In the Chinese medicine system, the energy of our willpower dwells within the lower dan tien in the lower back and abdomen (some refer to this area as the lower chakra). That energy then flows to infuse the marrow of our bones and our brains, the classical seas of marrow. Thus, qi gong breath work… Continue Reading Guest Writer Kay Hutchinson on Qi Gong & Willpower
Strengthen Your Brain, Strengthen Your Resolve
Bill Moyers did a fascinating series on healing, and one interview he did has really stuck with me. A man had had a stroke, taking out much of the emotional part of the brain. While the higher parts of the brain, including the frontal lobe we explored last week, remained untouched, the man was left… Continue Reading Strengthen Your Brain, Strengthen Your Resolve
The Mechanics of Will: the Neuroscience Behind Successful Resolutions
You know that gesture that, in moments of shock and overwhelm, we humans worldwide do to soothe ourselves? Hand to forehead! Try it now. Soothing, isn’t it? In so doing, we intuitively embrace and protect a vital part of our brain, one that governs among many, many things, our will itself. Oh, not the passion,… Continue Reading The Mechanics of Will: the Neuroscience Behind Successful Resolutions
The Power in “Will-Power”
So Osiris and I are sitting in a booth at the Frontier in Albuquerque New Mexico, and I’m complaining, as twenty-somethings are wont to do, about my inability to get anything done. Osiris, as you can imagine, is not his real name. It doesn’t matter; no one in the pagan community in the early 80’s… Continue Reading The Power in “Will-Power”
Keeping Change Fresh: the Power of “New”
The chance to start over again is like walking in newly-fallen snow. So fresh! So clean! So begging to be marked! Like newborns with extraordinary intelligence, we blissfully revel in opportunity, our life opening to our desires in a way that’s refreshingly different…. most of the time, it’s hijacked by practicality and fear. At the… Continue Reading Keeping Change Fresh: the Power of “New”
Resolving To Be New: The Art of the Successful Resolution
Ah, New Year’s. That time once a year when things are new and shiny, and hope springs, singing “I can CHANGE!” What a lovely, lovely idea…if only we could change that easily, I would be out of a job and into my fallback career as professional storyteller. Let’s get real. If I said to myself… Continue Reading Resolving To Be New: The Art of the Successful Resolution
Gut Yule! and the Spirit of Reconciliation
Gut Yule! Did you know that the date set for Christmas was actually an act of conciliation? It seems strange to me that at this time of the year, there’s so much tension about what we’re celebrating, when in one form or another, we’re all celebrating the light. According to some historians, the first… Continue Reading Gut Yule! and the Spirit of Reconciliation
‘Lone for the Holidays
This year, for one reason or another, many of us will be alone for the holidays. And for THESE holidays, where we find everywhere images of togetherness, being alone can be brutal. For many, it’s a choice to protect the heart, avoiding social contact. For others, those early lessons in not belonging replay in present… Continue Reading ‘Lone for the Holidays
Knowing When Enough is Enough
When is enough, enough? I’ve been wondering that since a chance encounter I had when I first arrived in Austin. A friend of mine and I, bored of the party we were attending, jumped into Lake Travis and swam over to the private yachts doting the piers. We were hailed by a well-groomed man on… Continue Reading Knowing When Enough is Enough
Holiday Strategies for the Socially Nervous
Oh lordy, another holiday party. Some of us get tickled at the groaning board, or getting tricked out in new, or next-to-new, threads, or even engaging in some of the inane conversations that buzz and guffaw around us. Not you? Nor a surprising number of others. News flash: social anxiety and parties do NOT go… Continue Reading Holiday Strategies for the Socially Nervous