Faith by Phil Fox Rose 
I’ve been taken aback these last few weeks by all the retrospectives and their universal declaration that the “aughts” were an awful decade. Objectively, it’s hard to argue as they trot out disaster after disaster, setback after setback. And when pressed, I recall that as the decade began I had a six-figure salary at a high-flying dot-com, millions to come with the genuinely likely public offering, and a beautiful girlfriend. I had none of those things within a few years. But I need to be reminded of the losses and setbacks and derailed career, because my perception of the story line of the decade is entirely different. For me the aughts weren’t awful; they were awesome.
You see, for me the key events of the decade are: reclaiming my sobriety, my conversion and baptism, and feeling and answering the call to return to writing, with a new focus on spiritual work. The past decade has in many ways been the most joyous of my life. It has been a period of spiritual growth, of expanding community, and of a radically increased sense of usefulness and purpose.
There’s an obvious connection here. As I said in my column, “Losing your footing and finding the ground“, losing the material things that define our lives can shake us into adjusting our focus, our priorities.
But mine is not a neat and tidy conversion story of: “My life was pointless and painful, then I found God, and now everything is rosy.” For me, the life stripped away by the dot-com bubble burst and 9/11 did matter and, in many ways, was good. I looked forward to going to work every morning and figuring out how to bring more music into people’s lives. My work was both creative and challenging. I lost a good thing. And the same was certainly true of my relationship.
… Continue reading What Works: My “aughts” weren’t awful, they were awesome
Faith by Phil Fox Rose
Ever want to bite someone’s head off just because they had the misfortune to cross your path when you hadn’t eaten lunch? Or hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before? Or when you were already angry about something else? Ever sit alone — or worse, in a crowd — and feel lonely and irritated at anyone and everything?
When I was on Father Dave’s radio show in June, we talked a little about HALT. Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to write more about it. Self-help is full of acronyms and aphorisms and a lot of them are more cute than useful, but this one is a keeper. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired: When you feel irritated or anxious, one — or more — of those four conditions is likely at play.
And if not noticed and tended to, they can lead you to very bad places: explosions at others, self-destructive acts, relapses into addictions.
The genius of HALT is that it reminds us of several things at the same time:
To halt before we act out, and reconnect with the divine. To tend to our physical and emotional well-being — not just go running around on fumes without eating and sleeping. That these feelings are ephemeral, and once we see them for what they are and let go of our attachment to them, they lose their power over us.
HALT
Are you anxious or irritated? Are you beginning to attack someone or lose control? Are you feeling hopeless, or like giving up and returning to an addiction?
HALT! Pause — especially if there is an escalating situation. Take a deep breath or count to ten.
HUNGRY: Did you eat at the last regular mealtime? Or did you skip … Continue reading What Works: HALT — Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired
Faith by Phil Fox Rose
I was up late but had agreed to an early brunch with friends, so after about five hours of sleep I’m on my way to meet people I love and I am feeling decidedly unloving. In the bustle of the train, I can feel myself getting irritated by every little thing. I don’t love the world right now. Which is another way of saying I’m not in conscious contact with God.
Once, in a discussion group, a minister asked the Dalai Lama how he could be more effective spiritually; the Dalai Lama smiled and said, “Get more sleep.” (He reportedly gets eight to nine hours each night.)
Though few people go to bed early, most agree it’s a good idea. But when it comes to getting enough sleep, it seems like our nation’s ingrained Puritan work ethic kicks in. Cheating sleep translates into more time to do stuff. And productivity is sacred. The fact that any gains are fleeting if not false, we wash away with another quadruple-shot latté.
Americans don’t sleep enough
While the amount of sleep an individual needs depends on many factors, the National Sleep Foundation offers a “rule-of-thumb” range for adults of 7 – 9 hours. In their brand new survey, the average American gets 6 hours 40 minutes of sleep. But the story is much worse than that single stat. Seventy percent get less than eight hours. And the percentage of people getting less than six hours per night has risen from 12 percent to 20 percent in the last decade. A Gallop poll with data going back much further shows that Americans today typically get an hour less sleep per night than they did in 1942. And, while in the 40s the results were clustered … Continue reading What Works: Get some sleep!
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