Emerging Strength

03/01/2026

At Emerging Strength we help people find their strength to build a life they love.

I was working on financial strength today. It's been a brutal 3 months. Lots of big expenses and I feel defeated.

So I turned to an educational podcast by Ray Dalio. He said, most people ask how to get rich and he says that's the wrong question.

We should start by asking, what would guarantee staying poor forever, and how can those things be avoided?

02/28/2026

Do you want to refine yourself and be better than you were last year?

Do the hard work you've been avoiding.

Did you notice what just popped into your mind? Was it the hard work you have been afraid to do? No? Wait for it...That's what you need to do.

Engaging in hard work is the most refining process you can engage in over the course of your life.

Embrace this process in the major domains of your life: relationships, finances, personal growth, fitness, mental health, etc.

02/27/2026

Do you rely on your mind to make a living?

This can cause us to trust our mind in situations where it isn't helpful.

For example, you want to do something physically difficult like 100 push ups or hike to Mt Le Conte (10mi round trip). Your mind will start telling you to quit when there is discomfort. Discomfort occurs long before any risk of physical failure is real.

We must learn to override the message that says, it's too much.

Be warned, when you tell your brain you want to keep going, it will not be convinced. It will resort to giving you evidence as to why you should stop.

We must learn to say, one more.

We get stronger and experience joy, gratitude, and peace by embracing voluntary suffering. The juxtaposition of suffering to good things is a corner stone of mental health.

02/25/2026

When fear is present we lose two important things, our sense of time and how hard we worked.

Losing these senses distorts everything. We think we worked a long time, and we tried really hard.

When things are hard and fear shows up, don't give yourself an easy out. Learn to grind longer and push harder.

Take the pickle jar test.

The next time you can't open your pickle jar, get a stop watch to measure exactly how long you actually tried to twist it open.

If you failed, try again. This time use more strength. Find another level and try harder for longer.

Notice how leaning into this changed your experience of trying.

02/22/2026

Imagine being independent from pain.

I'm not talking about being pain free, or turning off pain signals with a narcotic. I'm talking about feeling the pain and going about the rich and meaningful things in your life anyways.

Imagine moving toward that which is important and purpose filled to you, even when you feel pain. Maybe, especially when you feel pain.

Remember that moment when you were young and you fell off your bike. It hurt really bad. You were scared. Bleeding. But you decided, even in the presence of pain, to go on with living.

You can choose to be independent from pain.

02/22/2026

"The things we most want our lives to be about are intimately connected to the ways in which we suffer most."

02/20/2026

Consider this...

"If suffering is ubiquitous in life, then withdrawal from and avoidance of suffering is accordingly the withdrawal from and avoidance of life."

This is a quote from a book called "things might go terribly, horribly wrong". It contains some really unpopular ideas that actually lead to a better experience of life; when suffering is close and when it is distant.

I tried to read this book a few years ago and couldn't engage with the material. At that time, my pain was large and blocking my view.

Since then I have learned that what I want is a rich and full experience of life. Hiding doesn't make you happy, fulfilled, or safe.

Embrace the suck, eat that frog, lean into life.

02/20/2026

This is terrifying.

At Emerging Strength we approach things very differently.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DZgsaEotP/

02/18/2026

Boundaries in relationships are like fences, they keep some things in, and other things out.

If your relationship is recovering from something getting through the fence, it's going to take a while to feel safe again.

Recovery from such a breach begins once you feel safe again. You can't work on recovery when the fence is broken.

Rebuild the fence. Then test it to see that it keeps some things in, and other things out.

02/17/2026

Check out our latest blog post.

Think your biggest problem is money, anxiety, alcohol, or communication? The real issue may be how you evaluate your experience—and it’s keeping you stuck.

02/15/2026

What is intimacy?

Intimacy is to know and be known.

There are so many ways in which we lie, conceal, and hide the truth. In doing so we become unworthy of trust, unsafe, and no depth.

If you really want an intimate relationship, then make truth a priority. The truth about your feelings, thoughts, fears, expectations, attachments, ego defenses, judgments, etc.

Never settle for less than truth.

Learn to sit with truth and tolerate how uncomfortable it makes you feel. Do this until you can hear what it has to say without shrinking.

In this way, when you are confronted by a hard truth, you can respond with compassion, toward yourself and others.

This makes intimacy possible.

02/14/2026

Day in an day out, your value system determines your experience of compatibility with your partner. This is true for every relationship, even one in recovery.

At Emerging Strength we know that values can shift and change over time, situations, circumstances, and seasons. This doesn't mean your relationship isn't meant to be.

It means your going to have to work on communication and clarity.

Rather than saying to your partner: "you're boring, you want to stay at home all the time". You might try, "I feel restless and I want to experience more adventures together, would you be open to that"