Taking Care of Oneself

Selfishness is a real paradox, especially as it applies to therapy. So many people are averse to the idea and the practices of taking care of themselves, because they believe it is selfish. And yet without taking care of yourself you become exhausted, or drained, or burned out, and then there's nothing left with which to give to others anyway, at least not in a healthy way; in a way that does not require becoming a martyr, and literally sacrificing yourself to illness or depression or resentment for example.

This is a very individualistic point of view of course, one which says in effect, be selfish enough to get your own needs met first, so that you will be strong enough and full enough to have surplus left for others. It's like the instructions on airplane flights where we're told to put our own oxygen masks on first in an emergency, and only then help our child or neighbor. At first this might sound selfish. Wouldn't a mother's first reaction be to save her child, for example? Perhaps it would, and the best way for her to realistically be able to do that in an emergency - to sustain that, we might say - would be to make certain that her survival needs are taken care of first. If she dies from lack of oxygen she won't be of any use to her child.

This may sound like an extreme example, and therefore not applicable to so-called everyday life. I would suggest however that it is not. Or, I might say that so-called everyday life often involves more extreme circumstances than we recognize. Most people operate at the extremes ordinarily, without even knowing it. The buzz words for this are things like, either/or; black and white; all or nothing. You can probably recognize some of the ways you do this in your life. It's really quite "normal", although it's not at all healthy.

Taking care of oneself therefore is about moderation rather than extremes; the grey's rather than the blacks and whites; the some for you and some for me rather than the all or nothing; the both/and's rather than the either/or's. True, it's not as dramatic, or possibly not as exciting - at least not at first, but it is a whole lot more sustainable and substantive, and satisfying.

Mindfulness And Psychotherapy

The term "mindfulness" in conjunction with therapy is quite popular in certain circles now. So what does this actually mean? And why is it being associated with psychotherapy?

In its simplest form, mindfulness means, simply, awareness. To be mindful. To be aware. This awareness applies to all aspects of our experience, both internal and external. This would include our thoughts, images, beliefs, desires (our "cognitive" self), our bodily sensations, our feeling states or emotional experience, and our spiritual condition. Body, speech and mind, to use the Buddhist formula: our physical behaviors, what we say out loud, and both our cognitive and spiritual conditions.

Psychotherapy is, in the final analysis, about change. It's about doing things differently, it's about thinking about things differently, and it's about feeling differently than we do at present. It is not about awareness only, or mindfulness only, yet these are considered to be essential before desireable changes can be made. If my behavior is causing distress for example, I'm not likely to be able to change it to something healthier unless and until I have an awareness of what I'm doing, and some idea of what I'd rather be doing. The same holds true for what I'm thinking and feeling, believing and imagining.

Since much of what we think and imagine and believe, and even much of what we do, is out of consciousness, developing new self-awareness - becoming more mindful - is a key to successful therapy. It isn't enough by itself, but it's an essential step.

To Stay Or Not To Stay?

Whether to stay together in a long term relationship which has involved much hurt for both people, is a challenging question. If there is a child, or children involved, the question becomes more challenging, since we can assume that bad energy between partners has already adversely affected the children, and is continuing to do so. How much hurt is too much? Where is the point of no return, beyond which reconciliation and repair are simply not possible, and quitting the relationship would be best for all, including, in the final analysis, the children?

I wish there was a pat answer to these questions. I don't know one if there is. I do know that there is a point beyond which it would not be advisable to stay together, if our interest is in the wellbeing of all concerned. This point is reached when there has been so much hurt that sticking around and trying to make it right would be more injurious than helpful. I believe that people can and should suffer only just so much injury in relationships. I'm not an advocate of the martyr approach, which might recommend endless patience, endless justifications, endless apologies and endless relapses into hurtful behavior.

If there are children, they are witnessing hurtful relationship dynamics, and are learning how they are very likely to relate with other people, especially with their future partners. They are also experiencing repeated injury themselves, through their own fear (or terror), confusion, chaos, anger, or self blame that is part and parcel of being exposed to repeated hostility and discord.

If both adults feel strongly that they are able, willing, and desirous of making significant cognitive and behavioral changes for the better (with professional help of course), then it would be well worth trying. If either of them are ambivalent, the outcome may be harder to foresee. In all cases, the safety and wellbeing of the children need to be a first consideration, and this is not always a straightforward assessment.

If you are experiencing significant relationship discord, please get professionanl help right away. There's no need or good reason to wait while things get worse.

The Importance of Grief Work in Being Free

I recently saw a client who, along with other issues, is struggling with "frozen grief", having to do with realities from childhood that were, indeed, deeply sad, shame inducing, security destroying, and chaotic. The tears, as the subject came up, were right behind the eyeballs, the pain of the memories was present and palpable, yet this client has learned to use humor as a way of coping with these feelings, instead of actually working toward some level of real resolution and integration. In other words, the client is stuck in the past as far as this issue goes, and is therefore handicapped in current life.

The major theme to emerge during the session had to do with "honoring" this grief, acknowledging it's real importance, respecting it, and somehow finding a way or ways to give explicit form to it. Why drag up old hurts, some would ask? Simply because the ways in which these hurts so obviously impact current life in negative, undermining, destructive, and ironically painful ways is unhealthy, that is, it causes unhappiness.

Pretending that old hurts are in the past is simply an illusion. The reality is that these hurts will and do affect our lives today. If they were left in the past with no adverse affect in the present, we could agree with the "why not leave them in the past" approach. But that's just not the way it works. We're structured in such a way psychologically that our experiences have lasting impact, and traumatic experiences have lasting traumatic impact, unless they can be resolved, integrated, healed.

The "get over it" view is unfortunate, not just because it is lacking in compassion, but because it's unrealistic, it's bad science. Like a garden, we are organic beings with particular kinds of needs if we are to flourish. We can survive even if these needs are never met, but we cannot "do well". Grief work is a natural process of healing the psyche from traumatic wounding.

Relationship Essentials

What makes for a good, healthy, viable, satisfying, loving relationship? Isn't this something we just know how to do?

To answer the second question first, "no". It might surprise you to know how little we actually "just know" about conducting good intimate relationships. Here are some of the mistakes people almost routinely make in their intimate relationships:
1) acting as if it is a sporting event, where there has to be a winner and there has to be a loser
2) insisting on being "right"
3) trying to tell your partner what they "have to" do in order to be acceptable
4) trying to control your partner's thinking or behavior
5) a lack of cooperative support toward a win-win dynamic
6) a failure to actually listen to your partner, and respect their differences and needs
7) making disagreements into a battle where conquest, rather than negotiation is the goal
8) dragging up issues from years ago when conflict arises

These are some of the obstacles to good relationship. So, to answer the first question above, the opposite of these things will make for good, healthy intimate relations:

1) learning to think about your relationship as a joint venture, rather than as a clash between enemies
2) learning to understand the necessity for flexibility, for give and take, for putting the relationship above your own need to be "right"
3) learning how to negotiate, rather than conquer
4) giving up the need to control, in favor of the rewards of real connection
5) understanding the benefits of compromise so that both parties come out winners
6) learning how to listen, to hear, and to pause long enough to take in and genuinely consider your partner's point of view, even if you don't agree
7) turning conflicts into opportunities to strengthen your relationship bond, rather than using them to prove how strong, or smart, or clever or important, or manipulative you are
8) learning how to work with feelings in the moment, instead of storing up grievances to be used as ammunition later on.

It's often hard work, but the rewards, if true intimacy and connection and loving are your goals, are worth it.

Is Contact With Nature Necessary For A Healthy Life?

I won't keep you in suspense. The answer is, "of course it is".

I know this might be considered a "bias" of mine, or simply a personal opinion. Well, OK.
The truth is though, it's not just my personal opinion. It's actually a view that's coming to be more and more recognized in all fields of health, not just mental health. I won't bore you with the long list of disciplines that are making this connection. You can easily read about it for yourself. Just choose an area of interest and start googling.

Mind-Body medicine. Respecting the ecology of the emotions and the psyche as well as that of the material (that is, "natural") world. Understanding that we are simply a part of this natural world, subject, as all of it is, to certain natural laws. For example, if we choose to live in a way that ignores the relationships between what and how we eat and resulting health effects, should we be surprised when poor diet leads to physical health problems? Or should we be surprised when a healthy diet contributes significantly to a healthy body? I don't think we should.

What about mental health? If we live in a way that isolates us from the natural world, or that believes that we are simply here to dominate the natural world, should we be surprised when we suffer with feelings of alienation, lack of meaning, anxiety, irritability, or spiritual emptiness? I don't think we should.

I'm not saying that everyone has to live in the forest, or out in the remote desert, or on a farm.
I'm saying that in some genuine ways, it's necessary to connect both physically/emotionally and spiritually with Nature, on a regular basis. By "connect" I mean also to learn to value, and to respect, and even to cherish, Nature, rather than relating to It as an enemy, or simply a "resource" to be exploited, or an inconvenience.

Yes, the health of the planet and the health of people are linked. This isn't esoteric lore, or New Age gobledeegook. It's simple intelligence and, really, common sense. If I drive drunk, my chances of having an accident are exponentially higher than if I'm sober. If I ignore my status as a product of the natural world, my chances of suffering some form of psychological dis-integration are exponentially higher than if I don't.

And now to the heart of the matter in terms of good therapy: connecting with the natural world includes, and often depends on, learning to connect more genuinely and more lovingly with oneself. Rejection and judgement of self, or attempting to live a false self, are forms of alienation from Nature. Hug a tree? Sure, and hug yourself, too.

Mindfulness Is Not A Drug

Yes, it's possible to use meditation as a means of escaping from oneself, rather than as a means of genuinely and beneficially connecting with oneself. Then you might end up feeling, as one client told me today, "stoned". You might feel high, or good, and this would be pretty much the equivalent of smoking pot, or drinking alcohol, or using other drugs or behaviors in order to self medicate against difficult or painful feelings.

I've known clients who have spent literally years doing this, imagining that they were somehow accomplishing something significant through their "meditation". A true mindfulness discipline on the other hand is a matter of connecting dispassionately, more objectively, with your own experience, whatever it might be, developing a non-judgemental attitude toward that experience, and an ability to observe it without acting on it.

One American Buddhist teacher whose writings I admire, Pema Chodron, speaks about fearlessness. I find her definition of "fearlessness" to be very accurate in terms of good mental health development: not turning away from your own direct experience. You notice that fearlessness here does not mean an absence of the experience of fear. Rather it's about connecting mindfully, more as an observer, courageously and compassionately with whatever your experience is, including the experience of fear., and not running or distracting from that.

The ability to do this is essential to growth, to healing, to recovery from addiction, to recovery from trauma, to good communication, to relationship skill, and on and on. It's essential, really, to happiness and wellbeing. Being "in the Now", a condition universally recognized as desireable and liberating, is only possible through mindfullness, through present awareness of one's moment to moment experience. Of course, this takes practice and development, and is not achieved all at once and forever.

Let's learn how to really pay attention.