October 30, 2023

At Point Three, another essential aspect of resilience is called Reality-Based Action. This means that we take action when we are traumatized, but we first embrace the realities of the situation, regardless of the pain involved.

October 27, 2023

We are fortunate to have a blueprint of how to build resilience: the Enneagram’s inner flow against the arrows shows us all nine energy points. Each point represents an essential spiritual energy that is a building block of resilience. By going to each point, we build resilience.

October 25, 2023

Love and sleep are related in many ways. I recall the many evenings I tucked my kids into their beds. After a busy day and evening, I lay beside my children, reading a story and then saying a prayer. By the time I finished the prayer, my child was asleep, and I was so relaxed that I often drifted into sleep as well.

October 23, 2023

Yes, we have a much better chance of sleeping when we shut down our overactive ego. One of the most influential and non-chemical ways is through systematic relaxation followed by prayer. This is not a light matter because prayer is the reconnection of our mind, body and heart to the One True Source of All Being.

October 20, 2023

As a child, I fought my parents about going to bed. I wanted to stay up for more TV or more play and could not understand why I was made to go to sleep. I was mad at my parents because sleep was like dying for me. During sleep, I had no life and no excitement. I didn't even remember what happened in those eight to ten hours.

October 18, 2023

When in tune with our essence, we can better know if a challenge is relevant to our destiny or if it is an unhealthy egoic desire. The essence senses when a challenge is essential and connects us with the ideas and qualities we need to work through it. It does not mind if we have to push the reset button because our failures are not viewed as shameful but for learning.

October 16, 2023

I wept at my desk one evening while doing homework. I did not understand Algebra, no matter how hard I tried. I felt ashamed because I'd never had trouble with my subjects before this year in Junior High, and I prided myself on making good grades.

October 13, 2023

Shock points are the experiences in life that interrupt our regular pathway. According to Gurdjieff, shocks come in twos in the transformational cycle, which contains seven stages, like the musical octave.

October 11, 2023

Some of us are insatiably curious. It is not only Ego Type Fives who want to know; any of the ego types can be unendingly curious.

One reason many of us are curious is that we want to know if our hunches are correct. We also wish to fill in the information gaps. Curiosity is a wonderful gift.

October 9, 2023

The ego writes a story of how life should go, so it tends to collect information to support its storyline. Therefore, we are curious about things that will confirm our ego’s story and its hunches. On the whole, curiosity is a wonderful attribute that opens up worlds we’d never have known. But sometimes, curiosity crosses the line becoming nosey, prying or snoopy.

October 6, 2023

Curiosity has its roots in our souls. Most fundamentally, it is the desire to find forgotten parts of ourselves. Curiosity is the quest to fill in all the inner spaces of things we are interested in, have an affinity for and want to re-member. Why would you explore something you could not relate to or were not interested in consciously or subconsciously?

October 4, 2023

I go into my office and see the books on the shelves. Many I have read, others I am going to get “around to.” My books introduce me to worlds of thought and practice I received from the dear soul who wrote that book. That sweet soul valued their wisdom enough to share it. I am thankful.

October 2, 2023

You cannot always judge a book by its cover. Our false self covers our authentic self. The false self is the ego, which got the job of protecting us at the end of our soul child era when we were told we were not OK, not good and had to be someone other than our essence.

September 29, 2023

What would be the title of the book about your soul? The book would be about your innermost being and would not have to be read by anyone except you … and God. This manuscript would tell of the most rudimentary spiritual bones of your existence. It would describe the beauty of all your spiritual qualities … those known to you and those you have yet to discover.

September 27, 2023

Can we manage or control what others think of us? The short answer is no. But we can manage and control our responses to them, whatever their opinions.

September 25, 2023

Many feel that they accept God’s forgiveness and others’ forgiveness, but they can’t forgive themselves. When we can’t forgive ourselves, it’s like we can’t totally accept God’s forgiveness either. If we still hold our failings against ourselves and punish ourselves for our mistakes, we are filled with guilt and shame. So the question is: How do I forgive myself?

September 22, 2023

Occasionally, I think about growing up in the Deep South with my brother Trevor, who is two and a half years younger than me. Among the memories are our trips to the local grocery store. Our mother allowed us a candy bar, or a moon pie and a soft drink. When he was just three or four, my little brother routinely asked me to unwrap his candy bar or moon pie. His tiny fingers had not yet mastered the fine motor coordination it took to unwrap a candy bar.

September 20, 2023

George Fountain Cox was born in 1930, the son of poor sharecropper parents in Clinton, South Carolina. He told the story many times of being able to see the ground between the floorboards of their little wooden house.