Filter Your Thoughts

When your brain and self are growing, you thrive. An even more fundamental question then arises: Is your soul growing? Is your spiritual growth moving forward? There is an outer growth of the brain and self as well as an inner growth of the soul or spirit. Both inner and outer powerfully affect the brain. It's been a shock to many brain scientists that spirituality has a profound effect on the brain and cognition. After all, most neuroscientists look for material causes to produce brain effects, so dismissed spirituality out of hand. Use motivational hooks. You know what pushes your loved one's buttons and what catches his interest. Use this knowledge to plan what you will say and how you will say it. Make it easy for him to say yes. I'm seeing someone who is helping me think about our marriage in a positive way. Maybe you'd like to come with me for a session? This presentation probably would get a better reception, knowing as you do that he is worried about your marriage, as opposed to You need to see someone about your drug problem. Other hooks could include proposing a consultation (versus starting treatment); Look for hooks in your Behavior Analysis from article 2 (articles 67-68) as well. When you considered negative consequences of your loved one's use, which ones did you asterisk because you thought he would agree? It thrives on being inconsolable. When you have Neptune in Scorpio, you experience grief and loss on a profound level. You can't help it.

Which is why you know it's better to plunge into the abyss than it is to forestall it through drugs, alcohol, or meds. Give yourself over to heartbreak and trust in the capacity of the soul to heal itself. Emotions left to run their course often run their course wisely. Scorpio Neptune . Sensitizes: Scorpio Suns by making them forgiving. Mystifies: Libra and Sagittarius Suns when it hides the answers in plain sight. Inspires: Virgo and Capricorn Suns by getting them to go deeper. But the past couple of decades have produced hundreds of studies that show a powerful impact on brain health from a person's spiritual life. Not only do people's spiritual lives affect their brains, spiritual practice has a greater impact on brain health than almost anything else. There are two distinct types of spiritual practice that have very dramatic, powerful effects on neurogenic rates, hippocampal health, and memory and mood. There are other spiritual factors that strongly impact how your brain engages the world that also carry significant neurogenic benefits. Throughout the ages, the wise of all cultures have declared that spirit is the source of existence. Our most essential identity is spiritual. At the deepest level we are not this surface body, heart, and mind, but a soul or spiritual being. As detailed more fully in article 3, Holistic Healing of Anxiety, the soul is viewed as our deepest identity in traditions of the Personal Divine (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and the bhakti traditions of Hinduism), whereas spirit is how this deepest spiritual identity is viewed in traditions of the Impersonal Divine (Buddhism, Taoism, Advaita Vedanta). Both traditions see that the foundation of human consciousness is soul or spirit, a self-existent bliss, love, light, and peace that far exceeds any sensory or ego pleasure. Spiritual practice brings this inner light to the surface so the outer ego or self becomes more purified, calm, silent. In the example we gave, Janie knew that both she and her husband, Oscar, worried about their finances. She also knew that Oscar was a numbers guy who would feel more comfortable talking about numbers than feelings. Janie did a little math in order to present treatment options to Oscar in terms of how much less they would cost than the money they currently spent on substances.

He hadn't considered it because he hadn't known it existed. Have treatment options (plural) ready. Because motivation fluctuates, it's helpful to do research and make contact with viable treatment facilities beforehand, in preparation to seize a good moment. This is why we preceded this article with the one on Treatment Options. When the moment comes, having more than one option will lessen pushback and increase the chances of forward movement. This changes the conversation from yes/no (where a single no can shut down the discussion) to a range of possibilities to consider. Of course, a person can still answer none of the above, but a menu of options is harder to dismiss, invites participation, and promotes collaboration. Deceives: Leo and Aquarius Suns with lies they tell themselves. Glamorizes: Cancer and Pisces Suns by adding to their mystique. Is anyone's guess with: Aries and Gemini Suns because it won't let them shut off their feelings. Sometimes good because it keeps them emotionally present, sometimes bad when it gets to be too much. Opposes: Taurus Suns. You see others as having something to hide. When Neptune is opposite your Sun sign, you don't connect to its energy naturally, and you will always be misled until you do. The best way to engage this energy is to take everything with a grain of salt. It's not that people are out to mislead you. Often they have things going on in their life that they're reluctant to share, which is why you want to let them come to you when they're ready to divulge all. The more this inner peace, joy, and love infuse the ego or self, the better you feel and the greater the inner resilience against outer storms and suffering. All the world's spiritual traditions affirm that this universe is fundamentally a spiritual creation. Happiness and fulfillment come as a person aligns with this larger spiritual reality.

The realization of your spiritual center of love, peace, and light is the goal of spiritual practice and, for most people, a lifetime endeavor (at least). Spiritual practice allows the experience of soul or spirit to be more and more a part of daily life. Spiritual Practices to Help with Cognitive Decline Mindfulness practices and heart-opening practices have been the focus of concerted neuroscience research. Both show profound effects on the brain. Both are highly neurogenic. Neuroscientific studies of meditation took time to appear. Timing matters. As with any positive communication, there will be better and worse opportunities to suggest treatment; Some general pointers for timing the conversation: There's a greater chance at those times for irritability, guilt, reactivity, and instability. These include times when your loved one is feeling particularly remorseful in the wake of a substance-related crisis or when someone has said something to him about his use that has given him pause. Windows can happen at positive moments too, like when he expresses interest in your therapy or curiosity about changes he has seen in you--for example, if you started exercising or he noticed you seem calmer. At these times he may be more receptive to the idea of joining you, because he can see the upsides of making changes. If she gets irritable when she's hungry, talk to her after a meal. If she needs time to decompress after work, don't pounce on her when she walks in the door. If she is less guarded when you're in the car or walking the dog, plan your communication for then. That said, you still have to protect your interests. They may mean well, but their unconscious motives may not. NEPTUNE IN SAGITTARIUS (1970-1984)

You have always believed in the power of prayer. It guides you when you've lost your way, consoles you in times of sorrow, binds you to the people who touch your life, and sometimes even answers back. You may not have the clearest idea of who you're praying to, but you do know that the Universe is sentient and not just some exhalation of stars that came into being billions of year ago only to be sucked back up into a gaping black hole. There is meaning in it all. You may never grasp what that meaning is, but you don't have to understand it to know that you are living in it. Affirmations, mantras, rituals, and daily devotionals are important to you. They're your way of aligning yourself. For a long period, meditation held no interest for neuroscience researchers because to someone observing a person meditating, it looks like nothing is happening. The person is just sitting there. But if you meditate, you understand that a great deal is happening inwardly. Meditation is a highly dynamic state. It finally took neuroscientists who were also meditators to start investigating the effects of meditation. When they published their findings, they showed such astonishing results that brain research on meditation took off. There are now thousands of studies showing powerful effects of meditation on the brain. Among the most surprising findings is that these meditation practices rapidly increase neurogenic rates along the entire length of the hippocampus. Most interventions will increase neurogenesis and synaptogenesis along one side or the other. Antidepressants, for example, work by increasing neurogenesis along the side of the hippocampus that regulates emotion but not the side involved in cognition. The more you can see it from his point of view, the better you'll anticipate timing that could work for or against your purpose. No matter how strongly you feel that this subject is more important than something she wants to watch on TV, finding a time that doesn't conflict with something else she wants to do will avoid unnecessary antagonism and improve your chances of success. It matters when you are feeling calm, optimistic, warm, and balanced.