By Sibel Ozer
The arctic cold has taken a toll on many of us. The psyche desires to retreat with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a book in the other, preferably in front of a fireplace, all the while reality demands that we continue attending to our responsibilities and enter the cold over and over.
By Monica Turenne, D.V.M.
I arrived at their home, and like most initial pet hospice consultations, I was not sure what I was going to see. For the family, I always prepare for sadness and tears, and my heart leaps for joy when I get smiles.
If anything’s hidden, it must
be out here, tucked
between identical rows of identical corn or trucked
in the beds of rusty Chevys along
these roads that I keep turning
left on and then
never seeing again . . .
By Roshani Adhikary
Athletes work their whole lives to realize their one dream of winning gold. They often see their hard work wither away as a competitor skates right past them, only to win by a fraction of a second. Nothing has taught me the value of a millisecond more than the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
I want to say more about what it takes to access this “inner doctor,” which can wisely guide us in whatever health crisis may come our way. In my last blog entry, I spoke about re-framing the issue from one of seeing the health crisis as an enemy to one of seeing it as an ally. In this perspective, I was pointing out a conceptual shift.
Today, I want to address the energetic or emotional dynamics and shifts that foster the emergence of the “inner doctor.” Basically, it’s how we meet fear. Learning how to meet fear in a constructive way is the medical school curriculum for accessing this “inner doctor.” This, obviously, isn’t only applicable to health crises but to everyday threats to our apparent security. So what we can learn about ourselves in meeting health fears can serve all aspects of our life.
““What we can learn about ourselves in meeting health fears can serve all aspects of our life.””
Most of us have an unholy relationship to fear. We deny it, exaggerate it, project it, submit to it, revel in it, squash it…. Fear often elicits a contraction and a desire for control. We want to get on top of it, to rise above it, and to manipulate it. Cramping seems a better course than imagined annihilation, if we were to dare feel it. There are two basic energetic forms of manipulation or control that all of us use to defend from any undesirable feeling. One is to restrict the feeling. We attempt to control by squeezing the life out of it. The other maneuver is to amplify the pain, to make it larger than it is. We dramatize the pain or feeling as an attempt to force life, God, or the other to submit to our will. Our real task is to observe the emotional manipulations and to begin to allow the spontaneous flow of fear (or any feeling).
Fear calls for a sense of safety, yet true security is nakedness to the moment, not some constructed edifice of protection. We don't need protection from real feelings. Fear, sadness, anger — any expression of real feeling — cannot harm us. What truly harms us is our defending against pain, vulnerability, and helplessness.
““Do we see life in its ultimate nature as chaotic, destructive, or evil? Or do we possess a sense of life as wholesome, trustworthy, and loving?””
To meet fear without defense or obstruction gets to the heart of our fundamental view of life. Do we see life in its ultimate nature as chaotic, destructive, or evil? Or do we possess a sense of life as wholesome, trustworthy, and loving? This is where our spiritual orientation shapes our basic response to life. My experience is that evil or destructiveness does exist on the relative plane of reality and that it is a function of resistance to pain and suffering. So to the extent we can allow all feeling — undesirable and desirable — without repression or exaggeration — we can enter the consulting room of the wise “inner doctor.” We also get a taste of heaven on earth.
I end with a quote from one of my teachers - the Pathwork.
“Through the gateway of feeling your weakness lies your strength;
through the gateway of feeling your pain lies your pleasure and joy;
through the gateway of feeling your fear lies your security and safety;
through the gateway of feeling your loneliness lies your capacity to have fulfillment, love, and companionship;
through the gateway of feeling your hate lies your capacity to love;
through the gateway of feeling your hopelessness lies your true and justified hope; through the gateway of accepting the lacks of your childhood lies your fulfillment now.”
— Pathwork lecture #190 ; © Pathwork Foundation
Brian O’Donnell, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist in private practice in Ann Arbor. He also teaches the Pathwork, a contemporary spiritual course of self development. (He was interviewed about his work in the January thru April 1997 issue of the Crazy Wisdom Community Journal, available at the bookstore.)
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity now affects 17 percent of all children in the U.S. That’s three times the rate of only a generation ago. Scientists are tossing around a lot of hypotheses — from junk food ads to lack of physical activity to increasing proportion size. The truth is that it is a combination of these three things, and a whole lot more. In rare cases, even infants develop obesity, leading more and more scientists to ask questions about environmental toxicity and its impact on the development of adipose tissue. Childhood obesity will only continue to rise unless we do something.
What can we do to protect our kids? First and foremost, we must make sure that our kids eat healthy, unprocessed meals at home. Secondly, we must also lobby our schools to provide not only a strong mental education, but a strong physical education for our kids, rooted in exercise and complete meals. Finally, we need to ensure that our communities offer healthy options in hospitals, day cares, and other activity centers, and that our communities support policies that protect our families right to good, healthy food.
Protecting our kids from childhood obesity is critical to their long-term health. People with obesity are statistically more likely to suffer from Type 2 diabetes, depression, and autoimmune disorders. Stopping obesity before it starts in your family is one way to stem the tide of the epidemic.
Gary Merel, M.S., L.A.C., has a nutritionally-based acupuncture and holistic health practice in Ann Arbor. For more information about his practice go to www.annarborholistichealth.com or www.digestivehealth-annarbor.com.
By David Lawson
Now that I have your attention, let me tell you what a wonderful practice it can be to acknowledge to yourself that you and everybody else in this world are going to die! You may say, “Well, of course, I already know that. Why is it necessary to dwell on such a morose topic?” But as it turns out, we don’t really act as if we know it, do we?
By Roshani Adhikary
Author John Green once said, “In the darkest days, the Lord puts the best people into your life.” I’ve recently started leading yoga classes at the Cancer Support Community (CSC) of Greater Ann Arbor and have seen this for myself — how, in one’s most trying times, comfort can be found within a sense of community.
When Bill at Crazy Wisdom published the interview Deborah Bayer did with me about the new book in the Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading series, I agreed to contribute an additional small bit of an article every three months as a follow up. Bill left the subject matter very loose.
By Richard Gull
I said at the end of the article "Esalen at 50: A Memoir About America’s Spiritual Reformation" that Esalen’s gnosis is nature mysticism. But this must be understood in the context of “a religion of no religion.”
By Lenny Bass
For those of you have read my previous essays about the on-going conversation I’ve been having with a Spruce Tree stationed in upstate New York near the heart of the Allegheny Mountains, I am inclined to further elaborate on some of the matters that were touched upon during these — how shall we call them — “episodes” of intra-species lucidity (others might be more inclined to call them “anthropomorphized psychosis”...to which I have little defense...)
By Brian O'Donnell
A fundamental shift of perspective is needed if we are to have access to the “inner doctor” that I referred to in the article Threading the Eye of the Needle. This “inner doctor” possesses a much broader and deeper resourcefulness than the limited and fragmentary perspective of the everyday egoic mind.
We are definitely a product/progress/accomplishment oriented society and most of our psyches are deeply craving the opposite as a result. The permission to enter and stay in the non-doing is often a gigantic challenge for most of us, let alone someone who has spent a lifetime doing what is expected of her, since it meant survival.
By Richard Gull
“The belief that spiritual purity can somehow be translated into the physical body is widely held in many religious traditions. Carry this a bit further and you find people who hold that the body of a spiritually pure person can even transcend death.”
By Monica Turenne, D.V.M.
It was cold, raining, and late, but I had one house call left. I had received a phone call from this pet parent just a few days prior to this night. She had a 14-year-old Husky mix with severe arthritis who could no longer get around anymore.
By Rev. David Bell
The problems of the world can be narrowed to one mistaken belief. That belief is in separation. The solution to this problem is to understand that we are all one.
By Gary Merel
Everyone is talking these days about leaky guts, but what is it and how does it affect you? A leaky gut happens when our digestive tract becomes more permeable than it should.
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