We have known both anecdotally and from experience that people who are hopeful and optimistic generally do better in life. The science of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI or mind/body/spirit medicine) has provided scientific corroboration to that historical data.

Thirty years ago the distinguished sociologist Lionel Tiger wrote in his book, that optimistic people, those who believe they will be successful, actually are more likely to achieve their dreams (Optimism: The Biology of Hope, Kodansha, 1979). Hope, he said, is an evolutionary tendency that promotes survival.

Now Harvard Psychology Professor Daniel Gilbert Ph.D., an influential researcher in what makes people happy, tells us optimism promotes one’s psychological immune system. In his new book, Stumbling on Happiness (Knopf, 2006), he says even when what we’re thinking is a fantasy, it’s still good for the spirit. As a matter of fact, Gilbert tells us, just the right amount of delusion is mentally healthy.

Mentally healthy people are convinced they can influence the outcome of their lives, even when they suffer from serious traumas and illnesses. He cites Christopher Reeves with his severe spinal cord injury, and Lance Armstrong with metastatic testicular cancer, both of whom believed they could do something to determine their destiny and they did.

Depressed people don’t make those kinds of cognitive errors. Depressives recognize the limitations and the illusions for what they are. Gilbert says they foster ways of keeping their thermostat at a steady state of pessimism and hopelessness.

Last week I deluded myself into feeling happy, in spite of my despair about the current political scene. Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, who impressed me when he addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2004, was in Phoenix last week to sell his new book, Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Crown, 2006). For $35 you could listen to Obama speak and get a copy of his book. By the time I called, the event was sold out and ticket scalpers were getting $150 apiece.


Into the heartland of conservative Republicanism comes Barack Obama, an articulate, bright, visionary who likes to laugh, and for whom Washington has not yet diluted his enthusiasm. Barack believes his dream for America is that we can still generate hope for the world. 1000 people waited in line for hours to get his signature and I’m thinking maybe I need to be putting more effort into nourishing that dream. No more tears, fears, powerlessness and rage. I’m going to put a different energy out there as we approach Election Day. I want to believe that some day Obama could run for President.

Am I deluding myself into happiness?

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

I just read Kitty Dukakis’ new book (Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy, Avery/Penguin, September 2006) in which she wrote about her profound depression that responded only to electroconvulsive treatments (ECT). There are some 21 million American adults who suffer from depression, and 10-30 % of those people are said to be suffering from Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD). These are people whose depression is so profound they don’t leave their beds for years, or who have tried suicide many times. For them, ECT might be an option, but my concern is that this book will encourage more patients, less severely debilitated, to seek this drastic treatment course.

Since 2001, Kitty has had eight courses of ECT (each course could be 4 to 8 shock treatments), and she said it worked when nothing else did. She acknowledges that she can’t remember what she had for breakfast or her appointments, but she said it’s a price she has been willing to pay.

It is the promise of our Founding Fathers that Americans are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit happiness. It has become virtually un-American to feel anything but joy in every moment. New pills and procedures advertised directly to avid consumers promise rapid relief from any suffering, and we are seeing more people willing to trade potential long-term consequences for immediate relief.
Kitty had standard electroshock therapy applied directly to the brain, but there is now a miniaturized electric shock device, an electrical pulse generator that simulates the vagus nerve, called vagal nerve stimulation (VNS). The electrical impulse is produced by a pocket-watch sized device implanted in the chest that costs $15,000 and another $10,000 to surgically insert it. But long-term studies show that the vagal nerve stimulator shows no significant improvement over control groups that have not been stimulated.

My heart goes out to Kitty Dukakis; she has not had an easy life experientially or genetically. Before her TRD, Kitty had other serious psychiatric problems; she was addicted to amphetamines, then turned to alcohol, and was later diagnosed as manic-depressive for which she was prescribed lithium. I want to sound this cautionary note: when it comes to dealing with emotional pain and depression, drugs work much better in conjunction with psychotherapy and will relieve most clinical depression.


Work hard at finding inner peace before you become convinced that you need to obliterate your mind to get peace of mind.

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

My friend Beth sent me this e-mail last week:
“….you know, I read Wayne Dyer’s stuff and believe in the power of intention. I have watched the movies on the law of attraction and what the bleep. But how can all those ‘man controls his world’ concepts begin to explain a milkman tying up those little Amish girls and executing them. How did those little Amish girls attract that to themselves? How do children in Dafur ‘intend’ for those kinds of things to happen? Where then do these laws apply? Or is it just more snake oil?”

I didn’t respond to Beth for a while, because I don’t know what I believe anymore. I do believe in the principles of attraction and intention. I believe we can influence our destiny and research shows that people who believe they can do things are more likely to succeed. And, conversely, people who believe they will fail find ways to sabotage their success. People who believe they will have pain after surgery actually require more post-operative analgesics. But influencing one’s destiny is different than determining it, and there are limits to how much control we have over our lives; some things cannot be explained.

There are times I wake up and believe everything in the world is connected. We live in an interrelated universe of quantum principles where the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Hawaii can cause a tidal wave in Thailand; and even when the cosmic connections are not obvious, they are simply waiting to be discovered.

Then there are those times I wake up to greet a day with stories of the Amish school tragedy, the brutalized child-soldiers in Africa, or the starving children in Dafur, and I think nothing is connected. Stuff happens . . . you happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and you get nailed and the “laws” of attraction and intention can’t be evoked. The world is not your oyster waiting to be plucked by good intentions, but rather an accident waiting to happen. We don’t attract airplanes into office buildings, bombs in public buildings, or crazy killers in schoolrooms; they are random events.

I watched the TV coverage of the horror in Lancaster County and saw the family members of the victims going to the murderer’s funeral. I watched the bearded men in their wide-brimmed hats and women in long black dresses, riding in their horse-drawn buggies to attend his service and start a fund for his family. These plain folk, leading a technology-resistant life in a community of shared faith, were clip-clopping past the school where a couple of weeks ago those kids without laptops or electricity sang every morning to start the day. I cried at the senseless killing and at the profundity of their beliefs. This act of forgiveness toward his wife and children is a living testimony to the substance of their beliefs: all rests in the hands of God. In this simple act, I find myself believing again that maybe with intention we can create a world of peace.


Yesterday, ten days after the shootings at the West Nickel Mines Amish School, they tore down the bloodstained buildings and obliterated all traces where the five girls were killed. The Amish planted it with grass seed to make it a pasture, saying any kind of memorial would be too showy. Today I woke up thinking that, as long as that grass grows, I will be reminded not of bad things that happen or why, but rather how, in spite of them, people can come together in forgiveness. This gives me hope.

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

Last week, my wife faced big surgery — a total hysterectomy and related repair work. Elaine had put it off until after our travels, and it was clearly time. There were lots of relatives praying for her all over the world, and she felt well prepared and blessed.

Elaine’s hospital admission was pre-arranged so we went directly to the pre-op area where she put on that ridiculous hospital gown, and we waited. She wanted me to do a trance induction to help her participate fully in a positive outcome. We enclosed ourselves with those flimsy hanging curtains; I sat by her side and, like every good therapist, went into my own trance. Whenever you let your unconscious mind soar, you open up a channel to hearing and seeing things in a new way.

Holding her hand, I felt her spirit so intensely, and when I placed my other hand on her uterus, I saw the birthplace of our children. I told her I saw their faces and watched them grow up, literally, before my eyes . . . my fingers were tingling. I could feel my tears bubbling, long before they dropped silently onto my cheeks. My voice must have quavered because Elaine opened her eyes, and she was crying too.

We hugged each other, and I rambled on in trance that she was only giving up the place where our kids entered our lives. They are still around, we have a crop of new ones, and we’re by ourselves and still like being together. Can you imagine 45 years with the same person? (I can’t even imagine God having such an expectation.) It’s incredulous to me. We have survived, indeed thrived, together in life’s struggles: raising kids, facing disease, near-death experience, philosophical differences, and finding room to grow even if it meant exploring different spiritual paths. What saved us? We laughed a lot — a lot. Our kids laugh at us now. We have liked and respected each other always, and it’s never been boring.


Elaine put her finger to her lips, wiped my tears and said, “We’re so blessed to be here. This is how we began . . . no kids, no dogs, and the doctor says you’ll be happy with the kids’ room renovation.”

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

For ten days in Kauai, I basked in the glow of a loving community, and there were moments of absolute hilarity. When I met Philly’s sister for the first time the night before the wedding, she related her mother’s description of Elaine and me after our first meeting. Her mother said, “I’m not sure I can find the words, but did you ever see the movie Meet the Fockers?”

There were moments of panic: one son-in-law fell out the back of an open pick-up truck, sustained a head injury and was air-evac’d to Honolulu. Fortunately they didn’t have to operate, and he is recovering.

There were moments of tingling spiritual aliveness. I visited the sacred caves in Maha’ ulepu, where the noted Kahuna, Kapaka, saw healing visions in the billowing smoke of the fire he lit inside it. His remains are buried in this cave; I sang an honoring song and felt its reverberating hum in its ancient walls. I parked at Ke’e beach, where the famed Kalalau trail begins. It’s an eleven-mile, three-day trip if you want to see these gorgeous tropical jungles, valleys, and beaches on the exquisite Napali coast. I walked the first couple of miles intoxicated by the sweet fragrance of the rain forest, and watched dolphins leap in synchronous ballet while eating lunch.

When I returned to Ke’e beach, I swam with turtles. One came so close to me that I could look at it eye to eye. We hung on to each other; it spoke to me and said, “Don’t be afraid, we are blessed.”

We celebrated the Jewish New Year on a porch overlooking Hanalei Bay and Puff, the Magic Dragon. I listened to the Shofar blow its awesome rallying calls and said Mahalo (thank you). “Thank you for all that has been showered upon me, I am blessed, we are blessed.”

We left on a Sunday, ten days later, and on our way to the airport my wife threw our leis into the ocean. A Hawaiian good luck tradition. At the airport I indulged my addiction to the New York Times and was immediately sorry. Fourteen high-profile terrorists, previously secretly incarcerated in foreign prisons, were being moved to Guantanamo. The same paper reported that a Senate Intelligence Committee report had concluded Saddam Hussein not only didn’t have weapons of mass destruction or the capacity to produce them, but he was also distrustful of Al Qaeda and not an ally of the terrorist group. The committee issued a stark assessment of terrorism trends saying that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped create a generation of Islamic radicals, and the overall terrorist threat has actually grown since 9/11. From turtle eyes to the Bush Administration’s lies, I was transported in an instant into an angry, fearful, unhappy soul moved from a mentality of Mahalo to Guantanamo.

I’m moving back to Mahalo though. Today is the Day of Atonement in my tribe. We take a time out and breathe in the holy sounds of the ram’s horn and those of meditative silence. Take a break from the ordinary ways of seeing and move from sCared to saCred, (which is just another way of “C”ing).


We must move beyond the lies to see through turtle eyes.

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here

For ten days in Kauai, I basked in the glow of a loving community, and there were moments of absolute hilarity. When I met Philly’s sister for the first time the night before the wedding, she related her mother’s description of Elaine and me after our first meeting. Her mother said, “I’m not sure I can find the words, but did you ever see the movie Meet the Fockers?”


There were moments of panic: one son-in-law fell out the back of an open pick-up truck, sustained a head injury and was air-evac’d to Honolulu. Fortunately they didn’t have to operate, and he is recovering.

There were moments of tingling spiritual aliveness. I visited the sacred caves in Maha’ ulepu, where the noted Kahuna, Kapaka, saw healing visions in the billowing smoke of the fire he lit inside it. His remains are buried in this cave; I sang an honoring song and felt its reverberating hum in its ancient walls. I parked at Ke’e beach, where the famed Kalalau trail begins. It’s an eleven-mile, three-day trip if you want to see these gorgeous tropical jungles, valleys, and beaches on the exquisite Napali coast. I walked the first couple of miles intoxicated by the sweet fragrance of the rain forest, and watched dolphins leap in synchronous ballet while eating lunch.

When I returned to Ke’e beach, I swam with turtles. One came so close to me that I could look at it eye to eye. We hung on to each other; it spoke to me and said, “Don’t be afraid, we are blessed.”

We celebrated the Jewish New Year on a porch overlooking Hanalei Bay and Puff, the Magic Dragon. I listened to the Shofar blow its awesome rallying calls and said Mahalo (thank you). “Thank you for all that has been showered upon me, I am blessed, we are blessed.”

We left on a Sunday, ten days later, and on our way to the airport my wife threw our leis into the ocean. A Hawaiian good luck tradition. At the airport I indulged my addiction to the New York Times and was immediately sorry. Fourteen high-profile terrorists, previously secretly incarcerated in foreign prisons, were being moved to Guantanamo. The same paper reported that a Senate Intelligence Committee report had concluded Saddam Hussein not only didn’t have weapons of mass destruction or the capacity to produce them, but he was also distrustful of Al Qaeda and not an ally of the terrorist group. The committee issued a stark assessment of terrorism trends saying that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped create a generation of Islamic radicals, and the overall terrorist threat has actually grown since 9/11. From turtle eyes to the Bush Administration’s lies, I was transported in an instant into an angry, fearful, unhappy soul moved from a mentality of Mahalo to Guantanamo.

I’m moving back to Mahalo though. Today is the Day of Atonement in my tribe. We take a time out and breathe in the holy sounds of the ram’s horn and those of meditative silence. Take a break from the ordinary ways of seeing and move from sCared to saCred, (which is just another way of “C”ing).

We must move beyond the lies to see through turtle eyes.

Registered for the Healing Cafe? If not, click here