Starting Fresh

I have changed the title and description of my blog.

Used to be: Chronic Pain and Spirituality / How the life of the spirit and chronic pain interact

I changed them in order to expand the purpose of this blog. I began posting in 2010 and kept at it fairly steadily until last October, when I stopped altogether. Not only was school taking a lot of time (understatement), but I was again displeased with the repetitive nature of my posts. My main topic was how spiritual practices can enhance pain management skills, and how pain management informs spiritual practices. After three years, I was coming up with little that was fresh, mostly linking back to previous posts.

This new iteration will be about learning to live a circumscribed life without binding one's spirit. My life is bound by chronic pain, but there are realities that limit other lives -- illness, disability, past trauma, unemployment, and addictions, for example. I want to explore more widely how and why we can try to live joyfully despite such restrictions.

How do we free our spirits within a life that seems to thwart our will at every turn? What have ages-old spiritualities and religions to teach us about that freedom? What is happening in recent research in neurology and behavioral sciences? I'd like to share stories of people searching for freedom in their otherwise circumscribed lives, what they have learned, how they have struggled. 

I'll begin in a few days with a series of posts exploring Buddhism's Eightfold Path.

I'd love to hear from you. Please contact me at carold.marsh@gmail.com or through GooglePlus.