on the world, it’s not my job. Further it’s delusional to think that I can fix the world. It’s not my role and it’s a waste of my energy to worry about it.

I have often been afraid of the idea of being changed by the world. In my mind the implication is that you would become like the bad things in the world (AKA worldly). But there is also good in the world. And the interplay of these two forces mold us into the people we are becoming. It plays in very strongly to the idea of the world as a training grounds. We are here to experience this life and be shaped by the experience.

As with all profound truths, it is just one facet of the bigger picture. But this aspect helped as I process the action of letting go of the things I cannot control. So I invite you also to let go of the things you really don’t have a handle on to begin with.

Namaste,

Kevin

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

Life is so Damn Serious! Too Serious really… Or maybe it’s just me.

It is so easy to get caught up in all the serious activities that encompass our lives.

Sickness. Bills. Baby burning his hand. Everybody stressed. NSA spying.

You name it, there are reasons all around us to get serious and take action. But we have to seek balance. Action is all fine and good, and it’s how things get done. But in some ways I feel like I’ve been living my life in wartime, just waiting for the next bomb to go off.

I’ve always heard growing up of two stress responses, Fight or Flight. However it was only in the last 10 years as I got into my yoga studies that I learned about the more sinister type of stress, being trapped. Here is the scenario. You are a mouse and a cat is in the room with you. You have your choices fight or flight. Let’s face it, you’re a mouse, you can’t possibly take out the cat. So your only option, really, is flight. But here’s the rub. The room is locked and all the little mouse sized holes are sealed up. So now all you can do is wander the room nervously waiting for the cat to get hungry. This third type of stress is what we often find ourselves in. In this civilized world it’s not really appropriate to fight everybody, nor is it appropriate to run away, so we tough it out and sit and take it, nervous and unable to move.

Worse yet, sometimes, the cat is out our own heads. We are still the mouse, but we make up scenarios in our heads where we suffer at the claws of the mythical cat and struggle for survival…

So to my point. So What?!!! So the world is serious. So we get stressed. So that cat is going to eat us. Until then, we can at least occasionally throw a party! We can at least remember to dance and sing and do whatever it is that makes you feel alive! Everyone gets eaten by the cat eventually. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, gets out of life alive. So the question you have to ask yourself is this “Do I want to go through life afraid? Or do I want to live like I’m… well… alive?”

So last night, as we watched our daughters 7 pm bedtime quickly receding in the rear view mirror, she asked to dance. So I put on music on my iphone and we danced and partied like there was no tomorrow! Baby got in on the action with his 1 year old head bob and Mom joined in as well as we spun in circles and had a fantastic moment.

And it reminded me, in the midst of my scheming and planning and scheduling and recovery, that life is supposed to be fun.

Enjoy yourself! Namaste!

Kevin