Your life experiences up to this point have contributed to the person you are today. You can probably point to plenty of good and bad experiences in your past. But what makes an experience good or bad? Enduring pain or loss might be considered a bad experience, but what if you also gained something valuable from that same experience? It is only your personal perception that determines whether something is positive or negative. Painful experiences

On some level, I think all of us struggle with moderation. It doesn’t even matter what it is. We can all become addicted to things that ruin us. Never before have we had pretty much instant access to things we want – food, sex, drugs, shopping, etc. They are all just a click away these days. A couple of month ago, I posted an interview from Be Inspired of neuroscientist, Dr. Andrew Huberman. He talked

I’ve talked a lot about confirmation bias and how we can stay stuck inside our own heads. Our brains can either be our passport or our prison. It’s either your best friend or your fiercest opponent. But the good news is that you have the power to take back control. One of the reasons why we stay stuck in our own heads is because we get caught up on our own thoughts. And it is

Ignorance is a choice. If you choose to be ignorant, that you are welcoming the possibility of misfortune. And that is exactly what I did in college. One semester, I took an English Literature class. On the second day, he handed out a test. I was shocked. I raised my hand and asked what the test was over as we hadn’t been assigned anything to read. He smirked and put the test down on my

Some of the most tortured souls have created art, music and stories that resonate with us on a deep level. Yet many people spend most of their lives trying to avoid being exposed or vulnerable. Many of us equate vulnerability with weakness. But I think daring to be vulnerable with others is actually a strength.  According to Brené Brown, a research professor, author and expert on shame and vulnerability, fear of shame inhibits creativity, keeping

When you are in recovery for any kind of addiction or “problem behavior”, your wellness and recovery must come first. Taking your recovery first is being accountable and responsible for yourself. It isn’t selfish. Addiction is a tricky thing – it wants you to go back and have a reason or rationalization for it. It’s kind like Gollum and the ring. He is always seeking to recover his precious, even though it has destroyed the

I have a little side project I have been working on with friends. We are investigating a series of criminal cases were information presented at the time of trial may have been incorrect. These potential discrepancies revolve around the “art” of forensic science, which can be incredibly reliable in some respects, and not so reliable in others. As we have been looking into these cases, we are shocked at some of the facts that have

Last year I wrote a post about when you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection. In it, I was pretty vulnerable and talked about my own feelings of not being good enough and being so dependent on external validation that I really lost my way. You can read the full post here, but I wanted to share some things you should remember if you are struggling with being yourself: Nothing outside