Interpreting Tarot -- Reading the Book of Life
By
Rebecca Brents

Astrology Coaching
Live Your Life by Divine Design

Learn in detail about your character, the way you were built to operate, the life you were meant to live, how you were designed to support yourself with money, in relationships, and with work that honors the unique spirit you are.

Is This Your Year of Living Prosperously?

Take a journey through your birth chart as never before.

Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Enroll in
Astrology Coaching
TODAY!!

Astrology and Karma?
Sure!

Your Horoscope holds important keys to why you are here, what you came to contribute, who you came here to be.

Get direction.
Get information.

Put your life on course as never before!! Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Order a
Karma and Destiny Reading
TODAY!!

The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life
By
Joseph Ledoux

Our Premium Members get

Readings ~ Classes

Lectures ~ Articles

Ezines ~ Oracles

And More!!

For people who take
their lives seriously.

Join our
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

	Spiritual Development For Mental Health by Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D. Self-help Central
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

    Email This Page to a Friend    

Spiritual Development For Mental Health
by Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D.

Astrology is for Believers.

With an open mind and a knowledge of Astrology you can watch your life unfold in ways that make sense.

You can understand the demands of change and "what's really going on" in a crisis.

Whether in a gentle push in the right direction or in a "hard knock upside the head," you can read the message behind what life is asking of you.

Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Get the information you need.

Discover the difference knowledge and preparation can make in your life!

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
today!!

Spirit or spirituality are not synonymous with religion or religious. Church has nothing to do with spirituality directly. Rather the spirit is that part of each human that makes us a distinctive personality.

It is the part of us that defines us and yet connects us to others. It has long been known that a strong healthy spirit will guide us successfully through adversity, whereas a conquered spirit will succumb to illness and death.

It was Mother Theresa's strong spirit that transcended her small stature and seemingly insignificant role as a nun to profoundly affect thousands of people for the better. Conversely, it is the conquered spirit that explains the powerful effects of subtle forms of brain washing in prisoner-of-war camps.

In other words, spirit is that singular life force that directs and shapes our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Therefore, keeping spirit or life force healthy is essential to the process of achieving healthy balance in any life. The key to effective stress management is the proper alignment and interaction of a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a healthy spirit.

How Religon Plays A Part

Remember that spirit is not bound by religion. Many successful people do not belong to a church or any religion, but they do have a strong sense of spirit and they do believe in God.

According to Gallup Polls as recent as 1997, 90% of Americans believe in God. The spirit connection is not just a belief in God but the ability to relate to God, often through communities such as churches provide.

The healthiest Americans are among those religious groups who have a strong identity with their church. For example Matthews and Koenig reported in 1997 that even if you control for dietary practices, Mormons, Jews and Seventh Day Adventists are healthier than other Americans.

These three religious groups are known for their strong sense of religious community. Therefore, it is not the religion, per se, that contributes to overall health, but the intensity of the commitment to spirit whether by being a member of a religious community or by maintaining a spiritual connection in some other way.

Although most Americans believe in God, many of us are prone to have fragmented and impersonal lives, which leads to hedonism, increasing drug addiction and other health problems. Spirituality in the sense of the expression of our spirit, is not a regular part of our lives because so many of us have abandoned religion.

According to Kabbani, a physician and author on Islamic spiritual healing practices, religion gives us something to believe in, an identity, a way to know ourselves in relation to others. Churches, therefore, provide a community within which to know ourselves, to belong, to repair our fragmented lives.

Making Spirituality A Priority

Many people list church attendance as the last thing on their list of things to do. After all, you are busy, busy people, working 49-60 hours a week. When would you find the time? You barely have a few moments to eat a quick meal and watch television before falling into bed at the end of your day.

However, if you really want to create a balance among intimacy, family life and meaningful work, you need to repair the third leg of the mind - body - spirit connection.

Einstein once said, "Religion without science is blind. Science without religion is lame." As we move into the twenty first century we are realizing the truth of this statement more and more. We are part of something much more than the sum of the parts. Those who embrace their spirit connection are finding greater health and prosperity and science is starting to prove it.

For example, in a Duke University study by Herb Koenig, elderly patients who are regular church attendees stayed in the hospital a shorter length of time (ten days on average) than those patients who did not attend church (twenty-five days.)

In another study (Desmond and Maddox, 1981), this one of heroin addicts, researchers reported that 45 percent of participants in a religiously oriented treatment program were still abstinent at the time of a one year follow-up, compared to only 5 percent who participated in a non-religious program.

It is true that you cannot always prevent pain. Although change is constant, you cannot always predict accurately what those changes will be and pain may be a natural by product of the interaction of your dynamically interacting systems.

Yet if you have a healthy spiritual connection your suffering may be minimized, as the previous few studies indicate. For Viktor Frankl, a Jew confined in a Nazi concentration camp: "Man is not diminished by suffering, but by suffering without meaning."

It is time to make not just new years resolutions but resolutions for a lifetime. If working hard to be successful and profitable results in workaholism, drug addiction, financial problems, domestic violence, extra-marital affairs and divorce, what's the point?

Even if your life has led you in one of these stressful directions, don't despair. Make meaning of the experience and put the disaster into the context of your life. Then reorient that life to meet your values.

If one of those values is a belief in God (as is true for 90% of Americans), yet you are not attending to that spiritual relationship, the balance in your life is compromised and will inevitably lead you to some form of personal or interpersonal dysfunction. On the other hand, if you develop a stronger sense of self, a sense of self as belonging to something larger than just this earthly existence, and you make a commitment to that higher self (i.e. through prayer or inner contemplation), even when you have suffering, you will have a meaningful and prosperous life to share with the ones you love and work with.

There are a variety of resources available to you if you think you need help finding your spiritual path.

Copyright © 2000 Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist with over twenty-five years of experience as a marriage & family therapist.

Visit her website -- Self-help Central, for more of her practical self-help advice.

Sign up for her free ezine for the latest self-help information and special discounts on wellness products at Self-help Central Newsletter.

What luck for rulers that men do not think.
~ Adolf Hitler ~
Born April 20, 1889

Please click on the titles to visit these fine areas of Enchanted Spirit

---

	PO Box 1080 Sandia Park · NM · 87047

Enchanted Spirit is a non-denominational spiritual center of healing, support, self-improvement, personal guidance, education and writing. We publish multi-media works of New Age thought and information to encourage serenity and growth in individual life choices, advance the universal search for life's meaning, and promote tolerance for positive ideas from all philosophies and religious traditions, believing as we do that truth is where you find it.

---

This site is hosted and maintained for Enchanted Spirit by

Catweasel Ink

Copyright © 1999 - 2008 by Enchanted Spirit and Catweasel Ink.
Contributed works copyright by their respective authors. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction specifically prohibited.

Last updated January 19th, 2004

Rebecca is not available
right now.


Please check back
later
CLICK HERE FOR
MORE INFO

Astrology is for Believers.

With Real Astrology as your compass, you can recognize what's right for you, work with your natural gifts and rhythms, understand the dynamics of your relationships, and take your place more easily in Life's natural flow.

Real Astrology ...
for people who take
their lives seriously.

Join our
Astrology and Tarot
Premium Membership
TODAY!!

You arrived in
this life with

Karmic gifts and talents

Karmic responsibilities

Karmic challenges

Karmic work to do

Order a
Karma and Destiny
reading

Learn what life is
asking of you.

What A Coincidence!: The wow! factor in synchronicity and what it means in everyday life
By
Susan M. Watkins