13 years ago today, the amazing life I had ended. In the blink of an eye, a quite successful career flying for the air force (where I also got to teach the best of the best) vanished, as did the future plans and dreams of my then fiancée (now ex-wife) and I. While life doesn’t … Continue reading Grieving the Life I Lost
Recently I had a couple super hard conversations. Without going into details that aren’t mine to share, they were the kind that you know in advance could go super sideways. Know what I mean? Want to guess what the most stressful, angsty, and worst part of both was? The pre-conversation dread and fear of the … Continue reading The Good News of Realizing I’m My Worst Enemy
You know how we regularly struggle and sweat to get physically fit? Increasingly, it seems to me the same is true for relational “fitness” … and might even be a key to healing our political, racial, and other divides. In other words: Real love is messy. It embraces uncomfortableness by courageously choosing to vulnerably share our scary stuff, … Continue reading Love is Messy: Getting Uncomfortable to Get “Fit”
I can’t believe how “blind” I was. Which I think is hilarious to say metaphorically when I’m literally 50% blind! 🤣Cracking myself up aside though, picture this: After spending 90 minutes of my workday unsuccessfully trying to get our ice machine to work again, I started cooking us dinner at 5pm. I’d looked over the recipe, … Continue reading Sharing Our Shame Stories
“Vacuums” suck, by which I mean, in the absence of a story told, one will form in our minds, and it’s often not great! If anything, my wife and I typically overcommunicate, which I think is the best way to go. Yet, when it came to a couple of New Year’s weekend plans, we didn’t, with … Continue reading The Power of Stories: Vulnerability, Courage, & the Getaway that Almost Sucked
At the first yoga class I taught this year I said 2020 was going to be awesome because we'd be able to see things clearly. 🤣 While "awful" is likely a more apt descriptor, it occurs to me we are seeing more accurately than ever before. There's something about things falling apart that knocks sense into us! I know … Continue reading Revolutionary Love: We’re Just Getting Started
I was wrong. How often do we say that? Receive that gift from others? Hear those we look up to admit it? More than a thousand years before Descartes said, "I think therefore I am", Augustine sagely concluded: "I err, therefore I am." Truly, to err is to be human. We break things, hurt people, believe things we … Continue reading The Sweet Freedom of Admitting: “I was Wrong.”
Do you know how dope you are? 2020 sucker punched us, planted a roundhouse kick in our face, and then proceeded to pummel us while we were down ... Yet, YOU got back up and are still breathing, going, smiling, loving, and being loved more than words can say! It's like you're Rocky asking 2020, … Continue reading The Vaccine to 2020 is Inside You
We watched "The Princess Bride" with my daughter the other day, and I was struck by the wisdom of a famous line from Westley to Buttercup: "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something." When I avoid uncomfortable feelings inside me, awkward conversations with my wife, disagreeing with friends, and so on, I … Continue reading Growing More Awesome by Going Into the Awkward/Uncomfortable
These scars from my belly tubes, four insertions to drain my lungs when they were full of infection, and a tracheotomy are sacred reminders to me of how when we're too weak to eat, others can feed us, when we're too sick or injured to move, others can take good care of us, when we're … Continue reading Being a Wounded Healer
Grace and Peace Yoga 