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What Matters Most?
That simple question can play a powerful role in healing our lives.
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." Rachel Remen, M.D., has spent much of her 40-year medical career helping patients and doctors find their why. A colleague of mine at the University of California, San Francisco, and founder of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, she has been a pioneer of integrative medicine, exploring the powerful ways in which our emotional, mental and spiritual states may directly affect our health. Dr. Remen is also the author of the best sellers "Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal" and "My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging" (both from Riverhead Books). I spoke to her recently about how understanding and pursuing what matters most to us can help to heal both body and soul. Excerpts:
Dean Ornish: There is a lot of suffering in the world right now, and it's experienced on so many different levels—a lot of edginess, anxiety and fear. You often describe how suffering can be a catalyst for transforming our lives. In what ways?
Rachel Remen: Very negative experiences, including anxiety and fear, have the potential to cause us to question the way we've been living. They're a wake-up call. They make people think more deeply about things and ask themselves questions like: What's important? What really matters? How do I want to spend my time, my money, my energy? How do I live more deliberately according to the things that are important to me? Just a very simple two-word question—"What matters?"—can change your life and the lives of people around you.
Why?
Because most of us live by habit. We often spend our time and energy on things that, if we were to ask ourselves, "Is this really important to me?" the answer would be, "Not very." But we don't usually ask ourselves this question. We're not living our lives closest to what has meaning and passion and value for us.
Why not?
We get distracted. There are lots of pressures in life. We're multitasking a lot of the time. Many of us have become disheartened or depressed. We tend to want to numb ourselves out rather than go deep inside and find the well of renewal that is in every person. We spend a lot of time in front of the television set, maybe we tie one on over the weekend. And we're often looking for comfort rather than renewal, and those are two different things.
What's the difference?
Comfort is a temporary Band-Aid. But whatever you are trying to numb yourself from usually comes back. Renewal is healing. If you go deep within and look to live your life with greater integrity, closer to your genuine and authentic values, according to what is really true for you, then you permanently diminish the pain. You don't just numb it temporarily. Food is one of the ways we numb ourselves. Or we drink too much, or we go from relationship to relationship, constantly seeking something new.
http://www.newsweek.com/2008/02/26/what-matters-most.html
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." Rachel Remen, M.D., has spent much of her 40-year medical career helping patients and doctors find their why. A colleague of mine at the University of California, San Francisco, and founder of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, she has been a pioneer of integrative medicine, exploring the powerful ways in which our emotional, mental and spiritual states may directly affect our health. Dr. Remen is also the author of the best sellers "Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal" and "My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging" (both from Riverhead Books). I spoke to her recently about how understanding and pursuing what matters most to us can help to heal both body and soul. Excerpts:
Dean Ornish: There is a lot of suffering in the world right now, and it's experienced on so many different levels—a lot of edginess, anxiety and fear. You often describe how suffering can be a catalyst for transforming our lives. In what ways?
Rachel Remen: Very negative experiences, including anxiety and fear, have the potential to cause us to question the way we've been living. They're a wake-up call. They make people think more deeply about things and ask themselves questions like: What's important? What really matters? How do I want to spend my time, my money, my energy? How do I live more deliberately according to the things that are important to me? Just a very simple two-word question—"What matters?"—can change your life and the lives of people around you.
Why?
Because most of us live by habit. We often spend our time and energy on things that, if we were to ask ourselves, "Is this really important to me?" the answer would be, "Not very." But we don't usually ask ourselves this question. We're not living our lives closest to what has meaning and passion and value for us.
Why not?
We get distracted. There are lots of pressures in life. We're multitasking a lot of the time. Many of us have become disheartened or depressed. We tend to want to numb ourselves out rather than go deep inside and find the well of renewal that is in every person. We spend a lot of time in front of the television set, maybe we tie one on over the weekend. And we're often looking for comfort rather than renewal, and those are two different things.
What's the difference?
Comfort is a temporary Band-Aid. But whatever you are trying to numb yourself from usually comes back. Renewal is healing. If you go deep within and look to live your life with greater integrity, closer to your genuine and authentic values, according to what is really true for you, then you permanently diminish the pain. You don't just numb it temporarily. Food is one of the ways we numb ourselves. Or we drink too much, or we go from relationship to relationship, constantly seeking something new.
http://www.newsweek.com/2008/02/26/what-matters-most.html
I agree with this we do get a wake up call every few years I believe, I am heavily into the things that are happening in America at the moment I really do focus on it a lot, but I know sooner or later depending on what happens in NOV I will have to be focused on my business and other things in my life that I wont want to continue this roller coaster of emotions and fight ...at least maybe I will but maybe I wont .....
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