Release Your Mind

Regenerates: Taurus and Capricorn Suns because it will keep on keeping on. Is anyone's guess with: Aries and Aquarius Suns because it never rests on its laurels. Sometimes good because they will always work to improve a situation, sometimes bad because they rarely stand back and admire what they've done. Opposes: Pisces Suns. You see others as commandeering your life. When Pluto is opposite your Sun sign, you don't connect to its energy naturally, so you will always be overpowered by it until you do. The best way to engage this energy is to distinguish what's yours, mine, and ours. Extracts that decrease inflammation and are worth inviting into your daily diet, depending upon the degree of chronic inflammation in your body, include: Antioxidants: Gut friendly Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus reuteri reduces gut wall permeability, according to Swedish researchers. In animal and cell studies the following bacterial strains have helped heal a leaky intestinal membrane. The plantarum strain has been shown to be especially helpful in repairing tight junction integrity. Eating fermented foods like unsweetened yogurt and kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles builds new strains. Common forms of prebiotics include organic psyllium husks (4-5 capsules daily with a glass of water), FOS (fructooligosaccharides), GOS (galactooligosaccharides), XOS (xylooligosaccharides) as well as resistant starch. A product called ION Gut Health has been shown to repair and heal the tight junctions. Appendix B: That summer, Charlie agreed to outpatient treatment, which he attended regularly in the evenings after his job busing tables. Back at school the next year, he talked to a counselor once a week and his mood and attendance were much improved, but his parents couldn't stop worrying about the drugs. They called him several times a day to see how he was doing and whether he needed their assistance.

Charlie's counselor helped them see that his treatment was as much about learning how to live by himself--to plan his days, manage his time, do his laundry, and so on--as it was about his use of marijuana. Charlie's parents, meanwhile, had to learn new definitions of helping: believing in Charlie and giving him more room to help himself. Dealing with Relapse Relapse can be disastrous for some people, but for most people it is part of the process of learning how to live differently. It doesn't mean your loved one isn't making progress, and it doesn't mean he needs to go to rehab. It could mean either of those things, but it usually does not. For most friends and family members who naturally associate any return to old behaviors with the pain, frustration, fear, and anger of before, the possibility and reality of relapse are scary. The clearer you are about this, the more respectful the other person will be. Good fences make good neighbors because everyone knows where they stand. PLUTO IN LIBRA (1971/72-1983/84) Tolerance doesn't necessarily make you tolerant. It's like sitting down to tea with someone you can't stand. You go through the pleasantries of making conversation and passing the sugar, but it doesn't mean you'll grow to like each other. And that's all right because the fact that you're not at each other's throats is a victory in and of itself. The peace and harmony that Pluto in Libra brings is rarely popular or appealing. It doesn't have to be, as long as it succeeds in getting people to get along. Desegregation, assimilation, and affirmative action will always be hot-button topics, but we all know that something must be done to balance the scales for those who feel treated like second-class citizens. Meditation Practices There are a number of meditation practices that have been well-researched, have been shown to be neurogenic, and show strong anti-anxiety, antidepressant and cognitive benefits. Before jumping in, however, it's helpful to understand the larger spiritual landscape.

A Brief Note on the Spiritual Context The Perennial Philosophy consists of those core areas of agreement between all the world's traditions, first described by Aldous Huxley and developed by other philosophers such as Huston Smith. It points out that over the past few thousand years, two great streams of spirituality have emerged, which can be referred to as traditions of the Personal Divine and traditions of the Impersonal Divine. The West has been most influenced by traditions of the Personal Divine. The traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam view the Divine as a Personal Being. Much of the East, on the other hand, has been influenced by traditions of the Impersonal Divine: Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Taoism (although in India the Personal Divine traditions also hold powerful sway). These traditions view the Divine not as a Being but as pure Being itself, an infinite Impersonal consciousness. We hope that understanding that relapse is normal will make it less scary--enough that you won't perceive every slip as disastrous. This is for your sake, so that relapse is not more stressful than it has to be, and for your loved one's sake, because overreacting is not particularly useful to him. It's not all in the eye of the beholder, however. Here are some objective measures: A relapse is less worrisome when a) it is contained within a relatively short period of time (eg, one evening), b) the risk to his safety is low, and c) your loved one makes an effort to learn from it in treatment or some other setting, to understand why it happened and what he can do to make it less likely. It can be helpful to notice the overall trajectory and look for shorter lapses, more time in between, and less damage. You can impact how your loved one deals with lapsing or relapsing. An important concept in relapse prevention is the abstinence violation effect (AVE), by which a person assigns stable (This is who I am) and internal (I'm weak; I have no willpower) meaning to a lapse. These assumptions lead to negative feelings like shame and hopelessness and may actually increase the chances of a lapse becoming a full-blown relapse. Internally this translates to I've blown it, I might as well keep drinking. But scales are rarely static. The more one side rises, the lower the other side sinks until everything becomes a vicious circle. Equality isn't easy.

And then there's the bigger sticking point: What do you do with people and views that really shouldn't be tolerated? And that's where judgment comes in. Hopefully, in your efforts to improve society you don't become the very thing you're trying to rule out. Libra Pluto . Transforms: Libra Suns when they are equal parts just and compassionate. Torments: Virgo and Scorpio Suns by engaging in discussions for the sake of argument. Plays for keeps with: Leo and Sagittarius Suns because it's always about the principle of the thing. There are also traditions that hold both aspects of the Divine equally and declare the Divine to be both Personal and Impersonal, two sides of a single coin. Traditions of the Personal Divine view our deepest identity to be a soul that is utterly unique and, in non-dual understandings, a portion of the Divine Being. In these traditions the soul exists in a relationship of love to the Divine, and spiritual practices center on opening the heart so the soul's aspiration, love, devotion, and longing for the Divine can pour forth and lift the soul Godward. Traditions of the Impersonal Divine, on the other hand, see our deepest identity as spirit (atman or Buddha-nature) that is one with the infinite, impersonal consciousness. In these traditions, the spirit's identity is with the Divine, universal in all. Spiritual practices in these traditions center on mindfulness and using consciousness to discriminate between the real and the unreal. Both the traditions of the Personal Divine and Impersonal Divine declare the secret of life is not to be found on the surface level of this outer material world but at the most profound levels of inner consciousness, in union with the Divine or Spirit, the ground and source of this universe. Peace, love, light, joy flow from Spirit, the Divine. To the degree you are open to your inner being, peace and these other soul qualities can permeate the ego. When a person is cut off from this inner source, anxiety and suffering result. You may have these assumptions as well--He obviously doesn't care or He's just a drunk, so this is to be expected. Conversely, if you (and your loved one) remain hopeful about the progress he has made, and understand the process to be step-by-step learning that might include lapses, he will be less likely to despair. If you're calm and nonaccusatory, he will be less likely to minimize and defend his return to old behavior, more likely to reflect on the event and share the process with you (or at least with his treatment program), and more likely to invite your help to resume new behaviors and stay on track.

All the work you've done to avoid arguing, communicate positively, and reinforce positive behavior will support your involvement now. Keep Perspective on the Trajectory of Change If you drew a straight line from where your loved one started at the beginning of treatment to where she is now, does it generally point upward--even a tiny bit--or downward, or lie flat? Today could be a bad day relative to yesterday, or this week compared to three weeks ago, but if you can see the whole line and which way it's going, that is perspective. We wish we could bottle this one up and just give it to you, it is so important to the tenor of your relationship and to your own self-care. Perspective helps you stay calm in a momentary crisis; Where she's at should include a wider range of behaviors than substance use, though the latter is obviously important. Grapples with: Cancer and Capricorn Suns when it makes them bend the knee. Regenerates: Gemini and Aquarius Suns with every pledge they keep. Is anyone's guess with: Taurus and Pisces Suns because it never strays from the middle path. Sometimes good because they avoid extremes, sometimes bad because they come across as hedging their bets. Opposes: Aries Suns. You see others as didactic. When Pluto is opposite your Sun sign, you don't connect to its energy naturally, so you will always be overpowered by it until you do. The best way to engage this energy is to bring the conversation back to what's really going on. Feelings get disconnected once the jargon appears and people start backing up their cases as if they were in a court of law. Words can be a thin veil for what lies underneath. Or, if the inner being is able to pour its abundance into the surface being but the ego is so poorly organized that its inadequate self-soothing structures leak the peace like a sieve leaks water, then again anxiety and pain result. In this case, psychological work needs to complement spiritual practice. Spiritual deepening is not a mere belief or idea but a dynamic experiential reality.