Tag: anxiety
These are very personal questions: What is spiritual to you? When and where do you feel spiritual? How do these spiritual feelings get blocked or expanded?
We can carry these questions throughout our lives. Spiritual practice aims to refine and deepen our understanding of them.
I will focus on three specific spiritual practices: psychological relationships, meditation, and psychedelic plant medicines, including cannabis.
Spiritual practice is about psychological relationships because if our spiritual practice doesn’t improve our relationships with others, what’s the point?
The practice of psychological relationships with others and with one’s inner life is a personal experience with spiritual meaning. This involves experiences of vulnerability, hurt, and confusion that teach us the depth of human love and kindness.
Spiritual practice is not only personal but also universal and objective. We need to look at our minds as they are, our human instincts as they are, and our relationship with the natural world. We are born, go through all the developmental stages, and then die. Life is both precious and painful. We cannot change most of life, but we can learn to connect with it gracefully, little by little.
-
Am I a Hypochondriac?
Someone in your inner circle gets sick, and you think you might be coming down with their cold or flu. You have some of the symptoms, you think. Or maybe it’s all in your head. Valid health concerns aren’t hypochondria. Everyone wonders if they’re bound to catch something that’s catch-able. There is a bit more…
-
Selective Mutism in Adults: Why There Is Silence
When you think of Selective Mutism, one of the first associations that comes to mind is likely that this is something that happens in children. While it seems to manifest most common in children, Selective Mutism does occur in adults. For those of us who don’t have it, it often begs the question, “Why is…
-
Psychotherapy, Cannabis, and CBD Oil
As a psychotherapist in California, I have had the opportunity to observe the affects of cannabis and CBD cannabis first hand in my practice. Medical marijuana has been legal here in California for 20 years. I have been able to observe it’s continuing integration as a medicine for physical, mental and spiritual health. I have…
-
Alternatives, Psychotropic Medication: Psychedelics and Cannabis
In the previous post: Psychotropic drugs: Chemical and Herbal Medicine for the Mind and Emotions, I began to describe how one goes about choosing the different chemical and herbal pathways available to treat anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other forms of mental and emotional suffering. In this post we will look into other alternatives, psychotropic medications…
-
Psychotropic drugs: Chemical and Herbal Medicine for the Mind and Emotions
I need medicine to help with over-whelming emotions and thoughts. How do I decide what is best for me or my children? Some psychotropic drugs are chemical and some are herbal. How do I choose which way to go? The solution comes out of questions that I have heard many people struggle with. For example,…
-
Helicopter Parents, Perfect Parents
As parents, we are in a vulnerable situation. How do we raise our children in this modern world? How do we give them what they need so they will be prepared for all the complexities of adult life? (relationships, money, emotions, how to feel and how to think, how to parent, how to…..) What is…
-
New Year’s Resolutions, Will Power and Bad Habits
Who hasn’t had a problem with will power and bad habits. We all get to points in our life where we see that our habits have turned destructive. They started out fun, exciting and very satisfying and then turned to the opposite. The negative effect begins outweighing the positive effect. The negative consequences on our…
-
Do I Need Therapy?
Instead of asking your self, “Do I need therapy?”, first ask your self, “Would I like some help with my confusion?”, “Would I like support with feeling over whelmed?”, “Would I like to understand relationships better?”, and so on. Basically, “What would I like a little help with?” These sorts of questions help us…
-
Finding a Psychotherapist
Whether it is your first time to psychotherapy or you are looking to find another therapist, it is important to consider a few things. Yes, they need to be a licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist or licensed clinical social worker. But the main consideration is, do you like them as a person, do…
-
Overcoming Anxiety: Spiritual Anxiety (relation to the unknown)
Overcoming anxiety is a very noble quest. I began by describing three ways of looking at anxiety in the previous posts; personal, cultural and spiritual(relation to the unknown). Religions provide an environment to address spiritual anxiety for the culture. They provide rituals, practices and beliefs to address seemingly unanswerable questions. Such as: What’s life? …
