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.


Joy in Turmoil, Bliss in Pain, Truth in Sorrow

With luck, I’ll be leaving the hospital tomorrow. A long convalescence stretches before me, starting with a minimum of two weeks without any sustenance by mouth: I’ll be receiving nutrition only via intravenous infusion. An X-ray after the first fortnight will show whether my intestinal blockage has diminished so I can start to add in actual food. I’m hoping for the best in that regard, since the alternative will be surgery to bypass the obstruction.

My body has been weakened by this episode. After a week of starvation I have lost both abdominal fat (yeah!) and muscle mass (ouch!). How completely I can regain my conditioning while being fed with milky fluid streaming directly into my heart remains unclear. Most likely, robust health will only begin to return once I’m on solid meals.

A friend visited yesterday morning and I told her that my default position on hardship is that it teaches me about life. Looking at setbacks this way is my main mechanism for sidestepping discouragement. You’d think, perhaps, that simply living through this life-threatening episode would be sufficient, but I’m perverse enough to still worry about the fate of my acupuncture practice. And I’m carnal enough to feel frustrated that I couldn’t join my wife last night as she ate at a restaurant with friends. Only by seeking meaning can I quell the riot of discontent.

How can we be sure meaning even exists? Some of us are convinced the universe is random and pointless; others believe in a creative God; many find comfort in spiritual practice but resist religious dogma. Whether reality as a whole seems of deep significance varies accordingly. But there is a difference between unveiling the purpose of the entire cosmos versus finding meaning in the stories of our individual lives. We can all discover meaning in this smaller sense of the word.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl paraphrases Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” My own personal why has become a quest for ever broader understanding of human life, suffering, and fortitude. This means I look for patterns in the cosmos that illuminate our daily lives. It means I examine when and how difficulty gets transmuted into wisdom. And I investigate why most of us continue to value life despite its trials.

Here is one pattern I’ve tried to keep in mind throughout this ordeal: all living things are connected so intimately that it is artificial to conceive of individual persons as separate from the whole. The appearance of division is superficial, whereas the reality of unity is profound. All that I experience is part of what everyone goes through, and vice versa. As a result, I feel less alone and beleaguered. This conviction that life is shared greatly reduces my sense of suffering. Moments of hardship are like the troughs among ocean swells: they are transient depressions that blend seamlessly with the peaks. At this moment I may be far from the higher, more pleasurable heights of living, but somewhere out there a couple is making love for the first time, or cradling their new baby, or sitting on a veranda appreciating nature and retirement.

Here’s what this disease taught me about how hardship can transform into realization: When pain gets extremely intense, past and future recede from consciousness and only the present moment remains. During my most agonizing hours of abdominal pain and vomiting, I no longer worried about my acupuncture practice, or even whether I might have cancer. I remained utterly fixated on my body and its insistent sensations. Since absolute present-moment awareness is the goal of many meditative practices, I see the tendency of intense pain to focus the mind as a surprising consolation prize that ameliorates its awful sting.

And here’s something I’ve known intellectually but understand on a deeper level after spending so much time on an inpatient ward, where the mostly elderly population deals with so much disease and discomfort: No one gets through life without hardship, illness, and death. It may seem that the first two get distributed unevenly, but sooner or later every person sees his or her share of life’s dark side. And yet, everyone also enjoys moments of contentment and affection. Life is not as unfair as it seems, since all are privileged to live it, all must cope with infirmity and mortality, and all discover moments in the sun.

These observations place my current difficulties in a larger context. I see how my tribulations are balanced by others’ joys. I appreciate that pain connects me with the instantaneous jolt of life. I recognize that illness and death are universal, but so are pleasure and love.

This major illness has proven a wise teacher. How much it has enlarged me! Even though my recent problems have been uncomfortable and disruptive, I see so much meaning in them that I feel grateful. Because I find lessons, I embrace my troubles despite the agony, uncertainty, and grief.

Do my words sound like hollow rationalizations? I suppose people will interpret this essay according to personal beliefs, but I’m sincere when I say that these perspectives helped me find precious moments during the past few weeks, despite the arduous challenges.

Many times in years past I believed my trajectory so punishing that I planned to truncate it. Now that I’ve learned to create meaning out of those same hardships, I can’t imagine wanting to shorten this spectacular span of living.

With luck, I’ll go home tomorrow. With Grace, I’ll keep seeing humanity as shared, imminent, and balanced even as my life gradually returns to normal.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

Joy in Turmoil, Bliss in Pain, Truth in Sorrow was published on February 4th, 2012 . 5 comments






Biology, Spirit, and Transcendence

My blog’s tagline includes the word spirituality, which has devolved into a vague term that can mean almost anything. In the interest of clarity and to balance the two previous posts that emphasized material takes on human life, this essay will outline my spiritual path and beliefs. Readers may or may not be interested, but it helps me to spell out my philosophy from time to time, especially since it’s still maturing.

What follows rambles through my ideas about different metaphysical stances, to my own personal experiences with them, to a description of my current stage of development. Since my understanding of the world’s religions is superficial, at best, don’t be surprised if my statements about faith and practice sound obvious or naive.

Two posts back I stated that our animal identity constitutes “the most central and accurate description we could give of ourselves.” After all, it seems unarguable that humans are mammals with large brains. Even while writing that sentence, however, I remained aware that many resist considering themselves ‘mere’ biological organisms. Indeed, when I posted the same essay on my Psychcentral blog, the following comment came in:

Hmmmm, so we are reduced to “cycles of carbon and calcium?” I prefer that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” by our creator. As a believer, I will be returned to Him.

This reader’s opinion probably resonates with many who consider themselves religious or faithful. Here’s an edited version of what I wrote in reply:

You bring up the other common opinion about ultimate identity: that we are best described as conscious entities (souls) inhabiting organic forms. But even if one takes that view, at death the body is still reduced to its constituent elements and recycled in the biosphere. The two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive. In fact, since our biological form is apparent, while our spiritual nature remains debatable, even believers should look for ways to interweave the two perspectives. To deny our biology is to deny material reality, just as to deny our divinity is to deny higher meaning.

Divinity, as I intend it here, is a loose term meant to suggest that we have inner measures of soulfulness that go beyond the solid, predictable qualities of organic matter.

In the opinion of Christians and Muslims, each person has an immortal soul that is born once to this world and then consigned to eternal bliss or damnation based on a lifetime’s accounting of virtue, sin, faithfulness, and redemption. The sensible person thus works toward righteous behavior in order to secure a place in Paradise.

According to many Hindus and Buddhists, a soul (or its equivalent) is reborn repeatedly through time because of karmic entanglements accrued in previous incarnations. The wise soul engages in right action to limit such attachments and thus escape the cycle of death and rebirth.

Not all religions postulate an eternal and personal soul. For instance, Western Buddhist teachers seldom mention reincarnation. They discuss the basic principles of detachment and right behavior without reference to rebirth. This obviates the need to discuss a soul-entity, and in fact the Buddha himself rejected the existence of a discrete soul, since he found no evidence for any consistent, fixed self in his deep explorations of mind. Most Buddhists in the USA seek direct, meditative insight into the nature of consciousness as the ultimate goal of practice and don’t worry about escaping the cycles of birth and death. The focus is on mental process without invocation of any divine or eternal soul.

Many contemplative traditions (including some strains of Sufism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism) also reject the personal soul-concept. However, they do so by invoking a universal consciousness that subsumes the individual. This is the non-dual stance, which sees no meaningful distinction between soul and body, or between spirit and matter, or between God and individual souls. According to this philosophy, all beings arise as creative expressions of one vast Presence that manifests in myriad forms but retains core unity, which unenlightened humans fail to grasp. Such analysis rejects boundaries as illusory, whether between individuals, between people and animals, or between people and Divine Nature. We are viewed as all of one body, in the deepest sense. This perspective is essentially ecological and fits well with what we see in the biosphere.

Those of conventional scientific persuasion bristle at mention of either soul or universal consciousness. They see any suggestion of mystical reality as unfounded, infantile, and dangerous. But there is no scientific evidence that rules out either individual souls or cosmic consciousness. Quantum mechanical principles such as entanglement and non-locality provide plausible, if completely unproven, mechanisms whereby enduring impressions of mental life could be retained in the cosmic matrix without violating established physical laws. These ‘recordings’ could possess all the qualities we expect of discrete souls or universal awareness.

Over the years I’ve explored many different metaphysical positions. Raised as an atheist and educated extensively as a biologist, I never seriously questioned the strict materialist perspective until age twenty-nine. At that time, as I entered Alcoholics Anonymous and felt encouraged to find a ‘higher power,’ fate connected me with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Quakerism eschews dogma and doctrine in favor of direct, experiential discovery of ‘the light of Christ’ within each of us.

In 2000, after a series of profound (even shattering) spiritual experiences, I converted to Catholicism. For many years I went to mass several times a week and tried hard to buy into the Roman Catholic worldview. But although I appreciated the call to mysticism and the sacred rituals, the Church’s dogmatism, reactionary sociopolitical views, and rejection of female priesthood alienated me.

As an alternative, I explored Buddhist meditation. For two years I went to local meditation centers for weekly sittings and occasional longer retreats. At the same time, I undertook an intensive program of reading about Buddhism. The emphasis on silence and detached observation of thought felt quite helpful and fit with the clinically oriented mindfulness meditation I’d learned ten years earlier in classes at a local medical center. But in the end, I had trouble with Buddhist emphasis on emptiness and detachment. Although I see the value of exploring these qualities, they offer little in the way of felt love or sweetness. Meditative consciousness is vast and reverberant, but not inherently warm.

Next, I explored a Hindu offshoot at a retreat center that opened a couple of miles from my home. The monastics taught me to visualize my soul as residing in the area of the third eye in the middle of my forehead. I learned to concentrate on my soulful qualities rather than my bodily identity. This approach challenged me at first, because so much noise and confusion seems to arise in my head, and focusing my attention there failed to quiet the uproar. At the suggestion of a skilled meditator, I adjusted the technique by moving my conscious centerpoint to my heart, where there is more peace and warmth. Before long, I awoke to the powerful illumination of an ancient inner awareness that has little use for my day-to-day worries, ambitions, and desires. This inner light feels like a combination of personal soul and universal Presence arising from the cosmos itself.

Oddly, and beautifully, I now find myself having gone full circle. After all my explorations I am back at the Quaker starting point, only with a much more palpable sense of that divine light within each of us. This is experience and not belief. I cannot justify it in rational terms and see no reason to try. All I can do is describe what happens when my meditations go well. It matters little to me whether my direct apprehension of love, unity, and rightness resides only in my brain or truly connects, as it seems to, with a cosmic consciousness. Because it is experiential and not referential, it feels quite solid and unshakable. Some days I interpret my soulfulness in mystical terms, and other days I think about it in purely neurological ones. But no matter what I believe about this state of mind, it brings me peace.

Every person must choose her or his own path, and I have learned to judge no one’s, not even my own. Those who prefer material atheism have adopted a belief system that requires no leap of faith and has a logically satisfying internal consistency. Those who believe in heaven or reincarnation, and who view souls as eternal and individual, have found a comforting formula that gives meaning to what happens here on earth. Those who meditate mindfully to enter spacious states of consciousness experience inexpressible mental stillness. Non-dualists, in turn, use their practice to find (what seems like) experiential confirmation of an ageless and infinite cosmic unity.

For my part, I know only that there is something that feels divine and non-egoic in the center of my chest. It beats like a spiritual heart throbbing in unison with the biological pump that moves my blood. My metaphysical position is neither more nor less valid than any other. It has features in common with the tenets of materialism, since my bliss seems deeply rooted in my biology. It shares some aspects of the soul-religions, because the brightness within acts like an eternal spark that illuminates my better nature. Consciousness also feels enhanced, as I tune into the infinite harmony that comes with silent meditation. My practice has non-dual aspects too, since in its highest expression I feel merged with all beings and all Nature.

This is my spiritual trail, which has been blazed through two-and-a-half decades of searching and introspection. I believe each of us must choose whatever path feels right. We should seek the tradition(s) that can heal both our own wounds and the troubles of the larger world.

So although I spent two posts honoring humans as living, breathing organisms, it feels vital to round out the discussion with my conviction that we also embody a loving, timeless Presence that permeates and transcends our material forms. This may be a personal soul, or a universal one. It may be pure consciousness or an artifact of brain physiology. No matter. It dwells within each of us, waiting for the day we abandon our desperate scheming and open to Life in all its terror, splendor, and Grace.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

Biology, Spirit, and Transcendence was published on January 15th, 2012 . 5 comments






The Advantage of Disadvantage

Life promises us nothing but the experience of living until we die. We cannot expect our dreams to be fulfilled. We cannot avoid hardship and loss. These principles apply to all.

But even though no one can squeeze guarantees out of fate, there is great unevenness in our fortunes. Some people simply seem luckier than others. They enjoy families that provide more resources of love and support. As a consequence, or maybe because of inborn personality factors, they grow into confident, resourceful, and resilient adults. They suffer little self-doubt and have no sense of self-loathing. Their lives unfold relatively smoothly, and as they enter the later stages of adulthood they can look back with pride at how they built success. They may have achieved career acclaim, raised happy children, and/or simply radiated good cheer as they walked upright through the world.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way for everyone, and we all know of human situations that fall short of such comfort and success. First, there are the large populations across the globe that suffer under extreme poverty, chronic warfare, and oppression. We see the images of shantytowns and war-torn cities in which stunned and dusty children wander wide-eyed and alone. We observe their innocent, wounded faces and wonder: what can these orphans possibly hope for in the future? And yet, they seem far away and unconnected to our affluent societies. We try to reassure ourselves that these kids don’t suffer like we would in the same situation, because they don’t know what they’re missing. It’s a vain and selfish hope, of course, but sometimes it’s our only defense against feeling overwhelmed by the unfairness in the world.

We naturally think in terms of this culture’s material advantages, but unless poverty and turmoil are so severe that food, clothing, and shelter are compromised, we cannot assume that wealthier populations are happier. I haven’t been to Mexico since the recent outbreaks of violence, but in earlier years the joy among the country’s populace was impressive. Despite much lower living standards than enjoyed in the North, the Mexicans seemed far more contented and jolly than Americans. Why? I suspect because they lived in more stable communities, where friends and family didn’t regularly move away. They knew their neighbors their entire lives, and lived embedded in rich relational webs.

In contrast, many of us in the USA and other Western countries were raised in isolated nuclear families. Relocations were so common that we often didn’t feel close to many neighbors and developed few longterm friendships. If we were unlucky enough to have alcoholic, depressed, and/or violent parents, we had nowhere to turn. We may have suffered severe traumas or bereavements in relative isolation.

We may then have grown up to face the same demons that tormented those who raised us. We may have had to battle addictions, chronic sorrow, and/or festering rage ourselves.

Those of us who endured abusive, bereaved, or neglected upbringings entered adulthood with few useful tools for dealing with life. Many of us require decades to sort out the injuries, the humiliations, the recriminations, and the grief. Sadly, many who come from such homes simply deteriorate and die early, tragically, or alone.

But if we survive, then what? Before long we find ourselves in middle age with lives that look less than idyllic. We often have fewer friends, less stable families, and more fatigue. Childhood trauma translates into adult difficulty, and many of us end up with lives littered by broken relationships and abandoned dreams.

And then what? Ultimately, if we hope to find peace, we learn how to cope. We mature. We forgive the damaged parents who hurt us. We forgive the entire cosmos for failing to meet our childhood needs. We find meaning in all the hardship, setbacks, and breakdowns. We become wiser and more spiritual. We begin to find beauty in every nook and cranny of creation.

But still, we can easily see that our lives could have been better. It is all too obvious that we have not thrived like the more fortunate. We may feel isolated; many of us suffer health problems that resulted from the massive stress and poorly chosen coping strategies of earlier years. We feel damaged and aged in a culture that worships youth, wealth, success, and beauty.

Is there any upside to this realization? Perhaps only this: we are also the ones who are forced to enlarge our hearts the most. Our pain, isolation, grief, and remorse all compel us to learn unconditional acceptance and radical forgiveness. Despite all the mistakes and brokenness, we lovingly embrace ourselves, our families, our communities, and whatever divine forces might be witnessing this mysterious passion play.

There are other paths to growth, but loss, injury, and failure can be potent stimuli to spiritual practice and mystical awakening. Humble but exalted realization becomes the consolation prize for the brokenhearted who persist. At first such gentle wisdom barely tips the scales as we judge our lives, but as cosmic love and insight grow, we begin to feel less and less unfortunate. Until, finally, the day comes when we look back on our fractured histories and see their value, their majesty, and what in retrospect seems like Grace.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

The Advantage of Disadvantage was published on January 3rd, 2012 . 6 comments






The Triple Powers of Silence

At some point in every human life, pain threatens to unravel everything that matters. For some of us the day comes in childhood. We may suffer the death of a parent, unspeakable trauma, or simple grinding neglect. For others life feels fairly comfortable until adulthood, but sooner or later fate steers us off our desired road into threatening territory. Perhaps a child gets sick, or a marriage ends, or a career fails. Maybe illness strikes and the end of life comes into view. Grief, failure, and injury shatter our peace, so we begin to seek answers.

At first, we search in all the usual places. We ask our close friends and trusted relatives for advice. Some of us consult therapists or psychiatrists who guide us back into our past or write us prescriptions. Some of us enter houses of worship or meditation in hope of enlisting the help of profound mystical or mental forces. We pray and meditate, desperate for answers.

Even with all this exploration, solutions seldom come. All too often, life deals ever more hardship as we scramble to find a lifeline that will help us endure the escalating pain. We may begin to waver in our resolve to continue; we begin to question whether life offers enough enrichment to make its difficulties worthwhile. We wonder why, as we try so hard to solve our dilemma, we feel no better.

These despairing moments are fertile. They mark the ego’s looming defeat and the foundational collapse that allows deep wisdom to develop organically. Because the problem is exactly that we are trying so hard to find answers, but we do not need answers.

What we need is to break free from all seeking, all efforts to understand, and all analysis. What we need is to quell the mind’s ceaseless efforts to make sense of life, its endless construction of models, and its doomed dream of figuring out how to extinguish the inevitable pain of existence.

What we need is silence.

The first layer of silence is a respite from constant mental toil. We enjoy a break from churning our complicated facts, important memories, and worrisome predictions. We open to peace of mind. This is the introductory gift of learning to quiet the mind’s chatter: a chance to rest. In a spacious moment of stillness, we begin to appreciate how struggling to solve life never leads to solutions, only to confusion and exhaustion. A boundless relief comes with abandoning, even for a moment, all our strenuous, futile striving.

The second layer of silence is the recognition that verbal reasoning is only a shadow of life, not life itself. Before we get to this stage, we believe the stories we tell ourselves. For instance if we think, “I can’t continue in the face of such pain,” we believe our mind’s dire prediction and become paralyzed. As we wait for the sorrow to lift, or the fear to abate, the stasis that results simply worsens our mental anguish. But as we learn the value of quieting inner dialogue, we begin to see that these strings of words have no solidity. They are tokens of interpretations of models of our lives. Neither the tokens, nor the interpretations, nor the models are life itself. As we begin to quiet the inner verbiage, we recognize it to be arbitrary and unhelpful. Instead of thinking about what’s going on, we experience life as it is in this moment. Nearly always, life as it is entails far less pain than life as we think it is.

The third layer of silence is beyond description. It is simple and unalloyed bliss. This essay I’m now writing was inspired by a quote my aunt sent, taken from Listening to Your Life, by Frederick Buechner. The theologian provides a good description of this final gift of inner quiet:

I have been conscious but not conscious of anything, not even of myself. I have been surrounded by the whiteness of snow. I have heard a stillness that encloses all sounds stilled the way whiteness encloses all colors stilled, the way wordlessness encloses all words stilled. I have sensed the presence of a presence. I have felt a promise promised.

Buechner’s words come as close as words can to capturing the ultimate fruit of stilling the inner dialogue.

It is important to recognize that quieting the mind’s verbal stream yields benefits at every stage. Early on, we are granted rest. A little later, we gain insight into the emptiness of words. And finally, we discover what we were hoping for all along: an unshakeable foundation for peace of mind.


>> Share on Facebook
>>

The Triple Powers of Silence was published on January 1st, 2012 . 9 comments






My Beginner’s Mind

This entry is my twenty-fourth in November. With its publication, there will be precisely three hundred essays on the blog queue. With that many posts available, I feel comfortable planning a break in my blogging. For the month of December, if anything gets published at all, it will be poetry. My plan is to start penning essays again next year. I wish all my WillSpirit friends a Happy Holiday Season.

My final essay for 2011 offers concrete suggestions for quelling emotional distress. Many readers know more about mental healing than I do, so what follows may sound elementary. But some visitors are just starting out, and these suggestions can guide their initial steps. Besides, even advanced meditators don’t consider themselves experts, but strive to maintain the Beginner’s Mind. So one is never too experienced to practice the basics. What follows maps not just what I did when first embarking on recovery; it sketches how I continue to approach my life.

My most uplifted posts have sung the praises of meditation and right attitude. With the aid of such skills, my mental life has improved so dramatically that I now question the many diagnoses that were tossed my direction by doctors. Decisive recovery from longstanding problems shows the capacity of the mind to rework itself; resolution of symptoms also seriously challenges the “brain disease” hypothesis of mood disorders. There was plenty of cognitive detritus obstructing my path, but I doubt there was ever any organic problem in my synapses. By clearing out misconceptions and misperceptions, I found clarity and readiness to accept whatever happens in life. I am not immune to grief and disappointment, but I believe myself resistant to despair. Meditation succeeded where medication failed.

To see how dramatically I’ve improved, consider that my mother committed suicide when I was in the first grade. By late adolescence it seemed obvious to me that my own life would end the same way. It was merely a question of timing. How long would I put up with my awful heartache before deciding, in the words of Hamlet, “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?”

Despite years of thinking along those lines, my mind no longer attacks itself. By studying the errors in my perceptions and beliefs, by learning to not mistake feelings for reality or thoughts for truth, I have found freedom from such negativity. It now seems inconceivable that any emotion or circumstance could drive me to end my life.

This all sounds promising, I hope. It should offer reassurance to those who wonder if they could ever wake up from the nightmare of chronic severe depression. It can be done, I promise.

But how? If one is stuck in the depths of misery, the idea of meditating out of it probably sounds like an impossible dream. And early on observing the mind may actually increase awareness of emotional pain and cognitive obsession, which can seem like exactly the wrong result. The trick, in my opinion, is to start out with very small goals.

Don’t begin by signing up for a ten-day meditation retreat. Don’t even plan on sitting on a cushion for an hour. Rather, the next time you’re stuck in a waiting room or standing in line, pay attention to how you feel. Explore your sensations. Can you detect your heartbeat? Where do you find pain? Are you breathing or holding your breath? Get in the habit of checking in for a minute or two whenever there’s a lull in the action.

When you feel ready for more, adopt the same practice as you fall asleep. Take a brief break from reviewing and planning to feel your bodily sensations. Indulge in some slow, deep breaths. See how long you can focus on your body before your thoughts start churning again. Early on, you’ll be doing well if you can remain attentive for fifteen seconds. Be proud if you can achieve that.

Over time, you will extend your range. Maybe you will gaze inwardly a bit longer. Maybe you will catch an obsession and halt it. Every time you succeed, recognize your ability to steer your mental state, even if only briefly. The goal is to gain mastery over your mind, but this process takes years and is never completed, except by Buddhas. At first, consider yourself a champion if you can subdue a destructive thought long enough to choose a healthier one. As you gain skill, you’ll begin to desire more time for meditation. That’s when you should consider a retreat.

But don’t expect too much too soon. If at first you find it too painful to watch and feel, steer your mind toward pleasant memories or daydreams. This isn’t meditation as we usually define it, but it does involve guiding thoughts, so it can be very helpful. Such practice provides welcome breaks from inner misery. If you feel ambitious, you can use it to build up empowering visualizations. Paint a mental picture of yourself mastering a valued skill, or being generous to others, or feeling well and happy.

From just these brief suggestions, you can see there exist many ways to train the mind, and it can be fun experimenting with different methods. Check books out of the library, search for videos on the internet, or go to local gatherings (which often ask only for voluntary donations). If you have a religious faith, and if you feel comfortable in it, then it is a good idea to get more involved with whatever meditative or prayerful activities it offers.

I like to divide mental training into two explorations, though more knowledgeable students recognize many more categories. But for simplicity’s sake, just consider these two paths:

  1. A person can meditate to explore the ocean of consciousness by being mindful of the body, by observing thoughts, by focusing on feelings, by quieting mental activity, and so on.
  2. Alternatively, one can meditate to connect with cosmic love by centering on the warmth that emanates from the heart, by repeating sacred mantras, through visualizations, by attending spiritual rituals, etc.

I believe it is important for people who feel depressed to do both. Exploring the mind helps one learn to steer thoughts and not act on feelings. Nurturing love in the heart warms the inner child who feels lonely and unwanted. One does not need to believe in a Divine Being to find such comfort; just awakening to the affection that arises when holding beloved pets or watching children can accomplish the same end. But, of course, belief in a loving cosmic presence is a great way to find support if your philosophical prejudices will allow it.

Keep in mind as you work on meditating that other healthful activities remain vital. Exercise, good nutrition, socialization, creative arts, and compassionate acts all help improve mood and outlook. These days we can choose from a wide array of therapies and somatic practices that aid mental healing. Pursue as many avenues as you can to help yourself improve. Applaud yourself for every victory, but also treat yourself with tenderness. When you feel too depleted to do much of anything, accept your need for contraction and isolation. Compliment yourself for sitting up in bed, if that’s all you can manage. Eventually, when your energy improves, you can do more.

At all times, be aware that the aim is incremental improvement, not sudden sainthood. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “seek progress, not perfection.”

Good luck on your journey. My prayers are with you.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

My Beginner’s Mind was published on November 28th, 2011 .






The Value of Mixed Methods

In the last essay I sketched the advantage of merging scientific with meditative currents of knowledge. This marriage of the experimental with the experiential provides the mental health world with a new paradigm, one that promises to finally solve many of the mind’s most troublesome afflictions.

Still, a few questions remain. First, given that meditative traditions have produced a vast and venerable literature backed by centuries of experience healing mental ills, can we be sure neuroscience adds anything useful? Although experimental work has greatly increased understanding, has it improved healing?

In an earlier essay I argued that neurobiology has offered lots of information about the brain, but little inspiration for the mind. Most of the practical suggestions that come from brain science sound like ancient prescriptions restated in the language of neurotransmitters and neural circuitry. They don’t offer new approaches as much as new ways of describing old ones.

Readers might argue that medications and other material interventions (like shock therapy) clearly differ from the methods of meditative traditions. Leaving aside the fact that Chinese and other holistic medical systems have long employed herbal preparations to settle mental derangement, we need to ask whether these material therapies are effective enough to be considered breakthroughs. I wouldn’t argue that they have no value, but even when they work well (and they often don’t) they merely mask symptoms. They don’t transform mental life or lead to deep insight. Add to this fact the awful side effects, withdrawal symptoms, financial cost, and corruption of our health care system by profit motives, and we can legitimately question whether scientifically derived treatments are a boon or a bust.

So I am not willing to concede much to the materialist perspective when it comes to these sorts of intervention. But the scientific view remains very valuable. First, it legitimizes ancient knowledge. Spiritual texts describe consciousness and its various expressions in deeply thoughtful terms, but they also contain mythologic and metaphoric language that troubles moderns. Empirical approaches validate the wisdom attained by yogis and restate it in objective language, which helps us accept the truth of it.

Furthermore, the neuroscience perspective gives us information unavailable to meditators. Two posts back I showed how the idea of competing circuitry can explain the unevenness of our behavior. Looked at in the right way, many experimental findings can be valuable in this way. For instance, we hear about mirror neurons, which fire in the brain when specific actions are performed either by the self or another person. That our systems contain such cells shows how tightly bound we are to one another. Yes, meditative practice suggests the same interconnection, but less verifiably.

Finally, although one goal of meditative practice is escape from affliction, another is insight. There is no doubt that brain research offers us profound information about who and what we are. The brain is by no means an entire personality, but it is a big part of one. By understanding our nervous systems, we understand ourselves.

When I am feeling down these days, I sometimes visualize my dense, twining circuitry busily churning out electrochemical signals within my skull. Pondering deeply on this view of my mind, I understand in a concrete way why yogis refer to the world as Maya, or illusion. There is undoubtedly something real outside our bodies, but what we experience within are scenes manufactured by billions of interconnected neurons. Does it make sense, knowing that, to believe that a particular emotion is catastrophic? How could one seriously contemplate suicide knowing aberrant neural circuitry to be the ultimate origin of suffering? Why should one feel afflicted at all?

In fact, with that understanding held in mind, any state at all can be viewed in a detached and admiring way. What a privilege to experience the workings of this marvelous living brain, this complex organic structure, while embraced by the whole of the biosphere. Appreciating our true situation allows us to dwell in the body with wise detachment, at once dispassionate and tender. Enlightenment is thus informed by both meditative explorations and experimental findings. We are privileged to have access to these two sources of understanding. Dare I say we are blessed?

>> Share on Facebook
>>

The Value of Mixed Methods was published on November 27th, 2011 . 5 comments






The Ins & Outs of Mental Health

This a science, mental health, and spirituality blog. It says so right in the site’s header, so it must be true. Yet before now I’ve never explicitly linked the three.

Science is an analytic system that describes the world on the basis of observation, theory, and experiment. Spirituality is also based on observing, theorizing, and testing. In the former case we use physical instruments to query the external, material world; in the latter we use meditation to explore the interior space of mind.

Science would claim that mind is purely explainable on the basis of matter; religion would disagree. But for the moment let’s accept the claim that mind is a product of matter, with the proviso that we consider the shadowy quantum realm in the equation. With that step, matter contains enough ‘magic’ to account for the experiences of mystics and saints. (This is a controversial point that I’ve addressed in this earlier post, among many others.)

With this as our basis, we now recognize two legitimate modes for investigating mental life. Science looks at mind from the outside, whereas meditation looks from within. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. Although the book I mentioned last time (A Universe of Consciousness, by Edelman and Tononi), dismisses the introspective approach at the outset, this seems to me shortsighted. Fortunately, many other experts understand the value of combining interior exploration with exterior experimentation. The Dalai Lama regularly convenes gatherings of meditators and open-minded neuroscientists in order to dovetail the vast knowledge banks possessed by the two camps.

Last time I attributed the saltatory nature of personal growth to competing neural circuits. This shows how the scientific method can help us negotiate freedom from mental distress. But numerous other essays have drawn on my personal explorations of inner space through meditation. Mental health really does connect with both science and spirituality.

Why do I bother to write a whole post about this rather obvious fact? Because we are witnessing a revolution in mental health care that owes its genesis to the merging of the two realms. The best psychotherapists now stress the importance of spirituality, while the faithful increasingly turn to science to better understand human distress.

Our culture did not invent psychiatric turmoil; since the dawn of humanity people have endured pain and sorrow. And since all distress is experienced in the mind (even physical pain is mediated by the brain), all suffering can be considered a form of mental illness. The Buddha grappled with this dilemma twenty-five centuries ago, and Hindu sages worked on it even earlier. These traditions explain the workings of the mind in great detail, and also suggest how we can restructure mental processes to reduce psychic discomfort. Significantly, modern neuroscience shows layering within brain processes that is consistent with Eastern views, providing evidence that the two methods truly do investigate the same phenomena from different sides.

Combining interior knowledge with scientific understanding promises potent solutions for the pains of life. By merging science and spirituality, the mental health world is on the verge of decisively answering many psychiatric problems. My hope is that the historical antagonism between materialist and spiritualist views will not delay this welcome trend.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

The Ins & Outs of Mental Health was published on November 26th, 2011 . 3 comments






All Roads Lead…

“Howsoever men try to worship Me, so do I welcome them. By whatever path they travel, it leads to Me at last.”

The Bhagavad Gita

The last pair of posts presents, as reader KC puts it, “two sides of the same coin.” In the first essay, I stated pretty strongly the case for not trying to explain depression. In the second, I discussed a reader’s differing viewpoint. Lynn had described how searching low moods for underlying causes can help dissipate them. Although I see problems with that tactic when unskillfully applied, there is no doubt it can sometimes help.

So which do I believe: that listing reasons for depression is harmful? Or that rooting out hidden conflicts can help elevate mood? Hopefully, everyone can see that the answer is: both.

This points to a larger truth. In fact, I think the discussion highlights one of the largest and most unacknowledged truths of human life: two contradictory viewpoints are often both correct. Would that more politicians, religious leaders, and family members could embrace this fact.

The rational mind automatically sets up yes/no dichotomies. Should I be a doctor, or not? Should I marry this girl, or not? Should I quit my job, or not? When applied to situations where we are forced to pursue or reject an option, the logic makes sense. It works when we talk about single and discrete actions.

But most actions are not single and discrete, but multiple and deeply embedded. If we consider thinking, we can see how every moment we are choosing new thoughts. We don’t just ponder once about an episode of depression; we mull it over many times for as long as it lasts. Further, our internal dialogue is entangled in a complicated web of personal beliefs and social contracts. We need to consider all factors when choosing a mental strategy.

So the choice isn’t between trying to explain mood states, or not. The mature person considers both possibilities, and selects the most promising path at every moment. There is no universally right answer. There is only the approach that offers the best chance for growth for a given person, in a given setting, at a given time.

The necessity to keep options open, and entertain seemingly conflicting truths, extends to most areas of life. We’ve seen an example of how it applies to coping with depression. But the principle applies in many real-life situations, and especially those concerning spirituality.

Experienced mystics often abandon efforts to explain transcendent truths in words. They resort to metaphors, parables, and silence. Ultimate reality only confuses us when we try to comprehend it in rational terms. Consider how the question of God’s existence seems, on the surface, to be a simple yes-no question that should have a single answer. And indeed, neither atheists nor fundamentalists have trouble settling the issue. But anyone who contemplates the matter deeply finds contradiction at every turn. The committed seeker must either choose among opposing beliefs, or work to stretch the mind around irreconcilable possibilities.

Does God exist? I honestly believe the best answer is the one presented in an earlier post: Yes and No. We habitually think in terms of yes or no, but the universe is not so simple. It defies gross reductions in every area of discourse and concern. To achieve peak maturity and lasting peace, we need to understand and accept all sides of conflicts, opposites, and mystery.

Yes and no. Yes and no. We should make up a new word to combine the opposing poles of Boolean logic. Only then will we be able to talk without disagreeing, whether about mental health or metaphysics.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

All Roads Lead… was published on November 16th, 2011 . 5 comments






The Evolutionary Spirit

Why did our minds evolve with the capacity to go mad? Why are our emotions capable of disabling us? Why did we end up with feelings at all?

Let’s start with the last question. When evolutionary biologists study emotion, they usually ask about its survival value. What is it that makes feelings useful to a creature’s reproductive success?

This approach troubles me, because it suggests (implicitly) that animals might just as well have evolved as heartless robots, devoid of any true investment in life. The only reason for feelings in this style of evolutionary logic is that they increased mammalian ability to foster viable offspring. And note that the word mammalian is not arbitrary. Such hypotheses generally go on to assert that reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates are devoid of meaningful emotion. Which, if you think about it, is another way of saying they don’t care about their lives.

But as I’ve pointed out in another post, even spiders seem pretty insistent on their preference for living over dying. So-called lower animals don’t appear robotic and unaffected. They behave quite passionately when their survival is threatened. Could it be that feelings aren’t just utilitarian, but fundamental to life?

Consider next how this reductionist style of evolutionary reasoning gets applied to psychiatric conditions. How does this rubric explain the persistence of mental afflictions in human populations? After all, psychiatric conditions strike during reproductive years and carry a significant mortality rate (possibly as high as 20% for bipolar conditions). If we argue by selection, we must conclude that the reproductive benefits outweigh the risks.

What are the positive qualities that accompany mental instability? Here we start by considering that intellectual and artistic abilities might have evolved because they increase a mate’s desirability. The idea is that the cavemen who could paint evocative bisons had more success with the cave-ladies. Those who created also procreated.

Then remember that mental health conditions occur more commonly among artists and visionaries. Could the persistence of madness result from its tendency to increase creative output, not to mention reproductive drive?

It’s a reasonable argument, and probably one with some underlying truth. But to me it seems a surprisingly uninspired view of inspired lunacy. It sounds like something a bureaucrat would think up.

And in fact, one criticism of Darwinian theory has always been that it suits capitalists. Bean-counters like “survival of the fittest,” because it justifies the hoarding of beans. To say that passion, creative drive, and wild thinking evolved through better baby-making may not be wrong, but it may leave out mysterious and vital undercurrents in human life.

Let’s imagine, momentarily, that there is more to the cosmos than the material realm. It could be, after all, that mystical forces affect our lives. In which case we might expect that some of our qualities result from influences other than competitive insemination and over-protective child-rearing. We might have lessons to learn, for instance. Maybe some human qualities arose to help us evolve in the spiritual rather than biological sense.

So could it be that mental health problems are serving a higher purpose? Just possibly, the pain of psychiatric distress serves to break down egos and open minds to realms beyond the physical. Maybe “mental illnesses” are not as disastrous as many believe. Maybe they are Grace in formation.

If that were true, and I admit to wild (creative?) speculation here, we would be completely misguided in trying to suppress such conditions. By doing so, we would be robbing people of their chances for growth. We’d be better advised to help the potent energies of psychiatric distress play out in safe and instructive ways.

Unfortunately, the choice in current society is all-too-often between medication and alienation. Or between hospitalization and jail. Inner turmoil no longer has any chance of creating shamans or prophets, because we drug down or lock up anyone who deviates too far from the claustrophobic modern mold.

This is the danger of accepted wisdom. Everyone assumes that natural selection is the sole element at play in evolution only because that’s what everyone assumes. While selection is no doubt a potent force, it has not been proven to be the only influence on evolution, and many scientific facts suggest that we need a more encompassing theory. Postulating purposeful nudges that supervene among the changes sculpted by selection would resolve the evidentiary problems in conventional evolutionary theory. (These nudges wouldn’t necessarily require an omnipotent deity, but could arise as part of the natural self-organization of the cosmos—but this is a topic for another essay.)

Yes, it may be that feelings, madness, artistry, and the like can all be explained in terms of robotic animals competing for resources and mates. But let’s at least admit that richer and more interesting possibilities remain. Until they have been ruled out, we are neither scientific nor inspired if we dismiss them from consideration. And if other explanations deserve attention, then so do other treatment models. If mental conditions are meant to teach us, our society should honor rather than abhor them, and our psychiatric care should promote rather than hinder their flowering.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

The Evolutionary Spirit was published on November 10th, 2011 .






A Crazy Camp Idea

What if instead of psychiatric hospitals, we created spirit-healing camps?

Not long ago I wrote a post proposing that Mental Health Day be renamed Spiritual Health Day. In that essay I explained how it seems to me that spiritual malady would be a more accurate and less damaging label than mental illness. With that in mind, I submit we should work to create crisis centers that nurture the soul.

Whenever people felt crushed by unrelenting sorrow, or burned with too much energy for normal life, or heard persecuting voices, or felt like God’s chosen child, they would be offered escape to a pleasant retreat in the countryside. Once onsite, they could work in an organic garden, or staff the stables, or help build a new lodge. They could ride horses, paddle in canoes, and play frisbee on the lawn.

They could come and go when they pleased. They would learn about the brain, and about psychiatric problems, but they would also hear how mental conditions have been positively viewed by other cultures. They could attend meditation sessions, practice a spiritual tradition if they chose, and they could make art of all kinds. Groups would play music and sing in the evenings. There would be no television, and no computers, but lots of books and endless craft supplies.

The tenants could choose whether to stay in dormitory-style lodges or camp alone in the wild. They would be encouraged to keep regular hours, to exercise, and to participate, but they would never be coerced. And each day a bus would arrive to bring in newcomers and let those who wanted to depart go home.

Those who felt in contact with mystical forces would be guided by spiritually advanced peers who had passed through similar gates. Those who wanted to talk about their problems could meet in groups. Others could journal on their own. Attendees would learn about the inspired but troubled minds of Mozart, Lincoln, Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Plath, and many more. They would be taught to harness the positive aspects of their condition and minimize the negative. They would be guided by others like themselves instead of ‘normal’ professionals. A prerequisite for employment on the grounds would be direct experience with personal or familial psychiatric distress.

Medications would be available, maybe, but they would be voluntary only, and prescribed by doctors who understood the dangers of pharmaceuticals. There would be just as much emphasis on bodily as on mental care. Aerobics, yoga, Qi Gong, running, and many other physical activities would be offered. The camp would emphasize good food, socialization, and fun. At the same time, anyone who needed solitude could readily find it.

People would be asked to securely store their valuables prior to entry, so there would be no concern about theft or jealousy. And if anyone became unacceptably disruptive, the worst consequence would be a bus ride back out.

Perhaps this sounds too utopian to ever be realized, but there have been several programs along these lines over the years. Unfortunately, few have persisted and the model has not spread. The Quakers rejected dungeons in favor of humane asylums long ago, but in an era when few knew how to manage powerful mental states or transform them into positive experiences. Nowadays reimbursement issues and the dominance of drug companies have produced the modern mental ward, complete with little paper drug cups and heavy steel doors.

The new model might succeed where earlier experiments broke down, because it would emphasize management by those who had been through psychic torment but grew beyond it. This would not be a paternalistic asylum, but a fraternal refuge. The staff would not be guards, but guides. Without enforced confinement, with little reliance on drugs, and in a rustic setting, costs could be minimized.

Perhaps I’ll be accused of living in a dreamworld, but the vision of a naturalistic healing center has been on my mind since childhood. Why must mental health care be administered in sterile hospitals? It’s not like psychiatric problems are transmitted by germs.

We don’t lock the grieving widow in a mental ward because she feels overwhelmed by sadness. We take her to a chapel, surround her with friends and family, and honor her departed husband. When people die we use the inevitable emotional turmoil as the pivot for a ceremony calling Grace into the world.

Or consider that when people feel powerfully moved at weddings we don’t hand out Ativan; we encourage the full expression of Bliss.

When emotion occurs in a group setting it becomes a shared and sacred event. Even tragedies like earthquakes and terrorist attacks bring this quality to light. Look at the rituals and monuments built around 9/11.

So why can’t we use the same tactic to deal with the isolated breakdowns and breakthroughs that occur sporadically every day in every culture? Why not emphasize the power of these experiences rather than their pathology? Why not offer the suffering a setting where they can be safe while they rattle their mental cages and seek a path toward peace?

Mental turmoil can be used as the base metal for an alchemical transformation of spirit. Agony can turn to insight with the right support. Maybe what I’m suggesting isn’t the best answer, but to me it sounds better than Bedlam.

>> Share on Facebook
>>

A Crazy Camp Idea was published on November 9th, 2011 . 9 comments






Archives