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The Gift of Insignificance

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 Subscribe Free  From the moment we enter this world, we are taught how important it is to become somebody . Be successful. Be intelligent. Be productive. Accomplish something. Stand out. Make your mark. There is nothing wrong with this. Our gifts and accomplishments can enrich our lives and contribute greatly to the world. But perhaps we have been taught only half the truth. We know the value of our significance. Few of us discover the freedom and value of our insignificance. Look at the night sky. Our planet is a tiny presence within our solar system, our solar system a small part of our galaxy, and our galaxy one among an unimaginable number in a universe whose vastness we can barely comprehend. And somewhere within that immensity, there is you. Your name. Your plans. Your worries. Your victories. Your disappointments. And somehow, on this tiny speck in an incomprehensibly vast universe, we can become convinced that we are a very big deal. That our titles, possessio...
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What We Cultivate

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 Subscribe Free  We are careful about what we put into the things we value. We protect our homes. We choose what enters our bodies. We guard what we consider precious. Yet many of us leave one of the most sacred spaces completely unguarded: Our inner world. Our Mind. Imagine an empty box. Fill it with jewelry, and it becomes a jewelry box. Fill that same box with garbage, and it becomes a trashcan. The box is the same. What it holds changes what it becomes. Perhaps we are not so different. Every day, we are taking something in. Words. Images. Music. Conversations. Opinions. The energy of people and places. Even the thoughts we repeatedly entertain. And none of it passes through us without leaving a trace. Feed the mind continually with anger, envy, fear, judgment, hatred, and intolerance, and eventually they begin coloring the world we see. Nourish it with gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, humility, compassion, beauty, and love, and a different world begins to emerge. ...
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Peace as Foundation

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 Subscribe Free  Most of us spend our lives reaching for something. Success. Health. Love. Happiness. Recognition. A relationship. A home. A dream we have carried for years. There is nothing wrong with wanting these things. They give direction to our lives and often inspire us to grow. But beneath them lies something deeper. We want to feel well within ourselves. We want joy, love, meaning, and happiness. And perhaps beneath them all, we want peace. Yet we often search for all of these where we have been taught to search for almost everything: outside ourselves. When I achieve this, I will relax. When I have enough, I will feel secure. When this problem is gone, I will finally be at peace. And so we spend our lives rearranging the world around us, hoping that eventually everything will fall into place within us. But life does not remain arranged. Circumstances change. Success rises and falls. Possessions come and go. Relationships evolve. The body ages. Peace, joy, ...
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The Blindness of Being Right

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 Subscribe Free  The moment we become certain that we see reality exactly as it is, we may have already stopped seeing it clearly. Perhaps one of the greatest illusions of the human mind is believing that our view of the world is the world. We look at life through the lens of our upbringing, experiences, culture, fears, wounds, beliefs, and conditioning. Then, somewhere along the way, we forget that we are looking through a lens at all. We mistake what we see for all there is to see. And once we become certain that we possess the truth, we stop searching for it. Perhaps this is one of the great struggles of our time. We speak, but rarely listen. We defend before we understand. We surround ourselves with voices that confirm what we already believe and distance ourselves from those that challenge it. But a mind that can no longer be challenged can no longer grow. You do not have to agree with someone to listen. You do not have to abandon your beliefs to consider theirs...
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