a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

In the New York Times yesterday, David Marchese wrote about Matthieu Ricard, an Buddhist monk, best-selling author, and the Dalai Lama’s French interpreter. In the early 2000s, “researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that Ricard’s brain produced gamma waves — which have been linked to learning, attention and memory — at such pronounced levels…

Paul Ceohlo, the Brazilian writer, once said, “I believe in signs… what we need to learn is always there before us. We just have to look around with respect and attention to discover where God is leading us and which steps we should take.” We were visiting my mother over the weekend, and while making…

“No matter how hard you try to escape the future, the future will find you anyway,” observes Thad Russell, a photographer and an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design. In the Atlantic Monthly, Russell shared how he found his “late parents’ former house in northern Vermont listed on Airbnb.”  Russell’s father was an…

The writer Goethe observed that “you must live life in the all. Then you will be happy.” One of the challenges of life is deciding if we will truly open ourselves to all of life’s experiences – the heart-wrenching and the joyful, the unexpected setbacks and the blessings, the grotesque and the stunning beauty. Goethe’s…

Desenrascanço is a Portuguese word that we love.  It means “disentanglement” in the sense of solving problems which arise that you didn’t anticipate and typically require using materials at hand to come up with a solution. Meaning, no planning or foresight could have anticipated that problem suddenly appearing before you. Portugal faces the ocean, and…

A part of navigating life is discerning what our “nevers“ are. These are the moral commandments we carve into the stone of our lives. Lines we won’t cross relationally, spiritually, creatively, professionally, emotionally. How would you answer this kind of question? “No matter what, I would never….” How many “nevers” can you identify? Is there…