I have been holding Santosha (contentment) retreats for four years. This year is my fifth. Each of the topics is designed to investigate and address something that harms our contentment; preventing us of enjoying peace. This year I am presenting aspect of letting go. What is so difficult about letting go? Why do we hold

  Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Step ten is, in many ways, an ongoing version of steps four through nine. With step ten we take a quick inventory of the day or a specific situation, identify our part in any problems, and, when necessary, we self-correct and

  Two crumpled receipts:  1 from Costco,1 from Ralph’s, 1 double-sided shopping list, 1 yellow post it note scribbled in blue ink: “Thanks for the loan PT,”  3 pellets of hard dog food & a tablespoonful of sand. This is what I found at the bottom my laundry basket, after I hoisted a heaping double

  When you are unhappy, depressed, anxious, etc., it’s usually because you’re not getting your needs met. This is especially true when your partner or a loved one is in active addiction. Addicts focus on meeting their own needs and the needs of their addiction, and give little to others. That doesn’t mean they don’t

  Twice in this past week, I have seen two social media giants; Apple and Facebook publicly admit with data, showing the severity of their concerns, as to how clearly your smartphone is making you antisocial, unhealthy and that their technology is designed to hook people using the same neural pathways as gambling and drugs.

  A time of reflection. A time to cast the mind forward and the glance backward. A time to reset my intentions and to consider where my intentions have fallen by the wayside. How have my actions missed the mark? I am good with the practical, with the mundane, even with the technical. But relationships…

  I didn’t realize it at first, but I’m sure it was there. After countless days of coming home to them passed out on the couch, after so many bright mornings lost to drunken tirades, after so many little moments turn into major splinters, you slowly see what has been creeping in that dark space

The reality is 2017 is just about over, and you have less than a week to live out any goals you may have set for yourself for this year. So now may be a good time to pause and reflect on what has and has not transpired for you over the past year. As an

  With the ever increasing demands on us to function in our high pressure world, many of us find we live in a constant state of high alert and anxiety. I myself, spent over a decade in sustained high stress situations (probably longer than that if the truth be told) and having to deal with

For recovering addicts, the holidays are a dangerous time of year. At the very least, we must deal with holiday expectations for love and connection and merry making. Often, we think our holidays should look like a Normal Rockwell painting, and when that doesn’t happen we feel disappointed, pressured, anxious, not good enough, and maybe