In our podcast interview, Dr. Diamond talks about actors who have shown a dark and violent side, such as Christian Bale (“Batman”), and how therapy helps people navigate the ‘benevolent possession’ of creativity and the challenges of being closer to its source in the daimonic side of our psyche.

[Photo of Bale from my post: Creative potential – Anger and creativity.]

In his guest article on this topic, Morty Lefkoe writes about getting in touch with his own anger:

“The first time I really allowed myself to experience my anger I fainted. I was about 36 and had successfully suppressed my anger since childhood.

“And there I was in a group therapy session, hitting a mat with a stick with foam wrapped around it, screaming: ‘Mom, I’m really angry at you.’

“When I started the exercise I was only mouthing empty words, but then at some point the words became real and the anger surfaced. It terrified me so much that I literally passed out on the mat.”

Lefkoe notes, “In addition to the fact that suppressing your anger is suppressing a part of yourself—in other words, having a part of you be unknown to you—suppressed anger has been implicated in serious illnesses, especially heart diseases.”

He goes on to write about how beliefs fuel anger, and when those related beliefs can be eliminated, “a large part of one’s anger would be dissipated.”

Continued in his article How to Control Your Anger.

From a report by Medical News Today :

The demands associated with creative work activities pose key challenges for workers, according to new research out of the University of Toronto that describes the stress associated with some aspects of work and its impact on the boundaries between work and family life.

Sociology professor Scott Schieman said “these stressful elements of creative work detract from what most people generally see as the positive sides of creative job conditions. And, these processes reveal the unexpected ways that the work life can cause stress in our lives.”

Continued: Do Creative Work Activities Create Stress?

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Daniel Mackler

In this excerpt from the article Eleven Ways to Be Your Own Therapist, from his website, Essays for the Enlightenment Seeker – Healing from Childhood Trauma, Psychotherapist Daniel Mackler speaks about nurturing our ability to know and take care of ourselves by journaling:

“1. KEEP A JOURNAL: Journaling – that is, writing down the truth of your feelings, your point of view, your fears, your angers, your hopes, your expectations, your desires, your fantasies, your hatreds, your regrets, your thoughts, your memories, your prejudices, your secret loves, your painful experiences, your humiliations, your past traumas – requires massive intimacy with yourself.

“This self-intimacy is the essence of good therapy, and yet is also what makes good therapy so difficult. Many people find it difficult to journal – or journal in a deep and prolonged way – because of the strange feelings of being so emotionally intimate with oneself.

“But if you can tolerate the potential discomfort, if you can sit with the truth of who you are and look at your truth expressed on the page in front of you, then you can nurture a wonderful relationship with your greatest ally: your own true self!”

Mackler recommends other actions we can take:

2.  ANALYZE YOUR DREAMS
3.  PRAY
4.  ENGAGE IN INNER DIALOGUE
5.  EXERCISE
6.  SOCIALIZE
7.  GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
8.  LIVE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE
9.  TRY CELIBACY
10. READ GOOD LITERATURE
11. HAVE FUN

Mackler is a filmmaker, musician and psychotherapist in New York City. His writings focus on the causes, consequences, and radical significance of childhood trauma.

Read more in Daniel Mackler’s book, From Trauma to Enlightenment: Self-Therapy in Twelve Steps.
Mackler is co-editor of the book, Beyond Medication: Therapeutic Engagement and the Recovery from Psychosis

Related:
Nurturing mental health: writing
abuse resources articles sites books

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be your own therapist, healing from abuse, Mental health enhancing, search for your true self

Filmmaker Isabelle Raynauld offers up scientific research, which proposes that mystical ecstasy is a transformative experience and could to contribute to people’s psychic and physical health, treat depression and speed up the healing process when combined with conventional medicine. In French with English subtitles.

In this short excerpt from the film, below, Matthieu Ricard talks about his approach to meditation while preparing for a study of his brain activity.

View the entire film on the Mystical Brain site.

Related Articles:

Articles and Resources: Meditation and mindfulness
Mindfulness: The Seat Belt of Mental Health
Meditation Associated with Increased Grey Matter in the Brain
How The Sedona Method Greatly Enhances the Benefits of Meditation

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Chocolate could be more than just a welcome distraction, especially from holiday stress. It may have a calming effect on our anxiety.

An ounce and a half a day keeps the stress away

According to Dark Chocolate: The New Antianxiety Drug, by Dr. Mercola, “the use of chocolate as a cure for emotional stress has gotten new support from a clinical trial. The trial found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones.”

High anxiety metabolism

“In the high anxiety group, eating this amount of dark chocolate significantly reduced stress hormone levels, and the participants in this group also reported feeling less anxious after eating chocolate.”

The results may show that “people with higher levels of anxiety also have a distinctly different metabolic profile.”

Raw cocoa powder

“Dr. Mercola warns against eating this much chocolate a day, but cites a second study that shows just which forms of chocolate are likely to be the most beneficial. Raw cocoa powder wins with it’s high level of flavonol antioxidants and lack of sugar.”

Because chocolate can be an anxiety trigger for some, above all ‘know thyself.’

Image: Chocolate Therapy by Linda Troeller

Related:
Anxiety Relief Solutions
Any more chocolate than my limit is an anxiety cause. Jen Crippen
Avoid holiday stress with “9 Holiday Depression Busters”
Elaine Aron on holiday stress relief for sensitive people
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healing anxiety, Dr. Mercola, chocolate and anxiety

Here is more from the article :

Fergie could have gone to Harvard if she’d fancied it… straight As, the stint as president of her student council. All the while, she was holding down a full career as a child actress.

These days, pop stars are so well schooled in the blah-blah art of question-dodging they’ll scarcely express a preference for Coke or Pepsi.

Fergie is different, a curious mix of hard and soft: one moment she’ll be effusing about the restorative powers of hypnotherapy, the next be somewhat blasé about the perils of life as an addict.

She gives a wry smile. “Sometimes publicists get really mad with me for talking about stuff like that — but I don’t care.” She cocks her head.

“For me, it’s something I went through. It’s an epidemic, and it’s important to talk about it because it’s a very, very hard thing to stop.”

How did it start? “It started with ecstasy. I loved ecstasy. Loved it, loved it. It was great at first, then it just went…” she mimes a crashing plane with her forearm.

And crystal meth? “It ruins you.” Some days she became insanely paranoid, blacking out the windows in her apartment, convinced she was under FBI surveillance. Others, the danger was more tangible, such as the time she went to buy weed in East LA and ended up with a dealer pointing a gun at her head. “Yeah, that was crazy. Don’t mess with East LA. Thank the Lord, I’m here.”

Was it a case of “child star hits the skids”?

“Definitely. What happens when you’re a child professional is that you have to be, well, professional. You’re taught not to have tantrums, to always people-please. That’s part of how I got into [drugs] later.”

Has she met the other casualties: Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore? “I’ve met Drew, she’s a sweetheart. I just saw Britney the other day at the Teen Choice Awards.” Is there a mutual understanding? “Sure. There are definitely things in common. It’s making that change from being a [child performer], expected to do everything right, to adulthood, when you’re going to have your rebellion phase.”

She laughs, hollowly. But it gets worse, as it’s pushed back a few years? “Yeah, it does,” she sighs.

Her life fell apart. She smoked away her savings, lost her mind (talking to hampers, etc) and ended up living at her parents’ house. There is some speculation that Fergie is older than she lets on (seems unlikely; she grew up on TV), as her unquestionably sexy features can look a touch — how can I put this? — ravaged. But she beat it. “I don’t hang out in circles where everyone is smoking crystal meth out of a pipe. That wouldn’t be smart. You have to make good decisions. I always say I’m retired.”

From Singer Fergie on giving up gangs and drugs, by Giles Hattersley, The Sunday Times [UK] October 11, 2009.

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For a variety of reasons, many talented people use and abuse drugs. See my articles Actors and Addiction and Gifted, Talented, Addicted – and the page Drugs and creativity.

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I over-think. A lot. And I bet many of you can relate.

My over-analysis rarely takes me to a higher state of being. In many cases, I get caught in spirals of “What if…?” and “If it wasn’t for…” that spin me around until I’m exhausted but still standing in exactly the same place.

Most therapy and coaching practices ultimately focus on shifting energy from self-defeating thoughts to more self-serving ones. This is the foundation of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Lately, however, I’ve been thinking (obviously) that thinking less may be an equally viable alternative. We spend our days focusing on problem solving, multitasking, relating, and reading the latest facebook update. Maybe our minds just need more rest! …

Research by Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis and his colleagues has shown that shutting down analytical thought may be advantageous in solving logic-based problems. …

[Image: No-thinking zone by chris.corwin]

Mariel Hemingway’s obsessive inheritance

There are many aspects of our lives and identity that impact how well we can express and develop our talents, including personality and health – mental, physical and spiritual.

In his article Mariel Hemingway: Healthy Living from the Inside Out, Kyle Roderick (for Life Extension magazine) describes how the actor improved her health through diet and supplements, noting that in her youth, “Hemingway lived in fear of falling prey to what she calls ‘the Hemingway legacy of mental illness, addiction, and eating and drinking to excess.’”

Her paternal grandfather, writer Ernest Hemingway, succumbed to alcoholism in his later years and possibly suffered from manic depression. Her sister was Margaux Hemingway, who committed suicide. Both are mental health challenges that impact many creative people.

See related articles on depression and addiction.

Looking thin for the cameras

The article notes, “Eating a no-fat, low-protein, and carbohydrate-rich diet kept her looking thin for the cameras, but Hemingway, by her own admission, also drank caffeine like a fiend and exercised obsessively.

“I loved the energy I got from coffee and then I would jump rope for hours in my apartment after working out at the gym,” she recalls.

“Because I didn’t drink alcohol or take drugs, I thought I was the healthiest, cleanest-living person in the world, until I got to the point where I had zero energy, my menstrual periods stopped, and tests revealed that in addition to low thyroid function, I was vitamin-deficient.”

Mariel’s diet today

The article adds, “Hemingway found her way back to well-being with the help of holistic nutritionists, chiropractors, and other health care professionals.

“In addition to a full arsenal of antioxidant supplements and her beloved green tea, Hemingway is diligent about consuming multivitamins, multiminerals, and brain-specific nutrients such as ginkgo biloba and phosphatidylserine.”

“Just as there is no magic diet for everyone, each individual has to experiment with the supplements that are right for them,” she says.

“My husband [documentary film director and producer Stephen Crisman] takes different supplements from what I take because his body has different needs.”

Mariel also realizes the importance of mental health.

“Louise Hay was the catalyst to my becoming aware of the importance of being good to me,” she says. “The horribly unkind voice in my head constantly criticized me until I began to understand that I was the power behind my good health and happiness just by the thoughts I think and the words that I speak.”

The film You Can Heal Your Life details the fascinating life story of Louise Hay, founder of Hay House. We are taken on an inner journey of doubt, realization and eventual healing, while also hearing from some of the most renowned leaders in the new thought field today.

Available from Spiritual Cinema Circle

Another form of nutrition considered very healthy by many people is raw foods.

In her Newsweek article In The Raw, Jennifer Barrett Ozols writes, “Boosted by celebrity endorsements, the raw-foods movement is migrating from the margins to the mainstream. Is it really good for you?”

She mentions a number of people, including David Wolfe, the author of “Eating For Beauty” and “The Sunfood Diet Success System,” who “stopped eating anything cooked or processed 11 years ago.

“His diet now consists largely of fruit smoothies, fresh vegetable juices and the occasional handful of pumpkin seeds – and says the benefits of adhering to the diet far outweigh any inconveniences.

“‘Clear skin… clear thinking, improved digestion,’ he says, ticking off the changes he noticed after making the switch.” His company provides many raw food products: Sunfood Nutrition.

> Also see related pages:
Healthy Artist
Mental health
Nutrition
Supplements
Yoga

One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor’s brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one.. Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk.. Her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right brain.

Video and quotes from the TED Conferences site.
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Excerpt from Shrink Rap Radio interview by David Van Nuys:

Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.: You have this ongoing brain chatter in the left hemisphere, in the language centers that is designed to have communication, and it helps you retain information about the external world… and when that circuitry went off – turned off – I found myself flushed in silence, and an unusual silence.

But in the silence there’s so much! I’m no longer distracted by the details of the external world, and I was captivated by the magnificence of the present moment.”

From Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. interview: Nirvana and the Brain.
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