Elbow Bumps and Pandemonium - Blog#26 - 28 March 2020

The coronavirus has invaded, an invisible alien, spreading from Area 51 in Wuhan, taking over our fellow humans, infecting invisibly, so we don’t even know who is who. Are thee friend or foe? The word “pandemonium” was coined by John Milton in his classic poem, Paradise Lost. He combined a pair of roots, “pan” (meaning: all) and “demonium” (evil spirits), to form a word that now describes all hell breaking loose. How apt.

Our needs compete. Survival, health, and safety are more primal, and typically trump our needs for attachment, affiliation, and affection, though we seek compromises. Anxiety motivates fight-or-flight maneuvers intended to guarantee survival (social distancing = flight) or at least reduce an emotional threat. Loneliness motivates affiliation, the urge to connect. How can we balance them? How can we listen to the wisdom of our anxiety, but keep a leash on the amygdala? How can we maintain connectedness in the face of social distancing?

Anxiety, Avoidance, Death Anxiety, Connectedness, Gratitude, Managing Feelings, Mindfulness, SadnessEd ChandlerMarch 28, 2020Comment

Gratitude - Blog#25 - 24 November 2019

What makes Thanksgiving special? Thanksgiving, like mental health, is about connectedness. It is a time of year when we remind ourselves to count our blessings for what we have, and have had. And like Christmas, Thanksgiving is one of the more spiritual holidays. Spirituality is about consciousness and connectedness. The short list of spiritual virtues/emotions includes awe, existential joy, gratitude, humility, and love. At Thanksgiving we focus on gratitude. We can also contrast each of these spiritual emotions with their opposite. Gratitude allows us to move beyond negativity, entitlement, and greed. As an antidote to envy and greed, gratitude dampens our preoccupation with what others have that we do not, and our desire for more, more, more. Thanks-giving is our way of reminding ourselves of our good fortune in life, while tempering our frustration, disappointment, and unmet or runaway expectations. But what if we accessed our gratitude more frequently, and deliberately? In a closely related vein, “savoring” is a term used to describe thought practices that increase our awareness and appreciation of positive experiences in our lives. Gratitude can be an everyday practice, not just a Thanksgiving centerpiece.

Gratitude, Spirituality, Connectedness, MindfulnessEd ChandlerNovember 24, 2019Comment

The Gift of Consciousness - Blog#15 - 27 April 2019

Consciousness and matter are two fundamental properties of the universe, radically different from, and irreducible to each other. Consciousness is an incredible gift, and can be deliberately developed, mentally, not just chemically. We can identify various dimensions and dichotomies of consciousness. It can be private, or shared as a means of connecting, since connected consciousness is the essence of spirituality. It can be externally or internally focused, rational or intuitive, conscious or unconscious, and goal-directed vs. associational. Consciousness is as complex as matter, and just as fascinating. But it needs to be understood, managed, and altered to meet our needs and influence our feelings.

Awe, Meditations, Mindfulness, Consciousness, Spirituality, AwarenessEd ChandlerApril 27, 2019Comment

Environmental Spirituality - Blog#9 - 8 March 2019

Spirituality involves a celebration of our consciousness, gratitude for the gift of life, and immersion in our connectedness to the “All.” We all need to belong, to attach, to connect to something beyond and larger than ourselves, something “trans” personal. We can connect to a lover romantically, to friends socially, and to broader tangible entities such as humanity, the environment, or the universe. We can also connect to invisible spirits, such as God or the souls of deceased loved ones. But we must connect somehow, lest we feel alienated from our surroundings, lonely, isolated, and adrift. How can we re-center ourselves spiritually? Today we focus on environmental spirituality, and eco-awe.

Awe, Spirituality, Mindfulness, Environment, External ConnectednessEd ChandlerMarch 8, 2019Comment

Mindful or Mindless: Spirituality by Expansion or Subtraction - Blog#5 - 9 February 2019

By now, we’ve all heard about mindfulness, and we’ve been warned as children about mindlessness, but how can they each add to our spirituality? Both meditation practices, and “higher” spiritual practices, can be categorized in different ways, and understood from different perspectives. One such perspective is whether they expand our consciousness, as in mindfulness, or whether they narrow our consciousness, as in concentrative meditation.

Awe, Spirituality, Mindfulness, Meditations, Spiritual Atheism, ConsciousnessEd ChandlerFebruary 9, 2019 Comment

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