Two tiny plants sprout out of rich soil.The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
The habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings. -The Buddha

In the garden of our minds, weeds are the habitual patterns we perpetuate unintentionally, which choke out the new ways we are trying to cultivate. It is the nature of weeds to try to take over, as it is the nature of old ingrained patterns to rise up again and again. So we need to pay attention, and take care of the weedy stuff as soon as we can, to make space for the new.

Sometimes the space created by taking out weeds can feel scary. That’s okay, it is a good time to kick back and take a few deep breaths and a stroll around the garden to see what else is happening. What are those glorious bright flowers doing over there? Oh, those are bulbs you planted last fall, with faith and confidence (okay, maybe not so much confidence, but you did plant them). Now they are doing their thing. They are springing forth because when you planted them you ensured successful conditions, as best you could—considering timing, placement, and nourishment. Then you trusted the nature of the work you did and the nature of what you set in the ground, and voila—now you have daffodils.

Sometimes it takes a season or two for the blossoming of our intention to become apparent. It may take years, even decades, for that clump of well-placed daffodils to become a field and overtake the weeds by themselves. But it will happen. That is the nature of well-placed, intentional action and mindfulness.

Training the mind is like gardening. We select what to cultivate and set about creating the ideal causes and conditions for it to flourish. What we may not realize is that what grows is not only what we place in the ground of our minds, but the attitude with which we tend it. Gardening means attending to the daily changes that occur in our plot of land; in this case, what happens to our minds each day. If the weeds get high, there is no need for judgment, there is need for weeding.

When we notice old negative habits creeping in—the weeds of the mind, as it were—it does not serve to attack them. They were planted there early on, for good reason, so we can simply acknowledge their presence, accept that they will invariably arise as remnants of a former crop, and remove them with respect. Any time we till the soil of our minds to plant something new, we expose the seeds of old thoughts and behaviors to fresh light and nourishment. If we do not want to encourage the rampant growth of old habits, we have to pay attention (oh, how they spring up in a moment!).

But to reject them is pointless, and to approach them aggressively merely scatters the seeds of aggression and negativity. We can plant the seeds of patience, kind-hearted attention, intention, compassion, and wellbeing, even as we remove the unwanted habits from the ground of our minds. We can appreciate that these “weeds” had their place in our lives, that they kept us alive until we became able to choose something more useful.

Anything we are trying to change, can only be changed with kindness and awareness; self-hatred and rejection only recreate the conditions of fear that gave rise to the old habit in the first place.

Say you bite your fingernails from anxiety, a habit you learned for self-soothing as a child. No amount of scolding from a parent, no amount of bitter apple, no rejection of the habit ever freed you from it. The underlying anxiety was never addressed, and in fact was exacerbated through these tactics. What frees us from nail-biting, and anything else we developed to comfort ourselves in painful times (which is every habit we have), is both the antidote to the habit and the ache beneath the habit—love. Loving ourselves and our habits, accepting their presence in our lives, is the path through the habit to a new and more useful way of being.

As we learn to gently speak our truths, as we stand up for ourselves, as we attend to the present moment’s pain, we can move from suffering to health. We decide what to plant now. If you never liked kohlrabi, don’t plant it, but if you always longed for violets, now is your chance. Plant them where and when they are most likely to thrive, tend them by feeding and watering, weed lovingly, and enjoy the natural beauty of your mind.

An angry man leans out of his car window and points his finger at someone.

The first in a series of articles dedicated to understanding, appreciating, and coping with our anger.

“Sticks and Stones.” I am sure most of you have heard this saying and think you know the ending. It is said to go “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” I think our parents taught us this, thinking it would help us ward off teasing by others. Unfortunately, this misguided saying is far from true. You see, in reality, sticks and stones may break my bones but WORDS CAN DO SERIOUS DAMAGE. Broken bones heal and yet harmful words may stick with and haunt us.

Many clients come to me struggling with their anger and just want to “fix it.” They hope a few tools will do the trick. Sometimes, this is all it takes. More often though, it is not that simple. As we delve into a quick history, it becomes clear that their anger has been around for a long time. In fact, it has grown over time. Realistically, we cannot expect life-long patterns to be broken overnight. I firmly believe it is valuable for me to help clients understand where their anger comes from. For most of us, anger is directly related to deep-seeded pain from growing up, and I want to help look at sources of pain throughout our lives.

When clients bring up how:

1) their parents weren’t there for them
2) their parents handled their own anger inappropriately
3) they were never taught or encouraged to communicate their feelings
4) they don’t show sadness and believe tears are a sign of weakness

I know how that translates into unresolved sadness and pain which, if not expressed, tends to come out as to anger.

I tend to hear people say “if I don’t think about it, the thoughts/feelings will go away.” This is not the case. In fact, stuffing our feelings will only last so long. Like a volcano, when we stuff our feelings and hold them down, they will eventually erupt or leak out. Exploding over someone spilling something or cutting in front of you, and then not understanding why you are getting that upset, is a problem. When I hear how angry someone gets over “nothing,” I want to look at where the anger is really coming from.

Our anger does not just appear out of thin air. More often than not, when we focus on how the anger has come to be, I can help clients grasp at least a few deeper issues within their past that may be tied to current anger. Of course, I am always wanting to explore with them how their denial of sadness and pain (to generalize, something that, especially we guys, don’t like to show) may have found a way into anger (a feeling we guys may be more expected and comfortable showing).

Too often, clients believe others are “making” them angry. Thinking about your anger (feelings, thoughts, actions, etc.), this in indeed yours. Own it! No one makes us do anything unless we decide to do it. No one makes me sad, happy, angry or anything. The other person can do something, that I may not like, and then I get to choose how I want to respond. Yes, at times, someone’s behavior will lead me to feeling upset but, again, I decide if this will happen. I am indeed in control. Why give up yours? Own your feelings. This will help you understand how many choices you have and how to next respond (or not).

It is important for me to normalize client’s anger. Typically, when I ask people if anger is bad, the answer I hear is “YES.” No, I say. Anger is a normal feeling. It is just what we do with anger that can be positive or problematic. Be clear on this; we all get angry. We all get happy, sad, anxious, etc. sometimes. Feelings are a normal part of our existence and we need to express them.

Upcoming articles here, will focus on not only how to face our pain and best express it, but also on tools to best cope with painful feelings and the anger we may have inside. To start, though, I want to highlight how imperative it is to learn how to calm both the mind and body. One of the best ways to do this is via a commonly used tool known as deep-breathing. Sounds simple but you would not believe how we may fail to take the necessary full breaths, especially under stress.

Taking a slow, deep breath through your nose, holding it a second or two, and then slowly expelling the air through your mouth should not be just a few second process. When we focus on this and take the time needed, it will be difficult to be angry as it helps stop the racing thoughts that tend to go hand-in-hand with anger. Again, this is not a race. Just the opposite. Calmly breathing helps the body and trains our minds to slow down. Furthermore, we don’t want to wait until we are upset to do this. The more we are calming ourselves during the day, the less likely we are to get hyped up in the first place. Try practicing this a few times daily and get ready for more next month.

A troubled man looks at his therapistTen years into being trained in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), I am still amazed by its ability to transform a life filled with trauma, anxiety, and hypervigilance into one of presence, mindfulness, and relief. Clients and clinicians often find themselves confused about EMDR, and I would like to address what is meant by symptom-based and eight-phased trauma treatment.

Symptom-Based Protocol
EMDR is a treatment modality that is research driven and well known for its ability to reduce symptoms associated with posttraumatic stress (PTSD), and your therapist may recommend it to relieve your symptoms associated with PTSD. EMDR clinicians around the world are finding, in clinical practice, that it is also effective for addressing an even wider range of symptoms, especially those rooted in the events of the past.

With this in mind, EMDR is what you could call a symptom-based protocol. This means that EMDR therapists focus on how your present experience is rooted in old stuff, even things that you think that you are over. We look at how the symptoms you have in the present mimic, or cluster, around those events in that past.

Trauma is tricky and can disguise itself as many things. An EMDR therapist will review your symptoms and review how your current thoughts, emotions, beliefs about yourself, and physical sensations may be related to disturbing life events and traumas from the past. Depending on when your EMDR therapist was trained, he or she may have different ways of asking you to prioritize and list what events are still contributing to your symptoms.

Even though you may not believe that those events from the past are really a big deal, they are still locked in your nervous system in what is termed a state-dependent form. Often, they are not completely processed and healed, like a record stuck in a groove. As time progresses, the record turns; it still plays, but the disturbance repeats itself over an over again, until the scratch is healed.

An Eight-Phased Treatment Model
Often mistakenly viewed as an intervention, EMDR is an inclusive treatment modality, one that includes eight comprehensive treatment phases. Each phase is a unique and necessary part of the approach. It is imperative that your EMDR therapist walk you through each of the eight phases. While they can be circular, and you may go back and forth between them, each phase will help you as you complete the therapy. The eight phases include history taking, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and reevaluation. Unfortunately, EMDR has become known primarily for its desensitization phase, which is what people often confuse as the sole part of the therapy.

With this knowledge, those of you who are seeing an EMDR therapist can inquire where you are in the process, what phase you are in, or how you will prioritize the events from the past to work on them. You can also find out what symptoms you are focusing on and how the past relates to them. I often find that the more my clients know about each phase, the safer they feel and the more they feel they are part of the process.

If you have general questions about EMDR, please post them. Keep in mind that I can’t speak about your clinical work or therapy or provide clinical advice. I will try to cover your questions about the treatment in future blog posts.

empty hands mindfulness not knowingMy previous post discussed connecting with the inner knowledge that we gain through the practice of mindfulness. Besides knowledge, another quality that can be developed through mindfulness practice is not-knowing. I’d like to point out some  benefits of acquiring this quality and approach to life.

There are three kinds of not-knowing:

1. Letting go of what we know.

We tend to categorize our experiences through names, titles, and classifications, which we use to gain control over a situation. This tendency helps to capture a whole range of phenomena in a word or two. If we revisit the Garden of Eden we discussed in the previous post, Adam, in the name of humanity, gave names to all animals and birds. In this way he not only gained some superiority over them, but also a better way to relate to and communicate about them. Instead to describing a yellow-brown animal with a fierce roar, he can just say “lion,” and the image and qualities of a lion will appear. This categorization is useful for communication and understanding, but the price is generalization and reactivity.

When a person experiences anxiety, for instance, just calling the symptoms “anxiety” can bring a range of reactions such as fear, frustration, sadness, self-defeating thoughts, and avoidance. Through mindfulness and a not-knowing approach, the range of phenomena is explored with curiosity and openness: How does this feeling present itself in the body? What are the size, depth, and boundaries of the sensation? Are they changing?  If so, in what way?

In therapy, this genuine exploration serves as a way to bypass identification of clients with their diagnosis—both formal and informal—and come back to experiencing thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they are, without the kind of learned reactivity that, in many instances, spirals the situation down. All emotions can be approached in a fresh mind, allowing discoveries and loosening the grip of concepts.

2. Letting go of what we don’t know.

This type of not-knowing relates to the ability to not plan or predict ahead of time what is going to happen. In many cases, of course, one needs to plan and be ready. When planning becomes rigid and restrictive, however, it is time to practice not-knowing by trusting the process and allowing it to unfold in a creative, fresh, and innovative way. The tendency to want to know what will happen is tempting, but when we are mindful of every moment and allow not-knowing be part of how we live, we can try new things, like starting a business or a new career, embarking on new adventures, and developing meaningful relationships.

In any case, stability is only an illusion. The reality is that we don’t know what will happen next. Not-knowing connects us to things as they are and helps us to be released from the illusion of stability and security. In a way, being aware of the fragility of stability encourages innovation, taking risks, and exploring. This demands courage and strength, both of which are developed, in an ongoing cyclical way, as we allow not-knowing to be present in our life.

I teach an Interpersonal Mindfulness program, founded by Gregory Kramer, PhD, on how to bring mindfulness to speaking, listening, and relationships. One of the program’s guidelines is trust emergence, which encourages participants to dive into the unknown, trust the dialogue to be developed without having an agenda, and allow ourselves to not-know how the conversation will develop and how it will end. Trust emergence encourages new ideas, surprising discoveries, and opens the door to closeness and trust among the people involved in the process.

3. Living with open questions.

Every day, there are many decisions to make and questions to answer, from the most mundane (“What I shall wear today?”) to decisions at work and spiritual inquires about the purpose of life. Usually we are compelled to give answers—and they better be the correct ones. Without taking away the importance of having solutions and knowing the right answers, in many instances there is a value in just being with a question.

This kind of not-knowing calls for patience, humbleness, openness, centering, and inspiration. “Sitting with an open question” is one of my favorite meditations and I offer it to clients when appropriate. Living with an open question gives the freedom to explore, contemplate, and open an inner space that releases from tightness and holding. In a mysterious way, the chance to eventually come to an answer that makes sense and is satisfying increases tremendously.

This last sentence brings us back to the idea of mindfulness as knowing. You can see that those two contradicting statements—mindfulness as knowing, and mindfulness as not-knowing—are basically one. They complement each other and together represent the wholeness and richness of living mindfully.

Journaling is a wonderful way to explore, embrace, and accept your inner world. Colors and pictures can further enhance your understanding of the deep, mysterious internal world.

Many of us use black ink when we are writing in a journal. But colors matter. They reveal so much more about the nonverbal part of us. Whether you chose to write your words with a thick red marker or a light blue pencil, it will highlight the message you are receiving from your soul and vice versa.

Keep markers, coloring pencils, crayons, or paint and several blank sheets of paper by you as you start journaling. Using a large sheet of paper (11” x 17”) is helpful, as it reminds you that your feelings have space to breathe, and the paper acts as a mirror for your soul.

Emotions can sometimes be associated with a color. For example, blue may mean sadness or peace, green envy, yellow happiness, and red anger or rage. But what matters most is what the color means to you. For instance, if you have experienced loss in your life and you remember wearing a green sweater when you were going through that difficult time, then you may associate that color with loss.

In short, the most important part of this activity is being true to yourself and your intuition.

Now that you know the emotion, it’s easier to graduate to imagery. Imagery grounds you and clarifies any hidden meanings or associations with the feelings. So, let’ say that while you are working on this activity, an image pops up in your head. Don’t delay or second-guess. Just draw what feels natural to you. You don’t have to be an artist, your focus is not on the art. The focus is the writing. The art is there to complement your writing.

Do not allow your mind to interpret the picture. Observe the paper and, if you allow your mind to be still, the meaning will become clear to you.

I pray that this technique enhances your journaling experience.

GoodTherapy | Individual Versus Couple Therapy: What Format Is Best for Marital ProblemsThe Textbook of Family and Couples Therapy describes the three “most common types of couples therapy”:

  1. Individual therapy;
  2. Conjoint couples therapy; and
  3. Combined couples therapy

In the first, a member of a couple is treated by an individual therapist, which, the textbook notes, is suitable especially for instances in which one spouse refuses to join marital therapy but a “poor choice, however, in the presence of marital disturbance and severe psychopathology…” Individual therapy for a marital problem does not give the therapist an adequately full picture of the marital interactions, nor adequate leverage to help both participants to symmetrically address their contributions to the problem. In general, because problems tend to be interactive, for one partner to make lasting changes for the better, both parties need to make changes.

In the second, “conjoint couples therapy,” both spouses are treated at the same time by a single therapist or team of co-therapists. Again, this form of treatment does not enable the therapist to see and therefore accurately diagnose the couple’s interactive patterns. Anyone can look good in individual treatment. Whole additional aspects of couples’ functioning appear once they are interacting with their partners around emotionally sensitive issues, and these are generally the issues that couples need help addressing.

[fat_widget_relationships_left]The third structure for couple treatment, “combined couples therapy,” refers to the combination of conjoint sessions that both partners attend together with ongoing or occasional individual therapy sessions for one or both spouses. That is, the therapist interweaves individual and couple sessions in a design that most meets the needs of this specific couple. “The combined treatment,” the textbook explains, “has the advantage of allowing the use of fantasies in individual sessions while providing easy access to transactional and communicational patterns” in joint sessions. Conflict resolution treatment generally employs the third of these “most common types of couples therapy.”

As described more fully in a recent article in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy currently available on the website of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, such combined treatment offers important benefits:

One professional is in a better position to recognize, define, and point out [and thereby ameliorate] the intrapsychic and interpersonal dimensions of the symptom-problem, to be aware of the two-way street effects of one process on the other, to know areas in either process that are being avoided and impulses that are being “acted out” rather than confronted. He [or she] is able to appreciate the subtleties of the resistances and transferences and to form an integrated concept of where the individual client and the marriage is and what the client and marriage is doing in each phase of help even though each process may be conducted according to the techniques of that particular modality…

Conversely, when a person is in individual therapy with one professional and in marriage counseling with another, the two processes may go off in opposite directions. Also, resistances may go unnoticed, the transferences may become more split or diluted, and the continuity of the person’s emotional flow and life processes may become more compartmentalized.

For these reasons, conflict resolution treatment recommends the practice of asking people being treated to take a break from any prior individual therapists if they are going to enter into treatment with a conflict resolution therapist. At the same time, the therapist explains that s/he will be available at any time for either spouse to schedule individual sessions as they feel the need. I explain that in general if I am seeing one spouse individually, I like to keep things symmetrical and work also with the other; and at the same time if this is not possible for financial or other reasons, I can be flexible. I add finally that the individual sessions may be occasional, suggested by either one of the spouses or by me, and/or may be part of an ongoing weekly pattern of treatment. For people dealing with specific difficulties—for instance, when one spouse has a borderline personality pattern or is dealing with chronic depression—as many as three sessions a week, with one couple session and one individual session for each spouse, can be ideal, finances and time permitting.

Multiple research studies have demonstrated that individual therapy for a spouse in a distressed marriage may make a couple’s conflict worse, making divorce more likely. These concerns, and their import for practice, are explained in a chapter of the 2008 Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, as follows:

“Because we take a systems perspective and view the couple as the client, we have found that individual therapy may interfere with our couple work. We also tell clients that research indicates that the chance of divorce is greater if clients engage in individual therapy rather than couple therapy (Bray & Jouriles 1995). Therefore, we request that partners stop individual therapy during our couple treatment. There is a greater chance of dysfunctional triangulating when another therapist is involved” (p. 504).

Conflict resolution treatment recommends this same policy, that is, flexible inclusion of individual and couple sessions within an overall couple treatment format with one therapist handling all the treatment components. The one exception to the one therapist rule for couples is for treatment of problems that lie outside the therapist’s areas of competence. Referral for additional specialized treatments such as neuropsychological exams, medication treatment, or addiction cessation would always be appropriate, provided the couple therapist and the additional treatment professional agree on a clear division of labor between the therapists.

What is essential however with a protocol that includes both individual and couple treatment formats is explicit confidentiality procedures. Conflict resolution therapists are encouraged to explain at the outset of treatment their policies with regard to confidentiality. Will information disclosed in one spouse’s individual session become the property of the couple? If so, then is it appropriate for the therapist to share individuals’ communications to the therapist with the other spouse? I believe not. Information shared by the couple in the presence of the couple of course is bounded by confidentiality vis-a-vis anyone other than the couple. Information shared with the therapist by one spouse must remain similarly bound by confidentiality to remain with the therapist.

With these principles, one spouse who may be having an affair is able to work on how to disentangle from the affair. The individual sessions enable the straying spouse to utilize the therapist’s in order to extricate from what can be a difficult situation. This option increases the likelihood of a positive marital outcome.

At the same time, if one spouse is having an affair, the therapist has a responsibility to clarify when the affair is revealed that affairs are a violation of the marriage contract. It is ethically important for a therapist to clarify to an unfaithful spouse that continuing to conduct therapy with a secret partner on the side is not an ethical endeavor or an option. However a therapist can help a partner who is engaged in an affair to settle their internal conflict, that is, to choose either to stay in the marriage or to leave it for the new partner.

I have found that this dilemma of having to hold confidential information with regards to an affair is a situation that does occur, but rarely. In most instances, holding individual spouses’ confidential information in confidence is relatively easy and greatly benefits both spouses. They can then enjoy the gains of both individual and couple treatment, with both aspects of this integrated treatment enhancing each other.

A statue of a man and a woman are in an affectionate pose.Dramatic activities are powerful tools when used in a family therapy setting. One such tool is called psychodrama. An example of one type of psychodrama is family sculpting. The first step involves determining who has a sense of readiness to do their family sculpting at this time. I generally ask this question to the group and then wait to see who is interested in doing work. If more than one person is interested, I encourage each person to talk about how important it is for them to do work now, versus considering a later date. Whoever has the most pressing need is then afforded the opportunity to do the sculpting.

The individual is then asked to intuitively pick an event or an occasion from their childhood to present to the group. I ask them arbitrarily to pick an event or circumstance from when they were five years old. Later in the sculpting they are asked to pick additional events from age 10 and then eventually age 15. I will say more about this later. The person going through the sculpting is asked to choose a support person to be with them throughout the psychodrama. The person chooses someone he/she feels a connection with and feels safe around. As the individual recalls the setting, and whatever happened, he/she is asked to talk about the other people involved. As the individual introduces the people involved in the original setting, he/she is asked to choose somebody to play the part(s) of those initially involved.

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This is typically the stage of the sculpting where the individual really starts to sense the realness of what is about to happen. They begin to develop a sense of who might trigger the original mannerisms or energy that people possessed in the original setting. Paying attention to who the person chooses for each role can also reveal projections that the individual may have toward other group members. That is one of the reasons it becomes very important to de-role at the end of the sculpting. Once all of the participants are chosen, the individual then places them in the room according to where they would have been in the original setting and in relationship to where the individual him/herself was in the original scene.

The person then provides information about each individual, so that the people playing the roles will have a sense of what their character might say and how they might act. They can ask questions until they feel a degree of comfort with the role. This is typically a place in the activity where I assure the participants that I have a sense of their role and I will help them if they get stuck. I also make it clear that, if what they are saying does not seem accurate or helpful, I will intervene and provide direction.

While overseeing the group I remain available to be there for emotional support for the person being sculpted. The co-therapist may be asked to play a role. If he/she is not in a role then he/she can help provide information or direction to the participants. This person also plays the important role of tracking the group and must pay close attention to anyone who gets triggered into some of their own trauma as a result of the intensity and/or realness of the psychodrama.

The individual may choose someone to play his/her part in the drama or may play the role him/herself. This is determined through discussion between the individual and the group leaders. The main criteria for the person being involved as him/herself, is generally whether he/she feels prepared to get emotionally connected with the original pain or not. If he or she is not sure of the degree of readiness, it is better to move in the direction of not having a role for him/herself.

Someone experiencing psychodrama for the first time generally does better being less connected emotionally through having someone else play their role. This also allows him/her to see how impacted he/she was by the traumatic event, from the outside. This potentially provides an opportunity to be there for his or her own hurt parts that are revealed through the sculpting process. By getting to see their internalized process be externalized, the person, in some cases, makes their first connection with these hurt part(s), and thus begins to learn to acknowledge and be there emotionally for these parts of him/herself.

Person sitting by window looking up meditating“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” —Buddhist proverb

One morning when I was trying to leave a meditation group, I became agitated because others were “making me late” for another meditation group. I moved swiftly from blaming others to feeling shame at my imagined late entrance and fearing that I wouldn’t be able to find a place to sit. These worries, coupled with my anxiety about pain in my back and whether I could even sit, led to a meltdown.

I rapidly convinced myself that everyone (yes, everyone) would stare at me and shun me forever (yes, forever). I disconnected from the facts. I forgot that these people were my sangha—my community of Buddhist practitioners—and are committed to compassion for all beings (yes, even for me). They weren’t there to judge me. Like me, they were there to hear our teachers. But who needs facts in the middle of a meltdown? I found myself weeping as I drove, conjuring all kinds of judgment about what a bad person I was for falling apart. “And you call yourself a meditator! Tsk, tsk!” said the voice in my mind.

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As I drove along in misery, I somehow remembered I could drop all of these stories. Suddenly the thought arose, clear as a bell: “I am just crying.” That was the simple truth of the situation, the only thing that was actually happening. My relief was immediate and complete. By the time I arrived, I had settled. I blew my nose and entered the hall as the lamas were beginning their talk. I found a seat easily and was greeted warmly by friends sitting nearby.

As usual, all my suffering was for nothing. If more pain had come my way in that moment, fretting about it wouldn’t help. Fretting only leads to further disconnect from my heart and my strength. If no pain had come my way, then fretting would only waste precious time and energy. As Buddhists say, “If you can do something about it, no need to worry. If you can’t do anything about it, no need to worry.”

Creating Suffering

We all experience pain in our lives. Unfortunately, our attempts to manage pain often turn it into suffering instead of providing relief.

Some common ways we create suffering include:

Noticing Pain

Both physical and emotional pain can be effectively managed when we look directly at what is actually happening. We examine it, but we don’t reject it, cling to it, ignore it, or elaborate it. This perspective allows us to notice the true nature of pain: transitory, mutable, and impermanent. It is not solid and ceaseless, It has no story—despite our attempts to give it one. It appears and then dissolves over time.

We all experience pain in our lives. Unfortunately, our attempts to manage pain often turn it into suffering instead of relief.

It takes an open mind to perceive our situation clearly and accurately. It takes patience to sit and observe without altering, judging, or making assumptions. It can help to remember that we are never alone. Any pain or suffering we feel has also been felt by others. There is no one whose life is free from pain, who does not wish to be free of suffering, and who does not deserve compassion. We are all in this together.

Practice sitting quietly a few minutes each day without letting your thoughts or feelings run things. Use this time to wish for all beings—including ourselves and the people we find difficult—to be free from suffering. Practice mindfulness. This can help us learn to recognize which of our stories are creating suffering. When we recognize this, we may become more willing to drop them on the spot.

When we simply rest our minds on pain without aiming to alter our experience, we might notice that the pain changes. This can bring great comfort and reassurance. Pain is no more permanent than anything else. Headaches are not solid and unchanging. Neither are depression and fear. Through this practice we can gain confidence in our ability to work with whatever arises in the moment. We don’t need to cover the world with leather to protect our feet. We can simply wear shoes.

One thing is certain: more pain will come our way in this life. It is inevitable. But it is possible to choose whether we will turn it into suffering or simply leave it to arise and dissolve on its own. That is always an option.

The human shadow carries with it the potential for global annihilation and the potential to regenerate and evolve our species. At the crossroads, which road shall we choose?

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference ~ Robert Frost

Down the path less traveled you meet the mysterious, unfamiliar, and at times horrifying parts of yourself. Long ago, for good reasons, you rejected and exiled specific behaviors, emotions, beliefs, memories, and capabilities. For example: If you were raised in a home where being the Good Child, the Pleaser was rewarded, and being more Selfish or Outspoken was punished, you may have determined that being the Pleaser was the wiser path. The Pleaser then became one of your many Primary Selves. (more…)

A woman writes in a cafe.I enjoy writing to myself. Sound strange? I initially chose not to share this information with anyone else because I thought people would be confused by this statement. However, writing to myself is helpful to work, relationships, and self-evolvement. I hope this technique is beneficial to you as well.

Writing to myself is like having a conversation with my true self. Intimately revealing and increasing present moment awareness, it is just as helpful as meditation, visualization, or yoga in relieving stress. Writing to oneself can also help one work through depression or deepening intimacy with a partner.

So, how can you learn to write to yourself?

All you need is fifteen minutes a day, a pen, pencil, or a crayon (whichever works best for you), and an intention to be honest, true, and nonjudgmental to the writing that emerges from within. This method of journal therapy is most beneficial when you are feeling overwhelmed and/or when you are making an important decision. Begin by gathering a pen and paper to have on hand; try opening a window to let in fresh air; make sure you feel calm and ready as you start this activity.

Evaluate your goals, which may include:

The first step in this activity is to realize that although you may hear several different voices in your head (the critic, the people-pleaser, etc.), another voice exists that you can call your true self, your guardian angel, or your higher self. This inner voice knows peace and joy and guides you in making choices that feel right for you, without fear.

The second step is to write a question on a piece of paper. Try to find a question that concerns you deeply and affects your current mental health:

Once you have determined your question, sit in silence. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Notice the thoughts ebb and flow in your mind. Continue to focus on your breath for five minutes. As you calm, notice how your thoughts slow down.

Then write as if you’re having a conversation with your true self. A conversation might ensue as follows.

Q: What is bothering me?
A: I don’t know. What do you think is bothering you?
Q: I don’t know; that’s why I am asking you.
A: Well, sit still for a moment.
Q: How is that going to help?
A: Well, try it and see what happens.
Q: I am not here to sit still. Solve my problem.
A: Sitting still is the answer.
Q: How long do I have to sit still?
A: A couple minutes.
Q: Okay. I’m still. Now what?
A: Well, how do you feel?
Q: Not as bothered as before.
A: Great. Do you have another question?

The first time you attempt this activity you may not hear your inner voice, but don’t give up. Keep writing. It takes time and patience to hear your true self speak to you. The more you intend on finding that voice, the more easily you will hear it. With practice, you will learn to speak from your true self, and all the other voices (the whiny child, the people-pleaser etc) will take a back seat.

Good luck!

Happy woman with megaphoneWhy did I choose voice dialogue as the cornerstone of my counseling and coaching practice? Voice dialogue moves clients through the most profound healing of life’s traumas, and takes them beyond these barriers to growth. The process brings the facilitator and the client into a collaborative, safe crucible that guides the client through their complex, captivating inner landscape. With new skills to manage and conduct these characters in life, clients begin to achieve “extreme psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.” With the help of voice dialogue they have the tools and self-knowledge to resiliently and effectively respond to conflicts and problems; while achieving their potential, and creating their dreams.

1. Voice dialogue is a brilliantly constructed method that allows me to draw on all of who I am. All the skills, insight, knowledge, and wisdom I have gleaned from a lifetime of personal and professional growth express through me as I facilitate a voice dialogue session.

2. Voice dialogue makes sense. Co-created by psychologists Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, voice dialogue is based on forty years of study, clinical experience, and mapping of the human psyche (our inner world). It is founded on the premise that humans are not a single entity. Rather, they are made up of an organization of numerous and distinct structures called inner selves, sub-personalities, parts, or energy patterns. Each is born with a purpose, has its own beliefs about us and reality, and carries certain characteristics and behaviors. We develop and identify with our primary selves, while we bury or repress equal and opposite disowned selves. For much of our lives the primary selves are who we think we are. They are making our choices and driving our psychological car. By the very nature of life there comes a time where this imbalance creates problems and makes us blind to many new options or choices. Until we have choice, we are not free.

3. Voice dialogue is a well thought out, structured process by which we enter into direct communication with the client’s Inner Selves or sub-personalities. This careful step-by-step process makes voice dialogue the safest and most respectful tool for accessing the depths of the psyche that I have encountered. We never intrude into a person’s inner world without the permission of the existing ego structure. This means that if I have a dialogue with a disowned self (an aspect that is in the unconscious or shadow), the more conscious or primary selves have opened the gate to that territory voluntarily. This collaborative, inclusive approach brings astounding self-knowledge, and results in lasting healing and growth from the inside-out.

4. Voice dialogue guides the client toward a larger, more objective perspective, called the aware ego process that finds the gold in every sub-personality. This is a very expansive view that welcomes and includes even the most polarized and repressed aspects. Clients learn to incorporate the essence from opposite inner selves in response to life’s inevitable adversities; and to live, create, and communicate from much more of the totality of their being. The aware ego becomes a master of paradox (the ability to “sweat the tension of the opposites”), which is a foundation for living a more conscious life.

5. Voice dialogue works. In addition to learning about each inner self’s history, purpose, opinions, and behaviors; clients become aware that each has a distinct kinesthetic or energetic feel to it. One of the great gifts of the aware ego is its growing ability to conduct, or dial up and down, the energies of the selves. The aware ego process is like a conductor of the whole inner orchestra. As the client masters conducting, managing, and moderating the inner selves, almost unlimited options and choices become available. The client lives more from conscious choice than from automatic reactions and habits.

6. Voice dialogue is a flexible method. It supports the resolution of a full spectrum of presenting psycho-spiritual concerns: depression, bipolar clients, OCD, healing childhood trauma, recovery form destructive relationships and/or groups, processing loss and grief, sexual identity, blocks to creativity and aliveness, all kinds of relationship issues, eating disorders, lack of meaning or purpose, spiritual crisis or emergence, etc. Voice dialogue profoundly supports the life-long process of conscious evolution.

7. Voice dialogue empowers clients to be self-responsible. It gives them the skills to love, nurture and heal their wounded, traumatized inner child. As this happens, this vulnerable, sensitive, and essential part of the psyche no longer needs to reach out to get its needs met by another person. In turn, this generates relationships between equal adult partners that are more alive and spontaneous; and maintain connection, passion, and appropriate boundaries. They learn to love each other without losing themselves.

8. Voice dialogue is a fascinating, unpredictable, engaging process for both facilitator and client. As a counselor and coach my days are filled with intensely meaningful, enlivening, and life-changing work with my clients. I can honestly say I have never been bored, ever. My practice expanded tremendously as I incorporated voice dialogue into the mix. Word of mouth spread quickly as clients reported their successes.

three-simple-reasonsSolution-focused therapy is a new type of therapy to many people, including psychology professionals. It is considered a form of brief therapy, much like cognitive behavioral therapy, though it doesn’t necessarily have to be practiced in the short term. I consider these kinds of therapies to be “strength-based” as opposed to “insight-oriented.”

What are some benefits of choosing a strength-based therapy?

1. Focusing on your strengths always produces the best return on your investment. It’s true that most clients don’t come to therapy wanting to improve something they are already good at. However, a solution-focused therapist will work hard to identify the client’s strengths in order to help the client use these strengths in areas where they do want to improve.

Imagine your life as a pie chart, with each slice of pie a different size. At any given time, some section of the pie is going to be off or not functioning at its best. That’s normal; we have a lot of pie on our plate! A client who is problem-focused is looking only at this once slice of the pie. A solution-focused therapist is going to help the client fix that slice by balancing strengths that are part of the rest of the pie.

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For example, a couple might come to therapy complaining generally of having “communication issues,” but upon further questions from a solution-focused therapist, it might turn out that these issues only arise during a specific topic, or under certain circumstances. The couple might have excellent communication skills and just have not figured out how to apply them to their problem area.

2. People are always trying to right themselves. While you might know a constant complainer who you secretly think does a pretty good job at self-sabotaging, remember that they don’t see their life this way. A solution-focused therapist doesn’t, either. When a client and therapist can tap into the right system to solve problems, the client’s constant efforts to right themselves will eventually work. A solution-focused therapist works hard to believe the best in the client and to act as a coach and facilitator toward the client’s goals.

3. Thoughts are our best predictors of happiness. Why does research show cognitive therapy to be as effective as some medication for mental issues? Because we know that there is a direct link between the thoughts you think and the feelings you feel. When practiced over time, healthy and productive thoughts produce effective long-term results.

If a client has negative ideas about himself, his future, or the world around him, then he is likely to be depressed. Instead of dwelling in these negative thoughts, a solution-focused therapist is interested in learning about when these thoughts are not present. Is there any part of the day when the client is not experiencing the problem that has brought them to therapy? Why is this?

Solution-focused therapy focuses on the present and the future. It is concerned with today’s problems and tomorrow’s concerns. The kind of therapy I do is also nonpathologizing therapy. This means that I don’t view my clients as being deficient or sick in some way. I don’t diagnose clients (unless insurance requires it) and I don’t let them diagnose themselves, either.

It’s not that insight-oriented therapy is the opposite, but it is more interested in one’s past, one’s history of repetitive patterns and relationships, and gives much more weight to subconscious drives, behaviors, and issues.

While both therapies have their places in the world of mental health, my experience has found strength-based therapy to be more effective for the type of clients that I see. My clients are not interested in making therapy a hobby that lasts for years and years. In the coming months, I’ll be writing about how solution-focused therapy is used to help a variety of couples issues and common issues such as anxiety and depression. I welcome your comments!

Important Notice

GoodTherapy is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, medical treatment, or therapy. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding any mental health symptom or medical condition. Never disregard professional psychological or medical advice nor delay in seeking professional advice or treatment because of something you have read on GoodTherapy.