The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
—CARL JUNG
My life as a psychiatrist gives me a privileged glimpse into people’s inner worlds. I become the bearer of secrets revealed to no one else, of the unspoken that remains when the ticking clock of daily life pauses for breath between seconds. With this work comes huge responsibility. At times I am witness to some of the most heartbreaking revelations or exhilarating triumphs of my patients’ lives. More than once I’ve been forced to stand at the precipice between life and death with a fragile human being as they make the ultimate choice.
Knowledge and training can give you some preparation, but I believe the true work of healing comes not from the mind, but from the heart and soul. While I learned a great deal about the healing process through my training at Stanford University, Yale Medical School, and the NYU Psychiatry Training Program, the most important lesson was never taught in school.
Compared to many of my colleagues in psychiatry, I work with my patients in a unique way. I want much more for my patients than to bring their symptoms into remission or to alleviate their pain and suffering. What I seek in our work together is complete healing and fulfillment for each and every one of my patients. My own personal life and my work with more than one thousand patients in my private practice in New York City has taught me something very important about the healing process: True healing and lasting fulfillment require a spiritual transformation as well as a clinical outcome.
Together in a room with my patient, we are two souls connected in a mission of growth, healing, and transformation. This is not purely cerebral work, but deeply intuitive work of the soul. For me, this is much more than a profession; it is a calling.
Often patients come to me in times of great pain in their lives. Sometimes they find my door after being startled to realize they have been living their life all wrong and want help to make a change. At other times they invite me to join them on their journey after silently suffering from insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, deep sadness, or some other torment that at last has become too much to bear.
As I sit quietly with my patients, wondering what makes them tick, what brings them joy, what causes them pain, I feel more connected to my soul’s purpose than I do at any other time in my life. It is deeply fulfilling for me to watch my patients gather the courage to make real and lasting changes in their lives, release their self-destructive tendencies, choose to live more fully and align themselves with the deepest part of who they are.1
Through my life and work, I have come to realize that we are all on healing journeys at all times. The healers and individuals I have come to trust most in this world are those on a lifelong healing path, as opposed to those who claim they have “arrived.”
Over the years, I came to see that every patient who comes into my life is a reflection of me in some way. As the Apostle Luke wrote, “Medice, cura te ipsum.” (“Physician, heal thyself.”)2 Every patient is also a teacher. Everything I have ever helped my patients to transform is a reflection of something I have also needed to transform in myself. I call this the mirror principle. Sometimes it is astonishing to see one patient after another presenting with the same complaint, only to realize that this is the crux of the problem I’ve been grappling with in my own life at the time. This is an essential and humbling part of the therapy process.
As a therapist and healer, I believe that I can take my patients only as far as I have gone myself. For this reason, I believe it is particularly important to continually work on myself, grow as a person, and strive to move beyond my own personal limitations. The more I can help myself, the more I am able to help my patients.
Like many of my patients, I spent years living the life I was supposed to live. Not my real life—not the life I wanted to live. Truth be told, I didn’t even know what life I wanted to live; I never bothered to check in with myself because I was too busy living the life that I thought was expected of me.
My real life would’ve been in sync with who I really am and compatible with happiness and fulfillment. Rather than feeling like an imposter waiting for my real life to begin, I would have felt a satisfying sense of authenticity. Instead, I was navigating from one false moment to the next by constantly trying to say and do all the things I was supposed to. But despite all the right words and the people-pleasing smiles, my heart cried out that something was missing. I could only hope that my real life was out there somewhere. But I hadn’t found it yet.
In a few short years after becoming a psychiatrist, I had accumulated all the elements that, by societal standards, were supposed to make for a good life in New York City: work I really enjoyed, lots of friends, healthy and loving parents, and a loving relationship with a very good man. I was doing it right.
Then why was I so unhappy?
Rather than questioning the ideas I had about what I was supposed to be doing with my life, I blamed myself. How ungrateful and entitled was I if this kind of life didn’t make me happy?
Over the years, many patients from all walks of life have come to me with the same complaints: “I’m unhappy and I don’t know why!” or “I’m unhappy and have an inkling as to why but am not sure I can or want to change it!” It was not for lack of trying or lack of intellect that many of my patients and I could not figure out why we felt unhappy. As a physician and psychiatrist, I had all of these healing tools under my belt. So why couldn’t I heal myself?
Had anybody told me ten years ago that I would become a “spiritual” person, I would have laughed. My mother has always been a spiritual seeker, while my father, by contrast, has always had a much more rational bent. When I was younger, my mom would always tell me about her spiritual pursuits but I, at that time, related more to my father, espousing a belief that anything that could not be seen and measured could not possibly be real.
At a time when yoga was largely unknown to most people in Russia, my mother sought out and studied yoga. When it was difficult to procure books on esoteric subjects in the bookstores of USSR-era Russia, my mom scoured the black market for books on Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other spiritual and religious pursuits. Incredibly ambitious from an early age, she became the swimming champion of Moscow at the age of fifteen, after which she went on to be on Russia’s national swim team while studying mathematics at Russia’s top college, Moscow University. Her drive to succeed was paralleled only by her thirst for spiritual knowledge and wisdom, which has continued to this day.
It’s not that my father isn’t spiritual or does not believe in God. He just does not have the natural faith and certainty that my mother does. As a biomedical engineer and physics professor with a scientific approach toward life, his views on religion and spirituality are equally rational and scientific.
My father’s sense of spirituality comes from our religion, Judaism. Anti-Semitism was rampant in Russia, where I lived until we emigrated to Chicago when I was five years old. From the time of my father’s boyhood, being Jewish in Russia gave him an identity and connection to strength, struggle, and survival. My father’s father was sent to jail during Stalin’s regime for being Jewish. An uncle on my mother’s side was sent away to Siberia for the same reason and never heard from again. As a young schoolboy, my father got into frequent fistfights with other boys making anti-Semitic remarks. My father’s Jewish identity was strengthened, in part, by constantly having to defend it. In this way, my father’s connection to Judaism is about family, history, and culture, rather than about God and transcendence.
Both rational and spiritual in their own ways, my parents’ conceptions of spirituality were, ultimately, irreconcilable. I think this is one of the reasons they got divorced when I was fourteen.
As I was growing up, I identified more with my father. Outgoing, talkative, and friendly, he always had many friends and loved to tell stories and make jokes. My mother, in contrast, was quieter, more reserved, and more introspective. As I grew older, these qualities would become a greater part of my identity.
Coming from a long lineage of mathematicians on both sides of my family, I fell in love with math at an early age. While I played volleyball, basketball, and soccer in high school, I was also an avid member of the math team (i.e., I was a nerd) and was preparing for a career in mathematics.
But in college I became fascinated by the neuroscience research of Dr. Robert Sapolsky, who studied the effects of stress on the brain (a topic relevant to any college student!). My passion turned from the innate beauty and symmetry of numbers to the inherent complexity of the most mysterious organ in our body—the human brain. In my junior and senior years at Stanford, I labored tirelessly and with great fascination in Dr. Sapolsky’s laboratory. At the same time, I began studying philosophy. The beauty, symmetry, and logic of philosophy enraptured me in much the same way as mathematics. To combine my fascination with the brain with my passion for philosophy, I ultimately chose to pursue a career in psychiatry. But first I took a few years off to live a little, see the world, backpack through Europe, and work in the so-called real world as a management consultant.
In this way, my life progressed to Yale Medical School, where I sought out every opportunity possible to continue seeing the world through international research and clinical work abroad. I did a pediatrics rotation in South Africa, a primary care rotation in rural Ecuador, a dermatology rotation in Austria, an obstetrics rotation in India, and a three-month research rotation in Thailand, studying the connection between heart disease and depression in the Thai population. While research and clinical fellowships paid for some of these trips, the rest was paid for by hard-earned cash I got from being a guinea pig in numerous psychological and medical studies at Yale, where they hooked me up to IVs and took MRIs of my brain, among many other things. (That was an adventure in and of itself.)
Through these experiences, I discovered that traveling the world and learning about different cultures, particularly underserved communities, gave me a sense of fulfillment unlike anything I had experienced before. I chose to do my psychiatry residency at NYU, where I continued to pursue international research, this time in Rwanda, studying post-traumatic stress in genocide survivors. All this time, the idea of devoting my life to spiritual pursuits, or even finding fulfillment in spirituality, could not have been further from my mind.
Everything was progressing according to plan until my life hit a bump. My psychiatry residency was proving to be a struggle. For the first time in my life, I was in trouble academically. As a conscientious, hard-working perfectionist, it shook me to the core, and I felt like a total failure.
As the earth was shaking beneath my feet, I realized that the man I was crazy about was emotionally unavailable and would likely never make himself emotionally available to me. This experience was a reflection of what I call the “mirror principle”: We don’t draw into our life who and what we want; we draw into our life who and what we are. I was attracting emotionally unavailable men because a part of me was emotionally unavailable. This, I would later learn, was one of my soul corrections. Before I could attract the kind of man I wanted, I had to open my own heart to love and become emotionally available myself.
The painful convergence of these events brought on what I call my “dark night of the soul.”
Feeling confused and lost, I did the one thing I knew would reconnect me to myself: I went backpacking in South America. Traveling alone in a foreign place has always allowed me to step outside the many roles I play in my daily life and see myself and the world anew. This time was no exception.
Alone in Iguazu Falls in Argentina, my everyday defenses finally slipped away. When I felt the pain that had built up behind them, it took my breath away. Deep in the mist of the Argentinean waterfall, I realized that the perfect life I’d so carefully and deliberately constructed held little meaning for me amidst my shame, anger, pain and, at the core of it all, my lack of authenticity. Admitting my inner pain, even to myself, shook my sense of who I was.
In retrospect, I had been feeling this way for a long time. Years earlier, I had been in a five-year relationship with a wonderful man, yet I couldn’t figure out why I did not feel happy. Unable to figure it out and feeling pressure from him to get engaged, I ended the relationship, concluding that perhaps I would be happier with somebody else. For many years before, during, and after that relationship, I looked for the source of happiness outside of myself—in the men I dated, the work I did, and the accomplishments I achieved. I did not want to admit to myself how sad and alone I truly felt inside. The emptier I felt, the more I relied on these external markers of success. On the surface, it looked like I had everything going for me. Admitting my inner pain, even to myself, would shake up the public perception of perfection I had worked so hard to cultivate and desperately craved to believe.
Upon my return from South America, I started searching; I did not know for what. Whatever I was searching for, it was something my soul deeply needed and wanted for a long time. Thus began my journey inside myself. This journey proceeded down a long and winding road: soul searching at ashrams in India, learning Buddhist meditation in Thailand, spiritual pilgrimages to Israel, working with shamans and healers in South America, and ultimately, finding my way back to New York to start therapy with a new psychiatrist who would become an important mentor in my life and remains so to the present day.
In the midst of my search, I had a vivid dream one night of a sign that said “Kabbalah Revealed.” My mom studied Kabbalah and had once sent me some books, so I checked my bookshelf for a book called “Kabbalah Revealed.” There was no such book on my shelf. “Oh well, just another dream,” I thought.
Some people believe dreams are created by the brain randomly throwing together memories and recently experienced material. But as a psychiatrist, I share Sigmund Freud’s view that dreams are “the royal road to the unconscious.” Moreover, I believe dreams are created by the soul as a way of helping the dreamer tap into their own inner wisdom. Our dreams mirror where we’re at in our lives and what conflicts we are grappling with at the time. So what exactly was my soul trying to communicate to me through my Kabbalah dream?
I pondered this dream for a while thereafter without any resolution. Imagine my surprise when three weeks later, en route to meet a friend for dinner, I saw that exact sign from my dream. It was the New York City Kabbalah Centre. Skeptical yet curious, in the last year of my psychiatry residency, I signed up for the introductory class to study Kabbalah. I was still searching, for what I did not know.
They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Apparently, I was finally ready. Looking back at this now, I am struck by the perfection of the timing, or synchronicity, in the form of my Kabbalah dream. I had just about completed the formal part of my medical education. Fully equipped with my armamentarium of Western medical knowledge from top schools, I was ready for my spiritual education to begin.
The Kabbalistic principles I began to learn were in sharp contrast to much of what I had learned in medical school. Kabbalah teaches that what we see in this world is less than 1 percent of the true reality. Traditional Western medicine holds that what we see with our eyes and perceive with our senses is 100 percent of reality and that ultimately everything can be observed, measured, and known. If there is something that we cannot see or meausre, it’s simply because we still lack sophisticated enough tools to accomplish this.
Gradually, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that the world we live in may be far more vast and complex than I had ever imagined or understood; that what I studied in medical school only scratches the surface about the nature of life, the world, and human consciousness.
Fascinated by this new insight and feeling it resonate with me on a very deep level, I subsequently devoted myself to the study of Kabbalah, which can also be thought of as the science of miracles and the principles of energy. Never letting go of my own natural skepticism and the finely honed analytic reasoning of a medical doctor, I began to make inquiries into the way in which the world of spirit interacts with the world of science. My attempt to reconcile these two very different perspectives has been a central part of my life purpose for the past ten years, and it is precisely what motivated me to write this book.
As a trained physician, I’ve always been in awe of the power of science to help us understand the most complex of processes, to the finest grains of detail, more of which is discovered and understood every day. But in spite of its far reach, I still find something lacking in its explanatory power. While my scientific training gave me frameworks through which to view the world, it didn’t give me a sense of purpose or peace. Over the past ten years, my embracing of spirituality has helped me see larger patterns of meaning and to bring purpose and peace to my daily life and my practice of psychiatry. Just like encountering more cases of patients in medicine has allowed me to better diagnose medical and psychiatric disorders, encountering more instances of spiritual guidance has helped me to better diagnose existential and spiritual crises, often defined by lack of authenticity, connection, and purpose.
This is not a book about Kabbalah, or any specific form of spirituality for that matter. It is a book about connecting to the deepest part of yourself. It is a book about thinking outside the box (whatever metaphorical “box” you inhabit or perspective you espouse) and expanding your consciousness to look beyond the self-imposed limitations you have created for your life. It is a book about finding fulfillment, whatever your definition of fulfillment may entail.
Each person’s definition of fulfillment is unique. For some, this involves vibrant health, a loving intimate relationship, meaningful work, financial security, children and/or a home of one’s own. For others, this includes a connection to a Higher Power, being part of a supportive community, and the presence of creative outlets for self-expression. Just as an individual’s definition of fulfillment is unique, so is the journey of growth, healing, and transformation. I cannot prescribe what you need to be fulfilled, but through this book I can help you identify what is most important and provide you with a bunch of tools and guideposts, spiritual and otherwise, to get there. I will share with you what has been integral to my own journey in the hope that it will help you on your own journey to fulfillment.
Part of my definition of fulfillment involved finding my life partner. One of my biggest fears was that my quest for fulfillment was, in essence, a fool’s errand; that I would never be truly fulfilled in this way. I was too complex, demanding, difficult, or unlovable. But, thankfully, life has proved me wrong. The journey to getting here involved learning to balance self-acceptance with a disciplined optimism, which was another part of my soul correction. At times my journey was arduous and doubt-filled. At others it was fun, exciting, and rewarding. An unanticipated part of my journey involved becoming a spiritual person along the way. Through my inquiry, I’ve been introduced to my soul, the part of me underneath the masks of perfection I had been wearing for so long. In wearing masks of perfection, we put on a good face when interacting with others and pretend we have everything under control—our careers, our love lives, our parenting, our perfectly decorated homes, and everything in between. For me, removing this mask was not an easy process, as so much of the world I had created for myself was predicated upon this mask.
Removing my own mask has led to an unexpected discovery: I really liked the person underneath. Imperfect and often scared, that part of me was waiting for many years to be acknowledged and heard. This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate external affirmation or accolades or that I’m no longer tempted to wear the old masks of perfection. As an imperfect human being like the rest of us, I can certainly slip back into my old patterns. But now I have a spiritual compass of which I was previously unaware that serves as welcome friend and helpful guide when I need it.
When I finally did acknowledge and remove my mask, an amazing thing happened. I felt happy with my life for the first time. Truly happy. The kind of happiness that does not go away even when life is hard. It was only by standing in alignment with the deepest, most authentic part of myself that I was finally able to be me and, subsequently, feel complete and fulfilled.
So how does one remove a mask they may not have even realized they were wearing? This process is different for everybody, and this book will take you through several approaches. For myself, the process involved daily check-ins with myself, along with prayer and personal conversations with a Higher Power. I also began surrounding myself with like-minded individuals, exploring spiritual communities, voraciously reading books about this new world I was just discovering, and seeking out role models I admired. Through this process, I began asking for and receiving guidance from the spiritual world. Up until this point, I had primarily sought guidance and affirmation from the material world in the form of praise from others and professional accolades and accomplishments.
Now, in my daily check-ins, I start my day with some moments of quiet reflection, asking myself, “How am I feeling right now?” “What do I want?” and “What do I need?” In asking these questions, I look for spiritual guidance through not only my mind but also my heart and my body. In fact, my mind asks the questions and often my heart and body respond. For example, is my heart feeling heavy or light? Is there a tightness in my neck and shoulders, or is energy flowing freely through my body? I go through a similar process when I encounter a new situation or when I’m faced with a decision to make.
As I got better at listening to this spiritual guidance, which some may call intuition, I began to use it in my work with patients. Prior to going to my office, I ask for spiritual guidance on how I can best help each patient I will see that day. As my day progresses, I also ask for spiritual guidance in moments when I am unsure of how to proceed. So ultimately, I draw upon both what I am hearing and sensing from a patient while in therapy sessions with him or her and spiritual guidance I receive during and in between our sessions. This book will elucidate how I integrate these two complementary ways of knowing. While medical training taught me the former, my spiritual practice has led me to the latter.
As I began to regularly seek out spiritual guidance in my work with patients, I became more attuned to their inner worlds and my intuition expanded in ways I could never have anticipated. I started having thoughts flash through my mind about a particular patient minutes before he or she called, even if it was someone I had not heard from in years. My patients started showing up in my dreams, often providing insights into how best to help them in therapy. Sometimes during sessions, I felt certain words or phrases enter my mind that didn’t seem logical in light of what we were discussing. When I cautiously brought these up, however, it usually led to a breakthrough in our treatment. I describe some of these experiences in the chapters to come.
The most surprising of all of these experiences occurred in 2012 while I was traveling through the Ukraine. It was there that I learned a difficult, profound, and inspiring lesson about authenticity and being part of something greater. After a long day of touring and sightseeing, I went to bed happily exhausted. That night, with no apparent trigger or warning, I woke up suddenly at 2:00 a.m. drenched in sweat, my heart beating a million miles a minute. Patients had described having such experiences to me in the past, but up until that night, I had never personally experienced a so-called midnight panic attack.
Something felt terribly wrong, but I had no idea what it was. Had I had a nightmare? I tried to dig back into my unconscious, but whatever had woken me up was inaccessible. My heart kept beating as the beads of sweat poured down my face. What was going on?
Now fully awake, I turned on the lights and felt compelled to check my e-mail. I was shocked to discover that two minutes prior, at the exact moment I had awoken, one of my patients, Hans, a brilliant young violinist with whom I had been working for the past two years, had sent me an e-mail contemplating suicide! I called him immediately.
Hans was furious at me! A few weeks prior, a senior colleague gave me some advice about my treatment with Hans. His advice went against my intuition, but I made the mistake of following it anyway because I deemed him “older and wiser.” Big mistake. That decision had set off a series of events that spiraled into places I could never have imagined. Hans held me partially responsible for the depths of his despair. He felt the one person he could rely on for emotional stability had betrayed his trust.
I felt riddled with guilt, took responsibility for my mistake, and wholeheartedly apologized to Hans for my role in what had transpired. Being able to talk through his feelings with me lessened his despair, smoothed Hans’s emotional pain, and gave him hope that we would work this out. We spoke daily during my trip and, upon my return, began to work through the rift this experience had created in our treatment.
Because Hans and I had a very strong connection, we were able to overcome this challenge together, confirming my belief that a strong therapeutic alliance could surmount even the greatest challenges in treatment. Undeniably, we both learned a great deal from the experience. One of the lessons for me was to give more credence to my intuition and be wary of ceding my power to others, such as “older and wiser” authority figures.
My unexpected awakening at 2:00 a.m. in the Ukraine ultimately led to an even greater awakening: that the Universe was supporting my patients and me in strange and unexpected ways, even if and when I made mistakes. The synchronicity of this event was confirmation to me of how we are connected to something greater than ourselves that protects us in often incomprehensible ways.
Despite this powerful realization, I was still dumbfounded by what had just transpired. Was it purely coincidence that I woke up in a panic at the exact moment my patient had e-mailed me? Or were Hans and I somehow inexplicably interconnected even while five thousand miles apart? Was this what people described as telepathy? I had no idea how to make sense of what had just occurred.
I could not help but wonder, did other psychiatrist have “telepathic” experiences like this? I began speaking with colleagues and combing the medical literature. Yes, a few brave souls had dared to publish on this subject, which meant that probably many more had similar experiences but chose to keep quiet for fear of being judged or discredited by the medical profession.
This book is one of the products of my quest to better understand what happened that fateful night and how “telepathic” and intuitive experiences of this nature can be cultivated and enhanced in the service of healing.
In much of medicine, there is a long-standing, unfortunate split between science and spirituality. Sigmund Freud, the eminent Austrian scientist, neurologist, and founder of psychoanalysis, described belief in God as delusional and religion as a “universal obsessional neurosis.”3 Although Freud wrote about “the oceanic feeling,” the unspeakable wholeness, limitlessness, and awe when one becomes aware of a connection to something greater than oneself,4 he admitted to having never experienced this feeling personally.
In contrast, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung acknowledged the spiritual connection as the central core of the human experience. He believed that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals, which entails discovering and fulfilling our deep innate potential.5 Jung believed that we are born whole and lose this sense of wholeness as we go through life. Connecting to this unity and our own transcendent nature was, for Jung, the way of restoring our inherent wholeness.
Albert Einstein may have best reconciled Freud and Jung’s opposing viewpoints when he wrote, “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”6 Science is always searching for that which is objectively measurable, quantifiable, testable, and repeatable. In contrast, spirituality, by definition, is transcendent, subjective, and therefore difficult to measure and reproduce. It is not surprising, therefore, that spirituality means different things to different people. British professor of religion and theology Christopher Cook offers a nice comprehensive definition:
Spirituality is a distinctive, potentially creative and universal dimension of human experience arising both within the inner subjective awareness of individuals and within communities, social groups and traditions. It may be experienced as a relationship which is intimately “inner,” immanent and personal, within the self and others, and/or as relationship with that which is wholly “other,” transcendent and beyond the self. It is experienced as being of fundamental or ultimate importance and is thus concerned with matters of meaning and purpose in life, truth and values.7
Generally, but not always, spirituality entails an individual’s internal sense of connection to something “more,” something beyond oneself, which could be perceived as a Higher Power, God, or the Universe, but could also be a more general sense of the sacred, a universal consciousness, a shared global purpose, or the interconnectedness of all life. For some, spirituality entails a belief in positive human values like hope, trust, love, persistence, and faith.8 Some people’s spirituality is deeply informed by participation in organized religions, while others describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”
I specifically use the term “spirituality” rather than “religion,” even though for some people the two are equivalent. Religion generally refers to participation in or endorsement of practices, beliefs, attitudes, and sentiments that are associated with an organized community of faith. In contrast, spirituality is something people can connect with in a number of different ways, including prayer, meditation, yoga, church services, spending time in nature, religious rituals, personal conversations with God, or other forms of acknowledging and/or embracing something greater than themselves that holds deep personal meaning. Belief in God is not a prerequisite for spirituality; many atheists and agnostics consider themselves to be very spiritual people.
Exactly how spirituality reduces the incidence of mental health problems and disease is not completely understood. But then again, neither is the mechanism of some of the most powerful psychiatric medications. We know from observing cause and effect simply that they work.
More than 90 percent of adults express a belief in God, and slightly more than 70 percent of them identify religion or spirituality as one of the most important influences in their lives.9 Many studies have shown that spirituality improves physical health, mental health, and subjective well-being, while reducing addictions, psychological distress, and suicidal behaviors.10
A study of ninety-five cancer patients found that spirituality was associated with less distress and better quality of life regardless of how threatening the cancer was to their life.11 People who attended church weekly were less likely to be hospitalized for any reason, and when they were, spent less time as inpatients than those who went to church less frequently.12 Religious and spiritual commitment has been associated with reduced incidences of depression in the elderly,13 quicker, more thorough recovery from depressive illness,14 and less alcohol dependence.15 In a study of 659 adults with alcoholism, undergoing a spiritual awakening was a strong predictor of sustained remission.16
These studies suggest that physicians can enhance their effectiveness as medical healers by considering, inquiring about, and attending to the spiritual needs of their patients. One research study found that while only 10 percent of psychiatrists believe spirituality is important in their practices, 65 percent of patients with depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric conditions indicate that they want spirituality to play a part in their treatment.17 A survey of patients hospitalized for medical reasons found that 77 percent of patients reported that physicians should take patients’ spiritual needs into consideration, and 37 percent wanted physicians to address religious beliefs more frequently.18 A large survey of cancer outpatients in New York City found that a slight majority felt it was appropriate for a physician to inquire about their religious beliefs and spiritual needs, although only 1 percent reported that this had occurred. Those who reported that spiritual needs were not being met gave lower ratings to quality of care and reported lower satisfaction with care.19
But what is it exactly about religious and spiritual commitment that helps people? Many things. Being a member of a supportive religious or spiritual community provides consistent and positive human connection. Religion and spirituality often connect people to something greater than themselves, including a higher purpose. And spiritual practices frequently include messages about healthy living, life-affirming beliefs, and encouragement during difficult times.20 When it comes to addictions, qualities that protected against alcoholism included an attitude of thankfulness or gratitude, social involvement in a community of like-minded individuals, a belief in the involvement of God or a Higher Power in the person’s life, and a belief in God as judge.21
Belief in God or a Higher Power can serve as a positive and secure relationship in one’s life22 or compensate for a lack of other positive social supports.23 The way you view your relationship with God can also affect your mental health and recovery. For instance, people who took a collaborative rather than dependent religious coping style (working with God rather than waiting for God to fix things) showed greater improvement in their mental health and recovery.24 In many different ways, spirituality has been shown to support and enhance mental and physical health and healing.
Quantum physics has begun to offer fascinating new insights suggesting that the world is more complex than we had previously imagined. Some say that it offers the beginnings of a scientific mechanism, still largely unproven, through which the world of science converges with the world of spirit. According to quantum physics, at a level of reality that is invisible to the human eye, everything and everybody is interconnected with one another and to all living organisms. This interconnectedness may be at the core of why I sensed my patient was in trouble five thousand miles away.
Through his famous equation, E=mc2, Einstein scientifically proved that energy and matter are two expressions of the same universal substance. The universal substance is the primal energy of which we are all composed. This means that in addition to being cellular and physical beings, we are also beings of energy, existing in a field of subtle electromagnetic energies that communicate with one another at all times. This energy field is the cornerstone of our being and our consciousness.
The implications are profound: our perception that we are separate from each other may be no more than a delusion. It was Albert Einstein who made the salient point:
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.25
In keeping with Einstein, the term “Universe” will be used throughout this book to reference the connectedness of all living organisms.
A disconnection from one’s soul may present in many ways: anxiety, depression, obsessions, excessive worrying, suicidal thoughts, self-destructive behaviors, psychosis, mania, addictions, and phobias, among many other presentations I may see in my medical office. Traditional medical and psychiatric practice may attribute the above symptoms or illness to chemical imbalances in the brain that need to be fixed with medications. A deficit in serotonin leads to depression. Prozac increases serotonin and so cures depression. It’s as easy as that. Or is it? In many cases, although medications can treat the symptoms resulting from a disconnection from one soul, they rarely treat the underlying cause, which is the disconnection itself. Only by looking inside oneself and aligning with the deepest part of yourself can you address the root cause of the problem instead of the symptoms that result from it. Complete healing and fulfillment entails unearthing the root cause of the pain.
In my medical practice, only about half of the patients I treat are on medication, which is a relatively low percentage for a psychiatrist. For certain patients, however, medications are a lifeline without which they feel they could not survive. Work of the soul is hard to do, even impossible, if you are so depressed that you cannot get out of bed, or so sleep-deprived from insomnia that you can barely function, or so anxious that you cannot leave the house, or in an opiate withdrawal so painful that you don’t know if you will even survive the day. Engaging in soul work is necessary for complete healing, but it is predicated on first being able to function in this world. When clinically indicated, psychiatric medications can sometimes be the very tools that allow one to emerge from the darkness.26
In the chapters that follow, I do not focus on the use of medication, which is beyond this book’s scope. Instead, I delve deeply into the psychological and spiritual tools I have used with my patients and in my own life, to help them and myself connect to our souls, transform the core beliefs that are no longer serving us, and find greater fulfillment.
When I meet a patient for the first time, I spend a great deal of time exploring their core beliefs: how connected, if at all, do they feel to something greater than themselves? How aligned do they feel with their life choices? How authentic do they feel in their day-to-day interactions with the people in their lives? How honest and in touch are they with themselves? I often ask them if spirituality is a part of their lives. The answers I receive are quite varied, ranging from multiple patients who outright disavow any interest or belief in spirituality or any greater being or purpose, to another patient who may tell me that she was raised Catholic, hated the repression she felt in Catholic school, converted to Judaism when she married her husband, and then became a devout yoga and meditation practitioner.
In my work with patients, I have found three core misperceptions responsible for much of their pain and suffering. First, they are unaware of or disconnected from their own souls. Second, they give away their personal power. Third, they feel alone and disconnected from everything and everybody. These misperceptions keep them from being fulfilled. As patients move from these misperceptions to connecting to their souls, taking their power back, and embracing their interconnectedness with everybody and everything, they move closer to experiencing a fulfilling life.
Aligning with your authentic self is the first key to living a fulfilling, joyful life. To do so, you will need to shift:
Understanding and taking personal power back is the second key to creating a fulfilling life. To do so, you will need to shift:
FROM: I give away my power
TO: I take my power back and create the life I want to live
Feeling connected is the third key to creating a fulfilling life. To do so, you will need to shift:
FROM: I am disconnected and alone
TO: I am interconnected with everybody and everything
As you move through each chapter of the book, you will learn more about each of these implicit core beliefs. Within each chapter, I include exercises to help you apply these principles to your life. Part 1 focuses on cultivating authenticity. Before we can begin to align with our authentic self, we have to first access our intuition. This still, quiet voice can only be heard when you can silence or tune out your thoughts and emotions. It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish the voice of intuition from two other inner voices we all possess: the voice of instinct and the voice of reason. While each of these voices serve a different function in our lives, they all must be heard and acknowledged to live a balanced and fulfilled life.
Another part of cultivating authenticity is filling your life with purpose and meaning. Meaning comes from multiple sources, two of which are your soul corrections and your soul contributions. Soul corrections are the specific challenges your soul needs to work through or correct in this lifetime in order for you to become the best version of yourself. This version of yourself is calmer, connected to your values, and resilient when faced with challenges. Soul contributions are the unique ways you choose to use your talents, skills, abilities, passions, desires, and experiences in the service of others. For example, one of my soul contributions is being an empathetic listener, and I use this ability in my work with patients every day. All of us have come into this world with multiple soul corrections and contributions to make. Part II focuses on four of the most common soul corrections I encounter in my psychiatry practice: improving relationships, releasing addictions, transforming fears, and harnessing personal power.
Albert Einstein said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” Opening yourself to spiritual guidance in a friendly universe is a powerful catalyst for growth, healing, and transformation. Part III, Part of Something Greater, discusses ways to accomplish this, including becoming open to synchronicity (i.e., meaningful coincidences), elevating your consciousness, embracing your interconnectedness, and exploring the soul’s potential for immortality.
I know that I am not alone in having lived much of my life out of alignment with who I really am. If these words speak to you on any level, this book is for you. I am writing this book for introspective seekers who are just beginning a journey of introspection and those who have done a lot of work on themselves over the years, perhaps with therapy, yoga, meditation, acupuncture, various forms of medication, or other modes of self-help. Despite being better off than where you started, you may still find yourself falling short of true healing and fulfillment. If you are reading these words, maybe you feel an emptiness in your life that you do not know how to satiate. You may look like you “have it all,” yet deep down—in those rare moments when your defenses fall away and you stand naked, honest, and alone before yourself—you return to a sad and lonely place, aware of a deep inner void and with no idea how to fill it. This book will give you a road map to healing the old obstacles that have plagued you and cultivating new ways of living in the world that will change your point of view. It will help you tune in and listen to the voice of your soul, your best friend and greatest guide.
As you begin your journey, I encourage you to set one intention of how you would like your life to change over the next year. Your intention may be to release something from your life that blocks your fulfillment. It may be to date only emotionally available men or women or meet your life partner by the end of the year. It may be to find a new job that is more in keeping with your authentic self and aligned with your soul. It may be to find a community of like-minded people and friends with whom to share your life, to see an improvement in your health, or achieve greater financial abundance. Your intention may be anything that will bring you greater fulfillment. Your intention does not have to make sense to anybody else—only to you and your soul.
Our souls are the blueprint we bring into this world of how we are meant to grow, change, evolve, transform, and meaningfully contribute to humankind over the course of our lives. Once we learn to hear our soul’s whispers and uncover its deepest longings, it will guide us to a life of meaning and fulfillment.
I share the story of my process with you in hopes that some of what you read here will resonate in your own life. Perhaps my story is not just “my” story, but is a part of “our” story—the human journey toward finding our true selves and our unique places in this world. By cultivating authenticity, aligning with your soul, and embracing our interconnectedness, I invite you to join me in taking your very first step toward greater fulfillment.