Work as a Spiritual Journey and Practice

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Work as a Spiritual Journey and Practice

I have been thinking a lot about work lately -- the nature of it and what purpose it serves. What roles money, growth, and fulfillment play in it. How it relates to myself and to others. 

When you work a job that drains all the energy from you, there is nothing worse. You feel worn down and depleted, meaningless and empty. 

But when you are doing work that resonates with you, its as if time stands still. You're filled with clarity and calmness ('flow').You feel excited and engaged. 

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Finding Purpose in Pain

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Finding Purpose in Pain

I believe that there is a greater purpose to pain. I believe pain and suffering can be transcended -- transformed into something good. That we have a purpose in our lives, and our job is to discover that purpose, to align our lives with it. I believe that by following this energy and light, we move toward the wholeness we were made for.

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Time in a Bottle

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Time in a Bottle

I heard this very beautiful song on the radio today. It's called Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce

If I could save time in a bottle
 The first thing that I'd like to do
 Is to save every day
 'Til eternity passes away
 Just to spend them with you

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Thich Nhat Hanh // How to Turn Garbage into Flowers

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Thich Nhat Hanh // How to Turn Garbage into Flowers

Lately, I've been reading through Thich Nhat Hanhs book, You Are Here. One of my favorite passages in it involves the topic of turning garbage into flowers: 

Sorrow, fear, and depression are all a kind of garbage. These bits of garbage are part of real life, and we must look deeply into their nature. You can practice in order to turn these bits of garbage into flowers. It is not only your love that is organic; your hate is, too. So you should not throw anything out. All you have to do is learn how to transform your garbage into flowers. 

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Virginia Woolf, My Mother, and I: Bipolar and Leaving the One You Love

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Virginia Woolf, My Mother, and I: Bipolar and Leaving the One You Love

There is a strange clarity to madness, one in which everything is twisted around. When I was a child, my mother went through a period in which she went 'wild' according to my father, served him with divorce papers, and gave him full custody of me. For years, I wondered why. Whenever I asked her, she said it was because she loved me and knew that I would live a better life with him. Her explanation never made sense to me -- all the other children whose parents had divorced lived with their mothers, not their fathers.  It seemed selfish for her to leave me with him, so that she could be free and live life childless however she wanted. It sounds like a simple thing when put into words like this, but I felt a lot of pain over the loss of her throughout my adult life. Never being a recipient of a mother's love does something to a person. There is always an emptiness, a guardedness.

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Gratitude and Growth as a Journey

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Gratitude and Growth as a Journey

There was a moment early in my recovery in which I looked into Simon's eyes and felt so much unconditional love that I was moved to tears. They were tears of gratitude -- gratitude for the entire journey of my life to that moment in time, for all the joys and good things that had happened, but also the bad -- the things that hadn't gone right, the sadness and sorrows. I felt somehow I was exactly where I needed to be. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for making it to this moment, gratitude for the light that had carried me through to this life ahead.

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Grief, The Star in My Sky

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Grief, The Star in My Sky

Grief is something I’m not sure we ever really get over: the loss is always there, forever a part of our lives. Feelings of grief come and go, but over time we learn to live with them, learn to thrive again in the space of it.  

In the early days of my grief, I often felt as if I were in the midst of ruins, standing in their falling embers. An entire world had been destroyed and I could see all the remnants of the life we had created. As more time passes, I begin to venture farther from the ruins, but always returning, always circling back to be among their midst.

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2 Quotes on The Transformational Power of Pain

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2 Quotes on The Transformational Power of Pain

I've been reading a lot lately and came across the following two passages that I found quite powerful. I spent most of my life always focused on what was next--I'd graduate, then go on fellowship, then have a baby, then I'd get this job, then I'd advance to another... I was always thinking that happiness was around the corner, so much so that I missed it. I missed it in the moments of solitude. I missed it in the beauty of sipping tea. I missed the look in my loved one's eyes. After my divorce and health crisis, I realized that sooner or later we are going to die, and all we have in life are these moments in which we are present, alive.

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How Suffering Can Be a Gift

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How Suffering Can Be a Gift

Some people live their lives simply going through the motions. I should know -- for many years, I was one of them.  I was alive, but not truly. Although my eyes were open, they did not see. I lived life to pass time, always working toward the next thing. I was not fully present or aware. 

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Living with Manic Depressive Bipolar Mixed States

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Living with Manic Depressive Bipolar Mixed States

During my training as a psychologist, mixed states, defined as one in which an individual experiences symptoms of both depression and mania occur at the same time, never quite made sense to me. The existence of mixed states seemed paradoxical, and counterintuitive. How was it possible, I wondered, to experience symptoms of heightened energy and agitation characteristic of hypomania while also experiencing symptoms of depression and suicidal despair?

It wasn't until my own personal experience with mixed states that I truly understood.

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