A NORMAL DAY FOR ME, I BELIEVE YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY!
I started taking 37.5 mg of Effexor XR this morning. I cut my 50 mg Luvox tablet down to 37.5 mg for both doses. I will continue on these amounts for 7-10 days. If I do not experience side effects, I will increase the Effexor XR to 75 mg and lower Luvox to 25 mg per dose next. I will continue to increase Effexor XR until I feel improvement in my anxiety and depression symptoms. My psychiatrist at the Amen Clinic has recommended I raise the dosage to 225 mg, if I don't feel better at a lower dose. I will talk to him again the first week in August. He is positive and supportive and keeps me motivated. He reminds me what an accomplishment it is to have been off the beast (Klonopin) for 9 weeks!
I had an appointment with a psychiatrist here in my own city that supports my visit to the Amen Clinic. AWESOME! I learned a lot at my appointment with him, it was intellectually stimulating, and he was helpful. AWESOME! Thank you for being a doctor who thinks progressively and is so comfortable in his own skin that my visit to the Amen Clinic is not threatening to him. Did I tell you how AWESOME I think this is! :)
I have been listening to, The Power of Now, on CD by Eckhart Tolle every day. His words keep me focused on recovery and not stuck in the misery of not feeling well. Every night in my prayers I ask for help in understanding and integrating these concepts in my life. I believe these concepts are teachings my Higher Power wants me to understand. They correlate with scriptures I have read for many years.
I love these words by Tolle, "Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not?
Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now.
Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.
What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace--and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is 'borrowed' from the Now.
The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being.
Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as the key to the spiritual dimension. Despite this, it seems to have remained a secret. It is certainly not taught in churches and temples. If you go to a church, you may hear reading from the Gospels such as 'Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself,' or 'Nobody who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.' Or you might hear the passage about the beautiful flowers that are not anxious about tomorrow but live with ease in the timeless Now and are provided for abundantly by God. The depth and radical nature of these teachings are not recognized. No one seems to realize that they are meant to be lived and so bring about a profound inner transformation."
I want this inner transformation. Is it really possible for me to be so completely present that no problem or suffering; nothing that is not who I am in my essence, can survive in me? In the Now, in the absence of time, can all my problems dissolve? I want to find out!
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