We certainly aren’t born with this incessant FEAR OF MISSING OUT, but it’s so deeply rooted, it becomes woven in with our DNA.  I currently have exactly 13 projects outlined, many of which won’t come to fruition.  Our actions may express our priorities, but more accurately, they express our truest interests.  I, like many of you, write my goals and projects on flash cards and I pin them to a giant wall sized cork board.  There are always cards that fail to move for months.  Regardless of how seemingly important they may be, they’re the ones that ultimately don’t mean much to me and they’re probably not coming off the cork board any time soon.  Ignoring these dust collecting goals is far from inconsequential, however.  Their mere presence is like an anchor of distraction.

I’m a magnet for the creation of opportunity.   “I can’t help it, it comes to me naturally”…blah blah blah.    I always thought this was a gift.  Now I realize that the constant need to create opportunity is a ruse.  ...

I’m convinced that life hands us what we need on a platter, uninhibited and in plain sight.  The tricky part is grabbing what you want.

Like most of you, I’m full of great ideas.   A patient said to me the other day (in relation to a major community outreach effort)  “I have so many great ideas, I don’t understand why none of them get implemented”.   My monkey brain can relate to this.  I also humbly realize, that my lack of follow through with implementation can’t be blamed on my circumstances, the people around me, the timing, the resources, or the weather.  It’s (always) because I’m standing in my own way.

Whether we have the bandwidth for it or not, once an idea is born, it tends to stick like gum a shoe.  So, we’re forced to pick and choose what we want.  After all, there are only 24 hours in a day.  How much can or should one person do anyway?  When is enough… enough?  Why can’t we just be satisfied with what we’re currently doing?  What’s wrong with just riding the wave and no...

I don’t know if it’s because I’m finally growing up or because I find the need to defend my attentional space rigorously, but in a world or “busy” and “distracted”, I’ve been dissecting what I’m doing it all for.  As vulnerable as it may be,  I do think we need to cut through the baloney and the flim flam.

19 years ago, Darin and I made the choice to leave our close knit families to move out west.  The idea was romantic, adventurous and wildly selfish.   We were dreamers and we had no idea what we were doing but the wind was at our backs.  We only had each other to please,  the world was our oyster, and our vision was sweeping.  

By the time our oldest son, Simon was a toddler, we were busy, bedraggled and tired.  I went back to work when the kids were between 6 and 9 months and because our families lived 3000 miles away, we made use of the best daycares, preschools and child sitters we could find…and I felt guilty. 

Having worked with moms and dads everyday for 2 decades, the all t...

I’ve always had a particular penchant for being cautious and for needing to predict outcomes.  I like to somewhat play it safe and to feel “in control”.    I’m pretty sure that “going with the flow” doesn’t qualify as one of my gifts.  

Being free spirited, as sexy as it sounds isn’t something that comes naturally for me, but I want to work on it.  It think it’s both mystifying and elusive as a concept because it’s rigged.

Micheal Franti says that “only a rat can win a rat race”, well…this is where I worry that maybe I’m trying to get to the cheese, just because it’s expected.  

Fit bits calculate the exact number of steps we take and exactly when we should take a deep breath.  My car tells me when I need to take a coffee break.  Facebook tells me how many friends I have.  My phone tells me where my kids are at the touch of a button.  Although I want to respect their autonomy, it’s often way too easy to touch the button.  My Garmin watch told me during my morning run that I was perf...

I spent the decades of my twenties and thirties trying to heal from a significant autoimmune struggle.  Based on the research I did and the experts I sought out, everything pointed to the health of my gut.  The moral of the story became that my intestinal wall had become too permeable (for reasons to be discussed in another blog post), which caused for my body to essentially attack itself.   

Autoimmune disease, in a nutshell is said to come about when the body begins to recognize it’s own function, or mal-function as foreign, which causes it to become hyper-reactive … seemingly to everything.  Type 1 Diabetes, Psoriasis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, some digestive disorders, Lupus, Rheumatoid arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis and chronic fatigue all have an autoimmune connection.  

Recent research also links certain cancers and heart disease to leaky gut and gut inflammation.   In fact, it seems that if one is sick, a good place to start is by addressing gut health and healing.

While I was...

Am I the only one who sometimes lies awake at night, thinking of all the possible lackluster and uninspiring things while trying to solve all the world’s problems?

It’s recently occurred to me that when something is nagging at me in my sleep, it’s usually my mind doing some serious backstage work for me.  If you’re a terrible micromanager like I am, sometimes you need help navigating through the muck to get to the bigger picture.  The more you try to ignore it, the longer and more intensely it nags.  This seemingly annoying cobweb picking isn’t random or useless, even though sometimes it’s enough to make you really want to stuff your face in your pillow.

Apparently, when you go to sleep, your conscious mind becomes dormant and your subconscious mind takes over.  This loyal way-finder  knows what’s best for you.  It’s your decipherer and problem solver, it’s the one that always has your back and if you stick with it, without fail, it’ll deliver. 

Thomas Edison used to intentionally t...

Hi, my name is Anik and I’m an overachiever.  I’m a “do-er”.  I produce.  I’m a driver.  I have ants in my pants.  I’m a dreamer to the extent that I really do believe that anything is possible.  These qualities are my gifts but also my curse.

Sound familiar?  You moms who take it all on, otherwise you feel guilty.   You men who put so much pressure on yourselves to lead your pack that you’re the reason the mid life crisis was invented.  You kids with such an insatiable thirst for accomplishment that you risk burn out by the age of 20.  You visioneers, workaholics, ultra athletes, care givers and dreamers.  

We dream, produce, push and pull because we are born to create. We think that we’re creating “things and experiences” but really we’re creating ourselves based on the impact we want to have on those around us.  For those with big, hairy and audacious dreams, inspiration is our true north but the reality is…there’s so much to be inspired by that we risk drowning in the sea of oppo...

I spent last weekend (30 hours of it to be exact) running a 196 mile relay with 11 team mates.  The heat, the running, the sleep deprivation, the overflowing “honey buckets” and the blisters were a buffet of discomfort.  I found myself (mostly mid run) wondering why I would ever subject myself to such a thing…for the 5th year in a row.  

Why do we intentionally subject ourselves to difficulty?  People go as far as paying for things like Ragnar races, 570 USA marathons per year, obstacle course races with barbed wire and fire, Iron man triathlons that go on for hours on end, 5 day fasting, sweat lodges and fire walks.   These organized opportunities for discomfort are growing exponentially as a response to a current culture which naturally leaves very little room for discomfort.

I believe that we seek out discomfort in order to defeat complacency, especially when being comfortable is more culturally available than it’s ever been.  I’m very aware that there’s a vast number of people wh...

We have an ingrained and cultural desire to pursue what’s “normal”.  Parents attend “well baby” checks to verify that their baby’s height and weight fall within “normal limits”.  Our teenagers sometimes go to extremes to fit in and feel “normal”.  We take drugs to have our chemistry fall within the “normal” range.  

It’s “normal” to hate Mondays, to dread the teenage years with our kids, and to normalize the expectation that the honeymoon phase of our love relationship won’t last.   When my youngest son refused to eat solids until the age of 16 months, time and again we were told…, that’s NOT “normal”.

Normal is our supreme reference point.  The one by which we measure how well we’re doing in all aspects of our lives and when we sometimes fall outside of “normal”, then we’re suppose to worry.  “Normal” is a set point for comparison…but we’re also told that comparison leads to destruction.  The smoke in mirrors with “normal” is that the habitual and the familiar are synonymous to “nor...

Buddhists say that the 2 roadblocks to happiness are FEAR and ADDICTIONS.

A few days ago, I had an experience which created more fear than I’ve felt in years.  Through a misinterpretation of available information, my husband and I mistakenly believed that our boys had been carried out to sea and drowned.  The ordeal lasted approximately 45 minutes where a phone call to the coast guard was made as sheer panic ensued.  Thankfully, they were safe and sound and this morning we find ourselves grateful for the house-wide clutter created by 2 teenage boys on summer break.

We’ve all had experiences like this. Situations arise that sometimes cause gut-wrenching, teeth clenching, hyperventilating fear on steroids.

Fear has a purpose though.  It causes us to engage, it heightens our senses and it sometimes serves to save our lives.

When we’re in fear, our bodies go through automatic physical changes.  Our adrenal glands produce cortisol, a hormone necessary to engage the fight or flight respo...