Dr. Howell’s Daily Reflections
Everyday, Dr. Howell writes a reflection, a spiritual practice, an inquiry prompt, and a prayer.
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Make peace with your ego and discover your true path today. The path to wholeness starts now!
Soul Power Part 5
June 12, 2025
Living in ego is our comfort zone. There we are in a familiar territory where we think we are safe, OK and happy. But deep inside, there is a nagging feeling that we are not doing what we want to do. So, we wonder what it would be like to finally lead our unled life, go to long-anticipated destinations, discover talents, understand mysteries, and explore relationships. Sadly, our obligations prevent these. Think of the millions who die without really having lived. They held the course; they followed the rules set out by their egos, the egos of others, and suffered, sometimes unaware of their pain and sometimes too aware of it.
Soul Power Part 4
June 11, 2025
Many of us describe the soul as an invisible being whom we hope returns to heaven when we die. However, if such a nebulous description is the only thing we have to go on with about our souls, we cannot say that we have complete knowledge of our souls.
Soul Power Part 3
June 10, 2025
Even among spiritually oriented people, our individual souls are not a usual topic of discussion. But why wouldn’t they be, given that our souls are our deepest and everlasting identities? Maybe this is because there is no widespread agreement on what the soul is, no common language associated with it and no scientific measurement of its properties. It is much easier to discuss our outward personalities.
Soul Power Part 2
June 9, 2025
Our soul is the most powerful energy we have, but we ignore it when dominated by our ego. The result is that we manifest only a fraction of our true selves.
Soul Power Part 1
June 8, 2025
Most of us tend to live in one of our three centers of intelligence: our bodies, heads or hearts, but we forget that our soul is the most important place to live.
Adaptation Part 9
June 7, 2025
When the GPS says, "Recalculating," it's in the process of adapting to our having deviated from the route it calculated. It guides us to where we want to go, but when we veer off course, it is programmed to recalculate a new way to our destination.
Adaptation Part 8
June 6, 2025
When we adapt to circumstances or relationships, we find that our ability to adapt to new things was always in us but we were unaware of it. Just as necessity is the mother of invention, it is also the mother of transformation.
Adaptation Part 7
June 5, 2025
Living in the now, impressions steer us in another direction from the one we had initially calculated. So, the spiritual ability to be flexible and to adapt in the now is essential. Lucia, a ten-year-old peasant girl in Portugal in the early 1900s, witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary each month for six months. No one, not even her family, believed in her stories of Mary appearing in the wheat fields. People, including her family, thought her to be an attention seeker.
Adaptation Part 6
June 4, 2025
To be granted a Ph.D. degree, the student must complete a dissertation. It was 1977, and I faced that daunting task which included writing a rationale for a research study, conducting the research, writing it all in a book form and presenting the results to a committee of professors in what is called “the defense.” They would grill me with questions about my research, and I would have to defend it.
Adaptation Part 5
June 3, 2025
Self-affirmation is a beautiful way to adapt to circumstances that challenge our self-worth. We may lose an election, a job, or a relationship; we may fall short of our aims. We may do something that shames ourselves or hurts others. Despite the many ways we can lose our self-esteem, instead of letting circumstances define us, we can adapt to reality through self-affirmation.
Adaptation Part 4
June 2, 2025
Joyce Landorf's book Irregular People (1982 and 2018) describe those who seem to purposely antagonize, abuse, misuse, and anger us. Landorf described, in layman’s terms, what psychologists refer to as personality disorders. These are hard-wired maladaptive patterns of thinking and behavior originating in one’s biology and early life experiences.
Adaptation Part 3
June 1, 2025
The ego has a bad rap. We typically see it as something that trips us up, leads to narcissism and is hell-bent on getting its way. The ego is even known as our false self.
Adaptation Part 2
May 31, 2025
One of the most challenging things to adapt to is loss. A significant loss is devastating, regardless of how much we struggle to limit our egos. Why is this so? Shouldn't spiritual seekers be immune to the effects of loss? Aren't they so connected to the Divine that they are above grieving? Not so. When we go through loss and adapt to our new reality, we must go through the grieving process, regardless of our spiritual insights.
Adaptation Part 1
May 30, 2025
From time to time, we find ourselves in changing circumstances that can completely throw us off. But in the spiritual life, we make changes so that we learn and even benefit from these situations. The changes we make are forms of adaptation to the emotional and/or physical environment. And as we know, adaptation is a vital tool for survival.
Creativity Part 7
May 29, 2025
Dear God,
Your presence never fails me. In the stillness of the morning, I enter my depths, and you are here— first in the sensation of warmth and then in the awareness that you are everything. You come from inside, outward. You are already in me and have been from the beginning.
Creativity Part 6
May 28, 2025
Someone I once knew said he likes coffee because it makes him feel creative. How could coffee make us more creative? Studies show that caffeine can remove barriers to creativity by improving concentration, enhancing focus, and increasing the ability to think divergently. But there are other ways we can remove obstacles to creativity.
Creativity Part 5
May 27, 2025
Sometimes, we hit a mental, emotional, or physical wall. But if we tap into the creative energy available, we push through the walls to unexplored territory. By enlarging our scope and perspective, our heart, body, and mind capacities increase, and we are no longer slammed.
Creativity Part 4
May 26, 2025
Many people associate creativity with femininity. Portions of our society reinforce women for being creative and discourage men from saying they are creative. Many people who identify as male, seem culturally groomed to say things like, “I leave all the decorating to my wife.” And “I wouldn’t know how to begin to paint or draw.” However, a person who identifies as female is generally encouraged by our culture, to be creative. But creativity is not owned by any one gender.