Last edit this page 28/04/06
Archive 2003
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I place them here as reminders for the people with whom they were shared and for others who may resonate with the themes. Characters , when depicted, are fictional composites.The NH&MRC guidelines for publishing sensitive health information.
December '03
- Dream studies on the Gurdjieff site.
- Thoughts, links and readings on compassion fatigue
- Comment: I have worked with many men over the years who are wounded by having been sexually abused as children. Often they come with their partners, who for all of their time together have struggled with the survivor's (and perhaps their own) confusion about sex, affection and aggression. They have reached some turning point, where they can no longer provide the short term medication of a sexual fix for their lover's long term pain. Often the partner feeds the problem with their own codependency issues (like ignoring the feedback of their previous failed attempts to help) and by double signalling their own desires (saying yes when they mean no and vice versa). Their marriage is in disarray, the guy is hurting and confused, he feels like he is always getting it wrong in a pattern of lose-lose transactions. He had thought he was sending out a simple, single optic fibre request for sex, but when it is refused he feels it come back as a multi fibre, broadband rejection of his whole being, not realizing that he has loaded up his single sexual fibre with a truck load of other messages and requests. (Love me, tell me everything is alright between us, the problems are all fixed, promise me you won't leave me, relax me, help me sleep, help me to forget.)
This 'rejection' is felt as deeply hurtful, even life threatening, but he does not process the connection with the childhood source of the pain (on which he turned his back many years ago). He is often confused because the separation of or the boundaries between sex, affection and aggression were destroyed by the perpetrator in the process of their grooming and abusing him as a child. Through some of our sessions he sits in agony and confusion after I, realising the depth and breadth of the relationship problem, begin to support the process of healing his wound rather than fixing their sexual fix. To support the fix is to continue the confusion of sex, affection and aggression. To do other than support healing at that time and place, would support the marriage ending and his looking for the medication outside of himself in another relationship, in which the same process will evolve. Even so, the pain of the cure feels worse to him than the dis-ease of a quick fix.
More difficult and not so uncommon, he and his partner are both survivors of sexual abuse as children, and one or more of their own children have become victims of one of the original perpetrators, who was/is an ever real and present danger, but whose criminality was overlooked or denied by one or both of them when they put the past behind them all those years ago. And sometimes a pattern of covert incest develops in their parenting. Jealousy, blame, retribution and forgiveness are then added to the confusion and heart breaking load on the single sexual fibre. The solution takes more courage and wisdom than the guy has already exhibited in surviving the childhood abuse and moving on in to a productive adult life.
There is a lot of information on the web from survivor to thriver, to the self-help resources here on this site and together with good social supports for the process and a sober therapist, expert in trauma and recovery, he will have the tools for softening pain's sharp edges while supporting life, mind and body's healing of the wounds. His partner will, as well, have work to do on their own need to be needed, their codependency, which also is experienced as a life and death drive - possibly an activity addiction.
If children have been affected covertly or overtly, then they too require the same individual support and a family or relationship therapist to debug the system of it's sex abuse virus. Here's a list of books I can recommend and a list of best sellers (some of which I may recommend), but please note I am not specifically recommending the suppliers at the end of those links.
November '03
Two simple ideas lie at the bottom of solution focused brief therapy. Nobody is perfect and this applies to our problems as well as everything else. If no-one can 'do' their problem perfectly there must always be times when they don't do them so well. These times de Shazer and Berg called exceptions. Whatever the person is doing differently at these 'exceptional' times will be the basis of a potential solution. Part of the solution focused brief therapist's task is therefore to discover whatever a person is already doing which might contribute to the resolution of the problem with which they have come. Retrieved by http://www.neurosemantics.com/Articles/Half-lifeFraming.htm 17th July 2003 from http://www.brieftherapy.org.uk/solutionfoc.htm
Welcome to the meta-brain of running your own brain and experiences - http://www.neurosemantics.com/MetaStates.htm
One who by increments of saying and believing 'I don't know' (about their inner truth) accumulates a debt of ignorance, which weirdly makes death by cancer somehow more possible or 'inevitable' to a life with knowing and owning themselves, and another who by the same incremental distancing from self, has in some sense 'chosen' death by heart disease rather than facing their stuff, letting go and living on. (July '03)
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah". The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?" The little girl replied, "Then you ask him".
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was? The girl replied, "I'm drawing God." The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like." Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother has several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head. She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, "Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?" Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white." The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, "That explains why all of grandma's hairs are white."
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. "Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer; she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael. He's a doctor" A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there's the teacher. She's dead."
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, "Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face" "Yes," the class said. "Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?" A little fellow shouted, "Cause your feet ain't empty."
The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching." Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."
Week 40
More on birth order.
I've been away from the analects for a couple of weeks. I have a new web site design from Orlando which I am slowly installing. The results should be obvious by year's end. This week I have been lifted by the generosity of community in Avinashi and I beginning the first steps of setting up a yoga meditation school in Canberra. Over the thirty years I have lived here, different members of my community have done something similar, often with a dream of a healing centre at the core. I think part of this dream is a longing for sacred place, even a living symbol of all that is good within us, a place where all can belong equally and in community. Many have struggled, as indeed may we, for it not to consume the rest of their lives fulfilling that dream. It occured to me that beneath my feet, with every step I take there is sacred land, sacred place. No need to build this dream since it is here all the time if only I open my heart to the connection with place. I am being guided by a direction, a leading even, to create a space with Avinashi whose shape is not clear to me, and probably not to the hearts that lifted our spirits this weekend. I'll put the photos of the opening on Avinashi's site during the week.
Week 34 - 35
'Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully.' An excellent, well resourced site about school, family and work place bullying.
Week 33
A quiet place in cyberspace devoted to sacred texts.
The physical and psychological effects of meditation and synopses of research into meditation.
'This intolerance of ambiguity (link to a test) can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes...' Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:
- Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure
Terror management
Week 32
- From The Dalai Lama - Instructions For Life
Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others, and Responsibility for all your actions.
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
Spend some time alone every day.
Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
Be gentle with the earth.
Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
From Pema Chodron, 'When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times'
The main point is that we all need to be reminded and encouraged to relax with whatever arises and bring whatever we encounter to the path.
...the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
There's a slogan in the Mahayana teachings that says, "Drive all blames into oneself." The essence of this slogan is, "When it hurts so bad, it's because I am hanging on so tight." It's not saying that we should beat ourselves up. It's not advocating martyrdom. What it implies is that pain comes from holding on so tightly to having it our own way and that one of the main exits we take when we find ourselves uncomfortable, when we find ourselves in an unwanted situation or an unwanted place, is to blame.
Qualities of successful marriages.
Week 31
Virginia Woolf's psychiatric history.
Visual evidence of the power of prayer and gratitude on this site. I'm a bit skeptical that these photographs show the evidence of prayer but they are interesting and beautiful results. This is one of seven types of science.
Week 26 - 27
Icebergs in New Foundland where one of our kids is currently travelling with her Newfie mate.
With my clients' permission and my heartfelt thanks: "thank you for your ongoing prayers and thoughts.
The first bub was incredibly clear and energetic as you would have felt and we are certain that we gave the universe another Bodhisattva when he left after a 14 day R&R (rest and recuperation) in planet earth's maternal womb. We are on the road to number two FET (frozen embryo transfer) with blood test starting this weekend. The downside of miscarriage is horrible, but everyone has been so supportive - even the IVF clinic staff and our doctor looked more upset than we dared show. I think they were high as kites like us with the initial news that we were pregnant after four years of trying. It's a roller coaster ride with more twists and turns yet to come. In all, it has been great for strengthening our meditation practice and our relationship. If at the end we birth a being who has work to do in a physical body on planet earth for longer than 9 months - we will go on a long holiday with same being and show them the sensational world that has kept us entranced and in love for so long."
Read the identity theft site put out by the US Government and the do's and don'ts from the Macquarie Bank in Australia.
Week 25
There's considerable psychology research about external and internal locus of control, which associates the latter with good mental health and the former with poorer health outcomes.The external reference group for the external locus of control, can hold their self-esteem hostage and withold validation, until the person achieves the external goals or complies with those demands from outside. Today I was struck by the tension in a relationship when one is externally motivated, other-validated and extrinsically rewarded and the other internally motivated, self-validating and intrinsically rewarded. The world views are different - eg what matters to the internally located is how I feel about it and what I think is important, whereas to the one who seeks external validation, its' how one measures up to that external set of standards, which to some extent can never be satisfied. This is particular bocking when a strong parent figure witheld approval, recognition and permission to be in that person's formative years. In adult life, it is as if they take that parent with them everywhere, sometimes long after they have passed on, leaving their current partner hostage to a set of standards which should have died with the former parent.
I was reminded today also that an intimate relationship is one of the best personal and spiritual development workshop with a full time staff on the job around the clock.
An elegant summary of the Bhagavad Gita.
Week 23 -24
I am currently having an issue at the high school where one of our kids attends. It became apparant that the problem evolved out of our child's perception of the loss of character and credibility [the ethos] of their teacher. This led me to explore the issue of teacher credibility and came upon this little gem - 'Ethos and Pedagogical Communication: Suggestions for Enhancing Credibility in the Classroom' in Current Issues in Education Vol 3 No 4, which can be read on the web . Then I went to the ACT Department of Education and found their policy on student management and welfare, which can be read here. I can't help but think this problem is ultimately a symptom of the priority we give to education - lower than roads and war.
Dear Principal
I am sorry I missed your phone call.
I thank you for your and the School's care and concern for our child's education and welfare and also for your kind invitation to us to attend a 'case management' meeting with you. As parents we have the greatest respect for what you are doing and both being in the field, understand some of the difficulties you labour under in providing the high standards for which your school is world renowned. I much appreciate the education our two older children received there and that our youngest is now enjoying. I am also thankful that you begin school meetings acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, on whose ancestral lands we live and work.
I hadn't realised our child had become a 'case'. Is that a medical case, a behavioural management case or an education policy case or some other type I am unaware of? Would I be right in assuming this refers to a protocol you are obliged to follow in the situation of a parent withdrawing a student from participation in a language class required by the school? If so, please email me the relevant policies, principles and procedures (or the URLs' of same) governing the kind of case management we will be following with her, so that we can better understand where you will be coming from in the proposed meeting and appreciate what you will be asking us to consent to.
How is the foreshadowed meeting to differ from the previous one you had with her mum alone, which resulted in the lose-lose outcome we are now dealing with? Who will be in attendance? Is our child invited and on what basis would she attend were she to accept an invitation? In that regard it would help us to know if this is to be a mediation, a consultation, a 'counselling' sessions, a 'cooperative, collaborative problem-solving' opportunity or a procedural/administrative instrument of school policy or perhaps all of the above?
I have had a look at the Department's website and found a comprehensive, though out of date draft entitled Student Management and Welfare. Would I be right in thinking that this or a later version is the or one of the policies under which we will be meeting? If not, then please send me the URL or email me the actual policy and procedures that will guide our meeting to a win-win outcome?
If so, then I note paragraph 2.12 'parents should be familiar with and understand the student management and welfare policy and procedures developed by the school community'. I confess I have had so little contact with the school, that I do not know of nor do I understand your policies or procedures. As a consequence of my dereliction, I think before we can benefit from a meeting with you, I at least will need to be fully informed about the guidelines you are operating under in her case. Let me assure you I am a fast and a discriminating reader, so you need not spare me the detail.
I also note in paragraph 2.4 'schools foster an atmosphere of cooperation in which people's feelings are respected and student's self esteem is valued and supported'. I would like to understand how our child's feelings were respected and her self-esteem valued, when following the first meeting with you, she was required to continue in the language class.
Putting her into a lower level in the same class, in retrospect, was 'switching chairs on the Titanic' when I understood that she had let it be known she did not want to continue in the class and was both reporting and demonstrating an erosion in her perception of the teacher's 'ethos' defined as 'the perceived degree of character or credibility that a person believes exists in another person or object' quoted from the article titled 'Ethos and Pedagogical Communication: Suggestions for Enhancing Credibility in the Classroom' in Current Issues in Education Vol 3 No 4.
I raise this, not to make an issue of it, but rather to suggest that we move on and in a way that respects our child's intelligence, her feelings and supports her self-esteem and self-efficacy specifically in the goal of language and culture exploration. Both of us place a high value on our cultural and language heritage, particularly as we have each lost a great deal of it through genocide and forced migration. We want this dimension of our child's school experience to be hopeful rather than a source of bitterness and distress.
Support for the priceless, intrinsic delight and curiosity in culture and language is the outcome we want from the proposed meeting. Neither of us are significantly motivated by extrinsic factors such as her failing a subject in High School all our kids are high achievers despite that omission in our parenting.
With kind regards
Useful information on Life events and career change
'Harmony without' chapter 10 of an online book entitled 'The Vital Difference - unleashing the powers of sustained corporate success'
'Most confidence games are built on human frailties... . Lies were the foundation of my schemes. A lie is an allurement, a fabrication, that can be embellished into a fantasy... . Truth is cold, sober fact, not so comfortable to absorb. A lie is more palatable. The most detested person in the world is the one who always tells the truth, who never romances.' - Joseph Weil, in "Yellow Kid" Weil: The Autobiography of America's Master Swindler quoted from 'the violin hoax' - the psychological dynamics of the fiddle scam.
"Studies which seek to illuminate the power of lies and fabrications, fantasies and romances and myths, repeatedly return to a cluster of common concepts:
- the demand for illusions and magic
- the force of prestige as domination in disguise, prompting submission
- the paralysis of individuals' critical faculty or judgment
- the thirst for obedience, authority and the worship of "prestige" -- "a mysterious and irresistible power" (Freud) -- believed to stamp and identify The Leader, The Authority, The Expert, and so on."
Thank U - song by Alanis Morissette from her 'supposed former infatuation junkie' album
- how 'bout getting off of these antibiotics
how 'bout stopping eating when I'm full up
how 'bout them transparent dangling carrots
how 'bout that ever elusive kudo
thank you India
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence
how 'bout me not blaming you for everything
how 'bout me enjoying the moment for once
how 'bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
how 'bout grieving it all one at a time
thank you India
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence
the moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
the moment I jumped off of it
was moment I touched down
how 'bout no longer being masochistic
how 'bout remembering your divinity
how 'bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
how 'bout not equating death with stopping
thank you India
thank you providence
thank you disillusionment
thank you nothingness
thank you clarity
thank you thank you silence
Week 21
When the Dalai Llama first came to the west he was surprised at the low levels of self-esteem among the people he met. For all our riches, we appeared to him poor in heart. Mother Theresa made similar observations. One of my clients told me they remembered only two years in their life in which they felt happy. They experienced little esteem of them, coming from the people around them and thus had matured with little sense of their own worth. Another client reminded me how little we acknowledge other people's innovations or successes in Australia. In the first I acknowqledged what a hug cost that had been in growing up and then started noticing what raised their esteem and suggesting doing more of that and noticing what degraded their worth and suggesting doing less of that. In the second it required ackowledging their own core negative belief - 'I am unlovable' - and designing a way to re-write their life story from birth forward, to correct that faulty learning. It sounds simple when I describe it here but in both situations a lot of their previous work had gone into recognising and knowing that this was the truth of their situation and then to be willing to do something about it. The possibilities of blame in both their situations were considerable. Neither were stuck there. It takes courage to own your own stuff when it was given to you in the first place by others and then to turn that poison into wine. It is such a privelage for me to be part of that adventure.
Week 20
No addiction occurs in isolation. There is some relationship, past or present , often intimate, which enables it.. This is the original meaning of co-dependence.
Do people really change over time? Temperaments are fairly stable personality features. What changes is the knowledge and skills we acquire in dealing with the pack of cards we were handed at birth. In that way we increase our range of behaviour and our choices of which behaviour, or thought process we will apply in which situations. Biological components of personality from allpsych.online.
Great list of aboriginal spirituality and dreaming links.
Some thoughts about unhelpful thoughts.
Week 17 - 19
Full transcript of the good medicine conversation with Pema Chodron and Alice Walker, which begins like this:
Alice Walker: 'About four years ago I was having a very difficult time. I had lost someone I loved deeply and nothing seemed to help. Then a friend sent me a tape set by Pema Chodron called "Awakening Compassion." I stayed in the country and I listened to you, Pema, every night for the next year. I studied lojong mind training and I practiced tonglen. It was tonglen, the practice of taking in people's pain and sending out whatever you have that is positive, that helped me through this difficult passage. I want to thank you so much, and to ask you a question. In my experience suffering is perennial; there is always suffering. But does suffering really have a use? I used to think there was no use to it, but now I think that there is.'
Pema Chodron: 'Is there any use in suffering? I think the reason I am so taken by these teachings is that they are based on using suffering as good medicine, like the Buddhist metaphor of using poison as medicine. It's as if there's a moment of suffering that occurs over and over and over again in every human life. What usually happens in that moment is that it hardens us; it hardens the heart because we don't want any more pain. But the lojong teachings say we can take that very moment and flip it.'
And the conversation between Alice Walker and Sharon Slazberg on 'loving kindness in a painful world'.
- "We have a beautiful
mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body
everything
we know" Alice Walker
A worthwhile read on life questions including turning points, from Hawaii.
A beautiful interview with Victor Frankl, age 90 at home with Mrs Frankl.
A perenial issue - the effects of Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, and Serzone - hard to swallow.
Week 15 - 16
A truly whacky site - http://www.speckledpaint.org/ when it is working, with the most wonderful old photographic images, art and ephemera on the web like this one from San Francisco---->
Week 14
'Service is the rent we pay for living on this earth.' Mother Theresa
I catch myself still with the expectation and fear that my best interests are not in my loved one's mind when she makes decision affecting both of us. This is despite the fact that they quite obviously are in her mind. I more often than not observe the pattern and comment on it as it arises in my relationship, without blaming my beloved for 'failing to put my best interests first' (a 'basic trust' issue and a 'disappointment' script). I call these child - hood states, as if I was wearing a hood that downcasts my eyes and dims the light and sound around me - so that I don't see what is actually occuring. Rather I see/hear/feel what I fear is about to occur - my best interest ignored and no connection with the other. I don't always catch myself putting on the hood, but she can observe it coming over me as I can the one that she wears. What I notice is the effects - the light is duller, I'm not hearing and seeing things as I know them to be, I feel disconnected or out of reach. I'm thinking in my fears rather than with my awareness.
All the therapy in the world will not take my history away, but therapy and the skills of awareness, focussing and meditation keep my sense of humour just at the lip of the hood and I can laugh at myself, good naturedly, for running an old line on myself again.
"Eagles may soar, but weasels never get caught in jet engines."
"Only some of us can learn from other people's mistakes. The rest of us have to be the other people." more quotes
Week 13
"Why of course the people don't want war... That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hermann Goering, Nazi Officer, Statement during his Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. Quoted from Professor Zimbardo's the Political Psychology of Terrorist Alarms
Week 12
The second edition of 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation" by Budilovsky and Adamson is now on the bookshelves. Full of little gems call 'bliss bytes' and short practical tips as well as clear instructions on many styles within the yoga tradition.
"'Reel Therapy' is Solomon's second book on the subject; six years ago he wrote 'The Motion Picture Prescription: Watch This Movie and Call Me in the Morning' (Aslan), and he claims to have coined the term cinematherapy. Several books by other authors followed the basic idea ('Cinematherapy: The Girl's Guide to Movies for Every Mood' by Nancy K. Peske and Beverly West; 'Rent Two Films and Let's Talk in the Morning' by John W. Hesley and Jan G. Hesley), which is that movies are the surest way for the patient to see the doctor's larger, more relevant points. Solomon writes in the introduction to Reel Therapy about the crucial "suspension of disbelief" that viewers easily bring to movies, which mirrors the all-important "denial" that patient and doctor struggle to identify in modern therapy. Solomon cautions against Nora Ephronstyle fixes that clock in under two hours, but nonetheless, Sleepless in Seattle might speed up the diagnosis. (Yes, Meg Ryan again, the apparent queen of cinematherapy, pictured above in 'When Harry Met Sally')
Solomon has cut his practice back to focus on writing and teaching, but he claims that cinematherapy was successful for many of his patients. The book, however, cannot help but devolve into that highly marketable and ultimately dumbed-downed realm of self-help. It's a symptoms/cures catalog, handily divided into sublists at the end. For co-dependency alone, there are 90 movies to slog through, from 'Leaving Las Vegas' (also cross-reffed under "alcohol" and "death/dying") to the Streisand version of 'A Star Is Born' to the widely unseen Julia Roberts flop 'Mary Reilly'" quoted from the LA Weekly:
'Success is stumbling from failure to failure with enthusiasm.' Winston Churchill
Week 11
"Do I play games and is being uprfront the best approach to preventing it?" - being up front is a good strategy except when it's not. Games are another way to label in-authenticity and lack of transparency in relationships, a common human condition that evolved over the millenia. It is not smart or safe to be authentic and transparent in all relationships or said the other way, it's safe to be authentic except when it's not. Work places are usually defined by strategic relationships - ie you do X for me, I do Y for you [eg work for pay, silence for advance etc]. Families are usually defined by intimate relationships - ie I'm vulnerable, I care and I do and be without indebtedness, without expecting a return. In all cases we hope for fair play and natural justice when things go awry, however, it's a foreseeable risk to be intimate at work and a cost to intimacy to be strategic at home, except when it's not. I think the first and best approach to this dilemma is mindfullness in all situations, not an easy method when emotions run deep - but then that's the most important place to be mindfull.
My dad lived the saying he was fond of quoting - 'a decision made in haste is regretted at leisure', but he didn't know how or when to teach me the how of making a decision at leisure, even if I had been open to learning it from him. I too have had to learn that the hard way, reinventing the wheel. Awareness is the key. In part your question may be coming out of feelings of shame, which then feed into a little more depression - 'am I defective because I play games'? NO. 'Should I be upfront with others in order to feel better about myself'? NO. Feeling better about yourself takes time and attention to your true needs and wants - being kind, loving and affirming of yourself is a better place to start than doing that for others instead. Meeting your own needs first rather than focussing on theirs instead.
Then become aware of what drives the game in you and how that connects you with your game partner. You can only speculate on what drives it in the other, but it will be a cousin of your own motivation and needs. Perhaps it's fear of being known and of the other liking as little of what they see in you as you do in yourself. Perhaps it's a desire for external approval. Perhaps it's strategic - to get something from you or them that you or they would not otherwise offer to give. Games are transactions, sometimes with self-esteem as the base currency - I get to feel good by stimulating you to feel bad.
Then notice what happens in you as you imagine the game unfolding in slow motion replay, or as it actually unfolds in relationship at speed. Noticing what happens in you and in the transaction moves you to a place where you can slow the interaction down, soften its edges and find your place to stand and your time to choose what you want. Here you can consider your options at leisure.
First you don't notice the hole in the road ahead, fall in. Then you fall in a couple of times more and feel bad and so you have to deal with feeling bad.Then you learn to anticipate the hole ahead of you, stop and choose whether to fall in again. Then, anticipating the hole ahead you step around it or find another way to your destination. It's not where you are going but how you get there that matters in the end - the rest you have little control of.
Some thoughts from Bill O'Hanlon on writing about life crises:
"Writing thoughts and feelings about trauma or crises for as little as 15 minutes a day for as few as four or five days has been shown to be correlated with:
-Far fewer visits to the student health center for college students
-An increase in T-cells (immune system functioning)
-Increasing the likelihood and rapidity of getting a new job after being laid off
-Reduced anxiety and depression
-Improved grades
-Improved mental and physical health of grade-school students, people in nursing homes, arthritis patients, medical students, rape victims, new mothers, and prisoners
How to do the writing ritual:
1. Write honestly and openly about your deepest feelings and thoughts about the situation you are in or went through. Make sure you keep these writings private or you may find yourself unconsciously censoring what you write and diluting the effects of the writing. Consider destroying what you wrote after it is complete, again for the same reason. Perhaps making a ritual of the burning or destroying of the writing. (See the next section of this chapter for some hints about doing that kind of ritual.)
2. Write for a relatively short time, say 15 minutes. This writing is often draining or emotionally difficult. Limiting the time makes it both a bit more tolerable and more likely that you will do it.
3. Write for only four or five days. This time limit seemed to work very well in the experiments that were done. They are not carved in granite, however, and if you find you need more time, you can take it. One of the points of this limit of a few days is again to contain the experience so it doesn,t take over your life.
4. Try to find both a private and unique place to write, somewhere you can both be uninterrupted and someplace that won,t be associated with other things or that have the usual smells, sights and sounds of places you already know well.
5. Don,t worry about grammar or spelling or getting it right. Just write.
6. During the writing days, try to use the same time each day or evening to write. It,s not crucial, but it can sometime give your unconscious mind some structure and preparation time if it knows exactly when the writing will take place. This can also help contain the emotions and intrusive thinking that may occur and interfere with your day or evening
7. Writing seems to be the most powerful, but if for some reason, that won,t work for you, you could try "writing by speaking into a tape recorder or a video camera.
8. Ignore these guidelines if you discover something else works better for you. Everyone is unique.
Sources: Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, James Pennebaker, NY: Guilford, 1990.
The Writing Cure: How Expressive Writing Promotes Health and Emotional Well-Being, eds. Stephen J. Lepore and Joshua M. Smyth, APA: Washington, DC, 2002."
Bill O'Hanlon, M.S., Possibilities
551 Cordova Rd., #715 Santa Fe, NM 87505
800.381.2374, Fax# 505.983.2761
PossiBill@aol.com, www.brieftherapy.com
Week 10
"We don't need to learn to let things go; we just need to recognize when they've already gone." Suzuki Roshi
I met some people whilst travelling, who live in a million dollar mansion and have that again in their retirement funds and they were telling me how poor they felt. They spend almost no time caring for other than themselves. In Hell you sit at a table with many people, and with the most wonderful food in front of you, which can only be eaten with a very long spoon making it impossible to feed yourself. Hell is other people. In Heaven you sit at the same table, many people, same food, same long spoon but here you feed each other. Heaven is other people. For a Buddhist view of depression caused by self-cherishment.
If you get a chance to see the M.I.L.K. photographic exhibition, do it. Universal, beautiful and moving. 400 photographs of love, friendship and family selected from 40,000 photos of 17,000 photographers. Week 8 - 9
Ever interested in what people search for on my site, this one on Lloyd de Mause's proposition that history runs in cycles, which replay common childhood traumas interested me. Quoted from an earlier speech of his: "Washington, Jackson, Buchanan, Cleveland, Wilson, Harding, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson, Bush, Clinton-compulsive womanizers, mistress collectors, fathers of illegitimate children, prostitute chasers, sex addicts. Why do Americans so often choose as leaders men who betray and humiliate their wives with their sexual affairs, rather than choosing men who can manage to love their wives and not betray them? It is no coincidence that of the 12 presidents listed above who were womanizers all but 3 also commanded major military ventures - and Clinton may cut that to 2 if he goes ahead with his promised bombing of Iraq - while the 29 others were far more peaceful. Might modern nations sometimes unconsciously choose their leaders like many primitive tribes choose theirs - for their ability to conquer both their women and their enemies?"
For a more complete understanding of the culture of fear in the US, add the movie 'Bowling for Colombine' to the century long expansion of this young, brash and frightened empire since the Spanish War and note the books, which are currently challenged in US libraries - top of the list since 1990, the Harry Potter series. Here's a list of this frightenned, imperial child's military adventures since 1953.
Week 7, 2003
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best ..." and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called." A.A. Milne, from 'The House at Pooh Corner.
- If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else. {Chinese Proverb}
Interesting list of environment/behaviour/relationship resources at these links.
A clinical podiatry site about foot fetishism and other 'sex life of the feet' paraphilias.
If you think that's weird and I must have lost the plot over the New Year period, then visit this anthropoetics site for a discussion of 'Conspiratorial Narrativity and the Beatles'. There you will find this mind-boggling definition by Rene Girard - 'myths are the retrospective transfigurations of sacrificial crises, the reinterpretation of these crises in light of the cultural order that has arisen from them." If you understand that, then you will have already questioned the mind altering power of some of your own myths and understand the re-appearance since 9/11, of ancient mythologies of why we should disconnect and go to war and myths of why relating doesn't secure the peace. The 'hammer shapes the hand'.
I often get a story like this, 'I've been telling X that idea for years. Today X came home and told me that they heard this (same) idea from a stranger for the first time, and it has changed X's life.' Marcia Stern (a child psychotherpaist) suggests 'every clinician at one time or another realizes that words are not enough. 'So often the results you see in your office don't carry over when people go home. The challenge of therapy is always to get clients from intention to action. Helping people understand their own brains and the unique way they process information can help bridge that gap and make change stick.'
Developing neural pathways for emotional resilience:-
'A sensitive and responsive parent helps grow the connections in a part of the infant's brain by communicating - or "collaborating," as Siegel calls it - with the baby, via eye contact, facial expression, gestures, tone of voice, and so on. The baby gurgles happily to its mother, the mother picks it up and "answers" with a smile and a joyful, "Ooh, what a sweet baby," or the baby cries in pain or frustration and the father soothes and consoles it, or the parent gradually calms down an overexcited child at bedtime. These interactions-ordinary, routine, repeated innumerable times-stimulate the growth of synapses in the orbitofrontal cortex that enable children to moderate their frustration, rage, and fear, and to respond flexibly to other people. A securely attached child develops the neural pathways for resilience. Even when her parents are upset or impatient, her brain's wiring "knows" from experience that they won't abandon her and will reconnect after the storm has passed. Kids who don't get this kind of back-and-forth parental attention may grow up more or less at the mercy of their emotions, unable to manage their rage and aggression, calm their anxieties, console themselves in their sadness, or tolerate high levels of pleasure and excitement. Furthermore, they'll be more likely to suffer social disconnection: unable to interpret others' social cues because of deficits in their orbitofrontal cortices, they'll have trouble joining in the rhythm of relational exchange. In short, from the beginning, relating isn't a discretionary activity, something we can do without. As an organ, the brain must make human connections to develop a healthy, working mind.' quoted from familytherapynetwork.com (and backed up here when the link broken).
Week 6, 2003
"In the long run, we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving". -- Sheldon Kopp
My darling aunt died on Christmas day in England and we managed to be there for the 10 days before-hand. She held on till we got there and we had a beautiful time with her. Her only annoyance with the 'death business' was that she didn't have an appointment. If she did, she said, she could then arrange to have a whisky beforehand and say her last farewells. As it turned out the hospital staff broke open a bottle of sherry on Christmas day and I gave it to her 1 ml. at a time with an oral syringe.
