WillSpirit!

Where Will meets Spirit
∞ Love, Clarity, Balance, Peace, & Bliss ∞

A science, mental health and spirituality blog written by a physician.








  • Red_Exclamation_DotDisclaimer
    • Dear Visitors:
      Although I trained and practiced as a physician, my background does not include formal instruction in psychiatry beyond basic medical education. This journal presents ideas about treatment philosophy, but must not be considered therapeutic advice. Abrupt changes in one's psychiatric medications can trigger profound cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms, including suicidal thoughts and actions. Consequently, pharmaceutical agents should not be increased or decreased without supervision by a mental health clinician.

    • ON THE OTHER HAND, your brain belongs to you, and your opinion counts. If you decide that changing your medication regimen will serve your best interest, then I believe your providers have an obligation to help you try to achieve your goals. I want everyone to be educated about their options, and do what will be most helpful for themselves. No one should feel pushed around by dogmatic and/or limited viewpoints, whether those of psychiatrists, anti-psychiatry advocates, or myself.


Browsing WillSpirit! blog archives for October, 2009.

Decisions, Decisions.

forkinroad

How do other people make big decisions? I am trying something new: to look at what matters to me rather than what I ‘want’ or ‘need’. Art and beauty and creativity have long been fundamental forces in my emotional universe. But when I’ve thought about what to ‘do with my life’ it always comes down to practicality. How do I make sure of an income? How do I salvage something useful from my old career? How do I avoid looking unrealistic, or selfish, or immature?

But if I ask what really matters to me, it is my writing. If I ask what gives me satisfaction, it is my writing. If I ask what I would like my life to be about it is (you guessed it.)

This is another short post, to keep up my connection with this little web site. I owe the topic and approach to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.) Right or wrong, I’m using ACT ideas to guide my next step in life. Any suggestions others have for how to make decisions would be quite welcome.

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Decisions, Decisions. was published on October 30th, 2009 . 2 comments






Hello. Redux.

Before long, I may get back to posting more regularly. My memoir class finishes soon. No other big projects loom. So it will make sense to come back here. But I feel different. Stronger, perhaps. The break restored me after my marathon writing about the sexual abuse, etc. That took much of my energy, and left me feeling like there was little left to tell.

There is much to tell, of course. As long as there remain sentences which have never been written, there is more to write. To pen my thoughts has become such a vital part of my life, in fact, that I am thinking of going to graduate school to learn to write better. I’m exploring programs, preparing applications. The best schools are out of state, and probably out of my reach anyway. The ‘low-residency’ schools, where you only spend two weeks at the place once or twice a year, are more in line with what I want, anyway. Moving at this stage seems unlikely. And even the constraint of traveling to class several times a week would prevent us from coming here to Yosemite as often as we like. The low residency are expensive (the best full-time programs provide funding,) and I don’t know my chances of acceptance. So whether this happens or not is still a very open question. But that’s my current aspiration, in case anyone is reading, and in case you are interested.

This little post is just a warm-up. It breaks the barrier between not working on this blog, versus starting in again. So now I’ve written something. Now, I hope, it will be easier to open the site and post. It is high time I went around to everyone else’s site, even if I don’t get going here again. I’ve missed you.

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Hello. Redux. was published on October 24th, 2009 . 4 comments






A memoir fragment.

mustang-adThis time away from blogging provides opportunity for some other writing projects, one being work on an online memoir-writing class. I’ve put off most of the assignments until now, and have only a month left to complete the course. Today I finished revision on an earlier assignment. I’m posting it on the memoir section of my site. If anyone is just dying for some of my writing (lol), they can check it out. Cheers to all.

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A memoir fragment. was published on October 11th, 2009 .






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