The Container
A newsletter series by Soul Surgeon MD.
The Container newsletter is now published on Substack. Using shorter formats and a weekly cadence, Dr. John Moos is now exploring all things life, love, and purpose. Newsletters are released every Friday at 10a. Come join us!
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Where Is Your Mind?
Most suffering doesn't live in the present. It lives in what was or what might be. In this Practice, John Moos, MD offers a simple three-step exercise for noticing where your mind actually goes when it hurts.
You Are Not the Center of the Universe
We repeat Ptolemy's error every day, placing the self at the center of everything and wondering why it feels unsteady. In this Flash, John Moos, MD explores hyperindividualism as a form of cosmic misorientation.
It Would Be a Sin to Keep This to Myself
A theologian-in-formation, a recovering atheist, and a seeker walk into the same body. In this Field Notes, John Moos, MD strips the judgment from the word sin and returns it to its original meaning: a turning away from source.
God, Grant Me the Serenity
Healing doesn't require ideal conditions. It requires the wisdom to stop waiting for them and the courage to begin inside the ones you already have.
The Economy of Healing
What a teenage footballer's economy of motion taught me about healing: the minimum effective dose, and why more is often the fear response, not the healing one.
Perspective is a Choice
The questions you ask in the hardest moments are not neutral. They are directional. This Pulse offers one shift in how you ask, and a thirty-second Inception clip that captures why it matters.
307 Questions; 8 Answers
Jesus asked 307 questions in the Gospels and gave 8 direct answers. In this Brief, John Moos, MD explores why questions are the scaffolding of genuine transformation and what that means for the stories we tell ourselves.
Audit the Story You're Living In
You cannot revise a story you haven't read. In this Practice, John Moos, MD offers a short self-inventory to help you identify the questions driving your current story and whether they are leading toward clarity or deeper into the wound.
The Story That Grows in the Dark
Every metastatic story begins with something real. In this Flash, John Moos, MD explores how self-protective narratives calcify into distortions, and why the way out is not positive thinking but a better question.
The Metastatic Story
The story we tell after a painful event matters as much as the event itself. In this Field Notes, John Moos, MD traces his own metastatic story from exposure and victimhood toward the harder, more honest questions that changed everything.
Prayer Prepares You for the Day
Prayer was never meant to stay in the chair. In this Pulse, John Moos, MD closes the prayer series with a simple invitation: what you orient toward in the quiet of the morning is what you become in the noise of the day.
A Template for Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is not a script to recite. It is a structural map for honest, intentional communication with God. In this Brief, John Moos, MD breaks down five movements anyone can adapt, regardless of where they are in their faith.
Fast Before You Pray
Fasting is not about food. It is about removing what competes for your attention so something deeper can surface. In this Practice, John Moos, MD explores Stillness as the essential condition for honest prayer.
Gratitude and Service Bridge Us to Eternity
Thanksgiving is not a feeling that follows good circumstances. It is a practice you bring to all circumstances. In this Flash, John Moos, MD explores why gratitude is the hinge on which anxiety relief actually turns.
Promise + Swear = Prayer
What if prayer was never about religion? In this Field Notes, John Moos, MD traces how a moment in a yoga class, a week in Uganda, and his grandfather's rosary converged into a daily practice of speaking honestly to something larger than himself.
Doctor’s Orders: Laugh
Laughter regulates the body, resets the mind, and interrupts the loops that keep us stuck. This week's Pulse is a simple prescription: find something that makes you laugh and commit to it fully.
Weekly Laughter Just Might Save Your Life
People who laugh less than once a month have nearly double the mortality risk of those who laugh weekly. In this Brief, John Moos, MD looks at what the research says about laughter, longevity, and why how freely we laugh may be one of the most overlooked health metrics we have.
Don’t Wait, Laugh!
Laughter is spontaneous, but it is also a practice. In this edition, John Moos, MD shares two simple examples from his own life and offers six ways to create laughter on purpose, because if the moment doesn't come to you, you are allowed to go looking for it.
Microdosing Laughter
Laughter is trackable medicine. Research links regular laughter to longer life, lower disability risk, and cardiovascular benefits comparable to light exercise. In this Flash, John Moos, MD makes the case for microdosing laughter daily and offers a prescription that requires no script, copay, or pharmacy.
Laughter May Just Be the Best Medicine
Laughter is not avoidance. It is one of the most grounded, human things we can do, and one of the most underestimated tools in healing. In this Field Notes, John Moos, MD explores why levity is not a retreat from life's weight but a way of bearing it, what the research says about laughter and longevity, and what a single moment in a clinical session revealed about joy, perspective, and the freedom that comes when we stop taking ourselves so seriously.