Blog

Please Look in the Mirror

Please Look in the Mirror

Ever think about how incredibly dependent humans are? You can't survive without near constant instruction for a very long time. We big-headed mammals need to be taught how to do everything from what’s safe to eat to how to tie our shoes. Shoot, we even have to be...

Grow a Resilient Mind and Get Out of Your Own Way

Grow a Resilient Mind and Get Out of Your Own Way

In honor of opening enrollment on TeachNow (1,006 happy students to date!), I've got a gift for you (whether you think of yourself as a teacher or not): A mini-course in developing a growth mindset! The view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead...

Seeing Through the “I’m Almost Ready” Illusion

Seeing Through the “I’m Almost Ready” Illusion

I hear a lot of stories from clients and students that include some refrain on getting ready. As my friend Curt said, "You know how a dog will sometimes turn around and around in circles before finally lying down? That's how I often feel when I have work to do. I need...

Morning Rituals of the Rich and Famous

Morning Rituals of the Rich and Famous

Now you knew that title was a joke. How about the morning rituals of a few wise friends of mine? Naseem Rakha Wake before anyone else (even the sun). Hug the cat. Hug the dog. Put on clothes, go outside and breathe. Christina Baldwin Waking without alarm...both...

When you are embarking on a creative project

When something is nudging you awake at 3 am, then dodging around the corner of your mind before you can quite see it. It may be the beginning of something wonderful, THE idea of your life, or... small shrug. Here is how to proceed: Gag the inner critical chorus with a...

Did You Savor and Serve in February?

You may have noticed I've skipped the last two months of this "recap" newsletter. I just haven't felt like doing it. I kept thinking I wanted to reinvent this form, come up with something new... which became a bigger and bigger project in my mind... then another month...

The Greek Island Fantasy

(This is a rewrite of a post from June 2010.) I was hanging with another self-employed coach/writer friend recently and we were both having a hard day. One of those days in which you wonder, "What is it I do? And why?" You may bemoan not becoming a nuclear physicist...

How to Find Your Just-Right Creative Medium for Self-Expression

I'm pondering a conversation I recently had with a new friend, a very talented printmaker and writer, about finding your just-right creative medium. What is a Creative Medium? Any form of creative expression that is an active pursuit of self-expression, feeds your...

My Secret Favorite Inspirational Books

There is a chain email popping around requesting that you share your favorite inspirational reading. It got me thinking: what are my favorite "secret" inspirational books, the ones I have turned to for years, ones you may not have heard of? We all love Mary Oliver and...

How do you make a life organizer app???

Meet Katie Benedetto Jones, the wonderful web developer with a passion for inner growth, who built The Life Organizer app. In 2009, Katie left the comfortable path of a research mathematician (wait, that does not sound comfortable to a math-phobe like me!) to start...

The Best Thing I Know About Aging

I once knew a woman who talked to the dead. "They would give anything for one more touch," she told me, "one more hug." She mentioned angels want bodies, too. That's the most salient benefit I know about aging - it teaches you gratitude. Pure animal gratitude. In the...

How resistance can be a good thing

Teaching my new course last week, I said, "What if resistance could be a good thing?" Because if you are resisting something, that means there is something more you want. Resistance signals a desire for more – more art, vibrancy, connection, beauty, freedom. The...

Best Story of Change Ever

I'm often asked when interviewed about The Life Organizer book, "What's the biggest change someone has experienced because of your book?" I always answer, "I don't know this woman personally, but there is a review on Amazon that blows me away every time I read it."...

The Price of Publicly Offering Your Heart

I wrote on Facebook this week that "launching has become my spiritual practice." By that I mean, the extremely vulnerable practice of sharing my work has become a powerful way to grow into my true life. My prayer has become: Offer yourself to your world with wholeness...

Living Your Truest Life

Last year, palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware's blog post (and book) The 5 Regrets of the Dying was read by millions. It is regret number one that has stuck with me the most: "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of...

Q&A Video Call with Jen + Scholarship Winners

There were so many questions at the end of the Shadow Comforts and Time Monsters call, I didn't get to answer them all! So I decided to host a video Q & A chat on Spreecast this Thursday at 4 pm Pacific/7 pm Eastern.  It's freeee, of course, and so easy to join:...

Finding your way back to your self

Finding your way back to your self

Illustration: Kristin Noelle How do you find your way back to your self, to your "unstainable goodness," to trusting and following your path, when something or someone sends you spinning off course? I asked a handful of friends this question because you can't live a...

A love letter to numbing and distractions

(Also known as shadow comforts and time monsters) Shadow comforts are the things we do that don't replenish us (often in the name of comfort) and time monsters are the choices that take us away from our dreams of what we really want to create or experience. As I...

The Best Question Ever

I recorded an early morning video to explore my response to a fantastic question I received from a wonderful soul. I do videos when I find it easier to talk my way through ideas rather than write my way - it's about feeling connected to you as I talk that helps me get...

How to begin again

Sometimes, like lately, I find myself in a hole of my own making. This time its walls are made of sugar, self-judgment, and family stress. It's a familiar hole. At first, I didn't want to write a post about my mostly self-made stuckness. I didn't want to tell you my...

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