#1       Concentration Practice (sometimes called Samadhi) This is where most people begin their meditation practice. Here we practice focusing our attention on something neutral (i.e., our breath, sound/mantra, candle flame, etc.) We assume the so-called “regal posture” meaning not slouching or......... more »

My last two posts were about this thing called Mindfulness. At this point I would like to suggest a simple Mindfulness exercise. Just go for a slow walk of about 15 minutes. You can be anywhere: your yard, your neighborhood, in the woods, along the shore, or in a city. Step 1 Simply focus on the various colors and sh......... more »

Q: You may not believe this but I am a 45-year-old virgin…well sort of. I have been married eight years now and have never had an organism during intercourse. We have three children. I was a “good protestant girl” growing up and was told that I would go to hell if I had premarital sex. I have been able to have a......... more »

I had gotten a new motorcycle about eight years ago and wanted to test it out on a curvy road close to our house. I went down the road to check for law enforcement people. No one there so I took off and all of a sudden, the flashing red light behind came on. I think the young officer was surprised to see this old guy t......... more »

For those of you who have been following my last three posts, you know I have been writing about Mindfulness. Our last article was on Mindful “seeing”. This time I would like to suggest you experiment with another sense… your hearing. Again, I would like to suggest a simple Mindfulness exercise. Just go for a ......... more »

First the inventory, then the point. In the smallish cupboard below our built-in micro-wave and regular ovens there is the most interesting and curious assortment of stuff. There are two white plastic baskets, same size, side by side. The left-side basket is completely unremarkable and thus uninteresting: Plastic ba......... more »

Q My son is a 19-year-old college student here in Texas. I say he is sleep deprived but he doesn’t think so and suggests I don’t know what I am talking about. He usually gets to bed between 2:00-4:00am. He is either on his computer playing games (self report: “I am very good”) or up talking with his with frien......... more »

Over and over, men hear some version of the same question: “What are you feeling?” It’s a question many men finding annoying, unnecessary, even accusatory. From boyhood on, many men (especially older men) have been socialized to not pay attention to their emotions. Their rationale: if they express an emotion like......... more »

How Much Is Too Much? Anxiety is part of life -- we all feel it from time to time. In fact we would be in trouble if we felt no anxiety whatsoever. However, the majority of we Americans deal with anxiety either in ineffective ways or get hooked on powerful and addictive medications/substances. Once hooked, many report......... more »

As Terry has said, the most contentious issues most couples face include: sex, money, in-laws and children…not necessarily in that order. And then there’s the grandkids. For some older couples, there’s the heartache of grandchildren longed for, but never conceived or born. Or those born to an estranged chil......... more »

Bill Bradley was an All-American basketball player from Princeton, a Rhodes Scholar, an NBA star and a Senator from New Jersey. He was also a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2000. Senator Bradley was chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Committee and sponsored the Elwha Restoration Bill in......... more »

I just discovered my age group! I am a Seenager (Senior teenager) I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 50-60 years later.   I don’t have to go to school or work. I get an allowance every month. I have my own pad. I don’t have a curfew. I have a drivers license and my own c......... more »

  When I began talking about my own retirement a few years ago, I got one response more often than any other. “Oh, congratulations; what are you going to do?” Always, the emphasis was on the word do.  It gradually dawned on me this question was familiar, not new. When men meet, it is common to begin by ......... more »

Q My 73-year-old husband died last week. He had been in a coma for several weeks and was on a ventilator. The doctors said there had been no brain function for about two weeks. I kept hoping against all odds that he would miraculously just wake up. Then the day came when the doctors had “the talk” with me. My husb......... more »

Attached to the back side of our garage is a built-on storage “cabinet” about four feet in height. When we moved into our place about four years ago, I noticed that cabinet had considerable wear and tear, but I continued to store unimportant and miscellaneous items in it. Then THE tree struck it. Actually, two y......... more »

“Miles later and the heat is just ferocious. Sunglasses and goggles are not enough for this glare. You need a welder’s mask.” Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) by Robert M. Pirsig.   In our culture, as we grow older the process of negotiating transitions with ourselves and others is a cons......... more »

Do I make a difference? For men, facing this question at some point in life seems almost inevitable. More so, perhaps, when it’s time to retire. Inevitable, yes, but also understandable. Because many men still feel a subtle pressure to measure their value by success at work—what is accomplished, and how much is ear......... more »

Dear Grandpa Jack: My finger-tips still whence with the blazing memory of watching you snuff out the used-up Marlboro butt with your bare finger tips. I still hear myself scream silently in horror at the nonchalant act of my real Marlboro Man hero. I know I didn’t have that many years to actually be with you, b......... more »

This fourth day of our vacation to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming started out pretty much like the other three preceding it. But as Jane and I were sleeping in our trailer, I was gently awakened by pressure on my leg at 6:00 a.m. As I peered down to the bottom of the bed I saw the big brown eyes of our golden retriever Po......... more »

I had an experience the other day that made me very sad, both for myself and for the future of our country (and this was before Charlottesville). I was in the parking lot at the Sequim Safeway. Deborah and I had come up from Seattle after a day at work.  That meant I was a little dressed up; nothing fancy but in c......... more »

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.” So C. S. Lewis begins his book, A Grief Observed, about the death of his wife, Joy. A few weeks ago, travel......... more »

Outer story, the physical world, is also its own effect, its own reaction, its own comment. Outer story shows us things, and as the outer story grows and gathers, we can begin to see the constellations of our meanings. There is no need to comment on each facet of a scene. The sunset went from yellow to purple in a mome......... more »

Q My 52-year-old husband was seen by one of my friends last week with another woman at a restaurant out of town. It appeared not to be a business meeting since they were reported to be holding hands and smiling at each other a lot. We have only been married for six years and I am devastated. I knew things have cooled ......... more »

A little context first. This will seem on the surface a tempest in a teapot, where the tempest is the age-old conflict between science and religion, and the teapot is a middle-sized conservative American Christian denomination. It is those things, but it is also as universal as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas ......... more »

Q Every since my husband retired 15 months ago our marriage has had more conflict. In the prior 37 years we had our ups and downs but nothing like this. I can’t figure out what has gone wrong. We were looking forward to spending more time together. Well, that has certainly happened. I wonder if we are spending too m......... more »

Even in retirement we find ourselves in leadership roles, anything from a neighborhood social group to a national philanthropic organization. We have all experienced the effectiveness of good leadership and the ineffectiveness of poor leadership. Whether during our careers or in retirement, there is great value in thin......... more »

The very first patient I saw in my new practice when I moved to Sequim, Washington was a lady I will call Mary. After a few initial pleasantries I asked her why she was here. Without a moments hesitation she said, “I woke up in the middle of the night again last night. I had the kitchen knife in my right hand looking......... more »

We have all hear it. We all know that added sugars and syrups fuel obesity, trigger excess insulin secretion and boost inflammation, elevate triglycerides and cause cardio woes. But as our ole friends Drs. Oz and Roizen explain, they can also increase our risk for mental health. Roizen and Oz drew our attention t......... more »

Thursday morning we left Port Townsend for a long getaway weekend in Walla Walla, Washington. As we were traveling East on I-90 we began to make our way up the rain soaking mountain pass (please contain your shock at us having rain in Washington) when we came upon a military caravan. The vehicles appeared to be much......... more »

Three of my friends suffered much in the last year: one woman grieved the unexpected loss of a spouse of several decades; another suffered permanent disability in a bicycle accident; and a physically active, heath-conscious man was hit with a severe medical diagnosis. Although very painful and life changing, these e......... more »

This piece is about one of the virtues of having a Mindfulness practice. It is an effective way to gain mental flexibility. When I was younger I heard stories of older people being on the ground with the inability to get themselves off the floor. I remember thinking how odd that must be…just get up…right? Later,......... more »

Q I have been married over 40 years. I have been a professional in the business world and am now retired. I was diagnosed a couple of years ago and things are getting worse for me. As if the diagnosis wasn’t bad enough, how it effects with my family is the worse part. My husband and my three adult children all don�......... more »

Choices, Choices, Choices All of us face decisions every day that potentially affect our emotional well-being. Some of these decisions are small and insignificant (i.e., chocolate or vanilla ice cream?) Other decisions appear to be much more significant (i.e., should I retire at age 65 or 70?) Research has found two p......... more »

The holiday season is well underway, and many of us will be visiting with family and close friends in the coming days. While you have your loved ones gathered near, why not take advantage of the time get everyone on the same page about your end-of-life desires? It doesn’t have to be a depressing conversation! In f......... more »

"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that ......... more »

Okay, so remember – when we left off, Prof. Emeritus Harold Clark had asserted that radiocarbon-based dates of once-living things were BS, since they gave us age-dates before the Great Flood of Noah, and even before the Creation of All Things (about 6,000 years ago)! Impossible! Besides the “evidence” from Genesi......... more »

The character of your existence is determined by the energies to which you connect yourself.   (Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu, Chapter 24)   Back in ‘17 Way back, long, long, ago…in 2017 it seemed that most people I came in contact with were desperately trying to hold on to something st......... more »

A First Glance I exited childhood in the 1950’s with beliefs about “being a man” that have gradually become myths to me over the last 60 years. I believed what I was taught back then – just by watching and listening:To be a respectable man, I must have a successful career Competition brings out the best i......... more »

Being 70, I expect to have some body parts wear out, but yesterday was another story. Please note, this is not simply some old guy’s “organ recital” (aka, whining about health issues). Some how I ended up with 4 medical appointments yesterday. Somehow…well I guess we all know how… I made four appointments in ......... more »

Q I am 58-years-old and I still continue to hear the voice of my mother saying, “What is the matter with you…why can’t you be normal?” For the life of me, as a kid I didn’t know what that meant. I seemed to be like most other boys my age in school. I had a lot of energy but so did most of my friends. To this......... more »

Thanking about setting some goals for this year? Psychologists have learned that how we describe a goal actually influences the emotional experience of pursuing that goal. Specifically, they have identified three types of personal goals we humans set, and discovered that each goal type has its own emotional profile. ......... more »

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and think about those hard things that you know you should get around to but haven’t quite made time for? You know, reevaluating your homeowners’ policy? Cleaning out the tool shelf in the basement? Having end-of-life paperwork in place? I can’t help you with the ......... more »

The opening event was due on the same day as the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics. My wife and I flew from Washington to Yucca Valley, California. We were greeted with nice 77-84 degree weather and a big hug from our young “Olympian” Kay. At age 14, Kay was both excited and anxious about her dance recital tha......... more »

I never really got tangled in wars between religion and science. Contrary to Larry Mitchel’s experience, related in a couple posts on this page, it didn’t all “start with science” for me. Rather, for me It started with a sense of the presence of God, and seeking to figure out what he meant to say. I passe......... more »

Q I am a 48-year-old Veteran out of the Middle East conflict. Yes I saw a lot of conflict; yes I had friends shot and killed; yes I was wounded…but for the likes of me I can’t figure out what that has to do with my “over the top” anger when someone tailgates me. After all, I was never “blown-up”. I have......... more »

In All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum writes about hiding in a pile of leaves in his front yard and not being found by the game’s seeker. He likens this hiding-too-well as a kid to a doctor who was dying of cancer but never told anybody because he didn’t want to make things diffic......... more »

Since the name of my psychology practice is the Center for Positive Change, one might get the idea that I am interested in the process of change. And that guess would be absolutely correct. It would also be correct to note that many of my neighbors and patients are change averse. They tend to be averse to change in the......... more »

We all need role models. Some people out there are doing it right. It was the Christmas of 1969, the end of the 60’s and the beginning of my teenage years.  Dad’s present to the family was a RCA High Fidelity Stereo with the new Omnidirectional speakers!!! We each got to pick one album for our present.  My cho......... more »

So, how long has it been since you took time to gaze at the clouds? No, I don’t mean sticking your head out the door to check the weather. I mean really taking time to lie down on your back and spend time watching the cloud formations. Frankly, for me it had been quite a long time since I had done that. Sure I hav......... more »

"Ah, give me the good old days when we didn't have all this stress and worry". OK, let's go back to the thirties. "No! Then we had the depression, men couldn't find work, women couldn't feed their babies, families were splitting up because they couldn't afford to stay together. This is better than the thirties." ......... more »