I wanted to take my daughter to the mall. That shouldn’t be so difficult, right? I overheard her on the phone saying to a friend, “You’re so lucky that your mom likes to shop. My mom HATES the mall.” It’s true. Malls, like carnivals and amusement parks, give me anxiety. They always have. When I...
One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is the one where Elaine snoops inside her medical chart and reads “patient is difficult.” The doctor takes a look at her rash and says, “Well, this doesn’t look serious,” and writes something in the chart. “What are you writing?” she asks. He sneers and walks out the door....
In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran writes: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. I thought of his words yesterday as I...
Consider these statistics: Nearly 50 percent of asthma patients suffer from symptoms of depression. At least 40 percent of persons with Parkinson’s disease experience depression, and anxiety is often reported. Forty to 65 percent of patients who have had a heart attack suffer from depression. The lifetime risk for depression in patients with multiple sclerosis...
As a highly-sensitive person (as defined by Elaine Aron in her bestseller The Highly Sensitive Person), it’s easy for me to become overwhelmed, or over-aroused (not in a sexual way—not on antidepressants). I have been compiling ways to calm down over the years. I learned some in Aron’s book, some as part of the mindfulness-based...