Automythic Coaching

A Buddhist monk asked his students, “If you’re carrying a cup of coffee and someone bumps into you, why did you spill the coffee?”

Each and every one of his students said because someone bumped into me.

“No,” he said, “the reason why you spilled the coffee is because that’s what you were carrying in your cup. If you were carrying water, you would have spilled water.”

Then he said something profound.

“Whenever life shakes you, whatever you’re carrying is going to spill out. So if you’re carrying fear, jealousy, anger, greed, that’s what’s going to spill out.

“But if you’re carrying love, compassion, kindness, that’s what’s going to spill out.

“So, each and every day, you should pause and think to yourself, what am I carrying in my cup today?”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

My latest piece is up on Substack. I wrote this one because so many of us doubt (or deeply disbelieve) our own goodness.

Yet we work so hard to maintain a facade of goodness, because we fall far short of the ideals we have for ourselves and we think that makes us broken, failed, “bad.” We worry others might find our faults, our darkness, and the shadows we cast and that makes the vulnerability of intimacy—of really being seen—intolerable.

So we secretly brutalize ourselves for mistakes, for perceived flaws, for having baser instincts at all (regardless of whether we act on them). And we avoid real closeness like it is an existential danger.

Imagine a world where people—like you—accepted their own goodness without question. How much kinder, more patient, loving, and understanding might they—you—be toward themselves and others?

How might that good faith affect their—your—experience of life every day? How might it change the world?

I invite you to click through and read the piece (takes maybe three minutes). Will you share what you think? What resonates with you? I want to know.

I Cannot Wait for You to Know You Are Good A word wash testimony to the tragedy of your secret brutality to your self

It is both surprising and unsurprising how easy it is in this life to get drawn into *not* feeling things, to go numb as a retreat or as a side-effect of the cascade of things that clatter and compete and demand our attention.

Yet beyond good and bad, right and wrong, and all the cultural narratives that whip us out of our bodies and into the overwhelm-o-sphere--maybe even beyond whatever purpose you and I find (or set for ourselves) in this life--there is this universal yet distinct thing happening to us all the time: feeling things, having chains of conscious experience.

Later, at some point, that will stop for each of us. No more feeling, no more conscious experiences. So maybe, just maybe, that is the universal point of our existences. To be here for the feeling, the experience of being alive and self-aware in the universe.

What do you think you think you are here for?

The Wild Depths of What There Is to Feel A tour of your physical and emotional bodies and an acknowledment of the curious energy of your consciousness

The Compassionate Warrior priortizes Self Care. Mindful self care is vital because it provides the foundation of the care we provide for others and the world. What does your self care look like? What could you add or change to step up your self care game?