A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

We are often thinking, for it is rare that we allow the mind to become silent. But, it is in the spaces in between our thoughts that seem to elude us. When our systems are in need of that grace, that time of “nothingness,” we just forget, or ignore, the need to allow for its arrival. And when we are so focused on doing and being present in the material world, we forget that the silence even exists.

Our attachment to our thoughts, our mind’s constant chatter, doesn’t allow us to sit in silence, to hear the part of us that knows what is in our highest interest. In contrast, when we are focused on that which serves our highest good, our highest intentions for ourselves, the presence of that silence is irrefutable. It is that internal voice that speaks to us of being present, calm, and still. It is that internal knowing that appears when we quiet the mind. Or, if the mind is not quiet, that we are able to identify underneath all of the noise.

The Soundtrack

Unfortunately, our thoughts are the very notes that create our internal noise. Our thoughts, depending on the day, become the “soundtrack” by which we chose to live the day, even our lives. We give our thoughts power. We buy into the idea that chaotic “songs,” in our heads are real. In fact, they are not. Just because we think it, does not make it real. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

I have, until now, chosen not to write about peoples’ present fears sounding money. I am making a conscious decision not to hook into the energy of fear surrounding it. Yet, over and over, ironically, it keeps coming up like a bad penny. Certainly, it isn’t the first time that I have had so many people processing their anxiety about money and all that it represents. But the resounding atmosphere of uncertainty is triggering in my clients, and maybe you, more than fears of money. The insecurity is triggering their older fears about survival. And exploring those childhood fears is the key to resolving it.

If we were to remember our first days in this world, the simplicity of it would amaze us. We see it in the children we raise, but we often forget that we, too, were once those little ones. We were once those tiny balls of energy, eager to make their presence known, to leap into their place in next generation.

As children our primary function in the world is to explore it, all the while anticipating that our loved ones, our parents, will provide us with food, clothing, shelter, and protection from harm. And while it may seem simple, for many, that assurance, that security never came. For many, and perhaps even you, childhood meant being unable to depend on others to give them a sense of safety. Fear. Pain. Lack. Abuse. Dread. Sadness. Worry. The concept of being safe, and one’s basic needs being met, was inconceivable. At the same time, looking back, we often forget that it was reasonable to ask our parents to ensure our survival. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

I am writing this article as the plane I’m on rises to join a sky that clamors to support and embrace it. And as I struggle to wrestle my unruly, petulant judgments about air travel, I find myself reflecting on the actual journey that I have taken. Not a vacation, but my return to from where I lived most of my years as a young adult. I had returned to Virginia to help my mother, and all of her memories packed in unassuming boxes, as they travel to their new home in Arizona.

The process of moving my mother, and our history in Virginia also comes on the heels of a dear friend’s request to write a letter for his parents as part of a scrapbook in celebration of their anniversary. And as both of these experiences ask for my reflection upon “the past,” I find that they also make me consider the idea of “attachment” and “impermanence.” Maybe you can relate.

The classic saying about change is that change is the only thing that is truly predictable; nevertheless, and as my trip to Virginia serves to remind me, no matter what one is attached to, it is not “permanent.” Thought it may be uncomfortable, and illicit strong reactions as you consider it, impermanence is what is permanent. Everything, and anything in life, is temporary, even this very moment. For while we may seek to get attached to things, people, events, substances, emotions, money, objects, beliefs, perceptions of others, even memories of the past, and ourselves, it is predictable that things do end. We just do all that we can to avoid it. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

For as long as I could remember, they were my siblings. Faithful. Loving. Supportive. With me when I played, laughed, and cried, they were beside me all of the time. Showing me unconditional love and compassion, the dogs I cherished were a part of my family, just as I was a part of theirs. I even tried to blame them for things at times. “But, it wasn’t me, Mum, it was the dog.” Of course, that never worked. It still doesn’t.

Now, I am sure that a pet being a “family member” is not an unusual concept for many of you who would read this. In fact, I would imagine that, right now, you could even bring up an image of your first pet, and sense some kind of emotional, physical, or spiritual reaction. And, perhaps like me, you have known the powerful connection between your pet, and the love that they give you in return.

Perhaps you would wonder why I would chose to write about the power of the relationship between dogs and me, or your animals and you. But, I did so, not only because I love my “fur-kids,” but also because many of my clients have pets and consider them to be some of their best supports, their family. And let’s face it, for many, it may be all the family they have.

Maybe they were there when you learned to love, or had to bear the pain of losing it. Perhaps they sat by you as you experienced joy, happiness, and peace. But, no matter what your encounters with your animals, you know that, already, this article connects to your understanding of their love for you.
Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Shattering Our Illusions

Kurt Vonnegut, in The Cat’s Cradle, created the concept of the “Karass,” a group of people with a connection, albeit often unknowingly, sharing a mutual spiritual goal. In the spirit of what often appears as “coincidence” people find they run into these individuals again and again. Maybe seeing them often, or even occasionally, they “pop up” in your life, across various points of your life. While you may not even “know them” they still feel familiar because you often share the same spaces or experiences. They, as you are, share a common spiritual path, even if you don’t know it or them.

The Healing Wave

Similarly, as if in some pre-scripted movie, life seems to send clients my away in what I call “healing waves.” I coined this term to explain the pattern that unfolds when, energetically, the same kinds of clients walk through my door, and in the same span of time. To me, it is as if universe sends them to “do their work” in energetic groups. And, as in Vonnegut’s “Karass,” these people are joined, energetically and spiritually, arriving all to focus on the same issue, concept, or need. While their histories, situations, and goals may be different, they speak of the exact same concepts in session, as the ones prior. The most recent “energy wave” wanted my greater attention, wanted me to do more with it. And so, this article came about.

Without fail, I found that a recent healing wave came of clients struggling with pain from a secondary level of loss, the loss of illusion. Session after session they, perhaps like you have, grieved the loss of the “idea of” something. The second layer of grief that comes when one has to mourn not only the original loss, such as a relationship, life change, or death, but also the “illusion” of what things “could have been like,” as opposed to how the situations, events, or others “really are.”

Faith, Hope, and Illusion

I believe that our attachment to the “idea of” something comes from our confusing two separate concepts, faith and hope. As a result of our confusing these ideas, we then become hijacked by illusion, a fantasy of how things are, or should be. In other words, by confusing faith and hope, we become attached to an illusion created in our minds. We then experience great pain when that ensuing illusion, doesn’t match the true reality. We then grief the loss of the illusion itself. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

As a young child growing up in the hills of North Wales, Great Britain, my imagination assured me that the small, brown, dark circles dotted across the fields were truly doorways into other worlds. Skipping in circles, dancing to the harmony of the breeze caressing the trees, I was certain that, at any minute, I would be whisked away into the worlds in between this one, and the next. And, in between those worlds, I could find mystery and magic.

I held onto my belief in the world of fairies until I was about seven-years-old. My neighbor, innocently enough, burst my bubble of fantasy when he innocently told me that fairies weren’t real. Fairy rings didn’t exist. Though the Celtic folklore surrounding the land of fairies was generations old, the dark rings were, in fact, a unique moss that grew in circles amongst the green hills of Wales. I was crushed. The land in between worlds, the place that I believed I could travel to, became a cherished reminiscence. I grew up, and thought my imagination would forget about it. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Within each of us survive volumes of stories, an ever-expansive library of sorts that holds the perceptions about people, events, and experiences in our lives. Each story ends and dove tails into the others, weaving a tapestry of tales that the unconscious reads often, and we come to believe as truth. Right now, your ego is the storyteller, a teller of tales, albeit one who is reluctant to rewrite them.

All of our perceptions about our internal and external worlds unfold from the stories that the ego holds on to as truth. Throughout our lives, the ego has collected volumes and volumes of narratives, “stories” about you, others, and the world around it. You can bet that no matter how the story is “written” the larger message from the ego is that you are “separate” from other people, not connected, and are alone in your feelings and experiences. You see, the ego only wants us to access stories that perpetuate the idea that we are separate from the world and ironically, separate from our true selves.

The fact is that we all do this. The illusion of our separateness appears in our forgetting that others often share the same “stories” as we do. The ego’s greatest stories are those that perpetuate the idea we are not like our friends, co-workers, therapists, friends, loved ones. They just could not have had similar thoughts and fears as we do. Certainly, the way that those stories are presented, or the circumstances, may be different, but we all are human. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” – Alan Alda

I got on the plane, bags in tow. Convinced that I needed everything I had packed, my attire reflected the “business like” image I had to reflect in my interview the next day. I was flying back to the United Kingdom, for a second interview. Driven a strong desire get back “home” and to pursue a job that seemed made for me; I just knew that it was the right path to take.

As expected, I landed in Wales and immediately felt the sense of familiarity, comfort, and peace that the countryside always offered me. Without my conscious control, my soul seemed to jump up and down with glee at its return to the place of my birth. The business suit I wore to the interview reflecting my desire for the job, and underneath it, nostalgia for the country I left as a child. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C.S. Lewis

After my childhood, then teenage years, my musings and passion for creative writing “grew up,” succumbing to the norms that college and graduate school required. My journals, having unceremoniously insisted that they be my comfort and companion through every experience, were buried under my “adult” responsibilities.

I meant to write and I was inspired to. Nevertheless, I rarely did. My muses stood by, impatiently, in the unemployment line, eagerly waiting for the next job. Mostly, they waited for me to find the “right” time to pit pen to paper. Granted, words would often materialize, unexpectedly, as if apparitions out of thin air. Joyous and full of energy, they eagerly sprung into step, as if dancing around a maypole, circling me in celebration of me joining them. But, there were many times that I consciously ignored them. At least they trusted that I would return to play with them. I did, albeit twelve years later.

As we “grow up” the playful and creative activities we once loved are often the first to be tossed overboard if the ship goes down. Yet, is in the act of playing that you can find what your spirit hungers for. The most playful, creative, inspiring and “childish” activities can offer a life preserver, to carry us from all of those “have to’s.” They ask that we remember what it feels like to have fun and color outside the lines of expectation and judgment.

Writing is good for me; it feeds me. At the same time, perhaps like you, there are so many other things to juggle. This phone call. That person. That deadline. This meeting. You name it; there is always “something” that has to be done. Nevertheless, we should also allow ourselves to do what is playful and nurturing; we need it to find balance in our lives. At the same time, some activities are just good for us, period. Kind of like broccoli, you know? You don’t ask “why,” you just know it is.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“You can outdistance that which is running after you, but you cannot outdistance that which is running inside you.” -African Proverb

My soul thirsted for down time, as if it was parched for the very fundamental nature of itself. Two weeks off from all that was my daily life and practice. Read. Write. Rest. Heal. Yet, as my soul and body thirsted for it, my ego struggled with the decision. My mind knew that I needed the time away to recover from a medical procedure. Not a big deal; it knew all of the valid reasons for it. I couldn’t imagine that my ego would argue with me. But, it did. And it yelled loudly.

The Hurricane

When is the last time that you focused on really, truly, not “doing” anything? My ego wanted me to stay busy, do usual activities, drive forward, and, ultimately, keep things the same. It was becoming agitated by the very stillness that the absence of those activities would create. Yet, my soul knew that the calmness was exactly what was necessary. And, by wanting to keep things the same, my ego wanted to distract me from whatever it was that I could not outdistance. Oscar Wilde once said, “Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.” For the first few days of my down time, I agreed with him. Read the rest of this entry