Tag Archives: denial

Health

Body Breakdowns

By Jim Selman | Bio

You hear about it and know it is true—the body breaks down as we grow older. Naturally there are lots of exceptions. If you take really good care of yourself, you might make it to the end of the game without any major physical impairment. However, for most of us we’re going to encounter some life-limiting change in our bodies. I encountered my first this week.

I showed up for a meeting with an orthopedic surgeon to have what I expected to be routine work done on a torn tendon in my shoulder, only to learn that it was inoperable and that I would need to accept the fact that, for the rest of my life, I will have limited functionality. That means I’ll probably not play golf or anything else that requires mobility or power in the left arm. The good news is that my right arm can still be repaired.

What was interesting to me was to watch

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Fearless Aging

Acceptance

By Jim Selman | Bio

I don’t think that age is personal. I know it feels like it is ‘me’ that is getting older, but I don’t experience myself as older. If anything, I experience my ‘self’ as being ‘better’ than at any time I can remember over the past 66 years. I feel more ‘alive’, more engaged, more present and more satisfied than ever. It is true that my body can’t run, wrestle or climb as easily as in the past. I make love more often

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Fearless Aging

Acceptance

I don’t think that age is personal. I know it feels like it is ‘me’ that is getting older, but I don’t experience myself as older. If anything, I experience my ‘self’ as being ‘better’ than at any time I can remember over the past 66 years. I feel more ‘alive’, more engaged, more present and more satisfied than ever. It is true that my body can’t run, wrestle or climb as easily as in the past. I make love more often than in the best

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Personal Empowerment

Paradox of Deception

By Shae Hadden | Bio

For a few hours yesterday, I was ‘spring cleaning’, clearing out the accumulated papers and possessions of the past. I always find such ‘mindless’ activities actually very mindful: they are the perfect opportunity to become present to many of the old internal conversations I’ve been having with myself. Each piece of paper or item draws up memories or images of who I was or what was happening in my life at the time. Yesterday, what kept appearing was the thought that I have been deceiving myself about who I am and what I want to do with my life for a very long time. A question followed—what value is there in deceit?

Conventional wisdom would have it that mastering deception is mastering the art of cheating someone or something other than ourselves. Yet, every self-deception influences our mood, choices and actions, and these can deceive others into believing we are not who we are. And every time we deceive others, we deceive ourselves into believing our own self-deception.

Deception hides us from our deepest desires: it’s as if we live in a castle of confusion, blind to the paradox we’ve

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Personal Empowerment

Resisting Love

By Shae Hadden
Bio

  • Resistance causes persistence.
  • You get what you resist.
  • Practice non-resistance.

All
these axioms seem appropriate when speaking of violence, acts of
aggression, conflict, long-standing issues of hate and fear. But why
would we resist the ‘good’ things in life like friendship, support,
trust, attraction and love?

Time and time again I find myself
turning away from what I most want as if it is a poisonous substance
harmful to my health. I live alone now and often feel an overwhelming
need for intimacy, fun and laughter. I look at

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