Today I’ve been sitting with how it is to be with intense emotions. I’m wondering, are the certain emotions that you notice, that knock you off balance? Or they feel more intense, or difficult to stay present to than others?

It could be maybe when somebody get really angry, they get intense, and in your face. Do you lose your voice? Do you get angry back and get reactive? Maybe you get scared. Or maybe when somebody else gets scared it terrifies you! It’s more than you can stay present with at all.

There are others of us that we might have a really tough time is somebody is just so sad. If they are so sad and consumed with their grief it just feels heavy and impossible and sticky and messy and we just want to get out as quick as we can.

Then there are others that are SO HAPPY. They are EXZUBERIENT with their JOY, and it feels really uncomfortable. It could be any of these, or maybe it’s disgust that knocks you out of the ballpark. That’s a pretty tough...

I’m especially curious about those of you who are in positions of leadership in your world. Some of us, in those positions, hold a lot of responsibility, even more so now. One person described it as navigating through the jungle of leadership. In some pockets of our world there is desperation and hard choices to make. When we have the capacity developed within us to hold the whole global picture and still be able to do the microscission surgery of paying attention to the little details that can make such an impact on so many lives. That’s a gift. It’s not a gift that all of us have. I want to acknowledge that it’s a gift that some of us have and I’m so grateful for your leadership in the world. You inspire me. 

At the same time as you are out there navigating this jungle of leadership in our world today, especially on the medical forefront where there is such a pandemic going on with this virus. It’s like you are out there in this wilderness...

Have you ever felt that there is no time for you to slow down to take care of yourself? Maybe you’ve been burning the candle at both ends working really hard. You might even be enjoying what you are doing, and you are on a dopamine high because your SEEKING circuit is having a blast. Yet you recognize you’ve overcommitted your time and your energy as well. Sometimes you might even start to lose a sense of your own personal identity. You become a human doing instead of a human being. Many times, when we get that depleted, that stretched, then our moods start to roller-coaster and we find it’s difficult to stay on top of our moods and emotions.

Let me tell you a story. It was a few years back, my youngest son was about nine years old, and he had sensory processing difficulties. I didn’t know a lot about it, but I was learning a lot. At that time, I needed to slow everything down to focus on my child, and to create resources for him. There weren’t many...

I’ve been thinking about how stress can affect us, and what happens when stress just gets in your face. Well, the other day, I had a stress reaction. I was having a conversation with somebody, they got really angry and had the look of disgust on their face. I had such a huge visceral reaction. I was shocked, I got angry, and I got afraid also. Then my mind goes a little bit blank because I’m flipping my lid. I get really afraid I’m going to say something wrong and make everything worse. Then, maybe I’ll get rejected and I lose my voice! I start to become less than inside of myself and it feels like there’s absolutely nowhere to turn for support.

That’s really a painful place to be! There are a lot of things that happen within us, especially when we are faced with the look of disgust from another person. It actually lowers our immune system.

On this journey of my life, I have found that there are places that can support me, which have helped to...

I’ve taken the time to get present with the truth that there are many of us on this life journey who have had the experience of not really knowing who we are. The experience of not knowing what to do in our life, or how to be in life.

We find ourselves going through the motions, like a robot on auto-pilot, driven by the shouldn’t and the ought’s and have-to’s of our life. What we have been conditioned to believe we should do, or we ought to do, or told we have to do, and that drives our behavior.

I remember in my life, there is more than once that I found myself in this place. I remember meeting another person who was talking about the value of awakening, and a rebirth of their whole felt-sense of self. I was like, “What are you talking about?” I didn’t get it. How is that possible? I just had so much doubt that there was actual value to what this other person was saying.

Then, I had a lot of shame around my doubt and about my emotions, not...