12 Step programs like AA, SAA, and OA have been the cornerstone of addiction recovery for decades. They have helped millions of people get sober from all areas of addiction. However, when relied upon as the only source of recovery, relapse rates are quite high.

Nobody knows you like you know you. You are the expert of yourself and your life. 

If you're not, you're in for a lifetime of anxiety and discontent.

Of course it can be helpful to seek counsel outside of yourself, but only if used as a tool to reveal the truth inside...

At the beginning of October I stepped up to participate in The Ultimate Blog Challenge, which entails writing and posting daily for the entire month. Now that the challenge has come to a close, I'll share with you the most important thing I learned and throw a challenge your way!

In my...

In honor of October 31st, let's take a look at our lives through the lens of this ancient holiday known to us now as Halloween.

Halloween is pretty much the bastard child of an old Celtic festival called Samhain. Before that region of the world was colonized by the Roman Empire, the Celts marked...

Tis the season for contagious common illness like the cold and the flu. Today I'd like to offer you a well-researched preventative for illness and disease that you can start utilizing right away to boost your immune system. 

Temperatures are dropping (I mean, I assume they are. I live...

Today I was asked what advice I would give my teenage self if I could go back with all the info I have now.

Certainly there are many warnings I could give her knowing the difficulties she has coming her way...

I could share with her the outcomes of some of the destructive choices she's considering...

When you're down, lift someone up.

When we get into tough states of being it's really easy to feel down and drag everything down with us. Even our lips fall susceptible to gravity. Once we're down there in the mud and muck of our own experience, it's rather difficult to see...

I want to keep my post short today because it really is simple. 

I don't often make blanket statements or recommendations. I believe we are all on our own path with our own purpose and live lives that honor that. However, I have found one thing to be true across the board no matter...

How much time do you spend reflecting on your past?


If you're like most people, reflections tend to fall on all of the times you misspoke, misstepped, misunderstood or simply missed out. Our present can be plagued by I should have done _____________ differently from the past, which has...

I believe there are many options for paths to travel here on the physical plane that we call Life, Reality, Earth. I reckon they each come with different roles and reasons.

I can only speak for what I've learned on the path of the sacred warrior, that which I travel this time...

You have the opportunity to be loved today deeper and stronger and more thoroughly than you've ever been loved before.

There have been times in your life when you've been treated unfairly.

Someone hurt you when they should have protected you.

Your cries for compassion have fallen on...

Fun is not universal.

That may be common knowledge, but it is something I learned not long ago. After I got sober, fun was one of the many parts of my life I had to reexamine. It was one of the most surprising parts of my life I had to reexamine. 

It never occurred to me...

For about eight weeks this summer I was without a home. As you can imagine, it was a pretty challenging time. But I gotta tell ya, I gained an awful lot by living with less.

I learned some invaluable lessons during this difficult time that resulted in gifts I can carry with me for the...

If you've come across any kind of healing work, whether that is with a shamanic practitioner, coach, guide, reiki master, and sometimes even with a traditional therapist, you have likely heard the word "container" used. It is a somewhat elusive term that is the cornerstone of what makes healing...

It's funny, part of what I do is help people live their dream lives, yet I have kept my dream pretty close to the chest.

It's not something I share with a lot of people. I thought I'd switch that up today by telling you a bit of my dream. 

I have many personal...

A really important element in self-love is being able to use information about yourself to optimize your life.

Self-love is wonderful all on its own. It will change your life, your relationships, your finances, your desires, pretty much everything. If there is only ONE thing to...

I am of the last generation that will ever remember typing up school papers on a typewriter or a word processor (for when it got really fancy). 

We are the last ones who had to use fat, heavy encyclopedias to get facts and information. 

My generation is the final one to...

The thing about Self love is, you kinda need to have some time to yourself to develop it. 

Of course we are communal creatures by nature, and it's important to experience life with others; however, spending time with just your Self is really the only way to explore it and grow intimate with...

We are all familiar with the effort and time that goes into lifting weights  (though we may not all have personal experience with it), but let's break it down and use it as a way to explore other areas.

Let's say I want to get fit, so I head to my neighborhood gym and sign up....

To date, shame has never worked well as a catalyst for change. 

Before we dive in, let's briefly distinguish between guilt, shame and being accountable. 

- Guilt is a result of believing you've done something bad. It has to do with the act, not the actor.
- Shame is a...

Upon initial introductions people often want a list of credentials to gauge your value. I totally get it. It is a really easy way to determine if someone has been given the stamp of approval externally instead of trying to figure that out internally. 

I see two issues with this,...

It is October 1, 2019. This marks Day 1 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge - a one month initiative to write every day. I've never participated in anything like this. I'm more excited than anything. I love to write, yet I don't always have the discipline to sit down and do it daily.