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Archive for December, 2008
Testimonial of the Week - I am Excited About What We Have Learned
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on December 31st, 2008
Dear Goddess Molly, It was so comforting to connect with you on the phone yesterday. I am excited about what we have learned and about continuing my healing. I am going to send you a summary of my synchronistic healing experience. I am truly traveling a path of peace in body, mind and spirit.
Drs. Bruce and Molly Recommend - Return to the Sacred: Ancient Pathways to Spiritual Awakening
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 29th, 2008
Return to The Sacred: Ancient Pathways to Spiritual Awakening is an excellent new book written by our dear friend, Jonathan Ellerby. Jonathan is the Spiritual Director at Canyon Ranch Health Resort, and he has traveled and studied all over the world to learn about the spiritual practices that inform our lives. He is one of those special people who truly walks his talk, and his eloquent discussion of the spiritual path is well worth a read. I couldn’t put this book down, and it renewed my commitment to the adventure of a spiritual life.
LightHearted Musings - Where the Dance of Life Really Takes Place
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 28th, 2008
The moment in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.
–Barbara De Angelis
Change. The word itself is enough to send a chill through the heart. We talk hopefully of embracing change, but for most people, avoiding change is the real order of the day. Saying that change is to be expected does not really do much good in easing your anxiety about it, does it? As the old year dies off and the new year begins, I thought I would take a moment to talk about change.
It might help to know that there is a rhythm to change. In fact, our lives are perpetually in one stage or another of this cycle, and knowing where you are in the process can be very helpful.
Change is a lot like birth, with all its ups and downs, excitements and challenges. For the concepts I am about to describe, I would like to thank Linda Star Wolf who first introduced me to what she calls “The Cycles of Change.” My description is slightly different - where Star Wolf describes 5 cycles, I have 7 cycles - but the concepts are basically the same and I thank her for imparting her wisdom. So come along on this journey and see where you are on the Cycles of Change.
Stage 1 is the womb where you are very comfortable. All your needs for food and oxygen are being met before you even have to think about it. There is plenty of room to move about, and life is pretty uneventful. It is really fairly ideal in the womb. When people abuse drugs, particularly downers, they are trying to artificially get back to this womb-like feeling. Stage 1 corresponds to the infancy time of life, or any time in your life when you are happy with the status quo and want to turn inward and “hole up” for a while. Peace is the prevailing feeling.
Stage 2 is the time when the womb is starting to get fairly tight. You are growing and your womb no longer fits you like it did before. Every direction in which you try to stretch results in constriction. You know you want things to change, but you don’t yet know how to go about it. You sense change is on the horizon and at this point, that sounds pretty good because it’s still just a concept, not yet a reality. Drug abuse using uppers is more common during this and the next stage in an attempt to get revved up. Stage 2 corresponds to childhood and adolescence or to any time when you start to sense that changes are needed. Frustration is the prevailing feeling.
Stage 3 starts at the point that you enter the birth canal. You are initially excited that you are finally on your way, but the forces pushing on you are pretty strong and even painful. These forces are shaping your head in ways that you didn’t expect and that you are not at all sure you want. At this point, you can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel, so it all feels like more work than it may be worth. This corresponds to adolescence and adulthood or to any time when the drudgery of your daily life obscures the goal that you are trying to reach. Excitement and then possibly depression are the prevailing feelings.
Stage 4 is further along the birth canal. Now you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s starting to infuse you again with hope that you will reach your goal. However, you are still in the birth canal and still getting pushed around by the strong forces of which you have no control. If you could just reach out and touch the light…but it’s still out of your reach. It feels like it is never going to end. This corresponds to the middle years of your adulthood or anytime you are close but not yet holding onto that cigar. The prevailing feelings of this time are hope, exasperation and possibly despair.
Stage 5 is right at the opening to the birth canal. It is then, just as you can literally touch the light, that your head gets stuck in the opening. It has to mold itself even more to find its final way out and this last pressure is the worst of all the other pressures you have been through before. All of a sudden, you are questioning whether the light is everything you made it out to be. What if the light is worse than your current reality? After all, it is an unknown. Why can’t you just go back to the womb where it was all safe and comfortable? The womb is looking really good right now! Even if you have to go back to the pressures of the birth canal, at least you are familiar with that kind of hurt. You have no idea what new hurts await you on the outside. This stage relates to later adulthood, the time of midlife crises, where men may find younger women and women may go back to old comforts like food or even a wish to have another child as the last child prepares to leave the nest. This is anytime in your life when you are about to break through to a major change and you hesitate, considering the option of turning back. The prevailing emotion during this time is fear.
Stage 6 is when you break through your barriers, internal and external, and find yourself on the other side. This can be the birth, the graduation ceremony, the wedding ceremony, the promotion, the retirement party. This is your time to appreciate your accomplishments and to look back with a recognition of the hard work that got you here. Your journey has changed you, molded you in ways you never could have anticipated, and you realize that you could not have been the person you are now without the forces you worked through to get here. You have wisdom wrought from first-hand experience, a level of understanding that you could never have gleaned from reading about it in a book or by having a figurative C-section to shorten the journey. This is the time of old age and the prevailing feeling is the joy of accomplishment and excitement for this next stage of the journey.
Stage 7 is the culmination of your cycling. This is when you are able to rest on your laurels a bit before you start the cycles all over again. You are active during this stage, happy with the culmination of your efforts, sharing what you have learned and acting on your own wisdom. This is a time of mentorship and “knowing what you know.” This time of life corresponds with the crone and the sage, the priest and the priestess. The prevailing feeling of this stage is contentment.
This last stage is very important because you then end up back in the womb of your new home where it all feels comfortable again…for a while. These cycles are continually going on, not just over a lifetime but throughout all the individual phases of your life. With each cycle, you grow a little more as a human being, and so each new womb will be more advanced than the previous one was. In this way, change acts as a catalyst for an upward spiral, twisting and turning continually as you make your way in the world. You may be in differing stages at the same time for various aspects of your life. Identifying where you are in these cycles is an exercise in understanding and accepting your continually changing self.
There is a great quote from the show The Wonder Years - “Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go.” Allow yourself to dance and roll with the cycles of change, and who knows, you may just get the ride of your life!
Dr. Molly
Testimonial of the Week - Dr. Molly Was Simply Brilliant
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on December 24th, 2008
The content and quality of all the lectures was superb. Many questions were answered in very honest terms and with great knowledge and compassion. Workshops were led by meeting the needs of all present. Molly had a real touch of helping me get to the real understanding of what I needed to jumpstart my life again. Excellent quality of all the speakers made this program fantastic. Material presented was well thought out and our special programs were graced by wonderful people. Dr. Molly was simply brilliant. Not only was she extremely well versed in her field, but the care and compassion that she showed to all of us was outstanding. The learning and loving environment she created for us helped all of us feel safe and open to new ideas. The many solutions she gave showed lots of ways to accomplish problem solving. I came here after a shattering divorce and a level 4 cancer diagnosis. I had regained enough health to finally be able to participate. I had combined both modern medicine and alternative medicine on my protocol so that my energy was returning. I still had many questions about what I was strong enough to do and knew that the best people were here to help me.
Drs. Bruce and Molly Recommend - Change of Heart: A Novel
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 22nd, 2008
I was looking for a heartwarming story to recommend at Christmastime, but this is the one that popped out at me. Heartwarming in another context maybe! In Change of Heart: A Novel, the author weaves this story from the viewpoints of the major protagonists, including a mother, a priest and a lawyer. Each one offers a piece of the whole picture, centered around a woman who has lost her husband and child in a violent crime. It is now several years later and she is dealing with the life-threatening illness of her daughter, the one she was pregnant with at the time of the murders. Her daughter needs a heart transplant, and there is only one option for saving her life. The man who was convicted of the murders now wants to donate his heart to her after he is executed. Miracles start happening around him, and people wonder if he is the next coming of the Messiah. This book is a commentary on religion, on capital punishment, on guilt and innocence, and on forgiveness. It will most certainly have you thinking about it long after you finish the last page.
LightHearted Musings - You Wander from Room to Room
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 21st, 2008
You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!
During this holiday season, I’d like to take a moment to put your health into a larger perspective, because Bruce and I have a bigger message for you than just “eat healthy and take your pills on time.” To do this, I’d like to have some fun with you and take you on a mystical journey - a journey to your inner castle. Each of us has one, a quiet place within ourselves with great treasures, with a deep wisdom that is meant to show us our higher purpose. And what a beautiful and magical place it is!
Feel free to close your eyes for a moment in order to better see your castle. As you approach, you may notice how it shimmers like a jewel, promising…what?
The door opens easily and you step into the foyer. Inside is a great hall, surprisingly more solid-looking than the outside had appeared. Something is wrong, though. You were hoping to actually be walking inside your castle, touching, hearing and seeing everything as if your body was actually there. Instead, you feel like you are floating above the scene, like you are outside your body, looking on. You feel detached somehow and want to feel more grounded. Just then, you hear, “This is Lesson Number 1.” How many of us go about our days, not really present in our own lives? It is as if we are watching ourselves from above, focusing on the past or on the future, critiquing our bodies, our thoughts, our emotions or our place in the world. We seldom just live within our own skin. Being totally present in your own life is called mindfulness. How much of your time is spent in mindfulness? What are the forces that are pulling you away from yourself, making you an observer instead of an active participant in your own life?
Next, you climb the main staircase and find the master bedroom. It is a very romantic room with a four poster bed, lush carpet and curtains, and a fire in the fireplace. Something is slightly off about this room too. Everything is too neat, the bed is perfectly made up and there is nobody else in the room. You hear, “This is Lesson Number 2.” This room symbolizes physical and emotional intimacy, love, companionship and rest. With those elements in the room, the bed sheets should have been mussed up, lived in. Close your eyes for a moment and look at your master bedroom. Is it filled with love, companionship, intimacy, and sexual fulfillment? Are you giving yourself that same love and intimacy that you want from another, being your own best companion in life? Are you your own best friend? Are you spending enough time in your bedroom to get the rest, quiet time, and rejuvenation that you need?
You pass a number of other bedrooms and notice that these are both family and guest bedrooms. This is Lesson Number 3, a sense of community, of family and friends, of love and acceptance going in both directions. Is there a group of people that loves and takes care of you when you are down, and do you love and take care of them in return? Have you worked out old hurts and misunderstandings so that you can get to the point of assuming each other’s good intentions? There is a beautiful point in between dependence and independence - often overlooked in our busy lives when we either want it all done for us or we want to do it all ourselves - where interdependence can enrich life tremendously. Are you able to embrace the interdependence in your life?
You get to the end of the hallway and instead of stairs, there is a slide. As you hop on and go down, you feel a great sense of joy, like a kid at play. I think I even hear a “Whee” come out of you! This is Lesson Number 4. In your castle of life, where is the joy, the play? If you can’t find it around the main staircase, try looking for it at the end of the hallway. Without that slide, your castle would have seemed darker, less loving and nurturing. The slide is a gift. Give yourself a chance to let your joy come flooding out.
At the bottom of the slide is the kitchen and next to that is the bathroom. How’s that for breaking the mood of your castle! But this is Lesson Number 5, that even in this mythical, mystical castle, we have to take care of our bodily needs. It’s a matter of ins and outs. What you put in is what you will get out. If you take care of your body with good food, exercise, and responding to your bodily needs (not just the bathroom variety), your outs will more likely take the form of freedom from illness, fewer aches and pains, or maybe just the ability to walk up a few flights of stairs without being winded.
Then you come upon the office, and “Lesson Number 6″ is whispered in your ear. Are you spending your time in meaningful activity? Are you doing your part to make the world a better place? How are you spending the majority of your waking hours, and does your life feel good to you? If you are not in right relationship with your job or your other daily activities, then it is difficult to feel in alignment with yourself. There is no one life purpose that is right for everybody, but finding the one that fits for you is worth the effort. Is there a well-stocked bookshelf in your office, where you can satisfy your perpetual curiosity about the various wonders of the world? Do you feel perpetual curiosity and wonder, or have you stopped searching for your answers?
Next, you find an enormous room with beautiful wood walls and a high ceiling. In the middle of the ceiling, there is a round skylight, and the sun’s rays cascade to the floor in a brilliant puddle. You walk over to the light and stand within its embrace, arms outstretched, receiving the warmth in all its glory. You feel transformed. Ah, Lesson Number 7, the connection to a spiritual power, a force so much grander than ourselves and yet lovingly embracing us in its light, melding with our own light into a feeling of being one with all that is. This doesn’t have to have a name or even a structure - it is more a sense of being at peace, of being connected to all that is around you. This is the center of the castle, around which all else is built.
As you walk around, you realize that your castle is much more real-appearing than you could have imagined. You had known that it was filled with wisdom and transcendence from its outside appearance. The inside did have wisdom and transcendence, and yet the lessons were embedded in fairly ordinary earth-like architecture. It was a home! Our wisdom is always like that, far simpler than we think. Maybe that’s the key to the castle, that all the wisdom of the universe is to be found within your own simple abode.
How does Holistic Medicine fit into all of this? That question is answered differently depending on the holistic practitioner you talk to. The answer for Bruce and me is that we help you to keep your lovely, shimmering castle in your consciousness, so that you will remember to access its wisdom whenever you need to. It is an acknowledgment that true health is health in all of its manifestations. Freedom from illness is one important part of this castle, but it certainly isn’t the whole structure.
Just one missing room would create a gaping hole in the castle, as mind, body and spirit are all essential aspects of health. You can think of the various holistic medicine modalities as bricks in the wall or better yet, as mortar to connect the bricks together. They all give great value to your structure but ultimately, the healing comes from within.
We help you to explore the rooms of your castle so that it becomes your everyday home, a place of sustenance, wisdom and love. We help you to recognize the sacred within the mundane and the mundane within the sacred.
Search outside of yourself as you please, but know that the jewels of your life are within your internal castle. As Rumi says, the diamond necklace is already around your neck. What a treasure your life is!
May you have a blissful Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa - whatever form of celebration you call your own, and we wish you every happiness!
Dr. Molly
Featured This Month at LightHearted Medicine - Holistic Second Opinion
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on December 20th, 2008
When we conceived of this section, our first thought was to feature one of our new audios from our LightHearted Medicine Audio series, where we talk about various holistic medicine topics. We then realized that you may be feeling a bigger pull toward action during this New Year season, toward making the shifts needed to make your life more healthy and joyful in all its aspects. We are committed to supporting you in that goal. To get the ball rolling, our first featured product of the year is (ta da!) our Holistic Second Opinion consult!
Have you been thinking about getting healthier in body and mind, of healing your relationships with family members, or of exploring the bigger picture of your life? The New Year tends to cause us to re-evaluate our lives, and this may be the perfect time to give yourself some attention.
Check out our Holistic Second Opinion, and if you make an appointment, we will give you a $50 coupon off our consultation services. We are committed to helping you to step into your LightHearted Life. Come explore…you!
Testimonial of the Week - You Exemplified the Way That Medicine Should and Could Be Practiced
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 17th, 2008
Dear Dr. Bruce, Thank you for the clear and concise evaluation of my state of health. During our appointment, you exemplified the way that medicine should and could be practiced. I am acting upon the suggestions you made and very much appreciate your follow up letter.
Drs. Bruce and Molly Recommend - The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 15th, 2008
The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language is a book that begs to be listened to rather than read. You would be surprised at how interesting the story of the English language is. From its roots in Sanskrit to its current shifting with the force of the internet, this is quite an adventure tale. I loved hearing about how words got their footing, and there are some colorful stories behind the phrases that you may use every day. Check out the audiobook version - the narrator does a wonderful job with the various languages, and listening to it helped me to hear the similarities between the languages more clearly. Another bonus - I never realized how beautifully lyrical Old English was!
LightHearted Musings - Reframe the Canvas of Your Life
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on December 14th, 2008
The Gem cannot be polished without friction, nor Man perfected without trials.
–Chinese Proverb
How do you handle all the problems in your life when they seem so overwhelming? How do you let go of a past that has pummeled you? We talked last week about your life in words, so now let’s switch art forms and think about your life in pictures.
In reviewing our lives, after all, we seldom see them as words on a page - we see a series of images. When you think about your childhood relationship to your parents, words are often not what come to mind. Instead, you most likely replay mini movies in your mind, episodes of your childhood in which you see the scene both from within the picture and as an observer standing outside the scene.
How you frame that image determines its meaning and significance to you.
For instance, if you replay an argument you had with your mother at the age of eight, you may remember how you felt at the time and can take yourself right back into that moment. Many of us are stuck in this position, reliving our eight-year-old feelings as if they were happening right now.
However, there is another part of you that is observing the scene as if from above, with possibly an entirely different orientation. You may, from that vantage point, understand your mother’s perspective more clearly than you did at the tender age of eight. The framing of the picture is different from a child’s perspective than it is as an adult. This additional viewpoint doesn’t in any way negate your eight-year-old’s feelings, it just adds another layer to them, puts them in a different frame of reference. It doesn’t say that your mother was right either. It just adds depth to your picture.
In any good portrait, there is so much more there than what is happening center stage.
Each object on the canvas is filled with meaning, depth and symbolism for the enrichment of the whole. Discovering the many layers adds challenge but also joy to the scene, with a better appreciation for how complex and rich your life is.
When you reframe the canvas of your life, you make a choice.
You can decide, with every picture you have created in your mind, what the framing will be. You don’t change the scene itself, because those are the paint strokes that have created your own personal work of art. With each image, though, you can delve deeper while at the same time standing back and observing, to decide if the framing you have given each of them is still helpful now. If not, look to refurbishing.
Your life is a work of art
Your life is a beautiful work of art, an adventure portrait in which you are the primary character. And yes, that statement holds true whether you are experiencing light or dark days right now.
Ultimately, we are all parts of the same story, the same work of art.
Although we each have our own stories, there are common themes that occur throughout history to which we can all relate on some level. These stories become archetypes, or symbolic frames, for our individual portraits. This is where the hero, the villain and the victim from last week come back into the picture, and these are only three in a vast array of possible frames that can surround your personal portrait. It is these themes that give us a shared language about our individual struggles and triumphs. In this way, we can see that we are more alike than different, that you are not alone. Let me say that again - you are not alone and if you feel that you are, then please, reframe the canvas of your life.
Dr. Molly
