As someone who has worked for years in the healing arts, I have shared yoga and meditation with an emphasis on the connection to the breath.  I am a clinician as well as a life-coach.  

No One is What they Think.  In simpler terms, we are not our thoughts.  At times we can’t stop them, but we can learn, with practice, not to fixate on them and view them with detachment. 

How I have learned to integrate the above into my daily life is to serve others. Working with a non-profit I started over twenty years ago which serves the hungry and homeless in the Los Angeles area, has made me more grateful for what I have and not what I don’t.  Anyone who has done selfless service from a friend of mine in N.York who started a food pantry, to Glen who started World Harvest locally are very happy people.  

To serve someone can take as many forms as there are people.  A young man with whom I’ve had the privilege to know from his birth to the present has chosen to take this message out in his community to share a moment of kindness with a perfect stranger.  You can go to his blog at  facebook.com/hashtag/illbethereproject  

On a personal level, whenever I feel depressed, I leave the isolation of my office and go for a walk in the neighborhood.  I greet everyone that I encounter.  Just a simple “Hi, Good morning!” does it for me.  This takes me out of my loop, so to speak and my depression is lifted.  There are so many in this large city who without choice have found themselves cut off and disenfranchised and isolated without any social support.  This condition can happen to anybody.  Some of the homeless whom I’ve talked to say to me that they have never known what it takes to live in the world.

To greet, or have a conversation with a stranger is a pledge that I renew every morning.  It’s not hard to give back.  We have to wake-up ourselves, and leave our problems behind for a while and reach out to someone else who is worse off than we are.

John Shinavier, MA, Life Coachncerely

John is the founder and Executive Director of a 501c which serves the homeless of

Los Angeles County     www.underthebridgesandonthestreets.org