Conditional Happiness – Stage Three (read from the beginning) By the time we are adults there are thousands of rules we follow. What bad words we can’t say, grades we are supposed to get, how…
Browsing CategorySelf Awareness
The Five Stages of Happiness
Five Stages of Happiness and Emotional Development At different stages of a person’s life the principle sources of happiness change. What worked to be happy when we were 5, doesn’t work at 25, and changes…
Self Acceptance vs Personal Growth
Does Self Acceptance Diminish or Lessen the Desire for Personal Growth? Do we stop evolving if we really become accepting of our self? Dear Gary, I just wanted to ask you how one can balance…
What Is Ego?
What is Ego? The ego is the identity concept our mind constructed. It is an identity that is false. We are more than just the mind and the ego. If we take all the beliefs…
Power over your Emotions
Losing Control to Your Emotions Why do we lose control to our emotional reactions? We have put so much into our beliefs that they are powerful and generate a lot of emotions. The power we…
Holding Myself Back
“I’m holding back.” – A Self Reflection Process Why am I holding back? What is stopping me? Why do you think you are holding back? Some people notice a thought or behavior and they recognize…
Love is Not Enough
I know the song by the Beatles, “Love is All you Need” but I’ve learned to stop looking for truth about life in song lyrics. For me personally, to be happy in life and relationships,…
Persistence and Resistance
There might be simple rules or edicts to follow to be happy, but sometimes following them ain’t that easy. When we struggle to follow simple rules of happiness it is because fear and false beliefs…
Changing Limiting Beliefs – How Long Does It Take?
Changing Limiting Beliefs – How Long Does It Take? How long will it take?” they ask. That’s often the question as one is working through their issues of limiting beliefs, fears, emotional reactions, or sabotaging…
Happiness as a Goal Makes You More Successful
Do we work to be happy, or are we better off at work being happy first. Shawn Anchor explains how some of our beliefs about happiness and work may be backwards. One important point he…
Lies, Beliefs, and Healthy Exercise
Have you ever run the same conversation in your head over and over again? You might find that after looking at it for a while you will notice a certain circular pattern. Of course that’s…
Near Enemy
Avoiding Your Near Enemy Any good tool, technique, practice, or philosophy, can help you out of suffering and into greater happiness and love. When that tool, technique, practice, or philosophy is taken too far, it…
What is wrong with me?
“What is wrong with me?”, is a question I get quite often. Honestly,,, nothing. In truth you are fine. There really is nothing wrong with you. That’s my perspective with everyone I talk to….
Peeling Off Layers of the Onion
Some say that this personal transformation work is like peeling layers of an onion. That might be because it can cause you to cry a lot. Instead I liken it to cleaning. Big cleaning, like…
The Cause of Procrastination is the Ego
The Procrastination Meaning – How it is driven by Ego and How to Stop. To understand the procrastination meaning, we must understand how it starts. What is the procrastination meaning and how does it relate…
Challenging Our Myths
Common Sense, Myths, and Ghost Stores of the Spiritual Ego 15 years ago I was enamored with this personal development process. I had discovered a whole new world. I felt alive, happy, and excited about…
Practical Wisdom from Barry Swartz
Practical Wisdom Talk by Barry Swartz From the TED Talks Archives: We can’t solve our problems by laying down a set of rules and pretending that following them to the letter will produce desired results….
Dealing With Holiday Stress
Holiday Stress It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. It’s that time of year when we have more parties, social gatherings, big meals with family, presents, beautiful music, all celebrated in our…
The McGurk Effect: How Conditioning Affects Perception
How does our conditioning affect our perception. Watch this video and you will see how you HEAR sounds that are not there. Our visual cue is that we should hear a certain sound, and so…
I Should Be Further Along Than I Am
How many times in our process have we had the thought, “I should be further along than I am.” Really? To that comment I sometimes like to ask two questions, One: “In terms of percentage,…