Be a little wary of your mind, especially of your default, automatic feelings, thoughts and responses. Left to it’s own, the mind can be a great troublemaker. The ego is concerned for self only. It does not live for others. It lives for safety and gratification, not love and fulfillment. It generates greed and anger. The ego acts selfishly, even at the expense of others. The ego lacks humility. The ego runs on fear, not love. Vigilance is called for, even when we feel we are

No one wants to be in pain. Yet sometimes being in distress is worthwhile because of the benefits it brings. Short-term pain does sometime lead to long-term gain. Examples include the distress of dieting when you are overweight. If you are overweight, the distress of hunger is a worthy distress, because it helps to achieve a worthy goal of improving your health. Another example would be the physical distress some feel when exercising. With this type of distress, it is good to

As animals, we share with all animals strong, instinctive survival drives to gratify desires for food, water, sex, and comfort. We have strong drives to avoid pain, danger, or anything that might harm us or our tribe. Survival entails reducing distress and satisfying desires. As social mammals, we are born with a need for acceptance, safety, and power. We are born into this world helpless and vulnerable, dependent upon others for our survival. With this radical vulnerability

No matter how skillfully we live our lives, pain and loss visit us all. We all have endured or will endure one or more seasons of great suffering. This is an inevitable part of life. Suffering can destroy us or it can serve us, depending on how we deal with it. If we make efforts to stay with our suffering we can be bettered by it. It can deepen the meaning of our lives. If faced properly, it can be redemptive. Suffering clarifies our vision. It disrupts the trance of ordinar

A Zen master once asked me, “Why do you eat?” I replied that I eat to sustain my body. I then asked him why he ate. He smiled at me with twinkling eyes and said, “I eat for you.” Why do you eat? What are your goals, your intentions? What are your purposes? Surely we all strive to survive. That is the ego’s job. As social animals, we strive to be included and valued by others. We may also strive for pleasure, comfort, or power. Everyone wants to make at least enough money to s

Part of savoring life entails the capacity to experience “wow.” Wow is when you feel wonder or awe. You might experience this on special occasions, such as the birth of a child, when falling in love, or when traveling to new places. More important is the capacity to experience the wow of ordinary life. Humans have an amazing capacity to habituate to the miraculous. Think what a miracle it is that you are reading these words. A sophisticated web of technology brought this blog

With the concern with the opioid overdose epidemic, it is easy to overlook the most insidious and malignant of all addictive substances: nicotine. Tobacco use results in nearly a half a million deaths a year (as compared to roughly 13,000 deaths a year due to opioid overdose). This makes tobacco use disorder the leading cause of all preventable deaths in the developed world. People with tobacco use disorder die from their addiction at a rate of 51%. This is roughly 1.5 times

The flame of addiction burns in nearly 1 out of every 3 people (if one includes food addiction). This results in hundreds of thousands of deaths each year and great suffering for victims and their loved ones. What is this flame? Addiction is in part a disease of dopamine dysregulation. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that mediates motivation and drive. In addiction, victims experience strong compulsions to addict and cravings for the addictive object—either a substance or a

In a previous blog I talked about the value of renunciation. Renunciation is an act that cultivates freedom and joy. How does renunciation apply to recovery? Renunciation is one of the three dimensions of recovery, along with healing and self-realization. These dimensions are interconnected. Most people enter recovery by renouncing to some degree one or more of their addictions. This renunciation is the first step of the ensuing process of healing. With sufficient healing the