It may seem like a strange concept, but many of us have a habit of getting in our own way. We may have an objective in mind, but we also have a habitual behavior that impedes our ability to achieve our goal. We may feel that, whatever the barrier is, we are completely justified in…
I used to joke that my family's northern European heritage meant that we greeted each other with a crisp salute at family gatherings. If we got really carried away, we would click our heels as we saluted, just as was depicted in those World War II movies about the German army. If only things had…
...with all that toilet paper? This is a serious question. For weeks now, you have been buying every last roll of toilet paper you can get your hands on. I am trying to decide what you are doing that you continue to need more. Mind you, I have plenty. I bought two nine packs about…
In each of us there is an essence that is real. The rest is just an accumulation of life over time that has been caked on top of the real, what some have called the true self. All religious traditions have found their own way of saying that life is about returning to that essence…
COVID 19, aka the corona virus, seems to have brought the world to its knees - with some notably stupid exceptions. In the United States, we have seen increasingly restrictive measures taken by state and local governments as they try to control the spread of a virus that we still aren't completely sure of its…
I suspect there are more of us out there than we might expect who grew up with parents who had one level or another of preoccupation with what the neighbors might think. There are any number of reasons that happens. None of them are legitimate. Whatever the real reason for neighborly preoccupation was - narcissism,…
My wife laughed when she saw the title of this post. She knows that my number one pet peeve is when a store rearranges its shelves. I've reflected on this, and determined that there are two reasons it irritates me. The first is that it takes me longer to find what I came to buy.…
There are things that are clearly out of the ordinary, beyond the pale, tragedies of great scale and scope that can set is back financially to a profound extent. I have no problem with people turning to social media for support both emotional and financial in such situations. If your home is destroyed and you…
As someone who lives with chronic pain, I can tell you from my experience that it can be a tremendous spiritual teacher. It can also make you want to eat a bullet. Most of the time, I find I sit somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. You might say that if we constructed…
The truth is that healthy spirituality cannot exist outside psychological health. If our worldview is distorted and our coping mechanisms inadequate, our spirituality will become nothing more than another attempt to escape reality rather than a means to enter it fully.
Craig Bergland 