I’m working on my next tattoo. A lot of people can’t believe I have even one tattoo, but the one I have is important to me! It looks like this, 真實 It is the traditional Mandarin characters for authentic. If you know anything about my new book Being: A Journey Toward Presence and Authenticity, there are two ideas that are very important to me: Being who we are (authenticity) and being where we are (presence). When I turned 50, and entered the… Read more
June 15, 2021
The Pain We All Must Face
June 15, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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Some of you may not know that I was a former pastor for 20 years. Some of the pain I experienced was attached to organized religion and my experience as a pastor. Recently we have been noticing, maybe since 2020, a rash of suicides and people that are deeply troubled. Again many times it’s because of religion and spiritual bypassing and things that don’t really provide relief from the ways that we suffer. 3 years ago I experienced how this… Read more
June 13, 2021
Being Where You Are
June 13, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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Right now, I am sitting on our porch in rural Missouri. It took me a few years to appreciate it, but we finally got some good outdoor furniture and possibly, I have matured to the point that I can just BE without an agenda. This is my one day off during the week, so as soon as I could pour a cup of coffee and plug in the tablet, I was enjoying some stillness in my little sanctuary of sorts…. Read more
June 6, 2021
My Feet Hurt
June 6, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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In a scene from the movie, Forest Gump, Forest is talking to a young women that appears to be a nurse at a bus stop. In his typical style, he rambles from one topic to another occasionally interjecting, “Momma always said…” When he notices her nursing shoes, the following dialogue ensues. Forest: I bet you could walk all day in shoes like that and not feel a thing. I wish I had shoes like that! The Lady: My feet hurt. I… Read more
June 3, 2021
Being with my Wife
June 3, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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For the past few months, I have been working 53-hour work weeks. I work on an assembly line and they tell me we’re still behind. Yesterday was the first Saturday I haven’t had to work in a long time. This weekend is special because we also have Monday to ourselves. My wife is a teacher and she is celebrating her reprieve from her usual 9-month marathon of working long hours. So, when we got some time this weekend, we practiced… Read more
June 1, 2021
Myth, Stories and Tradition
June 1, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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“I don’t think we have stories. I think we are stories, and we’re stories that I believe will all be told.” ~Wm. Paul Young When you are a writer, one of the unexpected twists is that you get accused of ulterior motives. Some would assume we are in it for the money or we’re trying to recruit people to our “team” or we’re on some kind of covert mission from somewhere mysterious. But probably more than anything writers are trying… Read more
May 31, 2021
Being with my Bypassing
May 31, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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Thousands of years of a tradition and philosophy and religion have coalesced together to give us our practices and preferences of the present day. No matter how original we think we are, most of what we do and how we act, especially in religion, is inherited. One of the most unfortunate things we acquire, especially from religion, is spiritual bypassing. I talked about it my recent book, Being: A Journey Toward Presence and Authenticity. “Ever since man invented religion to… Read more
May 29, 2021
The Sanctuary of my Porch
May 29, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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I spent the entire day on my porch today. I’ve been working a 53-hour work schedule on an assembly line. My body has adjusted, but I find myself wrung out at the end of the week and in need of natural sounds and feels that bring me back down to earth (so to speak). I realize I’m fortunate to have the porch that people dream about, even though there are some trade-offs to owning this porch in a smaller town. … Read more
May 27, 2021
Bravery and Vulnerability
May 27, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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In my new book, Being: A Journey Toward Presence and Authenticity, the book closes with a summary of two of the most important words to succeeding at anything. They are bravery and vulnerability. They absolutely go together, and you can’t do one without the other. You cannot be brave without being vulnerable and being vulnerable requires you to be brave. In the epilogue, I talked about a time when I was trying to overcome my fear of speaking in public…. Read more
May 25, 2021
Being with Pain
May 25, 2021 By Karl J. Forehand
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In my book, Being: A Journey Toward Presence and Authenticity, I talked about facing our pain in the chapter Being with Pain. Really, a lot of the book is about facing the pain we often must to heal. Whether it is getting into shape or breaking an addiction or dealing with past trauma, the process is the same. I wrote: Everyone knows that, even after a few days, our bodies will begin to adjust to the new routine and become stronger so… Read more
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