Medicine for the Soul: Growing Stronger in Broken Places

Transformation can, among other things, be compared to a fire burning away what once was. These experiences of change are the ones that leave us with deeply etched memories.

It’s painful to find yourself seriously stuck. Despite doing all the right things, inexplicably you’re unable to reach a long-held goal, whether it’s in your career, your relationships, your finances, your creative life, your health, or your personal growth.

When we obsessively focus on something that is, or isn't, within our control, it can feel like we're carrying a giant boulder on our backs. Instead, we need to treat that one aspect of our lives as small rocks in our pocket so we can...

We have heard that "ignorance is bliss," and we usually judge and criticize ignorant people. Yet there is a form of ignorance that serves us well, and that is ignorance of limiting beliefs. A Calvin and Hobbes cartoon declared, "It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept."

How many emails are in your inbox? If the answer is thousands, or if you often struggle to find a file on your computer among its cluttered hard drive, then you might be classed as a digital hoarder.

Tattoos are something you are going to wear and stare at for a long time. Once you decide to get a tattoo, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the body’s energy zones and how they interlock together as one consciousness.

Back in March 2020, my colleagues at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University thought that it might be useful to begin thinking about “the day after coronavirus."

We always have many choices before us. If we believe we must grovel, plead, or struggle to manifest our dreams, these choices can seem overwhelming, even frightening. But if we realize that every choice before us represents the universe inviting us to remember who we really are, and...

With numerous countries back under severe pandemic restrictions, many of us once again find ourselves questioning whether our heavy reliance on technology is impacting our wellbeing.

As the publisher/editor of InnerSelf, I read a lot of material dealing with personal empowerment. And some of the things I read really resonate  with me, and I end up adopting them. It's sort of like creating a tapestry using threads coming from various sources. 

Australia’s health system has embraced telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic, with patients getting care online, by video or by phone. But what happens to this post-pandemic is uncertain.

The bummer about 'shoulds' is that when we are dominated by them, we are also dominated by the fear of being rejected or abandoned in some way, because that's the core emotional fear that activates many of them. These ongoing fears leave many of us drained and exhausted...

People are in such a rush these days, living on the fast track. Talking fast, eating fast, moving fast. What a difference from sixty years ago. Did you know you'll probably do more in this year with appointments, people to meet, places to go than your grandparents did their entire lives?

When you’re asleep, you can seem completely dead to the world. But when you wake up, in an instant you can be up and at ‘em.

In a dreaming culture, dreams are valued and celebrated. The first business of the day, for most people, is to share dreams and seek to harvest their guidance. The community joins in manifesting the energy and insight of dreams in waking life.

Each event in our life builds off other events emotionally so that they create our core themes. Every perception, drama, trauma, relationship (both the good and bad ones), fear, belief, success, and failure are rooted in our core themes. They're all just waiting for ...

There’s no doubt that 2020 was difficult for everyone and tragic for many. But now vaccines against COVID-19 are finally being administered – giving a much needed hope of a return to normality and a happy 2021.

Over the years, I heard clients blame everyone and everything for the issues they were dealing with in their lives, but they seldom considered the possibility that this was what they put into motion in their life-between-lives session.

Every year most of us make New Year’s resolutions. Eat healthier. Exercise regularly. Invest more in valued relationships. Learn a language. And so on. Often they are the same resolutions as last year. Why do our resolutions often so swiftly wither away?

The beginning of a new year offers a poignant opportunity to set the priorities that will carry us through the year. We succeed or fail based on what we hold dear. Choose meaningless priorities, and you become the heir to pain. Live from what you value, and your life becomes a celebration of purpose.

After a year of toxic stress ignited by so much fear and uncertainty, now is a good time to reset, pay attention to your mental health and develop some healthy ways to manage the pressures going forward.

For many cultures, the dawn of the new year is marked not only with celebration, but also the opportunity for personal reflection and growth.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of listening to the highly-influential legal scholar Cass Sunstein speak in the flesh. Cass wrote the best-selling book Nudge, along with his long-time collaborator Richard Thaler.

We all have a desire for wealth and prosperity. But there’s a deeper meaning to this desire than simply accumulating material goods or fattening our bank accounts. When properly aligned with our purpose, passion, and high-value gifts, our desire for wealth and prosperity is like a compass pointing us toward our greater purpose in the world.

Welcoming the new year may feel a bit different this year, given the challenges of 2020 and the inability to celebrate together.

A negative condition is anything you perceive as lacking in joyful experience for yourself. Another person may perceive that experience to be joyful and a definitely positive condition. Conditions are relative, for in essence, there is no reality, but simply your perception of it. All is relative.

With the pressures of the holiday season, rising COVID-19 rates and the resulting social isolation from friends and family, people can easily fall into addictive or excessive behaviours.

Affirmation is a skillful means for transforming energy, and it begins with the deletion of negative statements about self and others. A negative statement freezes one in time and space without room for harmonization. Affirmations need to be unambiguous, simple and clear statements of one's intentions.

It is natural to want to fit into a category that gives us an identity, especially if that identity provides a better understanding of ourselves and others, and explains the nature of our interactions. But be careful of type­casting yourself. Instead, try to ...

New advances in anthropology and paleontology have answered one of the most vexing questions about the Hunter/Farmer theory: “Why is the leftover Hunter/ADHD gene only present in a minority of our population, and where have all the hunters gone?”

Words are magic. Thoughts create actions that manifest forms. No matter what language you are using—English, Chinese, or the language of hieroglyphs—thoughts are things.

How much are you conscious of right now? Are you conscious of just the words in the centre of your visual field or all the words surrounding it?

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous detective of all time. Since he was imagined into creation in 1892 by the young Scottish doctor Arthur Conan Doyle, there has been hardly a decade in which a play, television series, film or book about Sherlock Holmes has not been produced.

A move to the country is often presented in popular culture as an idyllic life, a place where you can escape the pressures of the city. 

A few years ago, I came into work on December 1 to find a bag on my desk labelled “Karen’s Christmas Intervention”. It contained many Christmas themed gifts and challenges...

By the time children are three years old, they already have an adult-like preference for the visual fractal patterns common in nature, report researchers.

Since we originated in the essence of infinite and unconditional love of self, you may be wondering, then, "How did we end up stuck in this experience of life as a struggle?"

'Always'. 'Never'. These are probably the two most powerful words in the English language. Even more powerful than yes and no, since saying yes (or no) applies to the moment or subject at hand, while saying 'always' or 'never' sets the tone for everything to come. The two words can...

When you live your truth, you know who you are, and you own it. The person you are inside and the person you are to the world are one and the same. You are no longer reluctant or afraid to stand for what you really are.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a tough year for people across the globe, with billions facing at least one lockdown. And it’s not over – there may be further lockdowns needed in the new year.

Numerous studies show that people respond with outrage against public figures once their hypocrisy has been discovered.

Naturally we are scared to move into the unknown because our personality relies a lot on the symbols, psychological structures, and associations we develop. We become comfortable in a society, and with a group of people -- work mates, family, and friends. However, embracing change is a matter of giving away or letting go of old traits.

The level of hunger for “belonging” being expressed by a large number of white Americans today reflects a primary drive all people feel to belong to a family, a tribe, a social group, or a welcoming community system.

We're headed into holidays in a year unlike any year we've ever known. We've got a mountain of challenges, with grief and disappointment making themselves at home in our hearts. Some of us feeling even more divided from our families than ever. Most of us longing to have loved ones gather. All of us navigating uncharted waters.

News, by definition, is mostly bad. If we believed only what we read, heard, and watched on mainstream news and through social media, we’d become convinced that our world is in the worst shape it’s ever been and that human beings are a woeful species doomed to imminent demise.

The serious harm caused by concussion in sport first became apparent among the “punch-drunk” boxers who suffered repetitive blows to the head over the course of their fighting careers.

Many people feel that their experience of time has been a bit off this year. Even though the clocks are ticking as they should be, days stretch out and some months seems to go on forever.

Abuse is deeply shattering to the body, psyche, and spirit. The process of opening up and letting go, of becoming aware, can break up the painful memories that arise from abuse, whether they've been there for a long time or are just beginning to arise.

Choosing to live and create a whole life in this current overculture is a radical act, one that requires you to consciously, courageously, and consistently make choices that support the whole to thrive — including, at times, taking a fierce stand to longer accept anything less than a whole life.

’Tis the season for gift-giving and for the scrooges among us to complain about the wastefulness of gift-giving. Why give gifts, they say, when people know what they want better than anyone else?  

Over the years, I've informally polled thousands of people about the things they do to take care of themselves. Going out into nature is at the top of the list. Returning to the natural world is my favorite self-care activity as well, and has been since childhood.

As humans, everything we do requires energy. We need energy each morning to open our eyes, get out of bed, and plan what we’ll do next. From our first month in the womb to our ending days, our bodies use this energy to keep life flowing. You can think of this energy like fuel and your body the vehicle.

Why are we here? Ha! I know it sounds like one of those belly button gazing type questions that gets us analyzing ourselves into a corner. But what I mean by "Why are we here?" specifically is looking at our use of social media.

We all can't wait to be done with the year 2020. Looking back over all the challenges this year brought to people both in the U.S. and across the globe, we're not likely to feel much fondness for the previous 12 months. And yet, we may find some positive aspects...

An endless flow of information is coming at us constantly: It might be an article a friend shared on Facebook with a sensational headline or wrong information about the spread of the coronavirus.

Symptoms of depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders have emerged or worsened for many during the pandemic.

Whether you describe the way you feel as jubilant, happy, elated, ecstatic, or euphoric, the underlying emotion is JOY. Joy is an emotion. It's so lovely to feel this emotion and to tell the truth, it's been a while since I've...

We have repressed a lot of our emotions, whether they are considered 'good' or 'bad' ones. Sometimes we hold back on expressing our love for fear of being misunderstood, or perhaps thinking the timing is not 'right'. Most commonly, we have been taught to hold back on our 'negative' emotions — fear, anger, sorrow, pain, etc.

While the algorithms and my brain kept me scrolling on the endless feeds, I was reminded of what digital marketers like to say: “Money is in the list.”

It is no accident that you are working in your present organization or that you are working with and for the people you do. All of this has been arranged by you -- by your Higher Self -- to give you as many opportunities as possible to learn and to grow spiritually.

Least effort is expended when your actions are motivated by love, because nature is held together by the energy of love. When you seek power and control over other people, you waste energy. But when your actions are motivated by love, there is no waste of energy, your energy multiplies and accumulates.

What follows are three of the root causes at the core of the burnout cycles, self-sacrificing choices, and unsustainable realities.

Whether unconscious or conscious, we are all hungry for more depth of connection and more purpose. People often choose therapy as a last resort to heal their discomfort. My group therapy practice is built on the concept of taking yourself on, or, as we call it in my group, “work”.

Losing one’s job undoubtedly makes someone less happy, a feeling tens of millions of people around the world are experiencing right now.

As many have noted, United States President Donald Trump embodies the very worst American traits. If one were to caricature America’s vices, from bombast to narcissism, heartless individualism and toxic machismo, one would come up with someone who looks very much like Trump.

Just as true happiness is not simply the absence of problems but an internal life state that enables us to challenge any obstacles to happiness that come our way, health is not simply the absence of illness. The important issue is whether we defeat sickness when it comes or whether sickness defeats us...

In 1983, American physiologist Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment that became a landmark in the field of cognitive sciences.

Since the ancestors in our lineage have not been honored in our religion for many years and were often confronted with adversities in their era, we have forgotten where we come from, who we are, and what potential lies dormant within our lineage.

Growing up in the United States, I remember on Halloween my mother used to sa y, “Honey, this is not just a day for costumes and candy. You must also remember your relatives.

There is a magic word that can remove from existence any unhappy condition of mind, body, and affairs. This tiny word is power-packed and should be used instantly to negate any seeming evil thought, word, or appearance before it can establish a foothold in consciousness.

For most of the U.S., the clock goes back one hour on Sunday morning, Nov. 1, the “fall back” for daylight saving time. Many of us appreciate the extra hour of sleep.

In addition to its staggering impact on physical well-being and mortality, COVID-19 is also taking an unprecedented toll on our mental health.

When kundalini awakens beyond the heart, our perception deepens and we open to psychic capacities. It is through the third eye that we recognize and move away from the noise and chaos of the world...

The sixth Huna principle, Mana, states that there is nothing outside us that is more powerful than we are, and there is nothing that can’t be touched by our influence. Every dynamic action that we take contains an inner spark of universal power that spans the galaxies and beyond.

For every setback, look for opportunity. That is a provocative statement, hard to accept when you feel betrayed or shamed or in the depths of grief or loss. When you have lost your job, or your partner has walked out on you, or you have made the worst mistake of your life, how can you accept the idea that by what you fall, you can rise?

Daylight saving time was first implemented during the first world war to take advantage of longer daylight hours and save energy.

By your mid-30s or 40s, you wake up every morning and you feel like the same person. Your environment, which you relied on so heavily to remove your pain or guilt or suffering, is no longer taking away those feelings. This is the midlife crisis that most people know about...

Since March 2020, many of us have got closer to experiencing the kind of solitude long sought by monks, nuns, philosophers and misanthropes.

Sporting history is littered with tales of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Famously, the US golfer Doug Sanders was a three-foot putt away from winning the 1970 Open Championship in St Andrews. He missed.

The pattern I have seen repeated both in myself and in others around me is what we could call the sleeping beauty/frog prince complex. It consists of waiting for something or someone to deliver us from whatever situation we have gotten ourselves into.

It is our challenge to find strength and meaning in the tragedies, fears and confusions that confront us. In discovering ways of dealing with those inevitable events, we have the possibility of alchemizing our experience, turning the base metal of our pain into the gold of wisdom, understanding, enrichment and purpose.

The first step in changing what’s not working for you is awareness — becoming conscious of what you are currently blind to. You simply cannot change what you cannot see. But when you do see what was previously hidden, you gain the power to change it.

As we move into the last quarter of 2020, the virus that has defined this troubled year is showing no signs of going away.

Each soul incarnated into a specific form on earth for a unique purpose. Your journey is now and exists at this moment, whether you realize it or not. It will be more enjoyable if you consciously pursue your spiritual purpose to bring the world to Love. Consciously following your spiritual purpose brings you ultimate...

I started asking the crowds who came to my workshops two questions: “Who believes they have a life purpose?” and “Who knows what their purpose is?” Without exception, everyone believed they had a purpose yet only a small fraction knew what it was.

In the conquest of Mount Everest anything less than 100% success is failure, but in most communicable diseases we are not faced with the attainment of such absolute goals, but rather with trying to reduce the problem to tolerable levels, as quickly as possible, within the limits of available resources

The coherence-building process in the universe is a real but subtle process. In the contemporary world it is often diverted and dominated by existential, more directly survival-oriented forces and impulses. These forces and impulses tend to be self-centered and competitive.

Public health responses to the pandemic have focused on preventing the spread of the virus, limiting the number of deaths and easing the burden on healthcare systems.

Mechanical behaviors are old ways of doing things that once worked, or appeared to have worked, in situations that were stressful or in situations that were actual or perceived as potentially endangering your survival.

Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than rest, that doing something -- anything -- is better than doing nothing. Poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest.

One of the biggest problems that people bring to therapy is not knowing what to do with a wide range of feelings, including sadness, anger, ecstasy, fear, and depression. Many visits to medical doctors are attempts to deal with feelings unable to be expressed or released. Such feeling problems are quite common.

How are you doing in this time? My experience is that it’s weird, and wild, and wonderful in certain ways, and really, really challenging in others. Grief, loss, uncertainty. Inspiration, creativity, a feeling of a “pause” that is ongoing. These are some of the things I’ve been feeling, and I’m hearing from many people who are experiencing similar energies and emotions.

By nature, we are 5th dimensional humans. This has been encoded in our DNA. 5D humans live from their heart’s wisdom. They feel fully empowered and emit unconditional love and non-judgment for themselves and all others. 

We need to examine the spells that hypnotize us and break them when they hinder us. Spells are words, deeds and judgements that go unquestioned, undigested and unchallenged. It could be a doctor informing you that you have three months to live, a friend saying your marriage won’t work, your mind telling you that...

If we accept that life is always trying to teach us exactly what we need to learn, we can view everything that happens to us as a gift. Even experiences that are uncomfortable or painful contain within them an important key to our healing, wholeness, and prosperity.

Nothing can happen without the power to make it happen, and if you and I are to work at living more abundantly and soulfully, we will need not only a lot of love, determination and psychological maturity, but also a lot of power. Indeed, having power is very important and it serves as a central gateway that can potentially...

Innovation is a critical part of tackling problems in areas as diverse as transportation, housing, public health and energy.

Before March of 2020, few probably thought disease could be a significant driver of human history.

On Erin Gruwell’s first day as a high school English teacher, she faced a classroom of 150 “at risk” freshmen. Most of these kids, statistically, were going to fail. They were tough, their young lives already defined by poverty, gangs, violence and low expectations.

Traditional dancers celebrate Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan. Photo by Aniq Danial for Unsplash, CC BY-ND

On Erin Gruwell’s first day as a high school English teacher, she faced a classroom of 150 “at risk” freshmen. Most of these kids, statistically, were going to fail. They were tough, their young lives already defined by poverty, gangs, violence and low expectations. These students, she wrote, knew nearly every “four-letter word” except one: hope.

Yet four years later, every one of her “at risk” students at Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA, had graduated from high school. More than half went on to graduate from college. The stories written by Gruwell’s students were published as a book called “The Freedom Writers Diary”. It became a New York Times bestseller and in 2007 was made into a major motion picture called “Freedom Writers” starring Hilary Swank.

Graduation carries many messages of hope. Photo by Marleena Garris for Unsplash., CC BY-ND

Gruwell taught English but also taught them an elusive trait: hope. Science has, in the past 30 years, documented that hope can serve as a strategy for success.

Teaching hope

Although hope is a common theme in mythology, philosophy and theology, it wasn’t a subject of psychological research until University of Kansas psychologist Richard Snyder began his pioneering study in the 1990s. His work paved the way for science to measure, teach and distinguish hope from other psychological disciplines. His research recognized hope as a cognitive function, an emotional state accompanied by action.

Goals are basic to human behavior, Snyder noted, whether they are long- or short-term. They are the first step in imagining future achievement. Being successful, he writes, requires a way to pursue a goal and the will not give up – will power and way power. Snyder and social scientist Shane Lopez confirmed that hope can be taught and learned and that it provides benefits in the public sphere.

What kids need to excel

I am a professor of practice and clinical director for Arizona State University’s Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope. The center’s team is made up of researchers, practitioners and graduate students who are advancing the understanding, strategy and practice of hope.

Other academic institutions including the University of Oklahoma’s Hope Research Center are committing resources to better understand the dynamics of hope. In 2014, the John Templeton Foundation funded The Hope and Optimism initiative, a $4.5 million, four-year grant at Notre Dame and Cornell. The project explored hope from various lenses including religion, medicine, sociology and psychology.

Kids thrive with an adult in their court. Photos by Kevin Laminto for Unsplash., CC BY-ND

There is a new generation of hope scientists emerging on university campuses around the globe dedicated to further unraveling hope’s potential. These research topics include coping skills, depression, aging, social justice and creating communities of hope.

It is my long-standing belief that society often defines children and their future by disproportionately identifying and focusing on risk and trauma but ignoring hope.

Applying hope to life

To better understand how hope theory could be translated into practice, in 1993 I enlisted a group of seven researchers, practitioners and graduate students to participate in a seven-year literature review. In 2000, our team shared its conclusions, launching a new initiative called Kids at Hope. The Kids at Hope strategy, at its core, promotes the practices and belief that all kids are capable of success – no exceptions.

These findings informed the design of a framework that teaches hope as a cognitive skill. Teaching hopefulness begins by believing in all kids, connecting with young people in meaningful ways and teaching children how to imagine their goals, a process called mental time travel, that encourages the brain to plan for future opportunities and challenges.

The ability to mentally time travel is the process of remembering the past to draw from those memories and construct a future. Recalling past events is a great advantage in determining who and what to trust, and what works and what doesn’t. Through past experiences, people are able to picture where they would like to be and how to get there.

A central part of this work focuses on teaching the science of hope so that it can flourish in communities — whether that is the juvenile justice system, education, child welfare, behavioral health or youth development systems. The science is clear. Hopeful people are happier, healthier and achieve more of their goals than those who lack hope.

If it “takes a village to raise and educate a child,” I believe hope theory should be part of that strategy. As Gruwell and her students discovered, hope is a gift that can positively change lives.

About the Author

Richard Miller, Professor of Practice, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamic, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the rapid-fire of the modern day workplace, teams with diverse perspectives can produce unique solutions to problems while generating fresh and creative ideas. This powerful perspective is often evident when introverts and extroverts work together in harmony appreciating the rich difference in style and energy.