Press & Blog

The gods condemned Sisyphus to roll a boulder up a mountain forever, and Camus told us to imagine him happy. This essay takes that strange instruction seriously: why we treat suffering as a detour from the real life, what Viktor Frankl actually said about finding meaning in it, and how hardship, met with open eyes, can build resilience without being glorified.

The average adult makes thousands of decisions a day, and by evening most of us are running on fumes. Zen monastic life offers an old answer to a modern problem: fewer choices, held with full attention. Drawing on Dōgen's instructions for the monastery cook, satisficing, and a few practical rules of my own, this essay walks through how to protect your mental energy for the decisions that matter, from a morning routine to a 24-hour rule.

Loneliness is disconnection. Aloneness is something else entirely. On Trungpa, Bodhidharma in the snow, and why the spiritual path demands everything you have.

I took a Bodhisattva vow as a young man. Years later, burnout taught me what Chögyam Trungpa meant by "idiot compassion" — and that saying no can be the more compassionate act.

The Atlantic's viral feature on meditation's "dark side" documents real harm — psychosis, dissociation, careers derailed by intensive practice. The reporting deserves to be taken seriously, but its framing doesn't. Drawing on the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, the Yoga Sutras, and the Eightfold Path, this response argues meditation was never sold as relaxation, was never meant for solo practice without a qualified guide, and was never meant to be separated from the ethical traditio

I said good morning to a man on Solano and watched him decide what it meant. It took a second and a half — threat assessment, a scan for what I might want, then a third calculation neither of us could name. He nodded at my sternum and kept walking. I live in New Orleans, where you greet everyone you pass, including the man asleep on your steps. Berkeley taught America that being wrong in public was acceptable. Sixty years on, nobody looks up.

Sophie Rottenberg, 29, died by suicide in February 2025 after confiding her suicidal thoughts to ChatGPT — not to her real therapist, her best friend, or her parents. She is not alone: 3 in 10 adults now use AI for mental health support, and OpenAI's own data show over 1.35 million weekly ChatGPT users express suicidal intent. Andrew H. Housley, board-certified Health and Wellness Coach, on 5 real dangers of AI as sole mental health support — and 5 alternatives that actually

Not a canonical list. Seven Zen books that have actually done work in Andrew H. Housley's practice over the years — Taisen Deshimaru's Ring of the Way, Kosho Uchiyama on Dogen, the plainspoken teachings of Kodo Sawaki, Peter Matthiessen's grief-soaked Himalayan travelogue The Snow Leopard, Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Camus's The Stranger, and John Fante's Ask the Dust. Some from squarely inside the tradition. Two by writers who never sat. All of them, over tim

Self-help tells you what to do. Novels change what you think you are. The wellness industry runs on information — articles, podcasts, apps, frameworks — but research keeps showing information is one of the least effective tools for changing behavior. Andrew H. Housley, novelist and board-certified Health and Wellness Coach, on why fiction may be the most overlooked behavior-change technology of our time, and why writing about your own experience is its quiet companion practic

I went back to the woods where Fritz is buried. A European hornet found me first. What happened next is the truest thing my Zen practice has ever asked of me.

The Buddha described four kinds of students as four kinds of horses — one moved by the shadow of the whip, the next by the touch of hair, the third by the flesh, and the last only by the whip to the bone. Andrew H. Housley on the parable's strange afterlife: Shunryu Suzuki's argument that the worst horse may be the best student, Peter Gabriel's 2023 song that finds a fifth horse hidden in the original four, and what each kind of horse asks of us. From the Patoda Sutta to i/o.

Every year on the longest day, Andrew H. Housley leads a class through 108 sun salutations — Surya Namaskar, in the Sanskrit. A polished black stone for every rep, a tide of energy nobody is generating on purpose, and the small self quieting somewhere around rep eighty. This year the summer solstice falls on June 21 — the same day as Father's Day and the International Day of Yoga, inside Men's Mental Health Month. A yoga teacher on 108, the pivot point of the year, and what t

Andrew H. Housley was brought to Atlanta at five — a city he didn't choose. At thirteen he walked down Bourbon Street with his father and felt a kind of recognition he couldn't yet name. An essay on the two Southern cities that shaped a writer's life: Atlanta as the underground forge where the creative was born, New Orleans as the mirror that recognized what had been made. On place, memory, and the artist who needs both the city that made him and the city that greeted him.

What does it mean to ask if you must evolve? A close reading of the question behind the podcast — three words and a punctuation mark that refuse to settle. Drawing on Zen Buddhism, yoga, and contemplative practice, this essay unpacks the strange grammar of personal transformation: the inherited weight of must, the shifting self of I, the optimization trap of evolve, and the small refusal hiding in the question mark itself. A meditation on identity, change, and the quiet work

Six methods for getting unstuck when the page won't move — and one quiet truth: the block breaks not when you have a brilliant idea, but when you stop requiring one.

I didn't set out to write novels about mental health. I set out to write about people — broken, searching, stubbornly human people. But somewhere in the process of writing Ian in Waiting Impatiently and then again in Invisible Sun, I realized I was writing about the same thing: what happens inside a person when things don't go as planned, and the weight of living becomes almost too much to carry.

Goodpods has named Must I Evolve? among the top meditation and Buddhist podcasts on its platform — a quiet recognition for a show built around a single private question: must I evolve? Andrew H. Housley reflects on the strange experience of being heard, the isolation of making creative work, and what it means when a question you couldn't stop asking yourself turns out to be one that other people are sitting with too. On evolution, inquiry, and the small signals that come back

Two years after its release, Invisible Sun — Andrew H. Housley's award-winning literary novel of grief, mental health, and the bonds between three brothers — is now in development as a Netflix Original Film. A reflection on the unexpected life of a book born from shadow and silence: from a deeply personal exploration of trauma and survival to a story now traveling toward the screen. On masculinity, mourning, the architecture of family, and the slow work of finding light in th

Menopause affects every woman, yet it remains underfunded and misunderstood—while billions pour into erectile dysfunction research. This guide helps men understand what menopause is, how dramatic drops in estrogen and progesterone impact women’s bodies and emotions, and why relationships feel the shift. Learn how to support your partner with empathy, knowledge, and presence while breaking the silence around women’s health.

Discussion Guide & Author Q&A: Waiting Impatiently by Andrew H. Housley Discussion Guide & Author Q&A: Invisible Sun by Andrew H. Housley...