Anamnesis (from the Greek word meaning "reminiscence") is a liturgical statement in

which the Church refers to the memorial character of the Eucharist (thanks-giving).
It has its origin in Jesus' words at the Last Supper, "Do this in memory of me."
In a wider sense, Anamnesis is a key concept in the liturgical theology: in worship the
faithful recall God's saving deeds. This memorial aspect is not simply a passive process
but one by which the Christian can actually enter into the Paschal mystery.
So, if amnesia means "to forget," then an-amnesis means "not to forget." We recall, then,
why we simply must be thankful. And we do so prayerfully.
As they say, a family that prays together, stays together. So, too, psychologically, modern
medicine has discovered that "neurons that re together, wire together." Religion means
to re-ligate or "tie back together."
All of this taken together suggests that our spiritual survival requires a vigorous hygiene
and rigorous practice of "not forgetting to give thanks."
Phillipians 4:8 reminds us: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if
there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthykeep thinking about
these things."
From a properly holistic perspective, this spiritual hygiene of anamnesis thus plays an
indispensable role in maintaining one's emotional equilibrium.
The more seriously compromised one's emotional homeostasis has been, especially
over protracted periods of time, the more vigilant one must be to stand guard over one's
thoughts, the more rigorous must be the practice of anamnesis and the more integral
must be one's assault against any and all threats posed to one's psychological defenses.
Anamnesis - a suggestion
Inventory:
1) 5 most stimulating intellectual curiosities that once captured your imagination
2) 5 most wholesome and emotionally satisfying moments that you can still recall with
great relish
3) 5 most morally courageous commitments you undertook together with others
4) 5 most satisying practical accomplishments from your academic, athletic or work life
5) 5 most wholesome and rewarding social engagements you've enjoyed
6) 10 most wholesome and grace-lled familial memories, persons, events
7) 5 most spiritually rewarding divine encounters and the persons who shared or

mediated them, whether personally, through books or media, etc

and 5 holy places where such encounters were gifted
Commit the above inventory to memory and recite it daily. Recite it once. Or recite it 70
times. Recite it in the place of other tapes that have been playing in your head, perhaps
for decades. Go to this place of gratitude. It will become your sacred, safe place. It not
only represents but constitutes your reality. It WILL rewire your brain. Neurons that re
together will wire together. Others that cease ring will eventually lose their wiring.
I did this over 30 years ago and it rescued me. Later, I listened to a Melody Beattie
audiobook and she prescribed a similar daily inventory of gratitude and I better
understood how and why my old spiritual hygiene had worked. Finally, my spouse came
into this type of practice from yet another spiritual resource group and I witnessed its
transformative influence on her, too.
In January 2003, I published the following: "How Wide Is Your Moat? - our holistic moat"
The mutual fund industry has popularized the moat metaphor, a moat being that deep
and wide trench around the rampart of a castle, that is usually lled with water. There are
even pinball games, like Medieval Madness , in which players use different strategies to
breach the castle's defenses, such as the moat, the drawbridge, the gate, the wall.
Sometimes the madness is not so medieval but very much contemporary, within our own
psychological castle walls.
I have often thought of the analogy of the moat in other than economic terms. It might
also be a useful image in considering a person's general well being.
Like a castle with its multiple layers of defenses, one's general well being is also
bolstered by its own moats and walls and gatekeepers and can be breached by many
different types of attacks.
There are times in our lives when we know our well being will have to do battle, when we
need to both widen and deepen our psychological moats and pull up the drawbridges of
our physical ramparts. The size of such bulwarks must be determined by many factors.
Let's consider some examples of the types of battles we must all ght and of the kinds
of defenses we might need to put in place to fortify our general well being.
When we are healthy, physically, emotionally and mentally, and under no signicant
stress, in other words are not under attack physically or psychologically, the size of our
holistic moat doesn't matter much, seemingly. I'm going to call this moat the holistic
moat because its depth and width is determined by many factors which, I will argue, all
need to be considered as a whole. Ignore any given factor and our defenses will be
breached , which is to suggest that sometimes we don't have a very wide margin of error
to work with because our moat is both shallow and narrow.
What are some of the things that ll up our moat and seriously jeopardize our castle of
well being?

Well, certainly anything which can affect us emotionally, such as trauma due to grief,
terror or physical injury, such as chronic or acute illness, addictions, broken
relationships, nancial difculty, employment and career setbacks, academic and
professional failure, damage to one's reputation whether unjust or from a personal
failure, and so forth. The effects of aging or of a chronic debilitating illness, the
propensity toward chemical imbalances of neurotransmitters, and other insults to our
general well being, all of these things and more, can lower our defenses and increase our
vulnerabilities to where we spiral down into near or total dysfunction and immobilization.
The return to any normalcy and full functionality can be difcult, near impossible. In such
desperation, we can approach the point where we even lose the will to go on, despite our
loved ones, and, assuredly, when the blessings of those relationships no longer weigh
heavily enough in the balance against the pain of a truly tormented existence, the castle
has been most seriously breached; our physical well being drawbridge is down; our
emotional gate has been battered; our mental gatekeeper defeated. Our spirit has thus
retreated to the most inner recesses of our being and, though still sharing immanently
with its Beloved in these innermost chambers, there is no felt sense of communion,
neither with God nor with the castle cohort, that indwelling and abiding relating to family
and friends, and most denitely not with the outer world of strangers.
What are some of the kinds of defenses we might need to put in place to fortify our
general well being?
When our moat is narrowed and shallowed by any of the insults to our well being we
have considered, we have no room to maneuver and have little margin of error. We
cannot afford any mistakes and must move aggressively on all fronts. If one's castle is
especially vulnerable, either chronically or acutely, one cannot take a casual approach to
defending the castle. One must proactively work to widen the moat! Like the Corps of
Engineers on the Mississippi River, one must continuously dredge because the silt is
being deposited 24/365 when we suffer from chemical imbalances or are otherwise in
the midst of trauma, grief, anxiety or depression.
Physically, we cannot afford to miss out on proper diet, sufcient rest and good exercise.
Our diet must be substantial and routine and not made up of the four mainstays of the 4
Cajun Foodgroups , which are sugar, salt, fat and alcohol . Rest and exercise are
essential, too, for manifold reasons documented elsewhere. Medically , we must seek
out pharmaceutical aids to help us through the acute phase of any substantial
psychological crises with antidepressants or antianxiety prescriptions and maybe even
sleep-aids or other therapeutic regimens.
Emotionally , we must force ourselves to interact with family and friends, with outdoors
and nature, acting ourselves into a new way of thinking , unable to think ourseleves into a
new way of acting.
Mentally , we may need ongoing psychological counseling and, perhaps, even that in
combination with specialized trauma counseling or social welfare assistance and
counseling. Specialized support groups can be most efcacious in assisting and
advising on all of the fronts under consideration here and can be an emotional lifeline.
They can also make us feel a little less alone by being in the empathetic company of
others who don't know and will never know your tears but who have cried tears for

similar reasons.
We should seek to stimulate and enrich our minds with good reading materials, uplifting
movies and music, and engaging hobbies. Spiritually , we may need spiritual direction,
either formally or informally, with a director-directee relationship, or in a spiritual
companioning mode with a fellow pilgrim with whom we may share a special spiritual
kinship.
The life of prayer, no matter how arid or desolate, must be maintained with perseverance
and discipline, privately and communally, perhaps augmented by small group
participation but most denitely sharing as well in at-large community worship services.
Ideally, one can likely not implement the entire holistic regimen because the very
exigencies and contingencies of life, which press in on us and lower our defenses, such
as employment and parenting responsibilities, such as nancial and physical
constraints, also get in our way during the rebuilding efforts. However, one must
aggressively and vigilantly attend to all of the factors within one's means and to the
fullest extent possible, notwithstanding constraints on one's time and resources, and
make these efforts a priority, because spiralling down to the lowest ebb of life will most
assuredly defeat everything else one is trying to accomplish and deprive one of the
vibrancy in one's relationships, with God and others, that makes anything else
worthwhile.
Our road to healing must be holistic and I emphasize this multifaceted approach
because I have seen healing stratgeies sabotaged by approaches that don't take the
whole castle into account. What good is it to deepen or widen a moat if one leaves the
drawbridge down?
The attempt to make it through signicant crises only pharmaceutically can backre and
bring on even more substance abuse. The temptation to self-medicate with over the
counter stimulants or sedatives can simiarly cause problems. To take pills but not eat
and rest properly is self-defeating. Confusing psychological counseling and spiritual
direction can be a problem; they are distinctly different enterprises, however related. If
one's castle is especially vulnerable, either chronically or acutely, one cannot take a
casual approach to defending the castle. One must proactively widen the moat!
Neglect of one's spiritual life, in my opinion, represents the rst shallowing of the holistic
moat because the spiritual life, a life of prayer, is the climbing into the watchtower of our
castle, lifting our hearts and minds to God, aligning our wills with His, and, whereby
through ongoing self-examen and discernment, we can vigilantly gaze out over all of our
defenses and remain on guard for those attacks that no castle avoids. All of this we do
as we await that Kingdom which is to come while living as safely as we can within that
one which is already within us but constantly under siege.
It may be, that what I have outlined above can be viewed not merely as a defensive
maneuver against life, but rather as one's offensive strategy for looking to make one's
mark on the world. These are the very same things I'd suggest as New Year's
Resolutions, to anyone serious about deepening their relationship with God or their
relationships with loved ones, to anyone interested in advancing on one's academic or
career path, etc There is a great unity of purpose in the spiritual life, to a holistically

informed lifestyle. When God is rst in our lives, everything else falls into place and we
will be about the same tasks in life whether our castle is under siege or not. Mark my
words, however, it is best not to wait.