NOW LET’S GET TO THE GOOD STUFF…

I was nine when I held up an immaculately sharpened writing utensil and contemplated aloud to my mother, "What if there's a whole other universe poised on the tip of this pencil?" - a cellular world, a microbial world, an invisible, unfathomable world?...

And that's just one way to get yourself promptly dismissed as the family weirdo. Trust me, there are more, I ticked all the boxes... 

Traditionally, dismissal is inevitable for those of us destined to live our life on the periphery of Western thought. But more and more people grow curious about the meaning of their life, the potential of their life, the pain of it, seeking answers to their most personal questions. And as for those around us who’re uncomfortable with those big questions, who can blame them? Fear has a way of pinning us down in one place. All we can really control is how long we stay on the ground.

For over twenty-five years, I've invited brave people, wrestlers of fear, to wander out on this fringe with me - my "fringe" being a combination of clinical psychology, Buddhism, Twelve Steps, the Tao, and indigenous shamanic practices to name a few. Humanity's collective wisdom takes many forms, and it’s into this wilderness of knowledge that we go to find whatever it is you're missing or whatever it is you've lost. Venture to the edge of your understanding, and you’ll find the way back to your center.

To my fellow over achievers, we usually find ourselves achieving for the sake of achieving. At some point we must stop and ask ourselves...what the hell is all this for?

We all end up asking if life could be better for different reasons - maybe the marriage isn’t working, maybe you’re still stuck, maybe the grief is too heavy, maybe this way of being doesn't fit who you really are...

All this “stuff,” all these burdens, we must face them. Because they’ll either calcify us into fearful, judgmental trolls or leave us lost and adrift, feeling like we don't belong.

The hard truth is people won't always take the time to know you - family, spouses, professional or academic communities - that's why it's up to you to know yourself and the nature of your personal challenges.

This is how you find yourself. And when you know the world within, you will understand that you belong to the universe surrounding  you.