Therapy

So, I went to my therapist today and got a clean bill of health...mental health, that is. I like working with Jenny, I try to be as honest as I can and I get to find out if I'm still, as we sailors say, "between the buoys."

We discussed a situation in my life, and I knew going in not to expect any answers. That is not what therapy is about. For me, it is a chance to discuss my life and listen to another person's perspective. It helps me to see some things that I might overlook because I am either too close or maybe I don't want to see.

So, here's the deal. I am like the trapeze guy who's between bars. I can either hurry and grab onto the next one, or live in the space between for a while. I feel safe enough to stay in the space. I've learned that grabbing doesn't work in the long run.

Nothing says it all better than this from A Course In Miracles (the book I turn to when I really need help): "All that is asked of you is to make room for truth. You are not asked to make or do what lies beyond your understanding. All you are asked to do is let it in; only to stop your interference with what will happen of itself."

Can anything be better than this: a great therapist and a book that speaks directly to your heart?

Purpose, meaning, and goals

Since I returned from Denmark I have been in a bit of a funk. Not depressed or anything, but generally having a feeling of sadness. The good thing is that I've learned that when I feel like this it is best to spend more time reflecting and becoming more aware of what is going on. And when things get really painful I pick up my copy of A Course In Miracles. I can always count on that to go right to the heart of the matter. I did that on Sunday.

In the workbook, Lesson 25, I read: "I do not know what anything is for." Sound familiar? And: "Purpose is meaning. Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means." I am reminded of Richard Bach when he writes: "Some of the best things that happened to me turned out to be the worst, and some of the worst things that happened to me turned out to be the best."

It's a struggle as usual, but in the pain I at least feel peace. I can live with that and even be happy about it. And somewhere in the purpose of all this is meaning.

Near the end of the lesson: "It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything."

I am willing. After all, I don't know what anything is for.

You know, life does give us plenty of challenges, but we are always given the choice...the easy way or the hard way. Letting go is the easy way, having to do it our way is the hard way. I'm letting go.

Going Deeper

I'm not sure if it is because I read to much, or it's my imagination, or maybe it is God pushing. But, here we go again. I am being "encouraged" to go deeper into some kind of awareness. No, encouraged isn't strong enough. I'm definitely being pushed, as in not having a choice. I'd like to yell back, "can you just leave me alone and let me do what I'm doing." But, no, now I have to be more aware. Aware of what?

I envy people who can get up in the morning, wash up, eat a normal breakfast, go to work, come home at night, have dinner, watch a little TV, and go to bed without ever having to think about anything any deeper than, "Would you like paper or plastic?" For some idiotic reason, ever since my first year in college, having that Quaker English professor who insisted on us asking questions about our values, the meaning of life, etc., I have had to dig deep into whatever it is that lies underneath our daily, normal, waking, existing, lives.

Now it's about becoming more self-aware. I can't just do things. I have to be more aware of what I am doing, and I have to be doing it for the sake of itself, not because I am trying to get somewhere. Are you following me? We are talking mindfulness . Vietnamese monk Thich NhatHanh says: "Washing the dishes to wash the dishes." Well, why else wash the dishes? I know, it's a clever way of saying be mindful, don't wash them thinking about what you are going to do next. And I guess that is what this is all about. Being with what is happening in the moment and stop living in the past or the future. I guess when you put it that way, going deeper isn't so bad or dumb.

Fine, so the new thing I am being pushed towards is being more present in the things I have to do every day, all day. That sounds a lot easier than being more aware. Although, I guess being present is being aware.

Maybe I just like to argue with God just because I like to argue. Well...I gotta go wash the dishes.

...just finished the dishes.

By the way, my book Holistic Perspectives, is listed on Amazon with a really good discount. Last time I checked they were selling it for only $13.57. You can see the listing by clicking on the amazon link on this blog.

Lessons From Denmark

There is a teaching in Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now that talks about the difference between working toward a goal and being excessively focused on that goal because you think that goal will bring you happiness, fulfillment, and a better sense of self. It is a good thing to have goals. In going to Denmark I had certain expectations, hoping for certain things to happen. They didn't.

I spent a lot of time wondering, actually begging the Universe to explain to me why I made such a long and difficult trip and investment if there was nothing to be gotten from it. I've been to Denmark before, it is a beautiful country, but not as pretty as New England in September.

I got all kinds of answers from "it was a mistake" to "next time you'll know better." In the end though, they weren't really answers at all. I've learned that I really don't know very much. And worse, as our brilliant vice-president points out, "we don't know what we don't know." That has more wisdom in it than any thing any politician has said in recent memory. We don't know what we don't know.

All of this thinking that we know what we don't know leads to being pretty miserable. Sometimes, maybe all the time, it is best to not be so attached to what we think we want. When I e-mailed my friend Mike Ryan telling him of the situation he replied: "Dude, you aren't meditating, are you? I can always tell. Go do it now. Do the one on how the root of all unhappiness is desire...You need to let go."

I did follow his advice about meditating, but I didn't do it on desire and letting go. I did it on what I thought I wanted. Am I not an idiot or what? I meditated on getting what I wanted. How stupid is that? I thought I knew what outcome would be best, so I thought I was being holistic, having a holistic perspective. I was having my own, limited perspective, is what I was having.

Tolle says that when we do that our life's journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive. No longer an adventure. An obsessive need to arrive. I want my life to be an adventure. It is hard to let go, but that is the only way I will allow my life to have mystery, suspense, surprise, excitement. I want that.

We can't have it our way AND have adventure. If we did control everything that happens to us, our lives would become boring so quickly. Geez, the Red Sox would win the World Series every year. What fun would that be?

So, I'm back home in Rhode Island doing my best to do what Michael told me to do. I am going to let go and see what happens. I'll live with the not knowing. And even though it is hard not to get your own way, that is the price you pay to have the kind of quality life that I truly want to build and grow into. This letting go does feel a lot better than trying to make the world be the way I envision it should be. There is a deep sense of peace.

Poisoned in Denmark

So, I have been making fruit smoothies every morning like I usually do. Today I ran my five miles and Helen, my host here in Denmark, had them waiting when I got back. "I've used lots of elderberries that I picked by the road." She was looking so proud of her work.

I had two full glasses. A short while later I began to feel nauseous. Maybe it was just the stress of being in Denmark. Then I had to run to the bathroom with diarrhea. As we started to get in the car to go to the University I had to stop. I threw up my breakfast there on the driveway. Not long after Helen lost hers into the toilet.

That felt better so we left for her school. Half way there I felt cramps but thought I could hold it. They got worse and I asked Helen to find the nearest station. I didn't make it. Not a lot of fun washing your pants in a public bathroom, standing there in your shoes and shirt.

It turns out that elderberries contain cyanide, cooking them destroys it but raw ones are mildly poisonous. Next time someone offers me a fruit smoothie I'll check out the ingredients.

I've never been poisoned before. Hard to have a holistic perspective on that.

Magical Music In Denmark

I do not buy music that was published after the 1970's, other than Bruce Springsteen and a few others. Contemporary music does nothing for me. I am in Denmark this week and my friend Helen played for me a CD of songs that her daughter wrote and sang.

The first time through I listened to her voice and could not believe what I was hearing. I heard Barbara Streisand, Janice Joplin, Shania Twain. And I heard a young woman with soul and unearthly passion.

Then I listened a second time. The words and emotions of her singing took me by surprise and I had to hold back my tears, just barely. The third, fourth, and fifth times, I just cried. All I could think of was that I wanted to be involved in making a musical documentary about her message. I am still trying to make sense of all this.

Her name is Freja Eriksen.

Go to www.myspace.com/frejaeriksen and download "The Spring," listen to it twice and be prepared to be blown away. If the thought that the trees will stop breathing, and the sun will be gone cold, and birds not singing, and that we are the spring on hold...if that does not get to you...you may be dead.

Holistic Perspectives & Integral Theory Published

A couple of years ago I decided to write a book on holistic perspectives and integral theory because:

1. I couldn't find a book that explained what holistic is. There were books on holistic medicine and nursing and business, but none that actually dealt exclusively with what a holistic perspective is.

2. Integral theory is a very important method for understanding our world and seeing what is, but often books about it are difficult to understand. I wanted to write about integral theory in a way that would make it easily grasped.

So, here it is--now available on Amazon.com. I suggest that before you spend any money, go to holistic-perspectives.com and read as much of it as you like. In fact, if you are short of funds, the whole book is available on line.

I totally enjoyed the process of researching and writing the book. I did my dissertation (which is also available on Amazon) on Ken Wilber's work and this is an extension of what I learned in the process.

While writing Perspectives I was also working on another book, Spanish Lessons, which should also be available in about a month. It's not really so much about Spanish as it is about what happens when you don't have to work, but can't stand hanging out doing nothing. As some of you know, the last three winters I have been traveling around the world taking Spanish lessons, but what I really have learned has more to do with the meaning of life and finding passion again. In the end I did find it and it's all in the book.

I'm off to Denmark tomorrow. Who knows what will happen there?

Nirvana?

The world may be round, but it sure feels flat. Everything I do, especially walking, I do as if the world were flat. If I hadn't seen pictures of the planet from space I'd have a hard time believing in a round world.



My experience of my self sure feels like I'm an individual self. I mean, I'm me, you are you, and everybody else is who they are, separate selves. If I had not experienced for my self, one time during meditation, that my separate self is an illusion and that I am only a manifestation of some larger all-inclusive self, I would still believe that I am just little old me and nothing else.

Nirvana has been defined as a breakthrough in consciousness in which one never thinks of oneself as a separate self again. It is never seeing the world as flat anymore. All it takes is that one experience. Often when I mediate I recall that awareness of being one with all consciousness and I remember who I really am. I experience the universe as an organic whole, of which I am a part. Subject-object duality is seen for what it is--an illusion.

By the way, the picture on the side is of the equator in Ecuador. The yellow line is the equator itself.

Michael Vick and the Question of Animal Cruelty

How interesting. Did you notice how many people are enraged at Michael Vick? That is a pretty horrible thing, dogfighting. Animal cruelty. So how many years should he get in jail, how much should it cost him? Looks like he will lose at least $100,000,000 of his football contract.

I don't think anyone reading this blog would accept what he did as morally acceptable. Now, I have to ask you: when was the last time you had eggs, or milk, or chicken, or pork, or beef, or fish? If you read the book The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, you will realize that if you are eating these animal products, you might want to place yourself in the same moral category as Michael Vick, because your food choices are producing as much and more animal suffering.

Unfortunately, most of us will utilize the psychological tools called denial and rationalization to avoid confronting this unpleasant fact.

I am not telling anyone to become a vegan tomorrow, just asking you to think about it. If Michael Vick disgusts us, maybe it's time to look at our own actions.

I haven't reached the point where I can avoid all animal products myself, but I am no longer in denial either, as regards to what I am doing. When I make my green smoothie in a few minutes I will be taking one big step along the way to making that change. You would be very surprised how good kale and watermelon can taste after a few minutes in the Vita Mixer.

Best Day Ever!

The best day ever! That is David Wolfe's promise when we eat raw foods. I attended his seminar in New Hampshire this weekend with Gina, Steven, and Cathy, and I am more convinced than ever that a raw food diet is the way to a healthier, happier life. If David Wolfe is any indication of the energy one can get from being a raw-foodist, I am going there. He has more energy than any person I have ever come across. I'm talking back to back three hour lectures without stopping for a breath.

This is what I learned:

1. Consuming raw food will eliminate just about any health problem you can think of, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, and obesity.
   
2. We do this little by little.
   
3. We do this by adding raw food to our diet, we are not giving anything up.
4. Food is our number one relationship to the earth.
5. We need to be aware what ratio of fats, carbos, and protein in our diet works best for us personally.
6. Drink about a quart of water on rising to flush out your system.
7. Drink super food smoothies! This is a big part of the adding element of becoming healthy. Start with a base of water, tea (goji berry or vanilla) , coconut water. Add macha, coconut oil, hemp seed, cacao beans, spirulina, honey, etc. Play with it.
8. When you start consuming high quality food your body starts telling you what it needs.
9. Don't try to use willpower.
10. Put diluted seawater in your garden and fruit trees.
11. Real spring water is healthy, avoid filtered tap water.
12. It isn't calcium that makes bones, our body makes calcium from silicon and magnesium.

There you are in a nutshell. (By the way, the cacao nutshell is good to eat.)

So, do you want to be really really healthy? Little by little add the following to your diet:

• Fruits (especially berries and the best of these are goji berries)
• Vegetables (especially green leafy veggies; salads and smoothies)
• Nuts and seeds (especially cacao-raw chocolate)
• Minerals (especially from seaweeds like Kelp powder)
• Sprouts
• Grasses
• Herbs
• Superfoods (cacao, spirulina, honey, bee pollen, macha, etc.)

Okay, there you have everything you need to have the best day ever! E-mail me if you have any questions about this stuff.

The Pleasure of Meditation

One of the first things I do every morning is meditate for about 20 minutes. I tell myself that this is the most important thing I will do today. I am trying to add another time to meditate around noon and another later in the day. I want to stay connected to what is real.

Usually I read a passage from Ekhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" to help me get in the mood.

This morning I was feeling how enjoyable it is to meditate. My body was peaceful, as well as my mind. Everything felt calm and pleasurable. But another part of me was pushing to finish up and get on with my day. How strange. Meditation is so enjoyable, but don't we often think of it as something we have to do before we get on with things? Like it's a chore, or a job.

At that moment I realized that there was a part of me, I think it is the mind, that doesn't like it when I meditate. It is the same part of me that wants to eat what makes it feel good, or wants to watch TV and be entertained. The mind wants what it wants (it wants problems and drama), and I don't think it is often what I want. I like the pleasure and the peace of just sitting there, my thoughts (and mind) not cluttering up things.

I am going to pay attention to this part of me that tries to control my life and isn't who "I" really am. There is a deeper, truer Self that knows better what will make my life whole, healthy, and happy. And I think that real Self comes out when I meditate. I'd like to see it also when I make my food choices, when I make choices about what I am going to do with my time.

I'm not going to listen to my mind trick me into believing that meditation is work--hell, it's not work, it is a real pleasure.

Super Food Overdose

Okay, so I made my green fruit smoothie this morning after having more ice cream than I would have liked to this weekend (thanks mom for the mud pie). I put in everything that I had: kale, mango, melon, frozen banana and blueberries; cacao, maca, flax seeds, agave, spirulina. I'm going to feel really good today, right? Wrong!

Green fruit smoothies are the best first step on a raw food life style; but you gotta use common sense, unlike me. I probably won't be eating anything else today (which is a good thing), but I feel really terrible right now. It is as if my whole body has shut down and is working full-time trying to make sense of all this really good food it just got. Like, "hey, let's not waste this stuff, fellas! Put everything thing else aside and get to work absorbing all these 'superfood' molecules!"

So, I'm home today contemplating how I can do this a little more "smoothly." From now on, one kind of fruit, one kind of superfood (two at most), and more water, along with a little less kale. It'll just take a little longer to get raw.

On a happier note: I've finished putting up my website. Please check it out at holistic-perspectives.com. (Don't forget to put the dash between holistic and perspectives or it doesn't work.) There is also a link to the site on this page over on the left hand side with the other links. I have uploaded all the pages to my book, Holistic Perspectives, if you can't wait to read the whole thing. It's free. Or, you can wait, and in a month or so it will be printed and available on Amazon and I'll send you a copy free, if you ask for one.

I'm gonna go lay down now and digest some more flax seeds.