Driving Through Life I took my 16 yr. old son driving for the first time yesterday. At first it seemed the responsible thing to do was to focus his attention on all of the things that could go wrong: the potential accidents, the limited peripheral vision you have when pulling out of a parking spot, the desire to answer your...[ read more ]
Finding Quiet in the Storm This is my new favorite analogy. It describes how the place we are all searching for already exists within us. Have you ever seen a movie (or use your imagination) where there is a storm at sea: threatening thunderstorms, gargantuan waves, winds over 100 mph...in other words-- intense drama. If someone aboard the boat would...[ read more ]
Does Beating Myself Up Prevent Future Mistakes? Often I hear how people live in a tremendous amount of guilt over their own shortcomings. They believe that these "shortcomings" (ie: being critical, blaming, anxious, reactive) affect, and maybe even hurt, their loved ones and this belief creates a lot of pain. My question is this: When a human being is in...[ read more ]
Healthy Parenting A rebbi at my son's yeshiva wrote an article and touched on one of the biggest mistakes parents make: taking your child's actions and choices personally. This innocently happens because we believe our children are a reflection of us. How can we not take it personally? Isn't it our poor parenting if they don't listen, don't get up...[ read more ]
Does the Past Define Me? Many people believe that their past defines them. They are locked into thinking, feeling or acting certain ways because of their overly critical parent, the environment in which they were raised, the circumstances surrounding their childhood, a particular event that happened to them, or the behavioral choices they made over and over again. This may...[ read more ]
No One Lives in Reality No one lives in reality. We live in the thinking we have about reality. We live in what we make reality mean. So for instance, reality right now for me is that the town is doing a major construction project in the park (which is literally behind my backyard). Practically that means that at 7am...[ read more ]
The View From Up Here Someone was asking me how to apply the principles to a problem she was having. As she spoke about her problem, she got a bit racy and it snowballed into her talking about her many problems. I could hear the overwhelm and anxiety in her voice. I tried to point her toward a nicer feeling,...[ read more ]
Which Glasses are you Wearing? Someone asked me to meet with her 9 year old daughter because she is struggling with bullying and has become so negative, always seeming bothered and angry. She wanted to know if teaching her daughter about thought could help with this. I said of course. As I sat wondering to myself, how am I going...[ read more ]
The Road to Success is Filled with Construction As I was sitting in stand still traffic on the Cross Bronx with a car full of boys this past Friday (it took us 3 hrs to go 6 miles), the boys got punchy and started spewing out idiomatic expressions. One of them was the road to success is filled with construction....[ read more ]
EGO is a case of mistaken identity It is amazing to me how easy it is to have a lot of thinking about myself. Whether it's evaluating how I'm doing throughout the day, feeling insecure because of a mistake I made or being upset because things aren't going my way. Many times I don't even realize that my upset is...[ read more ]
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