George I. Gurdjieff was what you’d call a modern day mystic – an unconventional spiritual teacher who was committed to “waking up” as many people as possible. His mission was to guide people living in the U.S. and Europe to higher consciousness, believing that humans exist in a state of “waking sleep” – essentially held captive by the unruly emotions that run them.
Psychedelic breakthroughs can feel like hitting reset – but without a clear path forward, it’s easy to slip back into old patterns. I explore the challenge of integration, emotional healing, and how to build new mental scaffolding that supports lasting change in a world that wants the old you back.
Whether you’re hiring for your business or welcoming someone into your personal life (like a housekeeper or caregiver) the stakes go far beyond what’s on a candidate’s résumé. Even if their experience looks like a perfect match on paper, you still can’t gauge someone’s character or integrity. After years of trial and error, I’ve learned how to recognize the people who genuinely belong.
Wearing something that says: “Don’t bother me” is like an invisible impenetrable force field that ensures lack of interaction… but without people in your life there cannot be feedback to help you grow and evolve. As human beings, we need each other. So when I see someone wearing essentially a sandwich board that screams “Don’t Bother Me,” I experience a wave of sadness…
As I shared last week on my 69th birthday, I’m embarking on an experiment this year: cataloging all the ways I engage in my own body shaming. Criticizing myself for how I look – or how I believe others perceive me – remains one of the last persistent and nagging patterns that hasn’t caught up with my emotional growth and maturity.
I hear from many people about their view of meditation. The most common sentiment, especially among driven professionals, is that despite knowing the benefits, they struggle to slow down and sit for mindfulness meditation. Even guided meditation, where the narrative takes you somewhere calm and peaceful, like a walk in the woods, seems challenging for them. They get itchy and twitchy – and it makes sense.
There’s a lot more going on here than simply firing up the plant – but she’s a mighty potent friend when we want to go deep! Oh sure, I work with mushrooms too but when you simply want a powerful but simple session to release whatever is knocking loudest on your head, pair canna with my emotional release work and voila! – you launch yourself into a different zone of being. I call it an exquisite state of being.
This is a little off-topic from my usual letters, but – not really – as you’ll see. I invite you to just keep reading. The week after the presidential election, Ron and I got a lot of comments (along with assorted emoticons!) in emails from friends. I guess you could say it was in a congratulatory vein.
Oh! Thank you for the exuberant responses to my invitation for coming together for an online Cannabis Elevation Ceremony – my gift to our community.
Just a quick note as I’m writing from Thailand (Chiang Mai specifically, in the north of the country). It was a long trip – between 4 flights and hefty layovers – 27 hours worth. I’m here physically but tired and discombobulated having landed late yesterday and flopping at a simple and clean little hotel near the airport. I tried everything to sleep (including breathing, counting backwards from 100 and even the podcast “Sleep with me.”