Spring has finally sprung! Everywhere you look, flowers and trees are blooming up a storm — the colorful symphony of tulips, lilacs, daffodils, cherry blossoms and dogwoods are waking up the city from its cold, long winter slumber, filling us with gorgeous eye candy and reminding us of the new possibilities that exist within and around us.

It’s such a fleeting moment; it only seems to last a week or two, so it’s now or never to take notice and appreciate the beauty and magic while it exists. This is a perfect time to pay attention to the prettiest new little things around you, and to celebrate these glorious gifts of Nature.

Beauty is one of the greatest pleasures in life, and a flower is one of the simplest and most tangible expressions of it. If you can’t soak up all that is staring you in the face right now, then how will you recognize and appreciate the more subtle beauty within and around you throughout the year?

In New York City we tend to rush from here to there, with our noses in our smartphones or blinders on as we think about whatever, when what we really need to do in those transitional times throughout the day is stop and smell the roses, literally and figuratively. Slowing down, taking a few deep breaths and becoming aware of your surroundings, especially when they are so lovely, is a great cure for stress and anxiety. I’m sure that if you just try it, like Mikey, you’ll like it!

Feeling a little curmudgeonly with all this zip-a-dee-doo-dah talk? Try spending some time enjoying the season and give me a buzz, I’ll help get things goin’ your way again…

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(Today’s PGG was originally published on April 13, 2010)

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. ~ Alan Watts

Just keep in mind: The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. ~ Epictetus

In June of 2012 my mother had open heart surgery. After the ordeal, the only thing she kept saying she wanted, and her ultimate goal, was to “get back to the way things were before.” But when something that major happens to your physical body — literally cracking open your rib cage to access the main organ that keeps you alive, replacing a valve and rewiring some blood vessels — things cannot, and should not, go back to being the “same.” It’s impossible. First of all, as a lifesaving measure, your body should be functioning much better, which for her, initially it was.

However, because my mother was unwilling to integrate the larger message of healing, she clung too hard to her old ways, with no real lifestyle changes, mental rewiring or emotional processing. Three years later, almost exactly to the day of her operation, she succumbed to a different disease, compounded and/or induced by stress, and is no longer with us on this planet.

I share this as an analogy of where we are right now as a country, society, and world at large. No matter how we got here, this is our open-heart-surgery moment. We have, perhaps, the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform ourselves both individually and collectively in order to be more optimally attuned and functioning better.

I realize that all might sound a bit dramatic, but I do believe this is the time we are in, even if we are only getting glimpses of the road ahead. As a species we have been out of balance and alignment in many areas of life, so whether this crisis is a natural occurrence we need to respond to urgently, or a manufactured one used to manipulate, oppress or profit off us, there can be no doubt it’s a wake-up call — a dismantling that on some level we needed and perhaps even subconsciously asked for to make us stronger from the inside out. It’s that big. And no one is exempt.

Now I never said this would be easy.

We are barely out of the “shock and awe” stage of this war/marathon, and you might not even totally grasp what is happening or what is yet to come. You may not fully realize that the life you had is in the process of transforming, which by its very nature means something must die in order to be reborn. And as author and lecturer Gregg Braden reminds us, there are five stages of grief we go through, some of them simultaneously. Which do you currently find yourself in: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression or Acceptance?

Because we don’t yet know the specifics, and there is still so much unknown of how this will all shake out, our mind/egos can start wreaking havoc and wanting to rebel against the lack of certainty in myriad ways. The good news is the one thing you can subdue your anxiety with is the knowledge that every challenge provides an opportunity. Every cloud has a silver lining. Destruction makes way for reconstruction. Something positive always comes out of something negative. As one door closes, another one opens. Something lost, something gained. And, as the old saying goes, “You are never given more than you can handle.”

When the dust settles from this demolition of the reality you once knew, you can start to think about how to restructure your life, your health, your work, your interpersonal relations, and your relationship to both inner and outer authority. You will start to understand more profoundly what you do and do not value, then act accordingly.

By now you’ve probably gotten a taste of what this new reality looks like for you — at least in the near future — with whom you’ll be experiencing it and how. For months now I’ve said to friends (half) jokingly, that I’ve been living in a hermitage, more self-isolated than usual due to some deep personal changes I have been going through. So now I can say to all of you, “Welcome to my world!”

I realize not everyone will have as easy as a transition with this pandemic-induced lifestyle change, i.e., especially if you are partnered, with kids, and now all working and schooling from home. Or if you have problematic roommates and family members with whom your interaction until now has remained minimal. Or if you usually use your abode only as a storage closet and place to rest your head at night because it leaves much to be desired …

Just as addicts need rehab, prisoners get house arrest/prison/solitary, and spiritual seekers and others need periodic retreats, remember those sites act as a container for transformation — made easier with some level of acceptance — whether they’ve come to that situation voluntarily or not. Ultimately, we must find the meaning and experience the feeling of being at home within ourselves, regardless of our environment.

For now, notice that this slowing down and containment forces us to focus on the quality, not the quantity of what we do and how we use our time, and with whom we spend (or don’t spend) it. What is the quality of the food you eat, the quality of the thoughts you think, the quality of the information you are consuming, the air that you breathe, the moments that you have? What about the quality of your communication and relationships? You now have time to do that journaling and think about who you are and what you are doing with your life. Who do you want to be and what do you want to do in a post-corona world? How can you build a quality inner foundation for yourself?

In my lectures, I always talk about how we need to take responsibility for our lives, our own happiness, no matter what the outer circumstances may be. Because it’s those very circumstances that we cannot control; but what we can control is our response. We have the ability to respond. The outcome in any situation, and the relative suffering we may or may not experience, is based on our response. So what will yours be today?

Not quite sure how to make this quarantine one of quality, not quantity? Give me a buzz and I’ll help you see the value of working on your inner Home Sweet Home so that you can build a palace worthy of your own glorious personal crown, not a corona of virus that keeps you down!

Please note: I realize there is part of the population who will be working harder than ever outside the home on the front lines; others will have extreme financial hardship and/or are stranded abroad. I want to acknowledge and profoundly thank those essentials folks for your hard work and service, express empathy for those most severely economically and physically affected, and encourage you to trust there is a silver lining and much growth to be had for you as well at this time, it just might have a different “container” than I referred to above …

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The Saturday before Superstorm Sandy, I was at a Halloween party. The host went to town with decorations and had massive floor to ceiling spider webs in several corners. Little did I know what foreshadowing that would be for the week ahead!

Four years ago this week we were on the eve of a historic presidential election, after a historic financial disaster. That Fall, the unimaginable became imaginable on both fronts when we chose our first Black president and watched the implosion of the stock market and our banking system. This woke us up in more ways than one, and both divided and connected us.

Fast-forward to today, and we are on the eve of yet another historic election, the outcome yet to be determined, and post another disaster, this time a natural one, which is hitting us materially as much as anything else. And we are even more divided, yet more connected than ever.

After the financial crisis of 2008, because of the actions of a relative few that rippled throughout the world, at the very least we were forced to deal with our addiction to credit and consumerism, and at the worst lost our homes and jobs because of it. Now it’s Mother Nature aided by the man-made contribution to/ignorance of climate change who teaching us that lesson with a more visceral punch as we recover from power outages and gas shortages at the least, and physical destruction of our property and loss of life at the worst.

Since this hit the tri-state area, because of its special density of population and unique connection to the global as well as local economy, no one is exempt from this lesson, as everyone has been affected in one way or another — it’s just who, what, when, where, how and level of gravity that varies.

In the middle of the storm, the façade of an apartment building in Chelsea was ripped off, showing a dollhouse-like view of the inside, a symbolic representation of what is happening to us physically and emotionally as the walls and structures between and around us are being torn down in order to reveal the truth of our lives.

Our interconnectedness and vulnerability have been thrown in our face — not only through weather, power, gas, goods and services, transportation and social media, but relationally too. How long can you coexist in the disconnected dark, live back at Mom’s, stay at your friend’s, or sleep with strangers at a shelter 24/7? How many days can you work from home, or miss work altogether, or have three-hour commutes, or wait hours in line for gas without losing it?

Community is a funny thing in New York — we like the anonymity and self-sufficiency of living on top of each other and the illusion of togetherness that brings, but actually having to interact and be with each other and ask for or receive help is another story.

People have mentioned how Sandy is too “nice” a moniker for what she did, but just like the gentle soul of Frankenstein for which she was also named, there is goodness to be found underneath the external horror of her monsterous appearance. She is asking us to come together like never before and question the deepest meaning of our lives; she is forcing us not only to realize but to actually experience the ways in which we are now more connected than ever, more interdependent than at any other time in history. And it is a gift because experience is usually the only way we humans learn, and that, as painful as it may be, is something to be grateful for if we choose to accept it as such.

Like big elections, these are the occasions when we focus passionately around something that impacts us all; they bring out the best and worst in us. We get to see people’s true colors, good, bad or indifferent; how flexible we can be; how generous and open-hearted we are, how we distill down what is vitally important, what is a necessity, and what is merely a luxury — or when suddenly those necessities become luxuries after not having them for a few days.

Such events test our patience, politeness, perseverance and willingness to exist in the present. They also shows us the incredible strength and spirit of humanity, our willingness to help one another, our capacity for leadership and organization, and our ability to rise to the occasion in times of crisis.

So remember, when we wake up tomorrow morning, no matter what the result of this election is, and no matter where you live in this country or on this planet, what we do know for sure, now more than ever, is that we are all in this together.

(Today’s PGG was originally published on November 6, 2012)

Click here for my explanation of why I chose this PGG today.

In the best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, author Elizabeth Gilbert visits a holy man in Bali who gives her a meditation to smile in every part of her body, “Even in your liver.” This is a great way to activate the feelings of joy within. Just reading that makes you feel a little lighter and more relaxed doesn’t it?

Well, if that doesn’t do it, then what will? Whatever the thought or image is, make sure you get a daily dose in order to keep yourself young, happy and at peace. Doing so has numerous health benefits, and when identified and used properly, is cheaper and better than any diet pill, drug or food out there!

Whether savoring a scoop of gelato, relishing in a job well done, experiencing a romantic moment, or watching an episode of Glee, recognize and cherish those moments you feel joyful. Try to sustain and bathe in the sensations for as long as you can and be able to recall them when you need them the most.

I recently attended a friend’s musical, and for an hour and a half it had me smiling from ear to ear, and from my heart, gut and, yes, even my liver. If he had not followed his calling to create, I would not have enjoyed the positive mental, physical and emotional benefits that came along with it.

Everyone has the capacity to bring joy to the world, or at least to someone else. If you don’t believe me or are not quite sure how, gimme a buzz -because my work gives me such joy, it would be my pleasure, literally, to help you figure it out!

(Today’s PGG was originally published on May 4, 2010)

Click here for my explanation of why I chose this PGG today.