Archives: mindfulness

For many people, anxiety can be a continuous background rhythm to our everyday lives. Sometimes the drumbeat takes center stage and we are driven by these feelings and become dominated by an anxiety state of mind. We may begin to experience physical feelings (butterflies, sweating, GI symptoms) and/or anxious thoughts, feelings and perceptions that cause us to believe that we are on the verge of catastrophe and shape the way we see and influence our world.  Our culture is filled with stress, so that even if you are not an “anxious person”, you are internally responding to stress and it can take a toll on your health and mental functioning.  It is therefore very important to begin learning ways to manage stress and to treat anxiety. This is the beginning of a conversation about it.

On January 28, 2014, I was a guest on Jordyn Goodman’s “Empowered” LA talk radio show. The link to her page is, Empowered.  We focused on how anxiety manifests itself in young woman in particular, and talked about how to understand, manage and treat it. Psychotherapy, hypnosis, meditation, and self-care are all discussed as ways of managing anxious feelings.  Here is a clip from her show that features my discussion. (To hear the rest of her show, or to hear other interesting topics, please go to Empowered.)

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I am fascinated by light in images, particularly in my photography.  Lately I’ve been really aware of and compelled by lanterns.  Most of these lanterns are in Thai restaurants.  I love the framing of color-sheathed light against the darkness of the restaurant.  I have also been very enchanted by sunlight and how it backlights flowers and plants.  I love the translucence and subtle shadings that are created.  Then I process the photos allowing my intuition and feelings take over.  I find that photography encourages me to actually see what I’m looking at (as much as is possible in that moment), and not to immediately fit what is before me into a pre-designated category.  That’s what dreams do as well, they take our experience out of automatically and unconsciously organized compartments and lay it out in an unusual and highlighted way that surprises and sometimes alarms us, but always stimulates us to think, feel, and imagine.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks
(shared by http://www.drpayam.com/)

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