Brave New Minds: Developing the Art of Serene Preparation in an Unbalanced World

Dr. Eric Maisel is a long-time colleague and friend. He is the author of more than fifty books including Brave New Minds: The Art of Serene Preparation, Which I found to be a very relevant and important resource for everyone living in today’s challenging world. I recently had the privilege of interviewing Eric for my podcast series.

In brave new mind, He captures what millions of men and women are feeling today.

We are all running with no chance of catching up, he says. We desperately need a brave new mind that can immediately consider our brave new world as strange and inhuman, obsessed with material goods and loneliness, orchestrated by shameless millionaires more powerful than governments.

I first became familiar with Eric’s work in 2007 when I read his book, Van Gogh Blues: A Creative Person’s Path Through Depression. It spoke deeply to the challenges I faced in dealing with my own depression in my life, as well as my father’s experience. I wrote about our own healing journey in my book, My Distant Father: Healing the Wounds of the Family Father and created an online course, “Healing the Wounds of the Father of the Family” For everyone who grew up with a father who was distant, absent, or dysfunctional.

Creative people will experience depression as a given, he says Van Gogh Blues. This is a given because they regularly face doubts about the meaningfulness of their efforts. They have a form of depression that does not respond to pharmaceutical treatment. What is needed is healing in the realm of money.

As a psychotherapist who specializes in gender-specific medicine and men’s mental, emotional, and relational health, I share Dr. Messel’s perspective on mental illness and mental health. I also agree, that things have gotten significantly worse since 2007 Van Gogh Blues was first published. Reflecting on today’s world, Eric shares what he sees now.

Many minds will simply crash. Millions upon millions will not be able to maintain coherence, motivation, hope or anything. They will go down the pit with names like depression, anxiety, addiction, suicide. We see it happening everywhere and every day.

Developing the art of pure preparation

We don’t have to accept a dark future of depression and breakdown. In brave new mind, Dr. Messel offers practical solutions that include:

• A way to manage our increasingly stressful times in all areas of our lives.
• Joining the power of one’s calmness and alertness.
• Developing new ways to deal with depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental disorders.
• Finding new energy and inspiration that you’ve been missing.
• Creating new meaning and finding your life’s purpose.
• Building a brave new mind equal to this moment.

In a recent article “The Path to the Personal Code,” Dr. Maisel says,

Maintaining a personal code means centering one’s life around principles rather than emotions. It is living intentionally in a world that often rewards convenience. The act of holding a code, especially when it costs something, restores depth to one’s experience and coherence with one’s identity. It turns mere existence into moral authorship.

In our interview, she talks about the need to be a “rebel warrior,” to stand up for what’s right and challenge the forces that dehumanize people. In my book, Warrior’s Journey Home, Healing Men, Healing the Planet, I quote the meditation master Chögyam Trungpa who describes warriors thus:

Warriorship here does not mean fighting against others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from Tibetan their Which literally means ‘the brave one’. Warrior in this context is the tradition of human valor or the tradition of fearlessness. Trungpa concluded, Warriorship is not afraid of you.

One particular exercise I found most helpful Brave new mind Eric Maisel had a use for what he called “Main Instructions.” To meet life’s challenges and maintain a serene readiness to act when we are called upon to act, Maisel says,

Imagine giving your mind a simple instruction and inviting it to always use that instruction.

He called these directives prime directives. One that I particularly appreciate and use regularly is: Do the next correct thing.

It reminds me to slow down and before I react emotionally and jump into an action, I ask myself, what is the next right thing to do? Eric says,

This suggestive, impressionistic phrase stands for the following: that you want to be moral, productive, proactive, and that what comes after is a choice you can make.

Especially when I’m stressed and tend to react in ways that aren’t helpful, pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and repeat. Do the next correct thing Helps me stay present, relaxed and alert and engage in activities that serve me, my values ​​and what the world needs.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Eric Maisel and his work, you can visit him here Ericmaisel.com.

If you want to see my interesting interview with Eric, You can do so here.

You can subscribe to me Free weekly newsletter And learn more about my own work in the world.

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This post was Previously published on Menalive.com.