Anthony Tshering
A Guide To Spirituality: Being versus Doing

I read a wonderful piece in Tricycle magazine today about what a spiritual life looks like. The timing for me to read it was perfect. It’s something I’ve been trying to make sense of recently.

We are very much a doing world. Even the language of therapy is often about doing. Everyone seems to come in and say to me, “I need to work on myself,” or “I need to work on my relationships.” The sentiment is understandable. We are a self-improvement culture. Our lives are viewed linearly, our lives a constant striving for self-improvement with a beginning, middle, and end. There is much usefulness in seeing the world this way. It is goal-orientated and results-focused first and foremost. It has helped create the world around us, including the computer I type on now or the smartphone I use to answer my emails and check social media. A lot of us internalize this productive voice and hear it in the daily chatter of our thinking self and assume this is who we are.

A Guide To Spirituality: Being versus Doing
Meaning, Spirituality
Anthony Tshering
Reflections on God, Death, Meaning and ...

“Do you pray?” I once asked a patient.

“No, I’ve never been able to for some reason” she paused. “Do you?”

“No,” I said. “Because I don’t know if anyone is listening.”

It has always struck me as inconceivable that someone is listening to prayer. How can people be sure of some divine force in their lives? Even such Christian luminaries such as Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa experienced their doubts about God. I am no different. God does not speak to me in tongues or voices. All I hear are silent ellipses where I sense holiness in the mundane, the awe-inspiring in the ordinary. God has always seemed like an inelegant, hollow solution to the problem of meaning and death.

Reflections on God, Death, Meaning and Spirituality
Anthony Tshering
Everything's Amazing And Nobody's Happy: The ...

Everything's amazing and nobody's happy- Louis C.K.

“To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything.” 
― Ernest Becker

A few years ago, a patient of mine wondered out loud why he was unhappy. After all he was a successful lawyer, involved in a loving relationship with a partner, lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Brooklyn and had a group of close friends whom he saw socially. So what was wrong? "Something just doesn't feel right. I have the gnawing feeling that something should be different," he said. 

Everything's Amazing And Nobody's Happy: The First Step Toward Emotional Change

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Exercise, Depression And Staying Away From Antidepressants

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Exercise, Depression And Staying Away From Antidepressants

Depression is on the rise in the United States. The common knowledge says that depression is organic and about chemical imbalances. But this cannot fully account for its stark rise in the general population. Many, including Johann Hari,  have proposed other theories about depression that resonant with me far more. This includes lack of community, lack of friendships, jobs we hate, trauma and more. 

Antidepressants are also used to treat depression. There is no doubt that they have helped many, and I think they are useful and should be prescribed for deep depressions. But too often they are prescribed like candy to anyone going through a little sadness. Any PCP with little understanding of mental health can prescribe you one. 

The truth is depression is mostly telling us something about our lives. It's saying we don't have enough connection in some way. And because physical health and mental health are definitely not as separate as we might think, depression often times can be telling us that we aren't taking care of our bodies. 

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Why Not Eating Beef Can Help Save the World

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Why Not Eating Beef Can Help Save the World

I recently became a vegetarian. I say this not to brag because it's not a big deal. But I think it's worthwhile to discuss why I made the shift. The decision was very much connected to climate change. 

Why Isn't Everyone Terrified of Climate Change?

Despite the many dire warnings that climate change is here and is going to have disastrous consequences for this planet,  I found a lack of urgency about it among political leaders but also among most everyday people. Some of it is because people are in denial that climate change is even real. Some of it is because the true causes of climate change are so ingrained in our culture, that reversing it would require wholesale changes in the way we live. 

But I think biggest reason of all is that most of us feel a lack of powerlessness around our politics. To put it simply: What are we supposed to do? We are a socially powerless and disengaged people who live to consume. This powerlessness is one of the byproducts of modernism and a neoliberal economy. All of us disconnected in some respect and check out because we have no idea how to act or meaningfully help the world.