Dear Friends,
Some of you have been wondering whether these tools I’ve been offering really work in everyday life.
Do they reduce anxiety?
Do they help calm your emotions?
Can I really “choose my mood” even when everything around me seems to be going wrong?
Well, let me tell you what I’ve been doing from a hospital bed.
Earlier this month, after many decades of loyal service, my right knee gave out. I went to the emergency room, and what followed was a succession of hospitals and procedures – then a fever, and blood pressure that went as high as two hundred.
I was eventually airlifted from Fort Bragg, California to Stanford Medical Center, where my knee was urgently replaced.
In just a few weeks, I went from total independence and exercising every day to needing help with almost everything. Every little movement has been painful. There have been moments when I thought I was facing death.
What have I been doing to stabilize?
First, conscious breathing, just like I teach you.
Second, I direct my mind. I use the Golden Light to create beautiful visual images. I count numbers to give my mind something to do when it wants to run ahead and predict terrible things.
Third, I keep setting my attitude. When I notice it slipping, I reset it. I bring myself back to the moment I’m in, grateful to be alive and grateful to be sharing this experience with you.
As I shared recently in a video (which over 750,000 of you have now watched), every moment – no matter how tough – is better than no moment at all:
I am grateful for the outpouring of love and support from our Mind Body Health & Politics community. I want to show my appreciation by getting back to the work of sharing these tools.
Before all this happened, my team and I had just finished putting the pieces in place for two projects I’ve been preparing for you: a self-paced video course called The Golden Reset, and my forthcoming book, The 10 Commitments – a health maintenance manual for living with resilience.
We have manuals for our cars and refrigerators. Where is the maintenance manual for us? What are we doing each day to maintain our bodies, our emotional state, and our connections with other people?
Those questions have become very immediate for me here in the hospital.
Some would say that I should take this time to ease up on my practice and focus only on recovery.
But for me, keeping forward momentum – however slow or halting – has always been part of my recovery. Because these lessons are already recorded, and the book already written, my team will begin rolling both projects out to you while I remain in rehab.
Stay tuned.
For now, take a few easy, conscious breaths. And make one of those phone calls I keep encouraging you to make. Call a friend instead of sending a text. I’ve been grateful for every opportunity to connect with you.
Golden light,
Dr. Richard Louis Miller
P.S. If you would like to be an early beta-tester of my Golden Reset course, please reply to this email and my producer will follow up with details.
The 10 Commitments
“You have a maintenance manual for your car. Maybe one for your refrigerator. But do you have a health maintenance manual for yourself? Most people don’t.”
– From the introduction to The 10 Commitments
A Health Maintenance Manual for Living with Purpose, Grace, and VitalityA practical guide to the daily commitments that support a life of purpose, health, and vitality – drawing on nearly nine decades of life and more than sixty-five years of clinical practice to make the work concrete and usable.
Advance endorsements
“Dr. Richard Miller’s The Ten Commitments is a vital, masterfully crafted guide for anyone seeking to cultivate true vitality, purpose, and grace in their daily life.”
— Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco
“Richard Miller and I share a lifelong commitment to practicing health. In The 10 Commitments, he brings that dedication to the page through personal stories and simple practices readers can make their own. His affection for life comes through.”
— Christopher Hobbs, PhD, herbalist, mycologist, and author of Christopher Hobbs’s Medicinal Mushrooms
“Doctor Richard Louis Miller has a lot of wise things to say about not just surviving, but thriving in these latter years of our one precious life. For those smart enough to listen, you’ll be much happier for it. Read this book men and women and you will have a plethora of take aways, a water fall of cascading droplets which taken as an aggregate sum become a calm lake of opportunity.”
— Charles Durrett, AIA, cohousing architect and author of The Senior Cohousing Handbook
“Richard Miller is living proof of what I have spent my career advocating: how we age is far more within our hands than we might think. The 10 Commitments turns a remarkable life into ten practices readers can begin today.”
— Maddy Dychtwald, co-founder and president of Age Wave; author of Ageless Aging
“Aging well is about more than longevity. It is about vitality, purpose, connection, and remaining open to awe. The 10 Commitments is an inspiring, practical guide to doing just that.”
— Michael Amster, MD, physician and co-author of The Power of Awe
“The 10 Commitments is a practical, engaging guide to living with greater energy, balance, and wisdom. Drawing on a lifetime of experience and memorable stories, Richard Miller offers accessible ways to care for our minds, bodies, and emotional well-being with intention and compassion.”
— Kristin Neff, PhD, author of Self-Compassion and Fierce Self-Compassion
My Other Books
Freeing Sexuality: Psychologists, Consent Teachers, Polyamory Experts, and Sex Workers Speak Out
Integral Psychedelic Therapy (co-edited with Jason A. Butler & Genesee Herzberg)
Psychedelic Wisdom: The Astonishing Rewards of Mind-Altering Substances
Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca
Master Your Mind: Practical Tools to Calm Anxiety, Silence Your Inner Critic and Stop Overthinking