Going from surviving to thriving
At the age of 24, an intestinal illness hit me hard while I was in the midst of my graduate studies in the field of community psychology. The diagnosis at the time was ulcerative colitis. My doctor...
View ArticleReflections on pain
I wrote this piece almost exactly four years ago, when I was experiencing severe back pain. We were born from pain. Every mother who has ever given birth to a child has undergone some kind of severe...
View ArticleBeing in nature, being at peace
Below are a few examples of research findings that suggest that being in nature often has a healing effect on humans. Having encountered a black bear in a park in Colorado, I can say firsthand that it...
View ArticleWatershed
I wrote this piece about 1 1/2 years ago, on the 7th anniversary of my colectomy surgery. I have been free from Crohn’s colitis flares for over 5 years, though almost 10 years ago, the disease...
View ArticleTrying out Zen medicine
In December 1997, I was a graduate student in a doctoral community psychology program at Georgia State University. After the end of my first semester I became quite ill and I was bedridden during the...
View ArticleWater – source of life
Blog Action Day 2010 is today!! I remember thirst well. It is hard to forget something that gripped me for weeks of my life. During three hospitalizations for severe Crohn’s colitis flares, the doctors...
View ArticleEvery moment is so precious
A few weeks ago, Sally Massagee told CNN’s Anderson Cooper about how it was for her during the time in which she was had a mysterious disease. For four years, she did not know what was wrong with her...
View ArticleDepression, rumination and compassion
I recently read an article in the New York Times about depression. The author, Johan Lehrer, discussed a new theory in which depression is thought to have an evolutionary purpose, gaining insight. The...
View ArticleZen medicine – part 2
During a mindfulness retreat at the end of 2000, I caught a stomach flu and began to develop grave symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s colitis). I could not sleep more than two hours at...
View Article“Healing through our senses”
Many of us are remarkably adept at ordering our bodies around as if they were separate from us. Work now! Stay up late! Sleep now! Wake up now! C’mon body, don’t be a slacker! The philospher Alan Watts...
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