SELF-THERAPY: WHAT I DO

 

So, this is Week 2 of therapizing myself.  I probably should just try to get an appointment with my real therapist, but I haven't seen her in 2 1/2 years and I don't feel that desperate. Besides, by the time I begged and cried and assumed my best "I'm a mess" voice to get the attention of the gal in the cubicle who schedules appointments, the first possible opening would still likely be 6 weeks out. I know a lot about therapy, psychology, personal growth and I have a GREAT stranger therapist I've never met, but who I follow by reading his books, listening to his podcast, and signing into his weekly meditation series.  I can do this.

It's snowboard season at my house.  Hub is gone a lot, "on tour".  He has a season pass this year that allows him access to like seven different resorts, and he's periodically traveling to most of them for multiple day stays. Last year he was away about 4 weeks, cumulatively, during snow season; almost as long this year.  Anyway, with him gone, I'm taking my own alone time to fix myself.

I've just come out of about a month-long depression.  I'm pissed about that.  I have not had serious depression in about, well,  2-1/2 years (per therapist reference above).  But the monster grabbed me after a couple of  unrelated to each other "trigger events" right around the holidays (not holiday related) and it sucked.  I was in a full-on self-loathing downward spiral that finally culminated in a week in mid-January with me declaring a "solo silent retreat" to hunker down alone, which I wrote about in a previous post (Connection Addict).  In the end, I felt rested and renewed and ready to move into Phase II: changing some ways of being that no longer serve me.

So this week, starting today, I'm on a quest to put to rest some old stories that are keeping me stuck.  You know what they say about modern day stress -- that our bodies respond to emotional threats in just the same way we responded to Saber Tooth Tiger threats back in the distant day.  We are hardwired for survival, constantly scanning for danger.  Often there really is no tiger, and it's all in our worrying minds. But sometimes, when you are just peacefully grazing on the savannah, a tiger does come sneaking out of the jungle and might even take a swipe at you, draw a little blood.  Yeah, so that happened about 3-1/2 years ago. 

Since then I've been scanning for danger and threat almost constantly, doing all I can think of to do to learn the tiger's ways to avoid any sneak attacks, to mitigate any surprises, to stay safe.  It's exhausting.  And unnecessary.  The origin event is now in the ever-increasingly distant past. The wound is no longer raw; even the scar is fading.  But, well, as a highly sensitive person (HSP, yes, it's a real thing) and a person for whom safety is Job One, the whole tiger thing is a scary "what if ?"every time I see something that even resembles a tiger.  But it's time....truly time to let go and get on with admitting these tiger attacks are rare and there is no reason to stay in fight or flight mode.

So my wonderful "he doesn't know me but I know him" therapist, Rick Hansen, PhD, has written a book called "Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness" and  this week I am working my way through it. He's teaching me to rewire my brain from negative thoughts to positive ones -- from fear to strength and resilience.  It's not about "the power of positive thinking" where one denies what is real.  

It is about mindfully "letting be" -- fully accepting what is real and observing the attendant emotions dispassionately.  I wrote pages of sentences beginning with "this is real and how I feel..." Then moving into a time of "letting go" -- doing what must be done to express and purge the negative and troubling thoughts and emotions. This may involve talking to someone,  but also may mean screaming, yelling, crying, smashing things...safely of course.  Cathartic.  Finally there is "letting in" -- realizing that even when negative experiences come to us there are also positive ones we just gloss over and barely notice due to our brain's "negativity bias" of focusing instead on the threatening event (evolutionarily useful to keep us scanning for danger in order to survive, but not so great for long-term well being).  Yesterday I did "let be"  and "let go".  Today I did "let in".  All of this is in service to our most basic needs:  for safety, satisfaction, and connection.  I'll be focusing on those, and more, in coming days.

But today I went for a walk.  On the waterfront. In the sunshine. I focused as completely as I could on the experience -- the blue sky, the warm sunshine, the tide receding, the cool breeze, the gulls calling overhead, the boats sailing on the bay, the people and their dogs on the path with me, the construction work on new restaurants, the buds forming on spring azaleas. I took it all in, using my senses to really ground in the experience, stopping to gaze and breathe. I acknowledged that yes, life is hard, it can hurt.  And it's also beautiful. The tiger stood in the shadows as the sunshine flooded the clearing. The sunshine persisted long after the tiger slunk away.  

I can't trust that he won't return, but I can trust, with time and practice, that I can teach my mind to rest in the good until, if, and when... secure in the knowledge that I've stored the energy it will take to fight back if I need to.  But it's also likely I won't.  I'm robbing myself of joy while remaining on high alert for a battle I may have already waged.

Does any of this make sense? This is me. This is what I do. I am proud of my ability to face hard things, to fall apart and put myself back together again, to seek and find resources and wisdom teachings, to keep going with hope and persistence, to learn and to grow. This is me. This is what I do.

At least, that's the view from here...©

RITUAL HEALING

I've been away for a few days; took a respite from the responsibilities of home, from the non-stop political news with which I'm a bit obsessed, and went west -- all the way west -- to the shores of the Pacific Ocean where the bright sun shone down providing welcome autumn warmth, where the long expanse of deserted sandy beach recorded my footsteps, wandering in aimless wonder at the vast and powerful waves crashing into land, and where driftwood logs gave comfort to weary legs as I sat and contemplated the task I was undertaking.

I was not on vacation exactly.  I'd come to a "Mending Our Broken Hearts" retreat.

It's been just over a year since I left my once beloved church home.  I've written about this before:  http://myviewfromhere-donna.blogspot.com/2015/08/stepping-back.html

and especially http://myviewfromhere-donna.blogspot.com/2015/11/end-of-era.html

Every time I thought I was well and truly "over it", something would pop up that would re-ignite the hurt and rage I felt about the whole debacle, or as one friend has termed it, "The Great Unraveling".   More than anything, I longed for peace from the ongoing resentment, hurt, and confusion I felt about what happened and my reaction to it.  I needed so much to put it behind me and move on.

The retreat was a time to create sacred space for doing ritual.  I truly believe in the transformative power of this type of work.  I've done a ton of experiential personal growth work -- beating on pillows or screaming in rage to express a well of inner anger; acting out "scenes" to access deep feelings about incidents in life that still nag, talking to someone to whom things need to be said by imagining them in the chair across from you -- or choosing a volunteer to play the part of the listener or other "actor(s)" in a life drama; doing trust falls, being held in a group cradle, being sung to...

Yes, I know many of you may be laughing and finding it all so "woo-woo" silly.  My guess that most of the laughter and judgment comes from those who have never done it, never experienced the power of intentional healing through experiencing any number and types of rituals that you can feel in your body, healing the heart and the soul.  This is not "talk therapy" where intellectual "a-ha's" may come up..."Oh!  I never thought of that!"  Experiential personal growth work doesn't rely on puzzling your way to insight while sitting on a chair talking.  It shoves you off the cliff, challenged with love and skill, until your heart finds wing.  The relief is palpable, the healing cleansing, the tools gained invaluable.

This retreat wasn't as dramatic as all that, but it was a time for creating ritual and a time to find closure and renewal.   We gathered on Friday, got settled, walked on the beach, spent time in silence.  Then we made a plan for the weekend -- the group created the flow, decided on how the rituals would unfold, set an "agenda" of sorts.  After dinner we began a round of "checking in" by speaking about what we wanted to heal and to leave behind; what were the "stuck, hurt places" still causing us pain.  It was very moving to hear how deeply felt the hurts were.  There were tears, anger, exhaustion.

Saturday morning there was a time of exploring the Enneagram Types -- similar to the more popular Myers-Briggs personality test.  I love these things because they are so accurate in explaining the differences in how people respond to common or shared experiences in such different ways depending upon personality type.  I was able to see so clearly how my own Enneagram Type, my own personality traits, and childhood experiences led me to feel so deeply hurt by what had transpired, why I (and not others) could no longer remain in an environment from which I felt so alienated, and even how my own journey of "leaving" was for reasons often quite different from others who'd also left.  And, I saw that others were not "wrong" to remain, just acting from a different set of basic needs and personality constructs.  (NOTE: Whether great or small, these early emotional "wounds" of childhood never completely go away and continue to inform how we respond to life, ever the more so if we are unaware of or deny them.)

In the afternoon we all set to work creating our "letting go of the past" ritual.  We had brought along things that represented that which we wanted to let go of -- for me it was agendas, emails, reports, lists, rosters, organizational materials, testimonials...lots and lots of written materials.  I cut these into pieces to be burned in our ritual fire on the beach.   In a time of silence we also created a group collage of photos and words that represented that which we were leaving behind.  Attached to this were long pieces of woven yarn, one for each of us, that we would cut, to represent "cutting the cord" to the past.   We gathered up all these supplies and headed to the beach.  A fire was built in a hollowed out place near a large stand of driftwood.  We took turns adding our papers to the fire, sending the work I'd done with so much care and hope into the earth as ash, the flames burning hotter as the fire grew larger.  Some said words appropriate to what they were letting go as they added their own fuel to the fire.


At the end of this burning, we suspended the collage over the fire.  So many images and words there
spoke so strongly to my experience of both the joys and sorrows, the gratitude and grief, I felt toward my church experience that tears flowed as I read the words I'd written, expressing my deep gratitude for my time in that community as well as my deep disillusionment with it.  I spoke of my desire to let go, to move on, and finally to wish the community well as they move into the future too.  Cutting that cord was a profound moment, and almost immediately I felt a sense of release and freedom from the emotions that had been pulling me under for over a year.  I felt my heart soar.

After the fire was put out we spent another hour on the beach, some walking, some sitting in silence, allowing this time in a wild and natural place to continue to heal.  That evening was also a time of individual contemplation, quiet conversation, a time for stargazing as the sky lit up with the Milky Way and familiar constellations, reminding us of the vastness with which we are surrounded.

Sunday morning we lazed about, taking our time over breakfast, reading, laughing, sharing a lightness of heart and spirit.  Then it was time to do the "moving into the future" part of the retreat.  Ironically, I had a led a day-long workshop at my church three years ago called "Creating a Personal Mission Statement" and had volunteered to lead this as part of the retreat.  I condensed it into a couple of hours and facilitated us through the various steps of finding our deepest desire for healing what might be an old wound or longing, writing a "statement of purpose" for our lives, and finally crafting a personal mission statement that one can use as a daily guide to determine if we are living  life with intention -- making the choices and doing the work that truly feeds our soul, keeps us in the flow, and heals the world by healing our own tattered hearts and living our best selves.

By late Sunday afternoon I felt a joyous exhaustion.  I felt happy and light, focused on the future, and relieved that every time I thought about the church and "The Great Unraveling", I felt neutral -- more grateful than angry about my time there; a degree of non-attached curiosity about what would be next for that community; wishing the best for those I still care about who remain there. I no longer felt the tethering pain, anger, humiliation, and shame that has been my emotional response for a year.  I felt rather like thinking about high school; I felt some amusement, cherished some happy memories, and acknowledged some sad ones, but all from a distance -- from a different time in my life.

Sunday night we went out to a casual seafood dinner and then gathered to laugh with abandon at the silly female-centered humor of a movie called "Sisters" with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  It felt good to just be goofy.  I slept like a rock and got up Monday morning to pack and say goodbye to the beach, feeling deep gratitude for the experience and eager to drive back to my home and to reunite with  Hub who had sent me off with such gentle and hopeful wishes for a healing journey.  And it was.

At least, that's the view from here....©

PS...Having written this yesterday and just re-reading it, I feel I must add a note to those who I know read this blog and still attend this church.  The "leaving behind" does NOT include friends and those I love.  Those relationships are precious and remain so.  I'm leaving behind the emotions about the  institution, the organization, my time there as a congregant and leader.  In fact, I feel even more tenderness now, after the ritual, for all we shared together.