Todd B. Gruel

I used to skate in my younger life, performing tricks on unlikely urban obstacles—for fun. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of a skate video which I performed in, I reflected deeply on life lessons learned from those experiences.

We all have a time in our life that we refer to as the “back then” chapter. Whenever this sepia-toned chapter occurs for us, it represents all that is good, simple, and innocent about our past. We return to it occasionally for renewal: a nostalgic revisiting of who we once were in addition to a hopeful reminder of who we can still be. My “back then” chapter took place in my mid to late…

Are you a dog person or a cat person? No need to choose. Join me as I lay out the virtues of pet caregiving, topped off by a video dedicated to my former cat, Emily Dickinson, who inspired some precious life lessons that I still nurture today.

During my mid-30s, I shared seven years of my life taking care of, and all-around adoring, a jet black cat called Emily Dickinson. My smart, funny, and ravishingly beautiful fur companion taught me how to navigate the divide between mind and heart, past and present, helping me reconcile the knots of thoughts and emotions that arise when discovering oneself reflected anew through the eyes of…

Explore the revolutionary philosophy behind sustainable building company, ION EcoBuilding, in my video documentary, Building as a Birthright. Learn how hands-on participation by a community can inspire meaningful changes in the human spirit.

In 2016 I had the pleasure of editing a short video documentary, Building as a Birthright, about a sustainable Olympia-based building company, ION EcoBuilding. Led by Joseph Becker, ION EcoBuilding educates people about environmentally friendly building materials and processes, helping people appreciate the intimate connection between ecosystems and community through hands-on…

As a teacher of yoga and Vedantic philosophy, in addition to spiritual counselor and executive coach, Gordon Yonel is a renaissance man with a passion for helping people. Visit my website to learn more about Gordon’s various life-changing services!

I had the immense pleasure of taking an extended course in Vedanta spirituality taught by Gordon Yonel that, I truly believe, would be of great benefit to all of humanity. If a 9-month course seems a bit extreme, like a late-stage pregnancy that you’re not sure how to budget in your schedule, please believe that I survived without any labor pains at all. In fact, the experience felt more like an…

Ready for growth in your personal or professional lives? Explore life coaching services by Jade Hudek, The 5D Coach, to help you manifest your dreams. Visit my website to learn more and receive your free consultation with Jade today!

If you’re ready for growth in your personal or professional lives, please consider life coaching services offered by Jade Hudek, The 5D Coach. Whether you’ve reached a plateau, lowest valley, or highest peak yet (until now), wherever you’re at in life, Jade Hudek can help inspire, encourage, and guide you even further. I had the incredible pleasure and honor of working with Jade, a certified…

Thank you, @WalterAndersenNursery for teaching me so much about gardening this year! The lessons I've learned have taken root far beyond #PottedPlants, blooming into a #GardeningPhilosophy of #EverydayLife.

As the sun is slowly setting on 2023, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the lovely staff at Walter Andersen Nursery who have so generously supported my budding gardening hobby throughout this year. Offering guidance ranging from the basics to pro tips, the spade-loving free spirits operating this family-owned San Diego company have weathered my deluge of questions with tireless gusto. Even…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 6 of 6) ~ Media Recommendations List #Triggers #Confrontation #Communication #Assertiveness #Boundaries #LifeTransitions #Wholeheartedness #Vocation #Perfectionism #Goals #DonMiguelRuiz #ToltecWisdom #Enneagram #RubenÖstlund

If you’re interested in followup resources to explore some of the themes I’ve covered in my Winter 2023 Blog Update project, please consider my media recommendations below. Please note that my suggested media list includes affiliate links from Amazon. I may earn a small commission if these items are purchased using the links I have provided.  Throughout my freelance writing work, I’ve contented…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 5 of 6) ~ Current Challenges: Victims of Our Unawareness #SelfHelp #Mortality #Consciousness #ViktorFrankl #BookOfFiveRings #MarcusAurelius #Stoicism #JRRTolkien #Xbox #ZenKoan #BrenéBrown #KristinNeff #MichaelSinger

Ultimately, our lives end for us all with an unavoidable stage right exit—Death: The end of our physical existence as we know it… An ocean crossing scales with the wind… We are all carbon-sparked stories pulsing in the cosmic filament strung through space and time.  When we are gone—awakened, perhaps, in some other side of consciousness—someone may take care to memorialize our lives with an…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 3 of 6) ~ Lessons Learned: Conflict Management #SelfHelp #ConflictManagement #DefenseMechanism #MarkBracket #BrenéBrown #GaborMaté #ObjectiveFeedback #JohnLencioni #EmotionalIntelligence #AnneDuke #CognitiveBias #Sadhguru

If we live long enough, it happens to us all: The world, full of cold indifference to our golden-calf agendas, infiltrates our beating heart with its ragged claws—and pulls. With a single gesture, the ego is uprooted, leaving our bare awareness of self throbbing in monolog: “Feel! CONNECT!! Change! GROW!!” Eventually, we all stumble into conflicts that trigger us, challenging our self-awareness…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 4 of 6) ~ Current Challenges: Victims of Our Unawareness #SelfHelp #Forgiveness #Bitterness #Resentment #HenryMelvill #LysaTerKeurst #BhagavadGita #TaoTeChing #LauTzu #Gurudev #AngelMillar #CarlJung #MarkTwain #ViktorFrankl

What percentage of our time do we spend on withholds and grudges? How is that energy investing in our wellbeing? Is it helping to resolve our differences? Does it guide us in moving onward with greater wisdom?  After we have been hurt or wronged, we may wrestle with our perceived injustices in the aftermath: How can this happen to me? I don’t deserve this. The hardships we face may test our ties…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 3 of 6) ~ Lessons Learned: Conflict Management #SelfHelp #ConflictManagement #DefenseMechanism #MarkBracket #BrenéBrown #GaborMaté #ObjectiveFeedback #JohnLencioni #EmotionalIntelligence #AnneDuke #CognitiveBias #Sadhguru

If we live long enough, it happens to us all: The world, full of cold indifference to our golden-calf agendas, infiltrates our beating heart with its ragged claws—and pulls. With a single gesture, the ego is uprooted, leaving our bare awareness of self throbbing in monolog: “Feel! CONNECT!! Change! GROW!!” Eventually, we all stumble into conflicts that trigger us, challenging our self-awareness…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 2 of 6) ~ Reflections About Living Abroad #SelfHelp #ExPat #Spain #LivingAbroad #COVID19 #Immigration #Enneagram #CharacterAssessmentTest #PersonalityTheory #CharlesDickens #Homelessness #Consumerism #SelfReflection

In November 2019, I moved from the U.S., in San Diego, California, to Murcia, Spain, to teach English as a foreign language. I worked two years as a cultural and language assistant, during which time I survived primarily off of a government living stipend. Several months after I arrived, the COVID-19 pandemic struck Spain. Despite the unfortunate global crisis, I decided to remain in Spain and…

Winter 2023 Blog Update (Part 1 of 6) ~ Updates & Recent News. Two years in the making, the final entry in my diaristic blog series explores enduring universal themes: #Self-Worth, #Wholeness, #Identity, #MidLifeAwareness, #Fulfillment, #Wisdom.

Greetings, visitor. It’s been over a year since my last full update and now (*sighs*) it’s time to say goodbye.  Although I don’t yet plan to shut down my website, this is a formal laying to rest of my grand blogging intentions. Since I began my website during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, my blog activity has been sparse and sporadic. There’s a good reason for that: Life is…

2021 is nearly over already! Join me for a brief blog update in anticipation of much more to come in 2022. Happy holidays!

Greetings, visitor! It’s been a long year and there’s so much to share. Until I have a chance for a full update next year, here’s a brief jingle like a dash of nutmeg on Christmas eggnog. Where do I begin? I returned to the United States in September, leaving Spain where I lived for two years while teaching English as a foreign language. Spain was quite an adventure, of which I will speak more…

Heavy Words: Todd B. Gruel’s 2010s Reflections on a Life of Service to the Arts (Part 1 of 15) ~ Introduction #COVID19 #Quarantine #2010sRetrospective #SelfReflection #LeftFieldMusic #Art #Writing

The Makings of an Article (Plus Living Will)

Forgive the bold introduction. But it hurts. As a willing writer, my back, bank account, and odds for salaried employment within the arts all hurt the same. After devoting the last five years to a barrage of writing projects, especially those promoting left-field music, indulging another long-form project was hardly an ideal start to a new decade.

Fall 2020 Blog Update (Part 7) ~ What Comes Next: 2020, 2021, & 2022 #BlogNews #BlogUpdate #COVID-19 #Quarantine #WhatComesNext

Declaring one’s intentions can be dangerous. If public announcements don’t fall prey to hollow chest-thumping, they can feel restrictive, like binding contracts incapable of being changed.

Noted.

And yet I’m willing to accept these risks. I know that sharing my plans can offer some direction for this site’s development. So think of this as a provisional roadmap.

Grab a map below. Dog-ear…

Fall 2020 Blog Update (Part 6) ~ Lessons Learned: Conviction #BlogNews #BlogUpdate #COVID-19 #Quarantine #Spain #LifeLessons #Conviction

After moaning for weeks about the temperamental elevator in my new apartment, I eventually settled on the perspective that maybe the elevator wasn’t malfunctioning. Or, rather, if it was, it didn’t matter.

Granted, many of the technologies I find in Spain are either currently broken, recently broken, or are fated to be broken soon. Over the last year, I’ve found that Spanish culture excels at…