Nurturing harmony: exploring the fragile essence of the common good. — How can we define a common good for all people while cultivating and accepting differences? Let’s start with what the common good is not about. The common good is not a fairy tale or a classic story of good triumphing over evil. The common good is more like a steady stream, gradually eroding obstacles that lay naturally in its path. …

When you shift your focus to the process and the journey, you activate your motivation. — You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Love the process and not the goal,” tossed around when it comes to achieving your dreams. Let’s take a closer look at what that really means. The Pitfall of Goal Attachment A couple of years ago, I found myself in a constant struggle to make progress on my goals. I…

Transformative growth begins by critically exploring your beliefs and enhancing self-awareness. — Everything in Life Evolves and Transforms If you want things to stay the way they are, you are holding on to an illusion. We are not static beings. Approximately 330 trillion cells in your body are replaced every 80-days1, creating a new you. We are constantly transforming, unaware of this simple fact of nature.

[Untenable Podcast] Our understanding of the brain and neuroscience can be applied to queer and trans advocacy. — Episode Summary Recently, I read the article, “How Our Minds Shape Reality” by Dr. Samantha Boardman on The Dose. The tl;dr version: If we always think negative thoughts, we’re going to focus on finding and expecting negative outcomes. This understanding of the brain and neuroscience can be applied to ‘more effective’ queer and trans advocacy.

Try these 3 practical steps to feel better. — Feeling sorry for yourself sucks: it’s disempowering, passive, and unproductive. The way to stop feeling sorry for yourself is to look back to find the cause and re-frame your thinking. Feeling sorry for yourself is a visceral experience. It affects everything from your posture to your digestion and immunity. …

Privilege shows up in our lives as a disconnection from what we have in common. — Privilege is like a safety deposit box filled with ideas about how to perceive the world around you. Privilege adds to your self-estimation of how certain you are about your status and safety in the world. When you resist change or react to something new out of self-protection and defensiveness, you demonstrate a lack of prediction that exists outside of your privilege.

Thoughts on the prejudice of “othering” and how to overcome unquestioned beliefs. — What’s the first thing you think (and feel) when you see someone who’s different from you? Brace yourself… this could get uncomfortable. When you meet someone radically different from you, do you immediately realize your biases and prejudices? Are you aware of the judgements that pop into your head? Is your feeling one of discomfort, dislike, or disgust?

It takes courage to say, “I don’t know, I’m still learning.” — Last year, I was in a writing program with several new writers who wanted to build a regular writing habit and create better content for online publication. Inside the program, I started to notice a trend in the group threads. Participants were even sharing this dogma publicly on Twitter, promoting the ill-conceived idea to “Fake it until you make it.”

Queer points of view, solution-oriented rants, and contemplations about morality in a world that seems unfair, unjust, and untenable. — “It sounds like an untenable situation — but he remains upbeat.” Several months ago, I was struggling with no longer wanting to write about personal development and human-heartedness. “Should I rebrand?”, I asked myself. I had rebranded my Substack once before. First, it was “Queering Self-Mastery. For a hot minute it became “Thinking Queerly” before I settled on “Cultivating Human-Heartedness about two weeks later.