Q: Dear Todd, as a kid or a teen, we don't have these "toxic" thoughts and ideas, then how are we projecting these kinds of people in our life - bad people, liars, jealous people? Is it karma then? How come teachings say to live in the present moment, but still, we have to deal with karma and ancestors' karma. TODD ANSWERS: That's a great question. It is truly senseless…
Q: Dear Todd, there needs to be a hard line distinction between "You will own nothing and be happy." which is the WEF version of freedom, and the Hindu/Buddhist version of letting go of the external desire for material things as a source of happiness, and freedom. How would a person best separate the two in words? Serious question. I need help to be able to explain this to the…
Q: I was the happiest and kindest person ever. But one day, influenced by my friend, I made the huge mistake of getting a color tattoo on my whole forearm. I regret it now and I am overwhelmed by hating myself. Any thoughts?Todd Answers: You are not suffering because of the tattoo. You are suffering because of your attachment to a conceived idea of how your body should be. Some…
Does anyone here have a crystal ball that sees into the future? Do you have a genie’s lamp with unlimited wishes? And most importantly, do you think having those things would make you happier? Perhaps you’ve seen the Twilight Zone episode of the man who dies and goes to heaven. In heaven, he can have everything he could ever dream of just by thinking it into existence. Over time, the…
Losing a beloved pet is a profound and emotional experience, and it's entirely normal to feel a range of emotions, including grief and guilt. The bond between a pet and its owner is a unique and profound connection, often transcending the boundaries of words. When a beloved pet passes away, the resulting grief can be overwhelming, compounded by the often-persistent presence of guilt.It's important to recognize that animals, much like…
Many people wish for a perfect life. But the wise person knows that everything is already perfect because perfection is just a mental construct. Each person may have a different idea about what perfection means to them, but it is never more than a projection of one’s own conditioning. More on how to see beauty all around us in this video.If perfection is in the eye of the beholder, then…
When we grow up unaccepted, unliked, and under appreciated, it’s a totally normal reaction to internalize those feelings. This is our way of making sense of the world — if people keep taking their anger and hurt out on us, we will begin to think that we are the problem and that we deserve it.If left unnoticed and untended to, this belief system can cause us to accept mistreatment and abuse…
Smartphones are like refrigerators on steroids. Remember the old days? We’d go to the fridge, open the door, and be so overwhelmed with all of the stuff inside that we forgot why we went to the fridge in the first place. Who hasn’t spent 5 minutes staring at the inside of a fridge, completely lost in a daze?With smartphones, instead of 30 food items we have 50 notifications, 60 apps,…
We hear the phrase, "Observe your thoughts," but how do we do that? What does it mean? Aren't we always observing our thoughts? And what the heck are thoughts?! Normally, we don't watch our thoughts, we think our thoughts. And we think, "I am the thinker." In spirituality, we dig down deeper. We recognize thought patterns and we observe how the mind really works. We discover the nature of thoughts…
Only when we are not living completely authentically, and only when we misidentify with our mind-made versions of ourselves, can we wish to reinvent ourselves. The real question is, "How can I live more in line with my inner nature?" We all know the experience where we are so in our head, planning and plotting what to say or how to act, that we become insecure. When we become insecure,…
“I thought my biggest fear was growing old and dying in prison. In truth, my biggest fear was growing old and not knowing myself.”
- Rick Smith, Albama inmate
A newsletter not just for your mental health but also for your spiritual health.
