How to avoid going into emotional overload and triggering your flight and fight response — Are you prone to emotional overwhelm? When you feel intense emotions do they tend to accelerate? Does it often seem impossible to calm down? You’re not alone. I’ve been a highly emotional person for as long as I recall. Psychologists call this phenomena “emotional flooding,” a term most often used…

The perennial question of the spiritual seeker — When you have a profound spiritual moment in meditation, you might feel extremely excited and even imagine you’re close to enlightenment. But hold on a minute! Don’t open the champagne just yet. If you go off to a spiritual teacher for confirmation, he or she may respond with a wry…

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”—the Dalai Lama — Happiness isn’t my ultimate goal in life. I get more excited about purpose, kindness, and personal growth. And I know human beings aren’t meant to be happy all the time. Humans are designed to feel a spectrum of emotions, all of which can help us better understand ourselves, our needs…

Every moment is a choice. Are you making the best one? — If you’ve ever heard the word “bardo” you might associate it with the infamous Tibetan Book of the Dead, the first translation of the Tibetan text Bardo Thodol by Evans-Wentz, published in 1927. If you have a psychological bent, you may have read Carl Jung’s commentary on the text, which…

Even busy people can learn to be more mindful if they use the right triggers — Do you constantly lose your keys, find it hard to focus, or rush into decisions you later regret? Mindfulness can help you with all those things. And more. For example, the American Psychological Association says mindfulness can: Reduce rumination Decrease stress Boost working memory Sharpen focus Increase cognitively flexible

You can call it back — It’s easy to lose a part of yourself as you travel through life. Maybe you’ve let go of a treasured passion like my friend Bill. As adult responsibilities edged into his life, he drifted away from the joy of making music. …

Sadness can be a powerful gateway to remarkable life transformation — Do you wonder how to be happier? What if I told you the key to true happiness is sadness? You’d probably think I’m insane, turn, and dash away. But hold on a minute and hear me out. Because your attempts to find happiness may not be working. And truth be…

A primer on the basic teachings of Buddhism and how they bring about happiness — When people say “Buddha” or “the Buddha,” they usually mean Shakyamuni Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha, who lived during the 6th century B.C., and taught the spiritual path now called “Buddhism.” You don’t have to become a Buddhist, however, to benefit from the Buddha’s teachings. They’re universal in nature, more like guidelines…

Tips on how to heal if you missed out on these good mother messages as a child — Was you mother there for you as a child? Or was she was distant, caught up in her own internal chaos, or stretched so thin she didn’t have time for you? If your mother was emotionally absent, you might have felt unloved, unknown, and unimportant. In my own case, my…