Until I was in my early 30s, I used to believe that I could not control my emotions, in particular my anger. I believed that my anger (my reactions) was caused by someone else, and therefore someone else was to blame for how I felt (and how I reacted). In other words, I thought the world was against me and that I was a victim.

Let me share an example. It’s one I’m not proud of, but it makes the point. Towards the end of my second long-term relationship, my partner and I got into an argument. I became so…

Life is short. Too short in fact to be stuck behind a problem that keeps you from moving forward in life, seeing what’s beyond the next turn, missing valuable opportunities, and being generally unhappy and uninspired.

The purpose of coaching — in how I practice coaching — is to help my clients get clarity, focus, and direction. I help them get into emotional alignment with strategies that they create to solve their own problems or challenges.

There are moments of insight as well as moments of frustration in the coaching process. The latter is where we can get to the…

This past August, my partner and I spent the entire month living in Montreal. We wanted to get a feel for living in the city beyond visiting for a weekend to decide if we might move there someday. It was wonderful, regenerative, calming, and transformative.

As mentioned in my last newsletter from July 31, I chose to take a hiatus from publishing and social media, and to spend my time working on my book, The Tao of Human-Heartedness. I’m excited to report that I made good progress on transcribing my notes for about half of the 81 verses of the…

Verse 39 of the Tao Te Ching expresses an allegorical truth about human nature. The verse itself is quite complicated, rich in meaning, and foundational for the entire text. To keep in line with this article’s topic, I will quote only the last two stanzas:

The pieces of a chariot are useless
unless they work in accordance with the whole.
A man’s life brings nothing
unless he lives in accordance with the whole universe.
Playing one’s part
in accordance with the universe
is true humility.

Truly, too much honor means no honor.
It is not wise to shine like jade and
resound…

The minute we think we have control, it can be taken away.

There is nothing that we can hold on to with the absolute certainty that it will never change.

In episode 198 of the Think Queerly Podcast, I guide you through a 3-step Personal Evolution Process to determine what you can and cannot control in your life.

When you consciously act on increasing your experiences of peace of mind, happiness, and freedom, not only will you reduce the level of discord and dissatisfaction in your life, you will also affect a ‘positive influence’ on others.

Download a PDF copy of this Personal Evolution Process:

☞ https://pages.darrenstehle.com/influence-control

Read the article on Curious:

https://medium.com/curious/what-can-you-control-in-your-life-to-experience-more-love-happiness-and-freedom-b5ef1cb54a9a

Watch the Think Queerly Podcast:

Listen on your favourite podcast player:

For most of July, I have felt listless. It’s a confusing feeling — a kind of imbalance without tipping over. It’s not that I’m without intrinsic motivation to pursue my creative work and to continue building my coaching business. Rather, it feels like what I want to accomplish is being continuously stretched out farther afield and away from my grasp.

During this time, I’ve also experienced a wave of nostalgia. This longing for a distant place is both a separation from the present moment and a connection with deeply held emotions based in personal history. What I felt was both…

“…when you make something, you put it together, you arrange parts, or you work from the outside in, as a sculpture works on stone, or as a potter works on clay. But when you watch something growing, it works in exactly the opposite direction. It works from the inside to the outside. It expands. It burgeons. It blossoms. And it happens all of itself at once. In other words, the original simple form, say of a living cell in the womb, progressively complicates itself, and that’s the growing process, and it’s quite different from the making process.”

— Alan Watts…

“There’s nothing else to make of life except to perfectly define yourself — to perfectly define your own existence. To be so utterly what you are that you can be perfectly perceived by others, which is an aid to them and everything to you. And which is happiness — I guess.”

— Timothy Findley, ‘Journeyman. Travels of a Writer.’

The other morning, I was deep in thought about the sadness of nostalgia I had recently experienced. Nostalgia had overtaken me numerous times in the past year, and I wonder if there’s a tipping point in one’s life that’s related to…