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

The All-or-Nothing Marriage

The All-or-Nothing Marriage

I've been writing a lot about marriage and relationships lately, mostly because it's an endlessly fascinating subject to me. Healthy marriages are a mystery to me. I can see seemingly perfect fits-- the same race, class, and culture-- and see those relationships end in disaster. On the other end, I've seen the opposite turn into healthy, loving marriages. 

As I wrote about in past blog posts, two important keys to a healthy marriage are embracing change in your marriage and kindness. But I read another piece on the New York Times called, "The All-or-Nothing Marriage" that adds another piece of data to what makes a healthy marriage. 

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Want to Stay Married? Embrace Change

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Want to Stay Married? Embrace Change

This morning I was rereading a wonderful New York Times piece from April called, "To Stay Married, Embrace Change." As a Buddhist, It's a particularly resonate read for me. It reminds me of something Roshi Shunryu Suzuki said when asked to reduce Buddhism down to one phrase, 

"Everything Changes."

As the article points out, to have a successful marriage, we need to realize that we will change but so will our partner. 

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How Capitalism, Greed and Depression are Related

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How Capitalism, Greed and Depression are Related

One subject I don’t see a lot of writing about, but which happens to be one of my primary interests, is how capitalism affects mental health. The effects are often so subtle implicit and woven into the fabric of everyday existence, it can be difficult to parse out. I am by no means an expert and have my own blind spots and biases but I will continue to try and do so in this post and future posts.

My work gives me a unique perch to see how capitalism affects individual psyches and can cause much psychic pain. Because of this perspective, I’ve decided to start writing about how capitalism can affect mental health. Today I’d to begin with depression.

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My Favorite Ending To A Movie Is "City Lights." What's Yours?

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My Favorite Ending To A Movie Is "City Lights." What's Yours?

At the advice of my good friend, Cam, I've decided to take a break from the self-help stuff on occasion and just blog about things I'm interested in. And for some reason, the thought of movie endings came to my mind. There are a lot of great movie endings out there, including "The Usual Suspects," "The Sixth Sense," "The Godfather II," and "Chinatown" to name just a few. 

But those films all were ending in dramatic films. My favorite ending comes from a romantic comedy that's nearly a 100 years, Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights." (Spoilers for the ending about to come.) 

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The Strange Life and Times of Walter Freeman

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The Strange Life and Times of Walter Freeman

Even though psychiatry is still in the dark about a lot of things, it’s impossible to even fathom how far it’s come in the last 100 years. What do I mean? I’d like to present to you the life and times of Walter Freeman.

Walter Freeman was a 20th-century neurologist and quite possibly the most controversial medical figure of his generation. Don’t know who he is? Well, there was a time where he was a gigantic celebrity in America and the world. He took the works of a Portuguese physician, Egas Moniz, and started performing lobotomies on patients with a whole range of issues.

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The Nostalgia of Unlived Lives: How Regret Shapes Our Existence

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The Nostalgia of Unlived Lives: How Regret Shapes Our Existence

Recently an acquaintance-- let’s call him John-- told me that they had broken up with their girlfriend. The reasons for the break up were familiar to anyone who has ended a relationship; there was a sense that they had drifted apart; the sex had diminished; the good times, which had been so numerous, were replaced by bitterness and fights. I barely batted an eye hearing this all. After all, I had lived it before.

As the night lingered on and the number of empty pint glasses piled up, John opened up a bit further. He felt pangs of regret over his decision. He had imagined many different lives with his ex. Beach trips to Dubrovnik at 80, absurd, nostalgic dreams for children that will never exist, of afternoons spent on dreamed playgrounds on suburban streets, of quiet nights in darkened bedrooms where they make love even after 30 years of marriage.

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Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke

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Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke

I've had quite a long day, and I haven't had the time to really muster up any interesting ideas for a blog post. So I thought I'd share one of my favorite poems, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Ranier Maria Rilke. It's an elegy to the power of art to inspire change. And the last line, maybe the great last line of any poem, always manages to surprise me with its immediacy. Enjoy, and I'll get back at you next week. 

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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.