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Articles by Adele McDowell

Browse published articles attributed to Adele McDowell, with full-archive search.

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By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Five Ways to Deal with an Emotional Hangover

Ever have one of those weeks when there is palpable, anger-inciting tension between you and a family member? Or you have had a crushing misunderstanding with one of your dearest friends? Or there is an incident at work that has had you mumbling obscenities under your breath and double-checking your pension benefits? As a result of some emotionally incendiary experience where you feel wronged, not valued, misunderstood, or crossed, you can often find your self on one wild ride of emotions.

Primary topic: Hope

8,676 views★ 3.8 (5)

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Help, I fell off my yoga mat

Ever have one of those days? You are brimming with newly found motivation and re-aligned resolution. You haven’t even walked out of the door, yet, and the thought of what you are going to accomplish has you filled with button-bursting pride. You are puffed up with purpose. You are ready to course correct. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. By sheer force of will and determination coupled with the fact that you have crossed that ultimate threshold: your clothes have shrunk, you get up and go to the gym.

Primary topic: Hope

4,715 views★ 4.8 (5)

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

50 Ways to Feed Your Soul

Remember Paul Simon’s song, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”? It’s a catchy tune, right? In fact, can you see me humming? I am loosely, very loosely, borrowing the concept. Instead of talking about ditching your lover, I am going for a gentler, happier thought and want to consider: 50 ways to feed ...Remember Paul Simon’s song, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”? It’s a catchy tune, right? In fact, can you see me humming? I am loosely, very loosely, borrowing the concept.

Primary topic: Hope

11,518 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Call back your spirit or die

Have you ever heard a story so powerful that it reverberated loudly through your interior landscape? Or it stopped you cold in your tracks and made you think – hard – about your life? I did in 1994, and it’s still with me today. For weeks and weeks after attending a professional conference where I first heard this story, I told everyone I encountered this tale. And I mean everyone.

Primary topic: Hope

10,817 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Anatomy of Betrayal

A face reader once told me that I had kind eyes, a strong jaw, a good forehead, in fact, an excellent forehead, an emotional nose, and, more pointedly, that I absolutely could not handle betrayal.

Primary topic: Hope

10,068 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Are you suffering from spiritual depression?

Every have one of those seemingly endless stretches of time, when it feels as if all your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went? You are not sick, per se. You just don’t give a damn anymore. Nothing matters much.

Primary topic: Hope

8,887 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Is Being Sensitive a Blessing or a Curse?

There is the almost eye-roll and rather superior voice that announces to you, as if you were not aware, that you’re so-o-o-o sensitive. The implication is that this is not a good thing. You are somehow defective For years, I felt they were right. I was the one feeling all the bumps in the road, and they were cruising along in shock-absorbed comfort. What was wrong with me?

Primary topic: Hope

8,509 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

The Shaman, mystic and psychotic

It sounds like the beginning of one of those three person jokes, i.e., the shaman, the mystic and the psychotic walked into a bar. But this isn’t a joke; this is more of a pondering aloud on the line between sanity and insanity, delusion and reason. What prompted these ponderings was that I had to hospitalize someone this week. As a psychologist with a high functioning caseload, hospitalizations happen infrequently. They are not the norm for me. I always feel like a little part of me has died when the deed is done, and the patient has been admitted into the local psychiatric hospital.

Primary topic: Hope

8,178 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

How do you make sense of a sudden death?

The question, itself, must be a Zen koan, because, really, there is no answer to sudden death. There is no making sense of the unreal, surreal, or unbelievable. Yet, it happens, day in and day out. Unfortunately, this week, I have had two poignant reminders of this very fact.

Primary topic: Hope

8,142 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***A psychologist’s suicide

The word came last week that a friend and colleague, a clinical psychologist, had committed suicide. She had suffered a hammering of profound losses and fell into a deep hole of depression. She had placed herself in good professional hands, was hospitalized for two weeks, and released with medications and a discharge summary that she, herself, could have written. She, later, took her life by overdose.

Primary topic: Hope

5,558 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Overworked? Seven strategies to help you cope

A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.

Primary topic: Hope

5,287 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Relationships Are Our Greatest Spiritual Teachers

You cannot escape relationships. They are everywhere. They are the connective tissue of life. Be it friend, spouse, child, sibling, coworker, or neighbor, life is filled with relationships of varying dimensions, connections, and intensities. Each of us is a product of some kind of connection. In fact, we are born into Relationship 101, a.k.a. our family, which serves as our first social unit and school for our first lessons in interpersonal dynamics. This is where personality styles are formed, and family roles are acquired.

Primary topic: Hope

5,127 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Review: Medical Renaissance Series: The Secret Code (DVD) by C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.

Harvard-trained neurosurgeon and founder of the American Holistic Medical Association, C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D. has created a documentary film, “Medical Renaissance Series: The Secret Code.” It is well worth a viewing.

Primary topic: Hope

4,692 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Messages from the Other Side

Once upon a time, a woman, let’s call her Shirley, lost her husband to the ravages of cancer. It had been a long and arduous battle. Shirley was completely depleted on every level. After the funeral service, everyone returned to the house. The coffee pot was plugged in; neighbors brought in food. Shirley excused herself from the din of family and friends and retreated to her bedroom, whereupon she fell into their king-size marital bed. She was utterly devastated and was totally lost without her husband, Charlie.

Primary topic: Hope

4,598 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Joan Pancoe: Portrait of a NYC Psychic

Are you a curious type? Do you ever wonder how someone becomes an intuitive, and what their life has been like? Allow me to introduce you to Joan Pancoe, a psychic, trance channel, and karmic astrologer in New York City since 1976. Recently, Joan gifted me a good portion of her afte oon to quiz her about her life, times, and spiritual jou ey. After walking through her apartment where her original works of art ado the walls, we settled ourselves amidst the surprising greenery and playful statuary of her secret garden, deep within the heart of NYC’s East Village.

Primary topic: Hope

4,597 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Soul Survivor: The Reinca ation of a World War II Fighter Pilot

Do you believe in reinca ation? Past lives? A regular, hard-working, church-going couple, Andrea and Bruce Leininger were faced with these very questions when their two-year-old son, James, began have unremitting nightmares and shouting the words, “Plane on fire! Little man can’t get out!”

Primary topic: Hope

4,305 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Pay It Forward

Someone wise once said, “If you have much, give your wealth; if you have little, give your heart.” And here is the perfect occasion: Thursday, April 28 is inte ational Pay It Forward Day. Based on the 2000 movie of the same name, Pay It Forward is the concept of doing a good deed for another.

Primary topic: Hope

4,115 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Thank You, God, for My Fears

Do you know those moments when you are driving in the car and you find yourself knee-deep in reverie? These are moments when, out of nowhere, you find yourself long in thought; it’s as if you have made a U-tu into the underground waters of your psyche. Maybe it’s the constancy of the rhythmic motion that lulls you into a semi-trance state or, perhaps, it’s the sound of wheels in a circular song that rests your overactive mind.

Primary topic: Hope

4,112 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Ernest Hemingway, Oprah, and my new spiritual discipline

“For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” That’s how it started. Those six words, we are told, are the shortest of Hemingway’s short stories. And those provocative words inspired Smith Magazine writer and editor, Larry Smith to challenge his Smith Magazine web readers to describe their lives in a mere six words. This was November, 2006, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Primary topic: Hope

4,108 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Five ways to be happier, steadier, and more balanced in today’s upside-down world

Can you remember when you last felt happy, really happy? Would you like to feel steadier in a healthy, mind-body way that does not involve pharmaceuticals? Is straddling a teeter-totter the last time you consciously considered balance in your life?

Primary topic: Hope

4,089 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Help, it's Dark in Here

Do you ever have one of those days, weeks, or, even, years when it feels nothing is going your way? There is no break from the gods. In a word, you would say that your life stinks, and it stinks out loud. I have recently had a number of conversations with folks who are finding themselves, metaphorically speaking, in the dark. And it’s no fun. In fact, it’s quite painful.

Primary topic: Hope

4,082 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Are you Jesus?

I didn’t realize it at first, but they happened on the same day.

Primary topic: Hope

4,030 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Were you Cleopatra?

Or, maybe, Julius Caesar or William Shakespeare or Marie Antoinette? Discussions of past lives are often met with a bit of a smirk. Do you really believe? And the answer is, “Yes, I do.” I look at past life information in a number of different ways. It serves as a teacher; it explains talents, predispositions and interests; it illuminates personal archetypal patterns; and it expands our consciousness beyond the three-dimensional being we are at this moment and, thereby, enhances our soul growth.

Primary topic: Hope

3,937 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

The Tao of 007

I like James Bond. I like him for all the obvious reasons. He is dashing, witty, intelligent, sexy, fun, etc., but it's his less obvious qualities that make me a hard-core admirer.

Primary topic: Hope

3,894 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

You lost hope

Years ago, a shaman looked at me and said, “You lost hope. You should never lose hope.” He was right -- and, boy, did I hate that. I have a long history of unflappable optimism. I’m able to make copious amounts of lemonade. I pride myself on my out-of-the-box thinking. But the shaman was right; at that moment in time, I had lost hope. I was standing smack in the middle of a dead-end with no openings in sight. My world had become small and limited. I was in a dim, airless box and I saw no way out.

Primary topic: Hope

3,882 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Welcome, Class, to Advanced Uncertainty

Is your world more down than up? Has sideways become your new vertical? Have your health, sanity, relationships, future plans, money, housing and/or employment conce s been in bucking-bronco states of flux? Have global warming, political warring, economic forecasting, ecological nightmares and cresting costs-of-living upped your blood pressure, lowered your sleep quotient and played havoc with your moods? Are you cranky, hypervigilant and more fearful than you care to admit? Is it mind-numbing to ascertain what is or what isn't dangerous in your food, environment or medicine cabinet?

Primary topic: Hope

3,862 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

In a spiritual funk, untethered and free falling?

Ever felt like you were falling through space? Everything that held you and tethered you has disappeared and evaporated. You are simply bobbing in the cosmos awaiting your next signal. You look to the right; you look to the left. Up, down, over and around, yet, there is no sign indicating your new direction. You are all dressed up and with no place to go. Your foot tap, tap, taps restlessly on the edge of the galaxy. Is anybody home?

Primary topic: Hope

3,768 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***The stuckness of spiritual depression

Every have one of those seemingly endless stretches of time, when it feels as if all your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went? You are not sick, per se. You just don’t give a damn anymore. Nothing matters much.

Primary topic: Hope

3,745 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Have I Missed the Boat to Enlightenment?

I was at a workshop recently where a spiritual teacher made a statement that has been rattling around my cranium for a number of days. Now, mind you, this is not the first time I have heard this statement, but, perhaps, I had reached the tipping point vis-à-vis this information and could no longer just puff up indignantly. I needed to give this some serious thought.

Primary topic: Hope

3,701 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Five ways to deal with today’s chaotic energies

Can you feel the energies bumping up against you? One minute, you feel pushed; the next minute, pulled. One minute, you’re ok, and the next minute, you’re not. It’s chaotic out there. Our world is in flux; nothing feels normal anymore. Disasters are becoming way too familiar, and terra firma is not feeling so firm anymore. We have become unwitting surfers of ever-surprising shock waves of turmoil and disorder.

Primary topic: Hope

3,667 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***The wandering brain finds happiness

A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.

Primary topic: Hope

3,614 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

The weight of wait

Like Oprah, I have spent my life dealing with weight and have recently regained once-lost avoirdupois. I hate that. I end up hating myself and then it’s that all-too-familiar battle of up and down, Monday is a new start, last hoorah Sundays and so forth in a addictive cycle that has its roots in both biochemistry and emotion.

Primary topic: Hope

3,524 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Have you read The Shack?

This is a book that has generated a great deal of conversation. Some love it; some hate it. For over a year, The Shack by Wm. Paul Young has been on The New York Times bestseller list. Young wrote this book as a Christmas gift for his six children. He also shared a few copies with friends and was urged to consider a wider audience. So, Young collaborated with two former pastors, Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, and they tightened up the book and looked for publishers. None, neither secular nor religious, was interested.

Primary topic: Hope

3,458 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

What Happened to My Epiphany?

What happened to my epiphany? I just had it. I know it was here. It had lit up my mind and thumped my heart with excitement. It has been with me a mere few days, and, now, it is gone. It has vamoosed and high-tailed it out of my life. I am heart sick. I want my epiphany back. It felt so right. It fit so perfectly. I felt aligned, in tune and inspired. It was a wonderful thing while it lasted

Primary topic: Hope

3,444 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Tired and cranky? Time for a vacation?

Have you met anyone recently who isn’t tired? It seems to be a national, if not inte ational, pandemic. Most everyone is a bleary-eyed, caffeinated automaton who is putting one cranky foot down after the other. Even the kids with their over-scheduled days and burgeoning back-packs can ... Have you met anyone recently who isn’t tired? It seems to be a national, if not inte ational, pandemic. Most everyone is a bleary-eyed, caffeinated automaton who is putting one cranky foot down after the other. Even the kids with their over-scheduled days and burgeoning back-packs can relate.r

Primary topic: Hope

3,377 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Hey, it's scary out there

Eating tranquilizers, pounding Jack, inhaling carbs? Do you need to be sedated before you watch the evening news? Do you come home from work black, blue and bedraggled, feeling as if you have done a few rounds with the great Muhammad Ali? Has your relentless job hunting evolved into Groundhog Day revisited? Has chronic CNN and MSNBC watching given you PTSD? Is your life an episode of Survivor? Have you been known, from time to time, to take refuge on the floor of your closet?

Primary topic: Hope

3,318 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

But What About the God in Me?

It’s late at night. All around me is quiet and dark. I strike a match; the friction is amplified by the stillness. The match sparks with the wick in a bubble of flame, and shadows dance on the ceiling. The room fills with soft, yellow light. My eyes adjust, and I can make out the edges and contours before me.

Primary topic: Hope

3,096 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Understanding Attention

In my gym, there are promo pieces that are played over the loud speaker. One such tag line is, “What gets measured gets improved.” The message is designed to encourage the clientele to get body fat levels measured and, ultimately, be inspired – or, more likely, shocked – and, as a result, hire a personal trainer. Actually, I like that tag line, but not for the reason intended. I think where we place our attention is a matter of serious consideration. Attention can be positive or negative. Like the old saying about children, any attention is better than no attention.

Primary topic: Hope

3,023 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Take god care

It started simply enough, a run of the mill typo. Instead of signing off with my usual “Take good care,” I had missed an “o” and written “Take god care.” I noticed right away, but opted not to correct my mistake. This was fun and, besides, I look for messages and meanings in almost everything and this was too good, or, maybe too God, to pass up. I told my friend, the recipient of the e-mail, that I was leaving my error as a more fitting closing.

Primary topic: Hope

3,014 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Got Stress?

Do you have a monkey mind that has run amok? Is there lots of chatter ricocheting around your cranium? Is there so much clamor and inte al conversation that it’s standing room only in your head? Like the deli counter, do you need to take a number to disce which inner voice has taken over ...

Primary topic: Hope

3,011 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Crazed by the holidays? Six steps to avoid overwhelm

OMG! The holidays are here. Are you ready? Good God, I’m not -- even though I swore up and down that I would be all wrapped and carded by Thanksgiving. Well, such is the way of my good intentions when life does life. I am guessing you can relate. It’s not too late to find help. Here are six good ideas to help you that find that channel of peace and good will. Hopefully, these will bring you comfort and joy -- and, hey, a little relief, too. Keep the lid on your box of expectations.

Primary topic: Hope

2,965 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Got Prayer?

Recently, I have been thinking about prayer and, more specifically, the human aspects of prayer. I am of the opinion that there is no right or wrong way to pray. I find prayer to be unique and idiosyncratic because prayer is predicated on our very human, one-to-one relationship with the divine. And, as we all well know, relationships may have similar patterns but they are forever individual

Primary topic: Hope

2,939 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Mental health needs a booster shot

The majority of mental health practices are deeply rooted in the medical model, knee-deep in the latest edition of the DSM to provide diagnostic labels and entrenched with pharmaceutical solutions. And much of this is aided and abetted by the insurance companies who look to quantify and contain mental health treatment within boxed minimums.

Primary topic: Hope

2,905 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Everyday peace

I’m of the Viet Nam and Kent State generation and can remember the feel of singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” The swaying bodies, the deep resonance, the fervent belief that if peace were found – because, oh so, certainly, it had been lost – then the world would be right. I was ...I’m of the Viet Nam and Kent State generation and can remember the feel of singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” The swaying bodies, the deep resonance, the fervent belief that if peace were found – because, oh so, certainly, it had been lost – then the world would be right.

Primary topic: Hope

2,856 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***A lesson in grief

This summer, I had the opportunity to visit sunny, palm-treed southern Califo ia, where it kisses the blue, blue of the Pacific Ocean. It is a beautiful part of the world. I had the great honor and privilege of presenting my new work -- and still in-process book – Making Peace with Suicide at The 2012 Compassionate Friends (TCF) annual national and inte ational (once every four years, like Olympics) conference in Costa Mesa, Califo ia.

Primary topic: Hope

2,855 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

Are you ready for a life review?

When we pass over, we are welcomed by loved ones. We are also given the opportunity -- in the presence of a guardian angel type -- to review our life. I imagine the the angel says something like, "Let's roll the videotape" and every frame of our life unfolds before us. We each get to see where we acted with grace and where we fell short.

Primary topic: Hope

2,781 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***This year, I choose surrender

My dear pal, Debbie, passed along this birthday ritual. On your birthday, you choose one word to be your focus for the coming year. Once, I chose the word “sparkle” – just the thought of it made me happy. This year, my word arrived unbidden with cat-like stealth and sure-footed certainty. It pounced into my psyche and claimed its space. Immediately, I knew this was my word for my 60th year. This year, I have chosen “surrender.”

Primary topic: Hope

2,767 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

And the signs say, "Don't Push"

I am a woman who believes that there are messages in everything. In other words, everything is symbolic to me. So, what am I to think when 10 days before I head to my long-awaited, greatly-anticipated trip to the UK, I fall into a small well on uneven pavement – a hole, if you will – after a day full of clients? Grace in action, I am not. My fall necessitated wheelchair services at both JFK and Heathrow. Those are humbling experiences. A friend asked, “Why didn’t you cancel your trip?” I responded, “It never dawned on me.”

Primary topic: Hope

2,746 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

***Chocolate, tantrums and salvation

My inner child has run amok. She wants nothing to do with restriction, rules and can’t-have’s. She wants chocolate and French fries and a loaf of toast. She is acting out big-time.

Primary topic: Hope

2,741 views

By Adele McDowellRecently published1 topic

The Three Toms

Recently, a very dear friend of mine lost three relatives -- her 30 year old nephew, 96 year old uncle, and 62 year old brother, in that order. They died within a mere six weeks of one another. All were named Tom. The causes of death: murder, the complications of old age, and a sudden heart ...Recently, a very dear friend of mine lost three relatives -- her 30 year old nephew, 96 year old uncle, and 62 year old brother, in that order. They died within a mere six weeks of one another. All were named Tom. The causes of death: murder, the complications of old age, and a sudden heart attack.

Primary topic: Hope

2,706 views

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