INTEGRATIVE + ONLINE PSYCHIATRY + HOLISTIC HEALTH

Category: Commentary on Health and Well-being

Collage of impactful experience with pictures of ecstatic peak experience in natural setting, or with assistance, and traumatic life threatening events.

Impactful moments that critically affect life and well-being

Enlightening expansive experience can be an accelerator for change and growth

A dynamic, momentary, or more prolonged experience can alter and mold your life and its expression.

Any of us can recall certain impactful events that may have significantly impacted our life experiences and choices. Today, for instance, was boiling and muggy with overhead threatening storm clouds and a distant rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. It took my mind back to a past eventful summer’s day. I was seventeen and had worked hard that summer, earning enough to have my first car, and began dating my childhood sweetheart, my future wife. My older brother, who was working with a seasoned builder and involved with a construction project, hired me for the summer to assist the job superintendent with whatever help he needed. I felt both lucky and proud to be relied on for everything that came up. I remember one of the heavy equipment drivers who was always bragging about his smooth ways and dating life. He would tease me about being green behind the ears and maybe a little spoiled.

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Collage of pictures representing choosing and decision making, karma and result, and a building imploding, and woman of wisdom.

The Art of Decision-making for Successful Outcomes

My mother’s wise advice, the tragic vacation to see the Titanic wreckage, decision-making, and my close calls

A mother’s advice on travel and finding answers, meaning, and perspective

Once in my youth, not too long after beginning the stress and challenging times of medical training, I told my wife one evening in our small cozy apartment, “I need to take some vacation time off to wrap my head around all these current demands and changes. I need a break to gain perspective on the meaning and purpose of my newly chosen medical career path.” My wife and I agreed, so we planned and then set off on a long drive to a yoga retreat center in the mountains to meet, learn, and do practices with a popular and well-known yoga teacher.1

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Collage of 13 pictures with theme of writer's block, and return to creative production and flow; one picture reminds to listen to your inner voice.

Surmounting Writer’s Block

The critical steps to reignite inspired creativity, growth, and productivity.

Writer’s Block Strikes

I was returning from a vacation and felt guilty about not working on or beginning a new newsletter article. Every time I would sit down to start, I would find myself distracted and doing other things or just feeling tired or overwhelmed by the immensity of the task with all its components. Some basics of the task even felt too difficult, such as coming up with new material, doing the research, working through the succession of drafts, multiple edits, and the final publishing process.

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Colleague of pictures around the theme of loss, forgiveness, broken heart, insight, perspective, & enlightenment

What I learned from my father’s death or should have

The hidden truth about Forgiveness

by Ron Parks, MD

It was early morning when I got a call from the chief of medicine and cardiologist at the community hospital where I was on staff. In a more worried voice, than was usual for him, he said, “Ron, could you stop by my office on your way to make rounds? It’s about your father. With everything I have tried, I can’t stabilize him. We need to make some decisions!” With that, I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. Our chief of medicine was the top cardiologist in the immediate area. When my father, during a visit to our home, had another one of his heart attacks, I had him admitted to our local hospital under the care of an experienced cardiologist.

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Four pictures of a person meditating in a beautiful ocean setting, a student absorbed in books, a ship on a mystical journey, and a sign of mind full or mindful?

Embracing the essential other for creative fulfillment and well-being

Secretes to rejuvenating a stale, unhappy, and unproductive mind.

The stressful trip

I was preparing for a trip with my wife for a job interview halfway across the country at a prestigious university-affiliated hospital. I received calls several times during the prior year from the hospital recruiter. He was interested in me because of my experience in psychiatry and holistic medicine and the fact that I had worked for one of the leading practitioners of holistic medicine. Because interest and demand for complementary and alternative medicine were at an all-time high, his hospital wanted to set up its own unique department. I was considered a good fit for their needs. They offered me a considerable salary with other perks to make it of interest and value to me. My wife and I were ready to change for growth and new experiences, and my son was finishing his college program, so the timing and offer seemed perfect for us. Of course, it depended on their hiring me for the highly valued position.

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Four pictures of individuals or groups grappling with identity and perspective, one of an individual threatened by mob violence.

Identity and Perspective: for Success or Misfortune


The tragedies of our time, and perhaps of all times, hinge on extremes of personal or group identification and loss of perspective.

In the day’s events, we see tragic outcomes, minor disputes, hatred and discrimination, mass murders, and the carnage of war. Mass shootings often occur because of racial hatred that links to individuals or groups with extreme views or ideologies. Adopting and embracing a limited set of ideas and beliefs eliminates and eradicates perspective and context.

Consequences of my tightly held identity and perspective

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Four pictures in a frame of two people caught in a storm and flood crisis are balanced by two images representing balance and composure after surviving the crisis. Pictures and composition done in Canva.

Wise actions when feeling overwhelmed or pushed to the limit

Our life and future happen from the decisive choices and actions we take.

Two terrifying Incidences

To listen to Speechify recording version, click here

In my early life and career, there were two incidences when I thought I would not survive and my future aspirations would be no more. These episodes seemed to happen in the so-called fate of the moment, with the saving grace of surviving a tragic outcome.

One incident reverberated in my mind when I hit the brakes with an almost intuitive decision that reversed what I thought would be a deadly consequence for my wife and me. The near-fatal incident was when I drove south for a vacation with my wife several years after our marriage. We were on a two-lane road with the glow of the future in front of us.

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Four pictures depicting caregivers in their different roles and with their challenging significant other dependent.

The Challenges of mental illness caregiving

The realities of the care and responsibility when a family member is disabled with a schizophrenic illness

Parents or caregivers can find themselves in uncharted waters

Many get caught unprepared when a mental illness affects a loved one, spouse, child, or significant other. Though previously fully independent and entirely responsible, the person now disabled rapidly or slowly becomes dependent on a caregiver’s help, support, and management. The descent into illness and dysfunction caused by the mental disorder calls on the extreme resourcefulness of the one beset with an unimaginable level of additional responsibility.

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a frame with four colorful pictures suggesting a person having a nightmare with two shots of extremely alarmed people, one hanging from a mountainside, and of a pressure gauge in the red zone

Dreamwork for Insight, Creativity, and Growth

The dream is an untapped resource for insight, problem-solving, and self-improvement.

Dreams an Untapped Resource

Dreamwork is a valuable resource and aid in self-help and therapy work. It is a practical and always available tool that supports personal growth, productivity, and mental and emotional health.

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Young Barefoot Woman with Headscarf on Beach looking and grieving her losses and hoping for a secure future

Extreme Passion, the Value and Danger—Holocaust Recalled

Harnessing extremes into creativity, loving concern for others, and actions to avoid societal upheaval, hatred, and destruction.

I recount an early life story that brought me to the realities and risks of the extreme passions and ideas we can get caught up in as individuals or whole societies with positive or devastating outcomes.  

My mother’s lost cousin—Iren

When I was a child in the early-to-mid 1940s, my mother took me to a local shoe repair shop on

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  • When I came down with Stage III cancer shortly after and was extremely depressed and anxious about my diagnosis, he prescribed me the right medications to help me. He sent me to a diet/ herbalist/ acupuncturist specializing in cancer. I am a survivor today.

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