The Millionaire Hippie

Without Time For Integration, All Healing Is Meaningless

Post published:February 25, 2019
Reading time:4 mins read

I’m part of this awesome spiritual community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. There are dozens of different modalities of healing being practiced by everyone almost at the same time.

I hear of my friends doing five or six Ayahuasca medicine ceremonies, and then going off to do a Vipassana Meditation, and then going to a Tantra immersion course, all in a matter of a couple of months.

When I hear of this, it actually really scares me. Not because these individuals can’t handle it. They can. They are strong, powerful beings, who are more than capable of handling anything that is thrown at them.

But, the thing that scares me is the fact that they are not giving themselves any time at all, to integrate any of the healing that is being performed on their minds, bodies, and souls.

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The Job Of A Writer Is To Gather Sensory Information

Post published:February 18, 2019
Reading time:5 mins read

Whenever I travel through a new place, there is this verve of creativity that rushes through me. There’s this rush of feeling inside of me, that makes me want to write, and write. Then, write some more. I feel so ecstatically connected to that writer side of me in those moments.

Right now, I am on a Shinkansen train from Kyoto to Tokyo in Japan. It’s a 2.5 hour journey. Most non-writer people take it as a big waste of time. They are going to flip through their Instagram, or watch some show on Netflix, to get through those moments.

But for a writer like me, it is a cornucopia of delights to my senses. There is so much going on. I am on a train. A moving train. I just have to comfortably sit in my seat. And, all of the beautiful sights and scenes will move past me, at a rapid rate. Allowing me to indulge myself. I can see more of the world this way. I can know more of the world this way as well.

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We Live In A Magical And Transformational Time

Post published:February 12, 2019
Reading time:4 mins read

I am sitting here in a bullet train going from Tokyo to Kobe, with my sister who met up with me from Toronto, and writing out a blog post, that’s going to reach hundreds of people over its lifetime. I feel so blessed, and I feel an immense amount of gratitude to be alive in this moment of time.

I’m sure things are only going to keep on getting better and better as time goes on. Technology will improve. People will change and become stronger, braver, faster, prettier. The world will surely transform in a way that I can’t even imagine right now.

But, in this moment in time, as I sit here, in this bullet train that’s zooming at speeds of more than 200 km/hr, I feel this sense of awe that I’m here and alive.

I know I probably harp on this over and over again, but this is something that I really want you guys to understand. Or at least experience not only second-hand from me, but also first-hand with yourself.

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Meditation Is All About Unmuddying The Mind

Post published:January 29, 2019
Reading time:4 mins read

Whenever I think about all of the wonderful benefits that meditation has bought my way, I’m so grateful that I started meditating. I feel absolutely lucky to have discovered the practice of meditation so early on in my life (I think I was 28 when I started meditating).

I am forever and always discovering more and more reasons why I love to meditate. Every year, researchers are discovering new and varied reasons why meditation is so good for us.

All of this to say, that meditation really matters as one of those cornerstone habits that can absolutely transform your life, your body, and your soul.

But one of the primary benefits of meditation that has truly transformed my life has been the unmuddying aspect of it.

I want to use this blog post as a chance to explain my thought on what is unmuddying, and how meditation helps with it.

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Go Through All Of Your Habits To See If They Still Serve You Well

Post published:January 23, 2019
Reading time:5 mins read

One of the things about the start of a New Year is that there is a lot of clarity that suddenly arises in your mind and your life about what’s important to you and what is not. This is the main reason why many people start going to the gym in January. Because they realize all of a sudden that their health and longevity is extremely important to them.

In my case, the New Year has always been a time of self-reflection, and going back to the basics. I am constantly prodding and poking at my schedule, and my habits to figure out if all of the different things I am doing on a daily basis are serving me or not. And the flip side of that coin is figuring out if there are certain habits that I should add into the mix, because it would serve me well.

I have a very rigid daily schedule that includes many different thing that help me become the prolific writer, and creator that I am. Without all of my routine, and rigidity, I wouldn’t have the time or the space or even the energy to create.

Based on my analysis of my schedule, the following are the things I have added and eliminated from my schedule. This will give you an idea of how this process works.

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Mindfulness Gives You Time, And Time Gives You Freedom

Post published:January 14, 2019
Reading time:4 mins read

Why does mindfulness matter so much? Why is every guru out there, harping about meditation, and its benefits? And why is everything nowadays laced with this idea of being present and being in the moment? Is it really that important, this mindfulness idea?

I used to wonder about all of this, as you probably have. I couldn’t understand why it is so important for all of us to become present, and come back to stillness and silence at least once a day.

The more I meditate though, the more I realize what all of the fuss was all about. Ah, I see now, I think to myself, every single day, as the cobwebs in my mind get cleaned up, and I see more clearly.

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The Future Is Being Created Right Now In The Present

Post published:January 8, 2019
Reading time:4 mins read

I was sitting over the New Year countdown in my bed, pleasantly sleepy, and pondering over the past year, and what the future would bring to me. It’s just so exciting to be able to sit here in the present moment, and basically decide what your future will look like. It’s such a powerful feeling indeed.

We are the makers of our future.

But the thought that illuminated my soul that night was the idea that my future, whatever my future self and life looks like, is being created right now, by all of the things I do right now.

The future isn’t some ethereal or mystical concept that cannot be engaged with. It’s not some monster in the future that we cannot relate to. It is here, and it is now. It is being created right now, as you sit at your desk, and as I sit at my desk. It’s being created through all of our actions, ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and tantrums, that happen right now.

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Life Is A Series Of Good And Bad Choices Made Over Time

Post published:January 1, 2019
Reading time:5 mins read

There are many people out there right now who are hating on 2018, saying that it was the worst year ever. And many of us who are saying that it was the best year ever and we can’t wait to see what 2019 brings to us. Either way, I didn’t want to do a post pontificating on how my 2018 was the best year ever, and why I am feeling really positive about 2019 and the good choices I have made.

In fact, I just wanted to talk about habits. Life is a series of choices and habits. We get up in the morning, and instead of drinking a healthy green smoothie or eating a Chia bowl, or something else like that, we end up chowing down a McDonald’s Breakfast Sandwich (in all of its ooey-gooey goodness). Or we have confronted with the choice of taking the stairs to the fourth floor, or the elevator, and again we go with one choice or another.

Life is a series of good or bad choices. Not all choices you will make in a day will be good for you. And not all choices you make in a day will be bad for you. We always fall somewhere in the middle.

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Our Heart Always ‘Knows’ Faster Than Our Heads

Post published:December 25, 2018
Reading time:5 mins read

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently and she asked me a question that acted like a sort of eureka moment for me. She asked me how much longer I was going to keep thinking that I had some kind of time debt to pay off. And how much longer would it take for me to pay off that debt.

You see, even though, I am living my ideal life right now, I feel like I wasted my life basically from the time I was 21 to around the age of 29. It was all about partying, wasting time and energy on nonsense, clubbing and drinking, buying too much shit, and running after the next shiny object. Even speaking about it makes me really angry and disappointed in myself.

Of course, if you believe that everything is happening for a reason, then that phase in my life had to happen for this phase in my life to begin. But, and this is a big but in my head, I couldn’t accept that theory for the longest time. The only thought that went round and round in my head was that I wasted my best years, on nothingness. I wasted my time, and energy on nonsense.

I felt like a failure, and if I had to stop feeling like a failure, I had to pay back those years, by working twice or thrice or ten times as hard right now.

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