If I offered you vanilla or chocolate ice cream, which would you choose? Would you prefer one over the other? And if you chose vanilla and I would give you chocolate instead, would you be upset? These seem trivial questions, and you may wonder what...
The teachings of the Buddha about the Second Arrow are a great way to understand why holding on to a grudge causes so much more suffering than the actual event that caused the grief. Two Buddhist monks are silently walking along a path. When they reach...
The other day I had this (homemade) chocolate cake for lunch. I am so tired of the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”, both in my own mind and what society thinks. Yesterday I read an Instagram post from a befriended yoga teacher sharing all the plans she made...
I’ve wanted a kitten for a long time. Or two, actually. But because my husband and I were always traveling, it never seemed like a good idea. Enter the pandemic. We suddenly found ourselves home all the time. And it doesn’t look like we are...
You should eat breakfast; it’s the most important meal of the day. However, you should also not eat breakfast because intermittent fasting is really good for you. You shouldn’t eat carbohydrates, and lots of fat. And also: you shouldn’t eat fat because it’s not good for your...
Suffering is a loaded term. In Buddhism suffering – or rather: how not to suffer – is the crux of the practice. Many people associate suffering with physical pain, with the lack of a place to live, or with starvation, and therefore think that they...
I was in a funk last week. It would have been easy to blame it on travel and jet lag, but I had to own it. Sometimes I simply feel utterly inadequate, incompetent and unsuccessful. Scrolling through Instagram obviously doesn’t make it any better. Everyone...
Last week I was on a 6-day Silent Meditation retreat with my teachers Sarah and Ty Powers. I love being silent for an extended period of time. It clears my mind and reconnects me with myself. During one of my meditations my 7-year old nephew...
Have you ever wondered, while standing in front of the cool section at the grocery store, why organic fermented sauerkraut is so expensive? Try making it yourself, and you will understand why. Since there is only so much raw red cabbage that you can eat,...
In my previous blog I described that experiencing a - real or perceived - threat triggers the fight-or-flight response in our body. This reaction makes our brain even more hyper alert to threat. It works in reverse too: negative thoughts trigger stress responses in the...