How to harness this superpower so it doesn’t kill you

I recently started dating an empath. I am also an empath. Most of my friends are empaths. Empaths are defined by their natural sensitivity to other people’s emotions. They (we) naturally feel and reflect back what others around us are feeling. …

Listen. Take responsibility. Let yourself be changed.

The current cry for racial justice sweeping our world is a phenomenon emerging from generations of pain, alienation, betrayal, cruelty, and the unconscious perpetration of power (to name just a few antecedents).

One of the most beautiful things about the human spirit is that it carries an unalterable divine knowing of its own sovereignty. So when humans create systems that delineate “haves” and “have-nots,” “more-thans” and “less thans,” something — that unalterable knowing within — rises up to declare the absolute preciousness of their own personhood.

This rising up takes courage and vulnerability…

Am I connecting or dividing?

Everything was going great until I started losing at ping pong.

There were all sorts of reasons this shouldn’t have been a shocking scenario. I’ve never really played ping pong except years ago when I used to go out to bars. There I always played my own beer-fueled version, where the only rule was “no using your hands. Ever.” The focus of the game, then, became running around like madmen using only the paddle to get the ball back to the table.

Honestly, I don’t even really know how ping pong is scored. I think…

Don’t be surprised when money becomes obsolete in our lifetimes

Some very odd things have been happening to me lately.

The other week, I pulled up next to an intersection. I looked over and noticed a man with a sign. We all know those men and we all know those signs. Normally I keep my windows rolled up and act as though I can’t see them.

But for some reason, this time was different. Without even realizing it, I began fishing around in my console for the $20 I keep for emergencies. …

Years ago, I sat across from my (erstwhile) partner. Me on the bed. Him on the couch. My arms were crossed protectively over my chest as I put as much distance between us as my small studio would allow.

He had come over to explain, in infinitely reasonable tones, that I had over-reacted, unreasonably, in a not-nice way toward him. The incident in question was a moment while cooking dinner where he had slapped me, hard, on the butt. I threw the vegetable peeler in the sink, told him to go to hell, and stormed out. The slap had hurt…

What to do when you’ve built your identity on being needed?

The impetus for this article was yet another man leveling the charge of “arrogance” at me. This happens in my life with startling regularity.

As an entrepreneur, doctor, and confident woman, I get a lot of epithets tossed my way: “overeducated,” “unfeeling,” “self-aggrandizing,” “delusional,” etc, but within this swirl of pejoratives, “arrogant” is by far the most popular indictment.

I became curious about this phenomenon. …

How Leaders Can Create Space for the Deeper Needs of Employees

Here’s a phrase you’ve probably heard before: “leave it at the door.”

This exhortation delineates the workplace as a space intolerant of the whole human experience. To be respected, you must be carved up, cut off, and detached from the parts of you that don’t fit the composed, unruffled ideal picture of a professional.

Unfortunately, this exercise of suppressing or compartmentalizing “inconvenient” aspects of our humanity in order to maintain a mask of competence and hyper-rationality has created workplaces intolerant of the whole human experience.

Things are changing, though…

And not in the way you think.

I’ve been watching the turmoil unfold in our country as people become increasingly agitated, divided, and even violent as our quarantine order stretches on.

And then it hit me. I’m watching our country face death.

Some of us, of course, are facing literal death. Our frontline healthcare workers put their very lives on the line each day they go into work. Those with high-risk profiles know that one unfortunate face-scratch could result in a trip to the ICU.

The rest of us are facing a less-straightforward version of death, and overall, I’d say…