Soul’s Code

. . . before Big Pharma, Madison Avenue, Hollywood Boulevard and Tin Pan Alley occupy it for you

By Michele Ritterman — Our homes and 401 (k)’s aren’t the only territory that we’re losing to a One Percent whose disproportionate control of wealth has provoked grassroots “Occupy” protests across America since September, 2011.

We also appear to be losing our minds. When I began studying psychotherapy in the 1970s the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) for mental disorders was 134 pages long. It listed 182 conditions. The current edition of the DSM now lists over 300 disorders that fill 886 pages.

Have we actually developed more than 100 new mental illnesses in a single generation?

What the heck happened?

If acts of thinking register in scans like a PET, what are thoughts doing to your tissue? A first-person account from a woman who had two terminal diagnoses

BY VAISHALI LOVE: After being diagnosed terminal from an illness — and then again ten years later from an injury — there is one thing I truly understand as a result of piecing my health back together and studying the Eastern healing sciences.

What I want to share with you is the physical dynamics of emotions — how emotions travel through the body, what emotions stress and undermine which organs, and how unresolved emotional experiences can literally get trapped inside the body.

About the rotating panel of very personal experiences to your lower right

BY SOUL’S CODE — Have you heard a question that goes like this from competitive friends, motivational speakers or, say — the foremost practitioners of American reality TV, Oprah and Donald Trump?

“Where do you want to be five years from now?

Which reminds us of a joke . . . How do you make the Gods laugh?

Answer: tell them your plans.

A child psychologist and mother of seven uses a method called, “show, remind and tell” to raise an ‘indigo child’

BY DR. CHRISTINE JAX-CASTILLO — If you are a parent, you probably question if you are making all the right moves to ensure that your children find their own spiritual paths, and reach their full potential.  You wonder how you can help your children progress on their spiritual journeys, while encouraging them to follow your rules.

How can you can teach them right from wrong, while teaching them to see the good in all things?  How can you keep them safe, while relaying to them that fear is an illusion of the ego?

Addiction actually alters the way your brain works. How to meld your mind, body, and spirit to re-wire your neural networks.

BY MARY COOK, M.A., R.A.S. — The year that will go down in history as 2011 was marked by yet another parade of news stories about public figures whose lives ended due to addiction — from Amy Winehouse to Alice in Chains musician Mike Starr. What these stories have in common is this: while everyone from economists to motivational gurus like Tony Robbins advocate constant change, change itself means constant stress.

That even goes for positive changes — like getting married or buying your first house.

Robert Louis Stevenson called it Mr. Hyde; Jung called it the personal unconscious. The great sages say we heal when we own the denied part of ourselves.

GUEST COLUMN: MICK QUINN AND DEBORA PRIETO, 1st of 2 parts — Picture the ecosystem of relationships that hold you in this time and place, from lovers to office politics and friends and family. Ask yourself six questions:

1. Are the ways in which other people act emotionally disturbing to you?

2.Do you sometimes feel that other people don’t seem to care enough?

3. Do you question the insensitive ways of others?

4. Do you feel intimidated by someone else’s power, self-confidence, wisdom or success?

5. Are you of the opinion that another person’s achievements are not well deserved?

Flying triggers anxiety in even the most enlightened. Try this in-flight meditation to curb air-rage

SOUL’S CODE — Look no further than 30 Rock, and its politically-ambitious star Alec Baldwin’s pre-Christmas meltdown on an American Airlines flight from New York to LA. The pilot ordered the Hunt for the Red October actor removed from the plane (and let’s not kid ourselves, Alec is an Elite American Advantage club member).

Were the stories of impossible feats that Jesus performed the spiritual equivalent of case studies?

BY DAVID RICKEY — One of the miracle stories about Jesus that probably has actual truth behind it is the account of how he fed 5000 (or an additional 4000, according to Mark and Matthew). It’s framed as a miracle to impress upon us that Jesus is a powerful guy.

The version of that story that appears in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 14:13-21) lends itself to a different interpretation, one that might hit closer to home.

Is it possible that the TV icon somehow succeeded where God and psychotherapy had failed?

BY TIPPI STRACHAN — I don’t watch Oprah. I have no real justification for this, but whether it’s her mega-sprayed hair or the adoring throngs of “go-girl” women in her audience, the show brings a lump of bile in my gut.

How do I know? It’s always on whenever I visit my mom. The same mom who raised us to watch minimal TV now quotes Oprah like the Bible, and brings her up in every conversation. But I put up with this because — and I genuinely believe it to be true — Oprah fixed my mom.

According to one of the leading psychotherapists and spiritual authors in the United States, trust is a four-fold path

Adapted from, Daring to Trust: Opening ourselves to Real Love and Intimacy, By DAVID RICHO — A compass is a trusty tool for a journey, and we can see the four directions that trust can take using the symbol of a compass. Draw a diagram to see for yourself.

Place the words “I TRUST” in the center with a circle around it.

In the East position write: “MYSELF”

In the West position, pencil in: “OTHERS”

South: “REALITY,” or “WHATEVER HAPPENS”  — or “HOW LIFE UNFOLDS.”