What does learning about our patterns have to do with having a personal practice?

Why do things like Shiva Nata, which are all about seeing your patterns and having pings of epiphanies about your unconscious habits? Why try to notice what happens when routines are disrupted? Why pay attention to what pushes your buttons? [...]

So here’s a confession. I’m absolutely horrible at self-discipline.

It doesn’t matter what it is. I can start programs I’m passionate about, and by week three, I’ve not only stopped doing whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing, I’ve forgotten that I’m even supposed to be doing it.

Seriously. You may think I’m [...]

So, let me ask you a question: Why do we think we need a daily practice, anyway? Why sit in meditation every day? Why do yoga every day?

I ask because, too often, my own answer is, “Because I’m supposed to!” There’s some part of me that thinks that, if I Have a Daily [...]

Until a few years ago, I’d never been on retreat. My lovely wife had, as part of her time with the Sisters of St. Joseph, and she reported it as a time of deep knowing and connection with herself.

In that tradition, sisters generally take a week a year for retreat under the care [...]

So, I’ve recently been informed by a new doctor that my sinuses are, in a word, fucked. I mean, he turned off the light, put a flashlight up my nose, clucked his tongue, and immediately turned the light on and wrote me a scrip for a CAT scan.

But here’s the weird thing — [...]

Personal practice — it’s so, well, personal! But even so, I find it helpful to periodically think about mine in a more top-down way, to see how well it’s working for me these days and figure out what, if anything, I need to change.

So here’s what I do on a regular basis:

Daily [...]