I feel as if I need to explain that without having encountered Jizo on the hillsides of Kyoto in 2006, the stuff I write about would be more grounded in knowledge than experience. I had no idea how much I lived in my intellect, in my mind, and how little I resided within my body. [...]
Enlightenment is to be awake. When we sit in meditation, we begin to hear our thoughts, feel our feelings with greater clarity. As we observe our minds with compassion, we are able to distinguish between what is our personal ego and what is the ineffable part of us that is connected to all sentient beings. [...]
In order for us to develop a relationship with our innermost self, we need quiet time. Many of my patients laugh when I suggest that they get up early enough to try meditating consistently. “Getting and staying quiet is impossible,” the ego says. […]
This took me a long, long, long time to learn and will surely take only a moment to say here. Tension causes a huge number of physical ailments and confronting yucky feelings can help release tension. How do we do that? The mind wants a quick trick, a fast way to be better. But this [...]
A dear friend asked me about social anxiety today and as I wrote back, I thanked her for giving me my next blog: Social anxiety is so sad. I have had it, too, at times. I remember a time when I felt I literally had grown three dress sizes in an hour. I felt so [...]
When we have a thought, do we respond to it as though it were true? Do we believe that our feelings tell us what is true about the world? Two big buzzwords these days are Emotional Dysregulation. It assumes that normal is, say, in the range of middle C, within an octave either higher or [...]
Hi all. As I therapist, I have heard my patients begin to worry about the holidays as early as, well, about the time the lights go up in Bloomingdale’s, which is now in September. Even if you are not a worrier, there is a level of Shoulds, of stress, of pressure that our society places [...]
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.” ~ Basho I have used beautiful quotes of Basho’s for a long time. And while I loved his words, I did not know anything about the man, the poet. It is in grounding myself in my Jizo-experience that [...]
For me, J.D. Salinger was a bit of a Zen Master. […]
I just had to get off the yoga mat to write this down this morning. I had not, until this very moment, internalized lovingkindness while I was doing yoga, or aerobics or Pilates mat work. I am always pushing myself to do longer asanas, more reps, better form. […]
