Susan's Blog

What “IF” Thinking is an “Iffy” Business

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 23:14:39 GMT

"Fear says 'what if.' Faith says, 'even if.'"

Some people seem to use “what ifs” to ponder unusual types of hypothetical situations that are based of a person’s anxieties or fears. Such as “what if it snows or rains?” This is planning for an imaginal, non-existent event. It is a thinking error that is irrational because it does not exist. These are speculations that you fantasized and imagined as possibilities a person might consider if something was different and a person can use for planning even though the outcome does not exist. It contains conjectures and analyzations about an unknown future possibility.

A person could use any of the following words for their “what if scenarios:”

Hypotheticals : Situations based on imagination or assumption.

Speculations : Ideas or guesses about something unknown.

Conjectures : Conclusions/opinions developed with incomplete information.

Contingencies : Plans for unknown future possibilities.

Counterfactuals : Imagining the past differently (e.g., “What if I took the other job?)

It is possible to move from “what if” thinking to acting/pretending “as if” it is already happening.

Acting “As If” or “Fake It till You Make It.”

The "psychology of as if" is a technique where individuals adopt the behaviors, emotions, or mindset of a desired personality or mental state to initiate personal change.” As if” is from Alfred Adler’s therapy and explained by Richard Wiseman’s "As If Principle," suggests acting as if you are already confident or happy, which subsequently generates those feelings.

Behavioral Shift

One acts as if the change has already happened causing new feelings.

As if principle (Wiseman) : Research shows physical actions can shift emotions and mental states (e.g., smiling to feel happier, sitting upright to feel more confident).

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) : This is a behavioral intervention to break negative thought patterns by forcing new actions.

Examples in Daily Life:

Confidence : Speaking and holding oneself like a confident person, even if feeling anxious.

Productivity : Working as if already successful to boost motivation.

Habit Change : Using the non-dominant hand to break automatic, unhealthy behaviors. This approach emphasizes that action is more effective at emotional change than thinking positively.

IF

By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same…

"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney.

Worrywart

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 12:56:59 GMT

Worrying is like a rocking chair; it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.
– Glenn Turner

The trouble with worry is that you feel like you are doing something about your bothersome

concerns. Excessive worry causes a person to feel anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems. The word worrywart came into being from the comic character “Worry Wart” who was imagined by J.R. Williams in the 1920s. He was not a worrier, but his character caused others to worry with worrisome thoughts. Then the term “worry wart” originated in the 1930s and 1940s and refers to someone who is overly concerned. “Worry” is from the old English word wrygan, which means “to strangle.” A Wart is also from the old English wearte can be a growth on the skin. A person’s worries can bug them and get under their skin even causing a rash. Since 1956 that year is often cited as the first documented use of "worrywart" in its modern sense in sources such as the “Oxford English Dictionary”.

Even the Bible mentions Martha as the biblical figure most explicitly identified as a "worrywart" when Jesus tells her, “You are worried and upset about many things" (Luke 10:41).

Mary Oliver, in her poem "I Worried" expresses poetically the possibility of unforeseen potential problems that can capture your mind:

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not, how shall I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?

Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

What “If” Thinking

"What if" thoughts are hypothetical questions that create a cycle of rumination, worry and anxiety by focusing on worst-case scenarios, which may become difficult to stop. To manage these thoughts, you can try focusing on what you can control, ground yourself in the present facts, and challenge the negative predictions by considering realistic outcomes or your ability to cope,

Hypothetical and negative:
"What if" thoughts are intrusive, hypothetical questions that start with "what if" and often spiral into negative predictions about the future and are fear-based.
Examples:
"What if I fail my exam?" or "What if my headache means I have cancer?" are examples.
Anxiety triggers:
They often lie beneath fears of rejection, insecurity, or loss, and feed worry.

How to manage them

Focus on control:
Ask yourself, "What can I control?" and focus your energy on that one aspect.
Stay present:
Ground yourself in the present, here and now, by focusing on what is happening right in front of you, rather than on future fears.
Challenge the thought:
Examine the evidence: Ask for evidence that the thought is true and evidence that it is not.
Consider realistic outcomes: Follow the "what if" cycle to its conclusion to see if the outcome is realistic. You can also ask yourself if you could handle a negative outcome if it were to happen.
Reframe: Try replacing "what if" thinking with "if, then" thinking, which can help you feel more in control and grounded.

"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy." – Leo F. Buscaglia

How to Manage Angry People

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 06:25:34 GMT

Anger Defined More Fully

Anger is a secondary emotion, acting as a protective "defense mechanism" to shield or protect oneself. A situation, an event, hurtful words are spoken to you and then you react by getting good and mad, and angry.

Anger is an emotion characterized by tension that arises from irritation, annoyance, frustration, as a real or an imagined insult, an injury through wounded feelings caused by another, or a perceived injustice. Anger can manifest itself and be seen in your behaviors that are designed to resolve anger through using such actions as swearing, shouting, revenge, get even, passive aggressiveness such as giving a cold shoulder, ignoring, the silent treatment designed merely to express to the offender how one feels.

The emotions that are hidden behind anger include fear, hurt, shame, sadness, and frustration or even more vulnerable feelings like slights, insults, being dissed, and not being seen or heard. these are kept from being exposed. Identifying the primary emotion beneath the surface is key to understanding the root cause of anger, allowing for healthier processing and resolution of the underlying feelings.

Anger Hides Other Emotions

Vulnerability : Emotions like sadness, fear, and hurt can make you feel vulnerable and unable to acknowledge or share.
Protection : Anger can serve as a powerful facade, allowing a person to project strength and control when they feel internally fragile, helpless, or powerless.
Avoidance : By expressing anger, an individual might be avoiding the deeper pain associated with feelings of hurt, loss, betrayal, and disappointment.

Common Natural Emotions Underneath Anger

Hurt : Deep emotional wounds or that someone is mistreating you can lead to anger.
Fear : Fear of failure, uncertainty, or threats can be expressed by another to you as anger.
Sadness : Unacknowledged grief and/or unresolved sadness can manifest as anger.
Frustration : A sense of powerlessness or inability to change a situation often leads to frustration, which can turn into anger.
Shame/Guilt : Feelings of shame, guilt and self-judgment can also be masked by anger.
Disappointment : The feeling of being let down or rejected can fuel anger.

How to Work with Underlying Emotions

Self-Reflection : Ask yourself what emotions or feelings are hidden beneath the anger.
Acknowledge Vulnerability : Deliberately acknowledging and working with those deeper, more vulnerable emotions can lead to greater emotional health and self-understanding.

What is Anger Telling You?

Anger often signals that a personal need, value, or boundary has been violated by someone that alerts you to a potential problem or injustice. It serves as a powerful warning, indicating that something is not right and action may be needed to address the situation, to correct a wrong, or ensure your well-being. By understanding the underlying message of your anger, you can address the root cause and find effective solutions.

HOW TO MANAGE ANGRY PEOPLE

Backlund and Scott ( Assertiveness: Get What You Want Without Being Pushy ) suggest the acronym “ BULLETS ” to use when confronted with difficult and angry people. This is an adaptation for your information.

Be seated . Be calm and ask the other person to sit down with you which can slow down an intense response.
Use the person’s name . Using a soft tone of voice and using their name all the time can slow their reactivity.
Lower your voice . When tension is palpable and present lowers your voice tone.
Listen . Listen, hear, and acknowledge without rushing what the person has to say. Validation of their issue, thoughts, and feelings is not agreement.
Eliminate humor . When a person is upset do not minimize or make light of the situation because they would feel minimized and disrespected, and it could increase their anger.
Talk do not argue . Arguing increases anger and tension. Rational conversation makes people calmer and more likely to help solve problems.
Slow-down . Decreasing your rate of speech is a way to role-model to the upset person a good behavior pattern in an appropriate manner.

All By Myself - Alone in Loneliness

Tue, 20 May 2025 20:29:24 GMT

"Deep in the heart of summer, sweet is life to me still,

but my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."
─ William Sharp

The heart is a Lonely Hunter; this book title is from Sharp's poem The Lonely Hunter . The poem refers to personal isolation and the love-hate relationship about being alone and feeling lonely.

Loneliness

"The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness." ─ Norman Cousins

I have noticed that people I have worked with have a challenging time during the holiday season time of the year and cannot wait for the holidays to be over. Sometimes they sit with strong feelings of loneliness. Loneliness is a state of feeling cut off from and longing for connection, love, and heart. People may experience a lack of contact either physically or emotionally with others. Loneliness is not to be confused with solitude and a quiet time to reflect and restore their vitality. It is like being in solitary confinement. There are people who just have a disposition to be alone.

Loneliness causes people to question and ask themselves why am I here and why was I born, what is my purpose and life's mission, how can I discover my own niche in life that is a perfect fit for me? And it can change several times over a lifetime.

2 Types of Loneliness

Robert Weiss defined trait loneliness and state loneliness. State loneliness is about the situation and atmosphere a person is experiencing. Loneliness can happen to you by being in a strange place amongst strangers. When you leave home by going off to school, or on a trip by yourself can give you the feeling of being stranded in your lonely feelings. Trait loneliness consists of lonely feelings that begin within oneself and is not based on any situational experience. The person who endures trait loneliness may also be shy, feel awkward around others, and feel insecure. The loneliness of feeling invisible or misunderstood.

As time seems to move quickly, have you had any feelings or thoughts about your coming year? Are you wondering what is in store for you in the next year? Do you have an instinctual feeling, sense, or an insight as to your own personal direction in life?

Now is a suitable time, as is any time of the yearly cycle to contemplate your life's possibilities. Take a few moments to review your thoughts, feelings, dreams, and your insights by paying attention to what has floated in and out of your mind.

Consider allowing yourself to be an intuitive visionary for your own life to fulfill your heart's desire. When you see, look, and listen to yourself, be aware if any answers to your questions come to you. Are the new thoughts and ideas that have come to you a nourishment that you need to feed your further investigation and exploration on your path?

"When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?" ─ Epictetus

Strong Emotions and Feelings Are More Powerful than Thoughts

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:58:04 GMT

Chunks of water from my essence slips.

Setting my heartbeat into rewind.

With a heart heavy, my eyes spit Rancid emotions,

my teeth I grind.

─ Alozor Michael Ikechukwu

At times, clients have indicated that they feel rankled by a festering emotion that is a persistent irritation or clinging resentment that has embittered their life. They want to be free of the gall that needles them daily as it captures their mind. Such strong lingering emotions such as sorrow, hate, fear, anger can sour people over time with bitterness. They experience too much frustration, sadness, badness, naughtiness, anger, regret, loss, and sorrow and finally are hoping to find validation of their experience or a just reward of approval.

Sometimes experiencing a particular emotional state repeatedly seems to produce a rancid emotion. The word rancid is from the Latin rancidus ‘stinking.’ As an example, just think of butter that is rancid. It is old and stale. If you happen to get a taste on your tongue it leaves a stinking taste in your nose and mouth. It sure does not have the clean, clear, and freshly made delicious butter quality. Rancid emotions are unpleasant and rank as they are decomposing in a person. Because of these emotions sometimes a person will make a "stink."

Feeling Is Where It All Starts

The word emotion is from the Latin exmovere, ex (out) movere (move) to move out, stir up. Powerful emotions are a more genuine personal experience than thought and thinking. When an event happens to you it can trigger strong emotions and feelings that are the engine of your perceptions which can create your thoughts. Then you can share your strong emotions as your words and language describe them. Then you can make a decision that drives an action or response.

A therapeutic resolution can be discovered by working with your emotional states, as you describe and explain what has triggered your emotions. The event that happened to you now can begin to produce self-understanding and integrated into your therapy. Your emotional issues are heard by a witness who can validate your experience. This is about developing self-understanding as you are listened to by another person. Often the person's own instinctual nature and nurturing self-care helps one to find relief as the person seeks to understand their own emotional state. Therapy is often a food that feeds one and can be associated with taking in self-soothing comfort and love. Then one starts to feel better, which gives the person the approval and validation that they need. This might be approving in a mature way of oneself through self-acceptance. There is the need to take care of one’s own feelings now as they struggle with their encounters with the things that emotionally capture them in their mind.

"To awaken to the living dream within one’s life and remain awake involves repeated struggle yet also presents something truly worth fighting for. Each individual soul has its share of genius and a core of imagination that can transcend the collective anxiety and the chaos in the world."
─ Michael Meade

Why Or Why Not!

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 22:46:03 GMT

The Pain of not Knowing Why

There are words that people never used, or ever explained. The experience of sudden silence, the unspoken words, the unanswered questions that haunt your mind. The “why” lives and ruminates rent free in your head sometimes day and night looking for the answer to the “why” when he or she do not find an answer. People seek to understand and stand under their understanding rather than feeling left in the dark and not knowing as you then realize that you may never know.

"Why" is not a fact because it is an opinion, which is a statement that expresses a belief, value judgment, attitude, or feeling. A fact is a statement that you can prove to be true or false using objective evidence. When you say, "why not" that is not considered a fact in psychology because it represents a question, not a verifiable statement of truth; it expresses doubt or a lack of evidence rather than presenting concrete information that you can evaluate and confirm as factual.

~ Asking "why" can be problematic because it often puts people on the defensive, making them feel like they need to justify their actions, potentially leading to less honest answers and hindering deeper understanding; instead, using more open-ended questions like "what led you to" or "can you tell me about" can encourage more thoughtful responses and genuine insight. ‒ Anonymous

Key reasons to avoid asking "why"

Defensive reactions:
"Why" can imply blame or criticism, causing people to become defensive and less likely to share their true thoughts.
Superficial replies:
People may give socially acceptable reasons rather than their real motivations, as they are often not fully aware of their own "whys".
Justification :
Asking "why" can push people to focus on justifying their actions rather than providing a deeper explanation.

Alternatives to "why"

To get better clarification think of using open ended statements such as, "What led you to..., "Can you explain..., "How did you decide..., "Tell me about..., and "What were your considerations when. "What" questions, with their open and non-judgmental nature, which creates a space for understanding and an empathic dialogue that allows individuals to share their experiences, feelings, and thoughts without fear of criticism.

Example of a poem that asks questions

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost - This poem famously asks, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth." The speaker questions which path to choose.

An Imposter is a Fraud

Mon, 20 May 2024 12:31:30 GMT

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” ‒ Confucius

I am not I. An imposter assumes a false or fraudulent identity. On occasion a client will tell me that he or she feels like a fraud, an imposter. The person will say I do not know myself or who I am. I am afraid I will be discovered and exposed. Someone who experiences and suffers with this anxiety is always on edge because at any moment their identity will be seen and heard by others.

The feelings of self-doubt, along with a lack of self-confidence seem to be internalized just as their real capabilities and talents are not personally identified or valued. What needs to be owned and revealed is one’s ability to be wholly and completely themselves and own who they are in their life. Generally, the client will want to emulate and be just like someone else that they compare themselves to and who is better situated than they are in life. The fear of imminent exposure causes them to protect themselves by using words such as “faking it till I make it, or I am just winging it.”

Thinking errors and irrational thoughts are often involved because the person experiences ever present negative self-talk that lives rent free in their head. These ruminations block the rational facts that support their own ability. The following poem by P. Bodi describes this inner world experience.

Feeling out of place.

Like you don’t belong.

Like others will find out,

You’ve been “faking it”

All along, but confidence is not a

Given, it is grown, keep.

Building it, step by step,

Until it is your own.

The opposite of imposter syndrome is the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This is the false belief that we know more than we do. Typically, real experts underestimate their level of expertise; while people with low ability over-estimate one’s ability. The following Aesop’s Fable describes this dynamic.

The Imposter

A man fell ill, and being in a very bad way, he made a vow that he would sacrifice a hundred oxen to the gods if they would grant him a return to health. Wishing to see how he would keep this vow; they caused him to recover is a short time. Now, he hadn’t an ox in the world, so he made a hundred little oxen out of tallow and offered them up on an altar, at the same time saying, “Ye gods, I call you to witness that I have discharged my vow.” The gods determined to be even with him, so they sent him a dream, in which he was bidden to go to the seashore and fetch a hundred crowns which he was to find there. Hastening in great excitement to the shore, he fell in with a band of robbers, who seized him and carried him off to sell as a slave and when they sold him, a hundred crowns was the sum he fetched. Do not promise more than you can perform.

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

‒Shakespeare

Life and Love - Happy Valentines' Day

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 10:20:26 GMT

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not” ‒ Blaise Pascal

Every February 14, across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint, and where did these traditions come from?

When Blaise Pascal says, “The heart itself has its own reason that reason itself cannot understand.” He acknowledges the power of our inner world reactions to our personal choices, even if we understand reasonable arguments, it will take more than this to fully persuade us that this is the truth - very deep inside.

Sometimes we just do not know our own heart felt feelings. One acceptable way of the heart often is expressed on Valentine’s Day.

The Legend of St. Valentine

The history of Valentine's Day--and the story of its patron saint--is shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite?

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine sent the first "valentine" greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl--possibly his jailor's daughter--who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed "From your Valentine," an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and--most importantly--romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

Origins of Valentine's Day: A Pagan Festival in February

While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial--which probably occurred around A.D. 270--others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February to "Christianize" the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelor’s would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

Valentine's Day: A Day of Romance

Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian” --at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine's Day should be a day for romance.

Valentine’s greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

Typical Valentine's Day Greetings

In addition to the USA, Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine's Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th century, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one's feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine's Day greetings.

Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as "scrap." Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so, I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”- Pablo Neruda, "Love Sonnet XVII"

This Wintry Time of Year

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 17:46:32 GMT

January became the first month of the year about 700BC after the Roman King Pompilius added it to the calendar along with February. Janus is the ancient Roman god of beginnings and endings plus he is the god of gateways, gates, door and doorways. He had two faces one looking back and the other forward. As the opening line in T.S. Eliot’s East Coker said, “In my beginning is my end,” and in the closing line “In my end is my beginning” (1942).

January ends the past and sets up the future; winter is the season when the world slows down. As snow falls and covers parts of the earth as an insulating blanket one knows it is winter time. People pull back their energy and hibernate too by the fireplace or under their soft and cozy covers. They might reflect on what was accomplished in the last year and formulate new ideas as seeds to plant for the coming year. Life seems to stand still. The vibrant energies of nature such as growth, vitality, expansion, and progress seem to disappear underground and stop dead in their tracks. The instincts and senses appear to withdraw from worldly distractions and stimulating diversions while a discontent can set in.

For some it can be the winter of their discontent. Originally the first line of William Shakespeare's Richard lll was "The winter of our discontent." The interruption of the life force produces decay and a dark stillness possibly a dark night of the soul. Wintertime can contain contraction, restriction, perhaps decay. The beginning of the coming year might be characterized by a bone chilling coldness, a misery to be endured, and barrenness due to death of a way of living.

"Write the vision and make it plain..." Habakkuk 2:2

During this seemingly slow passing of time some people will write down a list of resolutions, as they create a set of goals to commence implementing as the year begins, their hope is to harvest their ideas and visions through coming year.

January is burdened with all our hopes that are pinned on those first 31 days. We cram a laundry list of goals into one month and try to make them all happen at breakneck speed. Inevitably, by February we are burnt out, and by the summer, our declared resolutions are long forgotten.

A personal inventory and reflection on the mistakes and mishaps of the past year is a good place to start when there is a desire for the new. What do you want to see change? Be specific. Where could you have done better? No need to be down on yourself. Just take a look at the areas that are considered your weak points or disappointments from the last year and create a plan and vision for this coming year.

Let's give January a break? If your goals are worth attaining, they will take time - much more than a mere month can offer. Plus the effort and energy it will take to accomplish those goals are too much to do all at once. Space them out. Some resolutions and personal goals can't be worked on immediately. Give your New Year's resolutions some breathing room. You've laid the ground work to achieving your dreams, and you can take the next year to perfect them. Learn from the previous year's mistakes and grow. Every year is another chance to do it. C.S. Lewis said, "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

Here is an excerpt from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem: In Memoriam, {Ring out, wild bells}

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Wishing everyone a joy filled 2024!

Have You Heard or Answered Your Calling in Life?

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 21:26:37 GMT

"Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy." — Enchiridion of Epictetus Ch. VIII:

Any time you see or think about this article it will remind you that this is the first day of the rest of your life. As you may be pondering your own personal calling, purpose, mission, or life task, you may be wondering what shall I do next? I have many clients who have told me that they feel lost, stuck, stagnant, and are at a standstill. They don't know what they are supposed to do. I hear those laments as that they want to know what their calling in life is. They want to find that which is worthwhile, with a sense of purpose and meaning, along with their own unique niche that is meant just for them.

Daimon

You may not be aware that your individual process is moving even if you don't see or feel it. As time passes, you look back and see that there is some kind of guiding force or intelligence that is subtly operating in your life. Some people have told me that they listen to their guides or have a guardian angel or angels who motivate them. Carl G. Jung in his biography, in Memories, Dreams and Reflections said he was “in the grip of the daimon” compelling him to do and develop his life's work.

Daimon is a Greek word meaning that there is an invisible power instilling and inspiring one's personal abilities. It is an inner force or spiritual power. It has been a guiding presence since the time of birth. According to Jungian analyst, J.A. Sanford, Plato described the daimon as something that is connected to your soul and Socrates felt that his daimon inspired his ideas. The Romans referred to this directing power as your inner genius. Since ancient times, the notion has existed that there is a guiding force or spirit helper within people. Many native American, African, and Aboriginal, indigenous tribal cultures talk of their ancestors as an inner guiding source that might offer assistance in developing their purpose, destiny and fate.

Fate

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” ― Herman Melville

Now a day's people generally do not seem to notice or mention their destiny or fate or even realize that they might have one. There is a difference between destiny and fate. Destiny is something that can be a life pattern that is emerging or unfolding. It is aided by choosing to travel toward a particular goal or conversely, deciding not to fulfill it. Perhaps, as a child, you knew what you were going to do when you grew up such as becoming an engineer, a teacher, an artist, and so on. Fate is associated with your vocation, fortune, and lot in life or the events that happen to you. It is unavoidable, inescapable, and bound to happen. It is inevitable, like everyone is going to die.

In Latin, love of fate or love of one's fate was called Amor fati. It was a necessary fact of life that at some point there would be an acceptance and surrender to life's situations, whether they were judged to be good or bad. The French called it a fait accompli. It was a thing that happened in the past. If it was a done deal, a past event, it was to be accepted, embraced, and integrated into your life's destiny.

Destiny

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." ─ Shakespeare

When I ask a client to take a guess as to what their purpose might be they always have an answer. Sometimes an individual is afraid to acknowledge it because it seems too overwhelming. The person does know, own, or identify with their ability and calling. There have been distractions that have taken them off their path. Sometimes, somehow, they have been sidelined or waylaid on their journey by the unimportant and the nonessential. Jung said, "When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." I work with my clients about what is going on inside of themselves in their internal world to find out about their personal pressures, urges, impulses and what is working and pushing them into a new momentum. The purpose of this is to gain self-understanding. Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of Individual Psychology stated, "Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology (goal, my word).”

An example of answering a call is Dag Hammarskjöld who was the Deputy Foreign Minister of Sweden. He experienced inner pressure and a restless disturbance for a period of time. He went through extensive medical and psychological testing, and nothing was found. Then one night he realized something was "calling" him to which he replied, "Yes! Yes! Whatever it is, I say, yes!" Following his acceptance of whatever it was, his internal symptoms stopped, and he went on to become the Secretary General to the United Nations.

When you discover and align yourself with what you know is your particular talent or interest then you can get right with yourself and be in right order within the world. There are questions you can ask of yourself to gain more insight. Pay attention as you observe your reactions and responses to the following questions.

What was I most interested in as a child?
As an adult, is what I do now, has it sprung forth from my childhood interests?
What have I done with my creative impulse, urges, and ideas?
In what ways do I desire to create but have avoided it?
Are you aware of your inner guide or voice, angel, genius, or daimon?

"The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all acts are but different means chosen to arrive at it." ─ Hannah Arendt

Step on the Ground

susanozimkiewicz@gmail.com (Susan Ozimkiewicz) — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 15:39:40 GMT

Everything Begins with the First Step

Step on your Ground

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet."
─ Robert Oppenheimer
Everything begins with the first step. Many of my clients have had foot problems or symptomatic feet. Some have said it hurts to stand or walk. Others have said that their foot has gone south, and their foot feels like it is dragging along behind them, or it feels like they are walking on hot coals. Sometimes clients will hold back their ability to move ahead by not following their own process in life because they do not know what moves them. Your feet are a symbol that embodies what you stand for as they carry you forward and support your life.

The Foot's Process
"The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground." ─ Buddha

The Dictionary of Symbols said that when the Buddha was born, "he measured out the universe by taking seven steps in each of the quarters of space. Vishnu did the same thing with three strides." Jesus gave great significance to the feet in John 13:4 by washing his disciple's feet. The world symbolism of the footprint has been compared to the track that a hunter follows, and a symbol for the spiritual seeker on his own pilgrimage or life's journey. The footprint states here I am, and here I stand.

Each footstep sets the pace as you make strides toward your own understanding, insight, and awareness. The foot's process can be likened to a series of actions or steps that need to be taken to walk forward, toward a goal, perhaps the goal of self-discovery. The undertaking of your individual process is a combination of natural or involuntary adjustments, and changing circumstances that help you to perform or make a creative contribution as you manifest your own destiny. The process includes your attitudes, approaches, and personal relationship to the particular life's challenges presented to you by your feet, and/or any type of body symptoms that are experienced. Everyone leaves their mark or footprint in the world. They leave their own carbon footprint as well.

The acronym, carbon footprint is historically defined as "the total sets of greenhouse-gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person." Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is produced by people as they breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Hence, a carbon footprint can be the measure of the environmental impact of a particular individual standing his ground in the world as well. The following poem describes a duality that also exists within the feet.

You can be unhappy and still be in love.

You can be in love and still walk away.

You can walk away and still feel the weight of loss.

You can feel the weight of loss and still stand tall.

You can stand tall and still be grieving.

You can be grieving and still find joy.

You can find joy and still miss what you had.

You can miss what you had and still long for more.

̶ L. E. Bowman

Ground Your Feet
When you begin to feel complete and solid within yourself, there is no sense of lack or missing any part within because one is grounded and rooted as they stand in their life just like a tree stands. Carl G. Jung called this the individuation process. The poem below poetically describes failing to see and understand ourselves.

Here is the ancient floor,
Foot-worn and hollowed and thin,
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in …

̶ Thomas Hardy, ’The Self-Unseeing’

Connect to your own understanding with the bottom of the feet firmly planted on the ground. Under the feet are the soles. Symbolically this is about rooting your own "soul" into the ground of your being as you stand for your individual viewpoint. Paradoxically, don't stand still because there is a need to move and experience life. When the feet are sore and aching, it is a signal to look at where life is painful and perhaps at a standstill. Foot symptoms can urge you to participate in your own healing versus passively waiting for others to try to heal you. When you actively seek to find your healing, you find your path and the way to go.
"Dancing is the poetry of the foot." ─ John Dryden

On the Tip of the Tongue

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 16:08:33 GMT

“A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.” - Benjamin Franklin

Often a client will say to me, “I know it. It is just on the tip of my tongue.” The tip -of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon is about the sensation that I know the answer, but I can’t quite access it and say it. An example might be the desire to say a person’s name or a word and can’t quite retrieve it from memory even though you can remember that it starts with the letter “M.” You can hear the music, see the picture of the movie and the director, but cannot recall the name of the movie just when you want to say it. The name can come to you an hour later when you don’t need it.

TOT is also known as lethologica which is about almost being able to recall a word a phrase from memory and having the feeling that it will come to you in a second. This dynamic is so common that it is referred to as a “TOT state.” This happens when the left temporal and frontal areas of your brain momentarily do not work together to recall words, names, or phrases stored in your memory.

In psychology this can be referred to as a Freudian “slip of the tongue” which is likened to an error in speaking whereby the speaker had no conscious intention of saying what was said. A Freudian slip is a mistake that comes up from the unconscious mind. This is also known as a parapraxis, as these slips may come from secret thoughts or feelings and these slips can express unconscious attitudes or impulses. There are 3 types of slips of the tongue: sound, morpheme (part of a word) and word errors.

Common Freudian slips may be:

Mispronouncing/misreading a word.
Saying a similar word to the one you are trying to read.
Calling your child by their sibling’s name

The following poem explains this atmosphere the tongue can happen to create:

When the tongue slips, the heart speaks,
As this is when the heart leaks.
Free of the inhibitions of thoughts words said reflect the heart’s true desires: love, hate, disgrace.
When you 'accidentally' called his name,
I knew it was end of the game, so I

Took my belongings and stepped away.
It made no sense for me to stay.

My only regret,
Is that my tongue slipped too;

And what it said was 'I love you. - Leslie Alexis

“The tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do.” – James 3.5

Hope Is an Underrated Superpower

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 18:24:21 GMT

“Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.” ̶ Rebecca Solnit.

Since the pandemic people have expressed to me that they have a loss of hope. These clients have noticed that before the pandemic they experienced a felt sense of hope. Hope can be the antidote to stagnation. Hope is an inspiring power that can transform despair, defeat, and a dispiriting cynicism into a personal power to reach and move forward toward the future.

The word hope is about the future. There are some people who have lost their hope and who are seeking to find their hope again. Some people may have been recently suffering their current feelings around hopelessness. Hope is a feeling that lives in your chest and is invisible. You know when you have hope and when you have lost it. Your hope talks to you about a particular desire and an expectation of a better possibility to come. Without hope, there is pessimism about the future with a lack of any kind of anticipation to restore the hopeful feeling in your life.

Emily Dickinson's poem inspires as it describes the invisible nature of hope.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

A symbolic, metaphorical, and imaginal psychological interpretation of Dickenson’s poem suggests, compares, and attaches hope, which is invisible, to a "thing." Then this thing is compared to a bird, as if this thing hope is bird like. The bird as a symbol can represent lightness of being, soul, messenger, peace, and spiritual knowledge, according to the Dictionary of Symbols. "Feathers" symbolize the freedom to align oneself to something new by and with the movement of this invisible energy, hope. When the bird of hope "perches," it has settled on and perhaps is resting on a branch and "sings" without words. Therefore, hope always exists continuously producing a feeling, a resonance with a certain vibrational hum to it unless hope has been lost. Sometimes hope is lost or destroyed through anger, great negativity, or cynical self-sabotage, whereby, a person can abandon all hope. Hope is an energetic experience. You know when you have it, and you know when you have lost hope and feel hopeless.

At some time, everyone experiences metaphorically "stormy weather" where your feathery wings are deflated and there is no freedom to fly. For instance, you can recognize this emotional state when you have encountered a painful angry feeling, or maybe suffered a stinging heartache or have been stifled by isolation during the recent Covid pandemic. The glimmer of hope can begin to warm your heart. Your own warm heart is a feeling response that encourages forward movement out of tough situations into new possibilities.

The "chillest land" is a disturbing place of cold feeling, frozen in fear, with perhaps, a numbness to life. Water, "the sea" speaks about emotion and feeling; a strange feeling is seen that may be coming up to a self-consciousness from the waters of life. Yet, in the most terrorizing, menacing, and intimidating sense, hope is available and doesn't want anything except to be hope. The word yet implies, thus far, up until now. However, yet is used to stress that it remains possible that something will occur despite the problems in the present. Hope springs eternal.

Exercise to restore hope.

Hope is free. It costs nothing, and it is available to everyone.

Sit in a quiet space and follow your breath in and out for a few minutes then allow yourself to remember a time you had hope, felt hopeful or were full of hope. As you remember, can you feel it at this moment in time as you call up the memory? Because the past, even though that was then and this is now, the past is contained in the present. Is there any resistance to feeling hope again and letting it live in you now? Keep remembering past times when you had hope. Each time let yourself feel it now, in the present, to enliven and restore your own hope

“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.” ˗ T.S. Eliot

The Sickness unto Death

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 15:51:00 GMT

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

The real “sickness unto death,” includes angst, dread, fear, boredom, vertigo, and anxiety is at the heart of so much despair, especially since the start of the pandemic. According to Kierkegaard, despair is not a suffering of the self, but is a misrelation in the self itself and, goes to the very core of an individual’s existence to not a physical death but despair—a kind of spiritual death, which stems from profound discontent, or a similar persistent debilitating malaise of the mind, spirit, or soul that produces a decline in mental, physical, or societal health and that may culminate in a dissolution of an ability to embrace one’s self. Emily Dickenson’s poem reveals-

The difference between despair

And fear – is like the one

Between the instant of a wreck-

And when the wreck has been-

The mind is smooth-no motion-

Contented as the eye

Upon the forehead of a bust-

That knows-it cannot see-

What is the difference between anxiety and despair?

Anxiety is the mark of human freedom and the condition for the possibility of despair. Despair is the wrongful use of freedom through the failure to choose to be oneself.

Common anxiety signs and symptoms include:

Feeling nervous, restless or tense.

Having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom.

Having an increased heart rate.

Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation)

Sweating.

Trembling.

Feeling weak or tired.

Trouble concentrating or thinking about anything other than the present worry.

What does despair feel like physically?

Despair is a very intense feeling of hopelessness. The feeling can be described as a mix of misery, discouragement, anguish, agony, and distress. For those with depression, this feeling is often associated with suicidal thoughts.

Five ways to cope with anxiety that has led to despair:

1.Take your despair on a walk once a day, do your best to go out of the house for some fresh air.

2.Give your sorrow words.

3.Honor your despair.

4.Seek out fellowship.

5Avoid toxic positivity.

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting.” T. S. Eliot

It Is Not About What It Is About

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 13:39:00 GMT

“I exist as I am, that is enough.” ─ Walt Whitman

Sometimes a person will come into therapy with a presenting problem as their opening reason for showing up. After a while it will be revealed that the problem is not about the original presentation but about something else and they will state with a cynicism “and then there’s “that!”

Some of my clients will tell me about emotional trauma, their huge life events, and they might say to me, “That’s that!” Others have said, “and then there’s that, and that’s all there is or amen to that!” These statements, “that’s that,” etc., seems to imply a finality as an acceptance of their state of affairs or a particular situational event. It rings a mental bell reminding them of the fact that some things are unalterable in life. When a client states a “that,” they are saying it cannot be changed, and they have to accept it because this is the way it is. Emily Dickinson describes this dynamic in her poem: That it will never come again.

That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Believing what we don’t believe
Does not exhilarate.

That if it be, it be at best
An ablative estate —
This instigates an appetite
Precisely opposite.

When there is the thought, or if it is said out loud, “that’s that” it is a ruse or a trick upon oneself. Because that phrase takes you back to exactly the opposite of acceptance and finality. The idiom “that’s that” implies that there’s nothing more to say about “it.” Actually, there is more, the personal situation needs to be processed, digested, absorbed and assimilated with meaningful integration into one’s life. When a person says, “And then there’s that” they are saying that is the thing they are keeping away from themselves, as if it is out there and stands alone. There are various methods that can be used in therapy to integrate a life’s emotional situation such as sand tray, expressive arts, and EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. There is a way metaphorically speaking that readily accomplishes integration by doing the hokey-Pokey.

Do the Hokey-Pokey That’s What It’s All About

This is a song and a rhythmic circle dance for everyone of all ages. Many different parts of the whole body are isolated such as a hand and shook. The song calls out for each limb to participate. The dictionary said that the word hokey-pokey was taken from the magical words hocus-pocus thereby indicating trickery. This is a song and dance that get you to integrate your entire self as you shake yourself all up. The whole self magically becomes alive and invigorated.

Psychologically, through the participation in the song and dance there’s a magical effect that is an authentic movement. According to Occam’s Razor, this notion says that when it’s applied, it points toward all things being equal, that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is the preferred one. As you move about there is a shift into a vibration that gives an energetic vitality to your life. Once you decide to take a step into something pretty soon your whole self can get immersed in it. Here is the verse from the song and dance from Robert Chambers’ Popular Rhymes of Scotland from 1826.

You put your whole self in

You put your whole self out

You put your whole self in

and you shake it all about

You do the hokey-pokey

and you turn yourself around

That what it’s all about!

(The original author is unknown to me)

“ The heart wants what it wants, there’s no logic to this thing, you meet someone and you fall in love that’s that.” ─ Unknown

Ouch! That Hurts My Feelings

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 19:12:00 GMT

Many of my clients have worked on their hurt feelings. Wounds that feel as if they were stabbed in the heart. For some people their personal emotional disturbances have been distressing and hurting them for years. Sometimes someone will say I thought that wound was all over and worked through. It has just popped up again, and I was triggered by words that I heard that I remembered were said to me years ago. Then I had a huge emotional reaction. Often the wounds are about what the parents did or did not say to their child. A child can internalize a criticism that becomes an impediment or block to the unfolding to live their life.

Even if the person is grown up, a parent may say something to their adult child that can make them feel in “trouble” with the parent all over again. An example is in just the tone of voice the parent will use as they say your name out loud can do it. Sometimes the parents are blamed for their personal emotional pain since the person does not realize that they have decided to be re-hurt. It is important to know that everyone is wounded in some way. Many clients think that they are the only ones who are suffering. The people you meet may seem happy and appear as though his or her life is going great. If you really start talking to them, you would find out that they hurt. They are wounded too.

Woundedness

Carl G. Jung and many others have said and written about the fact that everyone has a wound. Overtime it rubs and works them just as an oyster takes a grain of sand and makes it into a pearl. It is a wound that irritates and grates on their psyche and heart to become self-aware in order to integrate the problematic issue and heal. Sometimes it is a secret wound that accompanies them throughout life. They have kept it totally to themselves by locking it away metaphorically and symbolically in their chest. I have had clients come into a session and say to me, “I have a secret that I have never told to another person.” That personal secret is now starting to spill over and needs to be integrated, processed and used in a meaningful way for their personal healing. James Hillman the founder of A rchetypal Psychology said, “Wounds and scars are the stuff of character.” The word ‘character’ means at root ‘marked or etched with sharp lines,’ like initiation cuts.”

Cutting Words

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way…As a man is, so he sees.” ̶ William Blake

Emotional injury and hurt feelings result when a sudden verbal attack or comment, a cutting remark is taken personally. There is the feeling of having been stabbed in the back or heart. Critical words can cut to the quick. Sometimes you carry this pain for years never forgetting the exact words that were said as they are replayed in the mind over and over again. Every time the words are ruminated on the inner trauma and hurt is felt as if it is happening again. Many times, I have asked a client which feeling is wounded? This question can begin the excavation and exploration to uncover the root of the problem.

According to Taschen’s The Book of Symbols, the Old English word for wound is wundian means a laceration or breach in the psyche. The Greek word trauma means wound, hurt, a damage of things, a heavy blow or injury. The Latin word vulnus means wounds that are like cuts, holes, rents, cracks, that are visible and invisible showing various vulnerabilities. Since antiquity, wounding has been seen as a gateway, an opening or a window for possible transformation, change, growth, and development in your life. Jung called these wounds “lesions to the ego” (CW 16 para.472).

The injury can be caused by words that damage or ruin a person’s name or reputation. A person’s pride can be wounded by hearing the word no or being turned down in some way. It is experienced as the feeling of rejection, not worthy or good enough. There is the inner feeling of wanting to lick one’s wounds or find a self-soothing balm to gain relief. The main problem that confuses many people is that they will say something innocently or as a fact, and the other person is wounded to their core. The person talking has no idea the other person is being hurt or wounded unless that person can speak up about it. Actually, it takes courage to express yourself. It is a risk to have a conversation because you have no idea how the other person has heard or received your words.

All wounds need to be attended to, cleaned up, looked at with tender care as they are explored because as the African proverb states “the wound carries the medicine.” Otherwise, the painful wound can contaminate and infect the whole life. Some of the ways to work with emotional wounding are to journal and write about it. Depth psychotherapy is an excellent way to work with hurt feelings and come to understand more about yourself. A very simple way to let another person know that your feelings are being hurt by what they are saying is to say, “Ouch” out loud. Subsequently, the speaker can think about what was just said. Then they have a chance to clear it up, explain or clarify. Ouches, wounds and hurts can be repaired because once there is understanding; letting go and forgiveness then can happen.

“Tears are words that need to be written.” – Paulo Coelho

Going from A to Z

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 16:24:00 GMT

Growth means change and
Change means risk, stepping
From the known to the unknown. ̶ Author Unknown

Many of my clients are in such a hurry to get there from here as they might say, “I can’t wait for this to end or be over.” Some want to leap to their final thing whatever it is. I always say to them, going from “A to Z” will not work. I often ask what is their process since they cannot push the metaphorical river? What is it that they could possibly need to see along the way? What are they missing?

Along your way to emotional regulation, impulse control and Ego strength one might consider starting at “A” recognizing that this is where I am starting from now. Then gently moving toward “B or be,” such as “being” present to oneself in the here and now and feeling at home in one’s own skin. Now relax by taking a deep breath with eyes wide open and arriving at “C or see” in order to see the next step in the progression of forward movement in life.

Below is an alphabet poem that simply demonstrates how issues and things can become confused, disordered, showing missing pieces of order in one’s life.

‘Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet
Was heard a loud “Tut-Tut!”

Said A to B, “I don’t like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!”

“I disagree,” said D to B,
“I’ve never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O.”

C was vexed, “I’m much perplexed,
You criticize my shape.
I’m made like that, to help spell Cat
And Cow and Cool and Cape.”

“He’s right” said E; said F, “Whoopee!”
Said G, “‘Ip, ‘Ip, ‘ooray!”
“You’re dropping me,” roared H to G.
“Don’t do it please I pray.”

“Out of my way,” LL said to K.
“I’ll make poor I look ILL.”
To stop this stunt J stood in front,
And presto! ILL was JILL.

“U know,” said V, “that W
Is twice the age of me.
For as a Roman V is five
I’m half as young as he.”

X and Y yawned sleepily,
“Look at the time!” they said.
“Let’s all get off to beddy byes.”
They did, then “Z-z-z.”
̶ Spike Milligan

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ─ C.S. Lewis

The Spirit of Fear

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 17:08:00 GMT

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2Timothy 1:7

Often, I work with people who are anxious, afraid, panicky and fearful about their life. Their fears are about the unknowns and the future. Consternation about fear can cause a state of confusion with an inability to decide because there is no guarantee. Some people can hardly seem to name, categorize or label their encounter with fearing their fears.

Judaism describes two ways of thinking about fear, Pachad and Yirah. Pachad , is about irrational and imaginal thinking or over reaction to worrying about the “what ifs” of life. Yirah , is about the fear of power, the sacred that might touch you or the presence of God in some way that produces an inner body shaking and trembling is felt as a reverent awe.

The Root of Anxiety.

A person might encounter anxiety through their physical response when challenged by a fear and label the sensation anxiety. Also, the experience of fear through fear-based thinking can produce anxiety. The ability to differentiate the two, fear or anxiety, can help you to process your experience.

There are many levels and types of fear. They run the gamut just like a bell curve starting with the vaguest to the most extreme panic attack that feels like it could kill them in a flash. Rational fears happen when there is a real imminent threat. Primal fear is the fear from the Amygdala that is programmed in our brain since birth. Irrational fear are the ones that are imagined and do not make reasonable or logical sense.

The word fear is the general term that is used to describe this dynamic and perhaps anxiety is a constant companion along with feeling afraid all the time. The spirit of fear can trigger a person to want to hide or contract them self as they meet an opposition, persecution, or a struggle. The spirit of fear feels like a force that comes over you and captures you in a state of anxious fear which is hard to lift and come out from under it to breathe free again.

Courage

“What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.” Krishnamurti

The opposite of fear can be different things to different people. Some of the feeling states of mind needed to counteract fear might be faith, prayer, trust, peace, calmness, or courage. The root of the word courage is cor . It is the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. According to the dictionary the word courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Courage can be a quality of spirit inside a person that harnesses bravery, guts, and daring to face their fear and move through it instead of avoiding it. The use of courage is a spiritual quality that can be used to overcome fear such as having the courage to drive again after an accident, to be successful or even to be disliked.

When there is any type of feeling of fear a very simple exercise to meet the fear is to feel your feet on the ground, and as you breathe in say “here” and as you breathe out say “now.” This is a grounding exercise that can quickly bring you back to the present moment in the here and now with a feeling of steadfastness.

Another way to know more about a current fear is to say, “When I am scared that_________ then I am afraid that__________.

“If we had the luxury of certainty, we wouldn’t need courage.” ─ Robert J. Furey, PH.D.

Is “It” Ever Beyond Repair?

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 20:32:00 GMT

“The defects of the mind are like the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening.” ─ Francoise de la Rochefoucauld 1613-1680

Ouch! That Hurts

Many of my clients have worked on their wounds, their personal emotional disturbances that have been distressing to them for years and years. Sometimes someone will say I thought that wound was all over and worked through. It has just popped up again, and I was triggered by words that I heard that were said to me. Then I had a huge emotional reaction. Often the wounds are about what the parents did or did not do to or for a child. Even if the person is grown up, a parent may say something to their adult child that can make them feel in “trouble” with the parent all over again. An example is in just the tone of voice the parent will use as they say your name out loud can do it. Sometimes the parents are blamed for their personal emotional pain. It is important to know that everyone is wounded in some way. Many clients think that they are the only ones who are suffering. The people you meet may seem happy and appear as though his or her life is going great. If you really start talking to them, you would find out that they hurt. They are wounded.

Woundedness

Carl G. Jung and many others have said and written about the fact that everyone has a wound. Overtime it rubs and works them just as an oyster takes a grain of sand and makes it into a pearl. It is a wound that irritates and grates on their psyche and heart to become self-aware in order to integrate the problematic issue and heal. Sometimes it is a secret wound that accompanies them throughout life. They have kept it totally to themselves by locking it away metaphorically and symbolically in their chest. I have had clients come into a session and say to me, “I have a secret that I have never told to another person.” That personal secret is now starting to spill over and needs to be integrated, processed and used in a meaningful way for their personal healing. James Hillman the founder of Archetypal Psychology said, “Wounds and scars are the stuff of character.” The word ‘character’ means at root ‘marked or etched with sharp lines,’ like initiation cuts.”

Cutting Words

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way…As a man is, so he sees.” ̶ William Blake

Emotional injury and hurt feelings result when a sudden verbal attack or comment, a cutting remark is taken personally. There is the feeling of having been stabbed in the heart can cut to the quick by hurtful words that can leave a person psychologically disturbed. Sometimes you carry this pain for years never forgetting the exact words that were said. Every time the words are ruminated on the inner trauma happens again.

According to Taschen’s The Book of Symbols, the Old English word for wound is wundian means a laceration or breach in the psyche. The Greek word trauma means wound, hurt, a damage of things, a heavy blow or injury. The Latin word vulnus means wounds that are like cuts, holes, rents, cracks, that are visible and invisible showing various vulnerabilities. Since antiquity, wounding has been seen as a gateway, an opening or a window for possible transformation, change, growth, and development in your life. Jung called these wounds “lesions to the ego” (CW 16 para.472).

“Tears are words that need to be written.” – Paulo Coelho

Intuitionism and Decision-Making Style

Wed, 02 Sep 2020 15:37:00 GMT

“The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.” ̶ Lao Tzu

Decisions are scary and difficult especially if a person is afraid to decide something for fear of making a mistake. There isn’t a guarantee about a choice someone might make. The final outcome may not be known. Waiting and observing may not be helpful either. For many of my clients personal or individual decisions that are major or minor are hard to sort through.

Choice, Decision and a Course of Action

Usually there is a method used to pick the best direction as the way to go forward. A person recognizes that a decision has to be made. Some type of thought process ensues about the subject or issue. The person might do research, enquire of others or start a google search to gain information to have a better grasp about the nature of the subject in question. There are many types of intuition such as medical, musical, mathematical, and artistic to name a few. Sometimes the question might become, “ what are my options?” W hen the pros and cons are considered as one looks at all sides of the topic then a person might start to ponder their alternatives. After reflection, with a review of possible consequences, as everything has been taken into consideration and mulled over a decision is often made.

Another way to make a decision is by using one’s intuition. Intuition is the ability to know something without knowing how you know. It is an impression or a direct knowing. The word comes from the Latin intuitus , a look, from past participle of intuērī , to look at, contemplate.

Intuitionism

The American Heritage Dictionary describes intuitionism in three ways:

1 The theory that certain truths or ethical principles are known by intuition rather than reason.

2 The theory that external objects of perception are immediately known to be real by intuition.

3 the view that the subject matter of mathematics consists of the mental or symbolic construction of mathematicians rather than independent ad timeless abstractions, as is held in Platonism.

As an intuitive myself, I help my clients with the ability to distinguish and utilizing their own intuition. Many of my clients are interested in the various ways that they can recognize their own real intuition. Perhaps you will find the following helpful in understanding and listening to your personal intuitive guidance.

Your own Intuition is oftentimes very confusing. It sometimes has a feeling of rightness; it’s not always logical, or even has a voice of reason. Yet this quiet voice sounds like a whisper or a gentle breeze of a thought. It is through using your own intuition that you gain the experience to be able to know it. It’s quite easy to misinterpret intuitions, or confuse something else to be your intuition. Here are a number of ways to measure your intuition with your rational mind.

1 You still feel the rightness of what has been decided even if everybody else disagrees with it. Intuition does not use social wisdom or common sense. It will remain the same and will not let up until you follow it.

2 You still feel that the same way after sleeping on the decision. That’s why it is important to learn to sleep on important decisions. An Intuition stands a test of time. The intuition appears the clearest the first thing in the morning, before various thoughts start invading your mind.

3 You still feel that way when you are happy. When we are under duress to make a decision, often wants, needs, fears and desires can enter the thought process.

4 When you see yourself decide to take or follow that intuitive action, relief and breathing free can be felt. It is not intuition if you feel resistance and hesitation. The decision makes sense.

5 When the decision inconveniences you it may be about effectiveness. Intuition is not always about what is efficient or practical but what is right for you. Sometimes one is afraid of their intuition and the direction it is wanting you to go.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ̶ Albert Einstein

Identity – Nobody

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:57:00 GMT

“It is clear that if a man has to become a nobody in order to survive, if he has to remain permanently invisible, he will have no identity, will never become socially integrated nor will he enjoy mental health.” − Joseba Achotegui

Sometimes my clients report to me that they are a nobody, or that they feel like a nobody. As a child, their parent would say something like, “Who do you think you are? “After me you come first,” or “you’re nobody.” The people that have felt this way also experience many of the following symptoms: stress, depressed mood, anxiety, fear, tension, irritability and frustration, self-deprecating thoughts, ruminations of worthlessness, body aches and pains, and a confusing fatigue. They come to depth psychotherapy to discover their own identity, who they are in the world as a complete and whole individual such that they feel they are not missing any parts and aspects of themselves.

Conversely

“You ask me my name. I shall tell you. My name is nobody and nobody is what everyone calls me (Odyssey, Song IX, 360).”

The poet Emily Dickinson describes an opposite point of view in her poem. She values her privacy. Her experience of being unrecognized, a nobody, gave her a spiritual and soulful quietude to contemplate and write. She did not want to be like a frog croaking about identity by always keeping a public profile that reminds everyone that one is a somebody. To become somebody is to know who you are in and of yourself, and your place in the world.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

During this current Pandemic many people are ‘sheltering in place.” This means that one has to be within and be with him or herself. A person might need to start discovering who they are as they learn to feel at home n their own skin and be safe in their own body because there are no outside distractions to focus on except themselves. The questions that one might consider to ask of him or herself are:

Who am I now at this time?

What am I listening to inside of myself?

What do I see and envision for myself now?

Where is my life going?

When I am free again who will I be?

“Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices.” ─Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hello as You Shelter in Place

Thu, 07 May 2020 15:54:00 GMT

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.” ― Wendell Berry

Here’s to Your Health

Bill Bryson states in his book Mother Tongue that “hello” comes from Old English hál béo þu (“Hale be thou”, or “whole be thou”, meaning a wish for good health). Health is clearly the opposite of illness. According to Jungian analyst J. A. Sanford the word health might have come from the Saxon word hal which is also in the words hale and whole. Every time you say, “hello” to someone you are saying that you hope they are whole and healthy. Therefore, wholeness implies health.

Wholeness

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ― Rumi

Many of my clients have wondered what wholeness really means. If you are sound and whole in body, mind, and spirit, then everything is interacting and working in relation to each other. That is, all your body parts speak to each other in the same language in order to work harmoniously together. There are no rebels or renegades so to speak. A person can feel grounded, at home and safe within their own body. A simple example is that if you ever had a splinter in your foot or finger, your entire self was focused on getting that tiny little intruder out because your whole organic system was triggered. This was an experience of feeling an internal split, divided-ness or separateness from yourself because you’re experiencing the other, the splinter. Now in that splintered moment was the conscious awareness of a personal conflict. Currently the conflict is the current Pandemic that is splintering everyone.

To become right with yourself again, you have to deal with or process the splinter conflict. The splinter is an example of not being right with yourself or feeling right with the world. This includes not knowing what is true, what is happening because of all the confusion. At times, everyone can relate to when everything is not alright because things do not feel right. This simple example can be applied to anything that causes you to be wounded, impaired, or incapacitated.

Something that is whole and feels complete is something that is intact and undivided and has no parts missing. There are no fragments or outliers. Therefore, the state of health is the general condition of the body, mind, and spirit, especially in terms of the presence or absence of illnesses, injuries, or impairments. Wholeness and health allow the soundness, vitality, and proper functioning of your total personhood even in the midst of a world crisis when a person is grounded and safe within their own personhood.

Healing occurs when the troubling unconscious contents are worked with when they are brought out into the light of the day. All your issues need to be assimilated into the whole personality with nothing left out or emotionally cut off. These are your dreams, symptoms, fantasies, and things that disturb your life’s balance and equilibrium It is a completely natural process that is necessary for the integration of the psyche to take place. Psyche, means and refers to the human spirit or soul and the human mind as the center of thought and behavior. Poetry can capture the soul and nature of what is going on in the world. The following poetic verse excerpts might speak to you.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie, locked and frozen in each eye.

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise ― W. H. Auden In Memory of W. B. Yeats

Panic or Precaution

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:12:00 GMT

Panic or Precaution

Fear is the cheapest room in the house, I would like t see you in better living conditions. ˗ Hafiz

A person sometimes might shiver with fear in the face of an unknown thing. The world might seem chaotic, disconnected and out of control because an invisible attacker has appeared on the scene. The invisibility of a virus can seem to look like a land mine under a microscope. A round ball with spikes that can explode at any time. Ironically it seems that toilet paper is the most needed item symbolically for some people in order to be able to clean up a mess. Panic seems to be running rampant and trampling over rational precaution like a swarm of 17-year locusts devouring everything in its path; just like a deer panicked by the headlights.

Etymologically the word panic comes from the Greek panikos , it is the name of the Greek god Pan, noted for causing terror, to whom woodland noises were attributed. Pan was considered to be a nature god who used reeds to invent the pan flute or panpipes. The word panic is not related to the word pandemic .

Panic is a strong emotion that captures a person in its grip. However, panic is also a normal human emotion. An extreme reaction to feeling panicky is a panic attack which is characterized by four or more of the following symptoms: it can have an abrupt onset that develops swiftly. It can reach a peak within 10 minutes: Palpitations, pounding heart, with an accelerated heart rate, even breaking out into a sweat with trembling or shaking. Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong that it causes a brain lock such as to prevent rational reasoning and logical thinking. Normal responses are frozen and replaced with overwhelming feelings of anxiety, or frantic agitation consistent with a person wanting to flee with an extreme fight-or-flight reaction.

Preventative Strategies to Use When Feeling Stressed, Anxious or Panicky

There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle. ˗ Einstein

Sorry or Apology

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 15:44:00 GMT

Sorry or Apology

“You are not too old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.” Rainer Maria Rilke

Some people say words like I ‘m sorry in many situations. Sorry seems to be a generic response just like the words hi or, how are you? So, for instance, the phrase, Sorry to bother you , is an apologetic expression used to imply regret for using up someone’s time as in asking a question that the person has no answer for. Some public examples recently that were in the news include a Senator and a CEO who regretted their public candor. They were not sorry nor did they apologize. The following poem conveys this difficult feeling:

Three words, eight letters, so difficult to say.

They’re stuck inside of me; they try and stay away.

But this is too important to let them have their way.

I need to do it now; I must do it today.

I am sorry. ˗ Author Unknown

Sometimes a person might feel guilty over many things and that person is always saying, “sorry” about everything. Guilt and feeling guilty can be a remorseful awareness of a personal sense of sorry-ness. It is a critical self-judgment that one may carry for a long time. A person might feel responsible for an offense or a wrongdoing and instead of apologizing the person carries the guilt and does not rectify the issue. Often a guilty behavior could be seen in a person that is always saying, “I am sorry” seemingly about everything versus a particular issue that needs to be cleared up.

Conversely an apology can be an excuse to act in a self-protective defense by justifying a flaw or fault. The word sorry is often substituted for the word apologize like saying “I am sorry to be late” instead of an apology over being late for an appointment, such as “I apologize for my lateness because I was caught is a traffic jam.”

The problem with saying I am sorry often is that a person is telling him or herself that they are in a mental state of a felt sense of loss, sorrow, mourning, grief or disappointment which is really not true. Overtime seemingly always feeling sorry, this dynamic might cause a person to constantly feel sad, down or blue.

Consider that there are different levels or feeling aspects to an apology versus just saying “I apologize.” One attribute of apology might be feeling regret and expressing remorse by writing a note or stating it in an open court room situation to a victim. This would be owning a personal responsibility and the response-ability would include an admittance or acceptance for example, wounding or hurting someone intentionally or unintentionally. Perhaps another might be to make a restitution to make things right again with another person. By taking action to make amends would be an active apologetic compensation. A genuine reparation can include asking for forgiveness. There are many different ways to ask such as in a poetic way.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold ˗ William Carlos Williams

Thisldo or Thatldo

Sat, 31 Aug 2019 13:52:00 GMT

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” ─ A. A. Milne

Many of my clients find themselves stuck between this and that . This is about now in the present moment. That is about over there somewhere in the future. There are people who at times will just make do until they decide whatever is their most significant “this or that.” They will say something like that they will just have to settle with what is until they can figure it out.

There are many parts to this dilemma. Choice has been abandoned because a person does not want to make a mistake. While feeling stuck a person may decide something in their mind like I will go and find a new job. However, no action is taken, perhaps the person really doesn’t want a new job, and then nothing happens to give their life any type of forward movement. If the choice between this and that does not promote enthusiasm, excitement, curiosity, or generates any kind of interest one might do nothing. Emily Dickinson’s poem simply and succinctly explains why.

That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Believing what we don’t believe
Does not exhilarate.

Making do is a situation

“You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.” ─ Haruki Murakami

If you cannot accept and be happy with what you have then the situation is about settling for something that is merely adequate and not that bad because the person is caught in the middle of this or that. These middle energies can consist of an energetic inaction such as procrastination, sleeping too much, using distractions such as TV watching or playing video games which puts off a needed new option, choice or alternative.

Consider starting and taking the first step right where you are. Everyone has some type of dream that their feminine soul would like to experience and fulfill. Sometimes the masculine spirit is not helpful in manifesting that dream.

She doesn’t settle for less

Than her soul deserves;

she is brave and beautiful,

tender and fierce;

And when she sets her sights

on something, she doesn’t

stop dreaming until it’s true. ─ Mark Anthony

Jack and Jill

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 15:43:00 GMT

“Sweet water’s dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;” ─ Rupert Brooke The Great Lover

An issue for some of my clients within the heroic youth oriented American culture is the push and drive for achievement and success, even at the cost of their physical or mental health. Often there is an inner drive to accomplish both fame and money by pushing the river of life, metaphorically speaking, to climb the ladder of success. Competition and acquisitions seems to cause people to abandon themselves and become full of fear or anxiety about their future as they try to go from A to Z instantly without using conscious intelligence, awareness, instincts or even insight. The opposite of this might be the lack of using their inner guiding wisdom and authority. Many people appear to seek mentoring or training from other heroic figures in the same area that they want to attain. In American culture the elders and authority figures with life experience do not seem to be valued or admired nor sort out for their leadership skills in navigating difficulties. Psychologically speaking the following nursery rhyme that is told simply demonstrates this notion of not using consequential or critical thinking within the ups and downs of life.

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
and Jill came tumbling after.

Up Jack got and home did trot,
as fast as he could caper,
to old Dame Dob, who patched his nob
with vinegar and brown paper. ─ Unknown

The Jack and Jill nursery rhyme is from the 1800s and seems to be a psychological metaphor. The name Jack can imply any type of male worker such as a lumberjack, or a jack-of-all-trades. The name Jill which came from Juliana means youthful. The boy and girl or male and female image suggests everyday youths or perhaps ordinary people living a basic innocent youth oriented human life. Everyone needs water, the water of life to quench their thirst and live. Together they start to climb the hill to get the pail of water. The hill as an elevated area might represent an inflated striving to go higher to reach their goal, perhaps a jack-pot. The pail is a water tight container that holds a precise quantity of liquid, an allotted amount.

The two begin their climb from down on the ground because they might possibly think that the water they want to fetch may be in a well at the top of the hill. They incorrectly think the well is up the hill; however water runs down hill and evens out to its own water level. A well would suitably be dug at ground level to access the water table. They are unaware of the nature of water. Water can be a symbol of feelings and emotion, the unconscious, and the depths of being. Jack and Jill could conceivably be looking for emotional support in the wrong way to acquire their common goal and achieve success.

As they fall down and experience failure Jack’s crown of success breaks. A crown sits over the brain’s frontal lobe. Its role regulates voluntary movement such as walking. It also gives the ability to think and reflect about future consequences based on current actions with a capacity for task differentiation plus the use of personality and self-awareness. Jill unconsciously and automatically follows his lead.

Jack still is caught in his emotional reaction to speed and motion as he rapidly retreats back to where he started. The 1950’s slang word dob can mean to abruptly report to a person in authority for wrong doing. The person he goes to for help and healing is a wise woman authority figure, a dame which can be comparable to a knight or a sir. She heals his nob which is a slang word that means head with vinegar and brown paper. Vinegar is a fermented healing agent and it can also sour the disposition and speech. Brown might suggest specifically cooking until brown because the brown paper is cooked. White paper (sometimes bleached) is a substance that is made from wood pulp, rags, straw, or other fibrous material. It is an unmarked, blank and a pure image. This paper might suggest that the substance and fabric of our being has to be cooked by experience in order to know consciously the right attitude, approach, and direction to go.

“Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
that browns and dwindles as the wave goes home” ─ Rupert Brooke The Great Lover

What Is Real? Vs. What Is Fake?

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 20:39:00 GMT

What is happening in the world has upset many of my clients from fears of climate change, the environmental issues, the migration of peoples, and the world politic to name a few. Some feel captured in their emotions and are living is a state of mind by a paralyzing anxiety that causes them to go from A to Z and the end of the world in their thinking.

The Victorian English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) in his poetry describes his despair about man and himself in his poem Carrion Comfort:

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Ruminating repeatedly and catastrophic thinking creates feelings of dread and despair. Despairing is a passive aggressive activity against the self. There seems to come a point when one feels consumed by their hopelessness and gloom. The anguish of their despairing thoughts causes them to ask why bother and what is the point of it all. They want this state of mind to end. At the extreme end of this preoccupation a glimmer of hope might start to enter. The poet states: “Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be…”

Some people seem so confused and depressed over the world’s daily news that they have wondered aloud what can be done. What is real? What is fake? How can I know? What can I trust? Hopkins seems to imply that this emotional suffering can eat away at one enough that what is not true can start to fall away. Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear…

A person can begin to trust their own life process and intuit their own right contribution to their world from right where they are. He said, All the world is full of inscape and chance left free to act falls into an order as well as purpose.

A person can sit still, follow their breath, and relax into their own body to gain personal relief. Life’s meaning and purpose can reveal itself. As a priest Hopkins probably prayed, meditated, and contemplated. In the following quote he states, Elected Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorlèd ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear.

By sitting quietly and listening to yourself and your own intuition as Hopkins explained, Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices.

“O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.” ─ Gerard Manley Hopkins

Blame, Fault, and Guilt

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 19:42:00 GMT

“You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.” ─ Albert Einstein

After noticing that there is often confusion about the “blame game” by some of my clients within their interpersonal relations, I began to wonder about the differences betwixt and between blame, fault, and guilt.

Blame – Be Lame

“When people are lame they love to blame.” ─ Robert Kiyosaki

When a person is blamed for something whether they did it or not they will feel diminished and their sense of self feels “lame.” When you are blamed this type of disapproval stresses a sense of being held liable. When one is blamed even accused of something the person can feel responsible when censured. Censure produces the feeling of being condemned. As a person sits within this feeling they are experiencing a felt sense of self-attack.

Fault

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” ─Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

When you feel at fault or told it is your fault the resulting self criticism is that of failure. To experience a feeling of failing or failure seems to imply a weakness or lack of ability to measure up to some standard that one is held to. Again this is a familiarity within an incident of self attack.

Guilt

“Guilt is anger directed at ourselves—at what we did or did not do…” ─Peter McWilliams

When you feel the sinking feeling of guilt, as the offender of some breach of a standard of conduct or a moral culpability, it stresses a guilty offense and not just a practical shortcoming. A person accepts guilt, decides that they are guilty. It is another self attack encounter through one’s own self criticism or judgment.

Perhaps these descriptions can help one recognize the practice of self attack or beating oneself up. It is possible to start catching yourself in these dynamics by being aware of your thoughts and feelings and then changing your mind and reframing the spin you tell yourself. As William James said, “If you can change your mind, you can change your life.”

Hold Your Horses

Fri, 18 May 2018 21:23:00 GMT

“Will is to grace as the horse is to rider.” ─ Saint Augustine

The horse throughout the ages has had many meanings. One significant and important association with a horse is that it can be a symbol of riding one’s instincts. A divining power can be offering up guidance and/or a warning to its rider. There are many fairy tales, fables and legends that tell about the horse’s uncanny ability to be of help through intuitive understanding; even the horse-shoe brings luck. It is this unconscious instinctual horse power that is the invisible vehicle that is ridden, followed, and heard. Sometimes a person might put their ear to the ground of their being to listen to this horse sense as they become their own horse whisperer. This kind of listening might require slowing down like an old horse.

Wait a Minute

Some people use horse sense which is like having the use of common sense but it is not always enough. The inner ear, the intuitive ear has horse symbols within it. An interesting horse like clue to the use of the inner ear is that part of its makeup includes the small bones; the hammer, anvil, and stirrup that work together for your benefit. According to The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols spiritual hearing is considered to be an older ability than spiritual seeing.

A way to hear and listen is to decelerate and reduce the hurrying, take a break, relax, breathe, and be still. Then notice and pay attention to that quiet voice that might speak to you almost like a whisper. Listen and be aware of what is heard. Clients will often wonder and ask how they will know when to start, when to make a change, when to wait or when to go. Robert Browning said, “Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!” This can be like a horse of another color. Your personal will power can be harnessed with a willingness to follow your heart’s desire by holding onto the reins of your heart as you click into action and decide to move forward on your own path.

… While you tighten the girths on the horse of your heart.
There is something between you that both understand
As it thrills an old message from bit-bar to hand.
As he changes his feet in that plunge of desire
To the thud of his hoofs all your courage takes fire.

…What joy to find freedom a while from your yoke!
What bliss to be launched with the luck of the start
On the old one, the proved one, the horse of your heart!

Excerpts from T he Horse of Your Heart ─ William Henry Ogilvie

“The wagon rests in winter, the sleigh in summer, the horse never.” ―Yiddish Proverb

The Cloud on the Ground

Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:51:00 GMT

“The fog is like a cage without a key.” ─ Daniel J. Boorstin

Fog

Fog is defined as a thick cloud of tiny water droplets suspended in the atmosphere at or near the earth’s surface that obscures or restricts visibility. Fog as a metaphorical comparison is a cloudiness that obscures and confuses a situation or someone’s thought processes by bewildering or puzzling a person so that their perceptions are vague.

Sometimes a client will say that they have a sullen type of mood and I will ask them about what their experience of this internal condition is like. A few have described their experience as if they are living in a fog, a brain fog that has slowly crept upon them. Others have implied that their fog is like a veil of grayness unlike smog which is a tan smoke like color. For some it denotes a brooding dimness like living in a cloudy netherworld. It is a place removed and below the light of a bright and clear consciousness. The fog obscures direction and movement. The passage out is blocked. Thick fog at ground level feels like living inside a drab damp cloud. This dreary emotional gray will cause the person to have misty or moist eyes as the cloudy feeling is expressed and even a tear might form.

The following poem by Carl Sandburg expresses through a cat metaphor poetically described the experience of being in a fog.

Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

A psychological interpretation might suggest that the cat is an invisible instinct that can stealthily slink and sneak up to a person thus making its presence known. Both the fog and cat are independent and there are no rules to its silent and quiet movements. Both can hover and look over various situations and yet they can move on quickly and disappear. As the fog comes and goes it reminds us that a foggy brain is in a hazy state of confusion. This affect seems like it will last forever as the person lives in a state of perpetual uncertainty. It will in the end be a temporary situation and not a permanent condition. This experience of being in a fog is also an act of trust that things will burn off, clear up, and the light of consciousness will return.

“Most consequential choices involve shades of gray, and some fog is often useful in getting things done.” ─ Black Elk

Intelligence and Smarts

Sat, 21 Oct 2017 21:20:00 GMT

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid” ─ Einstein

Many clients of mine have wondered about their own intelligence and “smarts.” They have asked themselves if they are intelligent enough. After learning about the 8 “signs” of intelligence I wanted to share this information for anyone interested to know their own MI Components. It is also a way to be able to understand one and their interests better. I recently attended an Adlerian Psychology workshop that was presented by Wes Wingett Ph.D. He gave the following information about MI (Multiple Intelligence) and the work of Howard Gardner.

The Components of MI

For something to qualify as intelligence, it has to satisfy Howard Gardner’s eight “signs” of intelligence. After extensive research, Gardner identified eight, distinct intelligences. These are what comprise his theory of Multiple Intelligences:

Spatial

The ability to conceptualize and manipulate large-scale spatial arrays (e.g. airplane pilot, sailor), or more local forms of space (e.g. architect, chess player).

Bodily-Kinesthetic

The ability to use one’s whole body, or parts of the body (like the hands or the mouth), to solve problems or create products (e.g. dancer).

Musical

Sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, meter, tone, melody and timbre. May entail the ability to sing, play musical instruments, and/or compose music (e.g. musical conductor).

Linguistic

Sensitivity to the meaning of words, the order among words, and the sound, rhythms, inflections, and meter of words (e.g. poet). (Sometimes called language intelligence.)

Logical-mathematical

The capacity to conceptualize the logical relations among actions or symbols (e.g. mathematicians, scientists). Famed psychologist Jean Piaget believed he was studying the range of intelligences, but he was actually studying logical-mathematical intelligence.

Interpersonal

The ability to interact effectively with others. Sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations (e.g. negotiator). (Sometimes called social intelligence.)

Intrapersonal

Sensitivity to one’s own feelings, goals, and anxieties, and the capacity to plan and act in light of one’s own traits. Intrapersonal intelligence is not particular to specific careers; rather, it is a goal for every individual in a complex modern society, where one has to make consequential decisions for oneself. (Sometimes called self intelligence.)

Naturalistic

The ability to make consequential distinctions in the world of nature as, for example, between one plant and another, or one cloud formation and another (e.g. taxonomist). (Sometimes called nature intelligence.)

“Intelligence is really a kind or taste: taste in ideas” ─ Susan Sontag

Flattery – a Subtle Art of Deception

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 13:14:00 GMT

“Flattery is refined deception–it is the froth of language–it is the alcohol of social intercourse–it is the prescription of the subtle–and the nectar of fools.” ─ William Scott Downey

A flatterer is a person who often insincerely lavishes praise and compliments upon another person for a personal gain. Sometimes the flatterer is referred to as a brown-noser, bootlicker, yes-man, and suck-up. A flattering remark enlarges as it is an inflated expansion of praise. A person would not question such exalted words because it sounds and feels so good. On occasion, a client will tell me about wonderful words that were said to them that really inflated their sense of self as it also gave them pleasure like biting into a sweet, juicy, and delicious ripe peach. They will ask themselves the question can this person really mean what they said to me. The question that they ask themselves over and over again, “is it true”

Some people use praise to get their way or what they want by lavishing superlatives and flowery words upon another because it calls up an actual emotion in the other. Many people will eat that up like fertilizing compost that nourishes as well as sustains them. It reinforces their good feelings about themselves. As a manipulating tool it is a dissembler. Flattering adulation can veil the emotional manipulation. Such praise, admiration, and exaltations can cause a bewilderment and confusion in an individual. It might soften and disguise ones real perception about what has been said. It acts as a smoke screen by clouding the flatterer’s real intention. Then one is easily and craftily manipulated.

Both men and women can experience a particular sweet talker who expresses such smooth talking lines as if they are poured over them like a thick scrumptious gravy. In her song Strong Enough Sheryl Crow sings about flattery as a lie. These lyrics convey the emotional feeling that is generated by flattery.

Are you strong enough to be my man

Lie to me, I promise I’ll believe

Lie to me, but please don’t leave

I have a face I cannot show

I make the rules up as I go

Just try and love me if you can

The following fable clearly shows the use of flattery as a “dissembler.” It is a dissembler because it is a specific type of bending and stretching of a truth that a person would not doubt or have a reservation about, let alone question. Flattery can cause one to lose something of value.

The Fox and the Crow

A Fox once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree.

“That’s for me, as I am a Fox,” said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the tree.

“Good day, Mistress Crow,” he cried. “How well you are looking today: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds.”

The Crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Master Fox.

“That will do,” said he. “That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the future: “Do not trust flatterers.” ─ Aesop

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.” ─ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Angling, Tall Tales, and Trickery

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 21:33:00 GMT

O, Sir, doubt not but that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a Trout with an Fly? —Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler (1653)

Some of my clients have said that they are victimized by seemingly underhanded ways and means by those they thought were trustworthy. They want to know more about how to handle this dynamic in their life. These clients tell me that they like to give “the benefit of the doubt” to those they are distrusting. At the same time wanting the ability to know, recognize, and distinguish any lying, trickery, and deception. When I hear this kind of statement I know the client does not trust their own knowingness as real guidance.

It takes a thoughtful discernment and discrimination in order not to be hoodwinked. The nature of a deceiver is to deceive. He or she uses falsehoods, underhanded means, and deliberate hiding with a camouflage over the truth to deliberately cause people to be unable to detect their misrepresentation.

When you are in doubt about what someone is saying or doing this is a sign to look further into what is going on. Doubt is a feeling that spontaneously appears to let you know something is not quite right. Here are some words that can be associated with that doubtful feeling. They are: deceive, lie, betray, mislead, bamboozle, outwit, double-cross, and cheat to name just a few.

You can always ask yourself the following questions when in doubt. The questions are; who, what, where, when, how, and why? What does it sound like to me? What does it feel like to me? What is going on?

Here are a few teaching tales that have deceptive angles in them. While reading the following short fables just notice the affect that comes over you.

The following is a modern day version of deception that was first told by Ann Landers in her newspaper advice column. This tale is categorized as classic American folklore. It is a modern day wisdom morality tale about meeting people that are prone to employing deceptive practices in relationships with others.

Snake Is Always a Snake

Watch out for snakes in the grass

A young girl was trudging along a mountain path, trying to reach her grandmother’s house. It was bitter cold, and the wind cut like a knife. When she was within sight of her destination, she heard a rustle at her feet.

Looking down, she saw a snake, which spoke to her. He said, “I am about to die. It is too cold for me up here, and I am freezing. There is no food in these mountains, and I am starving. Please put me under your coat and take me with you.”

“No,” replied the girl. “I know your kind. You are a rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you will bite me, and your bite is poisonous.”

“No, no,” said the snake. “If you help me, you will be my friend. I will treat you differently.”

The little girl sat down on a rock for a moment to rest and think things over. She looked at the markings on the snake and had to admit that it was the most beautiful snake she had ever seen.

Suddenly, she said, “I believe you. I will save you. All living things deserve to be treated with kindness.”

The little girl reached over, put the snake gently under her coat and proceeded toward her grandmother’s house. In a moment, she felt a sharp pain in her side. The snake had bitten her.

“How could you do this to me?” she cried. “You promised that you would not bite me, and I trusted you!” “You knew what I was when you picked me up,” hissed the snake as he slithered away. ─ Ann Landers

The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Many times appearances are deceptive.

A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep.

The Lamb that belonged to the sheep whose skin the Wolf was wearing began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep’s clothing. So, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her – and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals. ─Aesop

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, “Wolf! Wolf!” and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains.

The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: “Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep”; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

Little Red Riding Hood ─ Brothers Grimm

All kinds of trickery and deception in this story

Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little riding hood of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’

One day her mother said to her: ‘Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing; and when you go into her room, don’t forget to say, “Good morning”, and don’t peep into every corner before you do it.’

‘I will take great care,’ said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, and gave her hand on it.

The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, and just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him.

‘Good day, Little Red Riding Hood,’ said he.

‘Thank you kindly, wolf.’

‘Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?’

‘To my grandmother’s.’

‘What have you got in your apron?’

‘Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger.’

‘Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?’

‘A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,’ replied Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! What a nice plump mouthful – she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.’ …to continue the tale click this link

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/version_printable.pl?story_id=LittRed.shtml

A Children’s Tale

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 16:35:00 GMT

‘When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” ─ Native American Proverb

During times of grief, loss and sadness people and children often wish they could talk to their departed loved one in the hereafter. Death is a separation between two, you and the loved one or perhaps heaven and earth. People naturally look for a sign, signal or a message from the person who has passed. Recently a client told me about the following children’s story that can be used during a time of sorrow explaining the inability to communicate with a departed loved one. I thought that the story is appropriate for adults as well during a time of sorrow.

On Your Mark, Get Set – Pace

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 20:05:00 GMT

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” ─ Henry David Thoreau

On occasion, a client will talk about wanting to hurry up, get there, be done, arrive, and find it. I ask, “What is “it?” The response might be something, like “I don’t know but whatever it is I want to know.” They also talk about being late, feel behind or afraid that they might miss the boat. Sometimes a client has said, “Just tell me, and I will do it.” I reply, “I have no idea what it is but let’s see if we can discover what it is that you want or are looking for.

There seems to be in some people an inexplicable impulse, urge, or drive to rush as if they want to help push the river along. Their intention can be about discovering their own life path, purpose, mission or niche in the world. They feel like they want to get from A to Z automatically. Sometimes I answer with, “Let’s just take a first step and start to go from A to B.” After I say that the client usually takes a breath, sighs, and noticeably relaxes.

Pace

“Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” -Thoreau

According to the dictionary, the pace is the speed or rate at which somebody moves. It can be the distance covered by a single step or stride. Some people have an uneven pace and seem to take two steps forward and one step backward. This dynamic helps a person to evaluate his or her life’s progress. As they walk back and forth or pace, there is an experience of a nervous restlessness with a feeling of being held back as they worry.

This anxious feeling that propels people forward unconsciously to an unknown destination is sung in a song by Alabama. Here are some of the lyrics from Alabama’s song “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)

I hear a voice

That say’s I’m running behind

I better pick up my pace

It’s a race

And there ain’t no room

For someone in second place.

Can’t be late

I leave plenty of time

Shaking hands with the clock

I can’t stop

I’m on a roll and I’m ready to rock.

I’m in a hurry to get things done

Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun

All I really gotta do is live and die

But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.

Slow Down – Speed Trap

“I am old and move slowly” ─ Socrates

Metaphorically, some people get speeding tickets over and over again as if some higher law was giving out a message. The etymology of the word pace is from the Latin word pax (peace) as in pace tua (with your peace). Perhaps taking a stroll through life, sauntering around as one does a walk about, might bring the experience of peace of mind and the enjoyment of life.

“Thoughts come clearly while one walks.” ─ Thomas Mann

Hedgehogs and Foxes

Sat, 26 Mar 2016 14:55:00 GMT

“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Archilochus

I have noticed that some of my clients are locked into only one thing, or way of being and thinking. Then there are other clients who have so many options that it is difficult to focus on one choice. For some people it easier said than done while for others, it seems complicated and tricky to find their way. Some people are more adaptable by making a concerted effort to find new solutions. Animals can often depict instinctual qualities that can be incorporated by people as they make their way in the world. The Hedgehog and Fox are two archetypal patterns.

Isaiah Berlin’s conclusion to War and Peace and his essay on Tolstoy was based on the Greek poet Archilochus’ fragment “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” This quote can have varying meanings. Berlin used it to point out historical and political differences in thinking. I would like to use this quote by applying it to psychological and instinctual differences between people individually or in their personal relationships. Often times these are active opposites in a relationship dynamic.

Hedgehog

“In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us.” ─ C.G. Jung

The hedgehog is singular in it viewpoint and vision. An example of Hedgehog type personalities according to Berlin was Dante and Plato. As an animal, the hedgehog has dense, erectile spines along its back. It is not a porcupine. It is an old world mammal that rolls into a tight ball for protection. It has a particular tactic of locking itself up for self-protection. In a person, this quality is displayed by being procedure oriented in the use of their tactics to feel secure and safe. Often things are just plain, black and white. The thinking is linear in nature. There is an established or official way to do something. Sometimes a series of actions is conducted in a certain order almost like a ritual. This person knows only a single truth.

Fox

“A wise fox will never rob his neighbor’s roost.” ─ English proverb

The fox’s viewpoint is that the world is complicated and complex. It does not have a single, standard but is extremely changeable and adaptable with its tactics. Some of the qualities used by a fox are craftiness, cunning, and cleverness. The fox can symbolize the trickster. Berlin depicted Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Tolstoy as Foxes. Fox like people uses options. An option is something that is chosen. It is made up of varying courses of action. It may consist of an alternative recourse to a set pattern.

The fox displays and depicts how they use these opposite viewpoints. They can be independent or be in a group. The fox is busy and inventive or a predator and destructive. It can be bold or cowardly. At other times, it can have a tricky alertness or carelessness. The fox shows and demonstrates inherent characteristics or contradictions that are often seen in human nature.

Solution

The solution may lie in deciding to become more adaptable and flexible with a thought, idea, or even in a conversation within a relationship. Shifting your focus and thinking about a problem might include understanding what the other person wants and needs. Can you explain your wants and needs in a coherent way to be understood as well? Is a compromise possible through giving and sharing to reach a consensus and end a stalemate by shifting rigid points of view? Conversely, consider consolidating and integrating many varying ideas into one cohesive choice.

Can you turn something sour, like lemons into lemonade, in your life?

Understanding Lemons

lemons don’t let you admire yourself too much they stick from their tree like awkward thoughts demanding a truth be told even if the tongue would prefer a far more sickly explanation lemons are perfect though for the need to jump straight out of bed on the eagerest of mornings into the task that must have no nonsense about it they have no truck with laziness or the idle hope they can be easily misunderstood – their sourness their association in sayings with the poorest of the lot their way of squirting you in the eye when being cut they don’t have much emollience in their nature you can’t get that close to lemons – they stand firm in their separate place asking to be respected – then they will give what they’ve got like waxed nurses offer you their own prim recipes for a healthy life

─ Rg Gregory

You talkin’ to me?

Sun, 14 Feb 2016 22:44:00 GMT

“There are, it seems, two muses: The muse of inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the muse of realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” ─Wendell Berry

Deflection

The word deflect comes from the Latin deflectere, de means ‘away from’ and flectere means ‘to bend.’ Some of my clients will get sidetracked and divert attention from themselves in a session. Even though a client comes in to figure out and resolve within themselves a specific disturbed emotion, symptom or strong feeling that has captured their mind. The client will often deflect by distracting the attention that is being paid to them and their issue because it feels too scary to come close to it or address it. They will find a way to turn aside a painful situation or memory in order to protect themselves. This is sometimes done by going off on a tangent, changing the subject, telling a funny thing or joke, or enter endless talking. These are defenses that are used to separate themselves from past events or current ones.

Defense

The definition of a defense mechanism is the way that a person will find the means to turn aside or distance him or herself from an actual or real awareness of a disturbing behavior, or repetitive thoughts. The client may block themselves from integrating and feeling their own true experience. He or she may abruptly shift the focus to another person or idea. A third party will be interjected into the issue as a buffer to protect their feelings. Sometimes in defense, the client will unexpectedly not hear or misunderstand what was just said.

Retroflection (hold back)

Some people will not express any urge to speak, show or express a behavior, feeling, movement or an emotion to others. They are withholding their life force and energetic flow. The suppressed dynamic flow of self-expression can lead to an internalization that produces symptoms in the body. Some of these might be aches and pains, a disease, depression, anxiety, addictions and even self-harm. The next time you become aware of deflecting, withdrawing or holding back your own expression see if you can catch yourself and start to change the behavior.

Deflection, defense mechanisms, and hold backs are usually adopted and learned in childhood to self protect from the feeling of being in trouble with someone else. The behaviors may have worked as a child. In adulthood, a person can learn to use more appropriate coping skills.

In the poem Self Communion, Anne Bronte describes this feeling of distancing oneself from an issue in order to have peace.

The mist is resting on the hill;

The smoke is hanging in the air;

The very clouds are standing still:

A breathless calm broods everywhere.

Thou pilgrim through this vale of tears,

Thou, too, a little moment cease

Thy anxious toil and fluttering fears,

And rest thee, for a while, in peace.

Of course, any issue needs to be handled delicately and in a gradual way with baby steps. Then the client will begin to digest a strong feeling into a bite-size chewable piece. This is done slowly in a session to integrate, absorb, assimilate, find meaning, and to heal their painful feelings.

“ Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.” ─Kenneth Burke

Life Is But A Dream

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 14:23:00 GMT

Some of my clients have expressed to me that their day in and day out lives seem like the title of the book Chop Wood Carry Water . They feel like they are just slowly rowing along as life happens.

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

This nursery rhyme has been said or sung since 1852. The author is unknown. The verse was usually sung by children is a sing-song rhythm. This rhyme can be sung in different forms such as in rounds or by rotating and alternating the starting lines to make a moving wave effect.

Life’s difficulties are described in the verse symbolically and metaphorically in simple words. The row boat is an image of the container that carries you or a group through life. The boat is steered by repetitive, monotonous, rhythmically accomplished, and skilled rowing practice day in and day out. The oars have to be locked in place in their holders to synchronize the rower’s pushing and pulling movement to propel and thrust the boat forward, backward, to turn around or make various maneuvers. Down the stream might suggest the path and directional movement of your life. Time has been considered to be a stream. How people use their allotted amount of life time contains restrictions and constraints. These can be certain limitations, boundaries, and borders around the framework of their work or living environment. The banks of the stream hint or imply that there are free will choices to be made within the narrow confines presented to the rower as the boat moves along downstream. All the merrilys are a tip-off to moving happily through life within set circumstances. Life is but a dream, the last line, gives hints to the inspired imaginative aspects and creative fashion in which life is dreamed up and experienced in the physical world. Perhaps, everyone is rowing to get to the shore.

Row the Boat Ashore

During the Civil War the negro spiritual song Michael Road the Boart Ashore, Hallelujah was sung by the slaves. The abolitionist, Charles Pickard Ware wrote down the many verses for posterity in 1863. This metaphorical song was about freedom, deliverance, and salvation from oppression. The desire to get to the shoreline suggests a symbolic edge or borderline, before getting to the Promised Land. It is a song sung with the hope of release from all the endured harshness in life when the boat finally makes it ashore.

Row Your Boat Redone

In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll included an adaptive reworking of Row, Row, Row, Row Your Boat as the poem’s fundamental foundation:

A boat beneath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantom wise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —

Lingering in the golden gleam —

Life, what is it but a dream?

It is interesting to note that the beginning letter of each line read vertically is the name, Alice Pleasance Liddell . She was the actual Alice that inspired Carroll to write about his dream.

A dream is the experience and sequence of images, sounds, or other sensations during sleep that appear involuntarily to the mind of the dreaming sleeper. Sometimes there are mixtures of real and imaginary characters, places, and events. A day dream can be defined as a series of images, usually pleasant ones that pass through the daydreamers’ mind while awake. It is a vague trance-like state that lets the mind dwell on delightful scenes and images when alert and conscious, often resulting in inattention. A daydreamer is preoccupied with imaginal thoughts or fantasies that can become new contributions and works presented to the world.

What do you daydream about?

What is your life’s dream?

Are you living your dream?

“Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.” ─ Swami Sivananda

Wait and See

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 19:30:00 GMT

“Waiting is almost an actionless action: the action of inaction, the suspension of movement, the anticipation of action rather than action itself.” ─ Diane Elam, “Waiting in the Wings,” Acts of Narrative

This type of wait and see attitude may be about waiting for the door to open with an opportunity. A new prospect and a break in the status quo can create the chance to step out into a fresh phase of your life. Perhaps for a long time, there were no opportunities available to take any kind of action. The person in that situation puts off starting any new endeavors, as life seems at a standstill.

On occasion, a client has said to me, “I am tired of waiting or I don’t know why I wait, but I am still waiting.” Sometimes a person doesn’t even know what they are waiting for. It feels like they can’t just think on their feet and decide to make an adjustment or a change. They might say, “Wait a minute.” At the same time, as they wait for some type of thought or signal to get going or come into their mind, it can feel to them as if grass is growing up under their feet. Even though delay is not a denial, if “it” doesn’t happen there is only the wait. A person may wonder and ponder as they try to figure out what in the world are they waiting for.

Often there can be an expectation that something might happen. There might be the hope that another person will save, rescue, and fix your situation. Someone will just tell you what to do. This stagnant situation can produce the sensation of being locked up and captured in a personal restrictive atmosphere. This may include a feeling of hiding and not wanting to be seen. This period of time, a postponement of life, might be filled with being on the lookout for a deliverance.

The soulful song sung by Sarah Brightman – Deliver Me describes this deep longing.

Deliver me, out of my sadness

Deliver me, from all of the madness

Deliver me, courage to guide me

Deliver me, strength from inside me

All of my life I’ve been in hiding

Wishing there was someone just like you

Now that you’re here, now that I’ve found you

I know that you’re the one to pull me through

Lyrics ─ Jon Marsh/Helena Marsh

Deliverance

“ I was standing there, waiting for someone to do something, till I realized the person I was waiting for was myself.” ─ Markus Zusak, Underdog

The etymology for the word wait (v.)c. 1200, gives many hints as to the solution. It means “to watch with hostile intent, lie in wait for, plot against,” from Anglo-French and Old North French waitier “to watch” (Old French gaitier “defend, watch out, be on one’s guard; lie in wait for;” Modern French guetter ), from Frankish *wahton or another Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *waht- (cognates: Dutch wacht “a watching,” Old High German wahten , German wachten “to watch, to guard;” Old High German wahhon “to watch, be awake,” Old English wacian “to be awake;” General sense of “remain in some place” is from late 14c.; that of “to see to it that something occurs” is late 14c. Meaning “to stand by in attendance on” is late 14c..

Psychologically speaking waiting is a feminine, receptive energy in both men and women. The purpose and meaning of the wait is really about being with and discovering yourself. This includes cultivating the energy and inner strength to release yourself back into living your individual life. It is about being alert, awake, and aware while you watch and attend to your own life’s deliverance. Setting yourself free requires the need to be readily available for someone or something to connect with you. When the time is right the door opens onto a new awareness, possibility or idea. What will it take to stop waiting and step through the exit gate into something new?

“I hate the waiting room. Because it’s called the waiting room, there’s no chance of not waiting. It’s built, designed, and intended for waiting. Why would they take you right away when they’ve got this room all set up?” ─ Jerry Seinfeld, attributed , The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes

Truth Be Told

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:51:00 GMT

“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.” ― C. G. Jung

From time to time, some of my clients have talked about wanting to know the truth. Their question is what is their truth and how to know and use it. If they speak their truth how can they be certain it is true. Truth seems a very elusive and uncertain thing.

Some client’s have expressed a curiousness about the confusing nature of truth such as there is a grain of truth in everything versus stretching the truth and is there any truth at all. Emily Dickenson’s poem Tell all the Truth but tell it slant describes this dilemma:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant–

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise.

Veritas was known as the goddess of truth in Roman mythology. The word Veritas means truth. According to mythology, Veritas was a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. The goddess of truth was so mysterious and obscure because she hid in the bottom of a holy well. Ancient images of Veritas pictured her as a young virgin dressed in white.

In Greek Mythology the word Aletheia (or Alathea) (ἀλήθεια) meant truth. Aletheia was the personification of truth, the spirit ( daimona ) of truth, truthfulness and sincerity. Her opposites were Dolos (Trickery), Apate (Deception) and the Pseudologoi (Lies).

Falsehood

“What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker.” ─ Mohandas K. “ Mahatma ” Ghandi

Here is a short fable that gives an impression, an image, and an idea about truth’s subtleness.

Aesop Fables 530 (from Phaedru s Appendix 5): Prometheus, that potter who gave shape to our new generation, decided one day to sculpt a statue of Truth, using all his skill so that she would be able to regulate people’s behaviour. As he was working, an unexpected summons from mighty Jupiter called him away. Prometheus left cunning Trickery in charge of his workshop (Trickery had recently become one of the god’s apprentices). Fired by ambition, Trickery used the time at his disposal to fashion with his sly fingers a figure of the same size and appearance as Truth with identical features. When he had almost completed the piece, which was truly remarkable, he ran out of clay to use for her feet. The master returned, so Trickery quickly sat down in his seat, quaking with fear. Prometheus was amazed at the similarity of the two statues and wanted it to seem as if all the credit were due to his own skill. Therefore, he put both statues in the kiln and when they had been thoroughly baked, he infused them both with life: sacred Truth walked with measured steps, while her unfinished twin stood stuck in her tracks.

That faked truth, that ploy, became the notion and idea of falsehood. Eventually, one will see that the deceptive thing has no feet and will not last the test of time. In time, truth will be told.

Even Sophocles showed what he thought about truth when he said, “What people believe prevails over the truth.” Beliefs are not necessarily truth because beliefs can be a way of life, a certain viewpoint or a held value. According to the dictionary, beliefs are an acceptance of the truth of something. It is given credence by the mind that something is true or real, often underpinned by an emotional or spiritual sense of certainty. However, as you look back upon your life and see that perhaps what you believed ten years ago may not be what you hold to be true today. Therefore, beliefs are always changing. Truth doesn’t change.

Truth

Truth has many words that describe its nature. Such as it is an indisputable fact, a certain reality, a genuine accuracy, a precise exactness, and a verifiable legitimacy to name a few. some examples of factual truths are that we are all human; we all live, and we all die. Sometimes when the truth is told it can be used when expressing a surprising or unwelcome idea. There are religious truths about God. These can appear through a numinous (presence of a spirit or god) transcendent experience.

Here are some things to thinks about:

You can only be your own truth.

You can discover your own truth through meditation and contemplation.

You can work with your own inner life activity as it comes to you through journaling, writing, and any form of expressive art.

You can become aware of what your heart feels and your head thinks about you and life.

“For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it, For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it. ” ─ Ivan Panin

The Busy Bee

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 12:37:00 GMT

“The busy bee has no time for sorrow.” ─ William Blake

I have noticed that clients of mine from time to time will say something like, “I am so busy!” Then they take a huge breath as they sit down with a loud “whew!” Some people seem to value how busy they are as a sign of personal significance. Their lives are measured and occupied by their diligent busyness. They are” hard at it” to make a living. Have you ever noticed that the word business really means be-you-is-ness?

The busy doer has no freedom because he or she engages in a task oriented, endless usefulness or a rote meaningless activity. So much so that their human existence is unavailable to them self. They are unable to stop all their undertakings and sort them out. The busy doer consistently and constantly busies him or herself with everyday jobs. They often avoid their personal creativity, including knowing their individual thoughts and thinking mind, and are not in touch with or contemplating their own spirituality. (This article is about the busy bee as metaphor and not about the spiritual significance and meaning of the bee since ancient times.) Relationships with other people are difficult, especially if they are too busy to talk. They can seem to be addicted to always being on the go. This type of personality lives in a beehive of activity as they buzz around, which is not necessarily an actual work.

The Busy Addiction

“When you shoot an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey.” – Arab proverb

When I have asked about other areas in a client’s life they might say, “I am too busy for that or to start dealing with that issue.” This busyness is a state of mind. It keeps you from attending to your own issues. These can be sensations of inferiority, emptiness, sadness, disappointment and other vulnerable feeling experiences such as grief and loss.

This busyness can be a compensation to some of the above feelings. Because if you feel in demand, needed, wanted, and valued these can be a powerful attraction that removes you from yourself. This loss of a balanced connection between your head and heart causes an out of proportion living.

And now you ask in your heart,

“How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,

But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.

For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,

And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,

And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

─ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Idling

“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.” ─ Victor Hugo

Some people have a distaste for idleness. There is an aversion to idling. The dislike for idleness is because it goes against the cultural work ethic. Bees are respected for their industrious natures. Originally, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1380s was thought to contain the simile busy as a bee.

Idle is from old English idel, meaning void, empty. It is associated with wasting time, avoiding work, and being inactive such as idling away an afternoon or just sitting in your car as the motor idles. Sometimes people can distract themselves from their own life by being a busybody and meddling in the business of someone else’s life.

Questions for Yourself.

What would your life be like if you weren’t so busy?

What would you really want to do and be?

What would happen to you if entered your own inner bee hive?

What might you find inside yourself?

“ Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.” ─ Paulo Coelho

The Green-eyed Monster

Wed, 06 May 2015 17:55:00 GMT

“Envy does not allow humanity to sleep.” ─ Carl G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious

Envy

On occasion, a client has mentioned that they feel envious or jealous of someone or something else. They might say, “I saw my friend get recognized for her work and wished that I was too. I felt jealous; I envied her. I don’t like to feel that way.” Envy and jealousy are very close in meaning they are like cousins. The word envy etymologically is derived from the Latin invidia and invidere regard maliciously, grudge, from in – ‘into’ + videre ‘to see.’

It is an emotional experience. When a person envies with jealousy, the whole body feels contracted, restricted and diminished. It happens when someone feels and has judged themselves to be lacking or deficient in a certain area. Then they feel shrunken and less than the other, suddenly feeling inferior. You can see another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either immediately desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Envy occurs with either a positive or negative viewpoint over the other person or thing. This can cover a broad range of feeling from a begrudging resentment and spite to a covetous desire or greed. Envy causes a sense of longing and a feeling of unhappiness.

Envy contains two parts, such as you and your friend or the new car that your neighbor bought. For example, when a friend of yours suddenly wins a sum of money in the lottery or inherits a chunk of money from a relative his or her lifestyle changes for the better. Now they can pay off their bills, and you can’t. If you tell another person that you envy them, they will diminish themselves and reduce their self-worth to appease your inferior feeling, at the same time minimizing their own self to be accepted by you. When you resent and begrudge what another possesses or owns this is envy.

Jealousy

Iago: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey’d monster , which doth mock

The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,

Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:

But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o’er Who dotes,

yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

Othello: O misery! Othello Act 3, scene 3, ─ Shakespeare

The green-eyed monster is an idiom. This figure of speech can strike a powerful image in your mind causing you to wince. Both jealousy and envy are associated with this personified imaginal figure. Shakespeare was the first to use this phrase in a written work. At that time in history, colors were associated with feelings and emotions. Green and yellow were a symbol of jealousy and envy, and still are. Some colors were associated with the bodily fluids which were called “humors” that characterized someone’s personality and temperament.

Unlike envy, jealousy involves a group of three people. The Three might consist of you, your husband and your girlfriend or you, your boss, and a coworker. A person can feel jealous and be filled with anguish because they are worried and afraid of losing something that is loved. For example, you could lose a boyfriend or a girlfriend to another friend. In the workplace, you can be jealous that your boss favors a co-worker over you. The boss might give a promotion that you think you deserve to that co-worker.

How to heal the green-eyed monster in relationships, the workplace, or life in general.

“Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.” ─ Harold Coffin

A Rose for You

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 13:52:00 GMT

“In the driest whitest stretch of pain’s infinite desert, I lost my sanity and found this rose” ─ Rumi

Whoever gazes upon a beautiful aromatic rose that infuses the surrounding atmospheric environment with an enigmatic presence will notice it jogs your memory. It brings to mind a subtle stirring of something inside of you that seems far away and otherwise unknown. When standing in the presence of the rose as you look upon its beauty it touches a deep place within your inexplicable core of being. The rose and its fragrance reminded you as it prompts that longing for that inner unconnected essence.

Thorns

The rose’s spikes along its stem suggest that sometimes prickliness and thorniness might be a valid quality to use as a form of self-protection guarding your vulnerable inner essence. The rose can seem aggressive if it pricks your finger reminding you that a certain amount of assertiveness is a good thing, because there is positive and negative in everything in life. On the other hand, the rose can be reminiscent of a thorn in your side/flesh, a source of continual irritation or suffering. The barbs in your life can influence you to find your wholeness and what that might mean for you.

The live rose evokes a desired yearning that has long been forgotten. According to A Dictionary of Symbols, a rose represents completion, wholeness, and perfection. A significant quality assigned to the rose is the mystic center where that essence resides. An association with the rose aligns with the heart, Eros, Dante’s paradise, the beloved, and there are many more descriptives. The rose can arouse and allude to that unspecified sweet dream.

Sweet Dream

Many have said that poetry is the language of the soul. The voice of your soul calling to you through images and words can quicken some forgotten memory. Seemingly, everyone to some degree seeks and looks for his or her life’s sweet dream. The following verse from the Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) speaks to this deep essence.

“Sweet dreams are made of this

Who am I to disagree?

I travel the world

And the seven seas,

Everybody’s looking for something”

It seems that seekers by that very nature are constantly seeking. The thing that they find is consistently not it, so they keep on seeking. Even so, they cannot name the “it.” I have clients that are searching and looking for who they are and their place within the world. They feel lost and out of sync with something they cannot quite put into words. Perhaps his or her life’s dream has been abandoned or lost, and they seek to find it once again. My clients are not the only ones that are hungering for their lives. The following poem, Casida Of The Rose speaks to this quest of many.

“The rose was not searching for the sunrise: almost eternal on its branch, it was searching for something else.

The rose was not searching for darkness or science: borderline of flesh and dream, it was searching for something else.

The rose was not searching for the rose. Motionless in the sky it was searching for something else.” ─ Federico Garcia Lorca

When you think about yourself do you know what you are searching for? Have you found it? Who are you in this life?

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ─ Anais Nin

Get Around To It – Giddy-up & Get-er-Done

Sat, 28 Mar 2015 14:34:00 GMT

“My own behavior baffles me. I find myself doing what I hate, and not doing what I really want to do!” ─ Saint Paul (Romans 7:15)

Procrastination

On occasion, some of my clients have mentioned that they are procrastinators and would like to understand why they hold themselves back. Some will say, “I always mean to do it,” and others will say, “I want to, but don’t.” Still another will say, “I don’t know what to do first or how to go about doing it.” Often there was a wondering if it was just plain laziness and hesitation when they were lollygagging and idling their way through life. They started to notice that when someone said to them, “How soon or when?” their response is “Not now!” Suddenly, there is the realization that “one of these days” may be never.

The following is a little analogy and riddle about the attitude that some procrastinators may hold. I have been told that this is used in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous).

There are 3 birds sitting on a fence, 1 decides to fly away, how many are left?

The answer is “3 birds are left.”

The reason that three birds are left is because when you only think about and ruminate on something, it just flies around in your head. One never gets off the fence to take any kind of action to implement the desired direction. It is as if the chosen thing cannot step out of your head and realm of thoughts into the world. Often a person doesn’t do what they have decided to do. A simple example is you need or want more money and don’t do anything to get it. You may be bored and hate your job, and complain to others daily yet do not update your resume, network, or do a job search because it feels like it is too overwhelming. When sitting on an invisible fence, symbolically, you are watching the hourglass as time passes by. Your time goes by whether you do something or nothing.

Father Time

“You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again” ─ Martin Luther (1483-1546)

In ancient Roman myth “father time,” the God of time, was Saturn. Saturn was linked to Cronus or Kronos by the Greeks. The modern word Chronos means “time” and is the root of “chronology” which is a sequential order in time like seconds ticking by. This article is not an in-depth exploration of this subject and mythology. There are some things that time can’t kill such as air, water, death. However, some people hold their breath and don’t breathe (death) or don’t drink enough water and dehydrate, depleting the flow of the water of life (death).

Procrastination is a conflict with father time by unconsciously and sometimes consciously holding back or slowing down time to keep everything the same. There is a strong resistance to any kind of change. The passage of time is a one-way forward movement. That example, the hourglass concretely shows the flow of the “sands of time” running out. It doesn’t run backwards, just as you can’t push the river. Carl G. Jung called procrastination “the thief of time.” The perennial question could be. Why do people dawdle, postpone or delay needlessly to their own detriment?

The Perfect Worry Storm

Procrastination is related to worrying and perfectionism. When you holdback or withhold, it was another day spent in avoidance by worrying that it will not meet your expectations or be perfect. If you don’t take any action, then you can’t make a mistake. There seems to be a need for confirmation or a guarantee of some sort so that a decision to act will work out perfectly.

Even when you put it (whatever “it” is) off until a future time that delaying is not a denial. Although, that is exactly what people worry about, that they won’t get it perfectly right or ever get around to it. The feeling of slowness is also connected to not getting around to it, which is a slowing down of personal time. The constant postponement about something that must be done can become a habit. Then this habit is a regular practice that produces psychological pain and discomfort over time. Sometimes this happens because the thing that needs to get done is unpleasant and boring. There are individual differences as to why and how one-person experiences their own procrastination versus another’s. Each person needs to explore for themselves their inner urge and impulse to procrastinate.

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” ─ Seneca

The Symptom And The Cure

Sun, 08 Mar 2015 14:14:00 GMT

“Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.” ─ Hippocrates

Many of my clients are seeking a cure for their symptom or even a set of complex symptoms, which are not responding to traditional medical treatment. The client may have a specific complaint such as simply, “I have no energy, or I feel like I am on a sinking ship.” These are symptoms that are about something in particular. The word cure comes from the Latin cura meaning care, concern or attention. Symptoms require a careful personal treatment and an attending concern. Thomas Moore lectures and writes about the Soul said, “The therapist’s job is not to be an exterminator to take things away. The job is to give the problem back to the client in a way that shows how much they need it, show its value.”

The Symptom

The Greek word σύμπτωμα means a symptom. It has a number of different meanings such as accident, misfortune, and befalls, like “I fall.” Any symptom is a change from your normal baseline functioning. The client tells about their unusual feeling state or “dis-ease” that has befallen them. A symptom is personal. You can’t see it. Other people can’t see or measure it in inches, for example. It can only be seen if it has produced an outward manifestation like a sudden red rash, or you have some stitches on your arm. Many times, symptoms are invisible. The symptom needing a cure is experienced merely by the person who has it. It is theirs, belongs to them, and therefore, has meaning and significance if it is worked with. The symptom contains the cut off part of life’s problem or dilemma that is not currently being resolved and is stored within the body and/or mind.

An inquisitive curiosity and personal interest are needed to explore the symptom of what has befallen the client. There is a need to find out what it is all about. It is the client who tells about it. The client needs the witness and the listening therapist to make sense with him or her about the issue in the tissue. Only the person who has the symptom can dig deep and excavate it’s meaning to their own life. Jungian depth psychology puts forth the notion that considers the symptom attempting to get the person to see, understand or heed a message. The symptomatic message needs to be decoded by working with the symbols that arise.

The word symbol also means a symptom because sym means together, and bol means thrown. A symptom and the symbol associated with the issue mean something that is thrown together. An example would be a red rash, and skin are thrown together or an ear and an ache, an earache. The unconscious works to make the person aware of something important to their individual life.

Your Inner World Situation

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.” ─ C. G. Jung

Dreams are from your inner world unconscious life. You are the dreamer, and every detail in your dream is you and about you. Your dreams give you useful guidance if you work with their symbols, images, and metaphors. An example from the unconscious inner world is dreaming you have cancer or told that by a figure from the dream world. R. A. Lockhart a Jungian analyst in Words as Eggs states that “Cancer is a growth that turns against and consumes the body. Psychologically, it is a potential growth toward life that has turned negative and now threatens to consume the dreamer” (2012 p. 23). An individual would do personal work to find out and discover what area throughout his or her life has been suppressed and internalized. The nature of Cancer is it seeks to grow and multiply.

“If you are part of the problem you are part of the cure.” ─ Anonymous

The traditional medical model treats with drugs, surgery, and radiation to name a few methods. This paradigm does not seem to include the whole person. Your totality includes psyche, spirituality, personal nature, mindfulness, dreams, feelings and emotions and your relationship to people in your physical environment. This is not just about the brain’s processing of information. When it is your disease, you can participate on many levels to alleviate, cure, and restore to health a normal functioning. A question to ask yourself is. How would my life be different and what would I be doing without this symptom? This is true even for the mildest of symptoms to the worst of diseases that have befallen you.

“A patient doesn’t select his physical ailments. They happen to him. You could just as well ask when you are eaten by a crocodile, ‘How did you select that crocodile?’. Nonsense. He has selected you. The patient doesn’t even select the symptoms unconsciously. That is an extraordinary exaggeration of the subject to say he was choosing such things. They get him.” – C.G. Jung

Selflessness vs. Selfishness In The Helper

Sat, 31 Jan 2015 15:29:00 GMT

“Sometimes you have to be selfish to be selfless.” ─ Edward Albert

Many times my clients have wondered out loud in their session if they are selfish. As we start to explore their perception of what it means to be selfish vs. selfless, a personal feeling of conflict or confusion sets in. It is hard to know about their true helping intention for themselves or others. Some of my clients have been care-taker helpers, and they are angry. They are annoyed and frustrated because they feel neglected themselves, like a servant who is no longer serving, taken for granted, unappreciated, and feel invisible. This is not a selfish or selfless service. Now there are care-taker issues that have arisen into their conscious awareness. There is a need to figure it out.

Selfishness is about egotistical and egocentric behaviors such as self-gratification, self-seeking for one’s own benefit, and exalting one’s elf above others. At the same time, this type of helper sees others as less than, and not capable. The helper acts as if they are the only one who knows what is best for another person and doesn’t want to spend the time teaching them anything. Selflessness contains unselfish qualities and attitudes like generous, noble, magnanimous, kind, thoughtful, considerate, and an altruistic sense of self-sacrifice. Selfish and selfless are a set of opposites that a person will move back and forth through, from time to time. Sometimes not even aware that they are doing this.

The Selfish Helper

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” ─ Maimonides

This type of helper wants to alleviate the suffering of another by lending a hand, giving a hand-out or up to someone whom they have seen or judged to be in need of their assistance. They alone are the only one who can step in to help out. The selfish helper does something for the person that the person actually needs to do for themselves. This is enabling the person that they are helping to remain undeveloped, childlike, needy, immature, and irresponsible as they come to rely and depend on the helper as the person who will do it for them. Over time, the helper feels powerful and superior. This experience of superiority is fed by the good feeling the helper receives from their inappropriate helping. I am not talking about accidents, earthquakes, fires, floods, war or a person having a heart attack, stroke, can’t breathe. These are events that need everyone’s help. They need supporting helpers because the affected people are overwhelmed and literally can’t help themselves.

Ask yourself the following questions about your own need to help.

When I am wanting to help another am I giving a hand-out or up?

Am I feeling driven, pressured, or pushed from within myself to take over?

Have I been asked for my help?

Am I on the lookout for people who I think need fixing or rescuing?

Is there a heady feeling of superiority when I am helping?

Can I receive help from others?

When someone wants to help me do I feel inferior or insecure?

For instance, this type of critical and judging helper might decide that a family member or a friend need therapy and will call to make an appointment for them. It never occurs to the helper that they may need to work on their own issues as they focus on what they have decided is wrong with the other person. The people who step in and decide for another are neglecting their own life’s concerns and problems. These are the people that need to be selfish for themselves.

The Right Kind of Selfless Helper

This is about the attitude that is held in your own conscious mind. There is now an awareness toward yourself and others. It is important to stop doing it for them. Because you can currently recognize the opportunity for growth that is presented to the one you think needs your help. This happens by letting the other person discover their own innate resourcefulness. You can help them find their motivation, and individual ability to figure out their particular right solution. You can help them take responsibility for his or her life by asking questions such as “What do you think you need to do?”

Here are some more real helping questions that can support and encourage people to discover for themselves their own right solution for their personal problems.

What are your options?

What is the very first thing you need to do?

What other steps can you take to get there?

What resources are available to you?

What is your plan or goal?

What has this problem been like for you?

“Anger the rise of anger the initial cause of anger is selfishness. Peace the rise of peace the initial cause of peace is selflessness.” ─ Venerable Wuling, Path to Peace

The Serpentine Mind

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 13:44:00 GMT

“The serpentine mind

Disentangles

From the branches of confusion

Uncoils its knowledge to greet the dawn

And sees In the growing light.” ─ Quetzalcoatle

I have noticed that some of my clients seem to be stuck living in a “Garden of Eden” type frame of mind. This kind of consciousness is really an unconsciousness causing their thinking to be irrational. They are entangled and entwined in confusion. They are not clear headed about their personal reactions, and responsibility toward the negativity they encounter during their lives. The different interactions and events that happen throughout the world, and in their lives shock their idealization. Their notion is that everything should be good, loving, and harmonious in their lives like a peaceful garden.

The Garden of Eden is a symbol of paradise. It was a place of a union with God where individual consciousness did not exist. It could be likened to grains of salt or sugar that are dissolved in water. Perhaps, symbolically this was where we were before we were born into the world of shape and form. The garden contained the tree of Knowledge of good and evil.

Tree

A tree can be a symbol that represents a human being. The tree’s trunk is like the trunk of a person’s body. The branches are the arms. The roots to the tree are the feet. The tree’s top is how the head flourishes in thought and ideas as it grows. The tree unites heaven and earth as the sun shines on it, and the tree is rooted to the earth. A human being is also the center of their own life. A life that is cultivated by soul and spirit. A person grows up just like a tree and develops its intelligence and understanding. It seems like the idea of “blame or blaming” began in this garden. Adam and Eve did not take responsibility for their choices and looked to blame others. This causes confusion, lying and chaotic thinking like a serpentine mind.

Genesis 3:1-6

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband, and he ate. ( http://www.tlogical.net/adameve.htm )

The Blame Game

According to J. M. Fritzius at tlogical the human behavior of blaming began when God sees that Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree. Adam said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate” (Adam blamed Eve). Subsequently, Eve said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Eve blamed the serpent). From then on humankind began blaming others for their actions. Blaming others is still a common behavior. It is very difficult for many people to take responsibility for his or her life. Some people are always wanting others to tell them what to do or blaming them for their bad advice.

Adam and Eve responded to the serpent’s temptation. They each made the choice to eat the fruit from this tree. Because they ate the fruit, they were expelled out into the world of duality and physicality for their disobedience. The world of duality is the tension of opposites (Jung). Some examples of common dualities are good and evil, positive and negative, war and peace. There are many other tensions of opposites in the world of ego consciousness. Various pairs of opposites are filled with archetypal paradoxes that all people have to learn to navigate, manage, and integrate themselves.

The word serpentine has many different descriptions. It can be shrewd, subtly, sly, cunning, crafty, wily, turning, twisting, winding, and slithering to name a few. The serpentine mind connotes and portrays someone’s mind as circumventing and indirectly winding, twisting, and meandering around issues; sometimes to avoid blame, or personal responsibility. Oftentimes a person can seem to be winding and twisting in with different types of fears or anger. They are psychologically and emotionally stuck in embroiled tensions. There is a difficulty in moving into a clear-thinking mind. When an individual has lived a long time with confusion, personal enmeshments, and entangled associations, they find the serpentine mind is not on a straight path. The road ahead zigzags through the tension of opposites. Carl G. Jung who developed analytical psychology explained it this way:

“There is a good thing on top of that mountain. I will make a straight line for it.” But the archetypal way is not like that; it is a serpentine way that wriggles and spirals its way to the top. We often feel defeated by it and brought to a standstill. It makes most people terribly impatient and even desperate when nothing happens and they get nowhere. They feel hindered all the time; they don’t understand that this is just as it should be, that it is actually their only chance of getting to the top .” (C.G. Jung, The Visions Seminars , Book Two , p. 295)

Jung wrote extensively about the Self. The Self is similar to your own concept of God, Higher Power, the Divine, etc…. In Jung’s thought and theory; the center of your personality is the Self. It innately seeks to organize and maintain wholeness within your individual mind. Jungian psychotherapy is about becoming completely and wholly yourself. He called it the individuation process. The inner world brings to you from your unconscious dreams, images, urges, impulses, etc. to help guide your path. When you work with your own issues, you are navigating the serpentine way.

The “Fall” from the garden into the physical world has led to a great distancing from the personal connection to the inner Divine nature. There are many ways to integrate and reconnect your body-mind-spirit within yourself.

1. Depth Psychotherapy

2. AcuProcess ^TM (see my website)

3. Mindfulness and meditation practices

4. Body work

5. Authentic Movement

6. Dreamwork

7. The expressive arts

“Poetry, Painting & Music: the three Powers in Man of conversing with Paradise which the flood did not sweep away.” — William Blake, A Vision of the Last Judgment (1810)

Epiphany

Sun, 12 Oct 2014 14:01:00 GMT

“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking” ― Albert Einstein

Many of my clients have experienced an epiphany during a depth psychotherapy, counseling session. An epiphany can happen at any time. It is a surprise contribution that adds insight and meaning to the client’s personal work. These are also intuitive presents that produce the “aha” moment whereby everything about an issue comes together and makes sense. It is a revelation that comes to you.

This type of event is an unexpected realization and conscious awareness. It is an in the moment flash of recognition that weaves together fragmented pieces of an emotional disturbance or some other issue. The famous Irish writer James Joyce called this an epiphany and described it as that “the soul of the commonest object…. seems to us radiant.” This shining a light or a spot light on an important topic is a true gift and a blessing. It is a felt sense and a revealing intuition.

Carl G. Jung was the great Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and founder of analytical psychology who associated the epiphany and the numinous (mystical/spiritual) experience with synchronicity. He called it an “an acausal connecting principal” and “meaningful coincidence.” When a synchronicity happens, it reveals something in the world that is connected to the movements and forces that are at work in the advancement of consciousness. A synchronicity exposes the inner world personal paradigms with an outer physical world event in a surprising “Eureka” moment.

Eureka !

“The Lord gives wisdom ( Sophia ), from his face come knowledge ( Gnosis ) and understanding ( Sunesis )” —Proverbs 2.6

Is it possible to cultivate and invoke an epiphany to experience that Eureka moment? This type of numinous, spiritual, and mystical event comes up to conscious awareness from the soul (Psyche/Sophia). The knowledge (Gnosis) that is imparted to your life is just what is needed and required for further personal growth and development. When an understanding (Sunesis) happens then there is a felt sense of a new inner strength with understanding.

There is a useful image, of a space, a waiting room as a state of mind that can be set to receive an epiphany through personal reflection, self-discovery and exploration; plus working with your dreams. The purpose is to wake up to your individual conscious awareness about the issues at hand. It is an act of faith in your own process that allows that amazing Eureka moment to appear.

“There’s nothing better when something comes and hits you and you think ‘YES’!” ― J.K. Rowling

Everybody – Somebody – Anybody – Nobody

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 15:21:00 GMT

Y our current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers. ─unknown

Many of my clients have expressed feeling like a “doormat” that anybody can step on. They complain that somebody is always making unacceptable remarks about their personal beliefs, actions, or physical characteristics. Nobody accepts them as they are. Everybody always has something to say about them, and they want to know how to handle this situation.

Personal Boundaries

This state of their affairs is about their own sense of their individual personal boundaries. It is about the edges and limits of where their personhood ends, and the other people begin. When you were a child, if you were not taught about your own energetic bubble and individual space, you might feel unsafe and vulnerable as an adult. You could have the feeling that you have no rights to yourself. Your parents or caretakers might not have given you any instructions about setting limits about who you are with the ability to pick and choose or just plain say “no.” Perhaps, you were never allowed to be seen and heard. There was no permission to express your likes and dislikes about people, places, and things. In no way, could you even say how close another person could be to you. Relatives and friends might have just been able to grab you and give you a hug because they wanted to. Boundary making is about what is coming at you from another and what you are putting out to others. It is not too late to begin establishing appropriate contact, communication, and an interface with the people and situations in your environment. You can start now by knowing in what areas you experience your boundary intrusions and invasions.

Border Crossings

There are many areas and ways to experience people crossing your border line into your own territory. You may be able to add many more symptoms to this list.

* Being touched or touching without permission

* Over giving or investing in another or somebody doing that to you

* Getting as much as you can from others or that is taken from you

* Others tell you who you are

* Not using your voice to say yes or no or to pick and choose

* Ignoring your own needs to fulfill the expectations of others or pleasing them only

* Others won’t like you if you don’t do what they want

* Expecting others to take responsibility for you or meet your needs

* Feeling you have to engage in sex even if you don’t want to

Thick and Thin

Through thick and thin, your life is your own territory in the areas of the physical, mental, psychological, and spiritual. This includes your beliefs and emotions. There are people who will set limits and boundaries for you because you don’t do it yourself. You may also want to stop people from crossing the line who interfere and are over involved in your life.

The four areas listed below describe some different types of responsive reactions to your boundary crossings. This is how some folks may feel when someone invades their personal space by prying, judging, or with criticism.

Pliable people are flexible and bendable. They don’t know their own thoughts, ideas, and join in with the group mind or with everybody in whatever is going on. They can be lax and floppy in their personal responses to setting limits for themselves as they make feeble attempts to hold the line.

Soaker uppers are people who absorb and take up and in somebody else’s emotions, feelings, and beliefs. They are limp and overly empathic as they live vicariously through other people’s experiences. They actually do not know their own feelings about anything or anybody and cannot say what and who they are in and of themselves.

Stiff necked and unyielding people are armored up in their reactions to anybody or anyone who tries to manipulate their sense of self. They also keep others at their arm’s length, especially, if there was past psychological, emotional, or any form of physical abuse. Those that have been victimized and feel vulnerable are often not able to say no or defend themselves with appropriate boundary making.

Exploit less people are those who can be assertive because they have developed mental resilience in their response ability. They embrace and understand their right of selfhood. Nobody can manipulate them anymore because they have learned to establish their particular perimeter around themselves. They resist and refuse to be taken advantage of by others.

Construct and Erect

Boundary building and setting limits promotes good mental health and relationships. Acquiring the skill to put together tools for yourself to maintain yourself-worth and self-image can help you to avoid getting caught in emotional enmeshments, or entanglements of associations.

Learning to say no , is the fastest way to protect yourself, your heart, and your emotional health. When requests are made upon your time, money, to take on somebody else’s responsibility, or to meet an unrealistic expectation of another person is a waste of your vitality.

There are simple ways to state and establish your own authority and limit. Saying some of the following phrases is healthy and freeing.

1. “That doesn’t work with my schedule.”

2. “My policy is I don’t lend money to anyone.”

3. “That doesn’t won’t work for me.

4 .”I can’t do that.”

5. “I can’t help at this time.”

Once you have made an “I” statement like those above you do not have to explain anything to anyone. If you are pressured, then the asker is being rude. Just simply restate what you said and move on or change the subject after that.

Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices. ─Gerard Manley Hopkins

Boring Is A Ho-Hum Humdrum

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 13:56:00 GMT

Life’s tedious as a twice-told tale —William Shakespeare

Many of my clients have come into their session bored and have lost interest in what they are doing. Their job is tedious, unimaginative, and dreary. They look in the mirror and see themselves as bland, stodgy, and they appear stale to themselves. However, they are not depressed they are actually done with what they have been doing and are in “dullsville.”

Mental weariness is like “the tiresome chirping of a cricket” according to Mark Twain. Once a person knows all there is to know about their job or any current activity it becomes irritating and perhaps exasperating. Something new in life needs to happen. The purpose of their own ongoing annoying frustration is to signal to them that they are finished with their experience. If foresight and long-range planning for the next new activities have not been considered, then this is a good time to begin thinking about your future path. You can start to understand, interrelate, or correlate all the elements that are affecting your life now. The main purpose of sitting in this dead zone is for personal growth and self-development.

When you are in the doldrums, it is a good time to observe and study your life. This experience of world-weariness can cause you to look at where you have been, where you are now, and what needs to be done to remain in touch with yourself through your own self-awareness. Carl G. Jung a great psychiatrist and prolific writer about psychology of the mind said about boredom, “We do not cure it, it cures us . ” Your personal feelings of limitation and resulting impatience can stir you to notice the inspiration, the new impulses, and the refreshing motivational urges that are coming up to you from your unconscious to make the necessary changes for your life’s progress.

The main point or idea is that you are in a position to understand your individual life and therefore, better able to work with your own decision-making process to make the necessary changes. New life is born of your personal experience. You have lived through certain things, and now you can proceed from your acquired understanding and perceived meaningfulness. However, the future is always different, and what happens in the future depends upon what is true at that time. Therefore, you must keep your mind open and flexible. You only know what you know, and that is not everything. Continue to examine yourself and see what could be improved, even if your life is satisfactory now. What is it that you need to overcome your disenchantment, which is a loss of interest and an emotional demotivation that lets in burnout and then boredom?

Signs and Symptoms of Disenchantment-Burnout-Boredom

-Enchantment is burned out

-No energy

-Running out of steam

-Demotivation

-No challenges

-A lack of any positive results

-Feeling mental and emotional exhaustion

-Don’t feel like working

-Feeling loss of self or self-respect

-Feeling disconnected from people places and things

-Not being able to accomplish or get things done

Disenchantment Busting

Here are a few ways to work with boredom and disenchantment.

1. All types of play, games, and fun relieves the stress of boredom.

2. Any form of expressive art from painting, scrapbooking to knitting will help stir up your imagination and give you some relief.

3. Exercise and all forms of movement such as dancing, swimming, and going into the gym to work out will help.

4. Pay attention to your dreams. What are they showing you about your life?

The word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. ─Jung

© Ozimkiewicz

Detached Caring

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 13:09:00 GMT

It has been said by many that compassion is a conscious awareness and desire to relieve suffering and help others. There are some people that interfere, control, or take over another person’s life for them because they believe they know best. One of the ways to not do this is with a detached caring approach which is holding this supportive attitude toward another person in distress by helping that person to make decisions and take responsibility for themselves. In this kind of compassionate detachment one does not do for another what they must do for themselves. In other words, don’t do what needs to be done for them but support them in doing it themselves. Detached caring is a way to be a helper or provide service to another that protects the caregiver. A visual would be imagining a circle around the person and only tipping your big toe into their circle of life so that you can remain objective as you support them in their situation. Otherwise, you cannot discern what is your stuff and what is their stuff. The lines between you become blurred.

Detached Service

Some of my clients provide a caring service to others. They might be a therapist, counselor, teacher, medical professional or other type of service provider. They report that they take home and carry with them the problems of the people that they serve or care for. They worry about them over the weekend or even in their sleep and dreams. Their question is how to get relief and not be so consumed by the problems of others. They were wanting to know how to do that. These clients have allowed themselves to ruminate on the problems of others to the point that another person’s issues can live “rent free” in their heads as they constantly let themselves become disturbed and emotionally upset. Overtime this can produce a personal burnout, a compassion fatigue, or a vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma is a second-hand perceived experience through another person’s issues. It is anything that interferes with the helper’s ability to fulfill his or her responsibility to assist an emotionally disturbed or traumatized client. The main characteristic is a disrupted personal spirituality, or an interruption in the caregiver’s or trauma workers’ sensed meaning and hope, so much so, that they might even need treatment for their own disturbance of mind.

Paradox

A paradox is like a contradiction in terms. Detachment is a paradox because we have to let go in order to attach real care. Many people think that if they use detachment that they may care less than others. Detachment is also about giving up desire and the desire for the particular way that you want things to work out for others or even yourself. It is a spiritual practice. C. G. Jung, Buddha, Meister Eckhart the Catholic mystic, and many others have taught that detachment is based on integrating and holding “the tension of the opposites.” This is the way of paradox, and it is explained by the Benedictine monk Cyprian Smith thoroughly in his book Spiritual Life as Taught by Meister Eckhart: The Way of Paradox.

When a person does let go of the outcome for another person, this is a gift of freedom and love. Detachment requires the personal ability to set boundaries, borders, and limits for yourself. Just as you might like to decide the course of your own life, whether it be about love, work, or life path direction. The use of detached caring is a spiritual work for yourself and others.

Who Turned The Light Down? “Gaslighting”

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:20:00 GMT

I have had many clients that have come in to work on their self-doubt and self-perception with an inability to know themselves or how to decide anything because they have continually been discounted and put down by another person overtime. Often they don’t know what they like or dislike. They soon realize that they were abused so slyly and consistently that they might come to question or doubt their own sanity, and wonder if they are going crazy.

The word gaslighting is taken from the 1938 play Gas Light and the 1944 movie Gas Light starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. The name of the movie inspired the basis of the expression gaslighting because it describes a systematic way of methodically and repeatedly manipulating a person’s sense of their perceptive reality causing self-doubt about one’s own mental state and a rational mind over time. The main plot in the movie is about the husband who tries to talk his wife into insanity and make others believe she has lost her sound mind when he used psychological manipulation by always saying that she is mistaken, incorrect, or her memory is wrong. He did this by using the little things such as ever so slightly dimming down the gas light on the wall as he searched for treasure in the attic or moving her keys from where she knew she had placed them and then said she didn’t remember doing it. She noticed these subtle changes and tells him about it. He is adamant that she is just imagining where she put the keys or the change in the gas light’s brightness.

Are You a Victim of Gaslighting Emotional Abuse?

According to author and psychoanalyst Robin Stern, Ph.D., the signs of being a victim of gaslighting emotional abuse and psychological manipulation include:

Resisting Gaslighters

Since the 1970s the word gaslighting has been used to describe this phenomena of mental abuse. Victor Santoro’s book Gaslighting: How to Drive Your Enemies Crazy , delineates the use of legal schemes that might be used to bother or annoy others. Gaslighting can happen in any relationship, marital, work, sibling, etc.. Gaslighters leave you feeling drained, confused, and second-guessing yourself. Something is not right, and you can’t say exactly what it is. Skilled gaslighters are intent on altering your perception and reality. It is the gaslighters persistent intent to control you when there is a power differential such as your boss, or an authority figure that is emotionally entangled with you that is most difficult to resist.

One of the main ways to refuse to give into gaslighters is to be able to trust yourself and your personal judgments or conclusions because the gaslighter wants only their own ideas to be accepted.

There are three simple ways to avoid being triggered by a gaslighter, Here are a few ideas to consider.

Founderitis

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 16:52:00 GMT

I have had a number of clients with issues about their bosses and wanted to know how to handle or work with them in a better way. They were the founders of the organization, non-profit, or a group that these clients worked for and couldn’t quite pin the difficulty. The main issue seemed to be that the client was not heard, valued, and their contribution of new ideas, ways, and means was not well received or were just plain ignored.

Someone told me a long time ago that a group only grew as much as the leader of the group grows and that is why many groups fall apart after a short period of time. I have since come to find out that there is a term for this dynamic called Founder’s Syndrome or Founderitis.

In my own experience of attending various types of groups through the years, I noticed that if it is a group of only women, it will shortly start to fall apart. Perhaps one woman is the founder and just doesn’t let anyone else contribute or participate. There doesn’t seem to be a staying power. The members of the group just drop out, stop coming, and then the group is over. Many groups are advertised as in-depth, advanced levels of training, or it is promoted as a professional level of advancement, etc….. However, after a short period of time, the level of knowledge offered seems to sink to a basic level of information leaving some of the attendees frustrated and wanting more. Part of the reason seems to be that the group will revolve around the energetic knowledge of the lowest common denominator. I am not talking about the female’s or the male’s intelligence or intellectual knowledge; I am talking about the dynamics of feminine and masculine energy. Some founders, whether male or female, have the initiating energy to start the group but then are not able to sustain it or handle the sprouting of new roots and shoots as the group becomes aware of growth issues.

Sometimes a person unfamiliar with the basic concepts of the group will ask beginning questions and then the group descends energetically, and everyone seems to be starting all over again. Eventually, greater knowledge about a topic is offered to a group, and for some attendees, it is not necessarily understood and so the group still returns to the basics.

For example, there are times when a woman’s group lets a male or some males join the group, become a member or members on the board. Then the group is revived with new life and energy. Even just one male’s energy seems to energetically fertilize and invigorate a group because the feminine energy is receptive and masculine energy is assertive. Conversely, an all-male group seems to focus largely of the facts, data, and how to fix something with logic and reasoning. The feminine element is missing in the group. There is a lack of receptive feeling values that can color and give some warmth to the group. Just to clarify I am not saying that there should not be all female or male groups. I am mentioning group dynamics that may shed some light on a group that you might belong to for your personal understanding.

Diagnostic Symptoms

You can easily recognize the symptoms of “Founders Syndrome or Founderitis” when your founding leader or boss has this syndrome. This syndrome can be seen in either a male or a female lead. It is also an ego inflation whereby their sense of self-importance appears puffed up in their personality, and they act condescendingly toward others or act superior to the group members. These symptoms can apply to any kind of new group, business, or non-profit organizations.

The founder may be unwilling to attend any group strategy meetings and are adverse to staffing, planning, or brain storming to create fresh initiatives, or introduce new policy. Adhering to what worked before is the way to keep going. Even though the founder may have had the initial energy to start the organization but then is not able to keep up with the growth and might fear losing their self-importance. The founder’s behavior consists of hesitation, procrastination, and withholds approval in decision making even though fresh strategies are required for growth. The founder doesn’t consult with others or delegate any new responsibilities, and if their authority is questioned or disputed, then there are rebukes and objections accompanied by hostile tones.

Here are nine ways you can avoid or overcome Founder’s Syndrome according to Jeff Jowdy in the business arena, and this list can actually be adapted to any type of new group.

Duty Demons or Off Duty

Wed, 09 Jul 2014 16:07:00 GMT

Many of my clients try to understand his or her life’s duty and obligations and want to know why they have to fulfill them. A duty is an obligation to act in a certain way or one is obliged to do it for legal, moral, or religious reasons. The word originally derives from the Latin obligare which comes from the root lig which suggests being bound, as one is to God, for instance, in re- lig io . An obligation can also be a felt requirement. It can be legal or moral. Justinian defined an obligation ( obligatio ) in his Institutiones , Book 3, section 13 as “a legal bond, with which we are bound by necessity of performing some act according to the laws of our State.” If an obligational duty is founded on the moral and ethical codes of conduct, then it is a moral duty. Sometimes you might consider a moral duty in terms of rules that carry a feeling of restraint. The “don’ts and shoulds,” as in don’t lie, cheat, steal, or you should follow through on your commitments, duties, and obligations. These types of rules and restricting commands comprise the so-called negative dimension of moral duty because they tell us what not to do. There is also a positive and affirming way we ought to be, such as keeping your word or promise, suspending judgment of others, show respect and compassionate kindness.

If one fails to perform or live up to a legal duty, one can be criminally prosecuted or sued. If there is the failure to live up to a moral duty, the external sanction is blame and condemnation — and if one has a well-developed conscience, feelings of guilt and shame can weigh you down. For instance, in the Broadway show or movie Jersey Boys, you can see the extreme lengths that Frankie Valli; lead singer of The Four Seasons went to. He lived up to this higher principle with keeping his word and promises both legally and morally with just a handshake. His duty and obligations caused him a great deal of sacrifice both financially and emotionally. Obligational duties that are performed with steadfastness, and loyalty are a higher form or code to right living. If these duties are shirked or promises broken, they can produce a deeper sense of personal guilt.

My son Marc, who has an Aikido Black Belt, reminded me about Giri as a basis of the Martial Arts. For example, since Feudal times, the Japanese word Giri can be translated into a burden of duty or obligation. According to Maniko Abe, the definition is “to serve one’s superiors with a self-sacrificing devotion.” The movie The Yakuza (1975), duty and obligation or giri is the theme of the story. The character Tanaka has a debt to Harry, a “debt that can never be repaid” for saving the life of his sister and her child in occupied Japan. Tanaka says, to a Westerner that giri is “the burden hardest to bear.” Abe explained that the basis of giri, since Feudal Japan is a moral obligation, ” a debt of gratitude and a self-sacrificing pursuit of their happiness.” The Japanese martial arts stress “loyalty or obligation.”

Off Duty

There is often a consequence when a person avoids their known duties and goes “off duty” because they are too busy, don’t want to be bothered, or are just plain not interested in fulfilling an obligational duty. The end result can be an individual’s encounter with an experience of their personal morality, which is a felt one. They are then subjected to guilt feelings that are hard to shake. This felt sense of guilt and shame, which is always about the past, are like your character’s gyroscope. This is your personal navigational radar system that says a mistake was made.

Guilt Pangs

Wed, 18 Jun 2014 18:28:00 GMT

All you can think about is yourself when you feel guilty. I have seen many of my clients suffer from guilt pangs. Some people that I have worked with have taken a journey through a long self-imposed guilt trip. Their self-reproach constantly reinforces many personal derogatory feelings. They will often say to me, “If I give up my guilt, I might do that thing again; I need it as a reminder.” At various times, you can be aware that these disparaging and self-deprecating feelings of guilt are the experience of an actual self-attack. When you feel those sinking, cringing, and constricting feelings, you are attacking your personal beingness, beating yourself up. The judgment has been self-imposed that it is their individual culpability. It is all their own faults.

Personal blemishes, and a sense of critical imperfection are components of guilt. When you find fault with yourself and question who you are all the time that attitude produces a guilty self-condemnation. This self-attack dynamic over time can produce many auto-immune type disorders. Guilt’s opposite is blame. It is blame that is projected onto another person. The finger is pointed at another that holds them accountable and responsible for one’s seemingly blamable feelings. A guilt complex can contain a feeling of humiliation, embarrassment, and guilty conscience along with that accompanying, sinking, cringing feeling of shame.

It is all the constant critical thoughts, reflections over personal behavior, regrets, and repetitive ruminations, circular thinking loops that produce the shameful guilty feelings. When you dwell on your sense of individual guilt, over long periods of time, self-destructive patterns can emerge with self-sabotaging behaviors. Then life avoidance happens or you can overcompensate. The most intense shame filled guilty feelings may lead to self-hatred, even internalized homicide. This is a way of killing yourself slowly. For example, using drugs (drug overdose), alcohol (alcoholism), smoking (coffin nails), and any other risky behaviors that can threaten your life. The reoccurring guilty sense of yourself occurs when your thoughts contaminate and infect all of your other feelings too.

Release And Let It Go

Guilt helps you to grow and learn as well. Change your thoughts and change your mind about your guilt and yourself with self-understanding. Initially, it may seem nearly impossible to let go of your guilty feelings because guilt ties you to your past. Guilt is only about your past. It is not about the future or the present. It happens in the present when you call forth the past up, once again, into conscious awareness. Again, these shameful and guilt feelings are self-induced through self-judgment. I am not talking about experiencing a guilty conscience when you have hurt another or said the wrong thing to someone. This type of feeling guides you and helps to establish a right behavior with another person or to make amends. It is the releasing of the pervasive infected feelings of deep shame, unworthiness of life, or even a desire to do away with yourself.

1. First, you have to examine what type of guilt you experience. Is it an all-consuming life shame and guilt as if you were born with it? I have had clients who have said to me that they have felt guilty since the day they were born. They feel guilty just for being alive. A real feeling of not being good enough, worthlessness or is it a normal guilty conscience letting you know you made an error such as knowing that you binged on two large bags of potato chips, and you know that was bad for you.

2. How does your guilt serve you or what is its purpose for you? How does it keep you from living the life you really want to have and is meant for you? Normal guilt feelings are released when you have apologized or made amends to someone for your bad, thoughtless or rude behavior. Then you feel liberated again and not bound to your guilt because your apology has set you free. Does your guilt help you avoid your life and keep you in hiding with a feeling invisibility? Do you experience anxiety about being seen or recognized by others by others?

3. For deep guilt, self-forgiveness is the requirement. When you forgive yourself, you immediately let go of that sinking, cringing feeling then you are set free. Many clients have said, “I don’t know how to do that.” It is through the process of self-understanding and reflection that generates personal insight and awareness whereby forgiveness can occur. There is a need to recognize that everyone errs or makes a regretful mistake from which you learn a valuable lesson. People are not perfect. They get it wrong, many times they go astray and blunder and slip up in their lives.

The hurtful and self-inflicted painful guilty feeling will begin to let up when you decide to stop self-condemnation. Every time you become aware that you are attacking yourself is when you can change your thoughts and replace it with something more life giving and empowering. Give up the guilt which holds onto the self-punishing judgment simply by changing your mind about yourself and begin to see yourself for real.

Guilt is the act of cutting off love from yourself. Releasing your guilt with understanding and forgiveness contributes toward what C. G. Jung called the process of individuation. This process brings the deepest levels of your being into greater conscious awareness, with an integration that leads to feeling complete and whole within yourself. Individuation includes self-acceptance and self-love.

Monkey Mind

Tue, 27 May 2014 16:08:00 GMT

I have noticed that many of my client’s experience “monkey mind.” This mental dynamic seems to happen suddenly, or when life is boring and mundane. Some of these client’s report having dreams of a monkey, a monkey on their back, a monkey in the basement, a monkey in a tree or the word monkey seems to pop out unexpectedly.

The idea of having a “monkey mind” existed in ancient China, Japan, and is also a Buddhist phrase. The “monkey mind” contains or indicates an unsettled restlessness, a whimsical capriciousness, fanciful ruminations, inconstant thoughts that are confusing while running amok in the mind, and an indecisiveness with uncontrollable thinking that captures the mind.

When things seem to be the same old, same-old thing, a certain feeling of stagnation and stuckness fills one’s mind then a panic attack or an anxiety attack seems to happen to some people. A panic attack can certainly shake you up or awaken you. This experience can break up the doldrums and that stagnant feeling.

Panic and anxiety are aspects of fear, anxiety about the future, and can induce the monkey state of mind. Buddha described the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys, jumping, screeching, chattering, carrying on endlessly. At various times, everyone can experience this type of mind. He understood that with these various active monkey like thoughts all banging around and clamoring for attention in the mind as an irrational warning alarm inside your head, actively telling you to be careful. There is a danger in the world and things or life can go awry.

One of the ways to quiet the mind and find an inner peace is through a meditation and/or relaxation practice. It is best to do a practice that resonates with you, whether it is a walking meditation in nature or simple sitting and being with your breath as you follow its movement in and out.

Here is a practice that might be useful to you to reduce anxiety and fear of all that mental activity.

Magical Thinking

Thu, 15 May 2014 14:46:00 GMT

Magical thinking is an irrational and illogical thinking process. Magical thinking connects objective and subjective events that are not joined or attached to each other. These are associated beliefs that don’t make sense and are sometimes correlated to events that have happened. Magical thinking is also a clinical term that can be associated with a number of mental disorders such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or even depression.

A person with OCD demonstrates magical thinking by using selected superstitions to stay safe and protect themselves from their anxiety. An example is using an action such as literally stepping on a crack could produce the result of breaking your mother’s back, which has nothing to do with stepping on a crack. Another example would be using numbers to prevent a feared event by seeing a certain chosen number as a sign that everything is OK or counting to a particular number. When something said is determined to be bad, one would knock on wood for good luck. The knocking on wood has nothing to do with any unforeseen event.

For instance, you must view any magical thinking in the context that it is appearing. A person with a depression might say something like “It is raining because I am sad” or “I am sad because it is raining.” In reality, the action of raining has nothing to do with sadness because the rain and sad have been linked together. Another is “I am sick because I am bad” or “I am bad because the devil made me do it.”

Magical thinking also lets a person internalize the other, something outside of yourself, such as, letting someone else say who you are or using a thing to define and designate who you are. This would look something, like “I am what I eat, or you are what you eat.” Magical thinking sometimes is based on your history. Then it is used to clarify and make true any false conceptions or perceptions about the past thereby producing a feeling of being deceived, betrayed or disappointed. Things that live in your mind, that you ruminate about, generally are from the past. Magical thinking can cause you to lose your discrimination and discernment between the subjective and the objective. It can cause confusion between what is actually real versus the imaginal realm of feelings.

Magical thinking is not about ideas, inspiration, fantasy, the imaginal world, the invisible shamanic world, creativity, scientific hypothesis, intuitive possibilities, or intuition.

Neediness

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:47:00 GMT

In my practice, many client’s have asked about how to deal with their feelings of neediness for themselves or with other needy people. The following is adapted from an article by Lauren Zander.

Neediness

It comes in a variety of guises—old friends, new friends, family and colleagues—with needs that span a wide variety. Dealing with neediness gets complicated since you know that they might have thin skin, letting down these extra-sensitive people can make you feel guilty no matter how smothering their behaviour is. Fortunately, there are ways to put the brakes on neediness without hurting feelings.

What You Get From Neediness

First, take a look at yourself—because it’s possible that you don’t mind your friend’s neediness nearly as much as you tell yourself you do. That’s right—you are getting something positive from someone else’s neediness. After all, having someone constantly ask for your time, and attention is flattering, isn’t it?

1.To get things straight in your own mind, start asking yourself what subtle rewards you may be getting from your relationships with needy people . Do their perceived weaknesses make you feel strong…attractive…wise…dependable…just all-around special? Is there a unique reward that you get from specific relationships?

2.When your needy friend asks you for a lot of advice, and you’re constantly helping him or her solve his or her problems, it’s an effective way to avoid dealing with your own. Whether you realize it or not, hanging out with a needy person actually may be a procrastination technique —a way to hide from your own personal anxieties, fears or concerns.

The Usual Tactic (That Backfires)

Once you have realized how dealing with this needy friend affects you, turn your attention toward your friend—and how you can more clearly communicate with him or her. Instead of confronting the needy person head on and being honest, most of us take the easier way out and simply ignore needy people or brush them off with a lie. You might respond to one of their phone calls by saying, “Oh, did you call? I didn’t get a message…” or “I am so busy with this work project that dinner plans are going to be out of the question for the next few weeks.” However, that method will not make your friend’s needy behaviour disappear—if anything, it will make it worse. Needy people are so wrapped up in their own worlds that they might not get the hint and instead feel even more isolated and work extra hard at getting your attention. You might put them off temporarily, but that doesn’t solve the problem in the long term.

A Smarter Strategy That works

To deal with a needy friend effectively you can have a conversation that follows these four simple steps:

1. Start the conversation by expressing warm feelings of affection . You might say, “You know that I enjoy being your friend, and that I want our relationship to be strong” or “I’m so flattered by all of your calls/e-mails/Facebook posts/invitations—it’s very sweet of you.” Whatever words you choose, the point, here is to assure the other person that you care and are aware of his or her feelings.

2. Then explain clearly what is not working for yo u by saying something like, “It is hard for me to say this. I know that you want me to spend a lot of time with you, but I’m afraid that I’m not able to devote that amount of time to our relationship.” Then end this part of the conversation by saying, “I’m hoping that we can talk about this and come up with a compromise that works for both of us.”

3. Finally, offer ideas about what you are willing to do , and then listen to what the needy person is willing to do—in this way, you can find some middle ground. For example, in the case of constant dinner requests, spell out what specific frequency you want by saying, “It works much better in my life to have dinner once a month, rather than once a week. We can work out a schedule in advance to be sure that our plans are in place.”

4. Keep up the negotiation until you reach an agreement that you can both live with comfortably. These are not easy conversations, but they are important and fruitful because you will be getting what you want instead of tolerating what you don’t want.

Emotions Serve Many Purposes

Thu, 03 Apr 2014 15:44:00 GMT

I have many clients that are interested to understand more about their own emotions and emotional nature. Perhaps this article below which has been adapted from a few Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) resources ( M. Lineham, C. Wescott, McKay, Wood, & Brantley) concerning emotional regulation may be helpful to you.

Emotions such as anger, fear, and joy to name a few are signals that can help you do the following:

At first you may think the world would be a better place without such strong emotions, but consider these thoughts…

What helps us to stand up for ourselves and protect the people we love?

What stops us from driving too fast in bad weather?

What motivates us to study for a test?

What would we be like if we felt nothing after losing someone we love?

Emotions Communicate To And Influence Others

We communicate our emotions with verbal and nonverbal (facial expressions, body gestures, tone of voice) language. When there is a difference in what a person communicates non-verbally versus verbally, the other person will usually respond to the nonverbal expression. Facial expressions and other non-verbal cues communicate much faster than words.

When we want to communicate to others it can be very difficult for us to change our emotions. Whether we intend to or not, our emotions communicate and have an influence on others.

Emotions Organize And Motivate Action

Emotions prepare for and motivate action. For example, if you see your two-year old child in the middle of the street and a car coming, you will feel an emotion, fear, and this emotion will prompt you to run to your child. You don’t stop to think about it. You just do it. Your emotion has motivated your behavior without you having to take the time to think. We are “hard-wired” to protect ourselves and others and our emotional reactions are what prompt us to take action.

Emotions can also help us overcome obstacles in our environment. An example is the anxiety someone feels when they are about to take a test. Though it’s uncomfortable, anxiety helps motivate us to study so we will do well on the test.

Anger may motivate and help people who are protesting injustices. The anger may override the fear they might feel in a demonstration or protest.

The guilt we feel when we hurt someone we love, motivates us to not make that same mistake in the future.

Emotions Can Be Self-validating

Emotions can give us information about a situation or event or tell us about ourselves. They signal to us that something is going on.

When we lose someone close to us, we feel sad. This emotional reaction is an expression of our love for the person we lost. Though a broken heart feels uncomfortable, sometimes unbearable, imagine what it would be like if we felt nothing? Emotions show us that we are connected to others. They give us empathy and compassion. They make us human.

Sometimes emotions are a signal about a situation – a red flag. Thinking, “something doesn’t feel right about this,” is one of the signals we might receive. This is the intuition of wise mind. Feeling fear, anger or sadness can tell us something important about ourselves or warn us to get out of a sticky situation.

When carried to extremes, though, we run the risk of believing our emotion is fact. “I love him, so he must be a good person,” or, “If I feel stupid, I am stupid.” While our emotions are always valid, it doesn’t necessarily make them facts.

Change Is Fearful

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:32:00 GMT

As every second passes change is happening. Some people do not realize that as each second passes it will never exist again and has gone into the past. In one-second change has happened. However, many of my clients feel stuck and some feel stagnant in their lives as they hold onto a sense of comfort, security or safety. They are experiencing Kainolophobia or Kainophobia- Fear of anything new.

Even though some people are aware of the need to make a change, they just can’t quite take the step and do it. Some types of change that only happens to you can be scary. Often it is so completely out of your control with no time to prepare for an adjustment and then acceptance. The actual changes that you make such as moving, job hunting, marriage, divorce, are in your control. The changes that are thrust upon you produces fear and anxiety.

Decisions, picking and choosing can produce a fear of making a mistake. Fear of picking the wrong thing thereby you are not able to take action. The fear of success or failure can thwart you because you do not know what will be asked of you by the change that occurs.

● Reduce your fear by allowing yourself to be uncertain, unknowing and accepting the ambiguities in your life that happen from time to time.

● “What if” thinking is irrational because the “what ifs” have not happened. Generally, the worst that can happen is receiving a “no.” The feeling of rejection is very scary to many people. Even thinking about successful possibilities and outcomes are anxiety producing. Thinking about your ability to handle your success can cause great anxiety.

● Begin using small incremental thoughts toward accepting change versus hanging on to old ideas of security.

● Start with little bits of risk taking because excitement can feel like it is a close cousin to fear. Let your enthusiasm be a motivation within your own life’s possibilities and choices as new passions start to sprout.

There Are 5 Things We Cannot Change

And the Happiness We find by Embracing Them. ― David Richo

Inner World – Outer World Differences

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:40:00 GMT

There are differences in the experience of intuition in the physical world versus the inner world. When an intuition comes to you it is measured against the dense, substance filled, heavy weighted physical reality. When you are focused on your interiority, an intuition is weightless, light, transparent, barely perceptible, etheric, dissolves easily, and can hardly be captured and held on to it. Yet intuition is flowing in and out all the time. Practice is required to notice it, be aware and pay attention. Even the dream world’s scenes and images have the same weightless, transparent, sometimes translucent qualities as well. Take a moment to think about your own experiences and the differences between your inner and outer realities.

Body Intuition

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:57:00 GMT

Many of the ancients and current day people speak about many bodies existing within the one body. Some of these are called the dreaming body, the etheric body, the astral body, the diamond body the body double and so on. Have you ever experienced one of your other vibrational bodies? Can you intuit them. Have you ever dreamt about them? The body experiences and registers all of life and is your transmitter of intuition to you. What do you intuit about your own body?

The Intuitive Mind

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:43:00 GMT

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift —Albert Einstein

How often do you look to your intuition for information and guidance? Probably not so much as you rely on thinking, reasoning, and logic as the most valuable tools to navigate life. Einstein, Steve Jobs, Paul McCartney, Oprah and many others value and use their intuition. All that is required is the practice of starting to notice, pay attention, and focus on what is coming into your awareness.

The Skin is an Intuitive Receptor

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:37:00 GMT

The intuitive reactions rise to the surface of the skin or are skin deep. Aristotle’s concept is that skin is the perceptive vehicle of touch which acts in combination with the many senses. The dilemma, Aristotle explained, is that with touch, it is difficult to know if it is a question of a sense or many senses working together within, without, or both at the same time in relation to the body and it’s structure. Aristotle connected touch to form. To have form in a body is most important because it gives one the ability to be in the world and connected to the world. Aristotle’s thought was that the skin was the method that touch was perceived but that the skin was not the organ that produced the perception of touch. Aristotle explained that the sense organ connected to touch was an experience from within the individual and not a specific organ. Ashley Montagu agreed with Aristotle and believed that touch was the original sense that developed into the other five senses.

Sometimes Intuition Arrives Just When You Need It

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:26:00 GMT

There is also the quality of being able to see the influx that comes up from the inner world, to be able to pay attention to it.

For example, I needed to get a copy of a book. I went to the major book stores Barnes & Noble and other stores where I live. None of the stores had the work in stock. The next day I had to go to a neighboring small town for a meeting. The drive included passing over a bridge that I never crossed before. There at the end of the bridge, a little farther down the road, was a used-book store that caught my attention. There was a subtle perception that is best described as an energetic pull that I noticed in myself, and I immediately parked my car, and went into the store.

There sitting on the shelf was a used copy of the book that I wanted, and it was the only book on the shelf. To be able to see through to the possibility that the book that I wanted might be available in the unexpected place made all the difference. Because logically, if the major book stores didn’t have the book, why would I think that a used book store, in a small town, could have even a single copy in stock?

The ability to see through into the possibility, and imagine out of the box as it were, is an important attribute of psyche.

Senses

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 15:29:00 GMT

Intuitive implies a directly knowing that is immediately apprehended and a subjectively felt experience which is an insight. The use of your “senses” does not refer to your “common sense” but rather to a quality that points to something intangible, invisible and significant within a potentially specific meaning or connected to a future possibility. Intuitive sensing is intended or conveyed from psyche, deep within the mind and body and arises into the conscious awareness. It seems that your senses help tie together all that is being perceived within. This inner sense can also give and offer the momentum to the use of the senses to discover or find out more that is possible beyond ordinary instinctive sensing.

Instinctive sensing, the use of the instincts might be impelled by an inner, exciting and stimulating agency, where instinctive behavior is mediated by reactions below the conscious level. Thus being able to use the senses and faculties that perceive outside or inside the body.

Language of Intuition

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:44:00 GMT

This is a radio podcast on the show Health and Healing about the language of intuition.