I was, some years ago, falsely accused of sexual assault. I have never had non-consensual sex with anyone. I have never sexually assaulted anyone. I have made mistakes, over the years, in my relationships with women. But none of them involved the violation of consent. Public false accusations are an extreme form of violence. In our current social environment, they are very difficult to counter. I am finally fighting back.

The primary goal of “privilege” as a concept is to induce empathy. Empathy connects people, deepens understanding, and creates allies. The primary outcome of “privilege” as a concept is to induce guilt. Guilt chases people away, blocks understanding, and creates polarization. Once upon a time, the concept of “privilege” (as in “white privilege” or “male privilege”) was a new and helpful tool. Now it is outdated and counterproductive. We can do better.

Sometimes your mind takes you places you don’t want to go. If only you could put your foot on the brake, you could stop your mind from driving you mad. The mind is a complex and wondrous vehicle, but it doesn’t behave how your car does. It has no brakes. It only has a steering wheel. When your mind is out of control, you need to learn how to steer.

You think you know why you date, but you’re wrong. You think you’re dating to secure a partner. You’ve been programmed to believe the person in front of you is a kind of checklist. The truth: you’re dating because you’re on a primordial spiritual quest. You’re actually dating for the magic. And you’re never going to squeeze magic out of a checklist.

Burning Man is not your enemy, but it's also not your friend. You’ll surf the dust storm, or be swallowed up by it, and Burning Man won’t help or hinder. It is, in that sense, indifferent to your fate. Despite this indifference, Burning Man will, if you let it, shower you with gifts. The playa provides, right?Unfortunately, much of what the playa provides is not what you asked for.

The more you take pleasure in the process of thinking, the smarter you’ll become.

Depression and anxiety are so pervasive that it’s a mistake to think of them as pathologies. If you are alive, you are vulnerable to depression and anxiety. Something about the nature of aliveness itself exposes us to these conditions. Aliveness is the link between anxiety and depression. Aliveness is the cause. Aliveness is the cure.

It's easy for counselors, and the people we counsel, to get stuck in our heads. In a tradition that has long been top-heavy, the growing prevalence of somatics has brought counseling back into balance. The swing of the pendulum too far in the other direction happens when somatics supporters fall prey to a particular fallacy, elevating somatics to a transcendent position above the mind, instead of down below it where the body belongs.

We live in a culture that pours endless energy into beginning relationships well, but very little into ending them well. It is possible, at the end of a relationship, to inventory the past and resolve everything in need of resolution. This is helpful for at least three reasons.

So you’ve been to the playa, and you’ve seen the promised land – the promise of freedom, of self-expression, of immediacy and creativity and community. But then Burning Man ended, as it must. Now, you find yourself without the the steady flow of magic that helped you become more yourself. You’re “home” (in the traditional meaning of the word), and you’re probably wondering whether you can still be the person you liberated yourself to become at Burning Man. You can be. All you need to do is to make use of these 5 principles.

Ordinary reality is not designed with personal growth in mind. If you like conformity, competition, or pretense, then ordinary reality is a great place to be! If what you’re interested in is personal growth, however, you’ll need to go through the cracks in ordinary reality and find out what’s on the other side. Where can you go to find respite from ordinary reality? Look to retreat centers, human potential workshops, counseling sessions, spiritual practices, altered states . . . and Burning Man!

Think about the last time you cried. Was it one of those cries that left you feeling much better afterwards, or did it make you feel even worse? Crying has a purpose. Something is trying to happen when you cry. When it fails to happen, you're left feeling worse. When it succeeds, you not only feel better in the moment, but you are positively changed by the experience. If you want to make sure crying accomplishes its purpose, you need to understand something about why we cry.

Following rules does not make a person ethical. Becoming ethical requires thinking for yourself. As a counselor, you need to be an ethical free thinker. That means you need have a grasp of three things: The difference between defensive and proactive ethics, the stage of moral development in which ethical thinking occurs, and cognitive tools to help you solve ethical problems as they arise in the course of your work. Here's your crash course in all of the above.

Not everyone knows how to sleep. You might assume sleeping is just a natural capacity that everyone possesses, but like most natural capacities, it's one that some people have well-developed and some have not-so-well-developed. If the capacity to fall asleep is only weakly developed in you, it can be strengthened.

The purpose of counseling is to facilitate change. Which variety of change depends on the client and the challenges they bring to you. Do they need to heal old hurts? Do they need to develop new resources? Are they in need of liberation from limiting beliefs? Do they need to reclaim their sense of power? Each of these four varieties of change requires a different kind of counseling.