Richard G. Petty, MD

Spirituality, Depression and Suicide

It is an interesting sign of the times that a major medical publication - the Southern Medical Journal - has dedicated an entire section this month to a series of papers on the Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project that is being supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Attention to our spirituality is an important part of fulfilling our potential and treating people in trouble. It is no accident that Integrated Medicine always includes all of the five major dimensions of an individual:

• Physical
• Psychological
• Social
• Subtle
• Spiritual

To get a bit technical, each of the five domains or dimensions contains something of each of the others. The body, mind and spirit and not separate but part of one whole. Mind, consciousness and spirit permeate the body.

We sometimes use the technical term “Five Interlinked Nested Domains” or “FINDS,” to reflect this reality.

An important principle of this interconnected health model is that it’s almost always a mistake to look for a single cause for a problem, imbalance or illness. Not only is it usually incorrect to think about “one illness, one cause,” but it is also usually not enough to use just one therapy or one health maintenance plan: Carefully coordinated combinations are key, for they generate a powerful synergy.

Because the domains are interlinked, physical and psychological health, to say nothing of our social health, and the health of our subtle systems are difficult to maintain without spiritual health. The road to spiritual health begins with understanding and following the natural laws of the Universe, finding your true Purpose and applying both to the service of others.

The articles in this issue of the Southern Medical Journal are excellent.

Here are some highlights:
Dan Blazer from Duke University provides an introduction that gives a fine overview of the growing field of spirituality in medicine in general and depression in particular
Harold Koenig, also from Duke has an article entitled, "Spirituality and Depression: A Look at the Evidence"
Bob Cloninger from Washington University in St. Louis writes about "Spirituality and the Science of Feeling Good."

Unfortunately the abstracts and papers are not yet available on line, except to members of the Southern Medical Association. Hopefully the Templeton Foundation will be able to arrange with the Journal to make at least the abstracts freely available.

If they do, I shall let you know.

Otherwise, if you have ready access to a library, and if you are interested in this important and rapidly growing field, I am sure that they will be able to help you.

Enlightenment

Regular readers will know that I have been collecting wise words from around the globe for many years, and I now have almost 40,000 of them broken down into more than 500 topics. It has taken years not just to collect them, but to try to check the sources and wording. But if you find errors, please let me know!

Here are 23 of my favorites comments about enlightenment.

I do hope that you find them as useful and inspiring as I have.



“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”   
--Carl G. Jung (Swiss Psychologist and Psychiatrist, 1875-1961)

“Be a lamp unto your own feet; do not seek outside yourself.”   
--Buddha (a.k.a. “The Awakened”, a.k.a. Siddhartha Gautama, Indian Religious Figure and Founder of Buddhism, c.563 B.C.E. – c.483 B.C.E.)

“When the divine vision is attained, all appear equal; and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low.”   
--Sri Ramakrishna (a.k.a. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Indian Hindu Mystic and Promoter of Universal Religion, 1836-1886)

“We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term.  But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.”   
--Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic and Spiritual Teacher, 1879-1950)

“We attain enlightenment when we love truth for the sake of truth, and not for the sake of self-promotion or worldly gain.”   
--Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)

“Once and for all, dedicate yourself to the service of a high ideal, to the coming of the kingdom of God, and do not be concerned with what will become of you. This ideal will bring you everything."
--Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (Bulgarian Spiritual Master, 1900-1986)

“The holy instant is the recognition that all minds are in communication. Every thought you would keep hidden shuts off communication.”
--A Course in Miracles (Book of Spiritual Principles Scribed by Dr. Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1975, and First Published in 1976)

“If you are enlightened, you are not free, as some people say, but you are freedom itself. Not like a bird in the sky, but like the sky itself.”
--Wolter A. Keers (Dutch Advaita Teacher and Editor, 1923-1985)

“The reason why so few people find enlightenment is because they have free will and punish themselves by making wrong choices. Constantly, enlightenment is being offered to them, but they refuse to accept it. Therefore they refuse to accept it. Therefore they are being taught problems that are set before them, since they refuse to make choices voluntarily.”
--“Peace Pilgrim” (a.k.a. Mildred Norman, American Peace Activist, 1908-1981)

“All the riches of this world are too less a price for a single word which enlightens the soul.”    
--Hazrat Inayat Khan (Founder of the Sufi Order of the West, 1882-1927)

“To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the enlightened mind the whole world sparkles and burns”   
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882)

“Enlightenment must come little by little, otherwise it would overwhelm.”   
--Idries Shah (Afghan-born Sufi Philosopher and Writer, 1924-1996)

“Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.”   
--Bhagavad Gita (Ancient and Sacred Sanskrit Poem Incorporated into the Mahabharata)

“If these little sparks of holy fire which I have thus heaped together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.”
--Jeremy Taylor (English Anglican Clergyman, Writer and Bishop, 1613-1667)

“The great beacon light God sets in all, the conscience of each bosom.”
--Robert Browning (English Poet, 1812-1889)

“God reveals himself unfailingly to the thoughtful seeker.”
--Honoré de Balzac (French Novelist, 1799-1850)

“There is no difference between an enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that the one realizes it, while the other is kept in ignorance of it.”
--Hui-Neng (a.k.a. Daikan Eno, Chinese Chan Monk, A.D. 638-713)

“You may have expected that enlightenment would come Zap! Instantaneous and permanent. This is unlikely. After the first "ah ha" experience, it can be thought of as the thinning of a layer of clouds...”   
--Ram Dass (a.k.a. Richard Alpert, American Spiritual Teacher, Author and Lecturer, 1931-)

“God realization does not begin in a cave high atop the Himalayas. It begins in the pots and pans of the kitchen. Treat all your tasks, however small, as opportunities to see God and serve him.”
Sri Swami Sivananda (Indian Physician and Spiritual Teacher, 1887-1963)

“Enlightenment is not an attainment: it is a realization. When you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?”   
--Dan Millman (American Writer, Philosopher and Former World Class Trampolinist, 1947-)

“Enlightenment is the highest good. Once you have it, nobody can take it away from you.”   
--Siddharameshwar Maharaj (Indian Spiritual Teacher, 1888-1936)

“Is enlightenment really possible for the average person? Yes. Big Yes. Enlightenment is very possible for the ordinary individual. Actually it is easier than for some one who thinks that they are special.... whenever someone is ordinary, simple, innocent and natural, that is enlightenment.”   
--Sri Sri Ravishankar (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Founder of the Art of Living Foundation and the International Association for Human Values, 1956-)

The Quest for Meaning

Yesterday I had the privilege of doing an interview with Michael Dresser on HealthRadio.Net. If you have not yet discovered them, I highly recommend the organization. I have put a link to them in the “Shared Visions” section on the left hand side of this blog. If you have any interest in health, there are a huge number of extremely interesting shows and free podcasts.

Having done radio and TV shows in around twenty countries, I can tell you that interviewers come in all shapes and sizes! Michael was very good: quick on the uptake and clearly committed to improving the welfare of his listeners. We did not agree on everything, but an interview where both people stroke each other, is not going to be much help to anyone!

Michael started by saying that the topic of Healing, Meaning and Purpose could easily have filled a three-hour show and he was right. After all, it took me 35 years to write that book. Well, getting it down on paper took eight weeks, but it had taken years of experiment and experience, and the input of thousands of people to get it right.

We decided to focus on meaning. A little tricky to do in 25 minutes, given that over a quarter of Healing, Meaning and Purpose is dedicated to the precise steps for discovering meaning in your life!

Michael expressed his concern about the large numbers of people who live without a feeling of meaning in their lives. And indeed there are huge numbers of people, particularly those who have lost their religious faith or who suffer from chronic illnesses, who find it very hard to find a sense of meaning in their lives.

Many reductionist writers and scientists don’t help when they tell us that we live in a dead, empty, meaningless Universe. They could not be more wrong!

Human beings are the consummate meaning generators in the Universe. Meaning provides context, and from context flows the real richness of life. Meaning fuels the alchemy that can transform an event into an experience. Parables and myths make deep meanings accessible.

The work of the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl has quite rightly become popular in recent years. He observed that people in concentration camps who had a reason to survive did so. He felt that it was important for people to commit to meaningful goals and values, and to be constantly aware of the meaning in all things. He also emphasized the importance of extending ourselves, to becoming more than we are now. This is one definition of the transpersonal or spiritual domain. Frankl saw mental health as deriving from ultimate meaning, or spiritual values.

The real meaning of freedom is the ability to choose how you will react in response to any situation. You choose the way to think about a problem; you establish your point of view and your way of behaving. It saddens me that so many people whom I see function “on automatic:” They live in a world of habitual responses. As long as you are concerned about what others think and say, you are responding and will never be free. You can be different. So why is it that for so many people life seems to have no meaning?

The main reasons for this sorry state of affairs are disconnection, separation and alienation on the one hand, and being reactive rather than reflective. This can be disconnection and separation from ourselves, from each other, from the world, from understanding our place in the world or from our Higher Self. If we react out of habit and assumption we can really fail to smell the roses. The problem of meaninglessness was never so serious when everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing and they had a clear set of duties and responsibilities.

For many of us our life story has become garbled and inconsistent. Sometimes the simple act of re-writing our life stories can help enormously. In the CDs and the last book I talk a lot about how to do that.

In recent years many people have started talking about “Diseases of Meaning,” a term that was, I think, first introduced by my old friend Kim Jobst.

Most of us think of health and disease as a dichotomy, as two sharply different states. But in reality, health and disease are part of a duality of healthy functioning. As with the other dualities that we have looked at, each contains the other, each is necessary for the other, and each gives rise to the other. Disease is a healthy response of an organism striving to maintain its equilibrium in the face of disruptive forces, like negative thoughts, unbalanced relationships, environmental toxins, poor nutrition, and so on. Disease can initiate a process of transformation; it has meaning. And instead of being brought low by a feeling of powerlessness, this realization can help people become stronger, to live more fully and with more understanding. This way of looking at disease can be applied to any of the chronic illnesses, and even to environmental problems like community violence. Understanding a disease for what it is can be empowering, and even transformative.

Sometimes people who feel meaningless do need professional help and there are forms of therapy designed to help us find meaning. And sometimes the sense of meaninglessness is actually a symptom of an illness such as depression.

But for people who just need to clarify and feel the meaning in their lives there are sets of techniques that we have been using for over twenty years. Here are a few that are all rooted in empirical scientific studies:

• Writing and re-writing your own life story
• Questioning your assumptions about life and about relationships
• Using a brief pause before reacting to anything that happens to you
• Creating meaning through making decisions about your life
• Developing a sense of coherence
• Forming and strengthening relationships
• Techniques for giving people a glimpse of a transcendent reality
• Developing a legacy

It turns out that Michael Dresser and I had another thing in common. He also eradicated a very serious illness using an early form of Integrated Medicine. For both of us, the experience was highly meaningful and gave us a new and sharper focus: to show other people how to care for themselves and their families and how to enhance the quality of their lives.

We are both walking the talk.

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”
--Carl G. Jung (Swiss Psychologist and Psychiatrist, 1875-1961)

“Deep within himself man seeks meaning for his life, and tries to fulfill himself in accordance with that meaning.”
--Viktor Frankl (Austrian Psychiatrist, 1905-1997)

“When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love. Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being.”
--Ernest Becker (Canadian Cultural Anthropologist and Interdisciplinary Thinker, 1925-1974)

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
--Morrie Schwartz (American Educator and the subject of the book Tuesdays With Morrie, 1916-1995

“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
--Susan Sontag (American Essayist, 1933-2004)

“What truly gives life meaning is to work with the light and for the light, without worrying about pleasing or displeasing others.”
--Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (Bulgarian Spiritual Master, 1900-1986)

Motivation, Manipulation and Empowerment

It would be good to know how many people really change after they’ve done one of those motivational seminars. Undoubtedly some do, but most do not.

This stands in stark contrast to inspirational speakers who often change people for life.

If you try to “motivate” an adult to change their behavior, after an initial brief period during which they get excited about what they are learning, they will most likely resist what they perceive as manipulation. People who do change normally don’t maintain the new behavior because the primary motivation was external.

If we are trying to help people eat a more healthy diet, or take some exercise, research has shown that the best way to initiate and maintain a new behavior is for an individual to have an expert who can teach, guide and facilitate. That together with a peer supporter: someone who will help you along, and diet and exercise with you. You know yourself better than anyone else ever can.

The trick is to work with someone who may know a bit more about psychology, physiology and metabolism and can use that information to help you to develop a personalized program. The expert can help you move forward by asking question to identify your own motivators, locus of control (do you feel that you are the captain of your own ship, or do you believe that you are more a plaything of fate?) ego-fears, reward system and action style (do you like to break tasks down into small steps and work at one at a time in sequence, or do you like to work on one task, then pull out something else that like to do and do you have some other way of getting things done?)

There was recently a study  from the UK that showed that the behavior of children with special needs was improved by a good diet and regular exercise. No surprise there. But the problem is this: how do you maintain the diet and exercise programs?

I spent many years working with young people with weight problems and/or diabetes. They usually also had some mood or behavioral problems. Issuing young people with a great long list of “Thou shalt nots” is guaranteed to backfire: youngsters are rebellious anyway. Tell them all the things that they can’t do, and force them into eating a certain way, and you will have a rebellion on your hands that will make the Storming of the Bastille look like a picnic. It is much better to come to an agreement that may include having days on which they can “cheat.”

A while ago I wrote about the way in which psychologists have moved beyond the pain/pleasure dichotomy as the major motivators of human behavior. Rewards and punishments are called extrinsic motivators, while intrinsic motivators are a composite of genes, learning, environment and temperament. I gave a few examples of motivators culled from the current literature:

1. Clarity of vision

2. Encouragement

3. Personal engagement

4. Recognition

5. Pride

6. Free flow of energy and information

7. Appropriate reward systems (money is often not the best one!)

8. Personal and group expectations

9. Creating shared goals

10. Transpersonal motivation: Inspiration and leaving a legacy.

I had several excellent questions: couldn’t people practice altruism because it gives them pleasure? Yes, they could, but that is not what the research data shows. Though people can derive pleasure from all kinds of things, the evidence base suggests that human motivations are far more complex.

It has also become possible to visualize regions of the brain while people are engaged in different tasks, and altruism does not seem to engage most of the circuits that we normally associate with pleasure or pain.

Yet more evidence that pleasure and pain and far from being the only - or maybe even the main - motivators of human behavior.

“No one ever does anything from a single motive”
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Romantic Poet, 1772-1834)
   
“No one can motivate you, until you motivate yourself.”
--Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Politician and Statesman, 1889-1964)

“Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people."
--Lee Iacocca (American Businessman and Former CEO of Chrysler, 1924-)

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
--Jim Rohn (American Businessman, Author, Speaker and Philosopher)

“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”
--Sri Swami Sivananda (Indian Physician and Spiritual Teacher, 1887-1963)

“The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship.”
--Ross Parmenter (American Expert on Mixtec Documents, Journalist and Music Reviewer for the New York Times, 1920-1999)

“He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.”
--Confucius (Chinese Philosopher, 551-479 B.C.E.)

Are Prayers Answered?

Most of the world’s population is in no doubt about the answer to the question, “Are prayers answered?”

In Healing, Meaning and Purpose I told the following tale:

“I review articles that have been submitted for publication to quite a number of major medical journals. I am known as something of a “hawk.” If there’s a mistake, I am usually good at finding it. Several years ago I was sent a now-famous study of the influence of distant prayer on the recovery of patients in a coronary care unit. I was certain that I would find a flaw in it, but after three days of intense work, I had to conclude that the paper was sound. And it is now one of many. Prayer works, whether or not the recipient even knows that he or she is being prayed for.”

So I was intrigued to see a new study from Arizona State University that was published in the March issue of the journal Research on Social Work Practice. David R. Hodge, a recognized authority on research in prayer, conducted a comprehensive analysis of 17 major studies on the effects of intercessory prayer - or prayer that is offered for the benefit of another person - among people with psychological or medical problems, and the researchers came up with a positive result.

David had this to say,

"There have been a number of studies on intercessory prayer, or prayer offered for the benefit of another person," said Hodge, a leading expert on spirituality and religion. "Some have found positive results for prayer. Others have found no effect. Conducting a meta-analysis takes into account the entire body of empirical research on intercessory prayer. Using this procedure, we find that prayer offered on behalf of another yields positive results… "This is the most thorough and all-inclusive study of its kind on this controversial subject that I am aware of," said Hodge. "It suggests that more research on the topic may be warranted, and that praying for people with psychological or medical problems may help them recover."

"Overall, the meta-analysis indicates that prayer is effective. Is it effective enough to meet the standards of the American Psychological Association's Division 12 for empirically validated interventions? No. Thus, we should not be treating clients suffering with depression, for example, only with prayer. To treat depression, standard treatments, such as cognitive therapy, should be used as the primary method of treatment."

This result is different from the widely publicized study by Herbert Benson's group that was published last year. So why the difference? First, this study, like all other meta-analyses, lives or dies on its methodology. This one used a very standard technique and the data look reliable. By contrast, the Benson study was an empirical study of the effect of prayer on cardiac disease. It appeared to produce a negative result.

There are always some difficulties with any studies on prayer:

• If I am praying for one outcome and you are praying for another, who “wins?”
• Can we really apply the scientific method to faith? {The answer to that one is yes. If someone tells me that the moon is made of green cheese and held up by pieces of string, they have just presented us with a testable hypothesis!}
• Are we being too limited and too limiting if we do a study in we only consider a physical outcome? What about the impact of prayer not only on physical and psychological well being, but also on our sense of meaning and purpose?
• By praying for a particular outcome, aren’t we trying to second guess a Higher Power? Before you can pray effectively, can you listen effectively and surrender to the Will of that Higher Power?

From personal experience and a very careful review of the literature I am in no doubt that prayer is effective. But only if we first ask for guidance and listen for the answer. Telling a Higher Power what to do is unlikely to be crowned with successs.

“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing - nothing.”
--Saint Francis of Assisi (Italian Roman Catholic Friar, and in 1209, Founder of the Franciscan Order, c. 1182-1226)

“Most people consider the course of events as natural and inevitable. They little know what radical change is possible through prayer. Every morning I offer my body, my mind and any ability that I posses, to be used by Thee, O infinite creator, in whatever way Thou dost choose to express thyself through me. I know that all work is Thy work, and that no task is too difficult or too menial when offered to Thee in loving service.”
-- Paramahansa Yogananda (Indian Spiritual Teacher and, in 1920, Founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, 1893-1952)

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
--Mahatma Gandhi (Indian Nationalist and World Teacher, 1869-1948)

“When you pray, above all ask heaven to give you light. For only light will allow you to find your direction, to avoid pitfalls and to find the strength to see your projects through to completion.”
--Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (Bulgarian Spiritual Master, 1900-1986)

“Many people think that they don’t know how to pray. Just think of God as a great river that runs through the universe. The idea of prayer is not to pull God out of the stream but to put yourself into the stream with God.”
--Joni Rodgers (American Writer, Lymphoma Survivor and United Methodist Layspeaker)

Ian Stevenson R.I.P.

I just heard that the Candian-born psychiatrist and researcher Ian Stevenson passed away last month at the age of 88.

You may not have heard of him, but he spent a lifetime on a peculiar area of academic research: he was the world's foremost authority on the study of reincarnation. He was interested in children who claim to remember previous lives, near-death experiences, apparitions (death-bed visions), the mind-brain problem, and survival of the human personality after death.

Stevenson was always careful and cautious about his claims. He wrote his first paper on reincarnation in 1960 and went on to conduct additional field research about reincarnation in Africa, Alaska, British Columbia, Burma, South America, Lebanon, Turkey, and many other places. The children studied would typically start recalling their past life story between the ages of two and four, yet seem to have forgotten it by seven or eight. There were frequent mentions of having died a violent death, and apparently clear memories of the mode of death. He gathered testimonies as well as medical records of information on birthmarks, birth defects, and other physical evidence for reincarnation.  

Stevenson published over 200 articles and several books, but they were almost exclusively for the academic and scientific community, so they can be heavy going for a non-speciaist. His research database contains over 3,000 cases that provide evidence suggestive of reincarnation, though he himself was always careful to refer to them as "cases suggestive of reincarnation" or "cases of the reincarnation type."

I first heard about his work as a young student in the early 1970s, and I subsequently read most of his books and papers. They make fascinating reading and it is difficult not to be persuaded that either these are genuine cases of reincarnation, or else there is some unknown non-physical method by which young children can pick up information about people and events about which they should know nothing.

Stevenson's work continues with a new generation of researchers. It is is important to think about the incredible implications if even one of these cases is genuine.

And it bears repeating that there is not one case, but over 3,000, all meticulously documented.

One of his papers is available for free download, and if you are interested in the topic of survival, I also recommend the Survival Research Network and the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Prayer and Healing

We have already talked a little about the associations between active, healthy spirituality and psychological and physical well-being.

Yet another study has highlighted the connection, showing that breast cancer patients who pray in online support groups can obtain mental health benefits.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research did the study that was that was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

The research looked at message transcripts from 97 breast cancer patients participating in an online support group that was integrated with the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) "Living with Breast Cancer" program, a computer-based health education and support system. The patients were recruited from Wisconsin and Michigan.

Surveys were administered before group access and then again four months later. Text messages within the computer-mediated support groups were analyzed using a text analysis program that measured the percentage of words that were suggestive of religious belief and practice (e.g., pray, worship, faith, holy, God). Writing a higher percentage of these religious words within the online support groups was associated with lower levels of negative emotions and higher levels of self-efficacy and functional well-being, even after controlling for patients' pre-test levels of religious beliefs.

One of the researchers had this to say:

"From a psychological standpoint, there are a variety of reasons why cancer patients may benefit from prayer - whether on the Internet or elsewhere. In reviewing the messages, some of the most common ways study participants used religion to cope with their illness included putting trust in God about the course of their illness and consequently feeling less stressed, believing in an afterlife and therefore being less afraid of death, finding blessings in their lives and appraising their cancer experience in a more constructive religious light."

And that is, of course, one set of explanations for the findings.

Or perhaps, as we have seen before, there is a growing body of research to indicate that prayer is effective.

We just have to expect it to be effective. And isn’t that faith?

“Prayer, like radium, is a luminous and self-generating form of energy.”
--Alexis Carrel (French-born American Surgeon, Experimental Biologist and, in 1912, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology, 1873-1944)

"Too often we see prayer as a last resort rather than as our first thought. People will say, “I guess all we can do now is pray!” like that's the last thing, horrible thing to do. And your friend says, “Has it come to that?! Is it so hopeless that all we can do is pray?”
--Rick Warren (American Evangelist and Author, 1954-)

“Though God knows all our needs, prayer is necessary for the cleansing and enlightenment of the soul.”
-- John Sergieff of Kronstadt (Russian Priest who, in 1882, Established the House of Industriousness, 1829-1909)

“Man often thinks that, as God is the knower of the heart, there can be no need of any recital or gesture in prayer: but that it would surely be sufficient if he were to sit in the silence and think of God. But this is not so; it is according to the extent of a man’s consciousness of prayer that his prayer reaches God.”
--Hazrat Inayat Khan (Founder of the Sufi Order of the West, 1882-1927)

“Through prayer, the love of God grows and assumes a form which is called supreme devotion. Forms vanish, rituals fly away, books are superseded, images, temples, churches, religions and sects, countries and nationalities - all these little limitations and bondages fall off by their own nature from him who knows this love of God.”
--Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic and Spiritual Teacher, 1863-1902)

“Prayer is part of man's original nature. He can never be satisfied with merely meditative religion, and naturally and involuntarily inclines to move on to the religion of prayer.”
--Toyohiko Kagawa (Japanese Christian Anti-War Campaigner, 1888-1960)

“All true prayer somehow confesses our absolute dependence on the Lord of life and death.”
Thomas Merton (French-born American Trappist Monk and Writer, 1915-1968)

“There is a relationship between prayer and action. Receptive prayer results in an inner receiving, which motivates to right action.”   
-- “Peace Pilgrim”  (a.k.a. Mildred Norman, American Peace Activist, 1908-1981)

The Internet Sacred Text Archive

I have been commenting about the important new initiatives in open access and I don't want to forget to let you know about another resource that I've used for years.

It is the Internet Sacred Text Archive.

This is what it says:

Welcome to the largest freely available archive of full-text books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.

They ask for support for the site by buying sacred-texts on disk. This is a complete library of over a thousand of the most important books ever written. It includes the complete text of all major world scriptures, and hundreds of books scanned specially for sacred-texts.

I have one of the earlier disks and it is superb. I am going to upgrade to the new one to support this very worthwhile venture.

These are just a few of the categories on the website:
Baha'i
Buddhism
Celtic
Christianity
Classics
Confucianism
DNA
Earth Mysteries
Egyptian
England
Esoteric/Occult
Freemasonry
Gnosticism
Hinduism
I Ching
Islam
Jainism
Shakespeare
Shamanism
Shinto
Sikhism
Swedenborg
Theosophy
Time
Utopia
Women
Zoroastrianism

And these are some recent additions:

The House of the Hidden Places (1/9/2007)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part IV (SBE 43) (12/19/2006)
Lives of the Saints (12/14/2006)
The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (12/12/2006)
The Rosetta Stone (12/5/2006)
Devil Worship in France (12/3/2006)
Tractate Berakoth (12/2/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part III (SBE 41) (11/29/2006)
Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Through Time (11/21/2006)
Proofs of a Conspiracy (11/18/2006)
Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus (with the Alphabet of Ben Sira) (11/15/2006)
Tractate Sanhedrin (11/8/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part II (SBE 26) (11/5/2006)
Unveiled Mysteries (10/18/2006)
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (10/16/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part I (SBE 12) (10/7/2006)
The Religions of South Vietnam in Faith and Fact (10/4/2006)
Karezza, Ethics of Marriage (10/3/2006)
The Comte de St. Germain (10/1/2006)
A Miracle in Stone: or The Great Pyramid of Egypt (9/28/2006)
The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise (9/18/2006)
The Brahan Seer (9/13/2006)
Noa Noa (9/6/2006)
The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (8/30/2006)
History of Philosophy in Islam (8/27/2006)
Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales (8/8/2006)
Folk-lore of the Holy Land; Moslem, Christian and Jewish (7/29/2006)

An excellent resource.

Charles Tart's Library

If you are at all interested in altered states of consciousness, transpersonal psychology, parapsychology or spirituality, you will find a great many useful and interesting papers written by Professor Charles Tart.

I was smitten by his work when I read his classic book Altered States of Consciousness in 1969, and he reamins one of the most respected figures in these fields

I have followed his work closely ever since, and his library of free articles is a treasure trove containing papers written between 1963 and 2006.

Charlie is currently a Core Faculty Member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, California, as well as Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Davis campus of the University of California.

I would like to thank him and many publishers for making all this material freely available.

Separation and Integration

“The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal.”
--A Course in Miracles (Book of Spiritual Principles Scribed by Dr. Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1975, and First Published in 1976)

Many of us feel that we have lost or forgotten something important and it nags at us. In the Matrix, Morpheus tries to capture this when he says, “There is a splinter in your mind.”

What we have forgotten is the hidden secret not only to who we are but also to what we may become.

There are hundreds of thousands of books, websites, classes, groups and, of course, religions that all say that they have an answer to those two questions. And I tend to believe that they probably all do. But each has only a part of the puzzle.

Integrated Medicine was always designed to provide answers synthesized from the very best of what is already available.

I am always being asked whether Integrated Medicine is an approach toward health and wellness, a method of achieving personal growth and development or some form of holistic treatment?

The answer is “Yes!”

The goal is not to replace other forms of self-care or treatment, but to integrate and enhance them. The reason for using the term “Integrated,” and why it is a little different from Integrative or Integral medicine, is that it aims to:

1. Integrate an individual’s current health and wellness practices into a combined whole
2. Integrate all the parts of a person, for the quotation is true: the role of the ego is to separate itself from the rest of the Universe, and healing come from the Source: your Informational Matrix, your Inner Light or Soul
3. Integrate healing methods that will ensure that each aspect of you being is addressed and respected so that the healing can flow. Not only of your body, but of your mind, relationships, the planet, society, subtle systems and your spirituality
4. Integrate your views about the nature of reality: healing is not simply a matter of fixing a physical machine. In any case, this is not always possible. The objective is not to “use” methods and insights to heal the body. It is rather to ask that your Overself or Higher Self teach you the right perception of your body and your mind. That is why I am always recommending that the first thing that you can do for yourself is to develop your intuition so that it provides a delicate counterbalance to your ability to reason. If you have ever been to a gym, you know the importance of exercising not just your bicep muscle, but your triceps muscle as well. One without the other will make you lopsided. So it is with intellect and intuition.
5. Integrate the personal you with something beyond yourself. The ultimate aim of Integrated Medicine is not simply to stay well, but to return to Wholeness

And all have been done already with tens of tousands of people around the globe.

Will you be next?

“To have a curable illness and to leave it untreated except for prayer is like sticking your hand in a fire and asking God to remove the flame.”
-- Unknown Author (Sometimes attributed to “Sandra L. Douglas”)

"A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
--Abraham Lincoln (American Statesman and, from 1861-1865, the 16th President of the United States, 1809-1865)

“In the integral Yoga, the integral life down to even the smallest detail has to be transformed, to become Divine.”
--- The Mother of Pondicherry (a.k.a. Mirra Alfassa, French-born Indian Spiritual Teacher, 1878-1973)

The Irreducible Mind

I get a great many requests for recommendations for books and papers that either debate or provide support for the topics that I discuss on this blog and in my books and articles. That is why I've been constructing some reading lists at Amazon.com and linking them to this website.

A friend recently commented that she was surprised that the book and CD series, Healing, Meaning and Purpose that was created for a general audience, contains over 800 books and websites. My response to that was that I think that my readers and listeners are all grown ups who should be able to check everything that any author says!

The days of authors or speakers waving their hands about and making airy statements are finally coming to an end. If an author tells you that "science" proves what they are saying, they must show that they understand the topic themselves. I just saw yet another paper in which the writer said, "Quantum mechanics proves what I'm saying, but let's not get into that." Well, that's just the point: let us indeed get into that to see if what you are saying holds water!

Which brings me to a book that I've just read and reviewed. It is entitled Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century and it is an extraordinary achievement. For the last century, the vast majority psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists have believed that thoughts, emotions and consciousness are the product of physical processes in the brain. And , of course, the brain is heavily involved in many  mental phenomena. The question has always been if neurological activity is sufficient to explain the whole of human experience.

This new book presents the most comprehensive and critical analysis of phenomena normally ignored by psychology, including mystical experiences, the placebo response, stigmata and hypnotic suggestion, memories that survive physical death, near death experiences, automatic writing, out-of-body experiences, apparitions, deathbed visions and many more.

It comes to the inescapable conclusion that the mind is not generated by the brain but is instead limited and constrained by it. There is no hand waving, and no "science has shown that..." Instead everything is laid out in front of you. There are a hundred pages of citations and references. Despite that, it is an easy and enjoyable read.

I have no personal connection with the book, but the next time that someone says that there's no proof for any of these phenomena, and that emotions, cognitions and consciousness are just byproducts of biochemical processes in the brain, refer them to this book.

And if Santa brought you any gift cards that you haven't used yet, you might want to have a look at the book for yourself.

Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication

The idea that there can be direct communication between people at a distance sounds like the stuff of science fiction.

I will be quite honest: I was always intrigued by the idea of direct contact between brains and I’d had more than my fair share of personal experiences of them. When I was a young student, long before I had started being trained, I suddenly blurted out some very specific information about a classmate that almost lead to a fight: he was enraged, not because of what I said, but because he thought that another friend had betrayed a confidence.

I spent a lot of time poring over experiments done by J.B. Rhine and others, and it all seemed to make sense. But I always had a problem: because I could not understand the mechanism of mind-to-mind communication I remained a bit skeptical. But now the evidence is gradually building up. A few months ago I wrote about some of the intriguing evidence concerning nonlocal interactions of neurons.

If all this is correct and mind-to-mind or brain-to-brain communication is really possible, it instantly changes everything about how we see ourselves and reality. So it is utterly essential to ensure that such extraordinary claims are indeed supported by extraordinary data, and that neither is undermined by shoddy explanatory models.

That is why, as ideas and observations have come forward, I’ve always been at great pains to see whether or not they have been accurate. One of the reasons for going on about the misuse of quantum mechanics has been that the entire topic of parapsychology and of direct brain-to-brain communication is so incredibly important to our worldview.

Unless we have a clear view of who and what we are; what it means to be human; what it means to be an inhabitant of this planet and this Universe and of our place in the grand scheme of things, it is very difficult to devise sensible strategies for healing ourselves and our planet.

I think that I’ve said enough about the misuse of science, but it is just as bad when people misuse the Ageless Wisdom. I’ve just read an article in which the writer talks about the Law of Correspondences, an old Hermetic term that was adopted by the Rosicrucians and Theosophists. The writer said that this Law explains why atoms are just like little solar systems, except that they have electrons whizzing round a nucleus, rather than planets orbiting the sun. This is the kind of silly comment that could only have been made by someone who never got beyond 8th grade physics. For anyone who is interested I can give you chapter and verse as to why the Law of Correspondences does not apply in this situation.

Does this blooper matter? Well yes, because it encourages people to construct an inaccurate view of reality that is based on a very limited visual metaphor, when what is needed is the imagination to stride into a new vision of reality.

So with that, back to brain-to-brain communication. There is a nice article on the topic by Robert Charman in the month’s issue of the Paranormal Review. Sad to say the article is not available online, but the Review itself is available through the Society for Psychical Research in London.

Robert has identified eleven articles that have found evidence of direct brain-to-brain communication using functional MRI and evoked potentials: someone send a signal, there is a blip in the brain of the sender and then a corresponding blip in the brain of the receiver. (Here are some references that I’ve checked out: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.).

His conclusion is that these high-tech studies have confirmed the possibility of brain-to-brain communication at a distance. I think that he is probably correct, though I know from personal exerience just how hard it can be to analyze data from MRI and EEG measurements of the brain.

Something that I find particularly interesting is that using this technology there seems to be a slight delay in the “communication,” though one study showed that the "receiver" might have an electrical potential in his or her brain before the “sender” had sent the communication. These observations may simply reflect the equipment being used, this observations implies that the mechanism is physical.

However some experiential evidence indicates that there is another type of direct persons to person communications that is instantaneous. For this there is no good scientific evidence, just a lot of experience. The difference between the two forms of communication – delayed and instantaneous – is similar to the difference between instinct (physical, brain and body based) and intuition (nonlocal and transpersonal).

This research and these papers are doing us an enormous service. To quote Robert Charman:
“…The data demonstrating episodes of direct communication between brains exists and will not go away.”

And we know from experience that many if not most people can be trained to improve their ability to communicate at distance both in a time-limited and time-independent modes. The keys? Relaxation, meditation, practice and above all, belief in the possibility that you can do it.

You may remember when Luke Skywalker said to Yoda “I don’t believe it,” to which Yoda responded: “That, is why you fail.”

The Death of Fish

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”
--Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist and Philosopher, 1817-1862)

The BBC has just run a gloomy report based on an article  published this week in the journal Science.

For years now, fisherman have been reporting that many of the larger game fish have been getting smaller and younger, and the same has been reported of smaller fish in the major fishing grounds.

Now this research, which seems quite impeccable, predicts that there will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by 2048 if current trends continue. Stocks of fish have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

When the first reports came out, they quickly became fodder for the late night comedians: “You think they use a lot of batter now? Just imagine how much they’re going to have to put around a minnow, come 2050.”

But that quickly gave rise to an understanding of he gravity of the situation: the decline in numbers of fish is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity. And that is the point. I’ve heard people say, “I’m a vegetarian, so I don’t care,” or “I don’t like fish anyway.” The ocean, like every other known ecosystem, is like a vast interlocked organism.

Everything that lives in the ocean is important. The diversity of ocean life is the key to its survival. The areas of the ocean with the most different kinds of life are the healthiest. If we knock out entire species the whole will cease to function, and then we have dead oceans. Ocean fish filter toxins from the water. They protect shorelines, and they reduce the risks of algae blooms such as the red tide.

In addition, a large and increasing proportion of our population lives close to the coast; the loss of services such as flood control and waste detoxification can have disastrous consequences.

These findings are not a computer model, or some prediction of future trends. They are based on actual observations of what is happening right now.

Why are we talking about this issue in a blog dedicated to personal growth, integration and wellness? Because seeing the larger You - the You that is interconnected with the rest of the Universe, the You that transcends your physical body, your brain and your emotions – is crucial to all of those three goals.

Yes, you can certainly feel a lot more healthy by eating better. Breathing exercises are valuable too. Do the two together and you get the advantage of synergy: they leverage each other. But you will really make progress when you begin to feel, really feel in a deep down visceral way, that You are something much larger and more grand. And that You also have responsibilities for the welfare of the planet. Because You are part of it, and it is a part of You.

Once You – the whole Big You – really “gets that,” you will feel the need to leave an enduring legacy, and You become an unstoppable force for good. Then you progress rapidly. Not because you are working on yourself, but because you are now acting from your Higher Self.

“I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself.”
--Carl G. Jung (Swiss Psychologist and Psychiatrist, 1875-1961)

“In the end we all must turn to the inner Source of all our best human sources, to the Guru of all the gurus, to the Overself. Then why not now?”
--Paul Brunton (English Spiritual Teacher and Author, 1898-1981)

Karma

The Sanskrit word karma has been part of our vocabulary since the late 1960s. Over thirty years ago I was speaking to one of George Harrison’s lawyers in London, who had followed in the footsteps of the Beatles and flirted with Transcendental Meditation. He told me that karma just meant “fate,” which was not at all what I’d been taught.

I’ve just seen a number of articles that have used the term very loosely. What is even more perplexing is that often the same writer will talk about karma as a causal law, and then immediately start talking about quantum mechanics, in which many actions are not causal at all. Some even start dabbling in synchronicity, forgetting, perhaps, that the subtitle of the original paper by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli was “An Acausal Connecting Principle.”

It’s important to get it right: if we misunderstand a law or principle of life, it’s difficult to stay on track. And we have to realize that although there are plenty of opinions about karma, synchronicity, quantum mechanics and the rest, there are also some real objective facts to guide us.

Let me give you an example of one of these articles: “Karma deals with the law of cause and effect. Everything that happens to us (effect) has had a previous cause. The evolution of karmic law means that we can be master of our own destiny. Your karmic lessons in life reflect the qualities that you either lack, or are weak in, and are those hindering your success…” This is so contradictory. There is no place for chance, yet you can master your destiny, despite the fact that your behavior must have a previous cause. This isn’t just circular reasoning; it’s more like pretzel logic!

So is karma complicated? Is there a simple way to understand it and work with it?

Karma means “action,” and it refers to the intentional acts of conscious beings. These acts may be physical, or they may be thoughts or feelings. Intentions results in acts that cause effects in the mind, the body, the subtle systems, our relationships and our spirituality. This way of looking at karma links inextricably with the evidence being generated by the Global Consciousness Project.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his book The Universe in a Single Atom makes a clear distinction between the operation of the natural law of causality, in which some action will have a certain set of effects, and the law of karma, in which an intentional act will reap certain results. He uses a good example: if a campfire gets out of control in a forest, the resulting fire, smoke and charcoal are simple, natural and expected results. By contrast if you light a fire and forget to put it out, which then causes the chain of events: that’s karmic causation.

I this view, the large-scale universe evolves according to causal laws. When it has evolved to the stage of supporting sentient life, now the fate of the universe becomes entangled with the karma of the sentient beings that now inhabit it. But there’s something more to it.

Matter in its most subtle form is Qi or Prana, a vital field energy that is inseparable from consciousness. The Qi or Prana provides dynamic movement and cohesion, while consciousness provides awareness, cognition and self-reflection. This indivisible pair produces our bodies and the universe as a whole. Every particle in the universe possesses conscious awareness, but it is not until sentience arises that the law of karma comes into play.

In Kriya Yoga there has been the development of many complex ideas about karma, subdividing it into multiple types, and with advice on how to attract good karma and dispel the bad. For students who would like to go into these distinctions in more detail, there a very nice short book entitled The Laws of Karma.

Because karma implies that the universe is lawful and moral, it has often been misinterpreted as fatalism. But that s not correct: every decision is a product of free will. To be sure, it is a free will that is tempered by the causal forces of our genetic makeup and environment. One of the major goals of self-development is to free yourself from the restrictions imposed upon you by your genes and your environment, so that you can make decisions that will generate the greatest good for the largest number of people.

What we must not do is to use karma as an excuse. If you are playing a game of cards, you play the hand that you are given. There’s no point in complaining about your bad luck: your learn how to make the best play wit the cards that you have in your hand.

“Knowing that his past actions may try to overwhelm him, the devotee must be prepared to combat them. God will give him the strength: His Name will be an impenetrable armor. It will save him from all the consequences.”
--Swami Brahmananda (Indian Religious Figure, 1854-1922)

“It is horrible to see everything that one detested in the past coming back wearing the colors of the future.”
--Jean Rostand (French Biologist and Historian, 1894-1977)

Beating Burnout

I have been getting a number of requests to re-post some of my materials about burnout.

This is a summary of some of the information that we cover in our corporate wellness seminars. For people who are interested, we have also created a Powerpoint slide set, together with reference materials which are available for purchase from our website.

So let us begin at the beginning and ask:

What is Burnout?
This may seem such an obvious question, since the term “burnout” has become part of everyday language, but it is still the topic of a great deal of research.

The best definition of burnout is “a prolonged response to chronic physical, emotional and interpersonal stressors at work.” It is defined by three dimensions:

1. Exhaustion
2. Cynicism
3. Inefficacy

It is more than just an individual experience of stress: it has to be seen in the larger organizational context of people’s relationship with their work.

It is often the case that individuals miss all the signs in themselves.

So what are the main symptoms of burnout?

1. Worrying, particularly at night
2. Trouble sleeping
3. Feeling unappreciated or “used” at work
4. Feeling less effective or competent than you used to
5. Easily angry or irritated
6. Dread of going to work
7. A feeling of being overwhelmed
8. Recurrent stress-related physical symptoms like headaches, or back pain
9. Watching the clock and counting down toward the end of the work day
10. Rigidly applying riles without considering more creative solutions
11. Automatically expressing negative attitudes
12. Finding excuses to be absent from work
13. Alcohol or substance abuse

We need to ask questions about conditions at work. For instance whether individuals are asked to work extra long shifts, go without breaks and lack clear guidelines.

Who is at greatest risk?
Helping professionals and people who have great responsibility for others, such as  airline pilots and air traffic controllers.

Although there are some psychological predictors for who are more likely to suffer from burnout, with enough stressors just about anyone can become a victim of it. Some people have claimed that burnout is a physical illness resulting from exhaustion of the adrenal glands, but the research doesn’t show that. Burnout is primarily a problem of the system in which you work, interacting with your body and your mind. So now let’s look at how to transform yourself from victim to victor.

The major risk factors are:

1. Feeling powerless
2. Being caught in conflict
3. Having inadequate information
4. Lack of central visions
5. Incoordination of the team
6. Overload
7. Boredom
8. Alienation
9. Ambiguity
10. Conflict of values

What are the Solutions?
Dealing with burnout needs the help of all workers and the organization as a whole. Sometimes it also needs the help of an outsider. I was once working in a very unhappy place, in the days long before I realized that I had the power to change things myself. A psychologist friend working in the then new field of systems theory, told me that the problem was not with individuals, but that the whole system was “sick” and disorganized and what was needed was a system overhaul.

The opposite of job burnout is job engagement. If you feel that you are engaged in doing something valuable, for which you are appreciated, you are far more likely to have a satisfying life and enjoy doing your job well. There is good evidence that participation, engagement and autonomy are powerful predictors of health outcomes.

First, at the personal level:

The keys to preventing burnout are represented by the acronym REAP:

Resilience
Engagement
Autonomy
Participation

1. Evaluate your personal goals and priorities: what do you really want to get out of life, and even more importantly, what do you want to put in to life
2. Ensure that you have established your own core values, your purpose and your meaning. (My book and CD series Healing, Meaning and Purpose spends a lot of time on helping you do exactly that.)
3. Attend to your own health, through exercise, nutrition and sleep. (I have worked with countless individuals with burnout, whose problems largely evaporated once they were diverted from the coffee, soda and snack machines. Remember the close relationships between food and mood.)
4. Make sure that you have some outside interests. Not just things that further drain your energy, but something that you enjoy.
5. Learn some specific stress reduction techniques. (I also have some suggestions for doing so in my book.)
6. Are you a micromanager who has to do everything yourself? If so, then it is a really good idea to learn to delegate. And don’t take on responsibilities that are not yours. (It took me years to learn that one: I was such a slave to perfectionism, that I always thought that I had to everything myself. Bad mistake)
7. If your find yourself expressing negativity, work on substituting a positive word for every negative one.
8. Learn to forgive yourself if things are not going well, and use reversals as the fuel to power you to achievement: it’s what I call “silver-lining:” How to find the positive in any negative situation.
9. Try to form a support group or see if you can arrange for an outsider to some in and help you.
10. Are there some specific skills that you need to build and develop?
11. Can you tailor or change your job?
12. Develop detachment

Second, at the organizational level:

1. Evaluate overall work performance: if it declining, it may be an early sign that staff members are being afflicted by burnout.
2. Consider changes in managerial practices, to move away from the dominator to a partnership model.
3. Research has indicated that there are six key areas in which mismatches may lead to burnout: workload; personal control; appropriateness of rewards; sense of connection; sense of fairness and a conflict of values. So it is a good idea to break down any analyses and interventions along these lines.
4. All the evidence suggests that a combination of managerial change and education are the best way to head off and to deal with burnout.
5. There is also some research showing that a values-based spiritual program to prevent and deal with burnout. The recommendations include a short time for silence, visualization, reflection, active listening, appreciation creativity and playfulness.

What is very clear is that burnout is not just a personal problem; it is something that can affect an entire organization, and has to be tackled as an organization. If it is not, then in these difficult times in health care, we are going to have ever more tired and disillusioned people trying to care for sicker and sicker patients, and just not having the resources to do so.

Transcending Overload and Burnout
There is an important notion that is rarely even talked about. Why does stress and burnout exist? Is it simply bad overloaded wiring in the brain and bad overloaded wiring in our relationships and in our places of work? Well, yes, that is of course correct. But there is also something else: burnout occurs because multiple sets of systems are failing. Nature abhors a vacuum, so from the ashes of these failed systems a new and improved you can emerge. Remember the ancient story of the Phoenix that emerges from the flames. And you might know the statement by Richard Bach: “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

We need to discard broken systems so that our true self can emerge.

I would like you to think about burnout as a state of consciousness that you are ready to outgrow. You can practice the psychological band-aids, or you can accept the invitation to grow.

There will inevitably be some transition pains, but that is to be expected as the new you is being born. This is also a good time to do an exercise that I recommend in Healing, Meaning and Purpose, and it is to establish where each part of you - Physical, Psychological, Social, Subtle and Spiritual – lies in terms of the Memes of Spiral Dynamics. If you do this exercise every few months, and at times of transition, it can provide powerful proof that the burnout is actually presenting you with a unique opportunity to grow.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Mood Disorders, the Serotonin Transporter and Integrated Medicine

Whenever we run into two common conditions, it’s easy to imagine links where none really exists. Three years ago some colleagues from Oxford reported on a person with bipolar disorder and irritable bowel syndrome, and commented that the association was uncommon.

However there may after all be a genuine link between mood disorders and irritable bowel syndrome, that is a disturbance in the “third arm” of the autonomic nervous system. The first arm is the sympathetic nervous system, the second the parasympathetic and the third is the enteric or gut nervous system that is closely linked with key regions of the brain.

Not long ago there was an interesting report of a woman who had multiple problems including environmental allergies, atypical bipolar disorder, irritable bowel syndrome and Raynaud’s phenomenon. Such odd constellations of problems are quite familiar to anyone working in the major referral centers around the world, and some can be exceedingly hard to treat. Tough cases like this often stimulate further research. I once tried and failed to treat a woman with a chronic illness. When she came back a year later to see if I had any new ideas, I told her that I now had a shelf of books and over a thousand reprint of papers about her condition: I don’t like failing someone. And I’m not unique in that.

A new study from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, has found that chronic widespread pain, which, as I explained recently, is the cardinal symptom of fibromyalgia, is prevalent and co-occurs with other symptom-based conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, joint pain, headache, irritable bowel syndrome, and psychiatric disorders. There is more and more evidence of a link between fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and depression. It is not just that people are sick and get depressed: as we shall see in a moment, the link is more subtle than that. Another illness seemingly linked to these three is interstitial cystitis.

Now some colleagues at the National Institutes of Health have been looking at a serotonin transporter (SERT) that regulates the entire serotoninergic system and its receptors. This transporter is found throughout the animal kingdom, telling us that it must be important.

In humans the gene is located on chromosome 17, and disturbances in it have been found in people with autism, ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome and bipolar disorder. Experiments using genetic engineering suggest that SERT may be a candidate gene for several human disorders, from obesity to irritable bowel syndrome. People who have disturbances in SERT tend not to respond so well to the serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) antidepressant medicines.

SERT is not the whole story. Some geneticists from Los Angeles have found evidence linking irritable bowel syndrome, depression, migraine and inheritance of mitochondrial DNA.

Many approaches have been tried to help people with these groups of problems. I always find it remarkable that psychological treatments can be so effective in conditions with a genetic component, for this once again proves that biology is not destiny.

The best approaches to conditions like irritable bowel syndrome and coexisting mood disorders is to use medications and psychological approaches. Many of us have also found that the addition of nutritional, environmental and subtle energetic approaches have been of great help, together with some work to uncover the meaning and transpersonal value of a chronic illness. That last piece is not the first priority, which is to help the person gain control of his or her life. But if we don’t do something to work with the meaning and purpose of an illness, it will usually come back in some form or other. This comprehensive approach differentiates Integrated Medicine from many other types of therapy.