A 2020 Thanksgiving Ritual (Without Spiritual Bypassing)
My family always does some sort of Thanksgiving ritual, a practice of counting our blessings, expressing our gratitude, giving thanks to God and each other for the bounty in our lives. In spite of my painful awareness that the Pilgrims and Indians fairy tale I was...
What Is Spirituality Without Spiritual Bypassing?
I grew up in the Methodist church, with three ministers in my family, so I was literally raised on the religious version of spiritual bypassing. About half of the healthy, normal human emotions were judged as “unspiritual” by my mother (in the name of the church)....
Why I Went “Bliss Hunting” & How I Outgrew Spiritual Bypassing When Life Got Hard
When I first left the hospital after twenty years studying and practicing medicine, I was traumatized, depressed, and lost. What a blessing it was that I landed at Esalen Institute as I was off-ramping from my life as a doctor. Esalen was like a hospital for my...
The People Chose Empathy: And Why Some People Need Our Empathy More Than Others
I was listening to spiritual teacher Tosha Silver's call this morning. She said that she wept at Biden's acceptance speech when she saw someone in the audience holding a sign that said, "The People Chose Empathy." It made me realize that this election really was...
46 Things NOT To Say If You’re Committed To Anti-Racism, Justice & Empathy
The votes for the 2020 US Presidential election are still being counted, but what is already obvious is that something close to 50% of the country is still voting for an unapologetically racist, white supremacist candidate. The hashtags have quit trending, but the...
12 More New Age Beliefs We Need To Unpack If We Want To Be Social Justice Allies
In case you're curious, I appeared on the Conspirituality podcast this week, talking about how the New Age and far right-wing conspiracy theories wound up in an awkward, racist, and dangerous marriage. (My interview is the last part of a 2 hr 15 min podcast. Listen...
10 New Age Beliefs We Need To Unpack If We Want To Be Social Justice Allies
Some of you are asking me to clarify how seemingly benign "love and light" New Age belief systems could possibly be damaging, especially to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled folks. So let's unpack a few common New Age teachings (that I tried on years ago like a new...
The Psychology Of Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories: A Compassionate Lens to Help You Understand Loved Ones You Lost Down The Rabbit Hole
This post is for anyone whose loved ones have gone down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, taken on QAnon beliefs, gotten "woke" or "red-pilled," and you can't understand why. If you've lost a spouse, children, siblings, parents, friends, professional colleagues,...
Fierce Compassion Takes A Stand To Protect What You Hold Sacred
After reading all of your comments all week, just so I can try to make sense of what's happening here in this community, I feel like I need to make a few distinctions about my understanding about some core spiritual teachings around compassion. First, I'm...
We All Deserve To Breathe Freely
I can't stop pondering why so many of the challenges we're facing as a culture right now revolve around the breath. COVID is a disease that threatens our breathing. West Coast wildfires right now and recent horrific fires in Australia and the Amazon are making it...
We Need To Feel To Heal
As I’m trapped in my house because the air quality where I live in the Bay Area is incompatible with life, as I’m sheltered in place for six months and gave up all summer travel because I want to be a responsible community member and don’t want to hurt anyone who...
How to Make Wise Decisions During Uncertain Times
This is a time of hard choices in uncertain times. Should you go to the hospital if you get short of breath, or should you ride it out at home? Should you let your kid endure the potential damage of remote learning, or should you let your child go to in-person...
Germ Theory + Terrain Theory = Saving Lives
I hear a lot of people these days talking about "germ theory" and "terrain theory" in light of the pandemic. In short, germ theory focuses on infectious agents—bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites—and assumes that if you're exposed to these infectious agents, you're...
How To Self-Administer Placebo Effects
Someone asked me today about my thoughts about the mystery of the placebo effect, which I wrote about at length in Mind Over Medicine and which scientists do not understand but have theories about. I thought some of you might be interested in what I wrote. In the...
The BRAND NEW REVISED Mind Over Medicine Is Born Today
When I decided to rewrite 2/3 of my classic bestseller Mind Over Medicine a year ago so I could update much of the science, add new tools for healing and transformation, and entirely modify the Six Steps To Healing Yourself based on my deeper understanding of how...
Social Isolation Brings Up Trauma For Healing
Lots of people are having a rough time right now, and it’s no wonder. There is a strong link between social isolation and trauma, and when so much radical change is upon us, it’s natural that our “stuff” will bubble up. When we do not have the routines of daily...