Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life

I ran across a very special poem recently by Judy Brown that I’d like to share with you. The poem represents patience, faith and hope during those times of transition. I find it particularly meaningful that another term for for its title, “Trough,” is the word, “passage”. According to Merriam-Webster, a passage can be defined as, “the action or process of passing from one place, condition, or stage to another.”

Trough

There is a trough in waves,
A low spot
Where horizon disappears
And only sky
And water
Are our company.

And there we lose our way
Unless
We rest, knowing the wave will bring us
To its crest again.

There we may drown
If we let fear
Hold us within its grip and shake us
Side to side,
And leave us flailing, torn, disoriented.

But if we rest there
In the trough,
Are silent,
Being with
The low part of the wave,
Keeping
Our energy and
Noticing the shape of things,
The flow,
Then time alone
Will bring us to another
Place
Where we can see
Horizon, see the land again,
Regain our sense
Of where
We are,
And where we need to swim.

~ Judy Brown ~

This morning is picture perfect. I am sitting in my hammock swing on my screen porch, pausing every now and then to gaze out at the lake. I’ll be heading out to work soon, but for now I am taking time to savor this moment. The sun is warm, the air is sweet, the lake is smooth, the birds are singing their eternal song. While my life contains significant challenges, here and now, in this very moment, life is oh so good….

In their book, “Savoring, A New Model of Positive Experience,” authors Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff urge us to commit time to fully appreciating even the smallest gifts that come our way – a flower, a beautiful song, the joyous laugh of a child, a gentle breeze on a hot day – to stop and savor the sweet moments of the day.

In the article Savoring: a Crucial Happiness Skill, Jerry Lopper discusses Bryant and Veroff’s book and offers examples of how we might learn to more readily take in the pleasures that surround us. You might want to follow the link above and read what Loper has to say.

Because the more we savor, the more we immerse ourselves in life enhancing positive emotions, emotions that Barbara Fredrickson, author of “Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive” reports ehances our physical and emotional well-being.

When I fully take in the gift of this moment, when I breathe it in and hold it closely; I become fully alive and present to the miracle that is my life. As much as I’d love to, I’ve never managed to be able to fully seize an entire day, but, I’m becoming highly adept at sezing and savoring moments, and this, my friend, has made an inmeasureable difference in my life. How about if you try it? Try it again and again and again and again.
I’m not particularly good at practicing, but this is a practice that contains its own reward each and every time…

The Centre for Clincial Interventions offers a number of helpful and free online books providing information, worksheets and exercises on topics such as how to be assertive, improving self-esteem, coping with bipolar disorder, overcoming perfectionism , mastering your worries, coping with panic attacks and more.

The Centre for Clinical Interventions offers a number of online toolkits on topics that many people struggle with. “These InfoPax consist of modules that you can complete online, or you can save the modules to your computer and work through them onscreen in your own time. Alternatively, you can print out the modules and work through them by hand.”

“Back from the Bluez: Coping with Depression” provides information about depression as well as strategies for coping with depression through a series of modules designed for people to work through in sequence and contain information, worksheets, and recommended activities or exercises.

The modules include the following:

Module 1: Overview of Depression
Module 2: Behavioural Strategies for Managing Depression
Module 3: The Thinking-Feeling Connection
Module 4: The ABC Analysis
Module 5: Unhelpful Thinking Styles
Module 6: Detective Work and Disputation
Module 7: The End Result
Module 8: Core Beliefs
Module 9: Self Management

“We are social beings who grow in relation to others; we are defined through our relationships with them. Our ancestors lived their lives in the bosom of a supportive tribe. Every need was met within the context of that tribe. The tribe was community. When we moved out of tribes and into extended families, and then into nuclear families, we gained greater freedom and mobility, but something was lost: a fundamental sense of security based on the experience of belonging. We must seek to rediscover and recover community in our lives.”

Wayne Teasdale, A Monk in the World.

In a TED talk Rachel Botsman, author of, “What’s Mine is Yours” encourages us to become collaborative consumers. From my perspective, Botsman makes tremendous sense not only from an environmental and economic standpoint, but from a psychological, emotional, and moral stand point as well.

…Both in her book and in her TED talk Botsman asserts that we were born to share and live cooperatively, pointing out that we did just that for thousands of years until a massive cultural shift occurred that led us to compete with one another for the most, the biggest, and the best. In moving from an ethos of cooperation to one of competition, both people and the planet have paid an incalculable price.

Botsman urges us to return to a culture of ‘we’ vs. a culture of ‘me’ and celebrates a peer to peer sharing revolution that is growing across the world at extraordinary rates, spurred by the following: (1) a renewed recognition of the importance of community, (2) the growth of peer to peer social networks made possible by real time technology, (3) growing environmental issues that are very rapidly moving from concerns to crisis, and (4) the global recession.

In her thought provoking and hopeful talk she concludes, “I believe we’re actually in a period where we’re waking up from this humongous hangover of emptiness and waste, and we’re taking a leap to create a more sustainable system built to serve our innate needs for community and individual identity. I believe it will be referred to as a revolution, so to speak — when society, faced with great challenges, made a seismic shift from individual getting and spending towards a rediscovery of collective good.”

After listening to her talk I was inspired to do some research of my own and have located the following 16 resources that I would encourage you to explore. They may change your life, and if they continue to grow and to flourish, they will change our world.

http://www.swap.com/userhome/
http://www.freecycle.org/
http://www.carsharing.net/
http://www.ecomodo.com/
http://swishing.com/
http://www.timebanks.org/
http://lourish.com/
http://www.skillshare.com/learn
http://www.couchsurfing.org/
http://www.crashpadder.com/
http://www.airbnb.com/
http://www.lendingclub.com/home.action
http://1bog.org/
http://www.timebanks.org/
http://localcircles.org/
http://onthecommons.org/make-shift-finding-job-crafting-livelihood

In “Good News for Bad Days,” Father Paul Keenan writes that when we feel stuck in our lives, empty, trapped on a path without heart, it is our shackled soul crying out to us to free it, and identifies the following as symptoms of the soul’s wounds.

Fatigue – a weariness that isn’t assuaged by sleep and whispers to us that our energy is being taken in a wrong direction.

Anger – we are frequently frustrated, all too often irritable and resentful, bent by the weight of the monkey on our backs.

Restlessness – haunted by a need to change, to do something different, to move, but without a clear sense of what and how and where.

Fear – we live in an almost constant state of free floating anxiety, afraid to lose what we’re not even sure that we want, afraid to fail, afraid to succeed.

Boredom – life offers little joy. We find ourselves going through the motions, our senses of awe and wonder dulled almost beyond recognition.

Depression – We are depleted, defeated, dejected, adrift…

Denial – We don’t want to face what we don’t understand, what threatens us, what beckons us, and so we tell ourselves that this is just a passing phase, things will get better when…..

Keenan asserts that when we make the choice to acknowledge and open to the call of our souls, we awaken to possibilities. Keenan writes, “Rather than being occasions of panic and discouragement, our points of being stuck are what we bring to the table of life….The experience of being stuck gives us the opportunity to pause, to reflect, and to map the journey we have been undertaking…We can take the opportunity to ask ourselves what limits we want to surpass, what new directions we want to pursue. It can be a call to adventure, to new horizons and new life…”

I am reminded here of the Celtic Code of Living which states, “Your life is a gift and a pilgrimage; see every day, every event, every moment, and every act as a renewable point in time offering you a new beginning.” Even our stuck places can serve as sign posts that guide us on our way.

A young activist completely overwhelmed by the pain that surrounds her shared her anguish and discouragement with me recently, and I felt my own heart stir and open to the breaking of hers. I have felt the despair that now occupies her body and soul. I remembered sitting in a dark movie theater crying inconsolably while my poor sweet husband held my hand. He could touch me, but not reach me. I was lost . Lost to the cruelty and greed of my fellow humans; lost to the dying of my troubled and still beautiful world. There seem to be no words which can possibly speak for or to this terrible breaking.

In “How to Lead with a Broken Heart,” Joseph DiCenso writes of crying as he sits in a group of thirty-six men and women trying to “name the ache I feel for the state of the world. My grief over the gap between what could be and what is… The species, peoples, cultures, wisdom – dying, disappeared. How it sometimes feels like I’m living a long goodbye. …What does it take to lead from this place? Broken. Open. Stymied. …How do I break open and not apart?”

DiCenso begins with the question, “how can I lead with a broken heart?” and ultimately concludes with another , “And how can that leading be an act of joy?” (You can read his powerful and beautiful reflection here ) While he doesn’t provide answers, I am still left with a sense of comfort and hope by the time I leave him. He has served as brother and witness and guide.

Fyodor Dostoevsky observed, “pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart” and Clarissa Pinkola Estes pointed out that, “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” From my perspective, in order to do this most effectively , we will need to continue to open our deep hearts to pain and heartbreak and, most importantly, to love. If we are to commit to the work still ahead on behalf of a broken world, we will need to fully feel our love for it.

I was asked this morning to recommend a good book for someone suffering from bi-polar disorder and one for his partner. I usually preface my book suggestions by observing that books are similar to people in that some light us up immediately while leaving others cold. For instance, a book that I connected with or found particularly valuable might be boring or confusing to someone else. Thus, I always suggest that folks explore a book that I recommend first before committing to it. And so, satisfied that I’ve added my disclaimer, I’m suggesting the following three books:

The Bipolar Workbook: Tools for Controlling Your Mood Swings

and

The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide, Second Edition: What You and Your Family Need to Know

and

When Someone You Love Is Bipolar: Help and Support for You and Your Partner