Anthony Tshering
A Guide To Spirituality: Being versus Doing

I read a wonderful piece in Tricycle magazine today about what a spiritual life looks like. The timing for me to read it was perfect. It’s something I’ve been trying to make sense of recently.

We are very much a doing world. Even the language of therapy is often about doing. Everyone seems to come in and say to me, “I need to work on myself,” or “I need to work on my relationships.” The sentiment is understandable. We are a self-improvement culture. Our lives are viewed linearly, our lives a constant striving for self-improvement with a beginning, middle, and end. There is much usefulness in seeing the world this way. It is goal-orientated and results-focused first and foremost. It has helped create the world around us, including the computer I type on now or the smartphone I use to answer my emails and check social media. A lot of us internalize this productive voice and hear it in the daily chatter of our thinking self and assume this is who we are.

A Guide To Spirituality: Being versus Doing
Meaning, Spirituality
Anthony Tshering
Reflections on God, Death, Meaning and ...

“Do you pray?” I once asked a patient.

“No, I’ve never been able to for some reason” she paused. “Do you?”

“No,” I said. “Because I don’t know if anyone is listening.”

It has always struck me as inconceivable that someone is listening to prayer. How can people be sure of some divine force in their lives? Even such Christian luminaries such as Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa experienced their doubts about God. I am no different. God does not speak to me in tongues or voices. All I hear are silent ellipses where I sense holiness in the mundane, the awe-inspiring in the ordinary. God has always seemed like an inelegant, hollow solution to the problem of meaning and death.

Reflections on God, Death, Meaning and Spirituality
Anthony Tshering
Everything's Amazing And Nobody's Happy: The ...

Everything's amazing and nobody's happy- Louis C.K.

“To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything.” 
― Ernest Becker

A few years ago, a patient of mine wondered out loud why he was unhappy. After all he was a successful lawyer, involved in a loving relationship with a partner, lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Brooklyn and had a group of close friends whom he saw socially. So what was wrong? "Something just doesn't feel right. I have the gnawing feeling that something should be different," he said. 

Everything's Amazing And Nobody's Happy: The First Step Toward Emotional Change
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Do We Overcomplicate Romantic Relationships? Kindness as a Key to a Happy Partnership

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Do We Overcomplicate Romantic Relationships? Kindness as a Key to a Happy Partnership

What makes for a happy relationship? Everyone has a different answer for that questions. Some of you will say “things in common.” Others will say “sexual chemistry” or “attraction.” Others, if they were being honest, will say things like the “class,” “race” or “religion.” But there is a problem with that list: those are all cultural markers of identity. They say little about what a person is actually like.

So if I asked you, what character traits make for a happy relationship? Again, everyone would have a different answer to that question. Some of you will say “sense of humor.” Others will say “honesty.” Most of you will say, “kind.” But what does that actually mean? What does kindness actually look like in a relationship?

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The Wound Is The Place Where the Light Enters You

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The Wound Is The Place Where the Light Enters You

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”


― Jalaluddin Rumi

I just wanted to briefly follow up on the Jimmy Santiago Baca poem I posted last week, "What is Broken Is What God Blesses." It's a lovely poem not only for its imagery-- how lovely is the phrase " the addict’s arm seamed with needle marks/ is a thread line of a blanket/frayed and bare from keeping the man warm"-- but for its theme of suffering.

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Sleep, the Simplest Mental Health Life Hack: 3 Ways Sleep Affects Your Mental Health

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Sleep, the Simplest Mental Health Life Hack: 3 Ways Sleep Affects Your Mental Health

When I see someone for the first time in psychotherapy, and they talk about overwhelming anxiety, one of the first questions I always ask them is “How much sleep are you getting?” And almost always, it’s not enough.

We are a sleep-deprived culture. Some would even call it a public health problem. When I ask someone why they aren’t sleeping enough the answers usually revolve around 1) demanding work schedules; 2) addictions to their screens; 3) raising young children; 4) but also a lack of understanding of how important sleep is to one’s health and mental health.

What Is Broken Is What God Blesses

What Is Broken Is What God Blesses

 

I'm out of commission today because of dental surgery, so I don't have the strength or energy to write too much today. So instead I wanted to share this lovely poem I read recently by Jimmy Santiago Baca with you all. My next blog will be about the themes discussed in the poem on Tuesday. Enjoy! 

What Is Broken Is What God Blesses

Jimmy Santiago Baca, 1952

 The lover’s footprint in the sand
 the ten-year-old kid’s bare feet

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Bicep Curls Are Dumb. Stop Doing Bicep Curls.

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Bicep Curls Are Dumb. Stop Doing Bicep Curls.

I haven’t discussed it much on this blog, but fitness has become a bigger part of my life in the last two years or so. And like every fitness neophyte, I did set after set after set of bicep curls in the hopes of getting “ripped.” Turns out, I had no idea what I was doing. (Not surprising for me.)

Now two years later, after reading more and more about fitness, I’ve come to realize something: bicep curls are dumb. If you have a desire to have arms bigger than your head then the bicep curl is a great exercise for you. It’s almost strictly a vanity exercise. The bicep just isn’t that big or important a muscle in the end.

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Learning to Sacrifice in a Capitalist World: 3 Ways to Consume Less and Push Back Against Greed

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Learning to Sacrifice in a Capitalist World: 3 Ways to Consume Less and Push Back Against Greed

Recently I came upon this interesting bible verse,

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters-yes, even their own life-such a person cannot be my disciple.”- Luke 14:26

I’m not a bible scholar or even a Christian, but I find this bible verse fascinating. Is Jesus telling us to hate everyone we care about, including ourselves? Somehow, I doubt that’s true. My sense is that this is a metaphor. Jesus is discussing the notion of sacrifice for a greater good (in this case, to follow him and give up their old lives.)

The notion of sacrifice is a strange one in today’s world in that no one seems to want to do it. Capitalism, in particular, encourages us “to get mine.” As one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Noah Levine, said in a recent podcast, “Greed, Hatred, and Delusion are the norm. It’s compassion that’s in scarcity.”

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The Gods Will Not Save You: Reflections on Meaning and Existence

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The Gods Will Not Save You: Reflections on Meaning and Existence

“It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The Gods will not save you.” - Commissioner Ervin Burrell, The Wire

A few years ago, I had to commute from Brooklyn to the Bronx for my job as a social worker at The Legal Aid Society. It was a hellish commute. What should have been a 50 minute to an hour commute, ended up being 75 minutes or longer on most days. (Anyone who lives in New York City can attest to the awfulness of the MTA.)

The only upside to the commute was that I read a lot of books and listened to a lot of interesting podcasts during that time. One morning I was listening to a Zen Buddhist podcast on WZEN. To be honest, I was barely listening. I was tired and a bit hungover. The day had not started yet, and I already wanted it to end.

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Self-Care: What Does that Look Like?

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Self-Care: What Does that Look Like?

I just read this wonderful medium piece about self-care that I wanted to share.

I think there’s an assumption that self-care means checking out and disconnecting from the stresses in our life. My own tendency, as I’ve written elsewhere, is to grab a drink or watch a lot of TV to get my mind off things. Other people might go on a trip or a spa for the day and relax.

But I’m not sure any of those coping methods have ever made me feel better. What it does is push away all the feelings I want to ignore-- all that anxiety, stress and rejection that’s underneath, always percolating in my unconscious-- so I feel numb to any of it.  

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Getting Unstuck: 5 Ways to Pull Yourself Out of a Rut When You've Become Complacent

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Getting Unstuck: 5 Ways to Pull Yourself Out of a Rut When You've Become Complacent

Recently I’ve been in one of my better creative periods in quite a long time. I have been reading more, as well as writing every day and planning a future podcast.  When I noticed how productive I had been, I wasn’t quite sure how it happened.

You see, I was in a rut for awhile. No new projects were being planned. Books were started and unfinished. I was enjoying a few too many beers and not enough time at the gym. I wouldn’t quite call it depression. I had just grown complacent.

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In Praise of Laziness: Finding Joy in a Sea of Anxiety

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In Praise of Laziness: Finding Joy in a Sea of Anxiety

I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spend in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days.

In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke