The Mystery of our Minds

The more I learn about our brains and neurobiology, in my oh-so-lay-woman-way, the more I become convinced of two truths:

1.)  The human anatomy, and specifically the brain, is truly miraculous and worthy of nothing less than awe. And,
2.) We know as much about our neurobiological inner space as physicists know about outer space; which is to say, a teeny, tiny, speck of infinity. These frontiers are brand new.

I contemplate these truths in my very ordinary day-to-day life.

For example, before my husband leaves for work each morning at 6 a.m., he walks down the hall to our 6 year-old son's bedroom and gives him a kiss goodbye on the forehead.  Our son is sound asleep at the time, and never even stirs.

This morning, after doing his ritual goodbye kiss as usual, my husband asked me, "do you think he knows that I do that every morning?"

"Yes," I definitively answered. 

I added, "before I was a parent, I would have said 'no,' but now, since having multiple experiences of the children surprising me with their responses to the very subtle shifts, movements, moments that  they notice (consciously and unconsciously), I've become a believer in the mystery of the mind. 

Last Sunday I took my father-in-law for a walk in the New England woods.  My father-in-law was diagnosed this year with Alzheimer's Disease.  It is in the early stages, and he seems to be responding well to medication at this time- which is all the good news. 

But the bad news, at this stage anyway, is he no longer seems able to accrue new memories in his conscious mind.  Whether a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral experiences, the moments just do not seem to lodge into the ridges of his brain in a place where he can retrieve them when he wants to. 

Like in the "old days" when we would print out photographs of an experience we wanted to remember and put  them in a photo album, my father-in-law is not able to put anymore pictures into his album.  That function of his brain has seemed to have stopped working.

I was thinking about this new reality for him, and for our family, as we were hiking along, looking at the beautiful red, orange and yellow fall foliage.  I watched my father-in-law smiling and laughing as my son, who had joined us too, was chasing the leaves as they fell from the trees and was trying to catch them before they hit the ground, and I had the thought of the old saying, if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there, does it make a sound?

My father-in-law was clearly experiencing joy in that moment,  and another truth I believe is the experience of joy does all kinds of good things for our brains in ways far beyond my abilities to comprehend.  But, I also wondered, was this moment being recorded into a memory for my father-in-law, somewhere no longer retrievable to him?  Is the memory now there, even if he cannot recall it?

Or, is this where collective memory comes into play? 

Mindfulness and meditation teach us, among other things, that we are interconnected.  We are not separate.  Therefore, in the very hardcore world of biological realities like Alzheimer's Disease, is there possibility for our memories (the good, the bad, and the ugly) to be held in collective consciousness, or in this case, the family albums of myself and my son?

I saw my father-in-law yesterday at my son's football game.  It had been 3 days since our near picture-perfect New England fall walk in the woods.  I know now not to say things like "do you remember?" to my father-in-law, I just follow his lead.  It seemed apparent that he had no conscious recollection of our day together, and so I did not refer to it or bring it up because lately he gets quite upset by moments of awareness that his memory is not what it used to be.

But I was left wondering, in all the mystery of the mind that is currently unknowable to us, is there any trace of our walk in the woods stored somewhere inside him? In his brain? In his body? In his cells?  Or, is it enough, that I carry the memory? And my son too.

I don't know the answers to any of these questions. As  I said, to me, it is a mystery.

Here's what I do know though.  The joy we all experienced in the moment, looking at the canopy of oaks, maples, birches, and pines, was why there are books titled The Miracle of Mindfulness that generations upon generations of people will read.

Letting Go of the Weather

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
-Pema Chodron

My 6 year-old son and I both made a commitment last night to try to have a better week this week than we did last.  Since it was Sunday night, we tried to set ourselves up for success by doing things like setting out our clothes for the next day.

Along with the concrete stuff, I also tried to hold close to my heart these words above by Pema Chodron.  I was recently supervising a student in my work at the hospital, and she reminded me of this wonderful quote.

A good reminder I think.  On the easy-going and smooth weeks, and the tough ones too, it is difficult but critical to be mindful that I not cling to whatever "weather" happens to be crossing my path. Just notice it, and let go. 

Why We Need the Wisdom of World Religions

As a self-identified Unitarian Universalist I am often found reading up on the spiritual practices of the world religions.  I find religious customs, stories, symbols, and rituals completely fascinating, and have often thought how unfortunate it is that religions have, in many cases, lost sight of what makes them fundamentally necessary for human existence, a sane existence anyway, and that is to be a route and sanctuary through suffering.

 

If you yourself are not of the Unitarian Universalist (or UU) faith, this might be a foreign spiritual development topic to consider. But in the UU faith there are 6 "Sources" for the religion that are listed as the following:

• Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
• Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
• Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
• Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Therefore, in the UU faith, it is not uncommon, for instance, to listen to the story behind Yom Kippur during the Jewish Holy Days like I did last month in church on Sunday.  (And as an aside, along with now having more guidance for how I may engage in atonement, I also know the history of the word "scapegoat" as well...)

 

Unfortunately, this UU tradition of drawing on the wisdom and best practices of  others has led some to think “Oh, you are a Unitarian Universalist. That means you don’t believe in anything.”  This is a huge pet peeve of mine.  As someone who takes her own spiritual and religious theology quite seriously, this bothers me deeply.

But ignorance aside, I’ll admit there can be a tricky line to walk when considering that two of the 7 Principles that guide the UU faith are:

Principle 4: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning and

Principle 7: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

In this respect, it is sensible to have concern for potential misuse or superficial use of ancient sacred practices.

 

I frequently hear about and think about spiritual materialism which I interpret as picking and choosing spiritual and religious practices as if at a buffet table.  As an object to be had or discarded based on preference, mood or will, thereby losing its very integrity.

 

This is dangerous, and worthy of active vigilance to mindfully beware of.  A watered down religious tradition is as worrisome to me as a dogmatic fundamentalism in any faith.

 

Yet, I have to admit, I feel so much richer when I hear the story of liberation that is the Jewish Holiday Passover.  Or, when I read Christian author Anne Lamott's take on the resurrection of Jesus. Or, when I stay up late on the night of the Winter Solstice in December to bow down to the coming of more light. Yet, I am neither Jewish, Christian, nor Pagan.

 

As someone who grew up in the secular world without the strong presence of religious customs, stories, symbols, and rituals, I can tell you, for me anyway, it made the passageways through suffering more difficult to navigate.  And I don't think I'm alone in the respect. 

 

I was recently re-reading one of my favorite books When the Heart Waits.  This is one of Sue Monk Kidd's earlier spiritual memoirs that had a profound impact on me.  In the book, among other topics, the author stresses the need and importance for customs, stories, symbols, and rituals for the care of the soul.  And wouldn't you know, world religions are jammed packed with all of the above.  World religions are actually over-flowing with best practices for the artful work that is necessary to "compose a life-" to borrow a book title from Mary Catherine Bateson- and navigate the trickiest part of "composing a life:" the management and integration of painful events and the inevitable suffering that ensues.

 

I've come to believe that without the wisdom of the ages, human beings are remarkably ill-equipped to sort through the emotionally painful events of our human existence.  Without coaching and training, we are just plain not good at it. 

 

Ask anyone who feels stuck in his or her life what was the cause of their pain, and I swear nine times out of ten you will hear some version of only 4 possible scenarios:

A. The individual transgressed his or her own values;

B. The individual witnessed someone else transgressing his or her own values;

C. The individual was the victim of someone transgressing his or her values; Or,

D. The individual was the perpetrator of transgressing someone else's values.

In other words, an individual's soul is unable to rest comfortably inside this human life because it is unable to make sense of some transgression.  And no amount of cognitive thinking will help them.  No amount working. No amount of tv watching.  No amount of weight loss or drinking.

 

This is where the wisdom of world religions can help us, can save us.  Thankfully, we actually don't need to reinvent the wheel here.

 

We do need spiritual direction though.  For two reasons. 

 

One, because the millennia of religious material is too vast, a guide just seems to be a must. 

 

And two, I do believe we must always remain cognizant of the possible vulnerability to covet and then take something that is not ours.  As long as human beings remain imperfect, which is to say human, we will always be susceptible to spiritual and religious envy and jealousy.

 

So we proceed mindfully. Cautiously. Aware of the risks, but willing to consider that we may not know everything about everything, and someone else out there might have had a pretty good idea somewhere along the way in the last few thousands years about how to more creatively move through pain and suffering.

 

What do you think though? What have you learned from the world religions about the art of being human? Is it ethical to borrow that wisdom from others?

 

 

Occupational Hazards & Spiritual Practices

Well, it has been almost 2 weeks since I last wrote in this blog, and that is certainly a sign of the times.

As many of you know, I have 2 jobs: one as mother to 2 young children and the other as full-time psychotherapist at a hospital along with a very small start-up private practice.  This puts me in a category with millions of other working parents who I know can relate to the potential risk in both jobs for burn-out.

Burn-out is an occupational hazard for both parents and psychotherapists, which for me is both! 

Burn-out can look a little different on each individual. For me though it includes 2 primary ingredients: abandonment of my spiritual practices and disciplines and body aches and pains. 

What I've come to believe though, is that my two signs of burn-out are actually one and the same. I think my neglect of my spiritual practices and disciplines is what largely contributes to my body "keeping the score" to borrow a phrase from the modern-day famous Dutch psychiatrist Bessel Van de Kolk, MD. 

Without meditation, yoga, physical activity in nature, spiritual writing and reading, and church to process through and digest the information and experiences I have taken in through my use of self as a parent and psychotherapist, my body begins to carry the weight and burden of all of my encounters.

I once heard an interview given by playwright and activist Eve Ensler who discussed this very thing. 

You might remember her from her play The Vagina Monologues which came out in the 90's, and then led to a movement called V-Day in which people all over the world speak out against domestic violence and sexual violence against women every year on Valentines Day, February 14th.

More recently though, she wrote a book called In the Body of the World.  This book is a memoir in part about her experience surviving uterine cancer.  When discussing this book in the interview, the playwright said she was not surprised when she received the cancer diagnosis.  Despite her well-known work as a activist to promote a woman's right to the safety and security of her own body, she admitted to a long-time personal disconnect from her own body.  In part due to her own history of sexual trauma, but also due to listening to what she described as "thousands" of stories about the trauma of others.

I am fortunate to have not had any sort of sexual trauma in my own life, but I was certainly able to relate to Ms. Ensler's description of the potential long-term effects of what we call in the psychological world as "use of self" which is part of the therapeutic process of helping another.  If unchecked, this can manifest into burn-out, or worse, vicarious traumatization where the clinician herself begins to have her own symptoms of a trauma she herself did not directly experience.  Not good. Not good at all.

When discussing this body-disconnect, by no means specific to her or I, in another online magazine called Guernica, Ms. Ensler said this in December, 2013:

"What this whole world has been about up to now is separations. We’re all in our silos. Women’s bodies are seen the same way as the earth—as something we need to tame, something we need to control, something we need to use, dominate. But we don’t see them as something as connected to us. I don’t know why it took cancer to fully break through my own numbness and denial, but it did and it brought me back into my body. I am not anti-intellectual by any means, but I think we’ve worshipped the brain at the expense of the heart and the body and the spirit. As a result, a terrible separation and split has happened. Our work now is to embody intelligence. To make us whole and the world whole."

After listening to her interview, which was some time ago now, and reading other articles about this idea, I have begun to imagine these stories I hear as swirling balls of energy that I have to carefully handle alongside the patient I am working with.  Gently, we must hold and guide this energy so that it does not convert into something destructive, and personally, I must be vigilant to not allow this ball of energy to take up residence inside of me.  This seems to require a regular "detox" of sorts in the form of all of my spiritual practices and disciplines, but particularly the body-based activities like yoga.

But here is where the paradox presents itself: what is the very thing I have little to no interest to do once signs of burn-out are already present (e.g. headaches, hives, jaw clenching), but it is one of the very practices that would be exactly what the doctor ordered? Yoga.

Seane Corn, the well-known Yoga Instructor and founder of the non-profit Off the Mat Yoga, has also discussed the necessity of a practice that helps an individual process through all of the emotional residue that can transform into disease if not addressed.  She said in a radio interview:

"Your body remembers everything and even though we have as human beings a gorgeous ability to reconcile or to reason, our bodies don’t have that same ability to heal unless we’re moving through experiences in our life…If we’re holding on to hate, blame, shame, anger, rage, sadness, or grief, something like that, those emotions can be as toxic on our physical body as poor diet or as inertia and they manifest as tension, stress, and anxiety. So our physical body is actually masking the emotional resonance that lies beneath it."

This is the dilemma.  And I think it is equally true in parenting. 

We recently had a run of two different strands of viruses go through our family, and after several days of sleepless nights, taking temperatures, and visiting the doctor's office, the very spiritual practices that would have been unquestionably helpful, I could not bring myself to even consider.  All of the sudden any moment of downtime (a.k.a. the children were napping or sleeping) I found myself binge-watching old seasons of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix, and just disconnecting to all things fundamental in myself- including my own body.

So how does one get back on the horse? How does a slide of couple days not turn into a couple weeks, not turn into a couple of months? How do I begin again?

My old way would be to push myself.  To use relatively harsh language, sometimes of a shaming nature, to "get my act together." Yes, not very compassionate.  And honestly, not very helpful in the long-run.

I recently read an article in the June, 2015 issue of Mindful called "Does Why You Meditate Matter" by Shauna Shapiro that suggested returning to your intention. 

I like this idea. Rather than pushing and shaming and, as I'd say to my patients, "shoulding" yourself (as in: I should do this), reminding yourself of why we are coming to the cushion to begin with from that deeper, wiser place inside, which for me is to reside with god.  To sit together for a while.  Just us two.  This converts into a greater ability to do all of my vocations- be they work, parenting, or the one we all share, being my true authentic self.

So for today, I will try to come back to my intention.  And whatever happens, happens.  I will try to use my intention as a tool to gently, compassionately come back to my spiritual practices and disciplines which I know serve me well.

How about you? What strategies do you use for managing burn-out? What spiritual practices help you with the occupational hazards you encounter?