Author: Dana Young
-
No parachute
“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground.” ~ Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche I can’t remember a winter like this one. It’s been good, stressful, and scary – sometimes all at the same time. My husband and I are faced with…
-
Enter the monkey mind
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are. ~ Pema Chödrön Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg is holding her annual 28 Day meditation challenge beginning February 1, and I decided to participate this year. I meditate as part of my Reiki practice, but I’m not very structured…
-
Authenticity is the real teacher
In spiritual communities, particularly those that have been brought from the East to the West, the issue of authenticity comes up fairly often. At some point, there is a movement towards getting to “the source” of the teachings, or practicing as the founder of a system once did. It’s important to know the historical roots…
-
We can BE love: reflections on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the people whose example and teachings inspire me. I’ve read essays from A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to my stepson and will also read them to my daughter when she is a little bit older. There’s not much…
-
Creating my Pinterest vision board
In my previous New Years’ post, I mentioned that I was considering creating a vision board. Most instructions for vision boards require thumbing through and clipping photos from print materials, then pasting it to a board. I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that, not to mention that the last thing I…
-
A New Years’ revolution
Most of us begin the New Year with a list of resolutions that are often broken after a week or two. As a life coach, I know that most of those resolutions are hard to keep because the goals themselves are too weighty. If the goal is simply to make more money, for example, that’s…
-
The great migration
16 years ago today, I loaded up a U-Haul truck and moved down to Atlanta from NYC. I had only planned to be here for a short time. I had every intention of moving back up to NYC once I got my life and finances back on track. I couldn’t really imagine living anywhere else.…
-
On the cusp
Mercury is in retrograde right now, which may be why things feel a bit more wobbly than usual. There has been a shift occurring since late summer, around the time my grandmother entered hospice (she passed away on October 13, two months after we thought she was going to exit this life.) I became aware…
-
The day the towers fell
It was only in retrospect that I realized I was given a sign of things to come. It was September 8, the day before my birthday, and I was in Pensacola FL with my ex-husband. We were on the beach, watching a storm roll in from the Gulf. We were mesmerized by the dark clouds and…
dana-young.com 