Do you remember the 1970s hit by The Temptations, "Just My Imagination"? The refrain goes: "It was just my imagination running away with me". And this morning as I was reflecting on certain events in my life, I realized that a lot of times we create problems in our head...
- By Simran Singh
You may be in very churning times and situations in your experience. You may simply desire something more out of life—out of your self? This isn’t a time for facades, pretentious talk, and ego-mania. Such behavior will reveal...
It's time to start talking to our Self -- not our small self, but our Higher Self, the wise one, the one with the "higher" perspective on things. At first you may not know what the difference between the small self's voice and the Higher Self's voice. Here's some clues...
What makes people happy? Finding a definitive answer to this question could certainly make someone very rich (but whether that would in turn make them happy is another matter). The problem is that happiness is especially slippery.
I remember being a very compassionate child. But by the time a boy reaches five or six years old “he’s learned to repress every emotion except anger, because anger is the only emotion society tells a boy he is allowed to have.” It is obvious men need to transcend this conditioning to become compassionate.
The ability to look on the bright side when times get tough — and, conversely, always expecting the worst — may be hardwired in the brain. “It’s the first time we’ve been able to find a brain marker that really distinguishes negative thinkers from positive thinkers...”
Economists at the University of Warwick have found happiness increases productivity by around 12%. Andrew Oswald, Eugenio Proto and Daniel Sgroi carried out a number of experiments to test the idea that happy employees work harder.
Besides our worry thoughts about the future, there is another type of story we are telling ourselves which gives us a lot of anguish. These are the ‘if only’ stories: ‘If only he’d listen, I’d be happy. If only the sun was shining, I’d be happy. If only I had a little more money in the bank..."
One of my favorite quotes is, “If you have room in your heart for one enemy, your heart is an unsafe place for a friend.” I do not know who originally spoke or wrote that statement, but I do know it contains a volume of wisdom. My New Year’s vow this year is to clear my heart and make it a safe place for all beings...
- By Alan Cohen
"My son is three years old. The doctor says he's too short for his age." I wondered how that statement affected the child. Would this be the beginning of a lifetime of perceived inadequacy? Would he forever feel "less-than" about something he could not change...
Giving yourself permission to let go of what doesn’t serve you is very powerful. You will become highly energized. People who have done clutter busting on their own have told me about how they were enjoying the feeling of openness and freedom. Then suddenly, it became too much, and they stopped the clutter bust.
What does Buddhism mean by non-attachment? Many people think the idea of detachment, non-attachment, or non-clinging is very cold. This is because they confuse attachment with love. But attachment isn’t genuine love — it’s just self-love.
- By Alan Cohen
It is becoming clear to me that the way most of us have lived our lives has not been in harmony with the way the universe intended. It seems that we have somehow lost touch with the loving flow of life, our rhythm of being, our sense of peacefulness about ourselves and satisfaction with what we are and what we are here to do.
It’s easy to like some people and it’s not very easy to like others. They don’t smile back! So it has to go deeper. If we continue to judge people on the basis of appearances and behavior, the endeavor is hopeless. Instead we have to return to a very simple truth...
The idea that we create our own reality — that is, the concept of the mirror universe — often seems to ring true, but it also raises some troubling questions. Sometimes it’s easy to see this principle at work in our lives, but other times, especially when things aren’t going very well, it can be...
Finding peace in your lives and relationships, especially if you feel stressed with financial, health, or relationship challenges, can sometimes seem almost impossible. And yet finding that peace is essential. There is a story of a king who offered a prize to the artist who could paint the best picture of peace...
- By Alan Cohen
by Alan Cohen. I recently made a pilgrimage to the ancient Mayan temples at Chichen Itza and Tulum in Mexico. At one pyramid our tour guide informed us that the Mayans regularly offered human sacrifices to appease their gods. While we would regard such offerings as primitive and even abhorrent, the mindset of sacrifice is still...
When you open your life to the rest of our world, it can be daunting. It is easy to become hypersensitive to the violence and suffering around us. Maybe you cannot tolerate the extreme violence of many movies and TV shows, or even the news reports on the radio. Emotions may run high on all accounts.
by Madeline Ko-i Bastis. When we quiet the mind, our transgressions emerge from the shadows and we become sensitive to our interaction with others. A turning point presents itself. Though we feel regret at having caused harm, there may still be a niggling voice whispering that our actions were necessary. Tit for tat; he deserved that...
We all want to be happy! At least, we all say we do... yet, how much happiness can we handle? How much happiness are we willing to have in our lives before we sabotage ourselves? Let's look for a minute at...