A couple weeks ago I met with a woman who told me:

"I feel like a lobster that was put in a pot of warm water. Over the years, the temperature has been steadily rising and now all of the sudden, I'm realizing, 'holy crap,' I'm dying in here!"

Maybe you've had to sacrifice your values here and there. Maybe you've traded fulfillment for money. Maybe you've lost sight of the vision you had for your life.

Day-to-day, you don't notice your true self slipping away. Everything seems mostly fine. 

Until it isn't.

You wake up from your trance and realize the pressure is too much and you feel trapped. You can't sleep. You get stress-related illnesses. You might even have panic attacks.

Oh this is NOT fun. But guess what. Unlike the lobster, you can make the choice to get out.

So what do you do if you feel like the lobster?

1. Wake up to your inherent greatness. Deep down, the true you knows the right path. Become conscious of the values that bring meaning to your...

Yesterday I started what many of you finished weeks ago: decorating for the holidays. We got a tree, pulled out the nutcrackers and brushed off the Santa hats. As I placed our NOEL stocking holders on the bookshelf (much to my disappointment, we don't have a fireplace to adorn), I smiled and told the kids that our house was officially decorated.

It didn't take long before my oldest son, Max, started to snicker. He is a clever young man, full of the best kind of mischief. When I asked him what was so funny he said, "You'll see it eventually." I looked around the living room, not noticing whatever had changed. Eventually, I saw that our stocking holders now proudly said, "LEON." 

"Very nice," I complimented, as I rearranged the metal letters back into their proper order. As the night went on, each time I left the room, I came back to a snickering Max. I'd look at the letters, and sure enough they were arranged into a new word. Who knew how many words one could spell out of the...

In 2015, I created my first interactive public art project, The Courage Wall. The media grabbed hold of this community chalkboard and spread it around the globe. I received hundreds of e-mails about how the project impacted people's lives. It was clear my first project was a success. In the weeks leading up to my second project, UNITY, I met with a good friend who asked, "How will you feel when your new project isn't as successful as your first one?" 

Over the next day, an acute pain started to develop in my hip. As the days went on, I found myself limping down the Avenue, wondering how I was going to launch my new project in the midst of all of the pain. Just then, I remembered a website I had visited a year before, showing emotional causes of physical symptoms. I hadn't done anything to injure my hip, so I became really curious about whether my hip issue had an emotional cause behind it.

I went to an online resource that referenced Louise Hay's book,...

Maybe you're like me and you find your mind working a lot, even when there's nothing in particular to figure out. That beautiful brain inside our heads loves to stay busy. It's driven to create stories to interpret the the world around us. And sometimes, if we aren't careful, our minds can trick us into thinking these stories are reality.

Sometimes the stories put up walls between people. Have you ever had a dream in which someone you love committed a great atrocity against you? The next morning you look at them sideways, feeling miffed that they would dare to do such a thing, even though they obviously didn't choose to enter your dream? It's kind of laughable when this happens in a dream, but so many times, our waking minds create stories that are just as preposterous. 

What stories do you tell yourself about why the boss wants to talk with you...or why your son stayed out past curfew...or why your spouse was quiet last night?

Perhaps even more importantly, what stories do you...

There are times in our lives when we feel a sense of wonder. Sometimes a place evokes wonder. Sometimes a person sparks it. And other times the sentiment bubbles up from inside of us about ourselves.

There’s nothing “cool” about wonder. In fact, when we experience it we can be downright dorky. Our mouths drop open and we lose ourselves in a moment. We are in awe.

What a gift. Wonder. But it’s up to us to feel it. Just because we see or experience something incredible doesn’t mean that we feel the wonder in it. If we’re too worried about time, or looking good or seeming like we know everything, we can miss these magical moments. And I’ll even take it one step further. It’s not so much about missing a moment, it’s about failing to create it.

Over the weekend, I surrendered to wonder. It took some doing. Ever since I was a teen, there has been a part of me that’s been totally dorky and a part of me that’s wanted to be...