49 replies to this topic

[FiveNotions]

I just posted this in another discussion, and thought I'd add it here as well...

Journey to Peace: A 12 Step Program for Anxiety, Panic, & Life (look inside)
http://www.amazon.co...c/dp/1438923651

[gail]

Stillness Speaks

 

By Eckart Tolle

 

If we connect to the stillness within, we move beyond our active minds and emotions and discover great depths of lasting peace, contentment and serenity.

 

Trying everyday to connect but at times the mind is too anguished to even think of such a place, but I am trying.

[thismoment]

Gail

I am a fan of Eckart Tolle, and I like that quote.

Sometimes, however, he is a little short on the "how-to" information: How do we create (and connect with) that stillness within? The how-to is the subject of Mindfulness Meditation, and you can learn that one-on-one with a mentor, in courses at local educational facilities, and on-line.

I highly recommend it.

[xman]

Eckart Tolle is an amazing man! He is on Super Soul Sundays with Oprah (on the OWN network) freq. with a New Earth being one of his 1st books.

[gail]

Thismoment, you are right about the How to.

 

The way I do it is by 3 steps.

 

I begin by giving gratitude for my blessings. Then I visualise a spiritual revelation, if I can explain it that way,  that happened to me a long time ago. It lasted between 5 minutes or 45 minutes, I cannot tell, time did not exist. During this revelation, I was pure love, pure compassion, pure peace. So I try to bathe in those feelings, not always easy, but when I can manage to do so, I sense the smile of my soul. A place of no thoughts, just peace and being as Tolle says.

 

I have to admit that it does not last long, but that soul's smile is very nourrishing.

 

Xman, I dont have that channel, I would surely watch it. And his books speak to me, I sense the message, too bad that we cannot have this enlightment as fast as it happened to him.

[thismoment]

Gail

 

That is so cool, that is so wonderful! 

 

It's those spaces we seek, those gaps between the verbal automaticity that runs constantly in our brains while we're awake. Your beautiful experience changes those words to silent feeling, sensation, and space. 

 

Mindfulness meditation seeks that sublime oasis. The Buddha found it in a lotus blossom.

[xman]

Gail they have a live webcast-according to her, as I am listening to the TV version now (commercial break!). Every Monday night is the live webcast. They are on Chapter 8 of the book A New Earth.

 

Search " Oprah webcast A New Earth" and you will see the site come up

 

Happy Mother's day to all you moms!!

[gail]

Thank you Xman, will look it up.

[gail]

Full catastrophe living, using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, illness.

 

By Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

The french title is, for me, a better description than the english one.

 

Au coeur de la tourmente, la pleine conscience.

 

This book is about mindfulness, shows how meditation can alleviate all ailments. The same method applies for all ailments, might it be depression, fibro, anxiety, cancer, whatever, you name it.

 

8 week program, you can adjust it for your needs, nothing dictating about it. No musts, no you have to,

The objective is to quiet the mind, be in the present, whatever condition you are in and letting it be.

 

For those who do not appreciate to be told what to do, another one has been written for them.

 

Where ever you go, there you are also by Kabat Zinn.

 

I like the mixing of both.

[Xanazul]

Good work Gail. I believe we all here have much to learn and can very much benefit from John Kabat-Zinn work

[xman]

I am so moved by Eckhart Tolle's New Earth and Mindful Awakening. It was helpful to listen to him explain how to be present and to accept, have joy and have enthusiasm. Chapter 10 was highlighted on the OWN Network w/ Oprah today on Super Soul Sunday today...

[Clara]

Wow! I love the way y'all exchanged thoughts, beliefs, etc, worked through the misunderstandings and came to a fruitful conclusion! Inspiring to say the least! Faith, hope, love is what will get us all through this life that gets so dang hard at times! I have to say ONE MORE TIME how grateful I am for each and every one of you!!!! Hugs to all!

[Bethhalffull]

(Repost from another page)

One of the things I would like to share is the books that I have learned from.  One of my favorites is Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whittaker.  I felt that the references to research let me use my own judgement to reach conclusions. He studied a wide range of psychotropic drugs.  I bought copies of his book to lend and/or give away.  I am particularly worried about some of my son's teenaged friends who are ripe for the industry to chew up.  I also appreciated Unhinged and The Emperors New Drugs.

 

I came across  a book in the office of my counselor (they have a little bookshelf--what a nice gesture for a counseling office!) by Geneen Roth.  She is an "anti-diet" person, and many of her books are about people's issues with food.  I was just reading When You Eat at the Refrigerator Pull Up a Chair and a paragraph made me think of this list:

"When a tree is tender and young, first making its roots, a gardener knows to fence it from deer, fertilize it with nutrients, pay loving attention as it gets started.  The gardener doesn't grow the tree; she provides the conditions in which it can thrive.  We need to do the same with our souls, hearts, spirits, bodies.  We need to provide the conditions in which we can thrive, and those conditions involve other people.  We need to put ourselves in circumstances in which we can be seen, heard, and loved for who we are and want to become."  (Emphasis mine.)

 

In a way, we are starting over.  Rebuilding ourselves, especially those of us who have been "away" for a long time.  I know I am trying to become a person who sees the glass as "half full," and focusses on the contribution I can make.  That is one reason why the misery and anger that I experience with withdrawal is so shameful to me.  And of course shame evokes misery and the cycle goes on.

[FiveNotions]

Thanks for re-posting that here, BethHF!

I just love your own comment at the end ... really hits home with me...

"In a way, we are starting over. Rebuilding ourselves, especially those of us who have been "away" for a long time. I know I am trying to become a person who sees the glass as "half full," and focusses on the contribution I can make. That is one reason why the misery and anger that I experience with withdrawal is so shameful to me. And of course shame evokes misery and the cycle goes on."

[thismoment]

Bethhalffull

 

Interesting stuff. 

 

 "I am particularly worried about some of my son's teenaged friends who are ripe for the industry to chew up." 

 

There are many strategies to pre-emptively intervene in someone's descent into antidepressants, and the literary material you recommend is good; but motivation to read the material is required and that usually occurs after the fact- as in your case and mine.

 

Many will agree that psychiatrists are the tweed-sporting, beard-stroking, pen-sucking, narcissistic, nihilistic, amoral, nut-scratching, swooning mob of interlopers that are the king-pin pill-pushers; they're a goddamn walking cliche. But they're golden and you can't touch those frozen-minded, self-cannonized clutch of insufferable pricks. But I think the place to nip this bud is at the level of the physician who is responsible for moving a lot of product. 

 

The jaunty pharmaceutical rep charms and swoons verbal delirium into the cradle-soft inner ear of the physician- a fuse is armed. Somehow this transaction has to be interrupted, re-directed, de-fused, or re-informed. What can we do to replace the perennial charm, schmooze, and reach of BigPharma's PR Machine? Is it just good old-fashioned bribery going on here? Any ideas?

[FiveNotions]

TM, just read about big pharma hiring practices for sales reps ... and their training practices ... cafepharma.com is a great place to hear the inside info from the folks who push these drugs... the pharma cos recruit on college campuses... they hire the cutest, sexiest, most adorable of the women, and either gay, charming guys, or the all-American Boy Scout type guy .... the guys (at least the straight ones) tend to move up and out of sales into the management positions, and the women and gay guys are stuck in the low level "sexy sells" jobs ... as soon as the women get a bit "long in the tooth" they get pushed out/laid off/harassed into quitting ... I assume the same holds for the gay guys ... oh yeah, lesbians need not apply, unless of the "lipstick lesbian" variety who can stay on the down low....

The docs/shrinks all tend to be the male types you described ... and they are soooo easy for a cute, pharma co trained and indoctrinated sales rep to manipulate .... I've watched it, as I sit in doc office waiting rooms ... I've also noticed that the office staff, nurses, receptionists, billers/coders seen to hate the people ... male and female ... with a passion...

[thismoment]

FN

 

It made me think of this song; we love this, but somehow the lyric eludes us. It's curiously neutral, tantalizingly androgynous, and without a doubt- iconic; here it is:

 

 

Diamond life 

Lover boy

He moves in space

With minimum waste

And maximum joy

 

City lights and business nights

When you require

Streetcar desire

For higher highs

 

No place for beginners or sensitive hearts

Sentiment is left to chance

No place to be ending but somewhere to start

No need to ask

 

He's a smooth operator

Smooth operator

Smooth operator

Smooth operator

 

Coast to coast- LA to Chicago

Western male- across the north and south to

Key Largo

Love for sale

 

Face to face

Each classic case

We shadow box and double cross

Yet need the chase

 

A license to love, insurance to hold

Melt all your memories, change into gold

His eyes are like angels

But his heart is cold

 

No need to ask

He's a smooth operator

Smooth operator, smooth operator

Smooth operator

 

Coast to coast- LA to Chicago

Western male- across the north and south to

Key Largo

Love for sale

 

Smooth operator, smooth operator

 

 

From Diamond Life CD1984

Sade Adu, Ray St. John

[gail]

Hi,

Wanted to bring this topic back.

OUT OF THE DARKNESS, by Steve Taylor. About 2012

How 30 people that have lived great traumas and or great moments of depression, and about astraunots. Those moments followed by spiritual awakening.

In this book, there is among the 30 people our beloved Eckart Tolle and Byron Katie to name a few.

[Cse70]

Uh, oh!

Gail, you opened a can of worms with me, a book fiend. Like Erasmus, "when I have a little money, I buy books, if I have any left over I buy food and clothes" I looked at Steve Taylor's works on Amazon and plan on buying several. They look good! Thanks for the info!

[FiveNotions]

Good stuff, thanks, Gail! Now that I'm unemployed again I have time for my own reading ... and, I have an Amazon credit that needs to be used