Thursday 31 December 2015

Receiving is, for Some, More Challenging than Giving

     We health-care providers are doers, givers, fixers. We're notoriously poor at self-reflection. We don't recognize or don't do enough about the fact that we ourselves require rest, a balanced life, and care. Many of us don't even have the vocabulary to think about these matters, much less discuss them. The whole are makes us feel viscerally uncomfortable. A window into our world:

     “How to let love in is an archetypal theme. It becomes an urgent call when any of us – deeply attached to our independence – need to be cared for by others. We may deny others the gift of their generosity because we aren’t comfortable with receiving or because we feel that we don’t deserve it. In Hob’s case, expressions of love from his family in his early years had been painfully missing; he survived by becoming independent, sometimes stubbornly counter-dependent. Then he was a therapist and teacher, always giving to others. With his illness, the equation turned upside down; now he had to let the love in. He recognized the challenge.”

       Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle. “Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows. A Couple’s Journey through Alzheimer’s.” Penguin, NY, 2008. 


See also:
http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/08/burnout-as-existendial-deficiency.html

http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/03/unacceptable.html

http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/07/existential-challenges-approach-with.html

 



Monday 14 December 2015

Cleaning-up - Outside & Inside

     Last night I dreamt that I was a Native chief or healer who had a powerful dream to help his people. In this dream I was instructed to strongly advise my people to keep their bathrooms spotlessly clean.

     Later I realized that this was to help them with addictions. Bathrooms are a common place for "using" subsances; literally cleaning this space blends with cleaning-up one's life, just as cleaning-up inner cities has been shown to reduce crime.

     We can make our bodies & homes sacred once more.


     This was a good dream. May it help those struggling with  addictions.


Winter Moon

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Students in Health-care Professions Resist Maturation?

     "Mindfulness is a natural, but underdeveloped, universal human capacity to see more clearly, & as a natural result, relate with greater wisdom & kindness to ourselves & the world." http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!Yet-Another-Definition-of-Mindfulness/c17jj/5614f3e60cf25fa7fe2bac4b

     Yet only ~1% of dental, dental hygiene, and other students in health-care professions sign-up to take a free 8-week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. Interestingly, students in law, social work, and clinical psychology, as well as practicing mental-health professionals are very interested.
     Being truly "too busy" vs simply giving mindfulness a low priority are not easy to separate. One would hope that a central concern in training health-care professionals is helping them mature into healthy, functional adults to enable them to be, on graduation, healthy, functional adult health-care professionals. One would hope that both students & educators are actively engaged in this process.
     But the widespread, often highly energetic resistance to all courses (medical humanities, communication skills, & other behavioural sciences) that attempt to promote a healthy maturation process, reflects many individuals' fear & misunderstanding, toward the normal, healthy human maturation process. http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=discontents
     We're simply NOT all at the same level of psycho-social-spiritual maturity. Yet all wisdom traditions maintain that each of us has at least the potential, or seed of perfection, within (having been created in the image and likeness of God; having the seed of Buddhanature; etc).
     What we need is a wide range of acceptable means to nurture that universal human seed of perfection. For many, the world's major religions offer comfort & community, but sadly, only a small proportion of followers make full use of religion as an actual living wisdom tradition ie to thoroughly improve their lives.
     Each individual seems to need to, if not "hit rock bottom", then at least experience the basic unsatisfactoriness of life (dukkha). Until then, most of us tend to mindlessly, desperately chase after success / status / possessions / vacations etc, "too busy" to take serious interest in maturing to our full potential as human beings. 
     Mindfulness is rapidly gaining popularity as a welcoming, easy-to-approach, effective gateway to psycho-social-spiritual maturation, available equally to religious, non-religious, and anti-religious.

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS, Canada

Thursday 27 August 2015

Listening, Silence & Healing

     "Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing. It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person. That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and others. That which is hidden.... 
     Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life." 

       Rachel Naomi Remen MD
       www.wisdomatwork.com

www.elephantjournal.com
 

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Addiction - NOT a "Disease"


     “But is addiction really a disease? 
     This book makes the case that it isn’t. Addiction results, rather, from the motivated repetition of the same thoughts and behaviours until they become habitual. Thus, addiction develops – it’s learned – but it’s learned more deeply and often more quickly than most other habits, due to a narrowing tunnel of attention and attraction. A close look at the brain highlights the role of desire in this process. The neural circuitry of desire governs anticipation, focused attention, and behavior. So the most attractive goals will be pursued repeatedly, while other goals lose their appeal, and that repetition (rather than the drugs, booze, or gambling) will change the brain’s wiring. As with other developing habits, this process is grounded in a neurochemical feedback loop that’s present in all normal brains. But it cycles more persistently because of the frequent recurrence of desire and the shrinking range of what is desired. Addiction arises from the same feelings that bind lovers to each other and children to their parents. And it builds on the same cognitive mechanisms that get us to value short-term gains over long-term benefits. Addiction is unquestionably destructive, yet it is also uncannily normal: an inevitable feature of the basic human design. That’s what makes it so difficult to grasp – socially, scientifically, and clinically. 
     I believe that the disease idea is wrong, and that its wrongness is compounded by a biased view of the neural data – and by doctors’ and scientists’ habit of ignoring the personal. It’s and idea that can be replaced, not by shunning the biology of addiction but by examining it more closely, and then connecting it back to lived experience. Medical researchers are correct that the brain changes with addiction. But the way it changes has to do with learning and development – not disease. Addiction can therefore be seen as a developmental cascade, often foreshadowed by difficulties in childhood, always boosted by the narrowing of perspective with recurrent cycles of acquisition and loss. Like other developmental outcomes, addiction isn’t easy to reverse, because it rides on the restructuring of the brain. Like other developmental outcomes, it arises from neural plasticity, but its net effect is a reduction of further plasticity, at least for a while. Addiction is a habit, which, like many other habits, gets entrenched through a decrease in self-control. Addiction is definitely bad news for the addict and all those within range. But the severe consequences of addiction don’t make it a disease, any more than the consequences of violence make violence a disease, or the consequences of racism make racism a disease, or the folly of loving thy neighbour’s wife make infidelity a disease. What they make it is a very bad habit. 
     There’s no doubt that these changes [addiction] mark a difficult passage in personality development. … The many addicts who end up quitting do so uniquely and inventively, through effort and insight. Thus quitting is best seen as further development, not ‘recovery’ from a disease.”

       Marc Lewis. “The Biology of Desire. Why Addiction is Not a Disease.” Doubleday Canada, 2015.  

     See Gerald May's surprisingly similar (1988) perspective, based on 25 years experience as a psychiatrist specializing in addictions: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/11/self-defeating-behaviours-repression.html

     See also "Mechanism Equals Ultimate Cause???": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/03/mechanism-equals-cause.html

Saturday 22 August 2015

Trauma - a Realistic Perspective


     "A critical component of ... the [Buddha's] Noble Eightfold Path ... counseled that trauma, in any of its forms, is not a failure or a mistake. It is not something to be ashamed of, not a sign of weakness, and not a reflection of inner failure. It is simply a fact of life. 
     This attitude toward trauma is at the heart of the Buddha's teaching, although it is often overlooked in the rush to embrace the inner peace that his teachings also promised. But inner peace is actually predicated upon a realistic approach to the uncertainties and fears that pervade our lives."

       Mark Epstein. "The Trauma of Everyday Life." Penguin Press, NY, 2013.
 


Friday 14 August 2015

Suffering Well

     “Suffering confers neither privileges nor rights. It all depends on how you use it. If you use it to increase the anguish of yourself or others, you are degrading, even betraying it. And yet the day will come when we shall understand that suffering can also elevate human beings. God help us to bear our suffering well.”           Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate

        Jack Kornfield. “Awakening is Real. A Guide to the Deeper Dimensions of the Inner Journey.” Sounds True (Podcast #1 The Sacred Journey), 2012.




     “I’ve learned a lot from my teachers and all the study and meditation I have done, but the painful aspects of life, the really hard times, have been my main teachers.”      Pema Chodron

       “Connect with the Best of Yourself – An Evening with Pema Chodron and k.d. lang.” Shambhala Sun, September 2015




Photograph by P. Michael Lovas

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Authentic Leadership

"While you are proclaiming peace with your lips,
be careful to have it even more fully in your heart."

St. Francis of Assisi

 

"So if we are going to find lasting solutions to difficult conflicts or external wars we find ourselves in, 
we first need to find our way out of the internal wars that are poisoning our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward others. 
If we can't put an end to the violence within us,
there is no hope for putting an end to the violence without."
 
Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict




Dale Johnson   www.dpreview.com

Monday 20 July 2015

Proper Role of the Ego


     “The ego is like a donkey.
      We want to ride the ego.
      We want to train the ego as our servant, rather than the petty tyrant within.” 


                         as told by a Sufi master to Cassandra Vieten                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj-787otXnY


Public Gardens, Halifax, NS, Canada
 

Saturday 18 July 2015

What Are We Doing With Vital Energy?

     “He was an old man, wore old man’s clothes, a flannel shirt and old man’s trousers, slippers and a hat, and had an old man’s gait, yet there was nothing old man-ish about him, such as there was with my grandfather or my father’s uncle, Alf; on the contrary, when he suddenly opened up to us and wanted to show us things, it was in a kind of artless childlike way, infinitely friendly, but also infinitely vulnerable, the way a boy without friends might behave when someone showed some interest in him, one might imagine, unthinkable in the case of my grandfather or Alf, it must have been at least sixty years since they had opened up to anyone like that, if indeed they ever had. But no, Haugue hadn’t really opened himself to us, it was more as if it had been his natural self which his rejection had been protecting when we arrived. I saw something I didn’t want to see because the person showing us was unaware of how it looked. He was more than eighty years old, but nothing in him had died or calcified, which actually makes life far too painful to live, that’s what I think now. At the time it just made me feel uneasy.”
       Karl Ove Knausgaard. “A Death in the Family. My Struggle: Book 1.” Vintage Books, London, 2014.


     We bury so much difficult-to-understand, liminal energy in our bodies, causing us to harden, stiffen, & die well before we're buried. This feared & banished energy is the very stuff of life, growth, learning, evolution. What wasted opportunity!

 
Public Gardens, Halifax, NS, Canada

Monday 13 July 2015

Authentic Leadership Required

     "A leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to project on other people his or her shadow or his or her light. 
     A leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which other people must live and move and have their being-conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. 
     A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside him or her self, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.

      The problem is that people rise to leadership in our society by a tendency towards extroversion, which means a tendency to ignore what is going on inside themselves. Leaders rise to power in our society by operating very competently and effectively in the external world, sometimes at the cost of internal awareness.
      I've looked at some training programs for leaders. I'm discouraged by how often they focus on the development of skills to manipulate the external world rather than the skills necessary to go inward and make the inner journey."                                 Parker J. Palmer



Steve Grodin   www.dpreview.com

Friday 10 July 2015

Gain & Loss?

     Appearing as babies, we are blessings, melting open hearts. We're at our authentic best, nurturing other beings to dwell in unconditional love.
     As we learn to make our individual way in this world, we tend to harden ourselves, forgetting for a time who we really are.
     As we age, life cracks and finally destroys this armoring. We invariably lose everything we've "gained" - even the people we've loved - leaving only our original authentic nature.

     "It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."  L.R. Knost


Wednesday 8 July 2015

For the Love of our Children and our Children's Children

     "Physics has provided the basis for the design of the fission and fusion bombs, biology -- germ warfare, chemistry -- nerve gas. And all of them have helped bring us to the brink of doom. But they still do not provide keys to ultimate power. If we do destroy ourselves, it will be the minds of human beings, the unhealthy emotions of individuals, the fear, the hate, the jealousy and the greed of individuals that will trigger these horrors. . . .     
     You can use Inner Science to educate each individual to understand himself or herself, to control his or her negative emotions and distorted notions, and to cultivate his or her highest potentials of love and wisdom. And you can keep improving your Outer Sciences to better understand, control and beautify the environment for the greater benefit of all beings. There is an enormous amount of work to be done. Let us begin it here and now."

       The Dalai Lama with Robert Thurman at Harvard                                                 www.wisdomatwork.com



Wednesday 1 July 2015

Meditation may Alter Male & Female Brains Differently

     "Hippocampal dimensions were enlarged both in male and in female meditators when compared to sex- and age-matched controls. However, meditation effects differed between men and women in magnitude, laterality, and location on the hippocampal surface. Such sex-divergent findings may be due to genetic (innate) or acquired differences between male and female brains in the areas involved in meditation and/or suggest that male and female hippocampi are differently receptive to mindfulness practices.

     The observed group-by-sex interactions and sex-divergent effects are intriguing and perhaps reflective of differential (innate) conditions in male and female brains, as also implied by the large number of reports on sex differences within the hippocampus. At the same time, it is possible that male and female meditators may require (or employ) different amounts or elements of practice to experience desired effects. Both possibilities, independently or interacting with each other, might be accompanied by a sex-specific engagement of certain hippocampal subsections during meditation. Such a sex-specific hippocampal engagement might result in a sex-specific impact on hippocampal anatomy, where additional effects may manifest if male and female hippocampi are differently susceptive to the practice."

       Eileen Luders, Paul M. Thompson, Frorian Kurth. Larger hippocampal dimensions in meditation practitioners: differential effects in women and men. Front Psychol 06 March 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00186

       http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00186/full


from the web

Tuesday 30 June 2015

Wordview & Behavior

"If [one] thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, 
then that is how [one's] mind will tend to operate, 
but if [one] can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole 
that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border 
then [one's] mind will tend to move in a similar way, 
and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."

David Bohm, in Wholeness and the Implicate Order, p. xi

"The true state of affairs in the material world is wholeness.
If we are fragmented, we must blame ourselves."

David Bohm, physicist



Ireland

Thursday 25 June 2015

Healing, Healing, Healing ...


There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole ...

Rashani Rea


Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

Wednesday 24 June 2015

Tree, Forest - Which Do We See?

     Traditional aboriginal cultures live Thich Nhat Hanh's "interbeing" - in profound relationship with everyone and everything ("all our relations"). Whereas industrialized people tend to be lost in a sea of seemingly unrelated, meaningless, arbitrary, random factoids.
     Anthropologist Edward T. Hall's 1976 book "Beyond Culture", contrasts the communication differences between such "high-context" and "low-context" cultures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures
     Our education system, up to & including university, is embedded in our culture's communication style. We low-context, "nuclear giants" hotly pursue highly specialized narrow goals, and as "ethical infants," continue to be oblivious of our impact on our shared quality of life.

          "Learn how to see.
          Realize that everything connects to everything else." 

                                                                                              Leonardo de Vinci

     "To Western medicine, understanding an illness means uncovering a distinct entity that is separate from the patient's being; to Chinese medicine, understanding means perceiving the relationships among all the patient's signs and symptoms in the context of his or her life.
     From a biomedical viewpoint, the Chinese physician is assessing the patient's specific and general physiological and psychological response to a disease entity."
       Ted J. Kaptchuk OMD. "The Web That Has No Weaver. Understanding Chinese Medicine." Contemporary Books, Chicago, 2000.

     "In Indian mythology, Indra was a God who attached all phenomena with visible and invisible strands weaving together a universal net. Earth, trees, clouds, mountains, sky, passion, aggression, creativity, women, men, and children, all were connected in Indra's expansive net. At the intersections of these strands, Indra tied dulcimer bells. In that way, as one part of the net was pulled or moved, the bells would ring; when the sound of a bell was heard, awareness of interconnectedness arose becoming another strand of consideration in one's weave. When the bells were ignored, an illusion of separation and independence reigned; the outcome could be destructive, reverberating throughout the net.”
        W. Anne Bruce: "Abiding in Liminal Space(s): Inscribing Mindful Living/Dying With(In) End-of-Life Caring." PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2002, p12


Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

Monday 22 June 2015

Why Does Inconsiderate, Self-centered, Foolish, Uncivilized Behavior Surprise Us?

     "We live in a society that encourages us to think about how to have a great career but leaves many of us inarticulate about how to cultivate the inner life. The competition to succeed and win admiration is so fierce that it becomes all-consuming. The consumer marketplace encourages us to live by a utilitarian calculus, to satisfy our desires and lose sight of the moral stakes involved in everyday decisions. The noise of fast and shallow communications makes it harder to hear the quieter sounds that emanate from the depths. We live in a culture that teaches us to promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success, but that gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character."                            David Brooks. "The Road to Character." Random House, NY, 2015.

     "We happen to live in a society that favors ... characteristics that turns you into a shrewd animal that treats life as a game. You become a cold, calculating creature, who slips into a sort of mediocrity."                                        David Brooks, from his TEDtalk below



Friday 19 June 2015

Health, Sickness, and Beyond


            Koans are Zen riddles that you do not solve so much as step through, as through Alice’s looking glass, into Mad Hatterish conundrums designed to stun rational sense and in its place induce wordless insight. Perfect, simply perfect, for driving a professor of philosophy insane. The most famous koan is, What is the sound of one hand clapping? (Don’t try hitting one hand in the air. Do, and you’ll hear the sound of one hand clapping – the roshi’s against the side of hour head.) My koan concerned a monk who asked Joshu (a famous master in Tang-dynasty China), ‘Does a dog have Buddha-nature?’ Joshu’s answer seemed to imply no. The conundrum: since the Buddha said that even the grass has Buddha-nature, how can a dog not have it?
            Every day I came up with another ingenious answer; every day the roshi frowned and shook his head no; every day the bell would ring and I would be told to come back tomorrow. I turned the koan upside down; I pulled it inside out; I unpacked each word and repacked its meaning. Finally I thought, I’ve got it. The key word was have. A dog does not have Buddha-nature, not the way I have a shirt or an ice-cream cone. Rather Buddha-nature has, or is momentarily taking the shape of, that dog. But the roshi did not even hear out my ingenious solution. Halfway through my explanation he roared at me, ‘You have the philosopher’s disease!’ Then he softened a bit: ‘There’s nothing wrong with philosophy. I myself have a master’s degree in it from one of our better universities. Philosophy works only with reason, though, and there’s nothing wrong with reason, either. Your reasoning is fine, but your experience is limited. Enlarge your experience, and your philosophy will be different.’ Ding-a-ling-a-ling sounded the little bell – signal that the interview was over. I had my impossible assignment: to think of how to think the way I do not think.
            If a koan is mentally exhausting, try it on sleep deprivation. It all but pushed me over the edge. At the end of my stay at Myoshinji there was something like a final-exam period, when the monks meditated virtually around the clock. Since I was a novice, I was permitted the sybaritic luxury of three and a half hours’ sleep a night, which was grossly insufficient. That prolonged sleep deprivation was the hardest ordeal I’ve ever endured. After the first night I was simply sleepy. By the third night I was a zombie. From then on it got worse. The koans force the rational mind to the end of its tether, and then sleep deprivation kicks in. Since you are not sleeping and hence not dreaming, you in effect dream or lapse into quasi hallucinations while you are awake, a kind of a temporary psychosis. I was in that altered state during my last days at Myoshinji.
            And in that state I stormed into the roshi’s room. Self-pity had become boring; fury was the order of the day. What a way to treat human beings, I raged to myself. I wouldn’t just throw in the towel, I’d smack it across the roshi’s face. However, a certain decorum prevailed as I entered his audience room. I clasped palms together and bowed reverentially; as I approached him I touched my head to the tatami floor mat and flexed my outstretched fingers upward to symbolize lifting the dust off the Buddha’s feet. Then our eyes met in a mutual glare. For a few moments he said nothing, and then he growled, ‘How’s it going?’ It sounded like a taunt.
            ‘Terrible!’ I shouted.
            ‘You think you are going to get sick, don’t you?’ More taunting sarcasm, so I let him have it.
            ‘Yes, I think I’m going to get sick! Sick because of you!’ For several days my throat had begun to contract and I was having to labor to breathe.
            And then, curiously, his face relaxed. His smirking expression disappeared, and with total matter-of-factness he said, ‘What is sickness? What is health? Put aside both and go forward.’
            I despair of ever conveying the uncanny impact those twelve words had on me. I thought, He’s right. He is right. Sickness and health suddenly seemed beside the point of what it means to be human; compared to that more abiding reality, health and sickness were two sides of the same coin. Buddhism speaks of the ‘Great No’s,’ such as ‘no birth, no death’ and ‘no coming, no going.’ There is something within us that is not born and does not die and that comes from nowhere and goes no place. Somehow after the roshi’s few words I found myself unexpectedly in a state of total peace. I did my prescribed bow to the floor and exited the room, not only determined to complete the two remaining days but confident that I could do so. Since then I have often been sick, but off it goes to the side, and I go forward.

            Quoted from the superb book: Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014.


Thursday 18 June 2015

Make Your Whole Life Unceasing Gratitude


     “What is Zen?

     Simple, simple, so simple. 
     Infinite gratitude toward all things past; 
     infinite gratitude toward all things present; 
     infinite responsibility toward all things future.”                Goto Roshi


       Huston Smith, Jeffery Paine. “Tales of Wonder. Adventures Chasing the Divine. An Autobiography.” HarperOne, NY, 2009.




Sunday 14 June 2015

Different Strokes for Different Folks ...


     “For each different type of person, Hinduism prescribes a different path (yoga). Here I will simply refer to four of the principal ones: 
          (1) Jnana yoga tries to achieve holiness through knowledge, by which is meant not factual information but understanding or vision. 
          (2) For bhakti yogis, feelings are more real than thoughts, so they approach the divine through love and devotion. 
          (3) In karma yoga, salvation comes through work, but work done not for gain but for its own (or God’s) sake. And finally there is 
          (4) royal or raja yoga, comprising meditation and inward exploration. 

     Can the four yogas ever meet, be fully combined? Probably not in the same person. Imagine Socrates and Saint Francis and Gandhi and Siddhartha Gautama meeting at some ethereal pub: they might agree on some common goal, but to reach it they would head off in different directions."

     Even members of the same family can have “such fundamentally different perspectives, the words sail past each other. The intimate conversation between husband and wife or brother and sister can be as mutually incomprehensible as different foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas – and, ideally, of all religions – not only to reach God but to reach each other.”

       Smith H, Paine J. “Tales of Wonder - Adventures Chasing the Divine. An autobiography.” HarperOne, NY, 2009.



Thursday 11 June 2015

Wisdom - THE Most Important Attribute in Health Care, in Life

     "You're going to, sooner or later, learn humility. And the earlier you do, the better doctor you're going to be.
     In this, the Internet Age, we are drowning in information, but starving for wisdom. I urge you, as you forge long, successful and prosperous careers, to not just be smart, but be wise.
     In every interaction you have, embrace the ancient wisdom of Hippocrates: 'Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient.' "

       Andre Picard, convocation speech to the graduating class in medicine, University of Manitoba, May 14, 2015. 
       Globe and Mail, Tuesday, June 9, 2015.

     Wisdom in Health Care: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2015/04/wisdom-in-health-care.html



Wednesday 10 June 2015

Well-being - a Lifelong Journey towards Wisdom

"Well-being in old age is to a large extent the result of 
psychosocial development and growth 
across the life course, 
conceptualized as wisdom."


Monika Ardelt PhD - speaking at the University of Chicago, Wisdom Research Forum, May 8, 2015


Monday 8 June 2015

Optimism and Hope

      Huston Smith "recalled Czech president Vaclav Havel saying that ‘optimism’ suggests that we think things will turn out well, while ‘hope’ is a force that motivates us toward right action whether we believe things will turn out well or not. 
     And it was out of hope that Huston found motivation to keep working for change. We must, Huston argued, be like the doctors who fight to end disease whether or not they believe they will ever succeed. 
     ‘The fulfillment comes through doing what one can, not in wasting time predicting outcomes.’”

        Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014. 


Sunday 7 June 2015

The Big Bang Theory of Health Care

     On the TV series "Big Bang Theory", Sheldon is hilariously inept in all matters outside of theoretical physics, especially his total befuddlement about human relations. Doc Martin, on the British TV series, is Sheldon's medical counterpart.

     “Life’s central issues … are issues of quality, dealing with judgments regarding the value of our thoughts and actions – political, moral and aesthetic. They deal with evaluative choices regarding the nature of existence and our place in it, rather than simply with descriptions of life’s quantitative aspects, like those of distance, size and weight.

     ... science fails in the face of all ultimate questions, and consequently, leaves the problems of life … completely untouched.”
       Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014.


     So what proportion of us dentists and physicians have had solid liberal arts educations? 
     Since most of us have almost exclusively been immersed in the sciences, how receptive are our dental and medical students (& faculty) to correct this deficiency?: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/07/soft-skills-undervalued.html



Oingt, France

Friday 5 June 2015

My Story - for Now

     "And that's the spirit in which I write, as a co-explorer, knowing that I'll probably see things differently as time passes and my questions get deeper still. I must be patient and remember the fragility of what I think I know. We have a duty to offer our own stories, however, just in case something we say does touch someone else in a positive way. Stories of struggle can be especially important, because we all struggle. In the same way, stories of how we have overcome our challenges might help inspire others to believe that they too can overcome."

       Rupert Ross. "Indigenous Healing. Exploring Traditional Paths." Penguin, Toronto, 2014.

Randy Charboneau

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Who Makes Us Smile?


     “Only a very few people alive today can make me smile just to think of them: the Dalai Lama is one and Huston Smith is another. And when I reflect on it, I realize that this is partly because both celebrated teachers are voracious in their pursuit of wisdom and able to push back their own assumptions in order to learn from everyone they meet; both radiate a calm and openness that can come only from an inner shrine that is unwavering. More deeply, with both of them the sense of wisdom is infectious because they are light in every way: alive with mischief and sparkle, unimpressed with themselves and ready to see, and bear out in their every action, that delight is as much a part of life’s adventure as is sober rumination.”                                     Pico Iyer

        Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014

 

Hermitage, France



Saturday 30 May 2015

Wisdom Beyond Basic Morals

That I feed the hungry,
forgive an insult,
and love my enemy ....
these are great virtues!
But what if I should discover
that the poorest of the beggars
and the most impudent of offenders
are all within me,
and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness;
that I myself am the enemy who must be loved?
What then?


Carl Jung


prontoseminars.com


Friday 29 May 2015

Meaningful Learning is Transformative AND Initially Uncomfortable

     "Fundamentally, transformative learning is a process whereby individuals engage in critical reflection to develop new perspectives, skills, and behaviors.
     Specifically, the process of transformative learning begins with experiencing a disorienting dilemma**, which is a life event that causes the learner to pause and question underlying beliefs and assumptions. The next and perhaps the most important phase is critically reflecting on the disorienting dilemma to expose the learner’s limitations and areas for improvement. The learner then addresses these limitations by acquiring new knowledge, skills, or attitudes. Ultimately, these newly developed skills will transform the learner by providing him or her with fresh perspectives and powerful means for enacting improvement." 

       Wittich CM et al. "Transformative Learning: A Framework Using Critical Reflection to Link the Improvement Competencies in Graduate Medical Education." Academic Medicine 2010; 85(11): 1790-3.


     ** a minor "shipwreck": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/05/self-concept-worldview.html

Citadel Hill, Halifax, NS