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David Whyte, Brother David Steindl-Rast , and the Antidote to Exhaustion

July 7, 2012 by tammiefowles

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.

Posted in crisis, depression, healing, resiliance, wisdom | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments »

Tom Atlee’s Extra Ordinary Days

July 3, 2012 by tammiefowles

allison 2

Photographer: Allison Fowles

Following is a poem by Tom Atlee that I believe speaks to each and every one of us, particulary as our beautiful blue planet heats up, civil unrest reverberates in all four corners of the world, and a fourth of July approaches where it’s not the fireworks alone that causes the earth to tremble.

Extra Ordinary Days

On seven otherwise ordinary days

an Oregon graduate student discovered — without even meaning to —
that a newly engineered bacteria
might accidentally destroy all terrestrial plants

a controversial election ended
with the U.S. Supreme Court
making the loser President of the United States

a flock of geese came within seconds of triggering
global thermonuclear war
a dime-sized robot was created,
capable of prowling around buildings
in coordinated swarms

a dozen physicists debated whether to proceed with an experiment
that might turn the earth into a black hole

global trade in high-tech torture devices was found to be booming,
with a 7500% increase since the 1970s
in the number of companies making
electroshock stun weapons

and, oh yes,
a hundred species disappeared from earth forever,
along with 18,000 hungry children
(but we knew that already: that happens every day)…

Is it possible that
life is not ordinary any more,
despite all its appearances
and comforts?

Yesterday, I saw the death of life itself
stalking just around the corner
of that very ordinary day.

And today, just a few minutes ago,
I saw it watching us
as we dashed along the edge of the End Times,
looking straight ahead, moving fast,
desperate to accomplish so many urgent things.

It is time to look down —
at the earth, at the void, at our hearts.
Perhaps only a blast of vertigo will snap the trance,
call off The Fall,
save our souls and the world in one clear Seeing.
For we are too busy in a not-see death camp on the edge
of the beginning
of the world’s ending.

The prospect of Death, seen once, unmistakeably,
can do wonders for Life.
We need to see death now,
clearly,
for the sake of the children
of this and every generation to come,
of this and every type of life.

When the fire starts in the kitchen downstairs
at 2 am,
we’ll only get one chance to wake up.
Please don’t think the alarm
is part of your dream.
For I have seen this, and it is a fact:
Business as usual is over —
despite everything that remains to be done.

It has been said that war is obsolete.
I say, in the same way,
that business as usual is over —
even though the sun also rises
and the bells toll.

It has been said that what is happening is inevitable.
Well, I say unto you:
Business as usual is over —
even though its presence continues insisting
like the ghost of an amputated arm.

And now I’ll whisper this last:

(For the sake of the children:
Let’s wake up
together
in the very next extraordinary day
that so much needs and wants us awake.)

Posted in american pathology, collective action, crisis | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

How Rollo May Survived his “Nervous Break Down”

June 2, 2012 by tammiefowles

Recently I was appreciating the photographs of a woman whom I admire tremendously – pictures of her garden, the ocean, a number of stunning landscapes, an osprey nest, and an eagle in flight. As a child she was the victim of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, tortured by the kind of cruelty and ugliness that can break hearts and shatter souls. And yet, as an adult she has spent a great deal of time both capturing and creating beauty. I was reminded as she shared her photography with me of psychologist, Rollo May, one of the founders of the humanistic psychology movement.

As a young man May fell victim to a debilitating depression. Many years later, when asked by writer and film maker, Phil Cousineau, what had saved him during that dark and painful time, Rollo replied, “beauty.”

In his book, “My Quest for Beauty” May wrote of wandering aimlessly in the hills of Greece where one day he stumbled into a field of wild poppies and had the following epiphany, “It seemed that I had not listened to my inner voice, which had tried to talk to me about beauty. I had been too hard-working, too ‘principled’ to spend time merely looking at flowers . . . it had taken a collapse of my whole former way of life for this voice to make itself heard. . . What is beauty? . . . Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously. Other happenings give us joy and afterwards a peace, but in beauty these are the same experience. Beauty is serene and at the same time exhilarating; it increases one’s sense of being alive.”

I am thinking about my remarkable photographer friend and about Rollo May when I visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. After a long and difficult week, I lie down beside the waterfall in the rhododendron garden among the ferns, hostas, bees, and beautiful blossoms. I welcome the beauty, allow myself to become intoxicated by it, lost in it. George Washington Carver wrote, “If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.” And so I send my love out into the garden. I listen. It begins to speak…

Posted in awe and wonder, childhood abuse, childhood suffering, depression, healing, healing recovery, males and depression, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Surprising Science Behind Happiness

May 29, 2012 by tammiefowles

In a short TED talk, Nancy Etcoff, evolutionary psychologist and faculty member at Harvard Medical school, discusses (among other things) what cognitive science can tell us about the ways in which we attempt to achieve and increase our happiness, how surprisingly little it has to do with our circumstances, and its effects on our bodies. Some of what she shares may very well surprise you.

Here’s one brief quote from her talk, “…people are happiest when in flow, when they’re absorbed in something out in the world, when they’re with other people, when they’re active, engaged in sports, focusing on a loved one, learning, having sex, whatever. They’re not sitting in front of the mirror trying to figure themselves out, or thinking about themselves. These are not the periods when you feel happiest…”

Posted in good life, happiness, mental health, positive psychology | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

On Darkness, Despair and Hope

May 22, 2012 by tammiefowles

I haven’t written a blog entry in over a month, the longest I’ve ever gone without writing. Sadly, inessential activities (like this blog) have been overshadowed by my mother’s cancer and my daughter’s illness, and the lion’s share of my life energy is being poured into sustaining hope and tending wounds.

The trajectory of my mother’s illness is too final and predictable to contemplate, while the weight and course of my child’s suffering is crushing and unknowable. It seems that we have set upon one of those night passages that Sue Monk Kidd observes can “blister the spirit and leave us groping.”

As I tentatively feel my way through a murky shadow land, I remind myself that the whole of my life is still abundantly blessed with love, and sweetness and light even as it requires me to be stronger and wiser than ever before – demands that I do/think/feel more than I have ever done/thought/felt before. Even though it insists that I. must. become. more.

Julia Cameron reminds us that “creativity – like human life itself – begins in darkness.” For over two decades as a psychotherapist I’ve witnessed so many transformations that were initiated by heartbreak and cultivated in darkness. And while there have been times when I could hardly bare to look into the depths of despair and suffering, I am especially grateful for them now, each and every one of them, because I have seen with my own eyes and heart what we are capable of surviving, overcoming, and becoming. Because I have seen, I can believe.

Posted in crisis, depression, healing, hope, resiliance, transformation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Self Discovery and The Art Box

April 2, 2012 by tammiefowles

“Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual”
Arthur Koestler

Dan Montgomery, author of “How to Survive Practically Anything” draws often on his clients’ creativity to help facilitate their journeys of self discovery. One technique he uses for this purpose is called, “the art box.”

If you’d like to try this technique, first, select a box of any size or shape that can serve to represent your whole self (body/mind/spirit/soul.) Next, collect any pictures, lyrics, poems, photos, drawings, objects, etc. that symbolize the various aspects of your life. Decorate the outside of the box with objects that represents those parts of yourself that the whole world sees. Place in the interior of the box those symbols and objects that represent your inner life.

Just as we’re always in process, the boxes as well are never truly completed as the expectation is that you’ll periodically modify your box to reflect change and growth. The potential for self discovery and catharsis when we engage in these kinds of creative activities is really quite remarkable. Go ahead and try it. Open yourself up to the wise spirit of your own creativity.

Posted in creativity, healing recovery, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , |

One of the Greatest Discoveries of Our Era

March 26, 2012 by tammiefowles

Diane Ackerman wrote in the New York Times, “A relatively new field, called interpersonal neurobiology, draws its vigor from one of the great discoveries of our era: that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life. In the end, what we pay the most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours of your life literally transforms you.” A message well worth reminding ourselves of daily.

Posted in good life, happiness, healing, hope, mental health, positive psychology, resiliance, transformation | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

When all that’s left of me is Love

March 25, 2012 by tammiefowles

  I just finished Linda Campanella’s book, “When all that’s Left if Me is Love: A Daughter’s Story of Letting Go” about a daughter’s experiences supporting a mother who is LIVING with small cell lung cancer. I stress LIVING because that is exactly what her mother did. She LIVED right up until she died and Campanella remained determined and committed to helping her mother do exactly that throughout the entire process – to LIVE as fully as possible.

One example of how they made the most of each and every day was that around 4:00 in the afternoon Linda, her mother, her father, and anyone else who happened to be in the house at the time settled in to celebrate ‘happy hour’. There was much laughter during this time, and the sharing of news, stories, small gifts, and great love. No one in the room was in denial of death or free from grief, however each was acutely aware in the moment of how precious life is when savored, how beautiful and even luminous in can be in the face of its impending loss.

While Campanella’s book contained heart break and grief, it also offered me, a daughter whose own mother was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer in August of 2010, much needed comfort and perspective. While I have so often felt powerless when confronting my mother’s cancer, Campenella has reminded me of my families’ strength and essential proficiencies. We are masters of loving, and as we weave our love throughout each and every moment that we’re together, we can create a sacred container which honors life and offers healing even in the absence of cure.

Posted in healing, hope, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Celtic Wisdom and John O’ Donohue

March 13, 2012 by tammiefowles

 

In “Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom,” poet, John O’ Donohue wrote, “though the human body is born complete in one moment, the birth of the human heart is an ongoing process.  It is being birthed in every experience of your life.  Everything that happens to you  has the potential to deepen you.” 

I know from the depths of my own life that his words are true.  I haven’t always known this.  In fact, it’s been a lesson which I’ve needed to learn over and over again before it finally settled securely into my consciousness.  My own heart has had to break more than once before I entertained  the possibility that the light that  came pouring through its cracks would not blind or burn, but illuminate.  

Playwright, Arthur Miller observed, “possibly the greatest truths we know, have come out of people’s suffering. The problem is not to undo suffering, or to wipe it off the face of the earth, but to make it inform our lives…” I’ve always been a reluctant student when confronted with the lessons of suffering and will never welcome this particular teacher.  Still, I’ve come to believe that its lessons are most always far more profound than those delivered by my gentler instructors.

While I fail to consistently keep it, I make this promise to myself  repeatedly, “I will open myself to the potential for wisdom that lives within each and every experience of  my life.” 

 

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Mother Wisdom Speaks

March 6, 2012 by tammiefowles

This past weekend I attended a retreat entitled, “The Spirit of Aging” at Living Waters Spiritual Center. It was a special time to reflect, connect, and renew — and I needed it.

Karen Lewis Foley, unitarian minister, spiritual director, and our retreat leader read an absolutely beautiful poem entitled, “Mother Wisdom Speaks” that resonated deeply with me.

Mother Wisdom Speaks

Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will make you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.

I will hollow you with knives.
I will not do this to make you clean.
I will not do this to make you pure.
You are clean already.
You are pure already.

I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.

A passage.
People will find their way through you.
A bowl.
People will eat from you and their hunger will not weaken them unto death.
A cup to catch the sacred rain.

My daughter, do not cry. Do not be afraid.
Nothing you need will be lost.
I am shaping you.
I am making you ready.

Light will flow in your hollowing.
You will be filled with light.
Your bone will shine.

The round, open center of you will be radiant.
I will call you Brilliant One.
I will call you Daughter who is wide.
I will call you Transformed.

By Christin Lore Weber

Do not be afraid. You are being shaped. You are being made ready…..

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