Category: Personal Growth

Personal Change–From the Outside-in or Inside-out?

  When we choose to create change in our lives, our tendency is to begin outside of ourselves with what we can see with our eyes.  One of my ‘early warning’ signs of coming change is I find myself tidying…

Helen Maupin

All Change is Lifestyle Change

  When I was a 10-year old girl, change meant something new was about to happen; an adventure was in store.  Life was rich with experience and I, awe-struck, determined to try everything once.  In sharing this memory with others,…

Helen Maupin

Breathing Space–Life’s Reward for Letting Go

For years I wondered what it really meant to “surrender one’s will.”  On a superficial level, I understood I was not able to control my external environment.  Although I might be able to influence or even manipulate it, the only…

Helen Maupin

Standing On My Own Two Feet: Part II

  One of my great life lessons, in realizing the benefits of keeping both feet on the ground, is that balance requires stability (strength) and agility (flexibility).  Life deals us any number of events — tsunami, divorce, childbirth, falling in…

Helen Maupin

Products of Judgment: Pain Avoidance and Pleasure Seeking

When I was in my 30s, less certain that Life would always come through for me, I made a bargain with her by stating, “If you knock twice on my ‘awareness’ door, I will attend and act.”  In essence, if…

Helen Maupin

Standing On My Own Two Feet: Part I

  Something quite profound is happening within me.  I cannot describe what it looks like, only that it feels like the million tiny bits of me, previously floating aimlessly, are joining together. In my youth and early adulthood, I knew…

Helen Maupin

A Writer’s Voice

Over the past 10 weeks, I facilitated a meditation, writing and sharing program that hosted individuals keen on discovering and deepening their awareness and transformation practices.  Each session provided the opportunity to: a)  reflect on one’s present moment experience through…

Helen Maupin

Bipolar Disorder—The Dis-ease of the Day?

Am I the only one experiencing this phenomenon or are more and more people we know being diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BD)? Bipolar disorder involves periods of elevated or irritable mood (mania), alternating with periods of depression. The “mood swings”…

Helen Maupin

What HALTS Joy?

Today I am not seeing and feeling the endless adventure that Life gifts us.  It is because I am tired.  Too much work, not enough reward.  I need to halt what I am doing and reflect on my inner experience.…

Helen Maupin

Standing Naked in the World

In my early 20s, my boyfriend, an English major, wrote a poem about me.  In its intimacy, it was both beautiful and frightening at the same time.  While he read it to me, I remember simultaneously thinking, “OMG, he can…

Helen Maupin

Transformation: A Universal Path

I am struck by the hopefulness and personal transformation of Middle Easterners undergoing significant social change.  Along with the rest of the world, they recognize they are in the honey-moon stage of change. As my yoga teacher says, “first it…

Helen Maupin

Generation Gap 2.0: Bridge-building to a Shared Future

While the term ‘generation gap’ often engenders negative relations between age groups, I propose a more constructive way of utilizing each group’s specialized skills. A generation gap is defined as a difference in values and attitudes between one generation and…

Helen Maupin