Blog
Fear vs Intuition: How Can You Tell?
Have you ever wondered why our FEAR voice (also called the inner critic, or ego) gets SO loud whenever we try to make a change in our lives? Have you ever gotten so inspired by something, only to be immediately flooded with your own negative thoughts and critiques about your idea, to the point that you just give up?
A Little Softening Goes a Long Way
I’ve been thinking a lot about the pitfalls of rigidity recently. Strict adherence to a certain set of beliefs, or a certain pattern of behavior, without allowing anything else in. It keeps finding me, in conversations and in personal experiences. Since I started meditating 7 years ago, I was pretty much convinced that my particular type of meditation was the answer to all of life’s woes. There wasn’t anything that wouldn’t get better, eventually, with enough meditation. I appreciated that other people had practices that worked for them, but I secretly thought to myself that I had it all figured out, and they didn’t. ‘If only they practiced this type of meditation, they would…’
Zen and the Art of New Orleans Jazz Fest (or, Everything I Needed to Learn About Life, I Learned at Jazz Fest)
Jazz Fest in New Orleans. It’s my favorite place in the world, the highlight of my year. It’s not exactly what people think of when they think of spirituality, though. This year I brought a new friend with me, and I was telling someone, after the fact, that she was such a great Jazz Fest companion because not only was she awesome, but she was able to take care of herself so well. That prompted them to ask me: “what on earth happens there that she needs to take care of herself? Isn’t it supposed to be fun?”.
For you Princess Bride fans out there, Jazz Fest is like the fire swamp. Sure, there are obstacles, but once you figure them out (where to find air conditioning, how to find real toilets instead of porta-potties), you can live there quite happily for some time. Here are the top 9 life lessons I have learned at Jazz Fest:
Great Expectations
We all have expectations placed on us. Some are external, and some are internal. Be the best parent, the best spouse, be skinny, wear the right clothes, have a great job, have work life balance. I feel like I wrote the book on setting high expectations for myself- I went to private school, I went to medical school, I got into my first choice for residency, and then I practiced medicine for 10 years in Chicago.
Burnout brought me to meditation. As a result, I was no longer a slave to my stress, to the events of the world around me, and to my reactivity to those events. I felt empowered. Here’s why:
Meditation: The World's Best Parenting Hack
Let’s face it- we love our kids, but parenting is one of life’s greatest challenges! Here are 5 ways that a regular meditation practice can help make our jobs as parents easier:
The Culture of Busy-ness
How many times have you told yourself, ‘I’d love to be able to _____, but I just don’t have enough time’? How many hours have you spent bemoaning the fact that we don’t have enough time to do ______, instead of just DOING it?!
Our motto for the type of meditation I teach is "Do less, accomplish more; Do least, accomplish most; Do nothing, accomplish everything". This is exactly what we want for meditation. Zero effort. Yes, it does sometimes apply to the outside world, but our technique is meant for householders, not monks....
Cause that's what I was born to do
I spent 11 years training to be a doctor. 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and 3 years of residency. I practiced Internal Medicine for 10 years. What is Internal Medicine? We treat the whole person: kidney disease, infection, HIV, mental health, high blood pressure, diabetes, preventative health, chronic pain, and auto-immune disease, to name a few. We treat what we can, and when we need it, we call for help from specialists.... READ ON to find out about my AMAZING offer for 5 lucky clients!
Where to turn when you are flattened
My own #metoo stories have luckily been benign, compared to what women everywhere have been bravely sharing. And for me personally, they have not occurred within my spiritual community. But, as I’ve learned over the past several months, it seems as if there’s nowhere that #metoo hasn’t infiltrated. Spirituality, which in theory ‘should’ be evolved past these pervasive power dynamics and the behavior that accompanies them, is actually no different. I’ve learned that the hard way. No place is sacred anymore.
6 ways to manage holiday stress, Vedic-style
The holidays are coming! Whether you’re excited or you’re dreading all the parties and family time, here are 6 tips to help you manage stress and get the most out of holiday time:
1. Manage your expectations. If you expect apples to fall from an orange tree, you are going to be disappointed. If you expect your family to be anything other than, well, your family over the holidays, you will get needlessly upset over something you can’t change. Treat everything that happens as if you EXPECTED it to happen. That way, there are no surprises.
There is no quick fix
Last month I spoke at a conference about burnout in medicine. The idea is, if the doctors are less burned out, they will be better doctors, and then the patients will be more satisfied with the care they receive. And everyone will be happier. Win-win-win.
I had coffee with my former boss, who is a visionary leader, before I gave my talk. He asked me what I thought we should do about burnout. I suggested a Vedic meditation program for a group of physicians at the hospital, and he replied along the lines of, “yes, but then they have to become meditators. How else can we fix burnout?”