Category Archives: Humanities

To Have Insight

Intuition can be described as a glimpse of knowledge that one has stored within oneself, that comes at a time when it is needed. It is a disclosure of one’s own spirit that unveils all things. It is by seeing the cause of every fault in oneself that one is able to have insight into human nature.

–Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
From: A Meditation Theme for Each Day
Selected and arranged by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

The Experience of Alaya

I’ve enjoyed the privilege of participating in the Alaya Process, an experience of personal growth facilitated by Kenneth Robinson and Linda Manning, among others. You can get a real sense of Kenneth and his work by reading these articles.

Kenneth sent an email the other day sharing some thoughts on the yoga, alaya, and healing. With his permission, I am posting them here.

When I lay myself down and enter savasana after a strong yoga practice, it’s a special time for me. If I’ve managed to stay mindful, then I’ve succeeded in opening and touching many places deep in my physical body. By the time I’ve settled into “corpse pose,” I have, if I’m lucky, given up competition and comparisons with my fellow students, and maybe even momentarily let go of my need for approval from the teacher. It’s then that I’m surrendered and empty. It’s then I can give my attention fully to receiving. Having worked consciously to join the force of my own effort with the power of grace, the yield is a quietness, a slowing, a more spacious inner world. Many times I’m near tears — tears of gratitutde, or of humility for my limitations, or of compassion for my suffering or the suffering of others. My quiet and calm allow for the emergence of a longing from deeper within. My defenses are down. Here, I have a few precious moments with my own open heart.

It’s a place I long to remain when the formal practice ends. It’s the center from which, ideally, I walk, talk, and act. As the class closes and people are putting away props and gathering belongings, it means a lot to me when I make contact with another student who has given themselves fully to the practice — even if it’s only a momentary glance. You’re In there. I’m In here. Though it may appear that we are far apart, we are not that far apart. Sometimes I leave full, focused, renewed; at other times, with a soft sadness. Rarely do I leave unaffected.

This is yoga’s true gift. Yes, we gain greater strength and flexibility and improve our health and appearance. Yes, we feel pride in our progress. But there is also This: An open door to a consciousness, at once both tender and powerful, that is humanness at its very best. I live and long for that. It’s what I most treasure, and what I most want others to know and have. I sense that it could change this world. It most certainly changes me.

I’ve spent the last 30 years learning about this kind of awareness, and 15 of those, teaching it. That’s what Yoga for the Emotional Body is: A technology (of which hatha yoga is a part) that brings us to Open Heart and the ecstasies that accompany it. We have the means. We need only discover that it is ours to have and keep. It is possible; it is natural; we are all worthy of it.

Just as hatha yoga prepares us for enlightenment by strengthening, aligning, and opening us physically, so the practices of Yoga for the Emotional Body help us develop skill in working with the feelings that come as we (necessarily) encounter the physical and energetic blocks within us. By working together to create safety (through connection, mindfulness, and support) we contain and channel these energies and cultivate trust in our feeling selves. Our emotions, rather than controlling us, become a source for enriching our lives.

Environmental Depression

There’s a new mental health-oriented memoir coming out. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times article, The Prisoner of West 21st Street:

All my life I struggled to understand the connection between my mother’s moods and the place where she lived. If depression is an organic condition best treated by drugs, did it make sense to claim that her depression was caused by the deterioration of New York? Even if it’s now acceptable to attribute depression to a cataclysmic event like Sept. 11, no single watershed moment could be blamed for my mother’s blues. It’s not as if Son of Sam or the city’s near bankruptcy had put her over the edge.

Then about two years ago, as I was doing research for a book about my mother’s life, an aunt in Maine and a family friend down South sent me a cache of letters that my mother had written over the years. In her own words, these letters explained more clearly than I ever could how strongly she linked her personal burdens with conditions in her adopted city.

–Beth J. Harpaz

The book, Finding Annie Farrell, will be published this month by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press.

Don’t Plant Anything But Love

Ghazal (Ode) 916, from Rumi’s “Diwan-e
Shams”

When you plant a tree
every leaf that grows will tell you,
what you sow will bear fruit.
So if you have any sense, my friend
don’t plant anything but love,
you show your worth by what you seek.
Water flows to those who want purity
wash you hands of all desires and
come to the table of Love.

Do you want me to tell you a secret?
The flowers attract the most beautiful lover
with their sweet smile and scent.
If you let God weave the verse in your poem
people will read it forever.

— Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
“Rumi: Hidden Music”
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001

Reality Check

We are mortal. If we are lucky, we manage to live a few decades before confronting what this really means. In the past year both I and my partner have received news that a parent has cancer. Mine had a good prognosis. His does not. We just received the news of his parent’s illness today.

We take turns in our relationship. When my mother was ill, I cried, was scared and sad. I felt plagued by regret and doubt (have I been a good enough daughter?). Then I had my own health scare, a reminder that I too could develop cancer. Suddenly life felt more tenuous to me. I’m almost 41; it’s time to accept the inevitable. Now that my partner has learned of his father’s illness, I feel detached and numb. Is there something wrong with me, I wonder? But I think it’s a coping response. One of us needs to remain steady, and he did that for me.

We have also had some employment concerns that raise the possibility of relocation due to his imminent layoff. With this recent news, I feel as though the ground has disintegrated beneath us.

So what does a person do when life is thrown into chaos?

The answer: the best one can.

Someone asked me how I’m feeling, and I replied I was okay, though I feel a little insane around the edges.

So here is what I will do. I will focus on whatever tasks present themselves to me. Routine gives structure: meals need to be cooked, dishes washed, workouts done, showers taken, beds made, laundry folded. The bills continue to arrive and need to be paid. Cats want to be petted and fed.

Here is what else I will do. I will give my partner what he needs, whether it is a hug, a listening ear, or quiet time. I will seek the support I need from my friends and family, who are many in number and generous in heart. I will put my own agenda aside for awhile. (You know, the “what’s in it for me and where is our relationship going?” one.)

Living in the present means experiencing. So I will savor the earthy flavor of my morning coffee. I will read my books, being grateful that I have an alert mind and live in a country that does not restrict my choices. I will remember to breathe, to feel my body fill upon inhaling and empty with exhaling. I will marvel at the changes in my friend’s one year old son. I will take pleasure in the weather and notice the change of seasons. I will move, stretch, and feel the power of my own body, and enjoy that. I will cherish these small moments of awareness and, each time, recommit to life.

I may not be able to live mindfully every moment. That’s not my goal; in fact, it’s akin to an obese smoker with high blood pressure suddenly attempting the decathlon. Assessing mindfulness from a perfectionist stance misses the point. It’s not about accruing X minutes of awareness. It’s about simply being present as much as possible — it’s the journey, not the destination.

Blame It On the Rain

It’s a soupy day, with the forecast calling for a 100 percent chance of rain. The rainfall produces varying beats and tempos as it meets the roof, is shaken from tree boughs, rolls off from the flashing with a splat onto the porch. It is a day for reading. Or napping.

As much as I would like to pursue those options, first I will make a foray into the sogginess to meet a friend for coffee at a bookstore cafe. I will likely manage to depart the store without having purchased reading material because I have newly arrived books from Amazon to read:

Every Day Gets a Little Closer: a Twice-Told Therapy by Irvin Yalom. Yalom and one of his patients collaborated on this. She agreed to keep a journal of her experience of the sessions, and so did he. This book presents both of their perspectives. I’m looking forward to seeing these juxtaposed.

The Marquis de Sade: A Life by Neil Schaeffer. An unusual choice, I realize, to mention on a blog that focuses on well-being, mindfulness, and spiritual matters. However, this is a blog that also focuses on mental health. I am fascinated by the circumstances surrounding the life of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, wanting to learn what factors in his life influenced him. He left an irrefutable mark on society, and this book — the result of a decade of research and well-reviewed — looks to provide more than a sensationalized peek at a complex man who, despite his self-destructiveness, pushed against the limitations of authority for the right of free expression, however perverse.

All I need now is a pot of tea and I’m set. But first, the friend and the bookstore.

How Not to Inspire People to Learn About Your Faith

From BBC NEWS:

The pilot, whose name was not released, asked Christians on Friday’s flight to raise their hands.

He then suggested non-Christians talk to the Christians about their faith.

He went on to say that “everyone who doesn’t have their hand raised is crazy”, passenger Amanda Nelligan told CBS news.

“He continued to say, ‘Well, you have a choice: you can make this trip worthwhile, or you can sit back, read a book and watch the movie’,” she said.

The pilot also told passengers he would be available for discussion at the end of the flight.

Enough said.

Speak

A friend enthusiastically recommended a young adult book, Speak, describing how the novel was a catalyst in her decision to enter therapy and try the “talking cure.” She urged me to read it, in part probably to help me get to know her better; readers love to share the transformative experience with others. So I did as she requested. I began it just before bed and was up until 4 a.m. to finish it.

It’s a story about trauma, being outcast by peers, withdrawal into self, and then resurgence and expression. Fourteen year-old Melinda is starting high school. A few weeks before school begins, she sneaks behind her parents’ back to attend a party hosted by seniors — rare behavior for her. Something terrible happens to her. She calls 911; the cops come and bust everyone. The other kids turn on her for calling the police, thinking she did it to just turn them in, and she is ostracized. However, Melinda didn’t even get help for the reason she called the police. The crowd’s hostility and her shock drive her off the scene.

Melinda then begins her high school career — bereft of all friends, the focus of hostile expressions. She tells no one about the situation because she doesn’t think she’ll be believed. Her family life is very disconnected, with unhappily married parents and no siblings. Over the school year she copes as best she can, but she slowly chokes on unexpressed pain and rage; she must find a way to express her need for help. One means of coping is through art — sculpting, drawing, and painting — until she summons the courage to speak and fights on her own behalf.

The author has a good grasp on high school culture and the chaos of adolescence. The story is engaging and the topic relevant. I would definitely recommend it for a young adult’s library.

A Penny For Your Thoughts

I recently happened across a blog called Blaugustine, written by the “altar-ego”of a woman named Natalie. She doesn’t have permalinks yet, and she’s permitted me to post several images of a list she created. It’s a neat list that graphically depicts the kinds of thoughts we have.

It reminds me a bit of the feelings chart that therapists use to help children and adults identify and express feelings.
Continue reading →

We Need to Grieve

Grief is a natural process, one which our culture pressures us to either avoid or process quickly with the assistance of therapy. I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith; in one chapter she writes about her experience grieving the death of a dear friend as well as the dissolution of a romantic relationship:

All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But what I’ve discovered since is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps up in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it. …I’m pretty sure that it is only by experiencing that ocean of sadness that we come to be healed — which is to say, that we come to experience life with a real sense of presence and spaciousness and peace.

I’ve been fortunate in my four decades to be spared the loss of a human beloved through death, but I have said goodbye to a number of cat companions. The last one was especially tragic for reasons I won’t enumerate here, but I did experience what Lamott is describing. Grief is harrowing, but in its way, the experience cleanses the soul.

Why Marriages Succeed or Fail

For a good portion of Wednesday and Thursday, and now apparently into Friday, I have been reading and extrapolating information from Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, compiling quizzes from the book to use with the various couples I counsel.

The author, John Gottman, is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He conducted studies of over 2,000 married couples for 20 years to identify what makes marriages last. He’s become well-known for his abiity to predict with 94 percent accuracy which couples will stay married and which will not. I’d heard of him several years ago (from my own therapist, actually) and became intrigued.

In a nutshell, Gottman identified two major factors influencing martial stability and success: marital style and the ratio of positive to negative interaction.
Continue reading →

Of Necessity

I started writing this blog in late August, when I launched my private practice. Its purpose has been to provide a public service by posting about mental health topics/links and also by featuring words that provoke thought.

At the same time, I started a personal blog using a pseudonym. I’d had a personal blog previously, only my Real Life Name was connected to it. People searching for me as a therapist would discover it first, and this would not be helpful in therapy. So I had to delete it, but I could not delete the need for free, deeply personal expression. The personal blog features posts of my ordinary life, topics as mundane as my health renovation project (as I call it), what movie I saw, what I did last weekend, etc. It also features poetry and quotes, soul-searching exploration of meaning in my life, reminiscences, and so on.

I’ve noticed something. I spend much more time hanging out at that blog. It has twice as many visitors as this one. When I sit down to write in this blog, it feels like “work.” After all, it is part of my work. However, because I need to be mindful (pun intended) of my communication here, there is a rein on my thought process. I am far more passionate about my personal life, I suppose.

I’m not sure what to do about this, but perhaps writing about it will inspire me.

By the way, I’ve reopened comments. Due to spamming, I’d closed them until I could install a plug-in that will close the comments after X days. All previous posts will remain unavailable for commenting, though.

Why Not?

Why not walk in the aura of magic that gives to the small things of life their uniqueness and importance? Why not befriend a toad today?

–Germaine Greer, The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause