“I just want to fuckin die.” Coming from the mouth of a 12-year old, this is a devastating thing to hear. It is something that we might expect from someone a little older. Perhaps someone that had had the chance to live, to know more about the struggles, pitfalls, devastations that can come with life. I’ve spent the last 15 years working with teens and young adults as a mentor, teacher, ally. Over the years this has grown into Tending the Fires, an organization I created to h

Last weekend I had the powerful experience of attending a grief ritual led by Francis Weller. It was an experience that has moved me in many ways. Many of which I am sure will continue to surface over the next few days, weeks, months. There is something unspoken that happens when people come together as a community to express, or what Martin Prechtel calls “metabolize,” our individual and collective sorrows. It is unspoken though many attempt to put words on it, to give n

"The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.” - Robin S. Sharma The first time I heard a berimbau chills ran through me from head to toe. A sense of overwhelming emotion rose into my chest. For some inexplicable reason my eyes welled up with tears. It was a call that reverberated in the fibers of my body. The high-toned trill of the Brazilian instrument struck a chord in me that I can hardly describe. This moment shaped the next decade of my life. There is an

Have you ever felt like the world is collapsing around you? Like nothing you do can stop the onslaught of fear, sorrow, or desperation that floods your mind and your body? Have you ever been laid so low that you thought you would never recover? Of course you have. We have all shared moments of our lives that were devastating. The end of a relationship. The death of a loved one. The end of a career or life-long dream. A diagnosis of a serious health problem. A long-ter

For the past few years, I have been helping people discover a deeper sense of purpose in their lives. I have helped them through some of the most difficult transitions that they face: from the end of a relationship, to the end of a career or even the death of a loved one. What I have found in this work and the decade or so of training that led up to it is that most of us have a deeply ingrained notion that the purpose of life is to be happy. We use happiness as our North S

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." - Meister Eckhart Our culture is a taking culture. It is based on the premise that if we can do something, we should. When we look at the world around us through "Western" eyes, we see an endless stream of resources, possessions, things. We base our social status and ideas of success on how many things we can accumulate, and how many people notice. For hundreds of years we have been gui

I work with a lot of young people. For twelve years I have spent a lot of time being a mentor, advisor, confidante, and guide to countless teenagers and young adults. And I love the work that I do. Especially because it isn’t work to me, it is a natural extension of who I am to be the support for those around me, especially the younger ones that are hungering for some genuine connection. The other day I was working with a young woman. She’s a beautiful girl, in her early

Sometimes the road ahead of us gets dark. The dreams we had of what life would be when we were young start to dim, and we come face to face with the reality that we are human beings. This can come as a shock. For most people it does. I remember being younger and thinking that the sky is the limit in the possibilities for my life. I thought that I could and would accomplish anything. After a period of descent, where I collapsed into a deep depression and brought the world

Sometimes the right thing is letting go. There are times in our lives when the illusions we have created of how it all should be no longer serve us. They are patterned ideas of who we should be, where we should be, whom we should share our lives with. But the course of life has different plans for us. When we are confronted with these crossroads it is easy to fall into the trap of holding on. We feel the need to maintain the image we have created of what life should be at

The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds. - Dalai Lama Have you ever had the world pulled out from under you? One of those experiences where your idea of what your life would be suddenly comes crashing down? It can be an unexpected illness, the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or the loss of a job. It can be something more subtle, like waki

The cell was cold. It was summer in the Chihuahuan Desert, and yet this tiny cinderblock room in the middle of the Doña Ana County Detention Center was freezing. I kept asking myself “How can anywhere in the desert be this fucking cold?” and the deeper questions I was afraid to ask “What did I do that got me here?” and “What don’t I remember?” It was the summer of 2002. I had been spiraling out of control for three years. I was caught in a struggle with depression that wa

One of the things that I’ve noticed over the course of my work is that men are afraid of stepping out of conventional ideas of strength and into the fire of their own wounds. It is a bit ironic, actually. To do deep psychological and spiritual work takes a lot of courage. Definitely much more courage than pretending that nothing fazes you. But our social structure has for generations taught men that the only appropriate outward display of emotion is anger, if even that. I

Have you ever experienced something like this? Luis started dating Jennifer a few days ago. He really liked her. He was excited about the relationship and where it would lead. He was a little nervous, because she had all of the qualities that he wanted in a woman. She was athletic, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous. He expressed to me that he didn’t know how he had been so lucky. One day, Luis and Jennifer were scheduled to meet for lunch. Luis showed up at the restauran