A week ago was the day of the dead. It reminded me of Peter; a talented filmmaker, terrific human being and one of the closest friends I have ever known. Sadly, he passed away in late August of 2010 at the young age of thirty-four. 

Peter and I met in graduate school and for a time were thick as thieves. We both had shrinks in the family and we'd also been through therapy so we felt instantly safe to share emotional vulnerability. We also connected over our love of nature, music, fashion and great cinema; both dreaming of making an impact through storytelling one day. 

Are there times when you feel like satisfaction is fleeting and nothing fills the void of desires that haven't been quenched? There's a point where thinking about our issues is no longer helpful and finding the 'feel good' is the only option. But most of us escape our problems by escaping ourselves in drugs, sex, food, TV, Internet, news and other people. That's because it's hard to imagine that we can find satisfaction deep within underneath all the troubles and unmet desires that keep us from enjoying the present moment. Yet the present is where the things we want always manifest.

Have you ever had the experience of feeling like someone is judging you or talking badly behind your back only to realize later it didn't happen and you misinterpreted or made the whole thing up?

I was recently at the post office on a busy afternoon and went into an anxiety induced delusion about ‘someone’ behind me in line getting frustrated over the time it took me to use the self serve machine. Afterwards, I turned around to apologize for my lack of preparedness, only to discover that no one else was standing there.  

I recently went on vacation with some close friends and was lucky enough to witness a couple in our group making the best out of some tense moments by uttering two simple acronyms to each other...

Pain is real. There's no denying it. You can pretend for only so long that it doesn't exist until somehow the scab gets scraped off and you're oozing and inflamed all over again. But we don't have to become our pain. We can acknowledge it, cry it, write it, dance it, stomp it, paint it, draw it, talk it, sing it, see it, get it, love it and let it be until the storm passes through.