Idealism
Idealism is a word with layers of meaning. As a philosophy, it sees reality as mental, with the world appearance as a mental construct (or similar). It’s also the pursuit of one’s ideals, idealizing a …
Category: Mind
The Golden Rule
The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as we would expect to be treated. It is a maxim of reciprocity. It’s found in most faiths and many philosophies throughout the ages, though it …
Our Person
Our evolution is linear, as in stepping through the stages of development, but also cyclic. We have seasons of great experiences, and seasons dominated by cleaning house. It can be hard to find time for …
The Guru
Guru is a Sanskrit term meaning remover of darkness. It’s often translated as teacher. Rishi means seer, someone who sees reality. A rishi may or may not also have the skills of a teacher. As …
Pursuing Virtue
We define a virtue as a moral excellence or goodness. We express our virtues as character strengths we can offer the world. “The number of potential character strengths profiles is exponentially greater than the number …
Healing Trauma
A reader recently mentioned the work of Irene Lyon, a specialist in somatic (body) healing. When we’re unable to fully process a traumatic experience, that stress may be stored in the physiology. Even if it’s …
The Biology of Not Enough
In a recent article, Kavitha Chinnaiyan made some interesting observations around early childhood development. She noted that our mental narrative-making has biological roots. That every childhood has trauma simply because our caregivers couldn’t be there …
The 5 Apology Languages
I’ve written before about the 5 Love Languages. I found this quite insightful. People are prone to recognize and express love in certain ways. If two people are out of sync, they can become frustrated. …
The Lesson
I don’t recommend searching for issues to fix in ourselves. That just cultures a sense of being broken. It can be pretty hard on relationships too, if their sharing gets an “I’ll fix you” response …
The 4 Characters
Most of you will be familiar with some basics of our brain physiology. Our brain is hemispheric: it has 2 distinct halves that are biologically similar but behave somewhat differently. We sometimes describe them as …
The Cause of Suffering
The field of action is one of cause and effect, of action and reaction. Nature maintains balance in the system to sustain it. If we act in a way that pushes the balance off, nature …
Our Potential
I continue to be surprised by how expansive human potential is. We can be embodied knowers of reality, each with our own specialty. This is how the universe comes to know itself, through the direct …