May 2011

I worked hard on my flower beds this weekend...given the rain we've had the last couple of days, it seemed like this would give them a good soak right after they got planted...and if I waited for the sunshine, it might be a long while before I could get into the dirt, given the rainfall that was forecasted for days to come.

I’d put off the spring gardening for a while…some of it due to schedule…and some of it due to bugs. I hate bugs. I avoid bugs, as well as activities that provide exposure to bugs. But I do like flowers…even more than I hate bugs…so I took a deeep breath, put on gloves to create a barrier between the bugs and I, and launched into the weeding, and preparing the earth.

As I was gardening, I was reminded of the work I do as a therapist…the logo of Bergen and Associates Counselling is that of a seed in the dirt…with the reality that a seed planted in the cold wet mud is an uncomfortable, painful, and broken place to be…and yet ironically, are ideal conditions for growth. The years of working with clients (and being a client myself, on occasion) have taught me how difficult it is to be in painful situations…and yet that pain is often the catalyst to face things that have been “under the radar” and not explored. A richness and healing comes that wasn’t a possibility before.

So…as I was planting the flowers this weekend, I was faced with a tough choice. My friend who has super great success with planting a garden fit for a queen has told me how she, after planting all the flowers, she pinches off every last little bloom on the baby plants. 

OUCH!!

That hurts just typing it.

It’s counterintuitive really…to plant flowering plants because of the desire to see the beautiful blooms, and the moment they are first planted, to take every last flowering bit and nip it off. 

I think it’s just wrong.

 I dislike this more than I dislike bugs (which is saying a lot!).

But she does this with a purpose…when the first blooms are plucked off, it allows energy that would normally go into those first flowers to instead go into developing the root system. It also encourages growth of more little branches and stems…plants that have those first flowers plucked off when planted end up with fuller, bushier plants that bear more flowers. In the big picture, pinching those early blooms is worth it. 

Only thing is, after a loooooong winter with months of “white” outside, my Winterpeg eyes are starved for color…and so pinching those first beautiful purple, pink and yellow flowers is something that goes against everything in me. So, when I planted the plants, I debated. To pluck or not to pluck, that is the question.

But I did it…a deep breath (each time) and I pinched those little beautiful babies off. (OK, I kept the few buds on, rationalizing that because they weren’t in full flowers they didn’t count.)

And then today, as I walked by the basil, I pinched the top leaves off each branch…again because of the promise of a fuller plant.

As I did so (because I’m a contemplative therapist, and I am a little nerdy when it comes to quietly doing things with my hands allowing me lots of time to think), I was reminded of the courage of clients, who come to therapy prepared to grow. The pain of ________ (anxiety, depression, a conflicted marriage, etc.) is cold wet uncomfortable and painful soil. They come to therapy for relief from the ruts they find themselves in, looking for solace and comfort with a therapist.

Yet, many of them, in the process of exploring and discussing the different layers of their inner experience, find themselves feeling like the blossoms are being plucked.

And guess who the bloom-plucking gardener is? Moi. Yours truly.

For the record, I take no delight in people experiencing pain in the counselling room. It is truly hard to watch. Painful as clients and I collectively take a deep breath, and look at something from a unique angle to gain a better understanding….and doing so, creates an initial experience of further pain.

• It’s so much easier to blame others…it hurts to see one’s unique role in perpetuating a painful cycle.

• It’s so much easier to just focus on “mad”…when the reason for that “mad” is a huge “sad”…and looking at and acknowledging the reality of the “sad” hurts. A lot.

• It hurts to be vulnerable and say things that are true and real, but have been deliberately hidden from a spouse…not even because they are so awful, but because it’s scary to be so very open…gosh, those risk taking events are bloom-plucking experiences if there ever were any.

Many who read this have been or are clients who have been in counselling…and you are probably aware of how these painful blossom-pinching experiences hurt. It stings to leave a session where you have begun exploring a new level of understanding of something that you’ve avoided for a long time. When counselling is supposed to "make you feel better", and you leave a session feeling worse...that's no fun...yuck.

Just want to let you know that I, and many I’ve spoken to in my professional over the years, well…we admire the courage you have. Please know that we take no pleasure in nipping off blooms…but we are committed to doing so, if you let us know that this is why you’ve come. We honor the chutzpah you have in being willing to risk with us…and we don’t take that honor lightly. We are aware of how there are times when, in the short term, therapy hurts. However, we don’t shy away from this, and will continue to do so…because we have walked this road, and believe it to be worth it in the big picture. 

The discoveries, and the growth, and the greater healing are worth it. We know the pinching hurts, and we endeavor to do some “first aid” to support the pain that the therapy itself can create, to do it at a pace and level that is tolerable…but we don’t avoid conversations that may result in pain-with-a-purpose…to do so would be taking care of our own comfort, and not honoring you with the right for the very best opportunity to gain maximal benefit from therapy.

So, I will continue to be in conversations where clients will feel plucked and pruned at times…but will have an even greater awareness of it after my ponderin’ of it this weekend in my garden. I don’t take the work of therapy lightly.  Let a therapist know when something hurts...and ensure that the pain is serving a valuable purpose, and that you have resources to deal with it...and know the therapist is very aware of how the work of therapy itself can create pain.  We do so gently and carefully and thoughtfully, and deliberately...and with great respect.

For as long as I shall live, I will testify to love

I'll be a witness in the silences when words are not enough

Avalon

I've had hearbreak in my life...times when I thought that the pain might have me go mad.  Literally.  If not mad, then I might die...or perhaps it was more that I just hoped to die...to escape the pain, to not have to live with the heartache.  It was brutally hard to "hold the space for pain and discomfort" of acute grief.

That line:  "hold the space for pain and discomfort" comes from here:

“Faith communities perceive it as a unwillingness to be in the dark, to feel pain…I would argue that it’s not always an unwillingness, it’s sometimes it’s the inability… 'I don’t know how…I physically, spiritually, emotionally, physiologically don’t know how to sit in that.' ”

from the video Brene Brown, Shame and Vulnerability

I remember powerful experiences of people being willing to sit in the space of darkness of pain and discomfort with me. 

• I remember holding vigil for loved ones in hospital…an acquaintance I barely knew stopped by to visit us. Many people stopped by to visit us, to offer words of comfort and courage, to attempt to cheer us up, to bring food, to pray—all of them appreciated, but his are the only words I distinctly remember many years later. He said little, stood around fairly quietly, and then mumbled… “I hate this shitty place”, adding a few months earlier, he had also stood death vigil for a loved one on the very ward. His words spoke understanding…he sat with us for a few minutes in the dark. 
  
• I remember years later, as another heartbreak loomed near…the pain and despair threatened to overwhelm. Special neighbors created space and held my darkness…after the tribe was tucked in and sleeping for the night, I’d walk down the street and settle myself on their couch…folding myself in half on their couch to weep..head in my hands, hands on my lap. I would sob and sob while she would have her hand on my back, and he, his hand on my knee. After I was all cried out, I would make my way back to my house to fall into bed, able to crash into an exhausted sleep. For several weeks, several times per week, I would knock on their door, and they would open it, and take their place on the couch with space in between for me, ready to hold the pain. Little was said…little needed to be said, little could be said. 
  

I’ve never forgotten these. They was priceless then. I learned much from these moments, that I carry still. These companions-in-pain were also my teachers...they taught me how to sit in the space of pain, and eventually, how to be with others in the dark.

 

“When my kids are struggling, I'm not hardwired to sit in the dark, and sit with them. I’m hardwired to flip on the lights…so we start teaching compassion, and teaching the ability to hold space for pain and discomfort by sitting with our kids in the dark”

from the video

Holding space for pain…a hard task that requires vulnerability, but allows for being fully alive…for the heart that has space for pain, also has space for joy. The heart that can hold grief, can also hold vitality and love and connection with others.

Painful but worthwhile learning.

Compassion is knowing your darkness well enough that you can sit in the dark with others.

Pema Chodron

I thought faith would say, "I'll take away the pain and discomfort", but what it ended up saying is, "I'll sit with you in it". And I never thought until I found it, that it would be enough--but it's perfect. You know, I don't feel alone in it anymore.

Brene Brown

When life seems chaotic, you don't need people giving you easy answers or cheap promises.  There might not be any answers to your problems.  What you need is a safe place where you can bounce with people who have taken some bad hops of their own. You need love and understanding and lots of room

Reach Live Preacher

Vietnam War Memorial
Washington DC
March, 2011
A sad and sacred place

Often people do not have an ability to change their circumstances.  We are stuck with living with what has happened to us...our past.  We are born into the families we have...nothing we can do to change that.  Often, life circumstances can be dictated as well...economic circumstances may dictate employment, housing and so on.  What's the point of counselling if so much of life is beyond our control?

I will often tell clients..."I can't change _____(insert difficult circumstances, relationship, or person here), but what we can do is look at how you are working with and dealing with this to allow what goes on inside you to shift, creating different possibilities." The danger is that it can seem like I am blaming a client...working "on them" to fix the problem...what we are doing rather, is accepting the reality that the only elements we can change in the therapy room are the thoughts and feelings a person has around a situation.  Far from blaming, it empowers clients the potential to create shifts because they influence the world around them. (NOTICE:  I did not say the person can magically change the situation and to make it "all better")

Shawn Achor is a researcher that points out the importance of perspective.  He helps us understand the significance of the lens through which we view a situation...and how that lens shapes our reactions towards the situation...and then through that, the lens actually shapes the situation itself. 

Towards the very end of the video of a presentation given at TEDxBloomington this last Saturday, Shawn provides several very concrete and "do-able" strategies that are research proven to enhance a helpful perspective.  These can create an internal space to allow a different perspective with greater optimism.  He's kinda funny too--his dry wit had me chuckling.  He talks fast, so put on your seat belt and hold on while you listen!  (The rough cut video was deleted off the internet hours after I posted...it will be reposted in 3-4 weeks)

Note:   I am inserting three here with similar content...the original version had the same content but was more condensed. Jump to Video #3 for the strategies...videos #1 and #2 is the background that gives the strategies credibility:
 

 


The danger of these sorts of videos is they make it sound too easy...for many it's not.  There are solid reasons why people struggle with situations, why depression makes it too difficult to get out of bed in the morning, why anxiety cripples.  I get that. Many people want to be more positive...and feel unable to "get there"...in fact, that's often why people come to counselling.

Shawn provides some valuable evidence based understandings of the importance of perspective, and how we can actively implement simple concrete strategies that can make a difference in the way we think and therefore, the way we see things.

Shawn's research has seen how 10% of your long term life satisfaction is determined by your external circumstances.  90% is predicted by your internal view...the internal view of success...your optimism levels, social supports, and seeing stressors as challenges to be met.  He looks to reverse the formula for success...to be satisfied, to experience joy in a way that is not contingent to success. A "happiness advantage" is related to the ability to establish strategies to be positive in the present...by being fully present and noticing all of reality...the beauty of the day, the kindness of those around us, the goodness which surrounds us. (Yes, the world still hurts, some people will still act like jerks towards you, and bad things will still happen...but they won't disproportionately consume our energy) 

Sounds corny?  Sure, it does.

But  it changes dopamine levels in the brain...allowing your brain (and you!) to think better and work more effectively.  That's hard research that is difficult to argue about.

Funny how science has figured out something just recently that faith has taught us for millennia, huh?

Trust and uncommon friendship is always beautiful to witness. It challenges and inspires us to look for connection and allow ourselves to risk trusting another that change lives.

"They harbor no fears, no secrets, no prejudices. Just living two creatures who somehow manage to look past their immense differences....if they can do it, what's our excuse?"

Very little gives a high like succeeding at something that is a challenge.

We have a saying around the office:  "Robyn sez"...our interior designer is fabulous...amazing how I can be in s space and not see something that she does...moving a chair here, or changing something over there and voila, it's better!  So. knowing she knows waaaay more about this stuff that we do, we just followed her orders when we had her over as part of setttling in, in the new office.

Robyn sez we have to move the printer over 15 feet.  That would be 15 feet farther away from the internet hookup thingy in the wall (you can already tell, that this project is beyond me, that I don't know the proper name for whatever the internet hookup thingy is).  That would be 15 feet farther away from the fax line, and such.  The printer is hooked in with the phone line and the internet for wireless printing.  Then there's the MTS box and the modem (is that what they call it?). 

Deep breath.

So...I tried to figger out how I was going to get this thing done...and gave up doing that on my own.  Gary, the half hamburger sharing guy, came over and drew a diagram.  It involved long cords going through the ceiling and getting splitters and rearranging the plugs and the cords and how everything fit together.

The diagram made it look "do-able"...went from over whelming to simply a challenging project.

Got the proper cords and splitters and Friday after all the clients left, we got to work (have I mentioned that Melanie forgets this is a day job?)

I used a broom handle with the cords taped to the end to thread it through the suspended ceiling.  We used the diagram to figure out what to plug where.  Up the ladder. Down the ladder.  Up the ladder.  Down the ladder.  Repeat.


Then I realized I had two fifty food cords that were where they were supposed to be through the ceiling, and the one end, they both looked the same...and I hadn't labelled them, so I didn't know which was which.  And I taped them together, so pulling on one on one end to see which one jerked on the other end wasn't going to work.

Oops.

Then...we turned it on...and it didn't work.  Sigh.  Switched those two 50 foot cords that I didn't know "which was which" around.  Still didn't work. 

Three long phone calls with my new systems manager...and he and I figured it out.  It worked!!

Went home at 9:30 that night...worked late, but felt good.  Had something concrete to show for that day...challenged myself with something I didn't know how to do...got some help, and allowed myself extra time to try and retry.  Success feels good...even if it just moving a printer over 15 feet.  Doesn't look like a big deal...but I know what a success it was for us!

So...what happens when you put a cold mama and a hot junior tribe member in a Honda?

Nope, this is not the beginning of some corny joke.

It's life in my household.  A coupla times in the last coupla weeks, I found myself in a situation where I am running around doing errands, in and out of the car in the fresh (read: COLD) spring air.  All that in and out when it is snowing and raining and blowing crisp (read: freezing) air about means that I get chilled (read: frozen!)

And then I pick up a junior tribe member (JTM), fresh from running around in a gym for 2 hours. He’s roasting…radiating heat (read: not-fresh-sneaker smell). The underside of his hair is damp, his face is flushed, and he’s warm…really warm…uncomfortably so, really.

Picture the two of us in the same vehicle, inches away from the other. I’m driving, I’ve been in the vehicle, and I’ve already adjusted the air temperature on the drive over…fairly warm and moderate rate of fan. It’s got the potential to get me comfortably, and likely thaw my toes…with time.

We haven’t got time. JTM feels the car heat amping up his own already steaming body. So…as we talk about the gym and the errands, without saying anything, he opens his window a few inches…letting the fresh (read: cold) air wash over his glowing brow, beginning to cool him.

This cold air blasts not just the over-heated (him) but the underheated (me). It gets colder…we’re still talking about the latest antics of the athletes during the drills and enjoying the day…and my hand quite naturally closes in on the dial to turn up the heat and the fan rate to warm the air.

The car does not have dual side controls…what the air temperature is on the driver’s side is also the air blowing through the vents on the passenger side. What happens…you guessed it…the window opens further...just a few more inches.

Within minutes, without any discussion, there has been a silent, elaborate temperature dance…with the end result being that the car is blasting hot air at full blast while simultaneously being wind whipped with frigid air through the passenger side window which is now completely open.

Sorta hilarious once we noticed…but not comfortable for either of us. Each one compensating for the adjustments of the other, with the internal weather conditions getting gradually more and more extreme…and while each of us was adjusting in an attempt to improve conditions…let’s just say…well…our efforts were individually and collectively unsuccessful.

Counterbalancing another’s actions by equal and opposite reactions is a solution of sorts…but it is an awkward and difficult-to-sustain strategy. Rather like two people standing precariously in a canoe…when one leans one way, the other leans in the opposite direction and the other responds…until both are barely hanging on. The canoe stays balanced…but at a huge price.

• Like parents…when A is so lenient to the child, B feels the need to be stricter, and so A becomes more lenient to compensate, and so B reacts with further rigidity…and so on, and so on.

• Like partners….A feels the other is passive and so yells at other with a bit of an edge to “poke” B to respond. B can sense the escalation, and doesn’t like where this is going, so takes a deep breath, and further retreats to avoid a blowout. A sees the withdrawal and so feels even more responsible for making something happen, and so goes after B with a stronger reaction. B senses further escalation and so…well, you know the drill by now.

So…in the middle of this silent crazy dance JTM and I were having, we suddenly looked at each other and laughed. I made the first move…and told him I’d turn the heat down, if he would roll up the window. I knew it wasn’t going to be as warm as I wanted it, and I think he knew it wasn’t going to be as cold (read: freezing) as he wanted it, but we both knew that if we tolerated something somewhere in the middle, we’d both enjoy the ride a whole lot more than these swirling waves of hot and freezing gales that had been blowing simultaneously around the vehicle. It may not have been my perfect temperature, but I had a satisfaction in knowing that some of my discomfort contributed to his ability to tolerate the ride better.

Look for the patterns in your relationships…notice what the other does and how you might balance that off…and then how the other

Parenting demands more love, more patience, more endurance that I would have thought possible.  Mothering involves sleepless nights and cleaning up puke, restlessly trying to break a little one's fever, talking to a teacher that has hurt a little one, phoning a doctor's office to advocate for month's sooner appointment even after they said it was impossible...countless challenging tasks.  Ones I wasn't sure I could measure up to...except when it involved a member of my tribe, suddenly it stopped being "if" I could do it, and only became a "how" I would do it.

Parenting has changed me.  The junior members of my tribe have taught me to be thankful for holes in the wall, have reminded me of simple pleasures like a freezee on a hot summer day, challenge me to slow down to enjoy the pictures of a book, and had me ponder answers to questions I never even thought to ask. My tribe has shown me love when I don't deserve it, and have extended grace when I have blown it...and I have blown it...big time.  They forgive me and each other ways that remind me to forgive others...and myself.

In the process of raising my children, I myself have grown up and met challenges, pondered and worked through questions, matured and persevered.

I think differently because of their child like wisdom.

I see beauty in the world where I didn't see it before.

I have a greater sense of what is important and what can slide because ultimately, in the big picture, it really doesn't matter.

I'm a better mother than I was than when I began because of how my children have raised me. 

I have watched my children experience some of the challenges I remember facing when I was their age...and with different characters and resources, it has been different for them.  There's something hugely redemptive about that...and it changes my perception of the world in good ways.


In anticipation of Mothering Day, I was thinking these sorts of things, and came across these thoughts from a writer, Ann Voskamp, who speaks the same ideas...only much more effectively...

The son births first and he grows, the woman still an infant mother.

And all the raising of the boy, this is her long labor, and she has to remember to breathe.

And it’s only after a whole score of years that she delivers into true motherhood, when her son leans down and kisses her forehead gentle. This is her full-term day. She only wishes it came sooner, at the beginning, when he first came.

It takes all the years of making a boy into a man —  to teach a woman how to be a mother.

Do you know how wild this makes me?

It is hard and I have cried hard. And how I’d give anything for the woman I am now to be the girl who ran her trembling finger along that whorl of you. To birth mother-wisdom is a twenty-year gestation, and it’s the child who patiently raises the girl into a real woman and why is life always lived best backwards?

On Mothering Day, for those of you blessed to be moms...think on how your little, and maybe not so little ones, have, just by their living and breathing, their giggles and messes, their farts and fancies, their questions and curiosities have inspired growth in you.

I remember being on the threshold of graduation from university.  While my fellow students and I knew we were fortunate to have the opportunity to attend university, many of us were weary from living on a student budget.  We sat around dreaming about the day was going to be like when we received our first "real" paycheck from working at the career we for which we had studied so hard. In our minds, the first paycheck would mean we had “arrived”. We dreamt about what we would do with that first paycheck. One person…new sweatsocks with no holes…wouldn’t have to wear 2 pairs for one to cover up the holes of the other. Another: a huge block of cheese that she could nibble on every day…a luxury that wasn’t in the student budget. Me: a pair of jeans that fit the best, not the ones that were prudent because of the sale price. It just seemed like life would be SO well…different, once we were working, and didn’t have to save for textbooks, study each evening, and could dream about purchasing things that were only fantasies for a student. It would be a sort of utopia, we felt.

We graduated. We got jobs. We could buy stuff we couldn’t before. And life went on. It was somewhat different…but I was still me, my life was still my life, and I didn’t arrive at some level of instant happiness. The “stuff” and the release of the financial pressure didn’t transform my existence like I naively imagined it would (course I was a lot younger and a lot more naïve back then…so cut me some slack on this, please)

So, when I saw Tom Shadyac in an interview recently, and he talked about the significance of walking into a Los Angeles mansion that he had purchased as a hugely successful movie director that was on top of the director’s heap (having done comedies like Liar, Liar; Bruce Almighty)…and realizing that it didn’t make him happier, and that it didn’t lead to the feeling of utopia that he had been led to believe would happen….well…it resonated with me. He now lives in a mobile home…with neighbors close by, living in community.

I haven’t seen the movie he wrote out of the spiritual journey he has been on and the lessons he has learned and wants to pass on…but I want to. 

What he discovered revolves around three key concepts that are explored in I Am:

1. It is scientifically proven that the entire human race is connected.
2. It is human nature to be cooperative rather than competitive.
3. If you don't do what your heart wants you to do and follow your passion, it will destroy you.

This video acknowledges the importance of people connecting to each other…how vital and life giving that is. Connecting with people gives life…stuff doesn’t. Being in relationships that are cooperative and collaborative that give you the feeling that you are involved in something bigger than you are, is “wow”…stuff doesn’t give that feeling.

We are more interconnected with each other at a fundamental level than people realize or previously thought

The truth of who we are is that who we are is because of who we belong

Bishop Desmond Tutu

 

The science shows us that we are all connected…deep connections at a deep level…this is the most profound discovery….we are born to be our brother’s keeper…this is the emerging story…we are far grander than what we’ve been told.

I Am movie trailer

The movie looks at how science is proving how connected we all are…how we are hardwired to cooperate with each other because of intimate, close, vital, life giving connections. The trailer looks interesting. If anybody has seen it, let us know in an comment!