What do you do when you walk into a situation where the deck is stacked against you? This happened to me a few weeks back when I was delivering a keynote for a health care organization. Right before I was to go onstage, the organization gave a moving tribute to Brenda, the long-standing and much-beloved Executive Director who recently passed away. Nearly everyone in the room knew Brenda. They loved her. They missed her dearly. It was the first conference without her, and her

I admit it: I cannot resist eating quality dark chocolate, watching the latest episode of Outlander, and being onstage. Those things are too powerful a force for me to ignore. I MUST have them, and to fight against them is an act of folly. However, we also try to resist the more unpleasant aspects of life -- pain, loss, doubt, fear, lack, loneliness -- hoping that if we push hard enough against them, we will emerge victorious. Sadly, that's not how energy works. We can't push

Ever since I owned an alternative healing center back in 2004, I have been a fan of sound healing. Whether it's beating on my hand-made hand drum, zoning out to the mesmerizing sound of crystal bowls or simply listening to my favorite Chill station on Pandora (which I do every day in my office), music can have a powerfully soothing effect on a frazzled soul. Research is starting to reinforce what we have instinctively known to be true: music heals. According to an article in

Bad stuff happens. Really bad stuff happens. Big, hairy, nasty stuff happens to every last one of us which can throw us into a downward spiral of hopelessness, depression, anger, and pain. Jobs are lost, homes get foreclosed upon, people die or leave us, and elections don’t go our way. Often those wretched experiences unfold without warning and are completely beyond our control. So, when they do happen, what can we do to navigate them without losing ourselves in the process?