Why your personal truth and current reality kicks sand in the face of positive thinking and affirmations
In a recent coaching session, my client asked me to send instructions on how to craft his “statements of self-truth.”
He was telling me about using affirmations and trying to think positive. We had a discussion about how those words and actions are mostly meaningless because they don’t connect with truth.
When you affirm, “I am rich, and powerful, and loveable” — an all-too-common affirmation — what reality does that connect with if you are currently not rich, or powerful, or loveable?
If you don’t feel self-love, your brain won’t believe that affirmation. If you’re $50K in debt, the reactive…
Success & Failure, Part II — Why we need to remove the word failure from the discourse of success.
The first time you tried to stand on both legs as a baby, you fell down. Was that your first failure in life, or did you simply get up and try again? Did your parents scold you for being bad, lazy, or incompetent? I’m certain they encouraged you. You kept trying until one day you stood on both feet and took your first steps, to the claps, smiles, and adoring praise of your parents.
Success Is Not an End-Destination, It Is a Measure of Progress.
A baby learns how to walk because that’s a function of its nature. It achieves success in walking unassisted through the practice of trying to stand…
P.E.P — A Personal Evolution Practice to reframe failure and to move forward with direction and certainty on your goals and dreams.
This Personal Evolution Practice supports both parts of my Success & Failure article series:
You can read Part I on Curious, Your Understanding of the Meaning of Failure Could Be the Reason for Unrealized Goals and Dreams, or listen to the Think Queerly Podcast, Episode 176.
Part II is forthcoming and will be titled, “Success Is Not the Opposite of Failure — How this Dichotomy Reinforces Self-Doubt and Shame.”
Before We Get Started…
Failure and success are complicated, emotionally loaded terms. Failure for some people can be devastating, which you may have gleaned from my story about withdrawing from my Master’s. Success is promoted in society as an “elevated” human quality. Why is that? Can we be good…
DISCIPLINE! YOU LACK DISCIPLINE!
What an awful and inhumane concept. Discipline is like expectations; they can rarely be met. One's need for discipline often comes with a host of insecurities about one's self, including shame. So why bother with such a defeatist concept?
But so that you don't think I'm attacking you, I get it. I had a mentor many years ago who I now see as a bully. One of his accusations of me was that I lacked discipline. And I stuggled, thinking he was correct.
Here's what I have learned from neuroscience and in my coaching: Discipline most…
Th-Ink Queerly is back?
On Saturday, July 18, 2020, I announced that I was closing Th-Ink Queerly on Medium. It was the right decision at the time for all the reasons I shared, namely,
it’s taken me a long time to admit that the publication no longer meets my current and future needs. I have been too attached to what was, why I first created it, what it meant to me on an emotional level, and what I had hoped to accomplish. But, with any goal, it’s not about the goal itself, it’s about the journey towards what you planned to accomplish.
What’s Changed?
About a…
Success & Failure, Part I — Without a clear understanding of the meaning of “failing” you might feel like a failure.
What’s your single biggest failure in life?
What a horrible way to start an article! It’s like a punch to the gut if you’ve ever failed big and hard at some point in your life. Now, work with me for a moment because my intention is not to make you feel bad. But we do need to start with the dark before we can see why it’s also a part of the light.
Think about my opening question: What’s been your single biggest failure in life? How did that failure make you feel? How does it make you feel thinking about it now? …
Musings on creativity, expectations, surrender, and trust in your purpose.
Since 2018, I have published an article or a podcast every week. But I’d been publishing consistent content long before that date. I have had a few websites and publications along the way to frame and shape my interests and business focus over the last 15+ years.
My first published writings appeared on Gay Guide Toronto (which became TheGayGuideNetwork) under the column, “Flex,” in my early days as a personal trainer. That morphed into “Flex Your Mind” when I discovered personal development. Since then, I’ve published on my various websites: Integrated Fitness, All About Meal Planning, EatMoveBe, and lastly Th-Ink…
Why are we afraid of dying?
When you’re dead, there’s nothing to worry about. If you’re dead, what’s there to be afraid of?
It’s not death that we are afraid of, it’s living.
We hold ourselves back from living fully, playfully, authentically, unabashedly, and freely.
We waste our lives planning for a moment when our consciousness will cease to exist. Is that not ironic, if not a paradox?
Why are we afraid of living?
If you are afraid of being judged, you might hold yourself back against the idea of whom you ought to be. But the idea of whom you ought to be has come and gone. …
Think Queerly Podcast Ep. 173
Dualities are not irreconcilable opposites or conflicts. Rather, they are mutual compliments of each other.
In this episode, I dive deep into the nature of dualities from a Taoist perspective and speak to the synthesis and harmonization of opposites — better expressed as dualities. I quote Wing-Tsit Chan’s translation of the second verse of the Tao Te Ching (from “The Way of Lao Tzu”).
“Being and non-being produce each other; Difficult and easy compliment each other; Long and short contrast each other; High and low distinguish each other; Sound and voice harmonize each other; Front and behind accompany each…
Morality
Part III: Where you stand requires understanding the moral myths that organize society.
In part I and part II of this series I discussed the qualities that define our humanity and support one’s integrity. These qualities include your natural and desired character traits, your core values, and the beliefs that orient you within society. Knowing these qualities will support where you stand in life, but without a meaningful and actionable purpose, you won’t have clarity or direction about where you’re going in life and why.
In this article, I will dive into the much bigger picture: Where do you as an individual ground yourself in the larger, moral landscape to commune with the…
