As a parent, I know how challenging it is to raise a child with little or no training or knowledge on what it takes to be a successful parent. The insecurities and doubts felt by parents who love their children and want to do their best for them can sometimes be overwhelming. I wrote this letter to my son, Leor, for his 30th birthday. It poured out of me like nothing I have ever written before. Over the course of the past three years, with Leor's permission, I have shared this letter with many of my clients with the intention of alleviating some of these insecurities.  read more »

“I like your ponytail.” I said in a playful manner. “Ponytail?” he repeated in a thick French accent. There and then began the most extraordinary odyssey of my life. It was a warm spring Sunday afternoon, a perfect day to eat at an east village sidewalk restaurant. My friend and I were savoring the delicious, Yemenite food, basking in the glorious sun; engaged in a lively discussion; enjoying watching the myriad of colorful people passing by - we were drinking each moment of life.  read more »

If there is one gift we can give ourselves, it is the gift of listening to our inner voice. At a very early age I recognized that the different voices I was hearing, both from within and outside of me, were at conflict with one another. I was receiving messages from my parents, my teachers, my friends, my neighbors, my siblings, the media and myself.  read more »

Image copyright 2007 Chrissie Dowler

With sex all around us, oozing out of our televisions, theaters, magazines, fashion, on the streets, one would think we are the most sexually informed, open and comfortable nation on the planet. We manage to connect sex to just about anything we sell, buy, eat, smell, see, or touch. It is such a part of our daily lives, we have become like fish in water, unaware of its constant presence…except of course when a tit falls out in the middle of Super Bowl. It’s no wonder, then, that when a new study, “Why Humans Have Sex,” by Cindy M. Meston and David H. Buss, revealed its finding that there are 237 reasons why people have sex, every media outlet jumped to cover it.  read more »

There is a blame game being perpetrated all around us - it goes like this:

•“It’s all Bush’s fault.”
•“It’s those liberal Democrats with no values.”
•“It’s those fundamentalists (of any denomination) threatening our liberties and lives.”
•“It’s those corporations who are polluting the earth and stealing from the disenfranchised for their own selfish gains.”
•“It’s the United Nations’ fault for not helping the people in Darfur.”
•“It’s those greedy HMO’s who are maiming and killing people by refusing to provide health care to individuals in need.”
•“It’s the sensational and superficial media coverage which is keeping people ignorant and anesthetized.”
•“It’s the traffic that caused my lateness.”
•“It’s my boss’ fault that I didn’t get the job done.”
•"It’s my parents’ fault that I have low self-esteem.”
•“It’s my wife’s frigidity that caused me to cheat on her.”
•“It’s my husband’s obsession with his work and ignoring my needs which led to my depression.”
•“It’s my son’s ADHD which is causing his poor performance in school.”
•“It's my busy life which prevents me from taking time for myself, read with my child, have dinner with my family, volunteer for a cause, help a stranger on the street… ”

From global to personal issues, the constant choir of blame is endless.  read more »

Dear Mrs. Black,

It was January 1967 when this 11 year-old, frightened, little Israeli girl walked into your classroom for the first time. I had only arrived in the country two weeks before. Not knowing a word of English, I was placed in your class with other non-English speaking students.

I cannot describe the terror and confusion I was feeling that day. These feelings had been with me throughout the past few weeks. They began when the reality that I was leaving my country, my home, my extended family, my school, my friends, and all that was familiar to me. My father had told us that we were leaving Israel and moving to America.  read more »

How many times have you heard the statement, “You can’t love anyone until you love yourself?”

While this is a true statement, the reality is we are not taught what it means to love ourselves; or more importantly, how it feels to love ourselves. If you stop and think about this for a moment, you probably will be able to come up with some ideas of what love is, but you would be hard-pressed to actually conjure up feelings of love for yourself. We know what it feels like to love another; yet we don’t know what it feels like to love ourselves.  read more »

Using One's Life

It was 1991. Colombia was still reverberating from the ongoing war between the government and the rebels. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire. Many died or were injured in the process. Many others escaped their villages and homes to seek refuge and safety. With nothing on their backs, they fled to other parts of the country. Most settled on vacant hilltops where they build makeshift homes made of broken tree limbs and other debris they found in the area. In these shantytowns, as they were called, lived many elderly people. The majority of them, some in their eighty’s and ninety’s, were sick, alone and poverty stricken. Abandoned by their families and their government, these poor souls were left to fend for themselves.  read more »

as i approached the vast, spacious view of the grand canyon, i began to feel it- my heart stopped, my breathing slowed and my mind quieted- for an eternal moment, i disappeared into the Oneness of the Cosmos.

merging into the river of Spirit, the river of creation, i became the source of it all. i was the sky, i was the sun, i was the earth, i was the rain that sourced the river that created this magnificent work of art. in that eternal moment, there was no time, no space, no form. there was only a continuum of nothing and everything.

returning to my body form, my mind and my emotions, i experienced the interconnection of all that Is. i realized that there is no object or subject, no out there or in here, no life or death. There is only Spirit-- and that everyone and everything is the manifestation, the reflection, of this spirit.  read more »

Dear Kind Soul,

It was a striking, sunny, spring Sunday afternoon. The air was crisp and dry. A light wind was softly brushing by the sea of people milling about on the steps of the Metropolitan museum. There was a sense of burgeoning joy and wonderment, as if we were all experiencing life for the first time. As I stood at the top of the stairs waiting to meet my girlfriend Marlene, a rush of alertness coursed through my being. I could feel each sense of my body come to attention; the fresh, sweet smell of budding trees and flowers; the gentle caress of the ever so perceptible wind against my body; the bright, radiating sunlight illuminating everything it touched, beckoning its inner beauty to manifest; the cacophony of conversations, children’s gleeful cries, cars passing, trees rustling, all entered my ears in symphonic concert. I tasted its entirety.  read more »