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

Health

, ,

Sleep, the Simplest Mental Health Life Hack: 3 Ways Sleep Affects Your Mental Health

, ,
Sleep, the Simplest Mental Health Life Hack: 3 Ways Sleep Affects Your Mental Health

When I see someone for the first time in psychotherapy, and they talk about overwhelming anxiety, one of the first questions I always ask them is “How much sleep are you getting?” And almost always, it’s not enough.

We are a sleep-deprived culture. Some would even call it a public health problem. When I ask someone why they aren’t sleeping enough the answers usually revolve around 1) demanding work schedules; 2) addictions to their screens; 3) raising young children; 4) but also a lack of understanding of how important sleep is to one’s health and mental health.

, ,

Bicep Curls Are Dumb. Stop Doing Bicep Curls.

, ,
Bicep Curls Are Dumb. Stop Doing Bicep Curls.

I haven’t discussed it much on this blog, but fitness has become a bigger part of my life in the last two years or so. And like every fitness neophyte, I did set after set after set of bicep curls in the hopes of getting “ripped.” Turns out, I had no idea what I was doing. (Not surprising for me.)

Now two years later, after reading more and more about fitness, I’ve come to realize something: bicep curls are dumb. If you have a desire to have arms bigger than your head then the bicep curl is a great exercise for you. It’s almost strictly a vanity exercise. The bicep just isn’t that big or important a muscle in the end.