The True Healing Program was developed as a training to help you relate to your body and mind with acceptance and openness, and discover a sense of peace and ease in your life which doesn't depend on eradicating pain or securing ideal circumstances...
Over the last few years, I’ve been hatching a book, tentatively titled, Don’t Get Better. I will periodically share excerpts such as today's installment (which includes a brief exercise at the end). This is from a chapter called, “Healing...
I suspect I may never forget the details of this last week, seared into my memory through shock and mass anxiety. Yesterday morning on my commute, the disappointment of several passengers was palpable. Their expressions were downcast, and their...
Like many people, I have been wishing for more balance in my life recently. The political and social worlds seem chaotic and heartbreaking. I spend many days chasing after deadlines that I am not sure I care much about. I would...
Last week I had my first MRI. I’ve been having back and neck pain since December and had tried a number of treatments to no significant avail, so this was the next course of action in finding out the cause.
I am lying in bed, and I want to stay here. It's warm. I'm comfortable. I feel the weight of the comforter, the cat pressed against my leg. And yet I'm not happy. I think about people who greet the day with smiles. I am not one of them. I think...
The body the body the body.
The breath the breath the breath.
How do you speak to yourself?
What did you say just now?
How did you say it?
Who is speaking and why?
Seven years ago, I developed a mysterious chronic pain in my upper body that had me unable to type, hold a piece of paper, and relegated to the cool wooden floor of my girlfriend’s apartment for hours a day.
I was 26, unable to work, and learning to...
One of the benefits of meditation is that you become less reactive. You cultivate the ability to rest in a calm, clear space so that you can choose how to respond rather than habitually hitting back.
In our culture, we place a high emphasis on intellectual learning. Yet our personal growth seems to depend on how we translate what we read and hear into some deeper, possibly wordless understanding. Even Suzuki Roshi once said about his own (...
Very early tomorrow I will be getting on a plane and heading off to a fairly remote retreat center in Colorado. Very early. The first flight leaves at 5 a.m., which means leaving the house around 2:30 a.m. to allow for check-in and security and all...
My mom recently heard about an organization that grants senior citizens' wishes, like those groups that send terminally ill children and their families to Disney World, but this was for regular seniors with no special issues. This led her to think...
My Buddhist teacher shared this photo of a T-shirt she saw someone wearing at the airport, commenting that it seems like a good message.
Practice like a champion.
Since my teacher suggested it, I have to think about it. That's the deal.
What does it...
Pain is tough, of course, but the thoughts and feelings of shame which pain can stir up are the real nightmare. In my own history and my private practice teaching adults with pain, feelings of shame are never far behind a chronic pain condition. In...
You’ve heard of eight-minute abs, but have you heard of an eight-minute body scan?
This short embodiment practice is for when you’re lost in worry, feeling a bit frantic, or out of touch with your body. In this audio, I’ll guide you to include the...
Excerpted from Toni Bernhard's How to Be Sick. In this book, Bernhard shares ways to make “being sick” the heart of a spiritual practice — and through truly learning how to be sick, learn how to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. In...
One of the reasons for meditating -- sitting still and focusing on an object, such as the breath -- is to train in tapping into the calm space in your awareness so that you can find that space in the midst of chaos.
Like on stage during the National...
I’m not against correcting our posture or body on principle. I wish all it took to rid ourselves of chronic pain and tension was figuring the right angle or position, and tapping our body into place. It’s such a seductive offer, that we need...
Wake Up
It is time pounding at you, time.Knowing you are aliveis watching on every sideyour generation’s short timefalling away as fast as rivers drop though air,and feeling it hit hard.
—Annie Dillard
Being old is new for us.
As a child I was often told that starving children in China would be happy to have the mushy peas I carefully picked out from the Campbell's vegetable soup and left in the bowl. I felt bad for the starving children, but that wasn't going to make me...
Insurance companies aren't known for taking risks on unproven methods. So when Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini -- who had personal experience with the healing benefits of yoga and meditation -- wanted to spread the practices to Aetna's employees, he looked...
