When Shan Mussulman’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in May 2012, he held the vision of her as being healthy and cancer-free. It wasn’t easy. None of her doctors believed the disease could be cured and neither did she, but four months after Shan started her on a comprehensive health strategy, the cancer was gone. Shan is now dedicated…
I remember a Zen story about a woman who wanted to become a nun but was told she was too beautiful. She persisted, but the abbot of the monastery wouldn’t relent. Her desire to study Zen and to take Buddhist vows were so strong that she took hot coals from the fire and burned her face so badly that she…
For almost as long as I can remember, bedtime was the time of day when I felt the least sleepy. As a small child, I would read by flashlight or listen to my transistor radio until the small hours of the morning. As a college student, I would stay up all night several times a week. Needless to say, this…
Over the years I have known people who participated in weekend workshops with popular, charismatic self-help gurus whose message, when you boiled down the rhetoric, videos, and promotional literature, was pretty simple: Just do it! They encouraged participants to leave the unhappy relationship, declutter their minds and homes, make that positive change in their lives, and become the people they…
As a middle school teacher, I try to be aware of the big picture—the curriculum—as well as the tiny shifting reactions of my students. I have to be conscious of how each child grows and changes over time so I can help all of them stay motivated and engaged. By the end of most days, my mind is tired yet…
I used to love listening to my grandmother talk. Raised in Ohio but a Southerner for the bulk of her adult life, she had a quirky accent. When she came to visit us in New York, my younger brother and I would jump onto her bed every morning and demand that she read to us. This gave us more time…
I had the opportunity to speak with the remarkable Gayathri Ramprasad, whose memoir Shadows in the Sun: Healing from Depression and Finding the Light Within (Hazelden)—called a “a cross-cultural lens to mental illness”—was recently published. Her harrowing experiences with depression, the social stigma depression sufferers endure, and her courage in helping herself and others bring a new perspective to an…
