Chapter II: Divided We Fall If you’ve ever daydreamed or become completely engrossed in a project or event, you have experienced a mild case of dissociation. What a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder experiences on a daily basis is far more severe than just an afternoon stroll into the clouds…

Chapter I: What’s in a Name My birth certificate displays the name, Alexander Demetrius Minharez, born to both Linda Oyervidez Johnson and Luis O. Minjarez. The spelling of my last name differing from that of my father’s was no accident. The j was intentionally substituted with an h to make…

I once worked delivering flowers for a shop in Beverly Hills, California. One day someone called the shop and requested delivery of a bouquet to the home of Milla Jovovich. She had just given birth to her first daughter and was already home recovering. After arriving at her beautiful LA…

Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further than others it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The same can truly be said of my own life. A wealth of colorful individuals willingly shared their wisdom which is indeed a pleasure to pass along. Jay Leno had…

Three Transformations of the Spirit A powerful metaphor altered how I thought about self-discovery and transformation. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called it the Three Transformations of the Spirit. These metamorphosis are symbolically represented by the camel, the lion, and the child. In his view, many people long to reshape the…

A tigress was pregnant and starving when she came upon a little herd of goats. And in her zeal she pounced too hard. The goats scattered, and she brought about the birth of her little one and died herself. The goats came back to where they’d been, and they had…

Do you know what poverty, inequality, and discrimination have in common? Neither of them would exist if all people in the world were as kind as all of you for allowing me the privilege to share yet another story. “Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a sparrow asked a…

Looking back, it’s funny how I once thought my happiness depended on other people’s approval. Reshaping my personality to suit their moods conditioned me to become chameleon like, lacking any authenticity. That is until a shift in perspective awakened me to the source of true happiness — myself. Beforehand, the…

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