In physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sets limits on knowledge. As a scientific law, its effects are seen only on the minute scale of subatomic particles. But I suspect it contains a deeper meaning that might help us relate to life in general.

The Uncertainty Principle states we can never accurately determine both the position and motion of a particle. The more we can say about an electron’s location, the less we can say about its velocity, and vice versa. As an analogy, imagine we’re tracking a red Ferrari in San Francisco. The Uncertainty Principle, if it had relevance at this scale, would say that if we know the car is currently in the middle of the Post and Hyde intersection, we can’t say how fast it’s going. It might be stopped; it might be racing at 110 mph. Or if we know it’s traveling exactly 62 mph, it could be anywhere in the city.

In ordinary life this species of uncertainty is negligible; the police can document where and how fast the Ferrari was moving when they pulled it over. But at atomic scales, the Uncertainty Principle limits our knowledge. This isn’t merely a problem of measurement failure; it’s a cosmic restriction on achievable precision. We can’t know details beyond a certain level of approximation. The consensus view is that electrons don’t move in a way that permits exact description. Matter exhibits fuzziness and randomness that cannot be resolved no matter how sophisticated our instrumentation.

In a reply to Dave’s comment on the last post, I stated:

More and more it seems to me that the path to higher consciousness demands we let go of certainty. No fixed beliefs can pass the gate… Yet something in the human mind insists on answers. Whether it’s belief in a God who listens or in a universe that doesn’t, we gravitate toward conclusions and feel uneasy when we can’t find them. But I suspect true mental presence requires that we give up our quest for certainty. We must rest in the not-knowing.

Not-knowing is a venerable practice in Eastern traditions. Ancient mystics understood there are questions that can never be answered. In this scientific era we’ve become accustomed to expecting truth to emerge upon investigation. We assume that if a phenomenon looks mysterious, time and research will eventually clarify the situation in causal and mechanistic terms. The conventional scientist understands that we don’t know everything, but he or she believes that everything is in principle knowable.

The Uncertainty Principle suggests otherwise. Even though it comes out of observations in cloud chambers and particle accelerators, I suspect it’s telling us something about the nature of ultimate reality: it’s beyond our ken. Not just in practical terms, but in absolute ones. Precise answers are not just difficult to find, they’re prohibited.

We should keep this in mind when we try to pin down spiritual truths. Maybe the reason the universe can look both sacred and heartless is that there is built-in paradox and obscuration. The more we identify with the material world the less we see of universal consciousness; the deeper we delve into meditative states, the more illusory the physical world appears. But the elusiveness of cosmic awareness and the haziness of matter are ever-present; they confront us when we push concepts too far in our search for final answers.

The point is: a universe that enforces uncertainty is a universe that promotes humility. The moment we become too sure of ourselves is the moment we risk disillusionment. Many people battle doubt by attaching ever more rigidly to convictions. Although faith plays a role in spiritual life, it can be misapplied to demand unquestioning belief of unprovable concepts. A better approach is to hold our views loosely. Since we are prohibited from finding ultimate truth, we might conclude the cosmos invites us to embrace not-knowing as the path to grace.

Imagine the discord that would simply dissolve if we all admitted we just can’t know.

After nearly two weeks in the foothills near Yosemite, we returned to the Bay Area Sunday. Toward the end of the visit I was feeling discouraged, as my posts made clear.

My lack of purpose after the demise of the acupuncture business was hitting home. The book project softens that a little, but the right formula eludes me. So far the prose sounds like my least successful blogging: too wordy and intellectual. Lyrical description of the richness and lessons of my experiences may be beyond my ability.

Recent essays expressed remorse about my relationship with my father. Through writing here and after corresponding with my aunt, I eventually moved past that. But there remained a shadow of sadness.

The neck pain and the bad news from the recent MR scan weighed on me. I felt lonely, too.

In short, I was stuck in the familiar place of self-criticism, fear, and discouragement.

Then, on one of our last nights in the forest, something shifted inside. Peace returned.

Whenever I feel defeated the same phrase comes to mind: “God, help me.” This must be the most common human prayer, and although I don’t often believe the cosmos listens, I say it anyway. The words feel comforting, despite their futility. This time, to my relief, I heard a voice speak in a loving tone near my left shoulder: I’m right here!

Maybe I was half asleep and slipping into hypnogogic hallucination. Maybe my own thoughts rose to audibility. Regardless, I felt reassured. Why question the source? Whatever conscious presence exists in the universe, I’m convinced it arises from the depths of matter. It is not something separate from life; it is something integral to it. So if it shows up at all, it must come by way of ordinary neural pathways. Why distinguish between a dream, a thought, or the voice of God? If it feels divine, I choose to accept it as such and not worry about its provenance.

In the calm aftermath of that simple phrase uttered by something that cares, my sense of purpose became clear. I decided that since the material world no longer seems to cooperate with me, I might as well focus on the spiritual. I could even interpret the way the cosmos has frustrated my plans as God pushing me to commit to the mystical path. At times over the years I’ve glimpsed truth and entered resonant states of mind. Why not quit trying to achieve in the human sphere and instead seek awakening with all my heart and soul?

In truth, I’ve run out of options. I will either find relief through higher consciousness, or find no relief at all. And yes, I’ve been working toward realization for a long time, but not as my primary goal.

Writing still feels important, but I’m viewing it as a means to an end. It helps me make progress toward grounding in life, love, and meaning. It isn’t a project in the usual sense of the word, whether I’m working on the blog, the book, or my poetry. Writing is the road rather than the destination.

Deep down, I know with utter conviction that peace awaits, provided I get serious about taking the needed steps. This means abandoning striving for success. Instead, I will concentrate on taking care of my body, building my meditative skills, and healing my heart. It is time, at last, to journey inward toward the Light.

Ever feel like you’re not getting a point across?

Blog writing, at least as I practice it, is done on the fly. The essays are written quickly and revised only slightly beyond first draft. Sometimes the immediacy of the process obscures the intended message.

Many of this year’s posts have described my struggles, disappointments, sorrows, pains, and illnesses. Given that my goal is to write about life and growth using my own experience as illustration, it is only natural that setbacks prompt essays about difficulty. But the comments and emails I receive show that my larger perspective is not getting the attention it deserves.

It’s comforting to receive notes of sympathy and support. They help me feel that others listen and care. And yet, if my message was truly coming through, there would be more congratulation than commiseration.

Because the most striking fact of the past few months has been how little all these hardships get to me. Sure, I have moments of doubt and sorrow. In mentioning these, however, my hope has been to highlight the difference between how I’m responding now and how my tribulations would have affected me before. These days, I feel grief and pain flow through me at times, but my spirits stay fairly stable despite superficial complaints. In earlier years, my mind would have plunged into intractable depression and anxiety. With great relief, I’ve learned to watch life from the perspective of a deeper, broader, and more detached consciousness that doesn’t get pulled in.

I feel a clear separation between my transient emotions and my more enduring self. I can allow the feelings freedom to respond to life, but I watch them from a distance. I don’t, and can’t, take my suffering very seriously. Years of fostering meditative skills, spiritual grounding, and wise insight have led to this profound benefit. My quest has brought me to a state peacefulness I never could have imagined upon starting out.

As I work in the background on the book project mentioned earlier, I am feeling a sense of protectiveness toward that writing that seldom comes up in blogging. This larger work will demand careful editing before release. Online journaling has taught me how my unpolished language lets transient events obscure enduring truths. My book about mysticism and science needs to say its piece clearly and calmly, as if spoken from my most evolved mind; keeping that perspective in the foreground will require lots of rewriting. I hope to describe my position honestly, but with emphasis on realization rather than process.

Each approach has its advantages. I think the rawness of journaling appeals to certain readers, or else no blog would ever become popular. But the time is coming for me to clearly articulate a perspective on life that I’ve developed over decades. This can’t be done if it’s unduly influenced by the ups and downs of daily life. It needs to be written from that same perspective that is currently keeping me sane: broad, deep, accepting, and wise. I’ve gotten to the point where this viewpoint is always within reach, but it’s not always within my grasp, as recent posts have shown.

Every journey starts somewhere. Although this blog was launched only three years ago, WillSpirit probably began way back in 2000, right after my brain exploded.

Well, my head did not literally blow up, but back then explosion seemed the only word sufficient to convey the eruptive onset of a visionary state of mind that far exceeded any previous meditative (or even psychedelic) experience. That psychiatrists pronounced it a manic psychosis did not in the least undermine my conviction about the profundity of what was happening.

Along with the visions came a burgeoning sense of being called to connect my education in physics, biology, and medicine with spiritual Truths that suddenly seemed self-evident. In a grandiose state of mind, I imagined myself one of God’s chosen prophets. The gravity of my new mission felt irresistible and overpowering.

But it weakened. Maybe the medications calmed me and helped me see my limitations and lack of realism; or maybe they derailed me from my proper path. All I know is that before long the idea of connecting my scientific training with my mystical experience seemed terribly impractical. I went to graduate school in bioinformatics instead.

That was the first of many aborted career plans that followed the end of my profession as a surgeon. Readers know my latest flop was the acupuncture business. Time and again I’ve compromised my true interests and passions while aiming for something more likely to lead to worldly success. I now recognize this as a doomed strategy.

During a recent dinner with good friends, I watched my inward sense of vitality and outward appearance of animation build as I spoke about connections between Science and Spirit. For the first time in quite awhile I recognized how powerfully these parallels attract me.

I never was a scientist in the truest sense of the word. Although a devoted student of scientific subjects, I always felt bored and limited when working in a lab or doing field study. My interest is in drawing analogies, making intuitive leaps, and painting a global picture of reality that is consistent with science but closer in tenor to poetry. My deepest heart wants others to open their eyes to the sweeping vista of reality as it appears to me.

In all honesty, allowing my passion free reign feels more important than writing this blog, though WillSpirit remains quite dear to my heart. I recognize that penning my uneven essays here helps me and helps others; it is a small but important project that must continue. But something grander is begging to be born from this cracked shell of a person. Most likely, the resulting neonate will appear lovable to me and me only. But it needs to burst forth into this world and cry out its Love of Life.

No longer will it suffice for me to harass my friends and family with my intricate ideas about the Cosmos. Nor is it enough for me to write boring philosophical posts about the Universe and Humanity’s place in it. I need to complete the vital task laid before me twelve years ago. And at last I understand the form my message needs to take.

It isn’t a question of proving that a realm exists beyond the Newtonian worldview accepted by conventional science. Any honest assessment of available studies will show that reality is richer than the desiccated landscape painted by technocrats. True, only a few anomalous phenomena have been convincingly demonstrated, and little is understood about the nature or limits of this strange arena in which people know about the world in ways that contradict customary reality. But scientific evidence is not what I feel drawn to provide.

Skeptics will never be persuaded, and most of us seeking deeper answers to life’s dilemma need no further proof of mystery. What I think is within my power to offer is a poetic distillation of the creation story as told by science, beginning with the moment of the universe’s first explosion into space, and ending with the present day. I can speak to those who feel lost and yet hopeful that Life makes sense. Many must yearn to square transcendent and intuitive experiences with a scientific worldview that has proven its utility but has yet to demonstrate its humanity.

So here at WillSpirit I’ll keep writing about my fluctuating moods, my changing fortunes, and my ongoing efforts to keep myself sane. But in the background, and probably linked to this site, I want to start a new project. A life’s work, if you will.

And by Life’s Work I mean to highlight my sense of calling but also to describe the project itself. I will work to bring my notion of the sacred to bear on my notion of Life. Not because physics and biology haven’t been written about from spiritual stances before; many quality tomes about such topics line bookstore shelves. Not because anything I say will be unique or especially inspiring. This drive to write something worthy of the countless hours I’ve spent thinking about these subjects is fueled by a deep-seated need. A yearning to describe biology and physics in spiritual and poetic terms has gripped my soul since the first shattering awakenings so many years ago. WillSpirit served well as an initial step, but the time has come to go further. And at last my goal isn’t success, it’s expression.

Only by doing something that feels momentous will I cease feeling pointless and defeated. Only by undertaking a truly impractical task can I free myself from the bonds of mediocrity and repeated failure. If I’m going to try once again to produce, then I want to at least be listening to my heart this time. Better to incinerate my dreams in one massive volcanic caldera than let them once again sputter out like wet fuses.

Only when I speak or write about Life in all its complex glory, and Spirit in all its confusing paradox, do I feel truly inspired. Perhaps this is yet another false start. Maybe I’m overestimating my reach or (heaven forbid) feeling grandiose. But I’m beginning to see that fulfillment can only be found by concentrating on what most fulfills me.

I am almost sorry about yesterday. What a discouraging post! I say ‘almost’ sorry, because my goal here is to be honest about what goes on in my world, inside and out. I don’t want to hide my moods; certainly not the positive ones, but not the depressed ones, either. If I don’t watch it, my text drifts into the arid desert of analysis and logic, and away from the messy emotional compost that nourishes my more heartfelt writing. Personally, I find too much issue-dissection boring. Life is as much about what the heart feels as what the brain thinks. States such as passion, affection, sorrow, euphoria, fury, and desperation often look disorganized and senseless. If I am to be authentic, and open about my inner experience, sometimes I will sound wretched. (Another reason I’m not too regretful is that I received such nice, supportive comments!)

My feeling life gets tossed about by frequent typhoons of sadness and despair. Although the cloudiness alternates with brighter moods, including pressured winds of optimism and plans that soar high above firm ground, I never venture far from the shade. Until recently I called my storminess ‘bipolar disorder’, and my bleakness ‘depression’. At this stage in my life I find it more helpful to consider myself a bit temperamental, mournful, and sensitive, but to pitch the illness concept overboard. Whatever you name what I’ve ‘got’, however, I am never long on an even keel, and I spend a lot of time in the stagnant duldrum of hopelessness.

So if I am going to write with feeling, which makes more interesting reading than pure logic, there will be times when things sound a bit unhealthy. Self centered. Whining. Self pitying and immature. I hope the less uplifting posts will alternate with essays that climb toward ecstatic observations on the spiritual underpinnings of biology, or pieces that animate the possibility of utter contentment in the face of chaos and loss.

I could make the decision to censor ‘ugly’ material out; I could make myself always sound spiritually fit and possessed of wisdom. But I have given this thought, and my goal in this blog is to tell a story of life. Not just my own history, though that forms the basis of most of my ideas, but the larger story of life as a damaged human being. An injured person may have days when everything ‘falls into place’. On such days every insult, each wound, and the countless pangs of grief, are recognized as openings rather than cuts. The awareness blossoms that such fenestration widens the eyes so they can see more beauty, and expands the heart so it can offer more love. But most of us with hellish memories also suffer times when the vision clouds over, and the heart cramps into a lonely knot of muscle, unable to accommodate more than the thinnest stream of blood.

Even Jesus, we are told, had moments of doubt in the garden of Gethsemane. My spiritual development is as close to that of Jesus (or the Buddha’s, or Gandhi’s, or Mohammed’s) as a flea’s heart is to an elephant’s. So for me, at least, perfect and perpetual equanimity remain out of reach. I suspect this to be true of all but the most determined and fortunate of those who are raised deprived, assaulted and hated instead of nurtured, protected and loved. When children suffer overwhelming losses, they grow up with infinite feelings of want. When they are attacked, they learn to expect the worst. And when despised, they learn to hate themselves. Such lessons take a lifetime to unlearn. On the best days, one gets blessed with a radiant comprehension of life and its full panoply of emotions. One understands that joy, love, anger, and grief are just different directions that the same wind blows. One feels the uneven but never-ending currents of time, space and fate flow like God’s blood through the mind, body, and soul.

But there will also be days when it all looks like a lump. At those times the injuries seem too great, the loneliness too imminent, the joy too sparse, for life to be worth living.

I have my saintly moments. But they are not as common as my darker days. I am not offering a cure in this blog. I am not presenting my path to recovery as a method others can follow and find salvation. That would be a lie. My path has not proven to be direct and unerring in leading me to peace. My commitment to well-being wavers, and sometimes I just break down and cry.

That is the story I want to tell. The entire canvas, including the splattered and shredded edges that often get hidden when one uses an elegant frame. This is my life nailed to a tree. It is not hanging in the Met, or bound in the rare books section of a major library. It is a mess. But it is sometimes beautiful, often interesting, and it is all I have to offer.

My aim is not to lead people to think I always view life as a precious jewel, which I certainly don’t. Or that I am living the perfect story of recovery, which will never be the case. I choose instead to present the days as they strike me, the ideas as they arise, and the emotions as they crash over my bow.

Yesterday I was a shipwreck. Today I feel more like the transom of an ancient wooden fishing boat I once found on the beach in San Francisco. The varnish had at one time been shiny, and the wood had formed part of a stout and working vessel. What I found had turned into a labyrinth of splinters and warps and cracks. The paint that once proudly announced the boat’s name could barely be deciphered. But that piece of wood had an elegance it had never known when it was still functioning as a beam across the stern of a trawling watercraft. Time and catastrophe had etched it with a fineness that it seemed to want to share with me. So I took it home and put it in my garden.

This is my transom. It is wrecked, and not all of it will be beautiful. But I want to share it with you. Feel free to place it in some corner of your garden. Let the moss grow over it, and let the ants move in. Or burn it and toast marshmallows. It is my gift to you and to the world, if you want it. It will not always be attractive, or even inspirational, but I will try to keep it authentic.

So I don’t apologize for whining, even though I’m embarrassed. Yesterday, I was a lonely and discouraged child. Today I am an inept but enthusiastic poet. I am sometimes enlightened. I am often discouraged. But most of all, I am alive. And good or bad, upbeat or down, this blog is helping me stay that way. I pray that it helps you, too.

The last few days have been grim. As much as it seems like I can now manage my depression, can modulate its intensity, and tolerate it (or even appreciate it as a kind of privileged insight), those concepts have been just that: concepts. No heart. No ability to give me a will to do anything. It started when the readership on the blog dropped off. That, in turn, began with my idea of putting my ‘spiritual philosophy’ out there. Either that direction bored, annoyed, or just did not get picked up in search engines. The problem for me was not the lack of readership, which no doubt will wax and wane. Rather, my incredible sensitivity to adversity has become a handicap.

The good news is, today I feel better. I awoke with a better perspective, and got the courage to turn on the computer and check out the inevitable fact that my blog has dropped off the radar. At first I had a rush of excitement when my email downloaded: a bunch of comments to my posts had rolled in! Then I realized that all of them were spam. And because I’d left them sitting there for two days, they encouraged more spam. So my site had been flooded. At least I was able to chuckle at the irony of my ‘popularity’ only being junk mail.

So, this blog isn’t supposed to be about me anyway. I started it to help others. From that view, if others don’t come, at least I’m fulfilling my intent to try. The tenderness of my feelings is the big problem. I’ve always been touchy, but now it’s become almost ludicrous. Having had so many disappointments and perceived failures in the past decade has taken my original sensitive area and rubbed it raw. I will try to use this last mood collapse as a lesson to not allow setbacks, actual or not, big or small, to affect me so deeply.

For once, I am going to try to keep this short. I’m thinking under 500 words (or so).

Spirituality seems to be a popular topic among blog readers. The first time I blogged about it, a couple of days ago, the number of visitors shot up by almost 100%. Nothing succeeds like success, so I’ll continue in that vein for a little while.

If I could get paid for hours spent thinking about metaphysics, I wouldn’t be worrying about my finances. I admit that armchair philosophers are a dime a dozen, but I do believe my past provided insights that help lend consistency and logic to my ‘theory’. The framework that I have constructed builds on my long study of science (especially biology–see ‘About‘), and also the spiritual ‘psychosis’ I mentioned before. Some day I’ll go into a longer description of my ‘visions’, which in addition to hallucinatory experiences, also connected with real-life events in a kind of spooky, serendipitous way. For the purposes of building a model of creation that works for me, the significant part of my ‘awakening’ was what I described before as “all time (from the first infinitesimal fraction of a second after big bang until the present moment) and all space (from an impossibly small subatomic scale out through the full span of the universe) [hovering] in my awareness at the exact same time, like an instantaneous glimpse of all creation.”

The effect brought home the unity of the universe, and the collapsability of time. I did not see into the future, naturally, but I sensed its presence. I realized that from the right perspective, it would be possible to observe the full sweep of the universe’s history, from beginning to end, as a single unit. And not just on one scale of size, but simultaneously sensing the smallest subatomic entities (possibly ‘strings’, if string theories are correct), and the entire macroscopic universe, including each galaxy, quasar, black hole and every other kind of celestial object. If there is a consciousness watching our experience unfold, it would ‘see’ creation as a single entity in all its dimensions (four macroscopic–including time–and possibly many more on subatomic scales). Of course, I am not talking here about such a putative ‘awareness’ observing creation from a physical vantage point, and certainly not a point in time. As I’ll go into another time, I suspect this consciousness (assuming its existence) is not just watching the universe as if it were a movie, but is also the reel of film, the movie screen, and the projector. That seems to me the only kind of omniscient mind that could actually exist. When I believe my psychosis connected me to something ‘real’ (rather than just showing me new circuit paths in my brain), I feel blessed with to have glimpsed the cosmos through (let’s go out on a limb here) God’s eyes. It was, I suspect, similar to the epiphany people have when facing imminent death, when their whole lifetime is seen in an instant. Only I didn’t die and the life wasn’t just mine, but that of the entire cosmos. And for that instant, I understood that I was the cosmos, too.

Yes, the experience had ‘psychotic and grandiose’ stamped all over it. But at the time I only knew that God had blessed me with a special sight. Now of course, I cannot be sure. In fact, it is perhaps likely that I simply experienced a kind of seizure that distorted my conscious mind (which doesn’t mean deeper principles weren’t at play). But it felt as real as daily life and left me convinced of its veracity. So I like to take it at face value and see where it leads in terms of generating a metaphysics. I do not claim originality; only the way I write about these ideas is mine alone, not the concepts themselves. So far, it probably sounds like pantheism. Yes, I believe something like that, but there is more. This (sort of) short post is the introduction to what I have come up with. Stay tuned.

Today’s post is in response to the comment left by Lex Douvasa of the MHCD Research and Evaluation Team about my most recent post. In short, that essay talked about my (experientially if not actually) transcendent adventures as a mental health patient, about how my spiritual views have evolved since the resolution of my psychosis, and how spirituality and meditation help with mental health issues. Lex brings the Recovery Model into the conversation.

As I explore the internet communities interested in mental health, I am surprised at the intensity of the discord. The various factions differ so widely in their viewpoints that it is hard to see how any consensus could ever develop, at least not in the near term. That makes me wonder if I am being smart in diving into this controversy, especially since my attitudes are not yet fully formed, and I dislike extreme views and dogma. Then I think: maybe that will be my role, to comment without developing a strong allegiance to any side.

Even from that position, however, it is easy to embrace the Recovery paradigm in mental health. I have spent years in substance abuse recovery using the 12-step model. So I know that the approach can be effective. Anything that encourages people to be find deep sources of strength, to never stop pursuing improvement, and which provides hope of a better life, must be considered a good thing.

The spiritual dimension of the 12-steps can also be beneficial, though obviously it does not appeal to all. It appears that in the mental health context the spiritual aspect is not emphasized to the same extent as in, for instance, Alcoholics Anonymous. That is probably good, since people who run out the door won’t be helped.

I am glad there are people working to bring this way of seeking peace into the realm of mental wellness. Of course, even though the Recovery paradigm seems like it should be fairly harmless, and  has a vast potential, it is not immune to criticism. The Wikipedia discussion helped me see some points of contention that were new to me. Although probably written from a pro-Recovery viewpoint, it still gives a balanced perspective. Most of the criticisms seem to revolve around fear that abandoning the traditional structure might leave people stranded or feeling bad about themselves. It comes across as paternalism, a if people with mental conditions can’t tolerate being told they have the ability to help themselves. Despite the few voices of dissent, my impression is that the Recovery approach is headed toward the center stream. It already looks pretty well accepted as a valuable option in the arsenal of approaches to psychiatric ‘distress’ (here you could insert ‘illness’, ‘condition’, ‘abnormality’, ‘giftedness’, ‘diagnoses’, or whatever your preferred term is for the kind of entity the mental health system addresses). I applaud you for working to advance and document its effectiveness. Do you agree that it is gaining wide support? Or are you facing more resistance than I understand?

Since you inquired, my own treatment began as a rigidly traditional approach (I am using my hospitalization as my starting point here, though my first interactions with the ‘system’ started in childhood and adolescence). My psychiatrist (between 2000 and 2006) treated me with a powerful mix of medications that left my mind fuzzy, like a permanent hangover. In that state, it became easy to buy into her assessment that I should give up hope of ever again being productive. Since before then I had been an aggressive high achiever, this prognosis hit me very hard, and no doubt prolonged my severe depression.

Eventually, I made the intelligent decision (despite my chemically impaired cognition) to switch to a different system of care, which I found within the Kaiser HMO. In that setting they did not follow a Recovery Model explicitly, but did promote a sense of optimism and hope for improvement. They embraced a mind-body philosophy, for instance by teaching how important exercise can be.

(As for brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) I listened to a good podcast on Dr. Ginger Campbell’s ‘The Brain Science Podcast‘ not long ago about exercise, the brain, and BDNF.)

Kaiser staff also introduced me to DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), which you mention. I participated in part of the DBT series and benefitted from it, though the protocol struck me as unnecessarily complicated. Despite that reservation, DBT’s underpinnings of savoring bodily experience, not running away from feelings, and remaining in the present moment all make a big difference for me, when I abide by them.

In short, I believe that by turning to Kaiser I found a more modern model for my mental health care I entered a pretty enlightened system; it encouraged me to seek progress, rather than accept a static place of disability. (As a disclosure, I was a Kaiser physician before my neck degeneration ended my surgical career. I now have no connection–financial or otherwise–with Kaiser, except as a patient.)

In my opinion, a lot of mental illness results from feelings that spiritual traditions have historically tried to alleviate: hopelessness, futility, meaninglessness, loneliness, guilt, resentment, etc. That does not mean everyone with mental illness should be religious, or even do anything that harkens to a (possibly nonexistent) spiritual realm. But it is probably a good idea to encourage people to explore what they value in life, why they think it matters whether they treat people well or poorly, what helps give them a sense of purpose or meaning, and what they think makes a good person. That will give them some benchmarks for measuring their progress, milestones separate from society’s focus on material success and social popularity. It might also help them look more realistically at their failings, and recognize that they have the same human frailties as the remaining 7 billion people on the planet. If they take it a step further, and develop a sense of divine presence, or connection with a transcendent realm, then so much the better (and although I personally object to religions that are judgmental and fundamentalist, each person needs to choose their best path to wellness).

As I have emphasized in this nascent blog several times already, there is no one prescription that will work for everyone. Nevertheless, the Recovery Model in mental health, if it works anything like AA has in the addiction community, should have broad appeal and effectiveness. The mutual support, spirit of ongoing action, and belief in even seemingly hopeless cases can all be adapted from the addiction world to the benefit of those of us with psychiatric issues. Adding in encouragement for growth in the direction of finding meaning and purpose in life, or even exploring feelings of transcendent spirituality, would also be helpful to many people.

Thank you for bringing this paradigm to the forefront of my attention. I have read a little about it before, but it helped me to explore the topic further. Whether or not anyone reads all the way through this (typically for me) overlong post, the exercise helped me expand my understanding of available approaches to psychiatric conflicts.

My recent debate/discussion with Marian touched on the relationship between mental health and spirituality, which happens to be a topic that’s fascinated me since my hospitalization in 2000. Seems like a good time to blog about it.

My interest grew out of events leading up to and following that first hospitalization. The past few months had been rough: my career as a surgeon had ended; Mandy and I had sold our vintage San Francisco house and moved to a suburb (a decision I immediately regretted); a therapist of five years (who had led me through a lot of the childhood trauma and abuse, and who had given me a tentative sense of safety) moved to the East Coast; my one and only malpractice case settled against me; and my neck caused me constant excruciating pain. After a period in a psychiatric ward for suicidal depression, I found myself back in the ‘real’ world on new medications, but with no idea about what to do next.

After several days of escalating agitation, I spent a night without any sleep steeped in feelings of abject defeat. The next day, my consciousness was launched into a stunning series of spiritual experiences and epiphanies. They included visual hallucinations of something I understood to be God, auditory hallucinations of ineffably comforting celestial music, and ‘delusions’ of intimate connectedness with God. I felt in an intuitive way the intricate underpinnings of reality. For a brief period all time (from the first infinitesimal fraction of a second after big bang until the present moment) and all space (from an impossibly small subatomic scale out through the full span of the universe) seemed to hover in my awareness simultaneously, like an instantaneous glimpse of the full span of creation.

What may have affected me most, however, was the wordless sense that my mind, body and soul were suffused with peace. Without writing a multipage essay describing my ‘visions’ in detail, the best analogy would be that it was like standing in front of an open oven, feeling the glowing heat radiate and warm me. God’s love seemed to be washing over me in just that way.

I stayed in that place for several days, and it only gradually subsided over the next two years. Without the antipsychotics I was given in the second hospital, it likely would have lasted even longer. The experience changed my life. I converted to my wife’s childhood religion (Roman Catholicism), and was filled with the fervent belief that I had been touched by God, like Paul on the road to Damascus. (It’s important to note that my father raised me to believe that religion is mere fantasy, wishful thinking on the part of frightened and distressed masses.)

These deeply held religious convictions lasted about three years. In the ensuing six, I’ve explored a small galaxy of spiritual philosophies and beliefs. Sometimes I’m right back to the convinced atheism of my upbringing. More often, I have a vague sense that something mysterious and profound resonates through all matter and energy, a kind of mystical glue that connects and comprises everything in the universe, but is endowed with omniscient and seamless consciousness. This cosmic awareness percolates through all that surrounds us but flows like broad rivers in the matrices of our brains. Our minds hold deep lakes of this essence that both supports and subsumes the universe.

Pretty ‘New Age’, right? Like I say, I bounce around. Mostly, the popular concepts that purport to pin down spiritual reality (or its absence) strike me as both too specific and too unsubstantiated, so I just fall back on what is probably the only supportable philosophy: “I don’t know”. (I don’t refuse to engage the question in the fashion of modern agnosticism, which in my opinion leans too heavily toward presuming the absence of spiritual forces. Rather, it is my opinion that we simply cannot pin down reality at the present time. Maybe there is a mystical realm and maybe not. The humility required to remain in this stance (which is harder to achieve than it sounds) may be the truest form of spirituality.

What I can be sure of is that the experience of God exists, whether God does or not. I also know that when I act as if God is real (no matter what form I give it in my mind), I tend to feel better. So reaching a spiritual plane has definite advantages, even if the ‘supernatural’ realm is utter fantasy. Therefore, I try to buy as far into spiritual thought as I can at any given moment. Sometimes that is not very far at all. Other times, I find intimate places of serenity inside my mind and being, where my life makes sense, I feel I have purpose, and I know that love surrounds me.

What does this have to do with mental illness? More and more the mainstream mental health community is adopting mindfulness meditation. Such practice leads to a relaxed and open state of mind that stand in for the kinds of experiences religion provides at its best (without the xenophobia, intolerance, and dogmatism that religion brings at its worst). Often, therapists and other mental health workers go further and encourage practices based on supernaturalism, such as getting involved in one’s natal religion, or any spiritual community that feels right. The mental health world takes this approach because it can work.

I have found that meditation and spiritual pursuits help me to the extent I practice them. Mindfulness meditation (which means moving away from verbal thought and focusing attention on the body’s moment-to-moment experience) often feels quite calming and centering. It is right up there with vigorous exercise as a stress management tool, except it leads to a deep sense of unity with my body (and sometimes even with all creation) rather than the stimulating endorphin rush of a good workout.

If I allow myself to abandon critical thought (which is exactly what modern atheists consider an anathema), mystical forces sometimes feel both real and present. These influences, whatever they are, seem to care for me and promote my best interest (not always what I want, but generally what seems right later on). I could just be sensing hidden streams of neural activity that promote my well being. But whatever the ‘truth‘, abandoning my doubt and accepting this fount of support helps me enjoy life. It helps me maintain the commitment to keep living it.

Just an hour or so ago I participated in a video taped conversation about mental health. When the show gets edited and completed I will post it here on my blog. Tom Wootton invited me to participate as a ‘client’ of his Bipolar Advantage program. Peter Forster, MD, the medical director of Bipolar Advantage, took a seat at the table. Our moderator was Barbara Meyers, who tapes a regular show on mental health, which I highly recommend.

Whew! I got all those links in place for those three!! I respect them all, by the way. They each do unique, good work for the mental health community.

The taping went by fast. Having thought through my answers (I knew the questions in advance), I was shocked when the show came to a close before the end of my question list. I took too long to answer the first three questions, so the last one or two got dropped. Predictably, I ended up feeling bad. Fact is, I’ve never liked cameras. I love to write; I feel OK on a stage; but I get quite uncomfortable when filmed. Even though that has always been true, I did not expect to feel nervous this time, since my general stage fright has reduced so much since my eighteen months of working as a public speaker. No such luck. I ended up feeling just as self-conscious as the first time a stranger shoved a video camera in my face after a movie premier in New York and asked for my reaction to the film.

In fact, my point in writing tonight is the jumpiness of my response, my incredibly high reactivity. In one of my answers on the show I said (I think) something to the effect that sensitive moods can be an advantage (an idea that is a pillar of the Bipolar Advantage concept), giving us a wide range of experience of the human condition. Yet it is hard to believe anything very advantageous comes out of having a gas pedal that gets shoved to the floor at the slightest challenge. Much as I tried to remember breathing, staying relaxed, and visualizing calm scenery, the instant I started talking my mind went into the stratosphere, and I was on autopilot. My emotions have always had hair-triggers, but my moods have gotten even more touchy since my breakdown, followed by nine years of powerful drugs, punctuated by a series of failed enterprises. So tonight became a reminder that I still have the same old issues, waiting to lift their irritating little heads when I reach beyond my comfort zone.

Much of my jumpiness, I am sure, comes from the trauma of my upbringing. One major source of over-reactivity was my stepmother’s habit of sneaking up on me in my bed at night, and shaking me awake with her hands clenched around my neck. Yes, she really did that. Fairly often, actually. As a variation she would clamp her palm over my mouth. After a while, I learned not to make a noise when she came to get me, and she gradually quit the histrionics of mock suffocation. (After she woke me, the next step was for us to go out back where she could hit me or abuse me however she wanted without my dad awakening–kind of like going to the second location with a serial killer.) Even though I learned silence then, now that I am an adult it is impossible, apparently, for me to keep from shouting if someone wakes me up at night. Even at age fifty, I still awake in full screaming terror if my wife just taps on the door to the guest room. (Sometimes I go to sleep in that room while she reads in bed, and then she comes to get me when she turns out the light.) Thanks, Della (that was the name of my late stepmother), for leaving me with nerves of glass.

So now I contend with this high-voltage response to the equivalent of turning on a AAA penlight. Back in my days as a surgeon (pretty hard to imagine doing that kind of thing now), I had very measured responses to acute situations in the operating room. I think it was because my attention was on high-alert already when I was operating, so there was none of that pounding acceleration from zero to one-hundred-and-ninety that leaves me so disoriented. In the O.R., everything moved at a speed that made sense, and I was able to remain focused and calm come what may (except for one dreadful day that I will no doubt write about eventually, when I ended up quite agitated after a big mistake on a small procedure). The night after a tough case I might lay awake replaying whatever happened. Or the night before I might be sleepless in anticipation of a challenging case. But during the time of the actual work, I stayed in a centered zone.

There is no situation like that now, and I would never dream of trying anything as stressful as surgery again. But despite that caution, I still find ways to demonstrate my limitations to myself and then feel bad about them. I share this because it may be that someone else out there beats himself or herself up like that. Maybe someone else gets embarrassed about nervousness. Maybe someone else can understand.

Sometimes, I am fine with where I am in life. Happy with what sometimes seems like a lot of wisdom (purchased at great price, but mine nevertheless). Lately, I have felt less accepting. Maybe now that I am writing more, I can find my way back to that place of spiritual openness that works so well, that soulful space that is the only worthwhile destination.

That is my goal. Not performance; not looking good on TV; not making a living, even. Just finding connection with whatever it is that embraces me when I let all the expectations go.