INTEGRATIVE + ONLINE PSYCHIATRY + HOLISTIC HEALTH

Tag: anxiety

A collage of picture about the sleep experience and ways to improve restorative sleep and health.

Sleep is the best guide for health, longevity, and productivity.

Monitoring sleep quality can be an invaluable tool in choosing your priorities and be an early warning sign of impending difficulties.

Attention to sleep cues is essential for preserving or restoring health and vitality. Disruptive and perturbed sleep or anxiety dreams and nightmares can portend problems ahead. Dilemmas, indecisions, and conflicts are impediments to productivity and well-being. Disruptive sleep is an indicator of distress levels and a warning that critical life areas need attention. Ignoring unhealthy sleep patterns can have dire consequences now or in the future.

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Collage of pictures on theme of being stuck in a dilemma to surmounting to flow and creativity.

Surmounting dilemmas and conflicts to free productivity and flow

Indecision and fear are the roadblocks to success and well-being!


Getting stuck in a dilemma

A dilemma is when one gets stymied in choosing between two unsuitable alternatives. It is frustrating to be stuck and unable to move forward to completing a project or task. The desirable ending might be as significant as survival or as minor as making a healthy decision for something that will be positive or sustaining for one’s health and well-being.

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Collage with 15 pictures on the theme of holistic health and wellness, mindfulness, meditation, yoga, Buddhist practices, enlightenment, and becoming aware.

 Journey to enlightened healthcare

A unique self-help health program began with wanting answers and evolved into a superb holistic health program.

Part 1 — A Conversation with Brother Promise

I had a conversation with a loving, joyous, youthful monk, living and developing a holistic health program to enrich the lives and health of others. He is a fellow writer on Substack, where I publish my Mind Wise newsletter, where I discovered his work and connected with him.

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Collage of 6 pictures: the concentration camp and the captured, searching for meaning, peace, a solder with PTSD, and spiritual awakening.

Unraveling the Unfathomable: Capturing the Essence of Profound Experiences*

Impactful experiences critically affect a person’s choices, life direction, meaning, and perspective.

Finding the right words to describe the indescribable

Difficulty describing profound and highly impactful events is a challenge for most, as words cannot capture the essence and totality of the happening. There are talented writers, poets, spiritual masters, and philosophers who have come close to conveying the mystery and otherworldliness of personal and profound, unique experiences. Experiences can be momentary, powerful, ecstatic, liberating, and enlightening, or painful, life-threatening, tragic, traumatic, and damaging. The event can occur over time with duress until circumstances change.

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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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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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A group of pictures depicting help from relationships, getting insight, feedback, and perspective.

Relationships for Growth and Perspective

Awareness and receptiveness are essential for wise decisions, perspective, and adaptability.

My valued mentor and the confusing advice

A favorite mentor and advisor, at the end of our final meeting, on my way out from his cozy living room office, with the big glass window looking out on the yard, shaking hands with a big smile, told me, ” Here is my last clinical pearl; never give anyone advice.”

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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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  • 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.

    -JBR

  • In the fifteen years, we have had the privilege of knowing Dr. Ron Parks, his integrity, knowledge, and humanity have shown in both his professional and personal interactions.

    -Lino Stanchich

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