This is third and (probably) final part of the "home" series. And that's all I'm going to say! (Hehe...) You don't want to miss the gorgeous, relaxing nature sounds in this episode, which was recorded on my camping trip in Vermont. Enjoy! Email thoughts and questions to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or leave a comment at lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode33.
In last week's episode we talked about the concept of home . Home isn't where you go to get away from the storm; home is a place of safety right smack dab in the middle of the storm. So in this episode, we expand on this topic of home, discussing how we can practice living at home, even when it feels so far off. Come join the conversation. Email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or leave a comment on this episode at lifeinthewhirlwind.com/podcast/episode32 ....
What is home for you? What does it feel like? Is it a place? A mindset? An image? A far-off longing? In this episode, come join me as I discuss the universal feeling of longing for something called "home" and how we can be transformed by even the longing itself. Come join the conversation. Visit the website at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com or email me at lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com . I love receiving your emails, so keep them coming!...
Is it "wrong" to let ourselves be affirmed and listen to the voices of those who love us to find peace? What is the balance between this and finding peace within ourselves without the help of others? It's not as cut-and-dried as we often say it is. This episode is a good follow up to last week's episode on combating shame narratives. Come join me on my vacation and let's have a conversation (with an abundance of metaphors), shall we? Thoughts? Questions? Itches? Email them to lifeinthewhirlwind@...
"You really know how to suck a person dry." ... "What is wrong with you?" ... "You're not strong enough to handle this." ... "You're just too much." ... These kinds of shame narratives play in our heads all day long. Sometimes we are conscious of them, sometimes we aren't. But they're playing like music in a café – filling our internal lives with background noise. What if we acknowledged these narratives as real (but not true), in doing so moved toward them (!), and spoke truth to them so they c...
A big part of practicing non-attachment is being careful to not decide how things are going to go (in any direction). Often our negative anticipations become self-fulfilling prophecies. Come join this conversation on how to balance anticipation with openness. Keep the emails coming! lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com
On the front page of my website I have a line that says "Don't merely survive...FLOURISH." I started this entire project as a result of observing how often we survive, and how rarely we actually flourish as we were created to. While the survival part of our brains is a virtuous gift when a bear is chasing us, there is something so much more expansive and generative that is always available to us. In this 6 month anniversary episode (!!!!) I have a tender, loving invitation for you, my dear frien...
This past week I spent time with a group of uniquely vulnerable, dear humans who dared greatly to share themselves with one another and me. In the wake of this experience, I have some insights to share about divided self versus congruent self – the benefits and struggles of being the same on the outside as we are on the inside. Email your challenges, thoughts, and questions to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com .
About 10 years ago I read an article on quantum entanglement . You don't have to know anything about science to find this concept amazing on a very practical level. In the way two particles live in a relational holism no matter what distance apart they are (and we're talking light years), so we humans have these things about us that are the same. The closer we move to the "center" of the human experience, the more unified we realize we actually are. On the other hand, the closer we move to "cent...
Life is a balance between learning and unlearning. Learning is our foundation, made up of pre-conventional and conventional wisdom and knowledge that we need to establish important routines and realities. Then our latter state is this mobius loop of fluid learning and unlearning, of post-conventional wisdom and knowledge, full of creativity, challenge, and alternate ways of being. This creates within us (then usually around us) a perpetual state of flow . Come join the conversation for an unprec...
We often think that the under-tapped unconscious holds the secrets to our transformation. I wonder if, in fact, what we call transformation – or even what we call "real life" – is most truly the here-and-now. If this is true, the thing that brings us into life as we know it is going to be, well...coming to our senses. Come join us for this conversation on the different options we have to living life – invisible and visible. Email your thoughts, questions, ideas, musings to lifeinthewhirlwind@gma...
Too often we think our gifts and unique qualities are not "enough" simply because those with whom we share community do not also possess those qualities and gifts. We don't blend. We stick out like a sore thumb, perhaps. Yet variety and diversity is exactly what we all need. Come join this conversation, examining and challenging the ways in which you might judge certain gifts and qualities as less-than when perhaps "different" is what we were created to be. Email anytime! lifeinthewhirlwind@gmai...
When you ring a bell (or a singing bowl, which I use to help me in this episode) you hear the strike of the bell for only an instant; it is the resonance, the ripple of the strike that you hear for a good long while. So it is in our lives. There are four parts to everything, but we rarely give attention and honor to the fourth part of everything, which is the ripple effect. Come check join this conversation about truth and enchantment in plain sight, and I can almost guarantee how you view just ...
Has anyone ever said to you, "You are good" ? Did you quickly deny it (either internally or externally)? Did you ponder it? Did you believe the person? Unfortunately we are much quicker to believe that we are inherently bad , yet that's very contrary to the story the Divine Maker has given us. This episode just skims the surface of the conversation of Original Goodness and True Self, which will surely continue on this podcast. We were made in and from Love, and yet we are told so differently by ...
Acknowledged or not, we all have these parts of ourselves that we banish to the shadows – believing that if others saw these parts, we would be rejected and shamed. But consider this: have you ever seen more good than harm come from leaving things in the dark places? In this natural follow-up to Episode 17 on the value of being seen and known, Episode 18 proposes in detail why being seen and known may actually start and end with knowing thyself . Some think of this as narcissistic and navel-gazi...
This week I've got a real treat for you...a visiting voice! (An artful one, at that.) But first, let me whet your whistle. In the 1999 movie The Big Kahuna one of the characters named Phil (played by Danny DeVito) says to another character these words: "If you want to talk to someone honestly, as a human being ... find out what his dreams are. Just to find out. For no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore, it's a pitch....
I don't know about you, but I think it's so nice to have vocabulary for what we experience in everyday human life. One of the things we experience is attachments to certain outcomes. But there is a lot of value (ancient value, I would daresay) in practicing choice and action while also practicing the release of outcomes. In this first episode of many (I hope) on non-attachment, we scratch the surface of non-attachment, its value to bring us into more whole versions of ourselves, and its ability ...
What is automatic for us is often not the thing that best serves us –– would you agree? We spend so much of our lives in states of automatic thinking, feeling, acting and reacting. But what if, instead, we paused and did something very un-automatic instead? What would change? Come join the conversation on how this experiment can change a lot more than you might imagine. Please feel free to email me your findings from this experiment this week! In your email let me know if you'd like your finding...
Henri Nouwen once wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In order to live a hospitable life––not just a hospitable year––you need a lot of time for yourself to read, to write, to study, to meditate, to pray, to just be alone. If you do not claim that for yourself, you are not hospitable enough because you do not create the quiet restful place where people can find healing." What a week it's been for me to do that! I am grateful to have had a trip to San Francisco where I did just this. On...
We often treat intense emotions or experiences like intruders. While this may seem natural and normal (since the cultures around us are often sending us implicit or explicit messages about what we're "allowed" to feel), what if it's leading to unnecessary suffering and holding us back from our best available life? As I like to say, vulnerability is hospitality of the self. Come join us for this episode as we discuss opening ourselves in different ways and how to attempt different approaches to e...
What are the so-called "optimal conditions" we tend to wait for in life before we choose to open ourselves or dare greatly in life? Sadly we often wait too long, or we hide – never to dare at all. We let our natural fear of pain, judgment, criticism, exposure, etc keep us small. But what growth and expansion of True Self is missed when we shrink, hide, or stand still? Come join the conversation as we discuss vulnerability, openness, and how & why it may lead to expansive life that holds stea...
In this season of considering losses, I've found myself asking: Why do we cling to what we cling to? It makes sense that we hold on, but what is actually happening when we do? In this episode we also explore & consider why we end up needing to release where we are being invited to release (even though yes, it is absolutely excruciating to do so), and what often happens to us when we do let go. Come join the conversation. Want to join the conversation more deeply? Email your comments, questio...
Manny the cat who befriended my friend Mary on Sunday Last week I lost a dear friend, mentor, teacher, and surrogate family member – Manny Ortiz. Manny's life was an embodiment of Life in the Whirlwind. While the countless people with whom he intertwined his life now ache without his physical presence, we all carry his Life inside us, creating a new kind of legacy & dispersed-whole. This episode explores what Manny inspirited and invoked in me, what he taught me about change, possibility, an...
Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio Have you ever looked at something so many times that you stopped seeing it? Or have you ever been looking for your keys frantically, then suddenly you look down and they've been there the whole time? These are just simple examples of how there are different ways of seeing. In this episode we explore a lot of examples of how this might happen for you, how media and marketing appeals to certain ways of seeing, and how attachment to seeing things certain ways can deep...
This week we discuss how to be in two places at once in ways that serve us, with more than a little inspiration from one of J.R.R. Tolkien's rarest stories. As we move through life, all the people, places, and things that have formed us weave an inner tapestry. Join us for part 2 of this conversation. Questions, comments, ideas, thoughts? Email them to lifeinthewhirlwind@gmail.com or visit our website at www.lifeinthewhirlwind.com ....
Did you know that we can be in two places at once? It's true! There are two types, as I see it. One type is not enjoyable and not life-giving, and the other type is enjoyable and life-giving. Join us for this episode where we talk about the first type, how it happens, and how to put your mind and body in the same place at the same time. Come join the conversation. (And also see why you just have to come back for Part 2 next week. It's gonna be even better!) Questions, comments, ideas? Leave a co...
Vulnerability is a cool thing we talk about a lot. But what does it really involve to live a life in which we are true? Join us for this episode where we explore what "showing up" is (and is not), what gets in the way of our showing up, and some pretty practical invitations. Come join the conversation. (Oh, and if you dig Brene Brown, this is your episode!) Thanks to all of you lovely ones who have sent emails. You are fiercely brave. Keep your questions and thoughts coming. They honor me and ke...
My friend and colleague, Phil Monroe , joins me this week! In this episode (the first of hopefully many actual live conversation episodes of this podcast) we discuss how Phil himself seeks life in the whirlwind. We also discuss learning to reframe mistakes, meeting rumination with stillness and acceptance, addressing shame head-on, and other things to contemplate and practice. Phil is a psychologist, counseling professor, writer, and speaker in his professional life. He is a husband, dad, garden...
As a person and as a professional helper, I often wonder how it is that people are transformed. I see it all the time, but it's hard to measure or pinpoint what steps get us to places where suddenly we look back and things are...different. I was recently presented with the invitation: "Get out of your own way and let presence, attention, gravity, and time transform you –– not the exertion of your will." In this episode, we look at the ways we exert our wills, trying to do things to manipulate ex...
How many times have labels like "good," "bad," "wrong," "stupid," etc gotten in the way of giving our experiences the space to transform and grow us? What might happen if we practiced moving away from these interpretations and labels, replacing them with questions that move us into growth? Come join us to explore how risk and struggle may be the exact forces we need to find life in the whirlwind. (And yes, we talk about Spock in this episode.) Music: "Storm" by Fernando Ortega...
