On September 1, two days before my mother Edith passed away on her 96th birthday, I remained glued to her bedside. Treasuring our final hours together, I soothed her with words, song and touch. I wanted her to feel safe, bathed in love and gratitude.
Read MoreFor today’s Pause to Ponder post, I want to share a short but powerful exercise I learned from Patrice Vecchione during our recent Quest “Write Your Mind Open” writing workshop. Before we started writing, Patrice asked participants to create a list of beliefs, attitudes or behavioral patterns that shut us down or hold us back—in relationships, writing, work, or any other arena of life.
Read MoreAt her essence, my mother is one of the most magnificent people I have ever known, but her life has been shaped by extreme, unresolved trauma. Despite how tender I feel toward her, I’ve simultaneously been experiencing a persistent drive to unearth and transform my emotional inheritance, as if my mother’s pending release from this life has to power to accelerate my own liberation.
Read MoreHave you ever considered how you use your voice, reflecting upon how often you feel safe and secure enough to speak honestly, truly uncensored? Are you confident speaking out, or do you regularly stifle your truths or modify what you have to say out of fear or deference to others? Can you trace your life back to a time when you spoke unfettered and used your voice freely?
Read MoreThis November marks ten years since I took my first writing workshop at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. It was called “Writing What You Can’t Remember,” and the exceptionally talented and insightful teacher was Laura Davis, the best-selling author of the groundbreaking book, The Courage to Heal.
Read MoreMy father believed that the most important thing he’d ever done was to become an explorer of his mind and heart. “I got to know myself as I really am, rather than who I imagined myself to be,” he wrote. “No one else could have deciphered the subtleties of my own mind. No one else could have faced my repressed emotions, heartbreaks, and fears.”
Read MoreOne of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from my father is that each of us has a perspective that is totally subjective, and that the world we see is never independent of our individual projections.
Read MoreLaura Davis—my brilliant writing mentor and best-selling author of six non-fiction books that have been providing resources for wisdom, healing, and self-discovery for more than three decades—is about to release her very first memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story. This special occasion inspired the two us to offer a free writing workshop on November 6.
Read More“Although we are part of a country and culture that places utmost reliance on linear, rational thought, our greatest wisdom doesn’t reside there. To gain access to our deepest knowing and discover what we’ve been storing in our hearts for so many years, we can tap into our imagination, emotions, memories, intuition bodily knowledge, dreams, and the relationships we have with the earth.” - Patrice Vecchione
Read MoreI took my first writing class at Esalen Institute in Big Sur in the fall of 2012, a few months after my father died. It changed my life. The remarkable writing teacher, Laura Davis, told us at the outset of the workshop that if we plan on writing anything autobiographical, we need to give up the hope that our family stories will feel accurate to everyone involved.
Read MoreOne of my earliest disappointments caused by the coronavirus was the cancelation of a weekend writing workshop I’d been eager to attend at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur with Ellen Bass and Roxan McDonald. So, when I heard these two gifted, inspiring writers were teaming up to teach a one-day Zoom class in mid-June focused on writing and gratitude, I immediately signed up.
Read MoreLaura Davis has been writing since she kept a diary as a girl. For over fifty years, writing has helped her more fully understand what she’s feeling and to express what’s on her mind and in her heart.
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