The world is pretty crazy these days. Everyone is busy, and when I ask someone how they are, most respond with “so busy.” I’ve definitely been guilty of responding that way, too, but I think it’s a total throwaway answer. I came to this conclusion by noting how much internal friction is generated when I can’t seem to get some face time (not FaceTime!) with people that matter to me, and I’m developing an intolerance to that.

You can’t really talk about porn without also talking about guilt and shame, since guilt and shame are direct products of this religious moralism and are powerful modifiers of behaviour. Interestingly, research suggests that shame is a more powerful driver of addiction than guilt; that is, feeling bad about yourself is more strongly associated with dysfunctional behavior than feeling bad about what you’ve done, and both guilt and shame increase the likelihood that you’ll do the verboten thing all over again.

The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.

This is a photo of Gus. I stopped and talked to him in the parking lot of my hotel last night. It was a beautiful evening, and he had the Giants game on the radio. I asked him about his exercise-baseball combination, and he told me that listening to the baseball game was the only […]

I felt like such a fraud, talking on national television about healthy living but having just caved to the pressure to promote our business by abandoning a really important symbol of our family’s values. I was stressed, I was lonely, but mostly… I felt adrift.

It’s really difficult to be distracted when you’re in a beautiful place like this one (in Utah’s Canyonlands, where I spent this past weekend). Natural environments easily lend themselves to being present and simply immersed in the experience. Without billboards and blinking lights and Facebook notifications, it’s much easier to pay attention to what’s going […]

In the context of mental health, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, obsessive and compulsive behaviours, and addiction, I fully agree with Dr. van der Kolk that safe connections with others must occur for optimal human health. It can be scary, yes, but it’s absolutely necessary.

Two different friends have recently taken me to task for not “practicing what I preach.” I talk about setting time and space aside to connect meaningfully with people, and I do that to the best of my ability, but here’s a reality check for me: I haven’t always done that as well as I wish I had.

Growing up, my parents never talked about exercise or calories, but they did deeply value health. We spent a lot of time working in our family’s garden and traveling to the mountains to hike, mountain bike, or canoe. We ended up doing a lot of healthy movement, but no planned, structured exercise.