Dr. Eric's Blog

You can't spit today with out hitting some spiritual teacher..

They are everywhere..The list of spiritual teachers today is enormous!!!

Every where you look someone has some advice for how you should do your life, your love.

Is it true?  Are we all just walking around with our umbilicus in hand, just looking for a new place to plug in?

About a week back, while watching Oprah's Best Life Series, a young women who was so scared that she was going to loose everything.  Oprah's panel of experts chimed in with wonderful spiritual principles but it was so clear that none of this was helping this very frighted women.

Opinions, platitudes and easy sound bites to not make a process of spiritual advisement or counsel.  Often these platitudes can make matters worse.  Holding out some place to arrive like a new carrot on a stick.

Oprah actually did a better job of counseling this women than did her panel

The difference between someone who espouses spiritual principles and a spiritual counselor, spiritual director or spiritual advisor  is the important aspect that was completely left out of this episode.  The goal of spirituality in our lives is not the integration of principles it is the discovery of our truest nature...we are spiritual beings.  Nothing to add...that's it...

In my opinion, a good spiritual counselor is someone who can help you discover, recover your connection with, for lack of a better term, the divine with in you. A good spiritual counselor can help you reconnect with your own inner resources.

Spirituality is EVERYTHING. Spirituality is in every moment. It is not some separate and distinct thing from everything else nor is it some special moment in time.

The spiritual counselor is concerned with your life. For your life is a spiritual event!

If you are not getting criticism, you are not doing anything critical!

Yup...that's right..I realized a long time ago, if I was going to say and do things that were important to me that their would be 4 sub=groups.  Those that loved me and loved what I do.  Those that love me, but do not love  what I do.  Those that hate me and hate what I do.  And those that could care less.

People pleasing ultimately pleases no one. No matter what you do, someone is going to be pissed off at you, so you might as well do what you really want anyhow.

I am not talking about hurting others.  I am talking about doing what you can to bring your own dreams into fruition.  You must be willing to risk.  Risk what you might ask.

Risk approval of others. 

Is your need for approval making it hard for you to approve of yourself?

I have a dream....

Martin Luther King had a dream, I have a dream, do you have a dream?

My dream is that one day, we will live our lives based on our values and live those values consciously.
My dream is that one day we will all be free from fear and greed.
My dream is that we will not only appreciate the golden rule, but put it into practice.
My dream is that we will compete less and collaborate more.
My dream is that we will wake up to our truest nature.

I have a dream.

Martin Luther King had a dream.  His dream changed the course of history.

In honor of Dr. King, what is your dream?

Is Oprah nuts or just singing the party line?

There are many reasons why people gain weight, have trouble loosing weight and often loose weight and put it right back on.

Oprah seems to believe that all issues around weight are just emotional....well they are not!

Here are two kinds of eaters:

Emotional eaters: eat no matter what emotions they are feeling. This is because they use food as a substitute for real need getting.

Emotional eaters often eat as a way of self-medicating because certain feelings are too hard to endure.

Then there are the people who could care less about food: They are the ones that have poor eating habits.  Could eat just one meal a day and that would  be it...(this would be me)  This then really does a number on your metabolism: it slows way way down and can cause other endocrine problems.

In both cases their can also be an energy issue.  When you have not eaten all day, your body and BRAIN crave energy. I can promise you, your brain is not going to reach out for a chicken breast.  It wants its carbs and sugars now!!!

So does it all boil down to Self-Love?  If you want it to it can...it also has to do with conditioning, homeostasis, endocrine issues and often requires a more complex approach then a simple narrative like self love.

Personally, I am tired of this over simplified and often dumbed down approach to life.  Life is complex and why we do what we do is often complex and if we over look the complexity we can miss important information that needs to be dealt with. 

While I appreciate Oprah's candor, her narrative, her experience and the way she explains it, is just not the way it is for everyone.

If you are struggling with weight, work with a variety of professionals who can help you with the complexity of this kind of issue!