Suicidal: Honoring the Crisis of Self

Are you feeling suicidal?

If you reading this right now, feeling like you wish you weren’t here, or actively wishing to end your life, know that I love you– just as you are. I hear you are feeling a lot – perhaps numb, hopeless, helpless, overwhelmed, angry, or sad. Bitter, envious, jealous, or empty. There’s room for all of that. Plenty of room for all that you’re feeling. Breathe. Cry. Scream. Talk. Most importantly, talk to people who care about you, who care for your well-being. People are waiting to talk to you, hoping to talk with you, to hear what you are going through and to be with you through this seemingly impossible time. If you’re feeling depressed, despairing, or feeling suicidal, know that 24/7 you can chat with someone online or talk on the phone (1-800-273-8255) with just such a person who’s been waiting for your call.

To hear David’s story of hope, skip to 1:30:

World Suicide Prevention Day

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I’d be remiss to not speak up on this occasion. This year I’ve been reflecting a lot on the subject. I looked at the statistics today; and the CDC reports that in 2014 roughly 4% of the US population age 18 and older had suicidal thoughts in 2014. That’s one (1) out of every 25.

In my personal experience, I’ve known two who have succeeded and and a number of close friends who have either considered it heavily enough to check themselves in, or attempted and failed. It weighs on me to know that if you head to the bookstore, there are few and far between options for support when you’re feeling either like you don’t want to be here or actively wishing you weren’t. At Barnes and Noble I found nothing. Half Price Books, nothing. Third Place Books, nothing. There were plenty of books on cultivating happiness, plenty of books on depression, anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, and even books on cutting. But nothing for those contemplating suicide. How is this possible?

Feeling Suicidal: A Crisis of Self

Going online, I found some resources on Amazon and through the library; but the majority of these were academic– intended for study, not for those needing assistance. Wow! You can imagine my relief when I found a resource at the library, Thinking About Suicide: Contemplating and Comprehending the Urge to Die, which addresses this very point. Author David Webb writes (p6):

“The lived experience of suicidality is chaotic and confused, full of ambiguity and doubt. Anger, fear, and other passions are also tangles with the paralysing hopelessness and helplessness. All of this and more must be spoken of. The dispassionate, scholarly voice has its place, but by itself it cannot adequately capture and articulate these essential elements of the suicidal experience as it is lived.”

Yup! What a breath of fresh air to find his book, and perspective. Webb, who had attempted his own suicide before deciding to complete the world’s first PhD on the subject, in his book dispels the common myths people hold around suicide. Casting the light of spiritual self-enquiry onto the experience, Webb maintains suicide is not a mental health issue, but a crisis of self. I couldn’t agree more.

If you’re feeling suicidal, or wanting to understand the experience more in-depth, I highly recommend picking up his book. He’s clear to state his book is “not a self-help book with a ‘cure’ for suicidal feelings in seven easy steps. …Instead, this book invites you to honour and respect your suicidal feelings as real, legitimate and important.”

A different perspective

Another book I’ve found interesting on the subject is “Suicide: What Really Happens in the Afterlife? / Channeled Conversations With the Dead.” The authors share stories from mediums of those they’ve channeled, and their experience upon successfully having committed suicide.

From an energy work perspective, it’s interesting to see the overlap with my practice and the feedback the mediums received. In Reiki, we have a technique to treat past life trauma, including that of a suicide. In such cases, I have seen that while clarity and creating the possibility of a new outcome can be helpful for clearing the emotional overwhelm, there is still the learning to be learned. I think of Michael Bernard Beckwith who puts it like this (I’m paraphrasing here), “If this situation never changed, what quality would I have to birth within me to be OK with it?” This seems to be confirmed in Klimo and Heath’s book in which they suggest suicides reincarnate into the same conditions (even if different circumstances); there’s no skipping lessons. What’s more interesting, is I have also experienced their description of successful suicides who reincarnate into this life with the same conditions, and as such, experience suicidal ideation–  also have at the same time a certain knowing that trying [again] would be useless.

Cultivating connection

Whether or not you believe in reincarnation, we can all agree that if someone is feeling suicidal, they need help– now, here. I have found this is very hard for people — knowing how to connect with people when the stakes are high and emotions are heated. It’s easy to alienate.

The biggest thing that alienates, in my experience, is people not knowing how to empathize. They go straight into reaction. By and large, we haven’t been taught to listen, to really hear how someone is feeling and listen for what they need. So what do we do? We counsel, we try to ‘fix it,’ we shut down. We one up, we go into our own stories. Oh, man. It’s heavy enough for someone feeling suicidal to hold their own difficult feelings and stories; they don’t need to add yours to the pile!

How might you communicate to someone you love that how they feel matters to you, and in such a way that allows them to hear you? Ask. Ask how they are feeling. Ask what they need. Ask how you might help. Ask if they’d be willing to hear more ideas on what might help. Tell them you love them, and if it’s the case, that you don’t know what to say; but that you want them to know from the bottom of your heart you’re here for them. You’re listening.

 

 

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Community: Unique Currents in a Stream

No one person can effectively live in isolation. We all affect the water around us and the way of the current. So, how much of our swimming with or against the current is learned and how much of that inclination is nature?

They did a study with men and women wherein they were looking to see the correlation between the participants’ exposure to testosterone in the womb and their later ability to empathize (i.e. connect with others). (I’ve just scoured the internet seeing if I could find the clip, but alas, I cannot!) It was fascinating! They started by gathering men and women with varying levels of exposure to testosterone in the womb. An easy at-home trick to see your own level of exposure is to compare the length of your ring finger to that of your index finger on the same hand (see: photo). Keeping your wrist straight, if your ring finger is longer than your index finger, as shown here, you were exposed to more testosterone in the womb. Conversely, if your index finger is longer than your ring finger, you were exposed to more estrogen.

Checking the ratio of testosterone (red line) to estrogen (yellow line) exposure

Researchers then gathered these men and women with all varying levels of testosterone, and put them each with a crying baby. The individuals with more estrogen (both men and women), instinctively reached out for the baby to calm and care for it. Those with more testosterone did not. Oddly, the man with the greatest testosterone level of the group, however, also picked up and held the baby. When the researchers asked the man why, he explained he never naturally connected with people; and in fact, his inability to connect was so strong, he had to learn to mimic other people’s behavior in similar situations to get on.

Learning of this man’s challenge in life, I became aware of a powerful truth: It may not be in our nature to do something, to feel something, to know something, and so on; but, we can learn to do almost anything if we put our mind to it–even without understanding why we’re doing it at the time.

As for me, I certainly started out not an empathizer (did you guess that’s my hand?). I was a New Yorker, and an introvert. I took pride in it, too. I took the Myers-Briggs when I was in my early 20s and I thought that was good justification for my inability to care for people’s feelings, “Oh, well, I’m a Thinker; and it’s obvious you’re a Feeler. So, unless you want to talk solutions, I don’t really want to hear your feelings.” Yikes! And this general disinterest verging on distaste for other people spilled over into all areas of life; I was happiest avoiding my neighbors and enjoying a singleton’s life.

Gradually things changed. I moved to San Francisco, and found a roommate that shared my values. I started practicing Buddhism and found a community not comprised of a ‘group,’ but of individuals. I started to see that each person matters and has a unique and marvelous gift for this life; that there is no ‘better’ and no ‘worse’ among us.

I believe learning Reiki was a huge part of this process for me – to learn that we are all unique faces of this greater whole. This was further fleshed out by my learning that having needs doesn’t make us “needy.” (Thank you, NVC.) Eventually, my energy work practice brought me to my current understanding and relief that we are not competitors; we are creators. Pretty awesome and intense stuff!

So, maybe it’s in part nature and in part nurture; but regardless of how we’re born, or what we choose to do with our lives, we can’t forget the ways in which others color and change our perspectives. Just as much as our actions affect others; we are constantly in the stream of the gentle push from others. We decide whether we want to be pushed to greatness, or pushed to shame. Remember: You get to choose whom you keep in your life.

Connecting at Umpqua Bank’s Holistic Health Fair

In the meantime, I’d like to thank some folks that have recently entered mine: Candace, Alex and Shalena over at Umpqua Bank in Ballard. I had met with the Store Manager, Candace, a while back and really enjoyed hearing the ways she had been expanding the Ballard bank’s community offerings (among other things, you have her to thank for their fantastic rotating art gallery in the back!). And while representing my practice at their holistic health fair last weekend, I got to witness firsthand their successful efforts to raise awareness about local resources available to folks! Thank you for all your hard work in making the health fair such a success!

Community is certainly the theme at Umpqua, what with their unique ‘word salad’ on their windows (yes, I had no idea what that was, either) describing the local community’s vibe, their paid 40-hours of volunteering for employees, a rotating spotlight on local merchants, to even their hosting group sessions for small businesses looking to learn tips from experts in different fields. (The list goes on….) If you happen to be in Ballard (or in any other of their many Seattle locations), I encourage you to stop on in and check out their interactive ‘Discover’ wall; perhaps you’ll be surprised what you find!

Thinking of your connection to those around you, what’s one way you might leave the world a better place for having lived in it?

Unpacking: A Pathway to Healing

In energy work, there’s a theory that every individual is a unique ‘face’ of the Whole. It’s a lot like being a piece of the hologram, or living the Blanket Truth (for those of you who love movies as much as I do). It’s not an uncommon theory; you can find parallels in fields ranging from physics to Buddhism. From this perspective, you’re considered already fundamentally healed, as you are considered fundamentally whole. But healing, in the moment, might look like the uncovering of this truth, the knowing of this truth. For a lot of people, this begs the question, “If we’re whole and already perfect, why wouldn’t we know we are whole and already perfect? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

Yes, and no. How do we know anything in this life? If you took away your senses – if you couldn’t touch, see, hear, taste, or smell – what would you know about the world and its ways, its inhabitants? Not much at all! I might dare say all our thoughts are built from what we have experienced; they are the composite reaction/response to our conditioning. We think about what we like, dislike, want to do, want to avoid, choose to define and to communicate. But if we had no sense of an other, or of our receiving or of an other’s receiving, all these thoughts would be void. Pretty intense and awesome stuff!

We need a certain degree of objectivity – both for ourselves and as a gift for others to allow each to know the world and one’s self through our reactions and responses to this world experience. (I really like how Walsch describes this process.) The only way we can arrive at this very crucial step in the process is to (partially) split from the whole. Hence, we become as individuals a piece of the hologram, a finger under the blanket, a born seeming-separate self. So, yes – it does seem an oxymoron to be perfect and to not readily know it; but it makes sense if you had to step out of being to step into reflexive seeing, that it would take some mind-wrapping-around-the-weirdness to realize, “Oh, yes! I am unique, and I am the same as everything else I see, I know, I hear, I taste, I feel, I smell.” This is the healing – it’s the perhaps slow at times but methodical learning that we can be and are both.

I call this, “unpacking.” We have the opportunity in this life to unpack all the false beliefs we adopted over time about who we ‘really’ are, based on what we’ve experienced. And it’s not just (a) assumptions and interpretations that comprise ‘who we are’ based on how we’ve performed and been with ourselves and others (i.e. “No one praised my…; so, clearly, I am not good enough to deserve…), but (b) a slow fixing of who we are in what we believe we’re capable of, based on where we’ve been and what we’ve done (i.e. “Over and over again I am not praised for my…; I’ll never deserve…”). It’s a subtle difference – but I’m talking about (a) knowing you deserve the very best in life, and (b) being willing to accept something ever greater than you had ever imagined for yourself.

How to unpack, then? With help, with greater objectivity. With patience. With kindness. With diligent mindfulness. It’s for this reason, I often think about the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and I think, “Yea, it also takes a village to unpack that grown child’s baggage.” (Ha!!!) Seriously, though, it does! That’s what I love about holistic health – there are so many different angles from which we can approach the body-mind-spirit. Even within bodywork alone, there are seriously countless varied modalities. The more we can learn about what help is available, and how best to support ourselves, the more we’re able to bring that greater objectivity to our life, and to invite even greater possibility into our vision of how we see our life able to unfold. This is the juice! This is the good stuff!

Not sure where to begin learning about holistic health care practices? Come join us tomorrow, 04/20/13, at Ballard’s Umqua Bank for a Holistic Health Fair from 11a-2p, featuring educational pieces, discounts and demos from local Ballard practitioners:

• Reiki Master/Teacher Melissa Dana, EAMP (yours truly!)
• Naturopathic Doctor Debbie Whittington, ND
• Chiropractor Derek Strachan, DC
• Massage Therapist Jacob Caldwell, LMT
• Nutritionist Marley Braun, RD
• Acupuncturist Linda Phelps, LAc

I look forward to exchanging ideas with you and to answering any of your questions you might have about how Reiki energy work might support you in your process of unpacking, and in knowing your true Self!

Exploring Reiki I: Awakening

How do you teach the experience of Cosmic Consciousness through the human senses? This has been the question on my mind as I prepare to teach Reiki again this Winter. In teaching, I find it’s important to stay open to further developing and re-developing material– to keep asking the questions, “Why?”, “How?” And Reiki is such a big topic! There are so many whys and so many hows: Why does it work? How does it work? How do I know it works? Why do I need to know how it works?”, etc.

It’s been almost 10 years that I have been practicing Reiki; and it’s wonderful to see that my perspective on the work has evolved over time. This shows me I continue to learn, continue to question. Lately, I’ve been seeing the practice of Reiki more like a relationship, for example, that between a spider and its web:

Yes, there is this ‘thing,’ this amorphous entity, called Reiki. Through an insight experience, Mikao Usui in the early 20th C. became aware of this “Reiki” (i.e. “spiritual energy”), and found he could channel it through his body and out his hands; and that by channeling this energy, he was able to heal people. He also found he could pass on this knowing, this ability to access Reiki, through empowerments or what are now called attunements. Through raising the awareness and energetic vibration of those willing and intending to channel Reiki, Mikao Usui started a lineage of practitioners. This we can imagine is the spider: A lineage and the embodiment of Reiki practice. But what is a spider without its web?

A web stabilizes and supports a spider; a web is how the spider gets its nourishment. A web is also unique to the spider that builds it, and the time and place in which it is built. What’s more, I recently learned that a spider’s web actually grows stronger when its threads are broken. What does this say for us, Reiki practitioners, the spiders of this web?

To me, it says our life context is important–really important–for how we move in this world and how we find nourishment in this lifetime. It says to me that equally important to teaching the logistical practice of Reiki, is teaching perspective; we have to examine how the practice is supported (or not supported) by how we view the world and our place in it. With so much fear fueling people’s decisions, it is more important than ever to teach and uncover a love-based paradigm– a world in which everyone’s needs can be met, with skilful strategy. I feel super excited to share this perspective with folks and see just how far they can fly with it!

“How do we teach the experience of Cosmic Consciousness through the human senses?” I think we look at the spider, but we remember the web. Perhaps we mindfully break those threads we built out of fear, anger, and ignorance–knowing that, sometimes, breaking down builds us up. Perhaps most importantly, we sit back and enjoy feeling supported in our every movement, knowing that our mindful efforts are rewarded in profound nourishment!

Want to join us? Classes run January through March at the Seattle Buddhist Center and the Seattle Center for Structural Medicine. Registration deadline is 12/15/12. I look forward to seeing you there!

Candid Camera

Lately I’ve been finding myself more curious about the band posters posted in my neighborhood. Mostly they feature someone or a band of people somewhat sneering at the camera, Ke$ha style. Normally I wouldn’t think twice about it, except I just started seeing it everywhere– badasses on telephone polls, badasses in clothing store windows, wherever– just anywhere someone wanted something to look cool. And it just hit me, this is what we’re all trying to emulate? Is it actually uncool to be seen smiling?

I’m reminded of a patient I had once, who I encouraged during a Reiki treatment to smile at her gallbladder. (It’s really not an uncommon phenomenon in qi gong practice.) She scoffed. What was more amazing is when I consulted with a colleague, she misunderstood me and thought the patient suggested smiling to her own gallbladder– to which my colleague laughed. I hadn’t realized that taking the time to see what’s inside us with kindness was laughable to most people. And not even the kind of laugh that brings a genuine smile to one’s face!

Ekman and Friesen conducted research in the 1980’s that was able to show the marked differentiation between “enjoyment [or felt] smiles” and “false [or masking] smiles.” They found the muscles around the eyes, in particular the zygomatic and orbicularis oculi muscles, would only contract during smiles spontaneously occurring with positive emotion. Our eyes can’t fake it! (Think you’re good at spotting the truth? Check out some photos….) What’s more fascinating, is Kleinke, Peterson, and Rutledge found in the late 1990’s that for self-aware folks, mimicking another individual’s positive or negative facial expressions directly resulted in their feeling positive and negative emotions. In other words, just trying on an authentic smile (remember to engage those crow’s feet!) is enough to evoke positive emotion. They also found this sense of positive affect was further increased when participants saw themselves in a mirror. This underscores for me that not only is something happening physically that is affecting the emotional body, but that seeing truly is believing. When we see that something is possible, that, for example, we can be happy, we are that much more open to being happy. And what’s super cool? Our happiness has been shown to reach almost three degrees of separation— causing those around us to feel happier, too. (I love the author’s note, page 8, that likens the reach of happiness to that of obesity and smoking behavior.)

So, let’s just step back for a minute – and think, if our emotions can be affected by the faces we see every day (think: mirror neurons); and we’re constantly looking at pictures and billboards and posters of scowling people; and the mood we’re trying on can affect three degrees of separation… WHOA! This is more serious than I thought! You could almost say there’s a contagion out there that is plaguing people with hardness. That just to face the world, we have to process an array of emotion. And more than ever, it’s important to prioritize kindess; to prioritize a kind smile towards yourself and others. The deeper that smile, the more we encourage those around us to try on deeper and deeper depths of happiness. So, smile at your gallbladder. Smile at your pinky toe. Smile at your inner organs and top layers. Anything and everything that deserves feeling good, feeling appreciated, feeling loved. Your shared happiness may be the cheapest and most meaningful investment you make in yourself and in those around you!

Need more encouragement? Let martial artist Gene Dreyer show you how to be a real badass!

Bone-Tired

Adrenal fatigue. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had people come in over the last few months complaining of adrenal fatigue. And yet, according to Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical education and research organization, the condition isn’t even an “accepted” medical diagnosis. I am sure my Naturopath colleagues would have something radically different to say on the subject; but as for us Chinese medicine practitioners, we certainly understand what it means to feel bone-tired.

For everything that we do there is a give-and-take. There’s no exception here! You can’t cheat needing to give and you can’t cheat needing to get. It is just as healthy and universal a need to receive support as it is for us to contribute, and be recognized for our unique contribution. But how often do we find ourselves trying not to be ‘needy’? Trying to show we can do more with less? Trying to show we are more capable than the next guy because we can cut more corners? Our society demands almost nothing less.

We’ve started to notice a trend in our children – an inability to stay present and focused with a single task at a time. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) found that in just 4 years parent-reported cases [of ever having] Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children ages 3-17 increased by almost 22%. (Yowza!) Increased awareness of the issue has brought learning aid to millions of children. But what about adults?

On the job, adults are managing more information than ever. The landline rings, a colleague stops in to get an answer, the smartphone buzzes you have a new text, the computer pops up a reminder that you have a meeting; you need to get on Skype in 10 minutes to have a meeting with Japan. And forget business owners – who on top of doing their job have to then talk about doing their job on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. One thing leads to another, and Bam!  About 75% of the US adult population find themselves working over 40 hours/week (2006). And guess what else? We also start to see Attention Deficit Trait in adults. More and more people are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.

In Chinese medicine, we talk about two sources of energy in the body – one is like the gas we add to a vehicle, the other like the vehicle’s battery. Our fuel is our sleep, our food, our friendships, our alone time. Our battery is our deepest resource – our fuel to be alive.  Feeling bone-tired is deeper than having too much to do. It’s about not knowing when to rest (i.e. not enough fuel); and when we don’t rest we can start to lose touch with our drive for life– a sign that we’ve fully depleted our fuel and are actually starting to drain our body’s most precious battery.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are great tools to help your body get back on track; and knowing when to ask for help is integral to the healing process. So is listening to your body’s queues: Does your stomach feel tight? Have you been experiencing more headaches? Has your heart been racing? Is it difficult for you to fall asleep? Remember, sometimes actually doing less will help you accomplish more.

Interested to read more? I love this article on how long you’ll truly be productive at work (note to self: that’s only 6 hours/day for thinkers). In fact, they’ve shown folks who consistently sleep less than 6 hours/night have shown cognitive impairment equivalent to not having slept at all for two nights.

Go team!!

Adrenal Fatigue: Feeling Bone-Tired

Adrenal Fatigue

Adrenal fatigue. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had people come in over the last few months complaining of adrenal fatigue. And yet, according to Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical education and research organization, the condition isn’t even an “accepted” medical diagnosis. I am sure my Naturopath colleagues would have something radically different to say on the subject; but as for us Chinese medicine practitioners, we certainly understand what it means to feel bone-tired.

Learning Balance

For everything that we do there is a give-and-take. There’s no exception here! You can’t cheat needing to give and you can’t cheat needing to get. It is just as healthy and universal a need to receive support as it is for us to contribute, and be recognized for our unique contribution. But how often do we find ourselves trying not to be ‘needy’? Trying to show we can do more with less? Trying to show we are more capable than the next guy because we can cut more corners? Our society demands almost nothing less.

Information Overload

We’ve started to notice a trend in our children – an inability to stay present and focused with a single task at a time. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) found that in just 4 years parent-reported cases [of ever having] Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children ages 3-17 increased by almost 22%. (Yowza!) Increased awareness of the issue has brought learning aid to millions of children. But what about adults?

On the job, adults are managing more information than ever. The landline rings, a colleague stops in to get an answer, the smartphone buzzes you have a new text, the computer pops up a reminder that you have a meeting; you need to get on Skype in 10 minutes to have a meeting with Japan. And forget business owners – who on top of doing their job have to then talk about doing their job on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. One thing leads to another, and Bam!  About 75% of the US adult population find themselves working over 40 hours/week (2006). And guess what else? We also start to see Attention Deficit Trait in adults. More and more people are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.

Draining the body’s battery

In Chinese medicine, we talk about two sources of energy in the body – one is like the gas we add to a vehicle, the other like the vehicle’s battery. Our fuel is our sleep, our food, our friendships, our alone time. Our battery is our deepest resource – our fuel to be alive.  Feeling bone-tired is deeper than having too much to do. It’s about not knowing when to rest (i.e. not enough fuel); and when we don’t rest we can start to lose touch with our drive for life– a sign that we’ve fully depleted our fuel and are actually starting to drain our body’s most precious battery.

Managing fatigue

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are great tools to help your body get back on track; and knowing when to ask for help is integral to the healing process. So is listening to your body’s queues: Does your stomach feel tight? Have you been experiencing more headaches? Has your heart been racing? Is it difficult for you to fall asleep? Remember, sometimes actually doing less will help you accomplish more.

Interested to read more? I love this article on how long you’ll truly be productive at work (note to self: that’s only 6 hours/day for thinkers). In fact, they’ve shown folks who consistently sleep less than 6 hours/night have shown cognitive impairment equivalent to not having slept at all for two nights.

Go team!!

Does the Mood Strike You?

There can be such clarity in simple expressions. Mood: often we feel overwhelmed by how we are feeling, or how we want to be feeling, that we forget our moods simply come and go. How we feel in a moment is not who we are at heart. Nonetheless, our feelings give us great insight to our needs–and that is something well worth addressing!

Physically, our body is a well-oiled machine of incredible capacity. Caring for it must include an awareness of how we nourish it, what we demand of it, how we treat it, and how we think about it. “What the Bleep Do We Know” is a super cool movie that illustrates this point, that our thoughts can directly affect the function of our bodies. Dr. Masaru Emoto in Japan proved that using words to deliver intention to water can even physically affect the shape of its crystals. So what does that mean for us in how we talk to ourselves, think to ourselves about how we are and how we would like to be?

While moods may wash over us seemingly out of nowhere, there are a few fantastic methods to help get to the bottom of what’s going on. I love the Non-Violent Communication model set up by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. It’s simple enough in its approach–it has four basic parts: (1) Everyone has the same, universal needs. (2) Our feelings indicate whether our needs are or are not being met. (3) We each choose strategies to ensure our needs get met. (4) Everyone can get their respective needs met by choosing cooperative strategies. For those who battle with anger, depression, and anxiety, this can be a very powerful tool. Just to be aware that it’s not being “needy” to have needs can be extremely liberating! It’s also empowering to start recognizing that in each action, we are always striving for the same thing — to get our needs met. So, when we don’t like the outcome our of choices, we can have clarity that it’s not our needs that are the problem, but our strategies. This can create space for the important shift out of pessimism (something internal, i.e. “What’s wrong with me?”) to optimism (something external, i.e. “This didn’t go well for me.”). The more and more we create a separation between what we experience and who we are, the easier it is to respond creatively to our situation, and remain open-hearted.

“The Pathway” is another fantastic resource I recommend to patients. In this book, author Laurel Mellin, MA, RD describes the method of doing what are called “cycles” as a method to move through the mood. The cycle roughly breaks down into asking one’s self: (1) How am I feeling? (2) Are my expectations reasonable? (3) Are my thoughts powerful and positive?  (4) What is the essential pain/earned reward? (5) What do I need? Do I need support? You’d be amazed what can get uncovered in a cycle with simply applying attention! I think about our brains like massive storage houses — with endless drawers for our experiences. We carefully and carelessly place and toss our happiness, our frustration, our being seen, our being forgotten, our hopes and our desperation. Each drawer deepens and widens with each year of our lives. Then we get a new experience — Uh! Goes in the drawer! But guess what? Each time we open it we’re reminded of all the junk and all the joy we’ve known before! That is, of course, unless we regularly empty the drawers…. All the more reason to parse out our feelings and needs daily!

Chemistry is no small part of it, too. Studies have shown vitamin and mineral levels do make a difference. Key players include chromium, phosphorus, zinc and an array of B vitamins among others. B vitamins in particular can be crucial in treating mood disorders; and supplementing with a methylated folic acid (i.e. B9) and B12 can make a significant difference to those inefficient at activating these vitamins. I mention this just as an example to remind everyone that we’re talking about the mind-body-spirit connection. Treating the body, we affect the mind. Working with the mind, we affect the body. The best healing works on all levels.

I personally love Reiki’s ability to listen deeply to the spirit while working with the body-mind. It’s a great avenue for cultivating awareness of what beliefs we hold, what fears we have, what holds us back from being our full, true selves. Honoring the sacred voice in each of us, Reiki can light the path when things have grown dim. I treasure the softness, kindness, and wisdom that come straight from the heart of each person I meet. When things grow dim, come on in!