Posts from — December 2010

(click on image to play video on MSNBC site)

In 2005, I was on the TODAY show to discuss my now 0ut-of-print book, The Hard Questions for Adults and Their Aging Parents. For some reason, they just featured it on their site today and someone sent me the link, so I’m sharing it with you.

In the last few weeks, I’ve come across some articles (here in USA Today and here on CNN.com) about the necessity and difficulty of talking about death and dying with your parents (and/or your children). My parents have been kind enough to have such discussions with me and my siblings–about their wishes, fears, plans, hopes–from both practical and emotional standpoints. There is no question that entering into such a conversation is one of the bravest and kindest things a family can do together. My book captures such questions and offers suggestions for how to enter into this extremely difficult (and rewarding, moving, confusing, sad, loving) dialogue.

If you want to check out the book, you can find used copies on Amazon and the like, and you can also purchase a new copy from me. If you’d like me to inscribe it in any way, just let me know. I admire any and everyone who is willing to open up to this topic, even just a little bit.

Got this in my inbox the other day. I love David Allen’s work and really believe in its premise, that if you attend to your environment properly, confidence, creativity, opportunity, and joy will increase. Check this out. Great, great thoughts as we begin the new year.

GOOD RIDDANCE

It’s time to purge.

The end of a year and start of the new is a great metaphorical event you can use to enhance a critical aspect of your constructive creativity—get rid of everything that you can.

Your psyche has a certain quota of open loops and incompletions that it can tolerate, and it will unconsciously block the engagement with new material if it has reached its limit. Release some memory.

Want more business? Get rid of all the old energy in the business you’ve done. Are there any open loops left with any of your clients? Any agreements or disagreements that have not been completed or resolved? Any agendas and communications that need to be expressed? Clean the slate.

Want more clothes? Go through your closets and storage areas and cart to your local donation center everything that you haven’t worn in the last 24 months. And anything that doesn’t feel or look just right when you wear it.

Want to be freer to go where you want to, when you want to, with new transportation? Clean out your glove compartments and trunks of your cars. And for heaven’s sake, get those little things fixed on your car or bicycle or motorbike that have been bugging you.

Do you want more wealth? Unhook from the investments and resources that have been nagging at you to change. (And give more than usual to someone or something that inspires you to do so.)

Do you want to feel more useful? Hand off anything that you are under-utilizing to someone who can employ it better.

Want some new visions for your life and work? Clean up and organize your boxes of old photographs. Want to know what to do with your life when you grow up? Start by cleaning the center drawer of your desk.

You will have to do all this anyway, sometime. Right now don’t worry about the new. It’s coming toward you at lightning speed, no matter what. Just get the decks clear so you’re really ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

-Henry David Thoreau

“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.”

-Albert Einstein

I think about discipline a lot, because I am not good at it.

Like, what creates discipline­?

If it’s an act of will, it doesn’t work.

If it’s an act of seduction (you’ll get goodies!), it doesn’t work.

If you leave it to chance, it certainly doesn’t work.

Did an interview with Michele Rosenthal for her site, Heal My PTSD. Here is a link to the audio interview, if you’d like to listen.

1. myths about meditation
2. how to begin a simple meditation practice
3. the benefits of meditation in PTSD recovery
4. inner growth from trauma
5. benefits of creativity in healing posttraumatic stress (ever heard of the word ‘vibing’?)
6. the gift of hypervigilance — and how you can use it for good!
7. how writing can help release and deal with overwhelming emotion
8. how to dedicate the merit — and why you need to
9. how to step away from and then toward your memories