After many years of daily reflection, I can tell you the biggest surprise: insight is not dramatic. There is no moment when the sky splits open and you suddenly understand everything. Instead, it’s quieter. You begin to notice things in…
Something unexpected is happening in the spiritual landscape. The same generations most likely to leave organized religion are the most likely to pick up a book on Buddhism, download a meditation app based on the Vipassana tradition, or quote Lao…
Here’s what no one tells you before you start meditating: You’re going to feel bad about it. Not just a little bad. Spectacularly, hilariously bad. You sit down, close your eyes, try to focus on your breathing, and in about…
Unexpected difficulties can disrupt daily life in ways that seem overwhelming and disorienting. The path to stability often begins with small, deliberate actions, whether the challenge is a natural event, a personal crisis, or a sudden financial setback. Although recovery…
I used to think that thorough people had some qualities that I didn’t have. Some deep reservoir of calm that the rest of us just weren’t born with. They seemed to glide through their days while I spent mine playing…
A person’s true character is not always easy to see. But if you pay attention to the gestures and words they use, you can determine the truth about them. Although we would like to think that all people are genuine,…
The modern approach to improving well-being is associated with a strange paradox: We track our sleep. We optimize our diet. We meditate with apps, journal with prompts, and read books on habits and productivity. And yet, for many people, something…
For most of my 20s, the loudest voice in my life was the voice in my own head. And it was not kind. He told me I was behind. That everyone else understood things but me. That my psychology degree…
Slowness has always been accompanied by wisdom. “Take the pace of nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson advised. “Her secret is patience.” A couple of millennia and change before that, Lao Tzu said something like, “Nature takes its time, but things happen.”…
Personal transformation is often portrayed as a dramatic turning point or sudden breakthrough. In reality, it is usually a gradual process that begins in the mind. Positive thinking lays the foundation for significant growth by shaping how people perceive challenges,…
