Zigzag Idiot and the ladder of Objective Reason

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up   
  "Finding Purpose & Meaning"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    There is purpose in life.  Indeed, there are perhaps four big purposes.  If you pursue them, i.e., if you strive toward these purposes, you will very likely experience fulfillment in life.  It's no small task to achieve fulfillment. Much of your time and effort is spent taking care of physical needs.  But that's not the reason you are here.  The real purposes - the higher, deeper, meaningful ones – you can accomplish in very important spans of time.  Without them, your life will probably be empty.  Just take a look at people you know whose lives lack purpose or meaning.  They're often depressed.  They experience the "what's it all for?" kind of depression.  They feel empty because their life is missing something.  They lack a reason for being.

    You are not handed your purpose on a silver platter, but you are provided with opportunities to find your purpose.  And it's your responsibility to seek it and reach for it.  But first you must put your physical needs in their proper place.  You already know that life is not really about physical beauty, money, sex, possessions, and the size of your portfolio.  Close to 45 years as a psychologist have taught me that the deeper purposes, the ones that give meaning to life are these: to love, to learn and grow, to create, and to enjoy.

    You come here to open your heart and love deeply.  You come here to find out how to love.  Along your travels through life, there are many discoveries, such as: loving another person as much as you love your own self; viewing yourself with humility instead of self-importance; putting yourself in the place of others and feeling what they feel; and accepting others for who they are, instead of molding them to serve your needs.  You come here to give love to your brothers and sisters, and to open yourself up to receive love.  Thus, you are making a home for love within yourself.

    Life is also for learning.  You come here to learn and grow and develop as a person.  Improving your worldly talents is important.  Becoming a deeper, better person is much more important.  This is the kind of learning that you keep forever.

    You also come here to create, and thereby give something back to the world.  There are no rules for what your creations must be.  You can be an architect or a carpenter - both are capable of giving beauty to the landscape.  You can be a bus driver whose gift is transportation.  You can be a teacher who stimulates young minds.  You can be a parent who helps create love and self-esteem in your children.  Fulfilling your purpose to create can be anything you do from your heart.

    It’s not easy.  Life hands us many difficulties and hurdles.  But it's not enough just to endure your circumstances and grunt your way through life.  You come here also to enjoy.  When you can enjoy who you are and what you are given, then you have mastered this task.

 

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.net or by phone or text at 501-623-2050.
 

    If you like Dr. Rosen's Reaching Up column, you are free to share it with other people. There is no fee for this column. It's free. If you're not on the list to receive it, just send an email that says "Please Send Column" in the subject line. You will receive a new column each Sunday.  If you are on the list and you don't want to receive Dr. Rosen's column anymore, just send him an email that says "Stop Column" in the subject line.
 

Dr. Jim Rosen
Clinical Psychologist
Magnet Cove, Arkansas
Ph: 501-623-2050
Email: drjrosen@ipa.net

 

 

 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

In another Journal this morning I was pretty harsh in my assessment of Leo's latest video. i Should have waited until after I had watched the whole thing before I gave an opinion. He said some things that made good sense and outed himself for how socially awkward he used to be which was an endearing display of humility. I still think how he presented some ideas in the video and the title given to it was kinda cheesy though. Talking about "game",,,  For the most part developing healthy self esteem seemed to be the focus. It's a part of my development which has always been lacking. So who am I to be so critical,,,,? 

[Zeroguy]

Well you have right on your opinion, why not. Self actualization isn't it so. 

Don't bow before anyone. 

[Zigzag Idiot]

@Zeroguy Thank you,

We all vary with different backgrounds, cultural conditioning, and shadow elements to process or heal no doubt. But in other ways we are all the same.

27 minutes ago, Zeroguy said:

Don't bow before anyone. 

It's interesting you mention that. I need to be reminded of that on occasion. Whenever ungroundedness or imbalance show up in my inner condition. I've always been prone to hero worship as well and anyone with a degree of status or fame intimidate me sometimes. A self esteem issue most likely. I try to at least observe it as objectively as I can if nothing else.

[Raptorsin7]

2 hours ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

@Zeroguy Thank you,

We all vary with different backgrounds, cultural conditioning, and shadow elements to process or heal no doubt. But in other ways we are all the same.

It's interesting you mention that. I need to be reminded of that on occasion. Whenever ungroundedness or imbalance show up in my inner condition. I've always been prone to hero worship as well and anyone with a degree of status or fame intimidate me sometimes. A self esteem issue most likely. I try to at least observe it as objectively as I can if nothing else.

I found this video insightful on low self esteem

I know the guy has character flaws, but the information is useful nonetheless.

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”

― Bruce Lee

[Zigzag Idiot]

Thanks! @Raptorsin7

I'll definately  give it a watch.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Read my lips

Read my lips

No new taxes on a burned out village

No new taxes on a burned out village

Don't scold the lover. The wrong way he/she talks is better than a hundred right ways of others.

 

This is what you get when you mix George H.W. Bush with Rumi.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up   
  "What's In Your Nucleus?"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    I am updating the mailing list for the Reaching Up column.  If you would like to continue receiving my free column each week, please reply to this email with "Yes" in the subject heading.  That's all you need to do.  If I receive your reply by December 4, you will be on the updated list and you will continue to receive this column each Sunday.  Thank you for giving this your attention.

    If your kids are the center of your universe, the bond between you and your mate is suffering ...and your kids suffer, too.  Their sense of well being shouldn't depend on being the center.  It makes them self-centered and insecure.  A strong family revolves around the bond between two loving adults.  When your choices and decisions are based on what's good for your marriage to your partner, then your family has a strong nucleus.  It fills your home with security and love.  Although your kids won't always get their way, they do get the security and love they absolutely need.  They also learn to share with others and tolerate frustration.  Having a strong center doesn't mean that you ignore your kids' real needs.  It doesn't mean that your kids become less important.  It doesn't mean you become a slave to your mate's wants and wishes.  It means doing what's right for your marriage, because it's right for your whole family.
 

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.net or by phone or text at 501-623-2050.
 

    If you like Dr. Rosen's Reaching Up column, you are free to share it with other people. There is no fee for this column. It's free. If you're not on the list to receive it, just send an email that says "Please Send Column" in the subject line. You will receive a new column each Sunday.  If you are on the list and you don't want to receive Dr. Rosen's column anymore, just send him an email that says "Stop Column" in the subject line.
 

Dr. Jim Rosen
Clinical Psychologist
Magnet Cove, Arkansas
Ph: 501-623-2050
Email: drjrosen@ipa.net

 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

ACIM and stuff

I continue to observe my own multiplicity in both subtle and obvious changes of personality. Personality linked to the conditioned mind is false personality.  ACIM uses the term 'mind', differently than some Teachings but speaks about us having our being which I equate with Almaas' personal essence attaining the (station) of the pearl beyond price or the embodiment of the essential Self. The way I link this may not be the way Almaas would put it in more exact terms though,

 A while back I announced that I would start a year long group reading of ACIM in its own journal here.  As an example of my multiplicity, I have yet to organize this endeavor. I may or may not...  That's how it kinda goes and for me to deny it would only be pointing to my own self deception. The course is about forgiveness and that's about as unpopular as any message out there. Especially in the world of the collective ego or as some would say the parallel reality in the demonic sphere of consciousness, where big extroverted personalities are king. I'm not sure how much I'll continue in my other Journal for Universal heretics recently started. Using circumstantial evidence manifested in my world, it would seem that God's beard really got pulled on. And as it's said, discretion is the better part of valor.

Below is the preface to ACIM for those who may be interested,,,,

What It Says

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.

This is how A Course in Miracles begins. It makes a fundamental distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Knowledge is truth, under one law, the law of love or God. Truth is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous. It can be unrecognized, but it cannot be changed. It applies to everything that God created, and only what He created is real. It is beyond learning because it is beyond time and process. It has no opposite; no beginning and no end. It merely is.

The world of perception, on the other hand, is the world of time, of change, of beginnings and endings. It is based on interpretation, not on facts. It is the world of birth and death, founded on the belief in scarcity, loss, separation and death. It is learned rather than given, selective in its perceptual emphases, unstable in its functioning, and inaccurate in its interpretations.

From knowledge and perception respectively, two distinct thought systems arise which are opposite in every respect. In the realm of knowledge no thoughts exist apart from God, because God and His Creation share one Will. The world of perception, however, is made by the belief in opposites and separate wills, in perpetual conflict with each other and with God. What perception sees and hears appears to be real because it permits into awareness only what conforms to the wishes of the perceiver. This leads to a world of illusions, a world which needs constant defense precisely because it is not real.

When you have been caught in the world of perception you are caught in a dream. You cannot escape without help, because everything your senses show merely witnesses to the reality of the dream. God has provided the Answer, the only Way out, the true Helper. It is the function of His Voice, His Holy Spirit, to mediate between the two worlds. He can do this because, while on the one hand He knows the truth, on the other He also recognizes our illusions, but without believing in them. It is the Holy Spirit’s goal to help us escape from the dream world by teaching us how to reverse our thinking and unlearn our mistakes. Forgiveness is the Holy Spirit’s great learning aid in bringing this thought reversal about. However, the Course has its own definition of what forgiveness really is just as it defines the world in its own way.

The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference—the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. “Projection makes perception” (T-21.in.1:1). We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing. If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes—our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in whatever form it may take—we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy and despair. All this we must learn to forgive, not because we are being “good” and “charitable,” but because what we are seeing is not true. We have distorted the world by our twisted defenses, and are therefore seeing what is not there. As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or “forgive.” At the same time we are forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self-concepts to the Self That God created in us and as us.

Sin is defined as “lack of love” (T-1.IV.3:1). Since love is all there is, sin in the sight of the Holy Spirit is a mistake to be corrected, rather than an evil to be punished. Our sense of inadequacy, weakness and incompletion comes from the strong investment in the “scarcity principle” that governs the whole world of illusions. From that point of view, we seek in others what we feel is wanting in ourselves. We “love” another in order to get something ourselves. That, in fact, is what passes for love in the dream world. There can be no greater mistake than that, for love is incapable of asking for anything.

Only minds can really join, and whom God has joined no man can put asunder (T-17.III.7:3). It is, however, only at the level of Christ Mind that true union is possible, and has, in fact, never been lost. The “little I” seeks to enhance itself by external approval, external possessions and external “love.” The Self That God created needs nothing. It is forever complete, safe, loved and loving. It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project. It has no needs and wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance.

The special relationships of the world are destructive, selfish and childishly egocentric. Yet, if given to the Holy Spirit, these relationships can become the holiest things on earth—the miracles that point the way to the return to Heaven. The world uses its special relationships as a final weapon of exclusion and a demonstration of separateness. The Holy Spirit transforms them into perfect lessons in forgiveness and in awakening from the dream. Each one is an opportunity to let perceptions be healed and errors corrected. Each one is another chance to forgive oneself by forgiving the other. And each one becomes still another invitation to the Holy Spirit and to the remembrance of God.

Perception is a function of the body, and therefore represents a limit on awareness. Perception sees through the body’s eyes and hears through the body’s ears. It evokes the limited responses which the body makes. The body appears to be largely self-motivated and independent, yet it actually responds only to the intentions of the mind. If the mind wants to use it for attack in any form, it becomes prey to sickness, age and decay. If the mind accepts the Holy Spirit’s purpose for it instead, it becomes a useful way of communicating with others, invulnerable as long as it is needed, and to be gently laid by when its use is over. Of itself it is neutral, as is everything in the world of perception. Whether it is used for the goals of the ego or the Holy Spirit depends entirely on what the mind wants.

The opposite of seeing through the body’s eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear. The opposite of hearing through the body’s ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us. His Voice seems distant and difficult to hear because the ego, which speaks for the little, separated self, seems to be much louder. This is actually reversed. The Holy Spirit speaks with unmistakable clarity and overwhelming appeal. No one who does not choose to identify with the body could possibly be deaf to His messages of release and hope, nor could he fail to accept joyously the vision of Christ in glad exchange for his miserable picture of himself.

Christ’s vision is the Holy Spirit’s gift, God’s alternative to the illusion of separation and to the belief in the reality of sin, guilt and death. It is the one correction for all errors of perception; the reconciliation of the seeming opposites on which this world is based. Its kindly light shows all things from another point of view, reflecting the thought system that arises from knowledge and making return to God not only possible but inevitable. What was regarded as injustice done to one by someone else now becomes a call for help and for union. Sin, sickness and attack are seen as misperceptions calling for remedy through gentleness and love. Defenses are laid down because where there is no attack there is no need for them. Our brothers’ needs become our own, because they are taking the journey with us as we go to God. Without us they would lose their way. Without them we could never find our own.

Forgiveness is unknown in Heaven, where the need for it would be inconceivable. However, in this world, forgiveness is a necessary correction for all the mistakes that we have made. To offer forgiveness is the only way for us to have it, for it reflects the law of Heaven that giving and receiving are the same. Heaven is the natural state of all the Sons of God as He created them. Such is their reality forever. It has not changed because it has been forgotten.

Forgiveness is the means by which we will remember. Through forgiveness the thinking of the world is reversed. The forgiven world becomes the gate of Heaven, because by its mercy we can at last forgive ourselves. Holding no one prisoner to guilt, we become free. Acknowledging Christ in all our brothers, we recognize His Presence in ourselves. Forgetting all our misperceptions, and with nothing from the past to hold us back, we can remember God. Beyond this, learning cannot go. When we are ready, God Himself will take the final step in our return to Him.

(ACIM, Preface)

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up   
  "Your Response to the State of the World"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    I am updating the mailing list for the Reaching Up column.  If you would like to continue receiving my free column each week, please reply to this email with "Yes" in the subject heading.  That's all you need to do.  If I receive your reply by December 4, you will be on the updated list and you will continue to receive this column each Sunday.  Thank you for giving this your attention.

    You don't need to take it personal that the world of today is such a crazy place.  In other words, you can realize that the state of the world is not a personal attack on you.  You can acknowledge that it's a crazy time and that people are acting differently now.  But don't take it personal, and then you won't feel empty, hurt and hateful.  It's true that the world is busy and in a hurry, and people don’t take time for each other.  Yes, people have become inconsiderate, competitive and self-centered.  They're angry and ugly with one another.  They seem willing to do anything for money, and they ignore the consequences.  It's not your fault, and it's not a personal attack on you.  The world is scared, and it's acting out with anger.  But you don't have to follow in lock step with the world.  We each make our own choices.  You can still be kind, considerate, and giving.  In the words of Mother Theresa, "The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.  Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway."

 

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.net or by phone or text at 501-623-2050.
 

    If you like Dr. Rosen's Reaching Up column, you are free to share it with other people. There is no fee for this column. It's free. If you're not on the list to receive it, just send an email that says "Please Send Column" in the subject line. You will receive a new column each Sunday.  If you are on the list and you don't want to receive Dr. Rosen's column anymore, just send him an email that says "Stop Column" in the subject line.
 

Dr. Jim Rosen
Clinical Psychologist
Magnet Cove, Arkansas
Ph: 501-623-2050
Email: drjrosen@ipa.net

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up   
  "Embracing Life Again"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    I am updating the mailing list for the Reaching Up column.  If you would like to continue receiving my free column each week, please reply to this email with "Yes" in the subject heading.  That's all you need to do.  If I receive your reply by December 4, you will be on the updated list and you will continue to receive this column each Sunday.  Thank you for giving this your attention.

    When I was a kid and someone would die, my mother used an expression that brought her comfort.  She would simply say, “Life goes on for the living.”  As my life unfolded and I experienced the losses that came with it, I found wisdom in her words.  As a psychologist, many people come to me with their own losses.  And here is what I have seen.  Allowing yourself to feel the feelings of grief, as much as it hurts, enables you to get to a place of letting go of life as it used to be and accepting life as it is now.  When you accept what happened (and accept that you are largely not in control of what happened), you find peace of mind and release from the pain.  And when you take it a step further and get to the place of embracing life without the ones you’ve lost, you open yourself up to experience joy again.

 

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.net or by phone or text at 501-623-2050.
 

    If you like Dr. Rosen's Reaching Up column, you are free to share it with other people. There is no fee for this column. It's free. If you're not on the list to receive it, just send an email that says "Please Send Column" in the subject line. You will receive a new column each Sunday.  If you are on the list and you don't want to receive Dr. Rosen's column anymore, just send him an email that says "Stop Column" in the subject line.
 

Dr. Jim Rosen
Clinical Psychologist
Magnet Cove, Arkansas
Ph: 501-623-2050
Email: drjrosen@ipa.net

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up    
  "Stripped Naked"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen    

    It irritates the heck out of people when you try to be a “feeling reader.”  That's like trying to be a mind reader, but instead of telling other people what they're thinking, you tell them what they're feeling.  "You're angry... You're afraid... You know you like it... You don't need that; you need this... Don't be hyper... You're just excited... You don't have to panic about it."  You insult the other person when you presume to know their feelings.  The truth is, you really can't know.  None of us have the ability to get inside another person's body and feel their feelings for them - no matter how close the relationship.  It's good when the other person can be open and honest about his or her feelings.  But openness and honesty cannot be forced.  When you presume to read the other person’s feelings, it's as if you're forcing him or her to strip naked.  Then very quickly, you have that nasty control issue in the way.  And out comes the resentment.

  

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.net or by phone or text at 501-623-2050.
 

     If you like Dr. Rosen's Reaching Up column, you are free to share it with other people. There is no fee for this column. It's free. If you're not on the list to receive it, just send an email that says "Please Send Column" in the subject line. You will receive a new column each Sunday.  If you are on the list and you don't want to receive Dr. Rosen's column anymore, just send him an email that says "Stop Column" in the subject line.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Okay

Here's a good one,,,,

The world of the schizophrenic and the world of the mystic are of the same dimension. It's not either/or. It's all of the above,,,,

• Delusions are the imagination running amok.
• Astral Beings exist as well

 

 

 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Poem by Red Hawk.

Inspired by Lao Tsu's

Tao Te Ching

The greatest love seems indifferent

 

The greatest love is Holy, and

wholly impartial, which does not mean

cold, uncaring; it means

 

without judgement, indifferent

regarding the arising of phenomena;

it loves all equally, beggar

 

and saint, friend, and enemy.

The fool says he is "in love"

which is how fear distorts relationship:

 

the mind seeks an object to focus on;

it seeks to claim and control, and

it calls this love.

 

The greatest love is without preference,

Emptiness showering its fullness:

the Sun warms flower and beast alike,

 

shines its light upon the darkest heart.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up    
  "Pills Don't Teach Skills"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen    

    Pills don't teach you how to like yourself.  They don't show you how to manage stress.  They don't instruct you on how to be more assertive.  If you want to be healthy, you have to live a healthy lifestyle.  Pills make the pharmaceutical companies filthy rich, but they don't guide you into a healthy lifestyle.  They don't teach you self-esteem or how to relax or how to get rid of painful emotions.  They don't educate you in relationship and communication skills.  Pills don't give your life purpose or meaning.  They don't teach you fulfillment or enjoyment or how to develop a support group.  They don't give you control over your own life.  Pills take away a few symptoms and then give you other symptoms (called "side effects").  But pills don't teach you how to get rid of anxiety, how to overcome depression, how to control anger, or how to be a more effective parent.  Pills don't teach skills, period.

  

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.netor by phone or text at 501-623-2050.
 

    If you like Dr. Rosen's Reaching Up column, you are free to share it with other people. There is no fee for this column. It's free. If you're not on the list to receive it, just send an email that says "Please Send Column" in the subject line. You will receive a new column each Sunday.  If you are on the list and you don't want to receive Dr. Rosen's column anymore, just send him an email that says "Stop Column" in the subject line.

[Zigzag Idiot]

“We’re all fucked up.”  ?

“Hatred is perfectly normal.” ?

“Be kind to yourself.” ?✌️

[Zigzag Idiot]

 Periodically I get hit with overwhelming depression. Yesterday was one of those days. And some early this morning reading Bernadette Roberts, contemporary Christian mystic. The material she had written had to do with some of the very trying times which are encountered in our inner world,, when we are confused and hurting. The existential angst that may appear in our lives for no reason at all. Or to me that's how it has seemed on some occasions when I have really felt overburdened and overwhelmed. Fortunately as I have grown older these periodic bouts of severe depression have grown a lot fewer and probably less intense. 

it's amazing how much difference there can be in just a couple of days time. Often a long nights sleep with a very active dream pattern is the thing which lifts the distress and heavy mood for me. Whenever these one of these spells shows up and kicks the shit out of me. I find myself having a little more compassion towards whoever it may be that I encounter in life.

I share this now in case there are any readers who are 'going through the shit'. Just hang on. It will get better,,,, It can help a lot to find some kind of activity to " break the worry cycle", as transpersonal psychologist Charles Tart puts it. 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Man is never helped in his suffering by what he thinks for himself, but only by revelation of a wisdom greater than his own.  It is this which lifts him out of his distress.

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

 

Truth

Only that truth which is recognized by all can become a fellow-being.

You should grow up around your grievous mistakes like a tree, and let them be, until one day they become a part of your strength, and they no longer hinder your ascent.

Thinking is a force, feeling leads to new motivations.

Remain receptive to both and truth will become attainable.

Truth is that knowledge which becomes one with being.

You will become one with being when all of your burdens and loves, objects and fears, sorrows and joys have found their place in the whole.

 

Joy and Sadness

Sorrow originates when false thoughts supplant those things that are right, and a shadow realm comes to represent the being.

Joy is wakefulness in love.

Sorrow is the precondition of joy, not because there need exist an antithesis to joy, but because no one can let himself fall deep enough without sorrow.

by Arnold Keyserling

from; https://schoolofwisdom.com/visions-and-poems/from-dark-to-life/ 

[Zigzag Idiot]

I remember my little 5 year old self riding in the back of my mother's Oldsmobile. We had been out to my Grandparent's house that was about 15 miles southwest from our home. My sister was recovering from chicken pox and it was going through all the local schools. I was in kindergarten at the time. The talk that day had mostly been about chickenpox and how bad it got with some children. The fever and the terrible itching that accompanied the illness. On the ride  home in the back seat I remember jumping up, raising my right arm with pointed finger and declaring in a loud voice, "I AM NOT GOING TO GET CHICKENPOX!"

I remember my mother from time to time over the years recounting my emotional declaration that day to others. What made it rememberable was the fact that I never did get chickenpox.     

Looking back and pondering what took place in my mind is a simple phenomena comprised of  two ingredients. The placebo effect combined with strong emotional intent.

I've also oftentimes wondered why doesn't it work more often. Intuition or some other faint voice tells me it's a lack of purified wholehearted intent. Something like that anyway. That when I've tried to manifest without success. Somewhere in my being there is a division within or a vague doubt,,, 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Reaching Up    
  "What Does It Mean to Have Peace of Mind?"
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen    

    It means that you express the feeling of peace toward yourself and toward your brothers and sisters.  You are not at war with the world or yourself.  You are not in a state of conflict with yourself and others.  You want to learn and grow.  Indeed, you strive to learn and grow.  But you do not point the finger at your own mistakes or those of others.  You look right past the mistakes to the inner beauty.  You recognize that the outward picture of a person is just that.  So you look past the picture and see the spark of goodness in all.  And because you do, you see with clarity what we really are.  And you give peace and gratitude to what we really are.  When you stray from peace and gratitude, you renew your focus on what is real and good in us.  And you do it with patience.

  

    Dr. Jim Rosen is a PhD Clinical Psychologist.  He is an experienced psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and couples counselor.  He offers treatment for anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, relationship problems, self-esteem issues, assertiveness training, anger control, stress management, and overcoming the effects of sexual, physical, and emotional trauma.
 

    Dr. Rosen works with his patients primarily over the phone.  When needed, face-to-face therapy sessions can be scheduled in his home in Magnet Cove, Arkansas.  Because he does not accept insurance, his fee is only $60 for a full 50-minute hour of treatment.  He can be reached anytime by email at drjrosen@ipa.netor by phone or text at 501-623-2050.