Quick note from Partners in Recovery about the work we've been doing. They can now be found on Facebook:
"Petar Sardelich, LMFT, MACII, LPT, has joined Judy McGehee, LMFT in supervising La Verne University Trainees, and Interns, in the Glendora Schools Internship Program. Since September 2009, interns, therapists and trainees have been offering 40 hours per week of probono mental health counseling and education in the community. This includes Whitcomb High School, Glendora High, Sandburg and Goodard Jr. High. Community and Parent nights have educated participants about drug and alcohol abuse, building communication between parents and teens, and in March, 2011, information regarding bullying and helping individuals in combatting this behavior. PIR is a non-profit organization where volunteer therapists and board members provide mental health services and referrals in the community."
Partners in Recovery website:
Judy McGeehee/Partners in Recovery
Showing posts with label self esteem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self esteem. Show all posts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Sheldon Kopp
You may remember being a kid, and having someone suggest you write an essay about the person who influenced you most. With the exception of a musician or two, the person that is likely that for me is Sheldon Kopp. I was given his most famous book "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients" by my then "mentor", when I was 17. It's really a book about principles, an organized way to live our lives and deal with Things As They Are.
He's written something in the way of 18 books, died a while ago not of the brain tumor he had (that required removal 3 times), but of heart failure and pneumonia. Having heard a rumor about his death, I looked him up on the internet once, and sent an email to a similarly named person, hoping I might find him or learn of his passing. Essentially my note stated that this was a person who had been extremely influential and helpful in my life, and I wanted to know if it might be him. I was lucky enough to get a response, that made it clear it was actually him: "Yes Petar, I too have heard rumors of my untimely demise, but I find them unconvincing."
In "Buddha", as became customary in many of his books, at the end was included ideas that he considered truths, or principles. This was the most famous of them, called, "An Eschatological Laundry List: a Partial List of 927 (or was it 928?) Eternal Truths." Many of the ideas here have guided me in everything from my own emotional and "spiritual" work, work with my clients. People that have suffered all of the things here that I'm trying to diminish for as many people as possible- depression, stress, relationship issues, abuse, loss and grief, addiction, self esteem issues and the like. Hopefully, they will give you as much as they've given me, inspire you to read his books, and of the greatest importance: give you a ways and means of passing the ideas on to others. Would love to hear what you think of them. And to the "Truths"...
1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great men.
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of -yourself -cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each man must do for himself.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run, but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only to face the consequences.
42. What do you know . . . for sure . . . anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again. . . .
He's written something in the way of 18 books, died a while ago not of the brain tumor he had (that required removal 3 times), but of heart failure and pneumonia. Having heard a rumor about his death, I looked him up on the internet once, and sent an email to a similarly named person, hoping I might find him or learn of his passing. Essentially my note stated that this was a person who had been extremely influential and helpful in my life, and I wanted to know if it might be him. I was lucky enough to get a response, that made it clear it was actually him: "Yes Petar, I too have heard rumors of my untimely demise, but I find them unconvincing."
In "Buddha", as became customary in many of his books, at the end was included ideas that he considered truths, or principles. This was the most famous of them, called, "An Eschatological Laundry List: a Partial List of 927 (or was it 928?) Eternal Truths." Many of the ideas here have guided me in everything from my own emotional and "spiritual" work, work with my clients. People that have suffered all of the things here that I'm trying to diminish for as many people as possible- depression, stress, relationship issues, abuse, loss and grief, addiction, self esteem issues and the like. Hopefully, they will give you as much as they've given me, inspire you to read his books, and of the greatest importance: give you a ways and means of passing the ideas on to others. Would love to hear what you think of them. And to the "Truths"...
1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great men.
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of -yourself -cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each man must do for himself.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run, but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only to face the consequences.
42. What do you know . . . for sure . . . anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again. . . .
Who's To Blame?
Much of my time is spent here, and in my therapy/counseling practice, attempting to get folk to honor how they feel. That's an oversimplification, but will leave it for brevity's sake. This is a daunting task because of the intensity and availability of our distractions, but I keep trying anyway.
One of the things that oft keeps this from happening is that when someone "hurts" us (shames, takes something away, etc), we find ourselves (understandably) making sense out of why they'd do such a thing. We think more about the person in question "doing their best", "having had a hard time" etc than we ever do simply saying "Ouch, that hurt...", or some variation on that theme. It's safe to say that many of us, often don't honor how it affected us at all. Working on problems of low self esteem, depression, addiction, abuse and more we don't want to "blame" anyone (nor should we), and oft go so far as to think our therapists are prompting us to "blame" that person, our parents, etc.
As for my sense of this, I think we could safely remove the word from our vocabulary entirely. Maybe even replace it with considerations of "responsibility". In terms of a solution, will offer something I hope is very simple: we're only blaming someone else for our feelings or problems, if we do nothing with our feelings about it.
One of the things that oft keeps this from happening is that when someone "hurts" us (shames, takes something away, etc), we find ourselves (understandably) making sense out of why they'd do such a thing. We think more about the person in question "doing their best", "having had a hard time" etc than we ever do simply saying "Ouch, that hurt...", or some variation on that theme. It's safe to say that many of us, often don't honor how it affected us at all. Working on problems of low self esteem, depression, addiction, abuse and more we don't want to "blame" anyone (nor should we), and oft go so far as to think our therapists are prompting us to "blame" that person, our parents, etc.
As for my sense of this, I think we could safely remove the word from our vocabulary entirely. Maybe even replace it with considerations of "responsibility". In terms of a solution, will offer something I hope is very simple: we're only blaming someone else for our feelings or problems, if we do nothing with our feelings about it.
Monday, June 7, 2010
What to Do?
From P.16 of the PDF "Statutes and Regulations" from the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (the regulatory agency that oversees MFTs, Social Workers, and etc):
"§4980. NECESSITY OF LICENSE (a) Many California families and many individual Californians are experiencing difficulty and distress, and are in need of wise, competent, caring, compassionate, and effective counseling in order to enable them to improve and maintain healthy family relationships."
Clients as above, come to us for wise counsel. Among other things of course. This idea has far-reaching implications, not just for our clients, but for us. Wisdom is hard to come by! Oversimplifying, "wisdom" in this case is often a euphemism for answers.
Claiming (or believing) one has wisdom or answers is of course a Bad Idea, yet it seems we have a responsibility to work toward them. There's some great ideas and techniques supporting the principle of not giving "answers" (suggestions, direction, etc) outright to clients (or loved ones, certainly) from the therapist's chair. My basic mode of operation is to try to lead someone to those answers, typically only giving direct suggestions when my efforts to lead a client to their own answers have been exhausted.
We do treat several diagnoses and/or issues that have "community standards", fundamental practices or "conventions" most therapists agree on how to treat. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other more severe illnesses for instance almost always direct the client to: not "self-medicate", takes the best supportive medication regime as directed, and is getting :talk therapy" and/or peer/familial support with their illness. There are few that argue with the utility of these interventions. There are other examples for addiction, depression, anxiety, and more.
Two things are of interest to me though. The first is that during the therapeutic process, I often see clients get a suggestion, and dismiss the suggestion out of hand. What I think is happening is that rarely do I suggest an idea that in a vacuum will ever be sufficient. What I mean is, most any suggestions I have will never be singular. It seems that the depth of our sadness or anxiety or pain or whatever often keeps us from "getting" what is offered, unable to accept the responsibility of taking several suggestions. Summarizing: rarely is one idea sufficient to change anything in the therapeutic process.
The second thing that prompts me to mull this over is the "active" therapists versus the "passive" therapists. In my view there is room (and each therapist I think, ought use) both styles, often with the same client. There are times that we should be directive, and not just in terms of extreme examples like when a client is being abused. Discouraging self-medicating, engaging a support group, ruling out medical concerns with a physician, ways to stop a behavior etc are all examples where there is little controversy over giving someone "direction" about an issue.
People come to us for answers. We are paid to have a toolset, methods, principles of operating that in many cases should help diminish depression, stress, relationship conflicts, behavioral concerns and the like. On the subject of not holding these ideas close to one's chest: there is a great (and occasionally controversial) martial arts instructor who critiques traditional means of training, idealizing the "teacher" and etc. He also critiques traditional martial arts training as being "cultish"- keeping secrets, claiming answers from some (out of touch and unknowable) "higher source". His "instructors" are all referred to as "coaches" or by their first names, and their focus is very simple: performance improvement. That last idea is part of what I'm getting at here- the "answers" we give as therapists should improve "performance", which I would argue is diminished if we are too passive. It is very significant of course, that what is being improved, is clearly defined. If we think something might be helpful though- there are certainly compelling reasons we should disclose it.
When it comes to performance, we should be helping people get more in touch with their emotional condition, have those feelings gracefully, diminish (but not eliminate) the intensity of negative emotions. Our interventions should help decrease or stop unwanted behaviors. The direction we give should help increase intimacy. Of course this is not an exhaustive list, it may take a long time for these things to happen, and some cannot happen without the others.
My experience has been that many (arguably most) of my clients have come into my office, suffering enough, and out of enough answers, that they are willing to do most things we come up with together. Had they been in possession of this material on their own to begin with, there would be no (or little) need for my education and experience with the issues they struggle with.
My effort is to put me out of a job and it does people a disservice I think, to have an insight that I wait for them to come to on their own... which they've already arguably been trying to do. Sometimes I ask my clients if they have spent a great deal of time in their lives, saying something like this to themselves: "I just wish someone would tell me what to do about this." There are many things, that most (not necessarily all) people can do, directly, to diminish feelings of low self worth, sadness, struggles in relationships and most of the problems they come to a therapist. If I didn't go to school to learn to help people know and do these things, then what exactly did I go for?
"§4980. NECESSITY OF LICENSE (a) Many California families and many individual Californians are experiencing difficulty and distress, and are in need of wise, competent, caring, compassionate, and effective counseling in order to enable them to improve and maintain healthy family relationships."
Clients as above, come to us for wise counsel. Among other things of course. This idea has far-reaching implications, not just for our clients, but for us. Wisdom is hard to come by! Oversimplifying, "wisdom" in this case is often a euphemism for answers.
Claiming (or believing) one has wisdom or answers is of course a Bad Idea, yet it seems we have a responsibility to work toward them. There's some great ideas and techniques supporting the principle of not giving "answers" (suggestions, direction, etc) outright to clients (or loved ones, certainly) from the therapist's chair. My basic mode of operation is to try to lead someone to those answers, typically only giving direct suggestions when my efforts to lead a client to their own answers have been exhausted.
We do treat several diagnoses and/or issues that have "community standards", fundamental practices or "conventions" most therapists agree on how to treat. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other more severe illnesses for instance almost always direct the client to: not "self-medicate", takes the best supportive medication regime as directed, and is getting :talk therapy" and/or peer/familial support with their illness. There are few that argue with the utility of these interventions. There are other examples for addiction, depression, anxiety, and more.
Two things are of interest to me though. The first is that during the therapeutic process, I often see clients get a suggestion, and dismiss the suggestion out of hand. What I think is happening is that rarely do I suggest an idea that in a vacuum will ever be sufficient. What I mean is, most any suggestions I have will never be singular. It seems that the depth of our sadness or anxiety or pain or whatever often keeps us from "getting" what is offered, unable to accept the responsibility of taking several suggestions. Summarizing: rarely is one idea sufficient to change anything in the therapeutic process.
The second thing that prompts me to mull this over is the "active" therapists versus the "passive" therapists. In my view there is room (and each therapist I think, ought use) both styles, often with the same client. There are times that we should be directive, and not just in terms of extreme examples like when a client is being abused. Discouraging self-medicating, engaging a support group, ruling out medical concerns with a physician, ways to stop a behavior etc are all examples where there is little controversy over giving someone "direction" about an issue.
People come to us for answers. We are paid to have a toolset, methods, principles of operating that in many cases should help diminish depression, stress, relationship conflicts, behavioral concerns and the like. On the subject of not holding these ideas close to one's chest: there is a great (and occasionally controversial) martial arts instructor who critiques traditional means of training, idealizing the "teacher" and etc. He also critiques traditional martial arts training as being "cultish"- keeping secrets, claiming answers from some (out of touch and unknowable) "higher source". His "instructors" are all referred to as "coaches" or by their first names, and their focus is very simple: performance improvement. That last idea is part of what I'm getting at here- the "answers" we give as therapists should improve "performance", which I would argue is diminished if we are too passive. It is very significant of course, that what is being improved, is clearly defined. If we think something might be helpful though- there are certainly compelling reasons we should disclose it.
When it comes to performance, we should be helping people get more in touch with their emotional condition, have those feelings gracefully, diminish (but not eliminate) the intensity of negative emotions. Our interventions should help decrease or stop unwanted behaviors. The direction we give should help increase intimacy. Of course this is not an exhaustive list, it may take a long time for these things to happen, and some cannot happen without the others.
My experience has been that many (arguably most) of my clients have come into my office, suffering enough, and out of enough answers, that they are willing to do most things we come up with together. Had they been in possession of this material on their own to begin with, there would be no (or little) need for my education and experience with the issues they struggle with.
My effort is to put me out of a job and it does people a disservice I think, to have an insight that I wait for them to come to on their own... which they've already arguably been trying to do. Sometimes I ask my clients if they have spent a great deal of time in their lives, saying something like this to themselves: "I just wish someone would tell me what to do about this." There are many things, that most (not necessarily all) people can do, directly, to diminish feelings of low self worth, sadness, struggles in relationships and most of the problems they come to a therapist. If I didn't go to school to learn to help people know and do these things, then what exactly did I go for?
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Shame, "Self-Esteem", and Buddhism
Been thinking a lot about how most of us, when we were kids, didn't have a lot of compunction about playing with other kids, meeting new people we liked and such. Maybe when we were very little we might have been "shy", but in this case I think we're talking about caution, fearfulness, as opposed to lack of a sense of self esteem.
When I was a kid, it was easy for me to go down the street and ask about a kid there I thought was my age that I could play with, to try new things... I think because we're actually born with a sense of self esteem or self worth, and that sense of worth gets taken away. That sense of our value, how we are connected to others, self esteem or self worth, gets replaced by shame- feeling "less than", insufficient, unlovable, broken and defective as human beings.
This sense of self esteem is diminished or removed a lot of ways. Verbal abuse- actually being shamed by others, made fun of, called names, diminished for mistakes or lack of knowledge of a thing, literally being told one is somehow bad, not going to amount to anything, being compared against others, being yelled at or threatened.
Physical abuse. The predominant message a person gets when struck by another person out of anger, an effort to discipline, etc. is that they are somehow flawed. Being treated gently shows someone their worth. It takes effort... attention, patience, softness- the opposite of which takes little effort. Of course, this is often coupled with verbal abuse, sometimes sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse. When this happens to someone, they often get the message that this is their only value, their only utility as a person. It's also extremely common, in order for the abuser to be able to continue the act, that they diminish the victim as a person. Taking away their power, their human-ness, their self worth, makes it easier to continue violating them. The act itself literally causes shame- it instills something in the person that they have to hide, something that makes them feel less human, separates them from others.
The media. There's a lot of images in our society, a lot of messages that we get about our worth. Television, magazines, movies, other people, all bombard us with a message about what we "need" to do, have, look like. We are given the sense that unless we're attached to some product, some lifestyle, some particular achievement, we are somehow not successful. This is not simply a message about how far we've gone in life, it's a message about our being-ness, our human-ness.
We do a lot of work to "get" self esteem- take care of ourselves physically, our appearance, do esteemable acts, visualization, affirmations and etc. Those of us that have done these things often haven't been able to maintain our self worth despite such efforts. These ideas help us feel better in the moment, but long term, we often still experience a deep sense of shame.
Some have said that a central idea in Buddhism is that at the center of each human being is the fear we don't exist. This lends itself to the idea that we are constantly reaching outside of ourselves for things, naming and labeling them, attaching ourselves to them, trying to obtain them. In doing so, being attached to a thing (person, etc), we can fear less that we don't exist. So we go about our lives in a way that diminishes our personhood, our being-ness, our selves being "enough" simply as we are.
The answer to this is not simply adding things to our lives, behaviors, personhood. Shame, low self worth and etc is something we have to give away. We have had experiences that diminished our self esteem- abuse, abandonment, exposure or humiliation, being diminished or demeaned verbally- those are the things that make us feel less of ourselves. Until we find a way to "let go" of those feelings, to give them away, to make space for our self esteem, we will be unable to experience it no matter how many "creative visualizations", affirmations and etc. that we do.
When I was a kid, it was easy for me to go down the street and ask about a kid there I thought was my age that I could play with, to try new things... I think because we're actually born with a sense of self esteem or self worth, and that sense of worth gets taken away. That sense of our value, how we are connected to others, self esteem or self worth, gets replaced by shame- feeling "less than", insufficient, unlovable, broken and defective as human beings.
This sense of self esteem is diminished or removed a lot of ways. Verbal abuse- actually being shamed by others, made fun of, called names, diminished for mistakes or lack of knowledge of a thing, literally being told one is somehow bad, not going to amount to anything, being compared against others, being yelled at or threatened.
Physical abuse. The predominant message a person gets when struck by another person out of anger, an effort to discipline, etc. is that they are somehow flawed. Being treated gently shows someone their worth. It takes effort... attention, patience, softness- the opposite of which takes little effort. Of course, this is often coupled with verbal abuse, sometimes sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse. When this happens to someone, they often get the message that this is their only value, their only utility as a person. It's also extremely common, in order for the abuser to be able to continue the act, that they diminish the victim as a person. Taking away their power, their human-ness, their self worth, makes it easier to continue violating them. The act itself literally causes shame- it instills something in the person that they have to hide, something that makes them feel less human, separates them from others.
The media. There's a lot of images in our society, a lot of messages that we get about our worth. Television, magazines, movies, other people, all bombard us with a message about what we "need" to do, have, look like. We are given the sense that unless we're attached to some product, some lifestyle, some particular achievement, we are somehow not successful. This is not simply a message about how far we've gone in life, it's a message about our being-ness, our human-ness.
We do a lot of work to "get" self esteem- take care of ourselves physically, our appearance, do esteemable acts, visualization, affirmations and etc. Those of us that have done these things often haven't been able to maintain our self worth despite such efforts. These ideas help us feel better in the moment, but long term, we often still experience a deep sense of shame.
Some have said that a central idea in Buddhism is that at the center of each human being is the fear we don't exist. This lends itself to the idea that we are constantly reaching outside of ourselves for things, naming and labeling them, attaching ourselves to them, trying to obtain them. In doing so, being attached to a thing (person, etc), we can fear less that we don't exist. So we go about our lives in a way that diminishes our personhood, our being-ness, our selves being "enough" simply as we are.
The answer to this is not simply adding things to our lives, behaviors, personhood. Shame, low self worth and etc is something we have to give away. We have had experiences that diminished our self esteem- abuse, abandonment, exposure or humiliation, being diminished or demeaned verbally- those are the things that make us feel less of ourselves. Until we find a way to "let go" of those feelings, to give them away, to make space for our self esteem, we will be unable to experience it no matter how many "creative visualizations", affirmations and etc. that we do.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Honoring What Is.
Laughing to myself a little now because, though I intended to write about honoring our feelings and "sense" (perception?) of things, was quickly reminded of how hard it is to know how we feel in the first place.
That aside, the idea of "honoring" our feelings has come up a lot lately. Am assuming we're in a place to know how we feel to begin with. Don't run with this idea and think honoring our feelings is in conflict with my earlier suggestions that our feelings aren't necessarily facts. Paraphrasing one of my "heroes" (though he'd certainly admonish me for having any heroes in the first place, particularly him...), Sheldon Kopp has noted along with so many others (Tolstoy, Jung...) how curious it is that we spend so much time and energy actively not honoring our experience of things. In favor of doing so we dismiss our feelings, compare our insides to others' outsides, diminish the importance of our feelings (sometimes by comparing ours to what others have been through), distract ourselves (food, buying, drugs, sex, alcohol, TV...) and etc.
The consequences of not honoring our feelings are huge. It can cause depression, acting angry (as opposed to being angry), addictions, irritability, not acting as the person we'd like to be, allowing people to violate our boundaries, is a huge factor in a lack of self esteem and more. It can cause us to not trust our own eyes and ears when we maybe ought to. It can keep us in relationships that are not healthy for us.
Honoring them is arguably as difficult as not honoring them. It's likely one of the primary reasons we don't honor them. For many of us, it's not even an idea we've really considered. Much could (and will, eventually) be written just about how to have our feelings in the first place. Once we do have them though- honoring them and doing so gracefully is a very difficult challenge.
From my sense of things, "feelings" are called that for a reason. It's so tragic that we behave in a way that indicates we often think we ought to do everything possible with them besides simply having them. They're called feelings because we're supposed to feel them. They give us messages about our environment and allow us to heal. Feeling them and not "folding, spindling, or mutilating" them is the first step. Once we have them, giving them a name is useful- I always begin with encouraging mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed, and/or hurt.
Am also a huge fan of treating them gently once we have them and have named them, whether they "make sense" or not. Not being gentle with them exacerbates them, or simply prompts us to change or otherwise avoid/ignore them.
Once having them, naming, and being gentle with them, we've begun to honor them. If we know we have them, know what they are, and are experiencing them without trying to do something unkind with them (make other people see/think differently, harming ourselves, avoiding them with some of the behaviors above and more), we can process them based on what they are. Crying when we're sad or hurt, are pretty clear ways to honor our feelings. Telling other people what is happening for us when we feel ashamed (some say "guilty", or less than, broken, etc...) honors our experience. Telling other people how we feel honors them. Asking people to be with us when we're scared or feel broken is a great way to honor our experience of things. Being mad instead of acting mad (a subject for a whole other missive) is a way to honor it.
We don't honor our feelings in relationships either. We're loyal to people that are disloyal to us. We treat ourselves more poorly than other people often do, but when we do get treated poorly by others, we oft treat them more gently than we do ourselves, or ignore it wholesale. Though we may get our feelings hurt about something, we keep it secret. Sometimes we are sad or hurt or ashamed or angered by something, but keep it from the other person as not to hurt their feelings, but are often taking from them the chance to do or see something different.
Sort of wishing I hadn't begun writing about this particular thing. Honoring our feelings is dependent on so many things- not doing things to get in the way of feeling them, having simple names for them, having them gracefully, treating them gently, not thinking or communicating about them as facts, processing them. So much might be written about any of those ideas. It's come up so often recently, and is such an important idea though, am compelled to put at least something out there about it.
That aside, the idea of "honoring" our feelings has come up a lot lately. Am assuming we're in a place to know how we feel to begin with. Don't run with this idea and think honoring our feelings is in conflict with my earlier suggestions that our feelings aren't necessarily facts. Paraphrasing one of my "heroes" (though he'd certainly admonish me for having any heroes in the first place, particularly him...), Sheldon Kopp has noted along with so many others (Tolstoy, Jung...) how curious it is that we spend so much time and energy actively not honoring our experience of things. In favor of doing so we dismiss our feelings, compare our insides to others' outsides, diminish the importance of our feelings (sometimes by comparing ours to what others have been through), distract ourselves (food, buying, drugs, sex, alcohol, TV...) and etc.
The consequences of not honoring our feelings are huge. It can cause depression, acting angry (as opposed to being angry), addictions, irritability, not acting as the person we'd like to be, allowing people to violate our boundaries, is a huge factor in a lack of self esteem and more. It can cause us to not trust our own eyes and ears when we maybe ought to. It can keep us in relationships that are not healthy for us.
Honoring them is arguably as difficult as not honoring them. It's likely one of the primary reasons we don't honor them. For many of us, it's not even an idea we've really considered. Much could (and will, eventually) be written just about how to have our feelings in the first place. Once we do have them though- honoring them and doing so gracefully is a very difficult challenge.
From my sense of things, "feelings" are called that for a reason. It's so tragic that we behave in a way that indicates we often think we ought to do everything possible with them besides simply having them. They're called feelings because we're supposed to feel them. They give us messages about our environment and allow us to heal. Feeling them and not "folding, spindling, or mutilating" them is the first step. Once we have them, giving them a name is useful- I always begin with encouraging mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed, and/or hurt.
Am also a huge fan of treating them gently once we have them and have named them, whether they "make sense" or not. Not being gentle with them exacerbates them, or simply prompts us to change or otherwise avoid/ignore them.
Once having them, naming, and being gentle with them, we've begun to honor them. If we know we have them, know what they are, and are experiencing them without trying to do something unkind with them (make other people see/think differently, harming ourselves, avoiding them with some of the behaviors above and more), we can process them based on what they are. Crying when we're sad or hurt, are pretty clear ways to honor our feelings. Telling other people what is happening for us when we feel ashamed (some say "guilty", or less than, broken, etc...) honors our experience. Telling other people how we feel honors them. Asking people to be with us when we're scared or feel broken is a great way to honor our experience of things. Being mad instead of acting mad (a subject for a whole other missive) is a way to honor it.
We don't honor our feelings in relationships either. We're loyal to people that are disloyal to us. We treat ourselves more poorly than other people often do, but when we do get treated poorly by others, we oft treat them more gently than we do ourselves, or ignore it wholesale. Though we may get our feelings hurt about something, we keep it secret. Sometimes we are sad or hurt or ashamed or angered by something, but keep it from the other person as not to hurt their feelings, but are often taking from them the chance to do or see something different.
Sort of wishing I hadn't begun writing about this particular thing. Honoring our feelings is dependent on so many things- not doing things to get in the way of feeling them, having simple names for them, having them gracefully, treating them gently, not thinking or communicating about them as facts, processing them. So much might be written about any of those ideas. It's come up so often recently, and is such an important idea though, am compelled to put at least something out there about it.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Space.
So many of us are looking for self esteem, happiness, "God" (if one believes in such), good relationships and etc. These ideas come up a lot in my work, from all kinds of people, all different kinds of age groups and backgrounds. They're understandable, and common efforts, much of what make our lives worth living.
We do a lot of... interesting... things to get these. We "socially engineer", we try to bolster our sense of self with our egos, we do all the prescribed things that religions or spiritual traditions or philosophies (or therapists) encourage us to do to get a sense of "spirit" or "God", we buy things, try to get him or her to be interested in us. We use drugs, alcohol, money, property, prestige. We even use a lot of methods we've gotten from other therapists or self-help books (or programs) to get these things as well.
More and more, I think that these things, if we're to have them at all, are far less about "getting" them than they are about making space for them. If we've been told all our lives that we'll never amount to anything or have had things happen to us that have made us feel "less than" or broken or defective, no amount of the above ideas (and more) will be sufficient to bring us self esteem or happiness. The ideas I'm suggesting about "God" or relationships etc are much the same- we have to make space for these things, that are usually occupied by some loss, hurt, anxieties and etc.
The how and why of this is beyond the scope of a blog, but it's certainly an idea worth pondering. Overstating, learning how to let go of hurts, losses, shame, ego- these will go much further in bringing us healthy relationships, a healthy relationship with ourselves, a sense of connectedness to "God" or others or the "universe", than any amount of money or anything else will ever provide.
We do a lot of... interesting... things to get these. We "socially engineer", we try to bolster our sense of self with our egos, we do all the prescribed things that religions or spiritual traditions or philosophies (or therapists) encourage us to do to get a sense of "spirit" or "God", we buy things, try to get him or her to be interested in us. We use drugs, alcohol, money, property, prestige. We even use a lot of methods we've gotten from other therapists or self-help books (or programs) to get these things as well.
More and more, I think that these things, if we're to have them at all, are far less about "getting" them than they are about making space for them. If we've been told all our lives that we'll never amount to anything or have had things happen to us that have made us feel "less than" or broken or defective, no amount of the above ideas (and more) will be sufficient to bring us self esteem or happiness. The ideas I'm suggesting about "God" or relationships etc are much the same- we have to make space for these things, that are usually occupied by some loss, hurt, anxieties and etc.
The how and why of this is beyond the scope of a blog, but it's certainly an idea worth pondering. Overstating, learning how to let go of hurts, losses, shame, ego- these will go much further in bringing us healthy relationships, a healthy relationship with ourselves, a sense of connectedness to "God" or others or the "universe", than any amount of money or anything else will ever provide.
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