Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life

The day awaits.
A clean slate
is before me.
Will I fill it with
vibrant people
and experiences?
Will I shape it subtly
and gently
as the wisdom and serenity
of a quiet and reflective morning
unfolds?
Will I balance my canvas with
meaningful work,
a walk in the park,
play with a child,
a good book?
Will I warm it with sweet tea
and a heart-felt smile?
Will I honor my deepest values
and be receptive to the days lessons?
Will I hold fast
or take a stand?
I now begin to acknowledge
how powerful
I truly am….

From: BirthQuake: A Journey to Wholness

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http://www.youtube.com/v/DE1TJyFeuuw&hl=en&fs=1&

Tonight on Bill Moyers Journal, “Money Driven Medicine” is featured. I urge everyone to view it.

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The Following quote is from “The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World ” by Donald Rothberg and Jack Kornfield.

“…How can we be in touch with suffering and work to transform it, but not react in ways that lead to further suffering?

…One of the most powerful images in the teachings of the Buddha – the image of the ‘two arrows’ helps us to clarify the nature of suffering and how we might learn to open to suffering without creating further suffering. It also suggests an important and precise distinction between what we might call pain and suffering.

We can imagine, the Buddha says, that when we experience pain, it is as if we were shot by an arrow. Each of us is sometimes shot by this arrow of pain. We each have a certain allotment of painful experiences, some of us more, others less. To be human is to be vulnerable to pain and at times to be in pain. Our soft bodies are easily injured and tend to break down over time. We are frequently startled and shocked – physically, emotionally, and mentally. We want meaning and connection, kindness and love, fairness and justice, yet we often find them lacking in our lives.

Typically, because of this first arrow of pain, we react in various ways. According to the Buddha, our reaction is equivalent to being shot by a second arrow. We can call this second arrow suffering. Suffering arises because when we experience pain –when we experience pain – when we are injured or startled, or lack meaning and love, or are treated unjustly – we typically react by lashing out, at ourselves and others. We believe somehow that this will dispel or mitigate the pain. We act in such a way that a second arrow is shot, at us or others, on account of the pain of the first arrow. When we act so that the second arrow is shot, we ‘pass on’ the original pain.

Suffering can thus be seen in large part as a kind or resistance or reaction to the pain of the present moment. We tend to react physically, emotionally, and/or mentally when we have unpleasant or painful physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts. When we experience physical pain, we tend to tense and contract around the pain, as if this will somehow assuage it. Some doctors say that perhaps 80 percent of what patients exper ience as physical pain is not the result of the original stimulus bur rather ongoing resistance to this stimulus.

Similarly, when there is emotional pain (think of the pain that may follow from a perceived slight by someone close to us or the breakup of an intimate relationship) we tend to comment at great length, produce a flow of emotions, and react physically as well, all on the basis of the original stimulus. We may generate anger and harsh judgments of self or others or rationalize continually, sulk in depression, find a scapegoat, or attempt to escape the pain through food, shopping, sex, or television…

…For the Buddha… the task of spiritual practice is not to rid ourselves of all pain, to prevent being shot by the first arrow. Rather, our core intention is to not shoot this second arrow.“

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The Following quote is from “The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World ” by Donald Rothberg and Jack Kornfield.

“…How can we be in touch with suffering and work to transform it, but not react in ways that lead to further suffering?

…One of the most powerful images in the teachings of the Buddha – the image of the ‘two arrows’ helps us to clarify the nature of suffering and how we might learn to open to suffering without creating further suffering. It also suggests an important and precise distinction between what we might call pain and suffering.

We can imagine, the Buddha says, that when we experience pain, it is as if we were shot by an arrow. Each of us is sometimes shot by this arrow of pain. We each have a certain allotment of painful experiences, some of us more, others less. To be human is to be vulnerable to pain and at times to be in pain. Our soft bodies are easily injured and tend to break down over time. We are frequently startled and shocked – physically, emotionally, and mentally. We want meaning and connection, kindness and love, fairness and justice, yet we often find them lacking in our lives.

Typically, because of this first arrow of pain, we react in various ways. According to the Buddha, our reaction is equivalent to being shot by a second arrow. We can call this second arrow suffering. Suffering arises because when we experience pain –when we experience pain – when we are injured or startled, or lack meaning and love, or are treated unjustly – we typically react by lashing out, at ourselves and others. We believe somehow that this will dispel or mitigate the pain. We act in such a way that a second arrow is shot, at us or others, on account of the pain of the first arrow. When we act so that the second arrow is shot, we ‘pass on’ the original pain.

Suffering can thus be seen in large part as a kind or resistance or reaction to the pain of the present moment. We tend to react physically, emotionally, and/or mentally when we have unpleasant or painful physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts. When we experience physical pain, we tend to tense and contract around the pain, as if this will somehow assuage it. Some doctors say that perhaps 80 percent of what patients exper ience as physical pain is not the result of the original stimulus bur rather ongoing resistance to this stimulus.

Similarly, when there is emotional pain (think of the pain that may follow from a perceived slight by someone close to us or the breakup of an intimate relationship) we tend to comment at great length, produce a flow of emotions, and react physically as well, all on the basis of the original stimulus. We may generate anger and harsh judgments of self or others or rationalize continually, sulk in depression, find a scapegoat, or attempt to escape the pain through food, shopping, sex, or television…

…For the Buddha… the task of spiritual practice is not to rid ourselves of all pain, to prevent being shot by the first arrow. Rather, our core intention is to not shoot this second arrow.“

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A young therapist, poet, and regular reader of this blog is exploring the intersection between psychotherapy and spiritual practice. In honor of her substantial ability to both create and appreciate poetry, I thought I would offer what I found to be a rather poetic response to the question, “How is psychotherapy and spiritual practice similar?” by Janet Pfunder in Psychotherapy and Religion: Many Paths, One Journey.  Pfunder reflects:

“Psychotherapy and spiritual practice both offer the opportunity to actually suffer our suffering, offsetting the ways we have become numbly unreal to ourselves. We listen for the inaudible scream, finger the invisible scar. We reach toward agony X finding yet never fully finding, yet ever reaching toward, on and on. We fall into ravines, scale perpendicular cliffs, enter flames, and cross scorching deserts looking for the baptism of tears – the kind of tears that fall ever faster as the heart opens. The baptism of tears that transmutes the parched, torn , scorched body into a body of light, a body of breath, a body of gems, over and over and over until the body gradually begins to retain some of its glow. It’s the work of at least one whole long lifetime.”

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A young therapist, poet, and regular reader of this blog is exploring the intersection between psychotherapy and spiritual practice. In honor of her substantial ability to both create and appreciate poetry, I thought I would offer what I found to be a rather poetic response to the question, “How is psychotherapy and spiritual practice similar?” by Janet Pfunder in Psychotherapy and Religion: Many Paths, One Journey.

“Psychotherapy and spiritual practice both offer the opportunity to actually suffer our suffering, offsetting the ways we have become numbly unreal to ourselves. We listen for the inaudible scream, finger the invisible scar. We reach toward agony X finding yet never fully finding, yet ever reaching toward, on and on. We fall into ravines, scale perpendicular cliffs, enter flames, and cross scorching deserts looking for the baptism of tears – the kind of tears that fall ever faster as the heart opens. The baptism of tears that transmutes the parched, torn , scorched body into a body of light, a body of breath, a body of gems, over and over and over until the body gradually begins to retain some of its glow. It’s the work of at least one whole long lifetime.”

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I’m a very strong proponent of mindfulness practices. There are several physical and psychological benefits to practicing mindfulness including but not limited to improved immune system functioning, stress reduction, decreases in the intensity of stress-related physical symptoms such as chronic pain, substantial reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety, heightened creativity, and an improved sense of overall well-being.

Following are a list of links to resources on mindfulness.

Links on mindfulness

• Mindfulness: The Health and Stress Relief Benefits
• Mindfulness Meditation: Reducing Anxiety by Focusing on the Present Moment
• Lotus Therapy
• Mindfulness Meditation for Alcohol Relapse Prevention
• Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression
• The Mindful Way Through Depression

Online Audio and Videos on mindfulness

• Mindfulness with Jon-Kabat-Zinn
• Learn Mindfulness
• What is Mindfulness Meditation?
• Mindfulness Meditation and Back Pain
• Mindful Meditations
• A Moment of Calm
• Mindfulness Guided Meditation with Deepak Chopra
• Mindfulness Meditation Exercise
• Mindfulness Practice Center
• Guided Mindfulness Meditation
• Mindfulness, Stress Reduction and Healing
• Coming to Our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn
• The Neuroscience of Meditation
• We Live Love Mindfully

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The Coming Home Project, developed to meet the challenges faced by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families, offers a series of presentations which can be viewed online . Among them is a presentation by Darrah Westrup entitled, “Treating Female Veterans of War.“

During her presentation Westrup points out that female veterans tend to be younger, receive less in terms of in-service support, and are twice as likely to develop PTSD than their male counterparts. She also discusses the following evidence based treatments that are currently offered to female veterans:

Seeking Safety

Cognitive Processing Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

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I just published life coach, Laura Berman Fortgang’s article, “10 Tips to Creating a New Life Direction” at SagePlace. The article is based on her book, Now What?: 90 Days to a New Life Direction in which fortgang provides readers with a very useful process developed to assist people in moving forward with their lives.
In the introduction to her book Fortgang writes, “As I look back at the time I have spent working with people, the yearning for “more” has undergone a transformation. In the late 80s and early 90s, people’s definition of more was more money and more status… And now, it seems we’ve come around to recognize that what we wanted along from “more” was fulfillment: feeling satisfied and finding meaning… I welcome you to an exciting (and sometimes scary) exploration that will reveal the truth – the truth about what you really want, about who you really are, and about what you are really capable of…”

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The following is quoted from the Lewiston Sun Journal

“Repower America, a national grassroots movement affiliated with the Alliance for Climate Protection, will hold a public informational meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 17, at the Auburn Public Library.

Delia Gorham, an organizer for the regional chapter called Repower Maine, will explain the organization’s goals, the progress of the American Clean Energy and Security Act and ways to take action in the community. The need to maintain open and ongoing conversations about issues is one of the main points. The Alliance for Climate Protection is an outgrowth of Al Gore’s film ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ “

You can visit the Maine page of the national site at: http://act.repoweramerica.org/us/maine

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