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Latest blog posts from Rituals of Healing

Mindful meditation: Stop Running, Learn to Stay
First and foremost meditation is about paying attention. Everything in meditation is about your attention and the quality of your attention. In formal sitting practice you are learning how- practicing- being with what is. you are cultivating Presence. Presence is simply the ability to BE WITH...
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Published 3 months ago

Are you Prepared? Instrument Tuned?
I had a professor in my graduate education who always said to us, “be prepared”. He said it so often in fact that I don’t know if I ever really heard him. However, I think now that it’s likely one of the very best pieces of advice I ever had the privilege of hearing. "Being prepared"...
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Published 4 months ago

Fear, Panic, Anxiety: How does mindfulness/meditation practice help in real world stressful situations?
This is Jeff's story:"My wife, Mary, and I were invited by an old friend, Steven, to join his balloon crew at the annual hot air balloon festival...We said yes enthusiastically. As crew members, Mary and I joined a team of several others, all of whom were needed to handle our balloon...Now, to be...
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Published 5 months ago

Soul Language: Poetry
Have you ever heard people say that the psyche speaks another language? Psyche's language consists of images, symbols, music, and poetry. For this reason, many analysts encourage their clients to draw and paint. The active use of this imaginal muscle gets things moving inside. For this same...
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Published 5 months ago

After Cancer: How to Connect to Others?
After surviving or while living with a life threatening illness such as cancer, people typically feel estranged from life (work, friends, colleagues, family members, and even alienated from themselves).  This disconnected feeling is normal. Cancer is a traumatic experience: one which stirs...
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Published 5 months ago

San Diego Therapist explores: What is avoidable suffering?
Suffering is a part of being human...Certain types of suffering are unavoidable: examples of unavoidable suffering include aging, death, illness, and natural disasters. The suffering associated with these examples is often simply unavoidable and a necessary part of human life. Some types of...
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Published 6 months ago

Left-Brain Activation and Mindfulness
Yesterday in my blog article, "Mindfulness- what is it and why should I do it?" we discussed Richard Davidson's research on mindfulness practices. Davidson found that regular mindfulness practice over a period of just 8 weeks significantly increased immune system functioning and additionally...
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Published 7 months ago

What is "mindfulness" and why should I do it?
Jon Kabat-Zinn, who has been researching the benefits of mindfulness practices since the 1970's at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center says, mindfulness is "The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of...
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Published 7 months ago

Depression? Depressed again!!???? Can you rewire your brain?
Once depressed, you are fairly likely to experience depression again. The first depressive episode often surfaces in response to a trauma or loss of some sort. However, the negative feeling states and thought patterns seem to get wired together and can recreate depressive states more easily the...
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Published 7 months ago

Practicing Mindfulness: Putting on your Mental Shoes
Today, let's talk about Sally's recent experience with meditation. She's been practicing more and more lately, but today she didn't have time to practice her meditation before leaving the house, so she decided to do it at work. She shut her office door and set the alarm on her cell phone for 10...
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Published 7 months ago

Why did I get cancer?
What really causes cancer? Is it lifestyle and genes? Is it just a random unexplainable thing? Do my thoughts have something to do with it? Does my relational history and/or my trauma history have anything to do with it? Why did I get ill? These questions plague people living with cancer, and...
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Published 7 months ago

Chosen Reaction
In my review of endless psychological literature for my dissertation on the experience of cancer, I came across some pretty interesting studies. I am thinking in particular of a phenomenological-hermeneutic study done by Persson and Hallberg (2004), which is just a fancy way of saying they...
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Published 8 months ago