Most people don’t know that diagnoses vary and move along social currents. Because of the authority with which words like “clinical depression” or “bipolar” are used in modern conversation, they are given the impression that those words have a permanence and solidity they do not actually have.

For instance, what we now commonly call PTSD has only been recognized as a formal disorder since 1980. During the American Civil War, soldiers returning from battle with inexplicable symptoms were said to have “Soldier’s Heart.” In World War I it was referred to as “War Malaise” or “Shell Shock,” in World War II, “Combat Fatigue,” in Korea “Gross Stress Reaction” and after Vietnam, it was cleverly called “Post-Vietnam Syndrome.”

Does it matter what we call it?

Some think it matters a great deal because names often determine approach or treatment. It makes sense. If someone is called “Your Highness” we are sure to approach him or her quite differently than if he or she were called “dear.” Similarly, if we call a state of mind a chemical imbalance, than we are very likely to approach (or treat) that state with chemicals, often many. If, on the other hand, we call it a broken heart or loneliness or arrogance or self-pity, we take a rather different tack.

This comes up because of something a patient said to me the other day. She also recently moved east from New Mexico when her husband was made a corporate offer he couldn’t refuse. She came from an old family in Santa Fe with a history that went back almost 400 years to the Spanish Conquest. She had grown up with open vistas, nearly eternally clear skies, and a community in which everyone knew one another. To say hers was a shocking uprooting would be an understatement.

She came in complaining of inexplicable and free-floating anxiety, lethargy, a tendency to weepiness over trifles, an inability to sleep through the night because of dreams and restlessness. Her first question after she elaborated on her symptom picture was: “Do you think I’m depressed?” The as yet unspoken question underneath was: Did she need medication?

Instead of answering either of those questions, I asked her about her dreams, when these symptoms started, what she’d been doing since she moved here and how well (or poorly) she was getting acclimated to a new environment and culture.

As it turned out, her symptoms began about a month after arriving, shortly after the last box had been unpacked and recycled. Suddenly, there was nothing to do. Her husband was going to his new job. Her two young children were in school. She was at home, sans friends, sans work, sans family. In New Mexico, she had not only been working, she had an extended family that occupied a great deal of her time with social engagements and care-taking elderly members. People stopped into one another’s homes fairly regularly. She had a church she loved. Here, she was alone. Worse, she was lonely.

Could someone call that depression? I imagine they could find support for it in the diagnostics and standards manual. But I’d rather call it homesickness. Not only because it is more precise, but because it gives her a way out.

Of course she misses her home. Of course she feels lonely. Of course she’s bored and restless. Of course she longs for friends and relatives. Who wouldn’t in her situation? There’s no pathology in that.

What needed to be changed were not those feelings, but what she was doing all day with them. First prescription: Volunteer. Second prescription: Find a church with her husband. Third prescription: Join a club (in her case she agreed to a yoga class).

It took about a month for her symptoms to abate.  While she still missed friends and family (and bright, endless blue skies), she was no longer as lonely, bored or restless. She slept better because her energy was redirected and expended during the day. She began to make new friends and feel a part of something bigger than her own heartbeat in a large, empty house.

The more I think about her case, the more I am inclined to think of PTSD as Soldier’s Heart. I think it more clearly sums up what we are looking at: A wound of war that breaks a heart, not a chemistry problem.

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As I stumble, my husband patiently awaits my sound byte, still anxiously hoping I can give him a way to explain what I do to save him from sounding just as ridiculous.

As he is a musician, I put it to him this way: "Think of it as you do of music… notes and chords… entire arrangements of single notes (or combinations thereof) and the spaces between them."

He looked at me, single eyebrow raised. I had crossed over onto his turf. I'd better know what I'm talking about.

"In homeopathy, you can think of both the human being (or any living creature for that matter) and the remedy as pieces of music. A person comes in for treatment and the disease or pathology is presenting as a song, out of tune with the rest of the person when in a healthy state. We look for a remedy that most closely matches the totality of that pathology's song. When we give it to the patient, the remedy cancels the disease. A song for a song. Like cures like."

Eyebrow is lowered. I am momentarily reprieved. "Is it phase cancellation?"

"I'm not sure because it's not an opposing frequency, it's a similar one. But maybe the amplitudes are opposing."

Eyebrow is raised. I realize that I'm back to where I started.

Perhaps an easier way to see it is with this metaphor:

See yourself as a being of a million small crystals, each one with a frequency. When you become ill, some of those crystals change frequency and begin to vibrate or sing out of tune. When we choose a remedy, we choose it to best match those crystals that have fallen out of tune. When delivered, it shatters those sick crystals, leaving only the healthy ones behind.

Admittedly, it is a metaphor, and as such, still leaves a great deal unexplained. I can understand the frustration of allopaths and critics with the obvious absence of hard, linear facts that are repeatable regardless of the person or place. Compared to current pharmaceutical philosophy, making scientific "sense" of homeopathy is like trying to play ordinary billiards in a quantum pool hall.

The problem is that homeopathy is aimed at treating the individual with a single remedy, chosen specifically for him or her. It is not for treating masses of people with the same pill. Twenty people could have the "same" flu, but each one would need a different remedy (not necessarily Oscillococcinum) and be rightly cured because each one would manifest illness in a way that is utterly unique to him-/herself. We always treat the person, not the disease. As such it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to replicate homeopathic treatment the way pharmaceutical companies try to do in drug trials.

A Simple Case in Point

My dog, who is not generally considered a good candidate for placebo, was sitting in on a session with a young patient I had been seeing for quite a while. While he was curled up on the couch next to her, he looked up at my patient and she frowned, "God, what's wrong with him?!"

Without warning his eye had started bulging out of its socket. I was taken aback and instantly concerned. I begged her indulgence and called my homeopathic vet, who is located about two hours from us. He told me to take him for an emergency physical exam at a local hospital.

I asked for an emergency reschedule (she was in no danger and there was no threat to the therapeutic relationship) and rushed him over. After the exam, the local vet ruled out the more terrifying possibilities (rupture, tumor etc…) and pronounced it an inflammation, probably due to a scratch, spider bite or bee sting. She prescribed a bucket full of different pills and ointments.

More at ease now that there was no crisis and my panic had passed, I thanked her and left with just one of the ointments in case I didn't find the right remedy immediately.

When I got back, I went to the repertory (in a computer, unlike my first homeopathic physician) and made a scrupulous list of his visible symptoms. Obviously I could only surmise how he felt, so I didn't even try. These were the rubrics I chose for him:

1. Eye, inflammation

2. Eye, inflammation, acute

3. Generals, aggravated on the right side

4. Generals, sudden onset

5. Eye, lachrymation

6. Eye, protrusion with red discoloration.

The remedy was Apis Mellifica, potentized bee venom. This is a particularly straightforward example of how like (when it is potentized, meaning highly diluted to the smallest possible dose) cures like: Venom cancels out venom. Within minutes of giving the dog a few pellets, the inflammation was gone. And it never came back. No other treatment was necessary.

Is it always so straightforward? Hardly. I wish it were. It is especially more complicated when people come in with years and years of emotional suffering, chronic illness, and lists of medications sometimes two pages long. I had one patient on 27 medications because she had been diagnosed depressed. Was she feeling any better? Not in the slightest. It was a long haul to wellness for her with the incredible help of a thorough and patient physician.

Taking someone's case in this situation takes a great deal more time, sensitivity and patience than a simple inflammation. But the essential idea, the bedrock of the interview is the same: Find the remedy that matches the totality of symptoms, which means understanding precisely what it is in her life, in her experience, in her soul that has led to and expresses the essence of the state she is in. It is not enough to say someone is depressed. The word "depressed" doesn't really mean anything. To say, on the other hand, as one patient did, that she felt forsaken, was chronically sad because she felt all alone in the world yet she was averse to company — that begins to narrow it down a bit. When she added that she had no will power, yet felt better from a good debate, a challenging puzzle, or a lively conversation (mental exertion ameliorates), we begin to see how "depression" expressed itself uniquely in her. The remedy that patient needed (based on those and other symptoms) was Natrum Silicatum.

Now, just because you're sad doesn't mean you should go buy Natrum Silicatum. That is the mistake a lot of people and even poorly trained homeopaths make. It is unlikely that you will receive the benefit she did because her state (remember those crystals) was a Natrum Silicatum state. When it was given, what was unhealthy shattered and left behind only what was vital and strong.

I do not blame the debunkers. Homeopathy is very hard to repeat experimentally precisely because of the way it works: Individually. And so much of its success is in the hands of the homeopath whose task it is to see the patient clearly for who he or she is, to see that particular light, to hear that singular song. This is a hard pill to swallow until you've seen it work. But when you have seen it — it's the easiest one of all.

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Part 1 of a 2-Part Series on How To Explain (or Not) Classical Homeopathy

The American Sound Bite

Out of nowhere, my husband turned to me and said, “I wish you’d tell me what you do so I can tell other people. They ask me what you do and I can’t explain it.”

“I’m a psychotherapist and a consultant in classical homeopathy,” I stared at him. “You know what I do.”

“But I can never explain it quickly enough. I tell them ‘rebalancing,’ ‘rewiring,’ ‘peeling the skin off onions,’ but then I lose myself. I can’t come up with a simple way to describe it.”

This is the worst problem for a homeopath. How do we explain an exquisitely subtle and complex process in a simple way? Take something so important and put it in a sound bite?

I remember a long time ago having to try to explain Verbal First Aid in five seconds or less for a three minute TV news interview. I totally blew it. I’m not very good at sound bites.

But that is what we want in this country—drive through information, fast-food for the mind. If we can’t eat it in the time it takes to reach for the remote, the opportunity to communicate is lost.

But there is hope, because we do like stories. So, I thought that perhaps the best way to communicate what I do is to share with you a few cases. The first one is my own. The others (in Part II of this article) are patients with their identities protected. I have never shared my own story before, but I do so because I believe its dramatic nature will help you to understand what classical homeopathy can do and why some people are so passionate about it.

The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Mass

Many years ago, I suddenly developed abdominal pain. I had not been sick in any other way and had no idea what was happening. I went for a gynecological exam and was told I was fine. The pain continued. I went back and after numerous exams was sent from the table to the couch. The psychiatrist sent me right back to the doctor. After about a year of bouncing back and forth with increasingly intense (searing, stabbing) pain, they finally “discovered” a mass several centimeters in width in the area of my left ovary.

At this point, the surgeons were called in. I was scheduled for an emergency laparotomy. As they wheeled me in, the surgeon said to my mother, “It could be cancer.” I was 26.

After surgery, as soon as I stopped vomiting, the doctor told me that it was not cancer. My mother wept. He said it was a streptococcal infection (Strep B) that had created adhesions and that I could forget about having children. He proudly went on to inform us that they had “scraped me clean” and that I’d be on antibiotics for about a month.

I did as I was told. I was raised by a doctor, surrounded by doctors, and had complete faith in the system.

Within a short time a whole new sort of pain emerged, this time, however, deeper. It was more localized, again on the left side. I thought the infection had returned. The pain continued for quite a while. I went to the doctor, but there was no infection. After dismissing it (and me) for at least a year again, I finally wound up in hospital. A cyst had burst. This cycle recurred every few months. They recommended birth control pills, pain pills, and pills I didn’t understand. Nothing helped. By the fourth rupture and hospital visit, they recommended a full hysterectomy.

I sat silently until I could take a deep breath again. I asked if there were no other options. The doctor said, “You’ll just keep getting them and since you can’t get pregnant anyway, this is the best idea.”

I told him I would think about it. He told me not to think too long but looked at me is if I couldn’t think at all.

I called a friend who had been talking about homeopathy. She used a homeopath for herself and had located a homeopathic vet. I asked for more information. She sat with me. She loaned me books. And she gave me the name of a doctor. I decided to at least try something before I let my reproductive center be removed forever.

I told my gynecologist about it. He said, and I quote, “You can use all the weed wackers you want, it won’t help.”

I said, “We shall see.” And I meant “we.” I had no more experience in it than he did. But I wanted some option other than organ removal.

He did not escort me out. He was more than mildly annoyed.

But I was on a mission.

Where the Magic Begins

This is what saved me: a young doctor with a tattered copy of a repertory (the book that is used to look up symptoms and match them to different remedies) and another equally frayed Materia Medica (the book that contains full descriptions of the remedies themselves) in a basement office in New Rochelle, NY.

It was the strangest medical experience I’d ever had. He didn’t examine me the way I had expected. He talked to me. Well, actually, he talked very little. He asked me endless questions: Where is the pain? When does it come on? What happened then? What does it feel like? What makes it better? Do you have any food cravings? Do you kick your feet out of the covers? Do you like other people around you? Are you warm? Cold? What makes you afraid? Anxious? Sad?

He was relentless. Two hours of questions that could not seem more unrelated to me or to my ovaries. But honestly, it was such a relief to have someone listen to me without judgment that I suspended my own.

At the end of the interview, he went into a little closet, pulled out an amber bottle, opened the cap, poured a few pellets into the cap, tipped my head back, and said, “Open your mouth.”

He poured the little pellets under my tongue.

That was my first remedy. It was Pulsatilla, a common flower in highly diluted (potentized) form.

After that, my mood improved slightly but briefly and the physical symptoms did not go away. Instead they shifted and got worse. I’ve learned since then that this can happen when a remedy is close but not a bull’s eye. The symptoms became far more localized and presented with greater clarity. It seemed to me then that it was like a boil coming to a head, collecting the “illness” from a large area and concentrating it so it could be seen properly and discharged. We waited a very uncomfortable month.

After the second interview he gave me Thuja. After that I had a frankly rude aggravation (cystitis) which lasted about a month and the cystic pain completely disappeared. An aggravation is what homeopaths hope for as the sign that a cure is beginning. It is also precisely what allopathic doctors find wholly inconsistent with their training. They are supposed to make symptoms go away, not generate others. But because homeopaths see the human organism as a moving, dynamic system, they believe that this discharge is absolutely necessary. Aggravations are like siphons; they allow previously suppressed diseases or eruptions a way out of the system. In homeopathic philosophy, it is part of the cure.

But I didn’t know that at the time. So I called him and complained, and after he ruled out any dangerous infections, he said “Now, we wait.” I’d call him back, still annoyed, uncomfortable, and worried. And he said, again, “WAIT!”

So, I did. After a while, the “rudeness” was gone and so was all the pain. And after a year I realized so were the cysts. None of it—not the cysts or the strep or any of that pain— has ever come back. More important, perhaps, than the physical relief, was that over the next couple of years I became calmer, more centered. Much of the insecurity that had ruled my life up until that point also seemed to just not be there. I didn’t see it leaving. It was just gone when I remembered to look for it.

That was a very long time ago. All my exams are still splendidly normal and I still have my own organs in my own body.

I went on to need other remedies over time to deal with other issues and wound up with a different remedy as my “constitutional,” the one that seems to fit my overall being. But this is how it started. And it convinced me on a cognitive and cellular level that what I had experienced was more than placebo or fanciful wish-fulfillment. As far as I could see, it could not be a placebo (although that would have been just fine with me at that point), because one remedy missed the mark, but the other did not.  And as far as wish-fulfillment—if it had been up to me, I’m sure I would have wished for instant relief—sans aggravation!

In the follow up article, we’ll look at a couple of other cases to demonstrate the most important principle of homeopathy: like cures like. And hopefully discover the sound bite people need to understand what Hahnemann’s legacy has been.

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(this is an expanded version of the piece currently on Huffington Post)

I’ve been a psychotherapist for 25 years. I believe it’s an important part of my job to make my clients as comfortable as possible from the first phone contact. Despite all reasonable efforts, though, the first interview seems to still be somewhat awkward and difficult for new patients. Really, it’s very understandable. They don’t know me. They feel vulnerable and unsure because they don’t know exactly what’s expected. They’re sometimes not even fully clear about why they’re there except they know they want to feel better.

The homeopathic interview may be even more of an unknown for some people. Not only does it start with the same “unknowns” as the social work assessment, but it adds some new ones, like the simple but monumental fact that it turns allopathic or “standard” medical practice on its head. You may have called the homeopath to get rid of that recalcitrant psoriasis, but he or she keeps talking about whether you kick the covers off at night, how you feel about injustice, or whether your sadness is worse in the morning or at night.

Knowing what to expect of the process and what your homeopath is hoping to learn from you may make the experience more comfortable and more productive. The following is not a medical manual, but a primer for those looking to work with a classical homeopath. Hopefully, it will give you a good idea of what to expect and how to participate so you get the most out of it.

Preparing Yourself  Philosophically

One of the fortunate aspects of my practice is that I see people more frequently because the primary focus of it is mental health treatment. Even though it also takes physical conditions into account, people almost always call me because they’re sad, anxious, grief-stricken, panicked, or in some way emotionally distressed.

Unless a person comes specifically to be treated homeopathically and has already had some experience with the philosophy and practice of classical homeopathy, I usually anticipate spending at least some time in the first or second session on education. I give material for reading, lead them to the National Center for Homeopathy website, and take as much time as he or she needs answering questions.

What you can do, then, to make the time you spend more efficient and effective when you are actively seeking treatment from a homeopath is to learn a little bit about it beforehand.

In my opinion, the best book for the starting patient is Impossible Cure by A. Lansky. It is written in clear, concise prose and doesn’t fall back on “homeospeak” so you can follow her all the way through. And hers is an amazing, personal story of hope.

The principles of classical homeopathy are the following:

Like cures like.

This is the manner of cure. It is also called the Law of Similars and it is the way all proper remedies are chosen. It means that the practitioner is going to ask you a host of questions intended to draw out information that will help him or her choose the remedy that is most “similar” to your totality of symptoms.

The simplest example of the Law of Similars is what we do when we get grease on our hands. We clean it with soap (or, if you’re out in the garage, Goop), which is little more than fat. The soap removes the grease because it is grease.

In a homeopathic case, it may look like this:  A little boy suddenly gets a raging fever with a pounding headache, dilated pupils, cheeks so red they could be purple and becomes delirious. The remedy a homeopath would choose (and there would be a couple of contenders) would have to produce those symptoms in a healthy person. By giving the remedy that would generate that particular type of febrile state to a person with it, it is cured.

This is why quinine works curatively for malaria—because when it is given to a healthy person over and over, it creates symptoms similar to malaria. Like cures like. This principle goes back to Hippocrates and has been considered by homeopaths as the basis for all true healing.

Hering’s Law.

This is the road of cure in homeopathy. In simplest terms it refers to the way and the order in which the pathology will be healed. Cure moves from top down, from present to past, and from in to out (from the spiritual-mental-emotional down through the organs from most to least important and finally out to discharge in a benign way, e.g., a runny nose, brief diarrhea, fever, or skin eruption).

One remedy at a time.

This is the technique of cure and it is an obvious but overlooked wisdom. If multiple remedies are given too frequently and in too rapid a succession (except in extreme and acute situations), the case can be lost. This is even more true with combination remedies (pharmacy concoctions that include multiple remedies, even those that antidote one another).

It is terribly important to let each one reveal in its time what it must. Some remedies take longer than others. We all respond differently at different times to our environments. Remedies are no exception.

The Nature of Pathology:  Layers

This is not a standard homeopathic “principle” but it’s one that leads me to ask of patients regularly: Patience. We are not out to just make a symptom disappear at the expense of your vitality and health. We want to get rid of the psoriasis but not at the expense of seeing you develop uterine fibroids or heart disease.

We want you to be healed. And that takes time. When patients ask me, “Well, how much time,” I have to say, “As long as your organism needs. You’ll tell me how much time.”

The reason for this is that there are layers to everything today. Including pathology.

Western practitioners often mistake the presenting problem for the only problem they need to cure, not having been trained to see the embedding of one pathology over the other or the inheritance one may have received from one’s ancestors.

These are levels of defense. We know this by what happens in our relationships. First bad joke, we get a giggle and a snort. Second bad joke, we get a “cut it out.” Third bad joke, we get kicked in the shins.

It is common knowledge that when an organism is injured, it inflames. It is a mechanism of repair. Homeopaths trace what happens if the injury is not healed (by itself, with proper medicine or the removal of inflammatory agent): the inflammation worsens, leading to induration (hardening). If that is not healed, then the organism resorts to its last defense to save the whole. Thus a cancerous tumor or an ulcer is a result of this process at the genetic level.

In homeopathy there are three basic levels:

The Psoric

Physical level:  Inflammation (fevers, rhinitis, cystitis), pain, spasm, constriction, sensitivity

Emotional level:  Anxiety, apprehension, irritability, anger, sensitivity, insecurity.

The Sycotic

Physical level: Accumulation (calluses, warts), synthesis, deposition, and proliferation

Emotional level:  Hyper-anxiety, fearfulness, hypervigilance, Super-vivaciousness, showmanship (most of American TV), boasting, rigidity, hardness (like calluses), precocity, collection (OCD).  Also the opposite:  too relaxed (a loss of collagen, dropped uterus), looseness in character, overly yielding, shame, frivolousness, bashfulness

The Syphilitic

Physical Level:  Exaggeration, distortion (pointed teeth, curved spine), destruction (cancer), auto-immune diseases, mutations (scoliosis)

Emotional Level: perversion, cruelty, hysteria or mania, (borderline personality disorder, psychosis), distortion of reality and loss of connectedness, delusions, destruction, fearlessness, loss of will to live, loss of senses (smell, sight etc…).

Less Really is More

This concept is one of the major reasons why people have a hard time understanding and choosing homeopathy.

In homeopathy we do not use gross quantities of a substance. We use smaller doses, often below Avogadro’s number—meaning that if you looked at the medicine with an electron microscope you would see nothing. This is also called a “mole.” The mole, as defined by Wikipedia, “is a unit of measurement used in chemistry to express amounts of a chemical substance, defined as an amount of a substance that contains as many elementary entities (e.g., atoms, molecules, ions, electrons) as there are atoms in 12 grams of pure carbon-12 (¹²C), the isotope of carbon with atomic weight 12. This corresponds to a value of 6.02214179(30)×10²³ elementary entities of that substance. It is one of the base units in the International System of Units, and has the unit symbol mol.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_%28unit%29)

The way I explain it to patients is this: Homeopathy is an energy delivery system, like a musical instrument or a beating heart or a scream of “fire” in an auditorium. So if the remedy is sulphur 30c, there are no molecules of sulphur in it. It acts on the vital force (and this is important!!!) by energetic resonance. It does not work on our bodies directly the same way that taking an aspirin or steroid does. It seems to work more along the lines of quantum physics than Newtonian law. (Poitevin, Bernard (2005). "Jacques Benveniste: a personal tribute". Homeopathy 94 (2): 138–139. doi:10.1016/j.homp.2005.02.004.)

The rule of thumb is: The smaller the dose, the more potent.

How does this happen? According to one study, homeopathy works because water has memory.

(E. Dayenas; F. Beauvais, J. Amara , M. Oberbaum, B. Robinzon, A. Miadonna, A. Tedeschit, B. Pomeranz, P. Fortner, P. Belon, J. Sainte-Laudy, B. Poitevin and J. Benveniste (30 June 1988). "Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE" (PDF). Nature 333 (6176): 816–818. doi:10.1038/333816a0. PMID 2455231. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v333/n6176/pdf/333816a0.pdf.)

From Benveniste’s observations, it appears that what’s been in it has a resonant effect. It is similar to the way our bodies remember a trauma. We have body memory even when the trauma is long gone and resonate with similar states or situations, until that original traumatic injury is healed.

As a psychotherapist, I think the tendency of trauma victims to unconsciously set themselves in traumatizing situations again and again is a desire to self-heal in some ways…they are searching for the similar agent. Freud was close to this when he talked about the repetition compulsion. People are often horrified (and not unreasonably) when they engage in unhealthy behavior time and again. They rightly want it to stop. But when it is framed this way and they can see that they have only been seeking resolution, it becomes not only easier to understand but to actually resolve. They feel less guilty with unconscious complicity, less victimized by their pasts and more empowered to move towards change. I’ve seen this understanding alone start to bring about healing even before a remedy has been delivered.

Yegads! No Coffee???

Perhaps the hardest thing for some patients is the need to temporarily give up coffee. I’ve seen patients give up vicodin, birth control pills, marijuana, and essential oils quicker than their daily java joy.  I can absolutely understand it, too. I love coffee. But it is an unavoidable part of the homeopath’s process.

Although I’ve met some homeopaths who do not worry about coffee or other known antidotes (steroids, marijuana, camphor) very much, many of us do take the more conservative path. In general, it’s best to be prepared to have your homeopath ask you to leave the java (and the camphor) aside until you’ve reached a solid plateau of good health. It doesn’t antidote everyone or every remedy, but for most homeopaths it isn’t worth the risk of complicated the case.

What Do They Need to Know THAT For?

Come to the interview ready for a lot of unusual questions. It will not be enough for us to just “name that disease.”

What is important when we look at a patient and what are we going to ask you? We will generally work along the following areas even though we all have different styles and personalities.

Interior function (most important):

Creativity, compassion, forgiveness, centeredness, relatedness, empathy, adaptability, consistency in relationships, integrity/honesty, and consistency between intention and behavior.

Exterior function:

This may not coincide exactly with interior function. However, I believe and have found that our pathologies normally express themselves poetically or holographically. You may recall the expression, “as above, so below.” It is true for us, as well. So we will ask you about situations that reveal your capacity for appropriate behavior (clothing, responsiveness to social cues), money management, job status, time management, socialization, housing.

Physiological function:

Parents’ medical history, personal medical history, current disease state (psoric, sycotic, syphilitic), diet (especially cravings and aversions), exercise, chronicity (how long the problem has persisted), periodicity (how often it occurs and whether there are specific cycles), and modalities (what makes it better or worse).

Spiritual function:

Rigidity, belief system, presence, judgment, fear.

The Art of the Interview

When I teach clinicians and medical personnel (Verbal First Aid, crisis protocols, and alternative healing principles, etc…), I always remind them that questions, no matter how clever or how technically astute, are no substitute for the therapeutic relationship. There is an art to homeopathy that is not “technical” and cannot be acquired solely by accumulating knowledge. I’ve met people who could recite remedies and their exact properties by memory, but could not see a patient in his totality and could not, therefore, come up with the right remedy.

Part of what makes a homeopathic interview successful is the synergy between you, the patient, and your homeopath. There must be a give and take, a relationship of trust, and an open dialogue. If you have questions, ask them. If you have fears, share them. The homeopath must observe and listen, but no one can see what you do not present.

If in fact there is as much art as science to a good case-taking, then you are as much a part of that creative process as your homeopath. Be as open and as honest as you can and you will reap the rewards in the health, vitality and freedom you have always longed for.

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I've dreamt about farming all my life. You wouldn't know it by the way I live, but it's true. Somehow over all these years, my dreams and my realities have been separated by an inexplicable chasm.

I think for most people it is the same, or at least similar in essence. We dream or plan or talk more than we do. We blame our unrealized dreams on circumstance, other people, lack of support, money. Sometimes we call it luck—good or bad. And I think some of you already know that I think luck (however we define that) is a bigger factor than most of us care to admit.

But the other day I met a woman who really did it, who turned a whimsical idea into a reality in a big way and it made me start to wonder a bit about what really kept me from doing what she did. It wasn't for lack of capacity or cognitive muscle. I could "visualize" as well as anyone. So, what was it?

I met her via the Internet. We just moved into town and we were looking for someone local to supply grass-fed beef. We found a few local people, but were most attracted to a small place called Brykill Farm.  After a few rounds of phone tag, I finally got to talk to the owner and manager of the farm, Susan. “Come on down,” she said as if she were inviting us for a picnic.

We turned onto her road, a winding dirt and gravel mix that crossed over a small river and led us through a dark thicket of oak, maple and birch after which it burst open onto pastures as broad and green as Ireland itself, each hill studded with what had to be the happiest cows on the planet. In a whispering huddle to the side were three or four iconic stone buildings from the 1700’s.

We wandered around with a cattle dog trailing behind us for a few minutes, unsure which door to knock on when a woman came out, barefoot, smiling, a youngster trailing behind her. She looked to be in her 40’s but her manner was youthful and energetic.

We were escorted inside to a kitchen that was clearly the heart of the house, filled with books, cups, flowers; we chit-chatted a bit until I couldn’t resist and asked her, “Who started this?”

She said, as matter of fact as telling me the time, “I did.”

I looked at her. Her hands were of average size, her face still unlined, her posture relaxed but straight. A cattle farmer? I had to know more. She was living the life I had told myself I always wanted to live, but this, that and the other thing had stopped me somehow.

She was born in Connecticut and in her 20’s, around the time that my friends and I were consumed with going out dancing, she invested in land. It was her idea. She was not married. She had no backers. She had no training.

Then she bought a couple of cows. Her friends thought it was “cool” and she eventually slaughtered those cows and bought more. Then she got a bull and the farm began in earnest.

How did that happen?

How did she do what seemed so insurmountable to me?

It wasn’t some outrageous fortune, no Mega-Lotto win. I don’t believe it had anything to do with any universal “secrets.”

It wasn’t the forceful hand of fate…she hadn’t inherited a farm she didn’t want or become indentured through familial obligation.

It seemed to be as simple as a decision. To be more accurate, a series of small, but decisive ones.

The Power of Thought or the Punch of Will?

In recent years, Descartes’ axiom—I think therefore I am—has been transposed, sharpened to an unprecedented perversion: I think therefore I have. Or the newest interpretation of the American Gospel: I think therefore I deserve to have. Our lives can be perfect, abundant, sublime…if only we think it so.

Was this what had taken place for Susan? Was it only a matter of thought? Was her belief what propelled her?

There was no denying that some of her thinking predisposed her to the choices she made, but as she described it to me, this was a case of Will leading the way. How else does a divorcee from Chicago wind up running a restoration and beef farm?

It started with one book that resonated with her, Chicken Tractor by Joel Saladin, in which she was exposed to the idea of homesteading. (As I see it, this is the first piece of evidence that Will is at work: unexpected and unconscious resonance.) As the ideas fermented in her, she stumbled onto the Brykill estate, which also appealed to her. What was it, I asked, that was so appealing?

“It was going to take a tremendous amount of work to rehabilitate it and I would be able to just plunge into a project.”

Again—this simple statement takes us way beyond mere thought to the potent underworld of Will and character. For most people work is the big turn-off, rather than the turn-on.

Initially, she lived there alone with her two labs. “There was maybe one working bathroom and ceilings came down in some rooms, but the more time I spent out here, the more interested I became in the farm’s history. While my father was incredibly handy and loved puttering in the garden no one in my family since the Eltings have been farmers.  My dad was an engineer and my mother was a homemaker.  It was Miracle Grow all the way…”

While a few “bravos” could be heard from friends, most folks, she recalls, “thought I was nuts.

“There was this wonderful local man named Pat Kelly, who is sadly no longer with us, who really egged me on.  He would stop by a lot and give me advice here and there.  He sold me my first bull and a cow and her calf—truly the most pathetic looking cow you can possibly imagine.  I'm sure he got a good chuckle out of all of it.  He sold me my tractor too.  It was sort of a Martha Stewart moment when I would bring a few packages of ground beef from our "herd" but while my friends couldn't understand why I wasn't raising horses they all asked if next time they could get more.

“Because the process was totally grueling, I had no background, had to learn everything from books or the internet, the learning curve was brutal. Yet it seemed like something I really needed to see through. I would get such wonderful help from our neighbors the Watchtower guys and from our local vet Lyle Goodnow who just tirelessly helped me deal with some of the realities that comes with raising live animals.  Those people just seemed to enter my life to make sure I didn't abandon the project.”

In listening to her talk about sustainability, humane treatment of animals, living in a beautiful environment, I asked myself:  Hadn’t I had the same thoughts? Hadn’t I believed the same things? As far as I could tell, I had. What stopped me? What swept her up?

I believe it is something that few people talk about today because it has become so awfully unfashionable. I believe it was two things, actually:  Will and character.

Will may arguably be a function of thought, but I believe it is much more than that. Will starts before the thought itself and extends far beyond it, long after the thought has made an appearance and taken its bow. Will is the motor, the very engine that expresses spirit.

Thoughts are extensions of that. We think “I like this” or “I hate that” or “I shall do this tomorrow” or “that dress is so lovely,” but all those thoughts are expressions of Will, which may also be seen as a reservoir of our deepest longings. So we may find ourselves thinking thoughts of delight (“how wonderful my friends are”) when we are given what our Wills crave (attention, respect, tenderness—all according to the individual constitution) or thoughts of terror or rage (“I wish they’d disappear” or “I’m going to die”) when our Wills are frustrated or threatened.

Character is the drive shaft of the Will and, similar to thoughts, expresses the Will in ways that are more directly palpable to others. A person with a strong Will to live or to love may show tremendous fortitude and patience where others who have a strong Will to possess material goods may demonstrate a gross lack of tolerance.

What I lacked in my twenties was more than luck. I have survived those years, so in my eyes, I had more luck than many of my peers did. What was missing was both Will and character.

What I truly longed for—more than the simplicity and solidity of a farm life—was the activity and attention that the lifestyle I was living brought me. I was more beguiled by “cool” than by cows, no matter how much I thought I wanted them, no matter how I “dreamed” or visualized.

I could have said a thousand aphorisms a day, but they would not have changed an iota of my Will.  And they would have done even less about my character, which was, to be polite, “budding” in those days. My life was a continual manifestation of what I wanted at that time—and it wasn’t Green Acres.

In our discussion, Susan called it “good fortune” to have found an incredibly capable farm manager (Carlos) and an animal whisperer (Peggy) who eventually helped her develop the land and tend the animals properly so that it became a true working farm. I was not convinced, and left wondering whether it was fortune or fortitude.

To answer that, I started where she did: It was not the book or the farm or the friends or the thinking. It was the resonance of all those things with her Will. Any of us could have read the same book, driven by the same rolling hills and looping river and said, “How nice,” but never been moved to act. She was touched the way a single note vibrates crystal.

The magic, the surprise is in discovering precisely how that crystal sings in response. It’s often not what we “think” but better yet.

“I guess I had this vision of myself in the beginning as being Audra from the Big Valley,” Susan recalled. “Do you remember that show?  I thought it was going to be all me with great hair coming out with lemonade on a tray for all the cowboys.  It wasn't until one afternoon of sorting cattle in the rain and yelling at everybody and coming inside to write checks and balance books that I realized, ‘Oh, God, I'm Barbara Stanwick!’”

What Susan made clear to me was not just the “power of thought” but the manifestation of Will and the necessity of choice, of making the right turns in the road, of taking hold of the wheel and steering, gripping it when the pavement ran out.

On very rare occasions I have seen good fortune just “drop” into someone’s lap. I can count those instances on one hand. On every other occasion, I have seen goodness, purposefulness, and the sorts of green pastures I saw at Brykill Farm seeded and grown by deliberation over years of sweat, sacrifice and a steady hand.

We are all tossed and tumbled by circumstance, by forces we don't understand. But there is one force we do understand and it is the one that pulls the sails taut and turns the ship into the wind. That one is up to us.

In closing, Susan told me, “I think being a little bit of a control freak is part of it.  I want to control what I am eating and serving to my family, even if it’s a teeny tiny particle of a powerful food system.  I'm also just sort of oblivious sometimes to why I can't do something.  My current headaches with trying to start a restaurant in Gardiner are more proof of that.  I just think, ‘how hard could it be?’”

Indeed.

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I'd never met the man before and we were having a pleasant conversation. We were talking about wines, then about where we lived and where we'd been. He'd spent a lot of time in the southwest, where I had lived for a while. He said he visited several times a year to study with a guru whose name was utterly unpronounceable and unrecognizable. I told him I’d never heard of his teacher, and he said, “Oh, he’s world famous.”

He asked me why we had moved back to NY and I simply said "family." He looked at me quizzically. I explained we had aging parents and felt the need to be with them. While sometimes challenging and other times cumbersome, it has not been a personal or emotional burden. Both my husband and I feel that it is a gift and a blessing to be able to do this and share what will be their last years on earth. It has not been easy, but it has been right and often joyful.

So, suffice it to say that I did not whine, grumble, or pout while I was talking to him. I felt neither needy nor resentful as I described the situation. However, without a second between sentences, he waved his hand, "Oh, you need to detach from all that. I left everyone I know in Europe and I don't think of them at all."

He said this as if it were a model of good behavior, an example for all, particularly me, to follow. I believe he meant well, but I was taken aback.

A bit of  history: For much of my early life, detachment  was precisely what I needed. I had to learn to see where I began and ended and other people began and ended. I needed to learn what it was I truly longed for and what was the contrivance of a frightened heart. I needed to let go of expectations and deal with what was true about both people and circumstances. In concrete terms this meant I had to stop trying to control others. It is an ongoing lesson, no doubt. But, over the years and with increasing faith in God, I get better at it. For me, letting go has only been possible because I've been able to hand the reins over to Some One I believe is better at it than I believe I am. That's how I have learned to accept the circumstances I cannot change, deal with the loves that have been lost, and allow for the sorrows I cannot soothe.

So the idea of detachment–and its importance in healthy relationships–is not new to me. But his idea of it was, which was to use it as a weapon of self-negation so that feeling, love, and attachment to others in any fashion was unfashionable in that it revealed a gross psychological immaturity.

Is that true? Should we detach in order to feel nothing for friends, family, beloveds who are not with us? Should we cut ourselves off from longing of any kind? Should we exorcise our hearts so we can be more “spiritual?”

Since this encounter I have broached this topic with numerous people whose spiritual stances I particularly respect for their erudition and grounding: a Buddhist, an Orthodox priest, a Hasidic housewife, a Catholic theologian.

I half-expected my Buddhist colleague to agree with my friend at the wine store. But he said, “No, people who say that don’t understand what Buddha meant. We are meant to deeply feel each moment, not to use our minds as weapons against ourselves. We are called on to feel sorrow and joy fully, to be fully.” Detachment, as he explained it, was a way to see what was true about self and other.

The Orthodox priest had an interesting take on it and agreed that we are asked to feel for others, look to help, and love; that, indeed love was the greatest and highest calling. However, he added, “We are also told to be in the world, but not of it. We are born into a fallen world. And expecting it to be other than it is, is foolish and makes us ineffective. When you know you are in a pig sty, why do you get surprised when you get dirty? You’re in a pig sty. It’s a mess.”

Contrary to my new friend’s call to detach, as I grow older I find myself more surefooted in my commitment to be available, to respond when needed, and to love while I have the chance. As I see it, there may be many flaws in trying to control, but there is no failure in love.

But I continued to pursue the thoughts of others on the topic.

When I asked my husband what he thought about detachment, he admitted he found it hard. “Especially,” he added, “when it comes to what other people think and how they feel. I always want everyone to be happy. I want to like everyone and everyone to like me.”

I brought it to my mother, who in typically no-nonsense fashion, said, “What do you mean by detachment? You mean to let go? Well, then, seems to me you want to detach from evil, but not from good. It’s a matter of choice, isn’t it?”

All this left me with more questions than I’d started with, and certainly more than I bargained for when I went in to buy a bottle of wine.

What should we detach from or attach to?
Does love mean attachment? Are they distinct?
What about the desire to love (as a verb, not as a fuzzy feeling) and make others happy? Should my husband have not bought me flowers the other day because he knew they would delight me? Should he have detached enough to not care how I felt?

We know that control and manipulation and heartache are the results of a failure to detach when that is what is necessary, but what happens without any attachment whatsoever?

In my experience, the failure to attach is like a house built without struts or support beams. There is no connective tissue and the organism eventually fragments, falls apart. We see this in abandoned or severely abused children who are left to their own devices far too early. Without anyone to depend on—to attach to, they become like leaves loosed in a gust of wind. They have no sense of who they are, how they feel, or how to deal with those feelings as they arise. They are socially utterly lost. As a result, what they wind up feeling most of the time is a blend of rage and panic. Anyone who’s worked with these children comes to understand, if only viscerally, the utter necessity of attachment in order to live. This is not limited to humans. It has been shown to be equally as important in other animals, particularly primates.

The problem, of course, is that attachment—even a healthy one—comes with a price tag. When we lose the one to whom we are attached, or the thing (a house, a sentimental picture, a job), we lose a part of ourselves and we grieve. We feel pain. Sometimes the pain is so great that we are forever altered, our lives a limping replica of what they once were. This phenomenon is not limited to humans, either. We see evidence of exquisite attachment and wrenching grief in primates, dogs, sea lions, dolphins, whales, elephants, and geese. Attachment–at some level–seems to be universal.

I think I know what the fellow at the wine store was trying to say to me—that he has learned how to avoid that pain. He was saying that he had become self-aware as a spirit who was temporarily occupying a body, that he had successfully conquered his fears, vanquished his needs as the irrelevant yearnings of a feeble psyche, become part of small club of humans who have surpassed their own humanity.

Foible or fortune, for today I remain rather human.

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I was my own worst nightmare, a caricature of the anxious stunt-mom, the stuff I have warned my sister about far, far too many times for both her and my own liking. And even writing this to you, I am embarrassed. I'm supposed to know better. This is generally the sort of thing I teach to parents — how to generate a sense of authority, safety, and assurance and then transfer that to their children or loved ones. I'm supposed to be the maven of ,Verbal First Aid not the Grand Ol' Mama of Woe and Oh No.

But as I look back on it — and how I had to retrace my steps, backpedal, and make it right with my niece (first with an apology and then with some true correction), I see it more as a gift. As hard as it is to let go of the people we love, it is that easy to grab them right back. Control is like a tether ball. It may look like you've slapped it past the horizon, but then there it comes around and slams you upside the head.

What I've learned is that letting go of someone I love so that she may properly live her own life is an ongoing struggle — at least for people like me whose natural tendency is to fret. For others who are more like my husband, it is a grace, a way of walking and breathing in the world. So I went back to basics. As she talked about all the things she was going to do I went through the list I teach but forgot to practice:

1. BREATHE! I honestly forget to breathe more times than I care to admit. It's a wonder I'm not perpetually cyanotic.

2. CENTER! This word has a multiple meaning for me. In one, obvious sense it means to get centered physically in my own body, which is the only way to manage an unreasonable anxiety, even though everything about anxiety pushes us in the other direction… to leave our bodies. (If it's going to feel like this, I'm OUTTA here!)

The other thing it represents for me is a spiritual center. I have to remember, or to be more accurate, actively remind myself by reading something, praying, talking to someone who knows better than I do, who I really am, who she really is and what our ultimate destinations are. Even though I love her as if she were my own child, she is far, far more than that and has her own purpose in life. She is God's child, just as I am. She has never belonged to me (or anyone else for that matter) even though at times it may feel like that.

3. The ABC's of Verbal First Aid with children and adults. Even though this was not a "crisis" (at least not for anyone but myself), it was a good opportunity for me to remember what makes for truly therapeutic communication–Authority, Believability, Compassion. Usually these qualities are important to cultivate when someone is in shock or had a traumatic or frightening experience so that we can lead them towards health or healing. In our case, it was oddly reversed. I was the one who, with my fear, was creating a traumatic or frightening experience where none did or needed to exist. To reverse it, I had to go back to what was the essence of any good parent or healer relationship: the ability to be a leader (to help her to move forward without the unnecessary baggage of MY anxiety), to be believable in my assertions (not a fear-monger), and to be understanding. She was tired and desperately wanted a vacation. If she wanted to see Donald Duck and be a little girl for a week, who was I to judge? And where did I come off assuming that she didn't have enough sense to get out of the sun or find a chair in which to rest her weary legs? I had messed up on all counts.

4. Rapport. In this case, because I was such a worry wart, I had to re-establish what I once had but rapidly lost because my fear had begun to affect her. The more fear I had, the more I lost the rapport we had cultivated over so many years. Obviously it was not "lost" in the sense of "gone forever" but it was tenuous in the moment. With every "what if" she had to defend not only her status as an adult or her decisions, but her sense of well-being. The more afraid I was, the more she really had to resist me. I remember quite a while ago when I was undergoing these quick twists and turns with my parents and how their fear had more than annoyed me, it had angered me. As the years passed, I realized why: it resonated with me. If they were afraid (and if secretly I was, too), then there must have been something to be afraid of. I didn't want to be afraid. It made me feel helpless rather than empowered and alive. And being pervasively (as opposed to realistically) fearful never gave me a single useful tool in my life.

So, this time, I was lucky. Not too much water or wasted emotional energy had flowed under the bridge before I caught it. I was able to recapitulate in short order and she, gracefully, laughed at her aunt once again. When, inevitably, I imagine her walking across miles of parking lots and waiting on long lines in sweltering heat to get through the Pearly Gates of Disney, I will instead take a breath, sit back, remind myself of the basics and think of her as a brave and happy young woman with a baby on the way, running up to Cinderella and smiling from ear to ear.

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Am I?

Yesterday I sat watching a storm tumble in as they can do only in this region of the country — catapulting, cranky and fast. There were spiny shards of lightning, whipping sheets of rain you could see approach from a distance of 30-40 miles, and a thunder roll that had three large dogs shaking behind my legs.

I was mesmerized. I gathered up the dogs and went inside to watch. It was not a small storm. It brought hail, the noise of nightmares, darkness and ferocity.

And I had this unbidden, strange, delicious thought: I am created. I am a creation.

It seemed more like a letter addressed to me than a self-generated idea and what it appeared to be telling me was this simple and magnificent thing: I am not my own. I no more created myself than the thunderhead before me or the mountain with which it collided.

Now, to me — as much as to you — that is a very strange idea. It is almost a cultural betrayal. Like everyone else, I have told myself many times that I am very much my own. I have not only told myself, I have repeatedly taught that idea to others. I was told to believe in myself, so I cultivated that belief. I was told I am my thoughts, so I have aimed to think well. I was particularly told to think well of myself and have developed what is generally considered to be a healthy sense of self esteem. I own my home. I have a career. I build friendships. I am ME. I am MINE.

But then the storm said, "Well, not exactly…"

It went on to say that I was not my own, certainly not in the way I had thought. It said I was God's. That, like the thunder, the lightning, the birds taking refuge in the trees, I was His creation and that it was all constantly unfolded, rolled into motion and kept in existence by an act of Will that was not by any means mine.

Given how I was raised, trained and educated, I would have more than expected that thought to be anathema to me. What do you mean I'm not my own??? It was an odd moment overall. But when I think back to other moments of great understanding or fragments of Grace, I think much of what has been shown to me has been odd. Some were real head tilters. I imagine they made me look like my dogs do when I start talking to them. And in some ways, those experiences weren't much different. It was as though I was hearing a language I'd never heard before except that I could understand it — just not with my ears or my conscious mind. And this was no different. It was very strange and very big. Much bigger than my body, my mind, or anything else I considered proprietary.

Looking back I would've normally expected myself to be either a bit frightened or annoyed; it surprised me to find out that I was actually relieved. If I was created, my existence not only had meaning, it was personal.

I finally began to understand what "self-esteem" alluded to but never gave me: a sense of belonging. In that storm, a new truth was revealed; none of us — not me, not the dogs, not the mountains or the rain — stood solely for ourselves. All of us in unison pointed to Something Else, a Magic that was deeper than magic, a single Breath that filled the lungs of all life. And all of it inhaled, hoping for more. Self-esteem had never been enough.

Not for a moment in that reverie did I feel as though belonging to Another had stripped me of the ability to choose. The moment came with an invitation, not an ultimatum or a compulsion. I could continue to rely on myself — or not. I felt perfectly free to choose what I did next: ignore the message, dismiss it as unscientific, laugh at it, write about it, sit with it. The possibilities presented themselves and later that evening I chose (as you can see). And as I wrote, trying to sift through the sensation (because it was quite physical) of being actively, consciously and purposefully created, I found that it made me more than I was, rather than less.

Fear And Control

A bit of history might help you understand why this is such a great relief for me and why I chose to write to you instead of to ignore the experience.

Most of my life has been spent in fear, fighting fear or treating fear. Of what? Of everything. Of death, of life, of loving, of losing, of being well, of being sick. The why's are too numerous to go into here (maybe another essay), but suffice it to say that it was exhausting, at times incapacitating. It's been many years since then, but the body memory can be recalled with ease.

The natural result of all that fear was — for me — the futile attempt to control my circumstances. If I can "just" drive this way, or I can "just" get him to do it that way, or if I can "just" keep my schedule in "just" the right order, all will be well, I will be safe, I will be loved.

Needless to say — and you all surely know this from your own experience — it didn't work. I just spent more and more time trying to ward off an army with a toothpick. Controlling didn't bring love, never guaranteed safety (only the temporary illusion of it) and never made me well. If anything it called forth the opposite: It made me annoying, it put me in situations which I should have hastily avoided, and it weakened me so that I took sick.

As I watched the storm I began to understand that the fear had the power it did for so many years because I had felt utterly alone. Of course, I wasn't alone — neither in the social sense, the psychological one, nor the spiritual one. But I felt alone, on my own the way a forsaken orphan does, one who mistakenly struggles against the world with the full load of survival on his way too narrow shoulders. And because of that I believed I had to manage everything. If I didn't, who would? I was convinced that it was up to me.

That is the price of separateness. I was mine. But, then, with that, so was everything else.

I'd like to share with you a wonderful idea. It comes from a book entitled "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton. In one segment, he talks about the Will that beckons us from behind every rock, breeze and berry tree, and how the perceived repetition of nature (the sun that rises again and again, the tides that rush in and out at the same time every year, the exchange of synaptic chemistry in predictable ways) is due not to a series of unimaginative scientific laws or a dull and insensate lifelessness but to a conscious vibrancy, "a rush of life."

He likens it to the way children kick their legs back and forth, back and forth, enough to drive more sedated adults to distraction, not because of an absence of vitality but because they have so much of it. He recalls also (who hasn't done this?) the way children will happily hear a story over and over and over, pulling on someone's shirt sleeve, "Read it again!" The adult may be bored to tears, but the child is enthralled every time.

Because of a child's unbridled enthusiasm for life, because they are still unfettered in spirit, everything they see bares the stamp of the Great Magician, all of living is an act of mystery, daring and surprise, every day is prefaced by the curtain being pulled up to reveal a new rabbit or an inexplicably empty box.

He says,

"It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. May be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy … our Father is younger than we are."

He goes on to reveal that he has always seen life as a story, and "that if there is a story, there is a story teller."

I saw at least a bit of that story in the dark clouds and torrents of rain yesterday and finally, finally got a sense of the Great Story Teller Himself as he wet his thumb and turned the page and asked me, "Would you like to see what happens next?"

And my heart leapt and my lips said "Yes!" glad beyond words that finally I did not have to know the ending, that I could be a part of something much grander and beloved than I ever could have if I had tried to do the writing myself.

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[This article appeared in Huffington Post in the first week of July, 2011)

There's a man I know who is talented, empathic, possessed of a keen intellect and frightened of everything. The fear has been built the way thunderstorms gather over mountains — imperceptibly at first, then slowly, silently but with great force. With every approaching rumble, it has shut his world down piece by piece. First it was work, then it was social activities, then it was driving and finally it was family. His universe has folded in like a sheet, corner over corner, until it has reduced his life to spending the day in front of the computer trolling YouTube. He didn't understand how it all happened and his anguish was palpable — so was my confusion.

"You're living other people's lives," I said.

"They're giving me their lives," he answered tersely. Clearly I had no idea what was going on in cyberspace or how such a thing could happen to someone so gifted.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He explained that there were people who addressed their audiences daily, sharing from their own lives and "interacting" with their fans about everything from hair care to emotional and physical intimacy. Nothing was verboten. The video monologue disguised as discussion might as well have been occurring between lovers. There was no pretense of "expertise" in any particular field, just one human being talking to another (well, sort of) over high-speed cables.

"They give so much," he added poignantly.

"Wouldn't someone real?" I was baffled.

"But you'd have to go and find someone real. These people are just delivered to you."

"Like Chinese food," I thought, but didn't say. In my mind I became lost in my own past, when I was very young and very foolish and due to various all-nighters was unable to get into a car or walk to a grocery to get food. I thought of the times that I had called for delivery and what motivated that avoidance — whether it was lethargy or fear.

I believe it was mostly lethargy, but there were a few times when it was fear. It didn't happen often and it wasn't with the ferocity or chronicity of this fellow's experience, but it was enough to begin to understand the call to sequester he was hearing. It's a formidable thing, fear, particularly when it is not rational. A rational fear (there is a bus heading for me and I must move or die) can be argued for or against. There it is — or isn't. Either there is someone following you or there is not. An irrational fear — that which stems from within as opposed to without (like a bus or a real stalker rather than a paranoid delusion) — is a much harder thing both to face and fight.

The times I called for food to be delivered so I could continue "hiding" in my apartment were, as I recall, times I didn't feel particularly good about myself. My fear was of being seen and judged. I fully admit that the fear was decidedly not rational, because there was no particular reason for any judgment (who knew me and who cared? It was New York!) Furthermore, I don't believe retrospectively that I looked especially bizarre or off-putting. I felt bad about behaving badly and believed, erroneously, that someone else would see right through me. I was afraid of the judgment I was already indicting upon myself.

Internet Effects on Love

A man who is very dear to me is a recovering alcoholic. When I asked him if he had ever been afraid of going out of his house, he answered in no uncertain terms, "for more than two years."

His story takes place moments before the internet became de rigueur, around the turn of the millennium. He has not had a drink in nearly a decade, but those last struggles are still painfully vivid. His liver was moving toward a meltdown, his faculties were frayed, his hitherto well-planned life a shambles. "I became afraid of everything: of collapsing in public, of being judged, of having a panic attack and being out there with no help. I was afraid of being afraid, of breathing, of being without alcohol, of needing more alcohol. It was so overpowering, I stayed home. I couldn't do anything else."

If he had been connected to a thing such as YouTube as a substitute for human relationship, it is entirely possible that he would have never gotten out of the house. What he believes saved him were the relationships in his life. His friends called him and he answered the call. He went out, even if sporadically. Those friends were the ones who drove him to rehab. For some reason — and I admit I still don't know what that is — his fear did not overtake him the way it did our other fellow and he lives to talk about it with others.

I am sure there are numerous studies about the effects of the Internet on relationships, just as I am equally sure of the numerous effects and speculations that result from it. How could there not be? I know that texting has had a profound effect on people's (particularly young people's) ability to speak in full sentences. But this essay is not about the effect of the internet on us. Rather the opposite. It is fully about us. It is about what is in our hearts (or not in our hearts, like faith or courage or self-worth) when we sit down at a computer. It is about what we bring to the cyber-table (like a fear of being seen or judged) that makes us mortally vulnerable to a system of pseudo-intimacy that offers free delivery.

It is a human story, not an empirical one. The sad truth is that while YouTube may sometimes be fun, it is not a relationship. Nor can it ever be a relationship. It is a one, not even a two-dimensional format. It is a dead-end street. It is delivered, yes, but nothing more may be asked of the deliverer and nothing may be given back.

I wonder, now, if that isn't precisely what keeps our first fellow sitting in front of the screen, if the fear is that someone real would require something in return? Or, worse, that he may find a swell of love in his own heart and wish to give something back only to be refused or rejected?

What is the ultimate consequence of this behavior? It is not, as some people falsely conclude, that people are hoodwinked by the internet's false promises. It is actually worse. It is that their fear cuts them off and they are kept from ever loving. For to love one must be able to give either selflessly or in return for being loved. It is, in fact, the a priori definition of love. This is perhaps the worst and saddest sort of emotional twinkie, the kind we keep insisting should make us feel better but never, ever does.

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I know a woman struggling with having an affair. Not the actual "having", but the idea of it. She ruminates about the man in question day and night. Should she, shouldn't she. She is married, has a daughter and the man she is fantasizing about is also married, though apparently he has made it clear that he is more than interested in her. The attraction is mutual, and there are all sorts of innuendos and near-misses — a brush against the hand, a bump in the hallway — all day at work.

She tells me the only reason she has been struggling with turning the idea into reality is because she has been held back by her ethics. She had been raised to believe that her word was her honor and that commitments were to be held sacred. Her early home life was devout if not technically religious. She was torn between her desire to "let go" and have fun and an innate sense of right and wrong. She was also raised to be a perfectionist — which ultimately ruins a good sense of duty and honor — and made to feel that everything was her responsibility, even when it wasn't. As a result, she feels internally twisted, pressured, as if there were knots all along her circulatory system. In truth, she enjoys very little unless her mood is enhanced by drugs and alcohol.

She asked me in near anguish, "Why can't I just be selfish like everyone else? I just wanna have fun for one minute. I know I will feel awful later, but I need something now."

I noticed two things in her question:

One, was that she seemed to be equating enjoyment with selfishness — that in order to be happy one had to become selfish. It would not be hard to make that assumption in our culture. Additionally, she seemed to have an underlying belief that selfishness — literally putting the "self" first — was something to aspire to, or worse, that there would be something worthwhile to gain by being selfish when everything in my personal and professional experience has taught me precisely the opposite. To my understanding, she was confusing self-care with self-centeredness.

The other thing I put in the form of a question:

"Do you know anything about addiction?"

She tilted her head, wondering why I asked something so seemingly irrelevant.

I said what she was saying reminded me so much of what addicts say when they need a fix. There is a moment in every addict's life in which this very profound turmoil becomes a conscious battle: Do I do what I know is right — it coincides with my values, it reflects long-term gain and health — or do I do what I feel like doing for short-term gain even though I know it will go against my beliefs, cause me and others pain, and otherwise complicate my life emotionally, mentally and fiscally?

Do I choose a full course meal that requires some forethought and preparation, or do I pop open the emotional Twinkie? It may look like food, it may even taste like food for a moment, but it's little more than an intra-psychic shot of dope that leaves us still hungry, empty and wondering what just happened. It makes me think of the first (and last) time I ate cotton candy. I remember so vividly the anticipation of all that pink sweetness only to find out that once I put it in my mouth it disappeared and made my teeth hurt.

This twinkie phenomenon has occurred more and more often in my office, so much so that I'm noticing a trend. I don't know why, and I have no studies that indicate anything notable. I do know that heroin is making a monstrous comeback, though. Perhaps they are both indications of something more profound and pervasive.

A Fast-Food/Fast-Feel Culture

As usual, when I am presented with a situation like this in people I look to both the internal motivations and the cultural supports for those motivations. Without the supports, many of these fancies would remain nothing but fancies or whims. They would not have the social buttressing to stay in place or to so smoothly and easily perpetuate the imagined behavior, like having an affair as opposed to having a moment of fantasy.

The internal motivation is simple to identify in most cases. A person might need relief, sex, food, support, love or belonging.

What does our culture do with these basic needs?

Still reeling from the "if it feels good, do it" ethos of the '60s, our social milieu says go get what you need — whatever it is, however you must. Who cares if you destroy your own life so long as you don't really hurt anyone else? One problem here is that more often than not, hurting oneself does actually hurt others in so many ways, both hidden and obvious — the emotional toll on those who care about us, the societal cost required to pick up hospital bills, the price of divorce and custody battles, insurance, police involvement, etc. This has bred a self-indulgent, self-involved couple of generations that is hard for me to fathom.

I was raised to work and to value not only the result of that work, but also the effort and process itself. I loathed dependency. I liked having my own. So I started working as soon as I could. When I was thirteen I started with filing in an office where my mother worked. Throughout school, I took on what I could find for the summers or after classes: secretarial, camp counselor, cashier, bra salesperson at Macy's 34th Street, waitress or whatever it took to pay my bills, get through school and have some cash to go to a movie. It was expected of me, both by my parents and by myself. And before I went to that movie or spent that cash, my own responsibilities were attended to. Period. Please understand, I was never deprived and had many blessings in my life, for which I'm eternally grateful. But there were no free rides.

A case in counterpoint:

Someone else I know whose judgment is usually fairly good forgot to use birth control, got his girlfriend pregnant, then got married before either of them had a job or career path. After the wedding he decided he needed a new car and a new home. Why not? That's what people do when they start families, right? That's what the people on TV do.

Would he be paying for it? Nope.

Did he want it? You bet. His plan? Get family members to take care of it. If I had gotten pregnant out of wedlock I would have had my head handed to me on a platter, not a spacious condo.

Worse, he is so good at making the situation look dire, it seems like the family is going to do exactly what he wants. So he will have his short-term needs — more space, sweeter transportation — met, while his more serious and long-term needs — individuation, maturity, responsibility and self-respect — are allowed to atrophy. He has substituted twinkies for food, quick satisfaction for nourishment, entitlement for autonomy.

My thoughts? Only one: Ye gads.

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