Suffering

The Supreme Court oftentimes has to judge how to evaluate conflicting rights.  What to prioritize, what to limit in the extension of the rights, and how to weigh the impact, the consequences of their decisions.  We, as persons, sometimes have to evaluate conflicting responses to a painful situation.  Each alternative will include painful consequences and yet reality requires choice.  In these decisions we encounter both our priorities and values, and in addition, the visions of the consequences.  Suffering is a necessary part of some choices we need to make.  Accepting the suffering rather than avoiding it's  presence in our consciousness is important.  Avoidance and denial can spread over our mind and create pillars of rationalizations.  

From A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti
by A. Bartlett Giamatti, et al

"The Green Fields of the Mind "
It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.
Somehow, the summer seemed to slip by faster this time. Maybe it wasn't this summer, but all the summers that, in this my fortieth summer, slipped by so fast. There comes a time when every summer will have something of autumn about it. Whatever the reason, it seemed to me that I was investing more and more in baseball, making the game do more of the work that keeps time fat and slow and lazy. I was counting on the game's deep patterns, three strikes, three outs, three times three innings, and its deepest impulse, to go out and back, to leave and to return home, to set the order of the day and to organize the daylight. I wrote a few things this last summer, this summer that did not last, nothing grand but some things, and yet that work was just camouflage. The real activity was done with the radio--not the all-seeing, all-falsifying television--and was the playing of the game in the only place it will last, the enclosed green field of the mind. There, in that warm, bright place, what the old poet called Mutability does not so quickly come.
But out here, on Sunday, October 2, where it rains all day, Dame Mutability never loses. She was in the crowd at Fenway yesterday, a gray day full of bluster and contradiction, when the Red Sox came up in the last of the ninth trailing Baltimore 8-5, while the Yankees, rain-delayed against Detroit, only needing to win one or have Boston lose one to win it all, sat in New York washing down cold cuts with beer and watching the Boston game. Boston had won two, the Yankees had lost two, and suddenly it seemed as if the whole season might go to the last day, or beyond, except here was Boston losing 8-5, while New York sat in its family room and put its feet up. Lynn, both ankles hurting now as they had in July, hits a single down the right-field line. The crowd stirs. It is on its feet. Hobson, third baseman, former Bear Bryant quarterback, strong, quiet, over 100 RBIs, goes for three breaking balls and is out. The goddess smiles and encourages her agent, a canny journeyman named Nelson Briles.
Now comes a pinch hitter, Bernie Carbo, onetime Rookie of the Year, erratic, quick, a shade too handsome, so laid-back he is always, in his soul, stretched out in the tall grass, one arm under his head, watching the clouds and laughing; now he looks over some low stuff unworthy of him and then, uncoiling, sends one out, straight on a rising line, over the center-field wall, no cheap Fenway shot, but all of it, the physics as elegant as the arc the ball describes.
New England is on its feet, roaring. The summer will not pass. Roaring, they recall the evening, late and cold, in 1975, the sixth game of the World Series, perhaps the greatest baseball game played in the last fifty years, when Carbo, loose and easy, had uncoiled to tie the game that Fisk would win. It is 8-7, one out, and school will never start, rain will never come, sun will warm the back of your neck forever. Now Bailey, picked up from the National League recently, big arms, heavy gut, experienced, new to the league and the club; he fouls off two and then, checking, tentative, a big man off balance, he pops a soft liner to the first baseman. It is suddenly darker and later, and the announcer doing the game coast to coast, a New Yorker who works for a New York television station, sounds relieved. His little world, well-lit, hot-combed, split-second-timed, had no capacity to absorb this much gritty, grainy, contrary reality.
Cox swings a bat, stretches his long arms, bends his back, the rookie from Pawtucket who broke in two weeks earlier with a record six straight hits, the kid drafted ahead of Fred Lynn, rangy, smooth, cool. The count runs two and two, Briles is cagey, nothing too good, and Cox swings, the ball beginning toward the mound and then, in a jaunty, wayward dance, skipping past Briles, feinting to the right, skimming the last of the grass, finding the dirt, moving now like some small, purposeful marine creature negotiating the green deep, easily avoiding the jagged rock of second base, traveling steady and straight now out into the dark, silent recesses of center field.
The aisles are jammed, the place is on its feet, the wrappers, the programs, the Coke cups and peanut shells, the doctrines of an afternoon; the anxieties, the things that have to be done tomorrow, the regrets about yesterday, the accumulation of a summer: all forgotten, while hope, the anchor, bites and takes hold where a moment before it seemed we would be swept out with the tide. Rice is up. Rice whom Aaron had said was the only one he'd seen with the ability to break his records. Rice the best clutch hitter on the club, with the best slugging percentage in the league. Rice, so quick and strong he once checked his swing halfway through and snapped the bat in two. Rice the Hammer of God sent to scourge the Yankees, the sound was overwhelming, fathers pounded their sons on the back, cars pulled off the road, households froze, New England exulted in its blessedness, and roared its thanks for all good things, for Rice and for a summer stretching halfway through October. Briles threw, Rice swung, and it was over. One pitch, a fly to center, and it stopped. Summer died in New England and like rain sliding off a roof, the crowd slipped out of Fenway, quickly, with only a steady murmur of concern for the drive ahead remaining of the roar. Mutability had turned the seasons and translated hope to memory once again. And, once again, she had used baseball, our best invention to stay change, to bring change on.
That is why it breaks my heart, that game--not because in New York they could win because Boston lost; in that, there is a rough justice, and a reminder to the Yankees of how slight and fragile are the circumstances that exalt one group of human beings over another. It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised.
Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.
From A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett
Giamatti, © 1998 by A. Bartlett Giamatti.

Impatience

    The experience of sitting in a car, waiting for the "others" to finish up with whatever, and then join you in the car is a common one.   Sometimes this experience can be one of impatience.   Of feeling irritated, somewhat helpless, and frustrated.
     Why impatience?   Is the impatience mainly a blockage of our intentionality or is there something more involved?   Older people, 60+, often seem to experience a greater amount of impatience.   It is true that the older person has a decrement, a lessening, of their reaction time, of flexibility, and the capacity to sort through multiple trains of thought.  Also, there is a concomitant feeling of a need for more effort to accomplish the sorting.  I am sure these decrements contribute to the experience of impatience but I think something else is involved on a fundamental level.
      Our unconscious mind calculates, for example, it keeps track of what we get and what we give.  When we speak of "time", we usually refer to a series of abstractions - seconds, minutes, hours, years, etc.   Yet, since we are finite beings, human time has another face, another aspect.   We often refer to this kind  of human time as our mortality which we think of as an "unknown", like the variable "x" in an equation.   Our unconscious mind theorizes about this equation.  At some point early in life after discovering death, it takes up the problem.   It begins to formulate the upper limit of its life.  The question might be formulated in terms of how many heart beats do I have left.   In the womb the infant "hears" the heart beats.   Sometimes we become conscious of our heart beating, but I think our unconscious mind is continuously aware of our heart beats.   I think each of us has some maximum number of heart beats built into our unique biology -  although reality forces such as accidents, war, etc. and behavioral choices may affect this upper limit.
     So the prime question of existence  "what do I do with the gift of life" can also be contemplated in terms of what do I do with these unique heart beats.    I don't get them back, how am I using them right now.   The unconscious mind, "knowing that there is a maximum number" makes a demand of usage, a push for usage.
     So back to sitting in the car,  the person's impatience is partly an unconscious push for usage.   Often though, we don't want to know about this "push for usage"; and sometimes, even if we were aware of the significance of the push, we are adrift about what to do with the gift of life.    This is even more true as we begin to approach the upper limit of our maximum heart beats.

sparkles in the night

Most of us have been fortunate enough to experience the excitement of a gift, for example at a birthday or a holiday.    Part of the excitement is the feeling of surprise, another part of the excitement  is that the gift  represents an affirmation that we are special in the heart of the giver.    Usually, these experiences occur most frequently during childhood.  When ever we have such an experience, it takes up a special place in our mind - like a glowing warm presence.
What happens in adulthood?  Couples, especially couples with children, are often under multiple stresses - for example, money, logistics, lifting our children forwards, setting limits and boundaries, keeping up a sexual life, keeping up friendships, etc.  With all these things on our plates we can lose contact with the need for surprise and excitement.    Yet, our unconscious mind calculates, weighs what we give and get.   These calculations our thrown up into consciousness often when we are feeling too extended or feeling depleted.  These conscious thoughts can be souring, disconnecting and burdensome.   Creating an experience of surprise and excitement is an antidote to this souring.   In order to create the experience, you have to really imagine his/her desires and care about them.   When you succeed in doing so, the grayness of life you are experiencing at that time lifts and the night sparkles.

Adolescents and "Punishments"

     Parents often face the issue of what to do about their adolescence's misbehavior.   One way to think about the problem is in terms of separation/individuation.  The adolescence's developmental task is to "grow up",  to become his/her own person.   As a parent we hope that they are taking on the tasks of life and using the values and guidelines (perhaps rules) which we have tried to instill in them.   So, what does it mean, what does it point to, when the adolescent makes some bad choice for which we need to respond to with some kind of consequence, some kind of punishment.   We could say the adolescent wasn't thinking, or was bad, or was self centered and uncaring, etc.  In other words, the problem is in him/her.  These judgments, these attributions about the child, are only part of the equation.  The other part of the equation is the parents.  Somehow, the parent has not adequately got the adolescent ready for separation/individuation.   In other words, rather than an adolescent problem, it is a "we" problem - a parent/adolescent problem.   So, why frame it this way?  If it is just an "adolescent problem" then the parent might respond with a punishment such as "You are Grounded".  Often, this translates into the adolescent sitting in his/her room trying to find ways around the grounding and/or sitting there stewing in anger.  Often, this leads to the adolescent concluding that the problem was I got caught.
     If you think of the misbehavior event as a "we" problem then first you would frame the discussion with the adolescent in terms of we have failed here.  I, the parent, have not done a good enough job of helping you navigate the developmental task.  So, we are grounded together.  You, the adolescent, will have to live out your grounded time with me.  So, for example, if I have to go shopping or take the car in to be fixed, or the myriad of other things I (the parent) need to do to make the family stay afloat, you the adolescent have to be with me during your "grounded" time.    

Evolution and Social Needs

Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 has a brilliant 10 minute start.  In these few minutes we watch a troop of primates in the somewhat early history of the planet (presumably, before the advent of homo sapiens) foraging.  The camera cuts to night fall and we see the primates sleeping in a cave, all but one.  This lone figure sits outside the cave,  awake and alert.   In this darkness we hear the sound of predators in the night.    Kubrick has crystallized in a short imaginary scene, one of the adaptive advantages of being a social animal.   The needs for connection, for belonging, are built into are genes because in the long trek of evolution the genetic makeup which pushes for social groups is more successful.   The problems evoked in connections whether pairs, small groups or larger social entities cannot be worked through without accepting and owning that each of us has a set of social needs.  

Weight and Corporate Capitalism

Sometime in the late 70's Americans began losing their "shape".
It is estimated that over fifty percent of our countrymen and women are overweight.   What happened and what is going on.   The food industry, trying to maximize profits, started researching the question of how do we sell more product - obviously they noted, we get people to eat more of our product.  Through extensive research they found a set of formulas which increased eating.   Essentially, the food industry and especially the fast food industry found that basic food stuff could be treated as a delivery system.  The researchers found that levels of fat, sugar and salt can be adjusted to profoundly influence the opioid receptors in the brain.   By increasing the fat, sugar, and/or salt to  optimal high levels the person would in essence become "addicted" to the food product.  As these addiction formulas were being fine tuned, a second major development was underway.   In simplest terms, two income families became necessary and the norm.   Working more to keep up, the family meal became more difficult to create.
Marketing stepped into the struggle and showed us images of happy folk eating fast food and processed food.   Fast food in particular is the apex of the "food as a delivery system for an addictive combination".
These addictions often are experienced as "urges" to eat and most of us are quite susceptible to them.
Often after responding to the urges we find ourselves wondering about "how come we did that".

So, what to do about these urges which are an expression of the addiction.   One method is to redefine these addictive foods,  think and speak of them as if they are cigarettes,  as a product put forward by  calculating, indifferent "fat cats" who are messing with your brain.   At the same time accept that we are vulnerable humans and that we will at times fail to stop an urge.  Get up after a relapse and continue your efforts to see these food delivery systems as corporate capitalism's indifferent misuse of us.

For recent research check Science News the October 6, 2012 issue, the article, "Tricks Foods Play"
www.sciencenews.org
recently an article in NYT -http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/are-junk-food-makers-worse-than-tobacco-industry-giants--how-fritos--coke-and-lunchables-vie-for-addicts--210753546.html

Aging and Mortality

Sometime in one's 60s the events of consciousness begin to change.  At the center of consciousness is the subjective "I" sort of looking out at the outer world and attending to the inner world.   The shift in mentation which I am pointing at has to do with the arrival of "things" from the inner world.   Simply said, the arrival of thoughts, physical sensations, images, and other mental representations will more frequently have a footnote - the footnote being, "does this mean I am on a short path to my ending".  
At first this query can send a silent shudder through one's mind.   After surviving the fear the challenge becomes how to make use of these warning signals.  Am I right now living the life I want?  How do I get there?   We each have the gift of life, we each get a certain number of heart beats,  am I using these moments the way I want or am I wasting my heart beats.

"You're too sensitive"

When someone hears this declaration directed at his/her self, initially he/she will feel confused, misunderstood, and/or shamed.   The person asserting the "you're too sensitive", is trying to erase what the accused is pointing at - the messages the other may have been sending.   Usually, the person trying to erase is trying to cut off dialogue, to stall an inquiry into the possible messages being sent.  Often, this scenario takes place in childhood.  A major consequence of this kind of scenario is for the child to turn away from using his/her mind to articulate the complexities of human interaction and process.   Often this will mean the child will give up trying to understand what his/her tears are saying.   Yet, unconsciously the person often continues to sense meanings implicit in their interactions with others.   He/she is then left in a kind of haze and fog about the "real" and "fantasy".

The Push of Sexuality

Our Media is filled with headlines regarding sexual behavior.  From heads of state to sexual predators the push of sexuality exerts its presence.   From married couples to single persons our lives are swayed and altered by sexuality.  There are  many things we could say about the sexual life of humans.  Sexual differentiation is the propulsive force for evolution.  The first organisms to reproduce sexually were related to the blue green algae.   For our species sexuality has a tremendous push/pull in our mental life and our behavior.    Each of us has to learn to integrate this force in our lives.  How to recognize its influence and many faces.  Many times the push of sexuality, especially for males, overtakes their conscious self and leads to sexual experiences which have terrible consequences for their lives.  This alienated sexual state/moment subordinates the future and relationships for the immediate.   One task of therapy is to help undue this alienation, to bring thought and understanding to the push so that informed choice can happen.

leonard cohen 77 and going strong

Just like Leonard to continue to touch are minds and hearts.
His new record, "Old Ideas",  go to Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQlLWnbco_I

POEM VI

            THE NEXT TWO THINGS

            After the last friends depart
                empty glasses and cups
              are collected and washed
the floor swept and that first night alone
                     the best I can do
               is the next two things.

                       Feed the cat,
                          Make the tea.

                       Braid my hair
           Discard the obvious junk mail.

               This is how to get through
                  when the light and dark
                   are completely different
                         slants and hues,
               when every  moment's routine
                  holds the unexpected news
                           of your absence.

                                Feed the cat.
                           Empty the dish rack.

                              Fold the blanket.
                   Clear the answering machine.
                     Pick up the empty can
                   tossed out by the mailbox.

                       Bless the dust which
                          can be wiped away,
             dirty laundry that can be washed clean
           the path that can be shoveled clear of snow.
                             Bless the hungry cat.

                                          Anonymous


For many of us facing loss, the night becomes the territory most difficult to get through.
Night is the time when we seek connection and protection and if not, then a quieting of  the mind - often by foolish ways.  Emptiness at night is a most intolerable feeling state.

COUPLES AND MONEY

       We often read in newspapers or online that "money" is one of the main conflicted areas for couples. Each of us in this country has to create an economic life, that is a given.   When we come together, how this requirement is blended and most importantly talked through and negotiated, is often at the center of the conflicts over money.   Most couples have to "live within their means".   They have some measurable income which must cover their expenditures and allocations.  This means they have constraints on their spending.  How are these decisions made.   Are the limits to spending decided openly and jointly or are the concerns for the economic well being shouldered by one and not the other.   When the decisions are not made jointly about both income and outflows, the couple is almost always headed towards resentment and accusation.  These feelings spill over into the daily life of the couple and especially their sexual life.  Most often the partners have recreated the economic model of each persons parents, this happens so often unconsciously.

POEM V

CASUALTY

He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman's quick eye
And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
We would be on our own
And, always politic
And shy of condescension,
I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.

II


It was a day of cold
Raw silence, wind-blown
Surplice and soutane:
Rained-on, flower-laden
Coffin after coffin
Seemed to float from the door
Of the packed cathedral
Like blossoms on slow water.
The common funeral
Unrolled its swaddling band,
Lapping, tightening
Till we were braced and bound
Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held
At home by his own crowd
Whatever threats were phoned,
Whatever black flags waved.
I see him as he turned
In that bombed offending place,
Remorse fused with terror
In his still knowable face,
His cornered outfaced stare
Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away
For he drank like a fish
Nightly, naturally
Swimming towards the lure
Of warm lit-up places,
The blurred mesh and murmur
Drifting among glasses
In the gregarious smoke.
How culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe's complicity?
'Now, you're supposed to be
An educated man,'
I hear him say. 'Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.'

III


I missed his funeral,
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse...
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog: that morning
I was taken in his boat,
The screw purling, turning
Indolent fathoms white,
I tasted freedom with him.
To get out early, haul
Steadily off the bottom,
Dispraise the catch, and smile
As you find a rhythm
Working you, slow mile by mile,
Into your proper haunt
Somewhere, well out, beyond...

Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.

Seamus Heaney, Nobel prize 1995 for Literature
Who are the casualties?  Certainly, the writer, the father, and the two tribes.   The despair in the father's journey, the complexity of love and anger for the writer, and the impact of hate between tribes.
The presence of our parents within our Being
brings incredibly complex feelings and stories
that shape our lives.

by Seamus Heaney

GRACE

Moments of grace are emergent, they occur often as an unfolding consequence of acts of giving.  To understand the other's need or yearning in the moment and to respond in ways which match the need and yearning, is to create the possibility for a moment of  grace.   Wherein you feel that you don't need a reciprocation but rather the other's quietude eases your concerns, your drivenness.   In a small way the world can be good, and you are part of this goodness.  

HABITS

       People often refer to a pattern of behavior as a "habit",  perhaps a good habit or more commonly a bad habit.  If the person is pointing at a bad habit,  he/she will often follow up this observation with something like "I got to break this bad habit" or "I just have to stop this bad habit".   This person has categorized this pattern of behavior as something like a reflex, something that is automatic.  Often the pattern of behavior, the habit,  is automatic.  Yet, to think of it as a kind of reflex, like a knee jerk, is a mistake.  The mistake is that the person is trying to take away the meanings of the pattern of behavior and hence, the motivations propelling the habit.   Certainly, there is value in stopping the "bad" habit, but what is also needed is an understanding of what propels this now almost automatic behavior.    The set of motivations involved in the habit are connected to his/her experience and needs.   This person must find a way to treat him/her self in a kinder and more thoughtful manner, rather than as a "behaving" machine.

TRANSTROMER

Tomas Transtromer, nobel prize for literature

THE COUPLE

They turn the light off, and its white globe glows
an instant and then dissolves, like a tablet
in a glass of darkness. Then a rising.
The hotel walls shoot up into heaven’s darkness.

Their movements have grown softer, and they sleep,
but their most secret thoughts begin to meet
like two colors that meet and run together
on the wet paper in a schoolboy’s painting.

It is dark and silent. The city however has come nearer
tonight. With its windows turned off. Houses have come.
They stand packed and waiting very near,
a mob of people with blank faces.

The Name”:

I grow sleepy during the car journey and I drive in under the trees at the side of the road. I curl up in the back seat and sleep. For how long? Hours. Dusk has fallen.

Suddenly I’m awake and don’t know where I am. Wide awake, but it doesn’t help. Where am I? WHO am I? I am something that wakens in a back seat, twists about in panic like a cat in a sack. Who?

At last my life returns. My name appears like an angel. Outside the walls a trumpet signal blows (as in the Leonora Overture) and the rescuing footsteps come down the overlong stairway. It is I! It is I!

But impossible to forget the fifteen-second struggle in the hell of oblivion, a few meters from the main road, where the traffic drives past with its lights on.

YEARNINGS

        Most of us accept that we have needs and most of our needs are present in our relationships.  A need often finds form, is carried in our wishes and yearnings.   So, why is it so difficult to express our yearnings to the other.   Often shame becomes the basic obstacle to expressing our wishes and yearnings.  Part of the meaning of shame is that we do not belong to the group, that the group has shunned us, has thrown us out of the circle as not acceptable.  So, to feel shame about a yearning has several sources.  One source is from experiences growing up, for example, when a yearning was ridiculed by the other.   Another source is that a yearning points to an absence, something missing, which is yearned for - for example, the yearning to feel wanted and desired, or the yearning to be chosen, picked.   To acknowledge an absence to the other is a most vulnerable moment, because at that moment we own our need for the other.  We own that we feel incomplete, we are not just independent entities, but also dependent persons.  Sometimes in that vulnerable moment, the other can feel superior to the person giving voice to his/her yearnings, and hence can transform the moment into one of power and submission or ridicule.    On the other hand a deep bond can develop if each can acknowledge needs of each other.

DIALOGUE

         When we are discussing something with an other, we often are talking in a kind of abstract language.   We are expressing a judgment, a theory, a perspective about some event or interaction.  One of the simplest methods to deepen such a discussion is to ask the speaker "what was in your mind when you said that" - pointing to some idea being expressed.    Most of our "ideas" are rooted in our experiences.   So, the recommended question asks the speaker to reach back beyond the idea into the experiences which are connected to idea.   An empathic connection is most often grounded in the resonances  of each other's experiences and the relationship becomes enriched through the sharing of experiences.  

UNDERSTANDING

How do we understand anyone?
        Someone speaks, someone gestures, someone communicates something about their experience.   What happens in the other, the listener.   From the first moment the mind starts interpreting.   These interpretations are mostly unconscious.   In our conscious experience we are following the sources of information - the words and their potential meanings; the visual information such as body language and gestures, the auditory information such as tone and inflections; and any other sensory information such as touch or smell.  All these systems are being utilized and most of the "processing and interpreting" are going on unconsciously.  What is most critical to really getting what the other is communicating is the process of empathic identification.  Our minds search for linking experiences.  What, within us the listener,  links to the picture, the story, the video of the person trying to communicate to us.   The links are our own stories, pictures, videos that resonate with those of the communicator.
        Most of these resonances take place outside of awareness in our unconscious minds.   The relationship the listener has to his/her unconscious mind will determine how rich and complex the listeners understanding, the "getting" of  the person communicating.   In a given moment the "gates" between the unconscious mind and our conscious self are more or less open or closed.   Ongoing feeling states such as fear, anxiety, "downess" influence the gates.   If the listener's conscious mind is "open" to the resonating experiences generated by the unconscious mind, he/she can either share the actual experience or try to make sense of the significance of the linked experience.

FEELINGS

How to think about feelings.
         One way is to recognize that feelings are almost always embedded in meanings.  Feelings are most often "emergent", that is they arrive in consciousness, we don't order them up willfully, they arrive.  In a sense feelings are a surprise to the self because of their emergent nature.  
         Sometimes we try not to experience a feeling, we try to block it out, ignore the feeling, attend to something else.  One consequence of trying to avoid experiencing a feeling is that this method of not experiencing something begins to extend to other feelings.  The reason for this denuding of experience is that the best way to make sure that the pain full feeling doesn't arrive is to make sure nothing arrives (since feelings are emergent and a surprise to the self, the goal of avoiding a feeling is accomplished by not allowing any surprises - we don't know what's coming so we don't let anything come).  
         There use to be a tv show "The Bob Newhart Show" in which he was a psychologist.  The "pet" line in the show was "How do you feel about that" and this delivery usually evoked a laugh.  So it seems trite to ask this question.  Yet, this is a critical question to ask one self, to check out whether we are open to the feelings connected to the meaning of the moment.  

THE UNWANTED CHILD AND DEPRESSED FEELING STATES

The feeling of being unwanted is such a terrible feeling.   Back in 1929 a psychoanalyst named Sandor Ferenczi  noticed a phenomena in his adult patients.   He found that the frequency in conscious experience of depressed and morbid thoughts and feelings and images was significantly connected to their experience of being unwanted in childhood.   Sometimes the essence of feeling unwanted is in the child's cry  "I should never have been born".    The real pain of loneliness often centers upon the history and depth of feeling unwanted.


For an interesting discussion of the some aspects of the issue see:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2UIA3Uv6Fg0C&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=cherishment&source=bl&ots=yW2UnauCTD&sig=QowNaM95m_frScL7RrgHm_DwaXw&hl=en&ei=-H1dTueBKYiFsgKF-4wq&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBwQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q&f=falsel

MEN AND BABIES

     The arrival of a baby is a very significant time for a family.  The baby is completely dependent upon the caregiver, let's assume that it is the baby's mom.  The mother in essence becomes an "attention giving" figure on a 24/7 basis.  It is important to realize that the process of getting attention is a profound human need.  The husband in this scenario experiences a significant status change.  He goes from being the woman's main attention, the number one priority for the receiving of loving attention,  to someone in a third or lower position.  He can have a helping role in the family system, but in the dyadic system of husband and wife,  a kind of a "time out" process sets in.  Most often, this time out process is expressed in a diminished amount of attention the woman can give to the husband and also in the sexual life of the couple.    In addition, the mom's need for the getting of attention (attention from the husband) is still extent, and if anything, the need is somewhat amplified since she is giving out so much.
       How a couple handles this shifting of attention, this shift in prioritizing, is central to the quality of their relationship and of the family life.  How to tolerate this time out period and how to transition out of the time out era are crucial issues to work out.

The need for attention is so fundamental that discussions regarding this need most often go towards discussions about when it is problematic.
see for example: http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydisorders/a/narcissisticpd.htm

a simple pointing towards the need: http://counsellingresource.com/features/2011/02/09/look-with-me-attention-need/

DEPRESSION AND DEMENTIA

Depression is such an important subject to discuss.   I want to talk about it in detail in future postings.  There are more studies emerging showing links between depression and the deterioration of the mind.
See for example: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/724876

STORIES III

      Let's look at another story.   A person remembers quite vividly a time when his mother is crying.  He/she remembers feeling helpless and upset that she seems so distraught.   He/she tries to console her.  Say the apparent precipitating event connected with her tears is some willful action on the persons part (as child).  The causes of the mothers pain may be multiple and this particular interaction may actually be a small part of her distress but this event is sort of the thing that breaks the camel's back.
     What kind of stories get internalized.  First off, there are many possible variations and so these ideas point to only one of the possible stories.   One story would involve the  child connecting the dots between his/her willfulness and the mother's hurt.  An internalized story might be "getting my way hurts the person I need, love".    So, what happens to the internalization of this story.   Our sense of self partly resides in our experience of will and agency.    So, as the person moves about in the world, trying to build a life, he/she may have some difficulties around "agency" (making things happen) especially when the his/her intentionality may conflict with someone he/she cares about.  An example of one of these difficulties would be a hyper alertness to the feeling state of the other - am I hurting the other.   Of course,  hurting the other is not the aim but with this internalized story, hurting the other takes precedent over all other factors.  Factors, such as, maybe the others "hurt" is that person's reaction to not getting his/her way.  In a way, this internalized story trumps reality, the person is more responsive to "hurt" in the other than the actual consequences of the various choices and intentions in play.

STORIES II

      Elsewhere in this Blog I talked about how each of us has a bunch of stories in the back of our mind (that is, the stories are not present in day to day consciousness).  These stories shape how we interpret and behave in our present relationships.   One goal of therapy is to help the person see and experience the living out of these stories and their effects.   If we look closely at one of the stories, the first thing to notice is that they usually involve the person and one or two other individuals.  Second, a story involves a background theory about how things "work" between persons.  Infant Research has shown that the mind is equistely designed to detect connections, to connect the dots.  This connecting, this linking is how the person creates a story.   So, one obvious implication is that the first stories involve the self (I and me) and the moms and dads.  In fact, each of us has "learned" the most from how these persons behave with us, with our siblings, with our neighbors, and with each other.
     So, a problem brought up in therapy may include how the person feels about his/her body.   There are many issues/causes surrounding these feelings.  One important story involves how the infant/child experiences the behavior and mental state of the parent's early handling.  Does the parent like changing the baby or are they disgusted with cleaning up the poop; does the parent like giving them a bath and playing with them or is the parent predominantly elsewhere and in a "hurry".   What are the reactions of the parents as the child "discovers" their genitals.     Out of these many experiences the child creates, often an unarticulated set of stories about his/her body which carry into adulthood.

For a somewhat complex discussion try: http://www.changeprocess.org/articles/Foundationalaccepted.pdf
    

ALIVENESS

Aliveness rather than walking through life.  A great idea but how do you reach this state of being?  Often the world seems to demand our attention to the exclusion of our dreams, our visions fueled by our yearnings.  One way to think about depression is that we no longer dream, no longer have hope about our visions.   Therapy tries to bring the person back to their dreams and negotiate and find a place between the dreams and the demands of reality.   To rediscover our dreams and their potential expression in the present time and place is very much helped by a good listener and thoughtful participant.   Good therapy will find a way for this to have a chance at happening.  

BLAME II

 Some  persons seeking help through therapy often will say something such as "I don't want to dredge up the past just to end up blaming my parents".    This concern has many ingredients.  Often a major ingredient is that he/she is burdened with frustration, and anger and senses linkages with how they grew up.   The purpose of understanding the past which is alive in the present, is to get a grip on the conditions where we learned ways of living that don't work.  How these methods of coping and behaving are anchored in the stories of our early relationships.  And how the theories of living that emerged out of these relationships and stories are inadequate for are present lives.

POEM IV

WHAT WORK IS


We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.


Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.
by Philip Levine, US Poet Laureate


Everyone knows that he/she has to create an economic life.  As the attack 
in our nation upon community and caring grows even more successful and 
vehement, we hear the words of  Philip Levine.   Words about waiting and 
brotherly love.   About the squandering of our heart beats and
about  alienation and the misuse of power.  He slices through the mist 
and fog with the vision of the possibility of comradeship and
brotherly love, if only we can get up the nerve to reach out and speak 
and embrace the other.
You can listen to Levine speak this poem by going to:
http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/levine/what_work_is.php

TALKING WITH TEENS

"Many mothers believe that unless they're having heart-to-hearts (like those Supermoms on TV) they're doing something wrong. True a conversation in the midst of ... driving to pick up pizza doesn't have the same official stamp of "intimacy" as snuggling ... or having a quiet talk at bedtime. But this is when kids naturally open up. The best you can do is accept that the most important information you'll get will be in the form of a two-minute sound bite dropped in your lap when you least expect it."
Ron Taffel from his book Why Parents Disagree
http://www.rontaffel.com/


In the late sixties Ron and I led therapy groups at a school for troubled teens.  My clinical experience and parental experience fits the picture he paints here.  Parents need to adjust their expectations as the teen joins another "tribe/family".  They still need us, yet in less obvious ways.  They want to learn about life more through direct experience rather than our parental vision.

BLAME

~ Children usually do not blame themselves for getting lost - Anna Freud


Every parent is familiar with the child attributing to some other as the cause of his/her behavior.  One of the tasks of development is to accept authorship for your choices and the life you are creating.  This is  a life long project.  Yet, understanding the stuff that goes into the denial of our authorship is not easy and finding the places where you can begin to choose differently is even more difficult.   Everyone needs caring help to succeed at this.
In psychology this kind of blaming is an instance of a more general way of defending the self called "projection".  see for example: http://www.outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Projection.html

POEM III

At Last the Secret is Out At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end, the delicius story is ripe to tell to tell to the intimate friend; over the tea-cups and into the square the tongues has its desire; still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire. Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, under the look of fatigue the attack of migraine and the sigh there is always another story, there is more than meets the eye. For the clear voice suddently singing, high up in the convent wall, the scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall, the croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss, there is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this. WH Auden http://www.poemhunter.com/

POEM II

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices? THE STORIES OF FATHERS ARE MANY, HAYDEN CAPTURES  THE REALITY OF ONE THAT MAY LAY IN THE CORE OF  OUR BEING. A FATHER USED BY THE HARDSHIPS OF  LIFE. A FATHER UNABLE TO ARTICULATE HIS LOVE . A FATHER WHOSE LOVE SPEAKS THROUGH SOME ACTIONS. YET, FOR SOME OF US SUCH A FATHER WOULD BE PRECIOUS COMPARED TO THE PAIN OF ABSENCE. IT IS SO VERY HARD TO MAKE UP FOR ABSENCE. AUTHENTIC THERAPY HAS A CHANCE TO DO SO. you can listen to Hayden at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjosL9VpXjY

POEM

Account by Czeslaw Milosz

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, thought it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own -- but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late. And the truth is laborious.


Berkeley, 1980.

Czeslaw Milosz was a poet, novelist, essayist and translator.  He won the nobel prize for literature in 1980.  He roamed the rooms of his interior and had the courage to bring it to us. 
to see some of his other poems go to: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/czeslaw_milosz

THE MOMENT

But in the meantime, Before you cross the street, Take my hand, Life is just what happens to you, While your busy making other plans,

John Lennon

     John brings together two important stories.  A story about the fleeting moments of childhood and parenthood.   Each of us who have had the good fortune of having a child knows of the exquisite moment of your child reaching up to hold your hand at some crossroad.  And the moment of sadness as we look back and realize our child has grown and no longer creates this moment with us.   Hopefully we have enough of these special moments and the regrets that comes from the end of that era are not too many.
     The second kind of story is all too true with our endless "to do lists" and our "pie in the sky" schemes.  Our society has linked Madison Avenue consumption with appearance and success and entertainment.  We often are so busy in these pursuits that the moments of our lives are just blurs on the screen of consciousness.
The lyrics come from "Beautiful Boy"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vmSG8EyI88&feature=related

RECONCILIATION

        Sometimes something bad happens between members of a family and/or very close friends, and the reaction to this bad thing is basically withdrawal and subsequent avoidance.  This not talking or not engaging the other leaves both parties injured and also with a frozen connection, a frozen image, and a frozen story.  This frozen presence may recede into the background but it will haunt both parties.  The two parties need help to find a way out of this.   Reconciliation involves a slow process of helping each party to see the injury - to bring it forward and put it out on the table and accept its presence without defense.  Why would someone agree to do this?   Because  both parties are haunted by the injury, whether consciously or unconsciously (unconsciously by means of "forgetting" but this forgetting means losing part of your history which is a kind of tear or hole in the fabric of your identity).
      A therapist can help the two parties navigate these kind of meetings by helping to contain and work with the feelings and defensiveness such an attempt requires.  I think this quote speaks to part of the reconciliation process.

"Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame--and pain--in a relationship...It does not settle all questions of blame and justice and fairness...But it does allow relationships to start over. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. It is not our capacity to think that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive."

PTSD - POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

PTSD is such an important issue for both our military and folks in general.  In essence, something so terrible happens to the individual that their capacity to "deal", handle it is overwhelmed.  Results of a study done by VA has looked at the "usual" treatment for PTSD; the use of anti psychotic drugs.  This  study helps us see that drugs were minimally helpful and that human connection through therapy is to be preferred.  Especially, because this particular class of drugs has very significant side effects.  You can view a review of the study at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43994382/ns/health-health_care/
also see and perhaps listen at: http://kuow.org/program.php?id=24142

CARING ABOUT THE SELF

      Caring about the self involves making efforts to do the things which enhance and value the self both in the present and where the effects of these efforts extend into the future.   Efforts in the here and now are more easily taken up then efforts organized around a future self.  There are many ways to not care about the self, especially the self extended into the future.  In most of these non caring instances the person does not even think about the self extended into the future.   He/she does not have an image, a story of "I", "me" and what these choices will help create and/or wreck for some future me.
       Why does this lack of caring happen.  I think there are many forces at play, one of them involves "a lack", and "absence" in the persons growing up years; for example,  think about whether the child was required to take care of his/her teeth growing up, and what kind of effort was put into it.    Another factor involves the aging process, wherein opportunities for the creation of possible parts of a self have waned.  Part of the task of therapy is to help the person see this lack of caring about the self and find ways to challenge the person to take up the effort.   Belief in the patient's potential is very important here.

SONGS AND MOVIES

     Art is both personal and social.  Art is a bridge between the artist and folks.  Yet, it also permits a bridge between folks.  A scene in a movie can be a shared starting point,  for example in the movie "On the Waterfront", Marlon Brando in a cab with Rod Steiger, talks about identity (I could have been somebody...), about love (I did it for you), about humiliation (lets face it I am a Bum), about betrayal (you was my brother, you should have looked out for me).  So much emergent meaning carried in a 5 minute clip.    Elements of scenes like this can serve as templates for therapist and patient to find a common starting point to understand the stories, both conscious and unconscious, which shape his/her lives.
    So too, songs allow us to share with each other through the music and lyrics, a common ground, a common story.  They can carry us into feelings and moods and even contemplations.  The listener, for example, may find him/her self wondering about the arc of their life when David Byrnes in his song,  "Once in a Lifetime", sings "you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

STORIES

One way to think about how our minds work involves accepting we have a bunch of stories in the back of our mind.  These stories involve you and your mom, you and your dad, you and your brothers, you and your sisters, and you and other important persons in your life.  In these stories things happen between you and the other person - things such as you hurting your mom, your mom not paying attention, maybe your dad or mom getting drunk, etc.  There are many such stories alive in the back of your mind.  These stories have "weight" and effect how the self ( I and me) understand what happens between our self and whomever we are interacting with now.
Our memories often touch upon some part of a particular story so our memory can be a sign post directing us to relevant stories that shape are expectations and interpretations of what is happening in present time and place.
Film sometimes uses flashbacks to convey this process, for example in Federico Fellini's movie "8 1/2" or more recently "Saving Private Ryan".

COMPROMISE

Compromise is a word splashed over the news these last few days.  In real life compromise  is about finding solutions between folks.  Compromise is about recognizing limits about "getting my way", and about finding a way to talk things out so that each person can make a choice that has the feeling of "acceptance" in it rather than the feeling of "submission".   Sometimes it is good to hear in your mind the opening refrain by Mick Jagger - "You can't always get what you want".....

DIABETES

The National Institute of Health is predicting a huge increase in Diabetes because of folks overeating and not living an active physical life.  There are many causes for the overeating, I think psychological causes are major factors.  The feeling of emptiness, especially for older folks, is a very significant one.  How to understand and solve the feeling of emptiness begs psychological work be done.
A very interesting study which holds promise for some can be found at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/24/low-calorie-diet-hope-cure-diabetes

HELP

Why is it so hard to ask for help.   The Beatles sang of the need for Help, and that feelings drive the need for help.   To own I need someone, is to publish, to declare  "I am dependent".  A problem for any relationship is how to be both dependent and independent within the connection.

REGRETS

Regrets are part of living a life.  Making choices grounds us in reality.  We make mistakes and also we can't have it all.  As we review the arc of our lives, learning from our mistakes can help lessen the pain of our regrets.  Yet, tolerating the pain of regrets allows our minds (our consciousness) to stay more open.  Of course each of  us has a finite amount of time to come to terms with the effects of choices.

HAPPINESS

The absence of unhappiness is not the same as happiness.


Many relationships are caught in unhappiness, even solving some of the causes of the unhappiness will not get you to happiness.

MOSS HART

“All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say ‘No’ and said ‘Yes".



Often saying "no" is an act of defining something about the self, about making real a difference between self and other.  Sometimes saying "no" is propelled by a defensive defiance because the self is experiencing the situation as one framed by demanding compliance.  The task for the self (the "I") is to correctly assess whether the situation is really one of power, compliance and submission OR is a situation where differences are real and not arbitrary.  


Sometimes the difficulty with saying no is that the person feels that they will be "hurting" the other.   In some of these situations the person harbors a wish or yearning that there are no differences between the self and other and hence no conflicts of desire or intentions.  This yearning that there are no differences is a kind of magical thinking.  If someone doesn't get their "way" (their desire or intention), they may feel hurt (especially, if they have bought into the agreement that we have no conflict of interests).  This hurt, although it may be experienced, is rooted in an un-realness. 

DAVID BYRNE

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? Letting the days go by....
from "Once in a Life Time", the Talking Heads

JIM MORRISON

People are strange when you're a stranger. ...
from the DOORS in their album "Strange Days"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awi14wDTxNw

Frank Zappa

The Mind is like a parachute, it needs to be open to work.

Workings of the Mind - Love

Love trumps entropy (at least in the short term - say a billion years)

Entropy is a concept meant to describe a process in which higher levels of organization decline to lower levels of organization.  Certainly when we look at birth and the gift of life each of us knows that the beauty and organization of the body and mind will return to dust.  So what stands against this bitter knowledge?
Momentary pleasure?  Genetic continuity?  Spirituality?  These "things" help the self in the moment.  But if   we take moments in which we experience being loved, or acting in a loving way and if we use these experiences as a "road sign" indicating a direction and a destination, then, I think, we have something to sustain us in the chill of the night.   When we hope that our children will do "better" than us,  avoid our painful mistakes, these kind of hopes are expressions of our implicit belief that love trumps entropy.   Each of us has witnessed some of the beautiful consequences of love.  What is even more true, is that we are not able to fully see or know the unfolding consequences of love.  How the effects of love ripple through unmet people both in our present time and into the future.

On the Workings of the Mind - EFFORT

Without motivation all organisms fall away from effort .


Essentially psychology has grouped the set of possible motivations into two broad categories: Approach vectors and Avoidance vectors.  Approach vectors can range from pleasurable sensation to satisfaction experiences such as a hard earned achievment.  Avoidance vectors can range from unpleasurable sensation to some noxious experience such as humiliation.  Rarely is experience propelled by a single motivation, rather experience and behavior are resultants of a profound blending of motives.   Early psychologists such as Henry Murray put forward categories of motives such as "need for achievement" and "harm avoidance".   The individual was said to have a high or strong motive (a kind of loading or weight concept).    At times this categorization works but many times the notion of motive (s) is more usefully understood in terms of dynamic scenes very much like a Shakespearian scene.  In these scenes motives take on meaning, are born in the relationships and what is happening between the persons.   


 Often the task of therapy is to work towards discovering the most salient of these motives and the role of these scenes in their life.