Isn’t life a funny thing? We’re all striving, working hard in business and on ourselves. We’re all on a journey to succeed and grow. And yet, so many of us are ashamed of where we are right now on our journey. We’re jealous of other people who insecurely show off. We’re all growing, and yet we’re all embarrassed about it. The fact is, wherever we are on our path in…
For the better part of nine years, I lived in monasteries, ashrams, tribes and forests. I even spent months in silent meditation retreats. During all this time, I was trying to figure out who had the best methods and teachings. Some retreats were very strict, where we’d meditate in tiny prison-like cells for 14 hours a day. 3am wakeup times, total silence, and nothing but meditating and eating two meals. Some places…
A few years ago I moved to a new neighborhood in New York. I didn’t know anyone in the area, but I was excited to explore and make new friends. One day on a walk, I ran into a dear old friend who I used to be very close with and found out he was practically my next door neighbor! We made plans to have dinner later that week and…
It’s like we’ve all been wearing super high-definition virtual reality headsets with surround sound and smellavision all our lives. It’s easy to forget the awe and wonder that lies just beneath the surface. Our brains are physical objects designed to recreate the physical world. But the more we practice, the more we listen to our heart and intuition, and the more tuned we will be to our own inner peace…
If you’re like me, you’ve heard people say things like, “For me, swimming laps is my meditation.” Or, “Making art is meditation for me.” Or, “Going for walks is my meditation time.” I get it. When I used to act or perform comedy, I felt the same way. Going skiing, shooting a bow and arrow at a target, working out, and rock climbing. They all were times when I cleared…
We hear the phrase, "Observe your thoughts," but how do we do that? What does it mean? Aren't we always observing our thoughts? And what the heck are thoughts?!Normally, we don't watch our thoughts, we think our thoughts. And we think, "I am the thinker." In spirituality, we dig down deeper. We recognize thought patterns and we observe how the mind really works. We discover the nature of thoughts and…
Todd's spiritual journey happened completely by accident. When on vacation with a friend at a resort in Arizona, what he thought was a horse riding class turned out to be a life-changing exploration and discovery into the window of the human soul. This experience was the spark that took Todd from an award-winning Writer and Creative Director in Manhattan at the world's largest ad agency, to quitting his job, selling…
Only when we are not living completely authentically, and only when we misidentify with our mind-made versions of ourselves, can we wish to reinvent ourselves. The real question is, "How can I live more in line with my inner nature?" We all know the experience where we are so in our head, planning and plotting what to say or how to act, that we become insecure. When we become insecure,…
The future is coming at us fast. If we look at the trend of where technology is headed, we can see robotics and software becoming smarter, faster, and smaller. In many ways, computers are smarter than humans, but a computer still can't design a computer better than humans can. They lack the creativity and the conscious awareness that humans have. So, if the seemingly inevitable merger of humans and machines…
Meditation can often look like doing nothing, but that can't be further from the truth. Meditation is very active. It is the act of being between highly alert and highly relaxed. Being between these two states trains our mind and body to later do all the things we do when we interact with the world around us, and yet remain in a very peaceful state. Meditation is the literal training…
“I thought my biggest fear was growing old and dying in prison. In truth, my biggest fear was growing old and not knowing myself.”
- Rick Smith, Albama inmate
Path to Peace - A newsletter not just for your mental health but also for your spiritual health.
