If we were to put all of our focus on one little ant, that ant would take up all of our attention and awareness. Similarly, even though there’s always so much happening within us and around us, if we put all of our focus on our thoughts, those thoughts will become the only things that exist to us. Similarly, when we become triggered because of traumatic events in our past, we…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterUsually what happens when we have those unwanted, intrusive, misery-inducing thoughts, is that we are trying to suppress something that is clearly there and trying to express itself. Suppression and repression only feed negative thoughts more energy. Distraction and escape just keep them bubbling under the surface. Engaging with those thoughts feeds them too. So what the heck are we supposed to do?!The…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterIf you are breathing, you deserve happiness. Now, I don’t mean this as some political human right or some new-agey “soul” right. I also don’t mean that we deserve to always be laughing like fools. I don’t even mean that we deserve a perfect world or a world free from suffering, because that would not actually make us happy.If we remove the suffering…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterWhat is Spiritual Oneness?When we explore closely the nature of the self, which is the object we can most closely observe, we see that we are nothing more than a mental concept. In truth, we are inextricably connected to our parents, and their parents, and their parents, and on and on forever.We’ll see that we are the trees, whose air we breathe. We…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterWhen I was a kid, I didn’t always fit in. Growing up in Louisville, KY — a real college sports town — my artsy, peace-loving, and authority-questioning traits weren’t always welcomed. For example, in 7th grade I got suspended because on my school’s Community Service Day they made us rake the school playground. Well, I realized that this was a private school and the…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterWe all need human touch and affection. (If you’re currently experiencing loneliness and a lack of physical touch, this video is for you.) It is as innate a drive as hunger and thirst. We love love, and so we seek it out, we crave it, and it is this force that has helped us work together to survive and thrive on this planet.It…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterHow do our thoughts affect our emotions? Or, do our emotions affect our thoughts? What comes first, the thought or the emotion? Understanding the answer to these questions can help us feel better and think more positively. This can also help us heal from the grief of losing a loved one. (more on this in my YouTube video). So, let’s take a look…
When we grow up being punished and criticized, negative reinforcement becomes the only form of motivation we know. When we are brought up by tough teachers or parents who thought this was the best way, we can begin to actually fear and resist encouragement, praise and positive reinforcement. By growing up with negative reinforcement, we begin to subconsciously and mistakenly associate all of our accomplishments with stress, pressure and panic.…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterCruel words can only hurt us if they are tinged with truth. Not with objective truth, but with our own personal truth. Objectively, no words would ever hurt us because we would be looking at our situation rationally, from all angles, and we’d be honest with ourselves about what we know and don’t know.If that inner voice in our head is self-critical, other…
From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter NewsletterIf we were to see reality as it really is, all of our expectations would be met. But because we have limited perspectives with limited information, we expect things to happen that end up not panning out. When we expect things, we place our opinion of how things should be above everyone else’s and above what the universe had set in motion long…
“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.
