Besides having a lot to say about the things that wire and rewire her, Muffy Bolding is a mother, writer, actor, feminist, knitter, and self-proclaimed trollop/withered debutante. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles, where she writes and produces for film and television. She is currently at work on a memoir. On Owning It Publicly When I reflect back…
Ben Watts and Tiina Dohrmann met in an independent dance production in 1991. They are the founders of Greenspan Center, a water-based wellness center in one of the few remaining loft buildings in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, where they practice many body therapies, including Zero Balancing, WaterDance, and Watsu, a Shiatsu-based treatment that takes place in their ground-floor pool. Ben and…
Over the years I have known people who participated in weekend workshops with popular, charismatic self-help gurus whose message, when you boiled down the rhetoric, videos, and promotional literature, was pretty simple: Just do it! They encouraged participants to leave the unhappy relationship, declutter their minds and homes, make that positive change in their lives, and become the people they…
I had the opportunity to speak with the remarkable Gayathri Ramprasad, whose memoir Shadows in the Sun: Healing from Depression and Finding the Light Within (Hazelden)—called a “a cross-cultural lens to mental illness”—was recently published. Her harrowing experiences with depression, the social stigma depression sufferers endure, and her courage in helping herself and others bring a new perspective to an…
I was really taken with Karla McLaren’s latest book, The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill (Sounds True), in which she explores the varieties of empathy in our lives. After I’d finished reading (and copiously underlining) I had a few questions, and Karla was kind enough to answer them. AP: You call yourself an “empath,” which…
Welcome to Second Acts, a series of interviews with interesting people who discovered new pathways midway through their lives. Udo Erasmus, Ph.D., known as the Father of Flax Oil, is responsible for our modern understanding of the importance of essential fatty acids in the human diet. His discoveries came as a result of becoming sick from working with pesticides. It’s a testament…
Several months ago I began exercising regularly with my friend Josh, a dedicated and gifted physician with a certificate in personal training and an extensive background in the martial arts. Each training session was different and challenging. Several times Josh abruptly changed my routine in the middle of our workouts when he noticed that a particular activity was too easy…
