The Beginning of Reflection

Last year, a colleague told about an annual reflexive exercise she participates in that involves both introspection and external processing/writing/meditation to help get in touch with herself. It sounded like a beautiful opportunity, so after learning more, I jumped into it.

This activity comes from the long-standing notion that writing helps us process our thoughts while often revealing our deepest interests and passions. This belief is the essence of journaling and includes spiritual and transformative energy.

In many ways, this focus on connecting with our internal power is oriented toward personal transition, moving from wherever we are to a better…

Let’s face it — you are likely reading this article for one of two reasons.

You may want to do something beyond your regular 9–5 job, perhaps to generate a little more income, dip your toe in that entrepreneurial area, or because you keep thinking to yourself, “Hey, I can do that!” Perhaps you find yourself reading too many of those articles of others who have had amazingly, near impossibly, done just that, and you think, “Why not me?”

Alternatively, you are reading this because you already are a content creator on Medium, Instagram, or even News Break. You write…

Most of us either set New Year’s Resolutions or intentionally choose not to set them. It is a rare person who does not intentionally do one of these two actions at the start of each new year. If you are like me, we set them for all sorts of reasons and likewise choose not to set them for different reasons.

When I hear people say they don’t set them on purpose, I secretly wonder if it is because they have not had them work before — in other words, it may be better to avoid failure by not trying at…

Planning vs. Doing

Every day I make plans for what I hope to do today, this weekend, and even this month. While these may be short-term plans, longer-term ones work in the same way, such as those I made for this new year, my new job, and even my new course of studies. I just applied to begin a new two-year certificate program in spiritual mentoring, so planning is very much needed for that sort of commitment!

Yet think for a moment, how often do we not complete all those things we plan because something comes up? At the end of the day…

Questions to Challenge are Rich with Opportunity

In one of the intersections in my life, I was invited to consider what sparks me, what lights me up, what makes me jump up to take action. It contained within it the possibility of being a potentially transcendent starting point for the new year. Perhaps this is the sort of question that is always valuable to circle back to and ask, as there is never a wrong time to look within ourselves and seek to align our lives with our goals. This had enormous creative opportunities and transformative potential all wrapped into one.

Awe-inspiring while potentially troubling. Wow.

I…

Do People Tell You How to be Successful?

How often have you had people around you tell you what you should study, pursue, or focus on to have a happy life? While likely good-intentioned, can any of these people have a YOU operating manual, as if they can speak with any authority about you?

They likely tell you business, accounting, finance, programming, medicine, law . . you name it, but many people see careers in those areas as symbols of success. Those who love you want you to be successful, so then, there we go.

But, who are they to tell you what to do?

I mean, how…

Not everybody is able to set amazing goals and actually follow through on them. In fact, most people don’t maintain their New Year’s resolutions more than two weeks into the year. Even right now, after almost a year of groundhog-day pandemic living where days merge into nights and then repeat in a seemingly endless conveyor belt of repetition, it can be hard to even make goals as so much in the future seems uncertain.

How can we set goals when we do not live in a somewhat stable situation? Without something solid to build our goals upon, it can be…

There are always things we could have or should have done differently, yet we cannot change the past.

Let me say that again . . . WE CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST.

No amount of time spent on the woulda, shoulda, coulda will change what we have done or have not done. Crying doesn’t change it. Yelling doesn’t change it. Dwelling on it does not change it.

In fact, nothing can change the past once time slips past us, and with it our actions, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, dreams, and goals.

The past is . . . gone.

I am not saying…