self awareness

That notorious Inner Critic — in health coaching partnerships with people carving a path to their healing, I observe this voice to be a shared entity. Like a weird uncle, we all seem to have one and it is important to be self-aware of such.

This ‘internal cattle prod’ has gotten plenty of attention. By now, no one is terribly embarrassed to confess to theirs, because we can be reasonably sure of a sympathetic audience. We know the feeling of squirming under its scrutinizing gaze and recognize its sharp disdaining tone as […]

Albert Einstein, that master of the underpinnings of physical life, observed that the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Along that line, all of us who have been through the School of Sesame Street can see that there’s something wrong with this to-do list:

1. Renew car registration
2. Take the dog to the vet
3. Get teeth cleaned
4. Pay the bills
5. Lose 15 pounds

An intention—to lose 15 pounds, to be less driven, to be more patient with our children—cannot be enacted from the usual way of thinking about our […]

I have two dogs who insist on daily workouts of ball fetching. My childhood athletic reach never included ball games, and as a result, I never developed much of a throwing arm. We live in a wooded place, and our ball workouts have often felt more like a game of tree-billiards, with my workout involving chasing crazily bounced balls. Recently, out of self-preservation, I’ve started taking a moment before the throw to focus very clearly and specifically on where I want the ball to go.  Sometimes I even call it out loud […]