Separation is not the path to unity.

Today I did exactly what I was judging someone else for doing, the very moment I was judging it.

I watched as a woman at the gym treated the maintenance woman with general disdain, as if the woman cleaning the gym were somehow less than those of us working out at the gym.

It drives me crazy how we make each other greater than and less than, and how we strive to distance ourselves from the "less thans" in desperate pursuit of a seat at the "greater than" table.

It's all such ego-driven bullshit. And it hurts people. It hurts our world. We are all equal. We are all of value. We all deserve respect. And kindness. And love.

So there she was, the worker-outer, giving attitude to the maintenance woman, and there I was, the "peaceful and loving" one, angrily belittling the worker-outer in my head.

Then the lightbulb went off. "You're making this woman less than you, because she's making that woman less than her. You're being the same kind of ego-driven ass you're criticizing her for being."

I could try (and did for a second) to justify my thoughts as coming from a better place, because I was judging her bad behavior. But the truth is, I was judging her, too. I created separation between us. I was the good and righteous one. She was the rude bitch. That's not okay.

I believe it's the separation we've created with one another that's causing the majority of the world's problems. We've lost touch with the fact that WE ARE ALL THE SAME. Beneath whatever facade we've created for ourselves, there's no way to tell us apart. WE ARE ALL HUMAN. Blood and bones and pain and light.

I liked this moment in the gym today, the fact that I caught myself so quickly in the process of creating separation and went to love and kindness. No, I don't like how that woman treated the other woman. And, we are all equal. We are all of value. We all deserve love. Treating her poorly, even in my mind, only feeds the vast separation that already exists. I'm here to feed unity. I'm here to see everyone I encounter as a sister or a brother. I'm here to speak for love.

Every time we catch ourselves spinning in the ego and bring ourselves back to love is a victory, not just for ourselves but for humanity. It's all energy, and we're all connected. We can't underestimate how our growth impacts everything else. Our world is desperate for more love, and we are the ones to give it. Each and every one of us.

Later on at the gym, I struck up a conversation with the maintenance woman, whose name, I found out, is Lourdes. We spoke for a few minutes about the weather and mostly did a lot of smiling at each other and laughing at my bad Spanish.

I'm not sure if the worker-outer was aware of our conversation, but I think so. I'm also not sure if it made any difference to her, but maybe. I'm pretty sure it made a difference to Lourdes. Maybe she left the gym with our interaction in mind, rather than the one with the woman.

And it made a difference to me, to connect with another human being and share a smile, and a few laughs, and some good old fashioned kindness. That alone is cause for celebration. Connection matters.

We can't change people. We can't change their attitudes. We can only be as clear and kind and loving as we know how to be. We can set the example we want to live by. It makes a difference. As more and more of us commit to love, we make an even bigger difference. We become magnetic. Not greater than or less than, but most certainly the table I will always want to be seated at.

In love and solidarity...

Some friendships need to end.

This is an addendum to my "some friendships need to end" video from earlier. I left out some things worth saying (that's the risk of impromptu video), so here goes a little more about ending friendships.

If it's time to end a friendship/relationship, do it with as much love as you can possible muster. No matter the reasons for the end, it is within your power to walk away with love. Yes, even if ugliness led you to the break-up. Honor whatever good lived within your connecti<span class="text_exposed_show">on by leaving in a clean and loving way. That, you can control. How the other person responds is completely out of your hands. Don't own their response. Own yours. 

Take some time to be grateful for the friendship you had. It's easy to focus on what was toxic about the relationship, but if you've ended it, you've given the necessary attention to what was toxic. It's over now. Why keep living in the ugliness? Find some gratitude for the good that was there.

I've had some harsh ends to friendships in my life. A handful of them still sting in moments. When I close my eyes and allow myself to feel the love I had/have for these former friends, and the gifts I've received from their friendships, I feel a little sadness, but I feel a whole lot of gratitude.

Know that whatever you experienced with your friend/lover/spouse was meant to be as it was, or it would never have been at all. Trust that you were given what you needed to be given from the experience, and stay open to learning whatever lessons can be learned from the relationship. Then move on.

The more we eliminate the negative, the more space we create for the positive. When we let our toxic relationships go, we make room for positive relationships that support our well-being.

And because it's rarely easy to end a close relationship—even those that are much more negative than positive—allow yourself to mourn the loss if you need to. Feel whatever it is you need to feel. And move on when you can.

What do you all think? How have you handled friendship/relationship break-ups in a way that felt healthy for you? The more voices the better.

In love and solidarity...

Beyond the gray...

I decided to grow a beard for the same reason I refused to grow one for a long time: GRAY HAIR.

I've resisted accepting the fact that the little hair I have left on my head and the majority of it on my face are gray. So I'd allow the scruff to grow in, because I don't like to shave, and then I'd shave before it got too thick, because I really don't like all the gray.

As many of us know, and every one of us will eventually find out, it's tough to age. It's strange to watch m<span class="text_exposed_show">y body get older...by strange I mean mostly sucky. 

Like all parts of life, there's the choice to resist it or accept it. In the war of resistance, the resistance of aging might be one of the most futile battles. Because, we're human. We get older. Our bodies inevitably show it—in the way they look and feel.

That's one of the less exciting parts of life. At least for me.

So I have a beard now. A very gray beard. And that's okay. I'd prefer a dark brown beard, but as time passes, I'm slowly getting used to my gray, and to the fact that I look older than I feel inside. That's been the case for years, and I don't expect that to change. And that's okay, too.

I grew the beard, because I didn't want my dislike of my gray hair to be the reason I didn't grow a beard. I'd rather not be a prisoner to my vanity, or to my distorted perceptions of what is and isn't attractive. This is who I am. This is how I look. I'm beautiful. So are you.

Now I feel like I can do whatever I want with my facial hair from a place of freedom. Not from one of insecurity and self-judgment. Maybe I'll get insecure about my gray again—all bets are off when they start coming in as pubes—but for now I'm cool with it. Not loving it, but accepting it.

The beautiful thing about self-acceptance—true self-acceptance—is that it doesn't have conditions. It embraces us as we are, period. How great is that? It also opens the door for us to accept each other unconditionally. Everything starts from within, after all.

So let's all keep working on deeper self-acceptance. Let's breathe into the fact that we are beautiful, just as we are. And let's encourage each other to love ourselves.

I'm posting this pic to honor my gray beard...or more accurately to honor my willingness to accept it. If you're inspired, post a pic of yourself, as a tribute to your self-acceptance, or to the fact that you're working at it. Either way, you're beautiful.

In love and solidarity...

Much more room to grow.

There are moments, like right now, when I feel like a complete fraud. Not just to you, but to myself.

I talk about peace and love and patience and all that good stuff, but forty minutes on hold with the bank to remedy a problem that refuses to get fixed, and I've lost my shit. Lost it.

I've snapped at my partner, broken out into a rage sweat, and convinced myself that this entire day was ruined.

Over a phone call. And a shitty app.

It feels so utterly fucked up to be struggling with stuff like this, still. To be so thrown off balance by something so totally insignificant in the grand scheme of anything.

I am able to see the value in this reminder—that I am no where close to being as peaceful and loving as I someday hope to be, that I still have a lot of work to do. But fuck, how can I be this far away after all the work I've done?

And this page...everything I write feels like total bullshit in this moment. Who is this imposter who thinks he understands anything? When I was a kid, my dad used to always say, "Do as I say, not as I do." It drove me nuts. I always thought, "That's bullshit. Why can't you do as you say?"

And here I am...so not doing as I say. Here I am, being an out of control baby because of some technical glitches and bad customer service. It's fucking disheartening.

I appreciate this community so much, because I feel like we're willing to recognize we're all flawed, imperfect humans doing the best we can do. And I guess I just want to remind you that I'm a flawed, imperfect human doing the best I can do. And sometimes my best sucks. My mind's best, that is.

I just don't want you to think I'm more than I am. Funny, because I've allowed my mind to convince me today that I'm less than I am. The truth is, I'm a work in progress, like all of us. With more work to do, like all of us.

And when I look at all the nonsense of today, it was 100% of the mind. I allowed my mind to dictate everything. And everything turned to shit. That's where the mind inevitably leads: to shit.

That's when we have to get to work. We have to interrupt that cycle before it takes over. Wedge some deep breaths and perspective into the picture. Return to love.

I'm feeling a lot more relaxed. Writing this has helped. Sure, I find my reaction today disappointing. Really disappointing. And I'm overwhelmed by the work involved in realizing our natural state of being: one of peace and love.

But what's the alternative to working at peace and love? Living like a zombie again? No thank you. Being an asshole on a much more regular basis? No thank you. Hiding behind lies and distortions of who I really am? No thank you.

I lost it today—really lost it—but love is still my path. Kindness is still my path. Peace is still my path. I've chosen this path because it's changed my life in so many positive ways, and because I feel I have the most to offer others because of it. So there's no choice but to continue to put in the work involved with getting there. No matter what.

And there's no end to the there, anyway. We can always be more kind and more peaceful and more loving. It all expands, forever. So why the fuck am I wasting my time judging my place on this path that never ends?

Oh boy...this is one of those posts that has me wondering if some things are better left unsaid. If I've disheartened you in any way, I apologize. If you had me on a pedestal in any way, I hope this helps you remove it. That would be a great thing. I'm not a fan of pedestals.

What else?

Thank you for being here, and for your love, and for helping to create a space where I feel freer and freer to be myself. I hope you feel the same.

I love you.

Goodbye, Perfection. You're a pain in the ass.

Perfection doesn't exist. We're more likely to paralyze than propel our efforts in pursuit of perfection.

I know this, because I'm battling creative paralysis right now as I attempt to write the perfect introduction for "just love."

The perfect introduction doesn't exist. An honest introduction does. A personal introduction does. A love-filled introduction does. I'll work my butt off for these things, but not for perfection.

I hereby intend to release my desire to be perfect. Jump onboard this intention if you're inclined. I am not perfect and don't need to be. You are not perfect and don't need to be.

Goodbye perfection. Hello authenticity—you're a much better friend. You let me be me, without all that heavy, untouchable expectation.

In a nutshell: Perfection is bullshit. We're the real deal, as we are.

AND WE ARE AWESOME, AS WE ARE.

I love you.

Coming clean...

Hey Friends,

I want to come clean about something: I love myself a lot.

I feel I'm open and loving and lovable and kind and enough and many other good things, just as I am. Much of the time, anyway.

My mind gets in the way of this love sometimes, as minds will do. It tells me much different things, things that don't particularly serve me, things I'm getting better at disregarding.

In these past months, I've been sharing more about myself, and my life, much more openly than I was when I first started this page. I'm allowing myself to be more vulnerable, and to reveal my struggles and pain with you all. I can't begin to describe what a difference it's making in my life, in part because I know it's making a difference in many of yours as well.

I know, because you tell me. I get lots of messages and comments of gratitude for sharing the things I'm sharing. It's overwhelming sometimes (in all good ways) the amount of love and support coming at me. Thank you. I'm in awe. I was going to say disbelief, but I know the power of love and vulnerability, so I'm surprised but not shocked by what's happening here.

What I'm getting from many of you, as well, in your messages and comments, is concern for me. For my well-being and peace of mind, for my happiness and self-love. I'm touched every time, and I guess I just want to assure you that I'm good. Within and beyond all the mind noise, I love myself a lot, and I'm grateful for the life I'm living. Really really.

When I wrote recently about some part of my mind telling me I'm unlovable and unworthy, I was referring to some part of my mind, not all of my being. Not even close. My pain is only part of my story, just like yours. I'm choosing to magnify it with the hope that we can all get a little something from the experience. I've realized, along with (perhaps more than) the inspirational quotes and positivity I share here, my willingness to write about my darkness and pain is one the biggest gifts I have to give this community. And myself.

What I've also come to realize is that I'm not nearly as together as I've had myself believe. I had convinced myself I was this wise, peaceful, "it's all good" kind of guy. I wasn't really allowing myself to get pissed off and desperate and sad and whatever else I was really feeling. Instead, I was talking myself out of really feeling anything that didn't align with my spiritual, "everything is beautiful" vision. Lack of vision, clearly.

This "I don't really know anything and will do my best to feel everything" way of being is serving me well. My vulnerability is serving me well. My willingness to look deeper into my darkness, into the holes, is serving me well. This community—HOLY SHIT—is serving me well.

I can't honestly say I love how difficult life can be, or I love being slammed with grief as I recognize some of my deeper pain, or I love how excruciating it sometimes is to move through even one of the lesser fears. I don't love these things. But I do love that I'm facing them. I love knowing that every tear I shed and every fear I overcome and every honest story I share here and anywhere, contributes something powerful and important to my growth.

And perhaps the deeper beauty is that all this work I'm doing, and YOU'RE doing, to become a more loving and compassionate and authentic human being, contributes something powerful and important to each other and our entire world.

I will NEVER underestimate the power of authenticity to inspire truth, or the power of compassion to melt resistance, or the power of vulnerability to unite people, or the power of love to drive every good thing in this world.

I'm grateful for this path, all of it. It all matters. And I'm committed to loving myself through all of it. Deeper and deeper, as best I can. My great hope is that you can make the same commitment to yourself. That we call can do our very best to love ourselves with everything we've got.

In love and solidarity...

Scott

You can't blah blah blah until you blah blah blah yourself.

I used to believe all the spiritual, New Age, self-help assertions, all those depressing ultimatums. You know the ones—

You can't really love another until you love yourself.

You don't know true forgiveness until your forgive yourself.

You can't blah blah blah until you blah blah blah yourself.

I call bullshit.

I've been loving and forgiving and accepting other people for a long time, and I still haven't mastered doing it with myself. I've gotten a lot better at it, to be sure, but I'm a helluva lot more likely to accept things in those I love than I am to accept the same things in myself. For now anyway.

It's a lot harder to love and forgive and accept ourselves than it is to do with others, especially those we care about the most. If we waited to get to the point of full blown self-love before we dared to love anyone else, this would be a desperately lonely planet.

Don't let these spiritual rules prevent you from taking positive steps in your life. If you're feeling ready to love someone, then love someone. You don't need fixing first. If that person loves you back, beautiful. If not, then you'll have to move on until you're inspired to love another someone.

There's something to be said for the growth that comes from engaging in loving relationships—with friends, family, lovers, whomever. This is where we practice love and forgiveness and acceptance. This is where we do a lot of the work. And it's in others we can see where we have more work to do, and where we're kicking some serious spiritual ass.

We humans are built for connection, and it's through connection with others we learn the most about ourselves. It's through connection with others we heal ourselves. I can't count the number of times it was through the eyes and hearts of my loved ones that I was able to see myself as worthy of love. Their love got me back on track, so I could keep moving toward my own love of myself.

We need each other.

I'm not trash-talking the idea of self-love and forgiveness. If you've hung out on this page long enough (even a day), you know it's the thing I talk about the most. Everything in life becomes brighter, more fulfilling, more meaningful, the more we love ourselves. That's not so much a rule as a given. Love leads to great realities. The deeper the love, the greater the realities. And yes, I believe, that the greater my capacity for self-love, the greater my capacity to love others. But we can still love others just fine as we are.

LOVE IS EVERYWHERE—within us, around us, over and under and in between us—AND IT'S HUGE. Even the smallest dose of love packs immense power. Even when we're at our most self-pitying, loathsome lows, we can still give love to the people in our lives, and those people will feel it, even when we're not feeling it for ourselves.

That's how Love plays.

Here's a rule I like to live by: Don't feel the need to listen to any rules that in any way pull you away from love or suggest you are not in a place to give and receive love. We’re always in a place to give and receive love, to the best of our abilities. And there's always work to be done to give and receive more openly and generously. That's the nature of being human.

Just pay attention when you read "spiritual" things and it's your mind that's barking "yes yes yes" while your gut is whispering "I'm not sure about that." Our guts tend to be a lot more in tune with love than our minds.

Also...and REALLY...if your gut is whispering to you about anything I write, telling you "I'm not sure about that," listen to it. Use what resonates with you here and discard what doesn't. I'm sharing my sense of things based on my experiences. I don't really know anything. I'm just doing my best to feel my way through it all.

It's nice to be feeling my way through it with you all, though. So thanks for that.

In love (as much as I'm able to give) and solidarity…

Filling the holes.

I don't remember a lot of my childhood before my parents were killed. Those first fourteen years are pretty unclear, a mix of fuzzy memories and stories my siblings have told me that I've come to own for myself. It's as though their death ended what was my life, too. There's a before and an after, with a great divide in between.

But I remember hating my father. That I remember clearly. It wasn't because he was strict or cruel or abusive. He didn't yell at me or spank me or make me do things I didn't want to do. He was a gentle man, actually. A peaceful man. A compassionate man. He had a gambling addiction, a bad one, which meant the stability of our household ebbed and flowed with his wins and losses. That was tough, but also the only thing I ever knew, and not the reason I hated him.

He had my mother working with him at a convenience store in a rough area of Detroit, the place where they were ultimately gunned down. I never understood why she needed to be there and, week after week, I begged her to stay home. I blamed him for the circumstances of her life, and for her death, but that wasn't the real reason I hated him either.

I hated him because he ignored me. He seemed to have no interest in me at all. I was the youngest of seven kids, his unplanned son, and he had already finished his parenting long before I'd arrived on the scene. In the months after he died, I tried to remember even one real conversation he and I had had up to then, about anything, and I couldn't do it.

A good friend of his once told me that my dad was preoccupied with my older brother, who was a drug addict, and that he knew he didn't have to worry about me. That was his explanation for why my dad ignored me. I was ten or eleven at the time and not ready to accept that as a good enough reason.

I just wanted to feel loved by him. I wanted to matter to him. I wanted him to ask me questions and give me advice and take an interest in any area of my life. I watched him do it with others, with strangers even. I knew it was possible. And I couldn't understand why he refused to do it with me. That's a question I'll never get an answer for.

I'm 43 years old now, and I only recently recognized the amount of pain I've been carrying around since my childhood about my relationship with my dad. I had spent so many years processing my parents' death that I never really gave weight to all the ways in which they affected me while they were alive. Fourteen years is plenty of time for parents to mess up their kids.

I grew up with a hole inside where my father's love should've been. It's stayed with me my entire life, even though I only just became aware of its effects—the main one being that some part of me is convinced I'm unworthy and unlovable. That's how I digested my father's distance as a kid. That something was wrong with me. That I didn't deserve his love. That I was the problem.

When I realized this a couple months ago, that my feelings of unworthiness stemmed from my relationship with my dad, it was like a lightning bolt to my soul. And I started to grieve. Like a child. Like I had when they died.

I cried for someone I had lost, but mostly for something I had never had—a present and caring father. I cried out of disappointment and anger and a deep sadness that I was robbed of one of the most central relationships in life. For a week, I cried hard. Not all day, but in intermittent downpours. My insides felt raw, scraped apart, opened up. It was awful.

And it was beautiful.

Even within the sadness and pain—and it was one of the deepest griefs I've felt in my life—I knew something important was happening. I understood that I was feeling the pain because I was ready to feel it, and that by facing it, I was creating the space for a deep healing. That's when healing happens, when we're willing to face our pain.

I haven't suddenly put all that pain behind me. A week of tears didn't heal years of anger and misunderstanding. But I'm changed, that's for sure. I'm clearer than I was even two months ago. When I feel unworthy or unlovable, I can look at the source of that feeling, I can take a moment to forgive my father for not being the dad I needed him to be, I can cry if I need to (like I did again this morning), and I can remind myself of one of the greater truths of humanity—that we are all worthy of love.

Call it darkness or shadow or pain. The name is unimportant. The willingness to face yours, however, is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself. We all have holes, every single one of us, each one a reflection of why we feel less than or damaged or unworthy in some way. I don't know how to heal them, but I know it takes facing them, staring into the depths of them, and as much as possible, filling them with acceptance and love.

I think from there, the healing enters on its own, without us needing to know how to do it.

As we know, parents are just people, like all of us people, doing the best they can to stumble through life. My father wasn't a very good dad, but he was a good man. He taught us all, by example, that no one is better or less than anyone else, and that everyone deserves kindness and respect. All were welcome in our home, and many passed through it.

For most of my life, I couldn't see one thing about myself that came from my dad. I felt completely separate from his influence. But I see now, that though he wasn't able to show his love toward me in the ways I needed, he was still a shining example of love in the way he treated others. I see his influence in all of my siblings, and I see it most definitely in myself.

In deep love and solidarity…

Nothing to prove.

It’s important to be honest with ourselves about our choices, about the actions we take. Apathy is not the same thing as patience. Giving up is not the same thing as letting go. It’s extremely difficult to make the positive changes we need to make in our lives when we’re not willing to look at the real things holding us back. We have to stop lying to ourselves.

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve made excuses for why I chose not to make a change I felt in my gut I needed to make. All the excuses did was push me farther away from making that change. My unwillingness to face my fears kept me oppressed by them.

If it’s fear that keeps you from moving forward, acknowledge it. Don’t pretend it’s timing or uncertainty or anything but what it is. When you recognize the root cause of your resistance, you can address it. Sometimes it really is timing, or this, or that. But if it is fear, and you acknowledge it as such and decide you’re too afraid to take a step forward in that moment, then okay. That’s human. That’s the truth. That’s the clarity that’s going to prepare you to be ready to take that step the next time it comes around. Or the time after that.

Though our egos work hard to convince us otherwise, we have nothing to prove to anyone. Not even ourselves. We can admit to being afraid when we’re afraid. And we can call upon our inner strength, and the wild authenticity that lives within us, to face those fears when they come up. To move through them, one by one, step by step, in whatever way feels the most true to us. In whatever way feels right.

What is there to do about all of this fear?

I woke up feeling heavy today. The moment my eyes opened I felt off. I worked out, but that didn't help. I meditated, then talked to a good friend. That didn't help either. There's nothing wrong, nothing specific that comes to mind. It happens like that sometimes, entering the new day in a grumbly kind of fog. Ready for things to be bad. And when that's the attitude, even good things can feel kind of sour. Thoughts are powerful that way.

Whoa...how's that for a downer of an opening?

Let's see where this goes…

This isn't my first time at the wake up miserable rodeo. I know my moods well enough to know that whatever it is I'm feeling will pass. Everything passes eventually. All the healthy food and meditation and affirmations in the world can't always pull us from the gloom. Sometimes it just takes riding it out. Not the most fun ride, but it gets you to the other side in time.

But before I started writing this, I sat in silence to try to feel out what was going on with me. It feels like resistance. It feels like fear. Then I started to feel all the places where fear has lodged itself in my psyche to different degrees. Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Even fear of success is making some noise. Fear that the world is ending. Fear that I don't know what I really want. Fear that I do. All these fucking fears swirling around like poisonous snakes nipping at my peace of mind.

So I asked myself...What is there to do about all this fear? The answer that came...Feel the fear, however you need to, but don't let it stop you from doing what you're doing to live the most fulfilling life possible. Really just a revision of one of my favorite mantras: Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Fear will paralyze us if we let it, my friends. It will beat the shit out of us, swallow us, spit us out and then beat the shit out of us again. If we let it. So let's not let it.

Our fears will always be a part of our lives. As will overcoming our fears. But we have to step up. When we see ourselves saying no to something we really want to do, because of fear, let's take whatever step we can to do it anyway. Or a step closer to getting to the point of doing it. Something, anything to let our minds know we are over being ruled by our fears.

Call on all the times you moved beyond a fear. Remember that feeling. Remember how you survived it. Fear wants us to believe we'll be destroyed by doing that thing we're afraid to do. The truth is, we're likely to be awakened. Revitalized. Empowered.

Every time we feel the fear and do it anyway, we change. We get closer to some version of our truth. We get an even sweeter taste of freedom. Let's all start to face our fears differently, and let's vibe on each other's courage to do so. I'll face my fears, you face yours. As much as we can. Until they're not so much fears as those silly things we can't believe we were once so afraid of.

In love and solidarity…

p.s. I feel a lot better, just writing this. Write shit down, get it out. It helps so much. The only prerequisite to being a writer, by the way, is knowing how to write. And if you can read this, then you can write.