Mindful Happiness Returns –
We return after a long absense. There is still an integral part of the site that will be missing, founder Dr Anthony Quintiliani passed after a fierce battle with cancer. I choose to let his spirit live on through the blog we started together. – It did take a while for me to get strong enough to get going again. I relect on him daily with admiration, respect, and thankfulness. I do wonder how he may be viewing this first post since his passing.
“What Uncle Anthony Might Say About Me Using ChatGPT”
—In memory, on the third year of his passing
It’s been three years since Uncle Anthony passed, and still his voice shows up—usually when I least expect it. I’ll be halfway through typing a sentence, locked in my own thoughts, and suddenly hear him –
“Respect your elders.”
He would always say with a sideways grin. Always with more heart than command.
He lived on 30 wooded acres in Monkton, Vermont—a place that felt more like a sanctuary than a homestead. This is the kind of place where time settled down and silence stretched its legs. A place where cell signals faded, but people found connection in other ways. He built a presence there into a refuge—not just for himself, but for others. He ran meditative retreats there. Helped establish addiction counseling centers in nearby towns. People didn’t just visit Anthony—they came to themselves in his presence.
And now here I am, sitting in front of a glowing screen, using a language model to help me write about the very man who barely tolerated email. He used to print his messages so he could read them like real letters. He called computers “necessary distractions” and labeled himself a “technology troglodyte,” though even that seemed too modern for him.
So I can almost see him now—sitting on his porch, sipping strong coffee from Ellie’s favorite mug—watching me talk to a machine with a skeptical eye.
“A conversation? With a computer?”
A pause. That familiar breath in. Hmmph
“Well… if it gets you writing.”
Because here’s the truth: for all his quiet resistance to the digital world, Anthony believed in tools that brought people back to themselves. Meditation, breath, walks in the woods, forgiveness, deep listening—anything that pointed toward presence and peace. If he could’ve seen this as another path to awareness—a different trail winding through the woods of the mind—he might’ve nodded, maybe even been z little more curious than he revealed.
I think he’d chuckle at my stubbornness, my hunger to understand, my efforts to write something meaningful about him using technology he would’ve never touched. But I also think he’d see that I’m trying. Trying to carry his gentleness into a very noisy world. Trying to slow down long enough to remember him well. Trying, above all, to honor the man who was like a second father to me—especially in the years when I needed guidance, not noise.
So yep, I’m here—typing, thinking, asking questions of a machine that answers back. But in my heart, I’m still walking that foot-worn path behind his home, where the raw woodlands filled with unfettered trees whispered lessons in stillness and pace of life.
And maybe, just maybe, he’d say what he always said when he knew he was right, but wanted me to come to it myself:
“Respect your elders.”
And I’d smile. Because I do. I always have.
Miss you every day Uncle and yes I’m still questioning myself at every turn…
Mindful Happiness will continue and grow!
severe stressors, we also suffer from the virus, separation/divorce, developmental stress, incarceration, and the loss of the way of life in pre-COVID-19. Americans are suffering from various bio-psycho-social-spiritual dimensions of stress, loss and grief. Perhaps the correct words to use are “complicated grief.” Our current experiences with loss and grief go far beyond the stage-based versions of 
powerful clinical alliance are important for therapeutic success. Below, I list (only) various treatments, most supported by empirical research and practice. I will leave it you the reader to look more deeply into treatments or interventions they may prefer. Here is the list: Trauma-Informed Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based therapies/practices (breath work, meditation, yoga, tai chi, qi-gong and MBSR or ACT), Continued Bonds Theory – the changed internal relationship with the lost person, and Attachment-Informed Grief Therapy – utilizing attachment styles of secure, insecure, anxious or avoidant.
“technologize” is not a popularly accepted word, but it is a sad reality. We live in a time when texting while driving may become the new addiction-based cause for many, many deaths. This addiction is so strong people do it in situations that could case their injury or death, or the injury or death of others. Sound familiar! It should. Cellphone “abuse” is not so different from the plans of cigarette producers to “hook” us on something we will pay for during many years. So here is a partial list of what people tend to do when faced with severe stressors.
– even from ourselves. We feel something is very wrong in this moment, and we allow separateness to pull us into a frenzied effort to escape pain and suffering. At such times our most deeply hidden negative self-views strengthen and dominate. We will do almost anything to escape the aloneness and self-alienation. Endless impulses to seek what is wrong and forget what is right take over our emotional lives. It is at such times of strong emotional challenge that we need to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Tara Brach’s creation of the RAIN process is a huge leap in a sane direction. According to Brach, RAIN helps us overcome tendencies to activate the “second arrow” of suffering; our second arrows are caused by unhelpful thoughts, feelings, emotions, body sensations, and behaviors related to the “first arrow.” The first arrow is the original event or experience that caused our pain and suffering. Often our reactivity to it makes matters worse – we suffer more in our own minds and bodies. Below I will review the RAIN process and make additional comments on its usefulness and versatility in ongoing self-care and emotional self-regulation. The practice of RAIN skills is appropriate for all people – helpers and helpees.