A Rich and Wonderful Reward!

In an earlier post about trying to resist yielding to my ego in social situations, I wrote:

It’s helpful to remind myself that the person I’m talking to is as much a child of God as I am. Focusing on their inner divinity snaps me out of my self-absorbed mindset and naturally produces feelings of empathy, compassion, and love.

While waiting for a routine blood draw today in a medical office, I decided to swat my ego away, take the initiative and transform the way I interact with people. Here was my two-part plan:

1) Go to my heart, so I could come from a loving place instead of from an intellectual point of view.
2) Silently say to the person in front of me, “Look how

My Mother, the Penguin

My mom and me at a Minneapolis event (no, she didn't drive to it herself)

I am a complete penguin when it comes to directions; I can get lost driving to the grocery store. My mom is even worse. Even though she grew up in St. Paul and lived in a nearby suburb until she was nearly forty, she always hated driving in the Twin Cities, especially Minneapolis.

About twenty-five years ago, she and my dad took a trip to Minneapolis, an hour or so from their home in St. Cloud. It was a brutally cold winter day, around thirty below. My dad had to run into a magic shop to pick up some props for a talent show. Since there were no parking spaces available, he asked my mom to drop him off, drive around the block and he’d be right out.

Reluctantly, my mom took the wheel, dropped off my dad, took a right turn and promptly found herself on

A Cherished Companion in the Winter of Your Life

Commit to a life of integrity, and you will consider yourself successful, regardless of whether you achieve career and financial goals, as long as you stay true to yourself and your ideals.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein

You recognize that success is determined by the quality of your relationships—with friends and family, with colleagues, with yourself, with God, with the world at large, and, through your words and deeds, even with

The Only Thing Whose Value Increases With Its Price

True integrity is as tough as steel and as fragile as a snowflake. Tough because it is immalleable and unyielding, and fragile because one careless act can melt it away.

The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.
Japanese proverb

Preserving your integrity may come at a steep cost, but steeper

Serving Through Love, Loving Through Service

During a break in a healing workshop yesterday, I gave a shoulder rub and face massage to a friend of mine. As I was working on her, I imagined I was applying healing energy and loving intention to her spirit during the darkest moments of her life. She had lost her husband under tragic circumstances at the hands of a corrupt political regime in her homeland, then later moved to America where she worked tirelessly to learn English and support her child, living in a state of perpetual anxiety and fear for the first few years. I cannot even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the hardships she endured. But what I could do was offer a bit of loving kindness for a few minutes.

We can all do this. In fact, we do this all the time. When we

Jewel: An All-American Success Story

Jewel

I knew that Jewel had overcome challenges before she made it as a singer but I had no idea she had overcome so much. Her story is the epitome of rugged individualism. As a father, I would be worried sick if my daughter set out on a cross-country jaunt or was living in her car. And yet, those experiences are what made Jewel who she is today. Bravo for her doing whatever it took to get the job done.

Here is Jewel’s bio from her website. Like me, I bet you’ll have a new appreciation of her after you read it.

JEWEL

My name is Jewel. Jewel Kilcher. (Yes, Jewel is my real given name). I am 5’6”. I have green eyes, like my grandmother Ruth. Ruth was an aspiring opera singer who left pre-war Germany, got on a ship headed to Alaska to marry a man she hardly knew because she felt her future children must be born somewhere free.

She married Yule Kilcher, who was a young idealist who hiked across the Alaskan glaciers by foot, with a ladder on his back, which he used to bridge crevasses in the ice so he could walk over them. He was looking for adventure and new land, away from the Nazi movement. Alaska was still not a state in the late 40’s, so he was given (as all takers were) 600 acres of land for free if he promised to homestead it. He sent word back to his homeland of Switzerland, where many friends expressed wanting to move, that he had found a good piece of land. But none came, except

Taylor Swift’s “Mine” Music Video

I am a big sap. And by big I mean a gigantic, colossal sap. So of course this new Taylor Swift video got 

Dr. Larry Dossey on Spiritual Healing, Nonlocality and Beef Stroganoff

Dr. Larry Dossey

As a follow-up to our thought-provoking interview on intercessory prayer, Dr. Larry Dossey sent me this essay, which was published in 2002 in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. He had first presented this paper in 2001 at Conference on the Big Island in Kona, Hawaii.

Some of the fascinating issues explored by Dr. Dossey include:

• The mysterious mechanics of remote/distance/energy/spiritual healing • The importance of language in healing
• The three phases of spiritual healing • Is spiritual healing spiritual?  • The scientific view of nonlocality  • The nonlocal behaviors of consciousness • The role of the

Move Over, Henry David!

Henry David Thoreau's cabin near Walden Pond

I’m not sure if something’s wrong with me or if something’s right with me. I took Highway 35W to the Mall of America today and all I could think of was, I wish I were at a cabin in the woods right now. I’ve always loved living in the big city but in the past year or so, I’ve begun to appreciate the allure of

Success of a Truer Kind

True integrity does not so much as flinch at attempts to sway it, even if all the riches of the world were to be laid at its feet.

The test of character is the amount of strain it can bear.
Charles Houston

Hold on to your integrity and you will hold on to your peace of mind, even if all else appears to be lost.

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better

Flow With the Least Sound

When you dedicate yourself to living for God, you vigorously guard the integrity of your virtue and the virtue of your integrity. Relaxing your ethics, even for trivial matters, is unthinkable.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself—and be lenient to everybody else.
Henry Ward Beecher

You do not flaunt your integrity. By definition, integrity is

Taylor Mathews Lights Up the Stage!

TAYLOR MATHEWS: SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

Taylor Mathews

I like eighteen-year-old Taylor Mathews‘ audition for America’s Got Talent this season for a number of reasons. Not only is he a talented musician with a nice voice, his effervescence

My Interview With Dr. Larry Dossey on Intercessory Prayer

Dr. Larry Dossey

It was a pleasure and a privilege to conduct an interview with Dr. Larry Dossey on the mechanics and meaning of intercessory prayer. Let’s start with his bio:

Dr. Larry Dossey’s eleven books include The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things, Reinventing Medicine, Prayer Is Good Medicine and Healing Words. He is also the executive editor of EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, a peer-reviewed, bimonthly publication. Dr. Dossey has become an internationally influential advocate of the mind’s role in health and the role of spirituality in healthcare.

Click on the audio player below to hear our thirty-three minute interview

The Only Real Mistake

Embrace absolute integrity and you will find that guilt and regret are inevitably replaced by peace and serenity as naturally as winter gives way to spring.

Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.
Vernon Howard

On those occasions when you do fall short of your expectations, you

Do What Is RIght Today

Living a life of integrity begins right now. If others continue to define you by your past errors, so be it.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.
Albert Schweitzer

Do not allow the mistakes of

Truth Is Not Afraid of Questions

A person of integrity honors other people’s perspectives and interpretations, never making the mistake of taking an opposing view personally.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When someone challenges your statements or positions, you welcome the opportunity to clarify any misperceptions.

Truth is not afraid of questions.
Paramahansa Yogananda

Even if every choice you make is virtuous, your