On taking the long way
There’s a story often told in Zen teaching that I shared with my You School class not long ago. It’s one of my favorites because it gets right at the … Read more
Dr. Ashley Solomon
The Paradox of Choice
I never realized what an offensive question, “What would you like for breakfast?” was until my youngest child came along. Faced with the decision of what to eat, especially in … Read more
You Might Be Right. But Is It Working?
My kids hated to see me coming on a Saturday morning. They’d be scattered around the house – deep in cartoons, video games, or craft projects – still in pajamas, … Read more
Silence No. 9
Imagine for a moment you are an astronaut, confined to a small space station while floating high above the earth’s atmosphere. You’ve been working nonstop for months, essentially around the … Read more
On feeling like we’ve lost ground
Shortly after my grandmother died, I sat on the faded cream couch of my own therapist with a sense of equanimity that felt fresh and enlivening. In the years leading … Read more
The Filter Theory: Why Everything Feels Like Too Much (or Nothing at All)
There are mornings where I wake up and stumble into my kitchen for my morning coffee and the sight of dishes piled near the sink, half-baked crafts, open cabinets, and … Read more
Why We Lie (and What We’re Protecting)
My legs dangled from the wooden pew, periodically kicking the kneeler just to keep myself from melting into the hot boredom. It had been at least three hours, or so … Read more
Can We Actually Change a Person’s Mind? (And What About Our Own?)
While political tensions certainly seem to be at an all-time high, it’s also true that we’ve long been a nation divided. Even if not recently, at some point many of … Read more
How to Break Free from Urgency Culture
There’s a version of Murphy’s Law that’s held true in my house since children came into the picture. It says: the more of a rush we’re in, the more impossible … Read more
Incrementalism in an Age of Despair
“Maybe working on the little things as as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.” – Haruki Murakami There are … Read more
On how to stop making things worse (in three steps)
A while back, my ex-husband sent me what I perceived as a nasty text message . To be fair, we’d had a pretty tense exchange earlier that day when I … Read more
On eating the strawberry
In one of my very favorite of her books, The Wisdom of No Escape, the American-born Buddhist teacher, Pema Chödrön, recounts a story that I’ve been finding myself returning to … Read more
