More wonderful wisdom from Maya Angelou…
Archive for the ‘healing’ Category
Maya Angelou on Letters to My Daughter
Posted in awe and wonder, good life, happiness, healing, hope, Inspiration, wisdom, women on September 23, 2013| 1 Comment »
I Love Your Story Still….
Posted in crisis, depression, grief, healing, hope, Inspiration, males and depression, men, therapy, women, tagged depression, failure, healing, loss, narrative therapy on August 24, 2013| 3 Comments »
I’ve been neglecting this blog as I continue to work on my book, “Dancing in the Dark: Lessons from our Darkest Nights.” And because I still can’t seem to manage to create a new entry today, I want to share a piece that I wrote several years ago. Although it isn’t new, I feel it flowing after all of these years still straight through my heart.
You sit before me now, head down, while your face seeks shelter in your hands. “I failed,” you confess, sounding hollow and broken. I attempt to comfort and reassure you. When you finally look up at me, I’m not seen, and not heard. You’re so lost inside of your pain and disappointment that my words can’t find you. I can’t find you. And so we sit silently beside one another for a time, both feeling inadequate. You’re hurting so much right now, feeling lost and more than a little sick inside. In my silence, I try to communicate to you that you’re not alone. I’m here. Right beside you. And I still believe in you.
Later, I decide to write you a letter – one you can carry in your pocket to remind you of my caring. A note to read when you’re more open to my message. I know it won’t take your pain away or magically transform your beliefs, but maybe it can hold a seed, one that might eventually emerge from the rich and fertile ground in which I so lovingly planted it.
And so you failed. And this failure wounds you so profoundly that its penetrated deep into your psyche. It may have even become an integral part of who you believe yourself to be today.
Today, you look into your mirror and see a failure. I look into your eyes and see the wisdom born of pain. And it hurts, this learning. I know. I know. I’ve felt its sting before. I’ve been thoroughly haunted by my own mistakes, miscalculations, and self-judgement. I’ve fallen too. Again and yet again.
Just like you, I forget during those moments when my folly is first discovered – what I know. What we both know. Defeat isn’t the theme of our unique stories, it isn’t what defines who we are, where we’ll go or who we’ll become. It only reminds us that we’re not alone. That we share the legacy of all human-kind, that we all will fail from time to time. Each of us stumbles and gets wounded in the fall. Failure, my dear, dear, friend, is a natural offshoot of growth. We churn in it, learn from it, and we become stronger as we struggle to recover from it.
In a commencement address delivered at Moorpark College in 1989, James D. Griffen remembered John Kennedy O’Toole, a young writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, “A Confederacy of Dunces.” Imagine what it would have felt like to him to achieve this coveted award. How successful, how triumphant, how wonderful he would have felt. I say “would of” because we’ll never know how he might have felt. He’ll never know. We can only imagine on his behalf, because he never lived to claim his prize. After being rejected by seventeen publishers, he committed suicide. What a strange term, “to commit” suicide, when the act is above all else, a lack of commitment.
We must all hold fast in the darkness, for regardless of the blackness which may surround us – light always eventually illuminates our path. Always…
Experience fully the pain of your failure. You must, bless you. I know you must. But when your body and soul grows weary of the sadness, the recriminations, the “what ifs” (and they will), accept the compensations, (however modest) that accompany your misfortune. Learn the lessons that follow behind them. They’ll serve you well. You’ll be wiser, stronger, and more prepared for the rest of your journey if you take them with you. Rest now if you need to. Grieve if you must. And when you’re ready to collect them, let me know. I’ll gladly help you gather them up.
So what’s the moral of this story? Your story? It’s not a story about loss, deficiency, and flaws. It’s a story about lessons learned, overcoming, moving forward and onward, and most importantly – it is a story about hope.
Some of my most cherished tales have touched my heart and at the same time they have made me weep. And though I’m sad for you right now, I want you to know my weary friend, that I love your story still…
Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes for Depression
Posted in depression, healing, healing recovery, hope, males and depression, mental health, online psychology videos, tagged depression, healing, life style changes, recovery on July 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Are you wondering what you can do to overcome depression in addition to psychotherapy and medication? You may want to watch the video above which features Stephen Ilardi, associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, sharing his research findings regarding how life style changes can significantly reduce symptoms of depression. You’re probably in control of much more than you realize.
Weeping Willow and the Sweet Solace of Music and Shana Barry
Posted in healing, tagged healing and music, music and healing, parenting, Shana Barry on July 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Five year old Willow is weeping. She’s misplaced Monkey, her oldest and dearest friend, and can’t imagine how either of them will possibly get a wink of sleep this night without the other. I’ve tried unsuccessfully for some time now to comfort her and with nothing left to do, I light the lantern, place her favorite music by Shana Barry in the CD player, and coax her to join me in the rope swing on the porch. She reluctantly agrees, and perches stiffly on the edge of the swing, tears still flowing down her delicate little cheeks.
As we watch the moon rise over Pocasset lake, we’re serenaded by the stories Barry shares in a voice that exudes so much gentleness and kindness that Willow’s little body can’t help but to relax. Eventually she’s singing along with feeling about a pink whale and of other adventures to be had on the magical island of Fof. And at some point, Willow, a child grieving for her faithful childhood companion, and I, a woman longing for her mother, lose ourselves. We’re free. And here, right here and right now, there is magic.
When the music stops, Willow looks up at me and says in a sleepy little voice, “I think Monkey might be visiting the Fofers. Do you think he’ll be home by morning?” I tell her that I think there’s a very good chance that Monkey will be home when she wakes up, and I resolve once I tuck her into bed to not stop searching until I find the dirty little trouble maker.
Later that night while I watch Willow sleeping with Monkey tucked safely in beside her, I’m reminded that music, that lovely language of the heart, truly is a healer, and I silently thank Shana Barry for sharing her healing and magic…
And I want to humbly remind you, that magic is often closer than you think if you’ll only open yourself up to it…
“Music is:
Bonding with nature
allowing creativity to express itself
refreshment of the spirit
a development of the spiritual within us
getting in touch with eternal flow
resurgence of self
reconvening of life
spiritual bonding
involvement – an ‘at one-ness’ with the rhythm of living.”
Barbara J Crowe
Becoming Holy: Three Questions to Ask Each Day
Posted in awe and wonder, good life, happiness, healing, hope, Inspiration, meaning, positive psychology, resiliance, Uncategorized, tagged cognitive therapy, happiness, holy, Hope, inspiraion, jean houston, living consciously, living well, michael beckwith, The good life on February 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I listened to a talk by Jean Houston on Gaiam TV today and was moved tremendously by one observation she made in particular. She noted that each of us gets wounded during our life times, and that if we live long enough, we become so full of holes that we ultimately become holy.
My own life has taught me that my wounds will ultimately diminish or enrich me, depending largely upon whether I meet them with a closed fist or an open heart. I’ve also come to understand to my amazement that an ordinary day can be transformed from the mundane to the holy not so much by what happens during the course of it, but by what questions I choose to ask of myself when I first encounter it.
Michael Beckwith urges us to ask the following three questions each and every day.
How can I grow?
How can I give?
What can I celebrate?
I’ve found that every morning that I ask myself these three questions and then commit to living the answers by the end of the day, my life is so much more likely to be experienced as the profound gift that it is.
Living with Grief and Listening to Winter
Posted in grief, healing, Poetry, resiliance, Uncategorized, wisdom, tagged cancer, David Whyte, grief, healing, Hope, living well, loss, recovery on January 19, 2013| 4 Comments »
The sky is grey today. My boots crunch and my body tenses when I first step out into this frigid January morning. I move slowly, huddled against the cold, still baring the gravity of grief and the weariness of long nights with too few exits and too many echoes.
Getting out of bed took little effort yesterday, my mind was alert, my movements fluid, and the sun was shining. I breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to recognize the promise of a morning without my mother in it. I didn’t have to force myself to leave my house, and I jogged and jumped and danced during my water aerobics class. My body felt light and graceful. It was going to be a good day.
Someone began to sing, “these boots are made for walking” and I cheerfully joined her in song, hands on my hips and legs lifting high. And then my eyes met those of a woman who is older than my mother and the pain slammed into my chest without warning. I was breathless as a memory consumed all of my oxygen. My young and sexy mother is singing that song while I prance around her in my imaginary boots. We are pointing at each other, warning that “one of these days these boots are going to walk all over you.” In that moment, all was perfect. The depression had not found her, she was cancer free – healthy, happy, and ALIVE. I was safe.
My eyes filled with tears and to my horror, it occurred to me that I could start crying in a public pool surrounded by perfectly nice and normal women. I took a deep breath, clenched my jaw, called upon my well practiced will, and pulled myself together.
Rumi wrote that our lives are like guest houses. If my life truly is like a guest house, then grief, an unwelcome guest, has settled in for the time being. I cannot move out, and there will be no eviction. And so, If I’m to avoid structural and collateral damage, then I’ll need to make accommodations. Grief, I will make a place at my table for you, but I will not feed you. Instead, I will infuse my cooking with love and gratitude and nurture my family with them. And I will stop wasting energy trying to lock you out, instead, I’ll open all of my windows and invite beauty in.
My walk is complete. I return to the home that I now share with grief, close the door, absorb the heat, and resolve to not long for spring, but to listen to winter…
The Winter of Listening
“No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.”
David Whyte
Honoring Brian Turner, Poet/Soldier and Veterans Everywhere
Posted in healing, Poetry, PTSD, trauma, War, tagged poetry, PTSD, War on September 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I went to a reading last night held at Bates College by Brian Turner, award winning poet and veteran of the Iraq war. (He’ll be at the Lewiston public library tonight for those of you who live in the Lewiston/Auburn area.) After the reading someone asked him a question about healing and his response was one that I plan on mulling over for some time. He suggested that perhaps the appropriate goal of veterans (trauma victim/survivor?) is not to heal from their wounds but rather to learn to integrate them into the rest of their lives. From a narrative therapy perspective, I wonder if he meant that the wounds of war must be woven into the larger story of the veteran’s life, and while certainly a defining chapter in the overall narrative, must not become THE ENTIRE STORY.
I was moved by his poetry, and when I returned home I couldn’t put his book, “Here, Bullet” down. I read it from beginning to end and didn’t sleep until night had given way to the fledgling hours of morning. I was revisited once again by the jagged and shattering stories shared with me by the veterans with whom I’ve worked over the years, the haunting beckoned this time by the horror and heartbreak of war transformed into poetry.
I found a quote in an old journal entry by veteran, Timothy Kudo, who wrote, “ I thought my war was over, but it followed me. It followed all of us. We returned only to find that it was waiting here the entire time and will always be with us. “ And I acknowledged then that in some ways, the war will never end for me either, for any of those of us who have served as inadequate and yet fully present witnesses. I honor in my heart and in my own tortured memory – the boy, the girl, the wounded warrior and the poet that lives on in each and every one of them….
To all those Abused as Children
Posted in childhood abuse, childhood suffering, healing, healing recovery, hope, women, tagged childhood abuse, healing, Hope, recovery, transformation on August 19, 2012| 3 Comments »
The following is a poem by wise and compassionate poet, counselor, and retired Episcopal priest, Alla Renee Bozrath that I first discovered in the book, “Life Prayers: 365 Prayers, Blessings and Affirmations to Celebrate the Human Journey” edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon. If you are a seeker, a griever, or are struggling in any way right now, I encourage you to explore her wonderful work.
“Don’t look back,
battered child,
Time then hurt you,
Let time heal you.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back,
beaten child.
They knew not what
they did except what
was done unto them.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back,
abandoned child,
abused, neglected child.
Denial is salt in your wounds.
Dwelling in repeating
the deliberate disappearance
of your soul.
Don’t perpetuate this harm.
Break the cycle,
wait –
stop it here.
Speak out the paralyzing secret
and begin to come back to yourself.
Cry it out to compassionate ears
and be held in the hearts of your witnesses.
The truth shall make you free
but first it will shatter you.
What was broken can be mended,
what was lost, restored.
Find yourself, then,
pure and whole, a child of God.
Look back long enough to let go.”
– Alla Renee Bozarth
Look Back
Long Enough
and then
Let Go…..
David Whyte, Brother David Steindl-Rast , and the Antidote to Exhaustion
Posted in crisis, depression, healing, resiliance, wisdom, tagged Brother David Steindl-Rast, David Whyte, healing, The good life on July 7, 2012| 10 Comments »
Perhaps one of the greatest reasons I was drawn to become a psychotherapist is that I’m a lover of stories. Storytelling isn’t only an ancient art form and a means through which information and wisdom is shared, it can also be a powerful source of inspiration and healing.
In a speech entitled, “Politics as Spiritual Practice” Larry Robinson, former Mayor of Sebastopol California observed, “Stories tell us who we are and where we belong. They give meaning to our lives and to our suffering. In an age of fear and uncertainty, people are hungry for a story which shows us a way through the current darkness…Story has the power to bring soul back to the world.” And so from time to time, I’ve decided to share one of my favorite soul full stories with you.
Gifted poet and speaker, David Whyte, was visiting Brother David Steindl-Rast one evening after a very long and stressful day at work. Whyte had been struggling with whether or not to leave his job and pursue his calling as a poet full time and shared with brother David that he was absolutely exhausted.
I picture the two Davids in a warm and dimly lit room, wine glasses held loosely, and a book of Rilke’s poems resting on a low table between them. The poet’s broad shoulders are slightly slumped, his dark head bent and his wise and loving friend is leaning in slightly towards him as he very gently shares the following, “You know David, the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest.”
Whyte tilts his head and shifts his position slightly as something not yet definable stirs quietly within him. “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t necessarily rest,” he repeats slowly. “What is the antidote to exhaustion?” Now it’s Whyte who is leaning forward, entirely receptive to the gift some part of him already knows is on its way.
“The antidote to exhaustion,” brother David responds, “is wholeheartedness.”
And while it was not me who asked the question, not my own exhaustion and depletion that called brother David’s response into being, it is my own soul that stirs in response. “The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”
Yes.
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