Before your nervous system gets activated by email and social media, take 10, 15, or 20 minutes to just sit and do nothing. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my newsletter! I’m a little behind the curve, but the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher (2020) is really, really good. The camerawork is mind-blowing, the music poignant. The story — a man documenting the shockingly short…

Capitalism has erased the past, including customs, traditions, and ways of being that humans have practiced for millennia. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my newsletter! I’ve written about how trauma isn’t always a big car wreck, living through war, being physically abused. …

It’s white people’s jobs now to reconnect with our ancestral roots and join in the struggle for collective liberation. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my newsletter! My dad has hundreds of Mason jars of preserved vegetables in his basement. Jars of tomatoes, beans, and peppers. Pickled beets and collard greens. For the past few years — after retiring — he’s…

Finding a therapist can be a confusing, frustrating process. Here’s how to do it. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my newsletter! I found my first therapist through a recommendation from a meditation teacher — who, himself, had been recommended to me by my then-girlfriend. …

A therapist’s job isn’t to make you feel better, it’s to help you feel more. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my newsletter! Going to therapy is like learning new songs on the piano — or whatever instrument you play or dream you could play. And as a therapist, I provide a practice space and a firm…

Porn isn’t inherently bad. But it has conditioned the ways many cisgender, heterosexual men think about sex. — I recently found a streaming version of the first porn I ever watched and was stunned by a blend of amazement, nostalgia, and shame. Soooooo much has changed since my 13-year-old self stumbled on an unmarked VHS tape in the caverns of my dad’s closet. Today, porn is an estimated…

The concept of “white privilege” only tells half the story. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my list! Here’s the problem with the concept of “white privilege”: It only tells half the story. Yes, being socially categorized as “white” — particularly in the U.S. but also across much of the world —…

To feel safe enough to stop whatever the habit we want to change, we need help. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my list! My therapist told me something once that I immediately wrote on a Post-it note I still keep on my desk. I constantly repeat it to people who come to me for help. “Without spiritual…

Setting boundaries, using dating apps as a tool, and more. — Note: Get my writing straight to your email inbox each week by subscribing to my list! The pandemic has been a global tragedy, but I’m grateful for it in this very narrow, selfish way: It helped me get better at dating. I’d gone through periods of dating before. But because…