i wanna be well

So how do we heal from lifelong habits forged in times we can hardly remember? What can we realistically expect when it comes to healing and addressing the deep traumas and challenges of our lives? And how does this healing relate to the larger social and intergenerational trauma all around us? Because none of this happens in isolation. My struggles have emerged out of my own unique circumstances of nature and nurture, but also from the cumulative trauma of the families that made my parents, and theirs, and so on, as well as the societies that informed all of them. Including this one. There’s so much healing needed, individually and collectively, as a species and as a planet, it can be hard to even know where to start.

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Answers to Unasked Questions

The tools and practices we employ to help support and promote our well-being, be they musical, meditative, contemplative, creative, active or ingestible, open us to recognize and receive the insights that emerge. Sometimes in surprising ways.

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Appreciating

In times of crisis and overwhelm, intentionally paying attention to the small pockets of pleasure or peace in our experience can be immensely sustaining. The practice of appreciation, our CEC theme for October, begins with giving yourself permission to seek out and experience goodness, and then noticing what gifts, however small or subtle, are within your reach at any given time.

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Science and Spiritual “Enlightenment”

In March of 2012, myself and twenty other “adept” meditators participated in an experiment to try to answer the question: what is the real resting state of the brain? Strange things happened. An exploration of one view of so-called “enlightenment.”

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How Understanding Enlightenment Could Change Science

Any science of mind worthy of the name must try to isolate, describe, and understand the full continuum of changes that come about as a result of meditation and spiritual practice – including claims of awakening or enlightenment. Otherwise, the paradigm of the power of spiritual practice is missing its cornerstone.

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