Why I Eat a Single Bowl of Rice & Beans on Thanksgiving Day. Like every year over the past decade, I’ll eat just one bowl of rice and beans this Thanksgiving. It’s my way of staying grounded and grateful—especially when many Americans struggle to afford Thanksgiving Day meals. Importantly, I acknowledge my privilege of choosing
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Happy Halloween! Celebrating Halloween’s Mental Health Benefits Halloween isn’t just about costumes and candy; it’s a joyful celebration of connection and creativity. It’s easy to overlook Halloween’s mental health benefits, but dressing up, having fun, and connecting with friends can provide real mental health benefits. In the rush of everyday responsibilities, it’s easy to
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Here are my 10 goals for 2024 as I look ahead into the New Year. 1. Love. Always. Love. 2. Be. Now. Always. Center conscious awareness on being in the moment, now, right now. 3. Focus. Focus on creation – writing, painting, photographing, sculpting, acting, and creating in all possible ways. 4. Meditate. Consistently meditate
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If you need proof that love and creativity equate to resilience, meet Shelbie Rassler. Rassler is the 22-year-old up-and-coming classical composer who produced, arranged, and edited this viral video based on the original music of Burt Bacharach and Hal David for Virtual Orchestra (1965), “What the World Needs Now.” Over 2 million people have viewed
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One of the few all-poetry bookstores in the U.S. is located right here in Boulder – Innisfree Poetry, Bookstore, and Cafe. By Matthew Wilburn King Brian Buckley and Katherine Hunter opened Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Café—named after William Butler Yeats’ “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”—in 2010, and quickly expanded the business footprint on University Hill.
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Experiences in Community – MindTravel I wept three times on Monday evening. I didn’t know what to expect when I joined MindTravel with the people in this photograph at Realization Point trailhead in Boulder, Colorado. Together, we were a group of strangers taking a unique journey that combined a hike in nature with silence, a
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Advice to my 30-year-old self. After a visit from death saved my life, I’ve been looking in the mirror and writing a series of articles focused on giving advice to myself as a 30-year-old, knowing what I know now. This is the last article in this series, which I began writing in June 2018. The first
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Advice to my 30-year-old self. After a visit from death saved my life I’ve been looking in the mirror and writing a series of articles focused on giving advice to myself as a 30-year-old, knowing what I know now. The first four articles in the series built upon each other and included: 2 Words of Advice that
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Advice to my 30-year-old self. After looking in the mirror, I wrote a series of articles focused on giving advice to myself as a 30-year-old, knowing what I know now. The first was “2 Words of Advice that can help us at Every Stage of Life and focused on this advice: “know thyself.” The second was “How to
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Advice to my 30-year-old self. After looking in the mirror, I wrote a series of articles focused on giving advice to myself as a 30-year-old, knowing what I know now. The first was “2 Words of Advice that can help us at Every Stage of Life and focused on this advice: “know thyself.” The second was “How to Practice
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Advice to my 30-year-old Self. After looking in the mirror, I wrote a series of articles focused on giving advice to myself as a 30-year-old, knowing what I know now. The first was 2 Words of Advice that can help us at Every Stage of Life and focused on this advice: “know thyself.” The reason I began with “know
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Advice to my 30-year-old Self. I’m looking in the mirror as I write a series of articles focused on giving advice to myself as a 30-year-old. The advice I’m giving is applicable to anyone at any age, male or female. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing about it. Here we
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Why do any of us spend time and energy attempting to live more mindfully? When I ask myself this question, I naturally gravitate to the conclusion: I want to be happy. Inevitably, I then ask: what does it mean to be happy? Is happiness, like mindfulness, intangible? And if we found happiness, would we even know it?
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It’s that time of year to set our intentions, let go of the old, make room for the new, and, of course, make New Year’s resolutions. This year, I’d like to encourage readers to do something different, life changing. Write a secret dream biography. Why? As a cancer patient, I nearly died after being diagnosed
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Over the last few weeks, there has been more attention focused on social media use and addiction. The attention is the result of several people behind our ubiquitous social media platforms coming forward to talk about the way sites are designed and the impacts of their use. You may have read that Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice
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Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and nearly every other social networking platform are designed to exploit our weaknesses as humans. Specifically, they use self-relevant information that promotes our natural narcissistic tendencies. They know we have a strong need to be seen, to feel connected, and to belong, so they exploit this fact to keep us coming back. They’re creating addicts.
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Tread lightly on the days stretched out ahead of you. Leave as little mark as possible on your own ego self. Let the light from within enclose each day. And when it is finished, Blow it away as you would a soap bubble And move forward unencumbered By old memories, mistakes, and successes. This is
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I’m only eating this single bowl of organic wild rice and beans on this Thanksgiving Day. Most Americans, however, will be sitting around the table with family and friends eating turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gravy with all of the traditional trimmings that come with this federal holiday established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. While I’m
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Can I Be Spiritual without Being Religious? When it comes to Spiritual Atheism, I’ve come to believe that there are as many ways to practice truth as people are walking the Earth. For some, that path is spiritual but not religious—grounded in wonder, connection, and meaning, without needing a name. That’s where we go next.
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Claude Monet’s choice: give up painting, or go to war! Claude Monet’s choice was tough – he either had to abandon painting or enlist in the war, which marked a dramatic turning point not only in his life but also in the history of modern art. This choice, faced by a young Monet in 1861,
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How to Ride your Spirit Animal to your Dreams: Aspen Art Festival 2017. When Johnnie Grinder sold everything he owned, threw a saddle on his own spirit animal, the chameleon, loaded up his suitcases, and then jumped on his spirit animal to ride into his future, he couldn’t foresee the magic that would soon unfold. After nearly two
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A near-death encounter became the most profound teacher of my life. It’s about surrender, agency, and what my most excellent guru, Death, taught me about truly living. Death Was My Guru I knew I would meet the Angel of Death before his visit—and it would not be the end, but the beginning of transformation. At
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