Thoughts about contemporary psychotherapy and personal growth from Karen Carnabucci, MSS, LCSW, TEP, non-traditional psychotherapist, coach, educator and psychodramatist at Lake House Health & Learning Center at 932 Lake Ave., Racine, Wis.
In the last post, we discussed food as an important healer with cancer, as well as healthy eating as a way to prevent cancer.
Today we discuss guided imagery, a type of relaxation exercise designed to engage your mind, body and spirit, which many people have found extremely helpful for reducing stress and pain, acclerating healing and changing negative thoughts. I like the Health Journeys imageries by Belleruth Naparstak (shown at left) which you can order as CDs or downloads from her site.
However, there are a number of quality imagery sessions online that you can listen to and download for free that the Kaiser Permanente health site. When you click on the link, scroll down to look for topics of radiation, healthy immune system and successful surgery.
If you don't have cancer, you'll notice many other topics that are helpful for stress reduction, pain relief, healthy sleep and many other health issues.
Nearly 2,000 people walked Racine's Relay For Life route the weekend of June 12 to call attention to the disease of cancer and raise funds for research, as The Racine Post reported here. The good news is that this local fund raiser gathered a whopping $205,000 to research cancer.
But there's other news, too. Cancer devastates many families. Friends and coworkers suffer as they helplessly watch the illness progress. In my circle of friends, family and acquaintances, I've counted more than enough sad events where people suffered with cancer; some died, despite giving the illness their best fight. Within my therapy practice, I often hear of the emotional toll that cancer brings to patients and families as they try to find a pathway out of pain to health.
In a recent Huffington Post article, How Diet Affects Cancer, medical doctor Keith Block questioned some of the common instructions that Western medicine gives to patients, including directions to eat "well," including many fats and meats. He notes, instead, that:
Diets high in fat and refined carbohydrates make you more likely to become overweight, which in turn increases your risk of tumor recurrences. Obese men are at significantly greater risk of developing more aggressive prostate cancer.
Dietary fats can impair the body's anti-cancer defenses by depressing the activity of natural killer (NK) cells, while a low-fat diet markedly increases NK activity. Natural killer cells play a key role in preventing metastasis.
Obese breast cancer patients are two to four times more likely to experience a recurrence than women of normal weight.
A new book, Anticancer, by another medical doctor David Servan-Schreiber -- who experienced cancer not once but twice -- discusses the standard American diet -- with its meats, fats, oils and processed foods -- that appears to stimulate and feed cancer cells. He also provides thoughts about how psychotherapy, especially experiential therapies, offers another dimension of healing.
Mercedes Dzindzeleta, a local massage therapist and health educator, has been researching cancer and legitmate health care alternaties for some time; an earlier blog listed two attractive cookbooks that she found useful. Today we bring more research, including what appears to be the well known "FOCC" dish, which blends flaxseed oil and cottage cheese. The two ingredients appear to make the the mixture more powerful and more able to be metabolized in the body.
Here is a video which shows how this simple recipe is constructed:
FOCC comes from what is known as the Budwig Protocol, which is based on studies from Dr. Johanna Budwig, a German biochemist and expert on fats and oils. Dr. Budwig, who died in 2003, held a Ph.D. in Natural Science and was schooled in pharmaceutical science, physics, medicine, botany and biology. She is best known for her research on the benefits of flaxseed oil combined with sulphurated proteins in the diet, and published several books on the subject, including "Cancer--A Fat Problem," "The Death of the Tumor," and "True Health Against Arteriosclerosis, Heart Infarction & Cancer."
Dr. Budwig had a 90 percent-plus success rate with this protocol with cancer patients during a 50-year period. A vegetarian, she continued to work with patients in Germany from the 1950s through 2002, while in her nineties. She was healthy and mentally sharp, writing and lecturing. One letter from a patient who met with her in October 2000, commented on her energy and vitality, saying she looked and seemed much younger than her age.
The Budwig diet is a health supplement that is best incorporated in a general diet plan. Flaxseed oil should be purchased from the refrigerated section of a health food store, never in capsule form and never from the shelves. Since degradation begins as soon as the container is opened, the oil should be kept refrigerated and used within the recommended time of eight weeks.
Her ideas are discused in detail on the Cancer Cure Foundation's website and on her own site here. There's also a Yahoo discussion list, an online support group, where posters share experiences and questions. Proponents say her diet -- which involves more than just the cottage cheese mixture -- also helps with arthritis, multiple sclerosis and other serious ailments.
When you change the way you look at things, things change.” – Wayne Dyer.
Conventional wisdom says that we have to “fight” illnesses like depression, cancer, heart diseases and drug addition to become healthy.
There’s a story that Louis Pasteur, the famous French scientist who developed pasteurization to protect milk form germs, admitted on his death bed that he agreed with another prominent scientist who said that our body isn’t attacked from outside by germs; rather, our cells are changed within by what we eat, our thoughts, our emotions and what we create inside ourselves
More recently, Candace Pert, a researcher and innovator acclaimed for her pioneering work in the area of psychoneuroimmunology, has concluded that our thoughts and emotions change the body’s molecules and affect our health. She is more popularly known for appeared in the 2004 film “What the Bleep Do We Know,” speaking as a serious scientist to the notion that we create our own reality
Her book, “Molecules of Emotion” contends that the brain, glands, and immune system are in constant communication which gives us real reason to observe our thoughts, notice our environment and wonder what we are feeding ourselves.
All this gives pause to consider how we change and what influences changes within us.
In a recent blog, we explored the challenges of experience and how we can interpret experiences to advance our personal development.
Now, there is a little bit of caution here. Sometimes we interpret an experience so narrowlly that is not to our benefit. In other words, the story that we made for ourselves ends up diminishing ourselves and our lives rather than enhancing our understanding of ourselves and our world.
An example:
I know a woman who lived in a small town and decided to leave the town and her family to move across five states to find a good job in a big city.
Her family was important to her. She tried to stay in touch with the family members who lived more than 500 miles away, but it wasn’t easy to make that long drive on a regular basis, especially after children arrived and the travels became more complicated. She always was the one to visit and very few members of her family traveled to visit her.
She came to the conclusion that they didn’t care about her and that their lives and families were more important than her and her family. Many years passed, and her contact with them diminished to the bare minimum – exchanging cards at Christmas with barely a note inside, just the names.
But I saw a different conclusion, a different story. She was the adventurous one – the one who bravely left home and hearth for a new life in a strange town -- full of courage. The ones who were left behind were hardly adventurous at all. They preferred to play it safe and stay in their hometown, even though opportunities were very limited.
The truth is the woman loved her family members and missed them. Rather than “experiencing” the sadness and the yearning to connect more with her family, she quickly made up a story that they were self-centered and too interested in their own lives to pay attention to her.
What might happen if you look at one of your experiences with new eyes and a different way of thinking? Ho might you change?
I can talk for an hour about the challenges of change. In our conversation, we might admit that change is often difficult and scary -- although sometimes exhilarating and necessary.
But anything that I say will not give you the full experience of change. So, let's have an experience that will allow you to experience change that will lead to understanding yourself and an idea much more deeply than I can ever explain.
First, let’s put our hands on our laps. Then give attention to our hands on our laps. Without looking, interlace the fingers on your right hand with the fingers on your left hand.
Good. Now take a moment to glance at your hands and notice how your hands look, how your fingers are laced and where your thumbs are placed.
Notice if your right thumb is placed over your left thumb – or vice versa. It’s OK – whatever way your thumbs have intersected is just fine. We just want to notice what happens and we want to notice how this feels.
Now, slowly and with awareness, lift the thumb that’s on the top. Move your other thumb to allow the top thumb to go underneath and then put the remaining thumb on top.
Now, let’s take a moment to notice what your experience is like.
Odd? Strange? Different? Uncomfortable? Awkward? Or something else?
This is an experience – admittedly, a very simple experience – about change. Notice that one way is not right and the other way is not wrong. They are just different. And in just a few minutes you have an experience about change that goes much more deeply into your being than I could ever explain, even if I talked about change for the next 100 days.
Now, we also want to notice what you DO with the experience. Do you decide, without thinking very hard, that the second way is much too difficult and that you want to quickly return to the old comfortable way?
Do you notice that you are intrigued by the difference of the two experiences and start overlapping your thumbs in various configurations to learn more about how this feels?
Are you able to consider that change involves some level of discomfort and are you willing to figure out how to tolerate the discomfort while you are approaching or in the midst of change?
Notice that the experience comes first. Once we have the experience, we can begin to find the context about how the experience fits in our lives.
Long before I was a psychotherapist, I decided it was never too late to have a happy childhood.
A personal experience:
I never attended my high school prom. I was too nerdy, too shy and too lacking in social graces to enjoy this highlight milestone of high school.
Later, when I was in my 30s, I had the good luck to work as a reporter and editor for the morning newspaper in Lancaster, Pa. I decided to assign myself to attend a high school prom and write an article about the experience.
I had girlfriends who went “prom dress” shopping with me, giggling and waiting patiently as I finally picked a filmy gown with a peach colored sash and pearl buttons. I found Jerry, a wise-cracking and adventurous male friend who agreed to be my date, resplendent in a borrowed black tuxedo. My good friends, Patti and Joe, lent their house for the big evening. Other friends bought their children for pictures and silliness. An elderly neighbor man showed up to play the kind grandfather role.
Everyone cheered and clapped as I dramatically descended the staircase and – YES! – took pictures of me and my companion in front of the fireplace, my fluffy and flowery wrist corsage in full view. Friend Joe, in his role as "Dad," mock-sternly asked my date what time he would return me to home.
Then we went off to the prom, finishing the evening with an early morning breakfast at a local diner. It was a wonderful evening, and I love the warm memories that I hold within me today, more than 20 years later.
In my psychotherapy sessions, I sometimes challenge my clients to identify an experience that they did not have the opportunity to have in their own lives, something that shadows their days with the sad feeling of "missing out." Then we explore how we can consciously create that experience in safe, positive and healthy way so that it becomes a part of their lives.
What have you missed? What ideas do you have to repair that experience?
Remember the bit of advice from the 1960s -- if it feels good, do it?
Well, we might know a teenager who just got pregnant because sex “felt good” but who will have to deal with the consequences of tending to an actual needy and noisy infant.
Or an alcoholic or drug addict who said that first drink or drug felt good but now the eighth drink and ninth drug spiraled to compulsive and out of control behavior.
Or — maybe you have a story like this, one that you just can't explain, no matter how much you try to wrap your brain around it.
The truth is:
We need to value both feelings AND thoughts. One is not more important than the other.
The truth is:
Logic is important and good. It is a gift.
But experience is necessary. It is a gift.
The understanding of the complexity of our brains is the main reason that I have been attracted to experiential psychotherapy and immense value of experience in our lives and how it fits with logic and intellect. It is the reason that talk therapy, as valuable as it is, has its limits.
A (very) short lesson in brain science:
We have a complicated brain with a number of parts that have specific jobs. And our brain has two hemispheres, the right brain and the left brain.
The left brain is the logical side of the self. Logic examines general forms that arguments may take, which forms are valid, and which are fallacies. It is one kind of critical thinking. It is the part of the brain that puts words together, allowing me to speak and you to listen and make sense of what I am saying.
The right brain is focused on emotions, intuition and sensory experience. Your right brain loves colors and textures and pink, purple and red – with sparkles and fringe, even if it doesn’t match! Your right brain loves the picture on this blog page more than the words. This side of the brain is the storehouse of feelings, and feelings are not logical, they just are. And if you think that you can explain your feelings through logic, then you might be rationalizing and denying – or just making stuff up!
The logic and intuition of our brains is meant to swing back and forth so that we are able to constantly switch between these two valuable ways of being in the world.
Here’s another interesting tidbit:
We also know that experiences change our brain. In trauma studies, for instance, scientists have actually been able to monitor how there are cellular changes within the brain when the person experiences a trauma such as abuse, combat or another horrifying event.
However, there’s other good news:
People who are survivors of trauma can heal when their brains change. This means that extremely painful or scary experiences can change the brain for the worse and that positive experiences can change the brain for the better. This is called healing.
Logic doesn't always make sense. I know this. I am by profession a psychotherapist, coach, and educator and most people who seek my help and advice arrive when logic doesn't work.
Typically, when we speak of problem, it is suggested that we think and talk about the problem and apply logic to solve it. When people are struggling with a dilemma, decision or problem, the conventional suggestion involves thinking -- using common sense to figure out the problem:
Think before you speak.
Think it through.
Think out of the box.
Now, thinking is a good thing. We can remember times when we have used our brains. We made lists of pros and cons about a certain decision and followed a plan of action that sounded really good in our heads.
There was just one problem – when the logical solution was applied to real life, it didn’t work very well.
We have an idea about how wonderful it would be to go on this vacation or have that romatic partner or purchase this great new outfit. That’s the logical mind speaking. We can have lots of reasons to back up the rightness of our desires.
In my own life, I’ve had the opportunity to relearn this concept many times, and I am sure that you have as well. Remember that wish that you really, really wanted to come true. Maybe it was that perfect job that turned out to be a nightmare bcause you were't prepared for the 12-hour days? Or that gorgeous big house that seemed like a really great real estate investment until the bottom fell out of the ecomony and you strugged to pay your mortgage?
That brings us to another old piece of advice:
Be careful what you pray for.
It seems that many times when we get what we’ve been wanting, the experience we receive is quite different. A loyalty to logic presumes that we have control over our world. It further presumes that we can predict everything that will happen:
Such as: 2 + 2 = 4.
However, life is not logical. For instance:
How is it that a woman who claims to be a loving and caring mother buys heroin with her son, teaches him how to use the heroin and uses the drug with him?
How is it that a man says he wants to be healthy but eats a double cheese pizza every day followed with a chaser of three doughnuts?
How is it that a woman is terribly abused but does not leave her spouse – even when financial help and refuge is offered?
When we ponder these questions, we see that there are limits to logic, just like there are limits to our control over the word. For some people, the logic of the solution – follow me on this – lays in other kinds of advice:
Follow your heart.
Listen to your gut.
Go with the flow.
But this advice is bare of real content and direction during the decision-making process, especially one that will have repercussions for a long time to come.
What does it mean to follow your heart? And how do we separate what we “want” from what is really “right” for us – if there is anything that is really right for us?
Walking between the brain and the heart is truly a spiritual challenge that call us to examine our inner yearnings. In the next blog post, we'll examine this idea of logic more closely.
Did you catch the recent tele-movie about Lois Wilson, the co-founder of Al-Anon?
It's a brilliant telling of the story of how families are affected by alcoholism and a reminder that you don't have to drink to suffer from alcoholism.
The recent tele-movie is "When Love Is Not Enough," is based on the newly reissued biography by William G. Borchert. It reveals the trials and triumph for co-founder of Al-Anon, whose alcoholic husband, Bill Wilson, was a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is the moving story about how the couple rose from a life of despair to institute one of the twentieth century's most important social movements, and how Lois created a legacy of hope for millions of families devastated by addiction through her uncommon love and unshakable faith.
A college-educated young woman from an affluent family, Lois married Bill in 1918, after his return from duty at the end of World War I. While Lois worked as an occupational therapist, Bill struggled to find his niche. Lois strongly believed that Bill was destined for greatness, and despite noticing an increase in his drinking habits, she showered him with love and support. By 1927, Bill was a lucrative securities analyst on Wall Street and the couple was living a luxurious lifestyle.
Despite Lois' countless efforts to control his drinking, Bill's addiction to alcohol spiraled out of control until his job, their lifestyle and dreams were gone. In 1935, after years of unsuccessfully struggling to cover for Bill and manage his disease, Lois saw him take control of his alcoholism. However, his sobriety was not the result of Lois' help but through the support of a fellow recovering alcoholic, Dr. Bob Smith.
As Bill and Bob attained sobriety and started Alcoholics Anonymous, Lois began to question the value she had in her own marriage. After devoting 17 years to healing her sick husband, Lois felt isolated and resentful that he was sober without her help. Lois eventually discovered that she was not alone. She slowly engaged the wives of the men in Bill's program and came to realize that while Bill was addicted to alcohol, she was addicted to him - and that the family and friends of alcoholics are, in some ways, as sick as their loved ones. Lois gained the necessary understanding needed to repair her fractured relationship and to help millions of others do the same. She co-founded Al-Anon in 1951.
Read many stories here about how Al-Anon is still very much helpful to distressed family members in the 21st century.
Are you or your child restless? Nose drippy? Or is there some other irritating health or behavior problem?
What did you eat, drink or touch? I've been receiving calls about food and other allergies and how they may affect behavior -- a problem that medications just won't help. Some medical doctors think food allergies are a bunch of hooey and won't order a blood test for the potential problem.
Dr. Doris Rapp is dedicated to sharing important information about harmful environmental factors that can affect how children and adults feel, think and act in our high-tech, high-stress, high-profit world. The "progress at any cost" mentality is rapidly overwhelming our bodies as we attempt to cope with our increasingly polluted environment.
In her breakthrough best-selling book "Is This Your Child?" Dr. Rapp identifies the major symptoms of potentially unrecognized allergies in children and adults, suggesting possible sensitivities to dust, mold, pollen, foods or chemicals. Allergies are much more than high fever, asthma and itchy skin. It is possible to identify allergies by simply looking at someone. At times it is surprisingly easy to find and eliminate the cause.
The typical clues of allergies and environmental illness can include any combination of the following: rubbing nose upwards -- to wipe drippy nose -- eye wrinkles, dark eye circles, sudden aggression, scarlet earlobes, a spacey look, extreme activity changes, wiggly legs, red cheeks and a mottled tongue.
Here's a well-viewed video with Dr. Doris Rapp, who is talking about children's allergies to food and environment. The show aired in 1989 on television's popular Phil Donahue Show:
Every so often, a parent asks me about the wisdom of spanking a child.
Now, I'm not a fan of spanking. Spanking teaches kids that it's all right for big people to hit little people -- or anyone else -- and that a sign of "bigness" is that they get to hit people too. It also teaches that hitting and hurting are legitimate repsonses to anger and that punishment, rather than teaching ways to maintain good behavior, is the focus.
Time has published a good essay about spanking in the current Time magazine in an article titled, The Long-Term Effects of Spanking, which reports on a researchers at Tulane University provide the strongest evidence yet that children's short-term response to spanking may make them act out more in the long run. Of the nearly 2,500 youngsters in the study, those who were spanked more frequently at age 3 were much more likely to be aggressive by age 5.
It's better to practice alternative ways of guidance -- the key word rather than punishment -- with time-out periods, redirection and other positively oriented responses. Now, hitting is easy. Changing behaviors to parent effectively takes time, motivation and intention. If a parent finds that anger and other emotions prevent the learning and use of these activites, then it may be important to address issues relating to the self.
There was a time not long ago when addiction professionals would chuckle upon hearing a colleague talk of providing “holistic” treatment. Or when a treatment center would provide an hour of yoga for the newly recovering addicts -- mostly to keep them busy while the staff planned the next talk therapy session.
Today, it would appear that some of the most prestigious treatment centers can’t move fast enough to be associated with the term, now that more are seeing how complementary therapies can help improve upon the success of traditional treatment strategies. Later this month, about 1,000 professionals are expected to attend a conference in Las Vegas called “Holistic Treatment: Changing the Way We Look at Recovery—Body, Mind & Spirit.” A state conference, sponsored by the Wisconsion Association on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse, is titled "Science, Treatment & Wellness in Collaboration for a Holistic Recovery" and is coming up May 10-12 in Middletown.
Holistic treatment is here for sufferers of addiction in a bigger way than ever before. And although recovery people have long preached the three-part nature of the bio-psycho-social affliction, most of the focus was still on talk therapy and Twelve-Step meetings.
Now acupuncture, massage, yoga, nutrition and other complementary methods are included in the treatment mix as authentically healing. I want to say a good word for alternatives to talk therapy which are much more inclusive of the whole self -- and include mind-body therapies like psychodrama -- it's been around for a while but now with many new innovations -- plus tapping, Systemic Constellation Work, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR and others.
We already know that the quality and selection of food affects our weight, energy and emotional health. Now there is a resurgence in natural care options, including diet, that are available for people with cancer.
I just received these titles from Mercedes Dzindzeleta, a Racine massage therapist and bodyworker who has been researching alternative cancer treatments and adjuncts to cancer treatments. Her discovery of several cookbooks for cancer survivors and patients is worth sharing.
These new cookbooks are attractive and show wholesome and healthy foods of all kinds. I had the opportunity to taste the resuilts of one recipe, a soft-as-a-cloud sponge cake sweetened with maple syrup -- delicious!
The queen of these cookbooks appears to be Rebecca Katz, author of "The Cancer Fighting-Kitchen" and "One Bite At A Time." Both focus on immune-building recipes with easy-to-find ingredients that stimulate appetite and address treatment side-effects including fatigue, nausea, mouth and throat soreness, and low blood counts.
"The traumatic wounds of war take over the entire consciousness." -- Ed Tick, author of "War and The Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."
How can people be angry about more people recieving health care?
Watch the newspapers, the blogs and the evening news, and we learn that many are not only angry, but violently and extremely angry, about the passage of the new health care bill. In many cases, the anger is focused toward misinfomration -- ideas about what the health care bill does and doesn't do -- that aren't even correct.
As a health professional myself, I have had front row seat for more than 20 years to see people who are denied care for many reasons -- insurance companies who do not cover pre-existing conditions:
Insurance companies who do not think a diagnosis is "serious" enough to merit treatment. People who through no fault of their own lose their jobs and therefore lose their insurance. People who cannot find a full-time job with benefits, no matter how hard they look. People who have amazingly high deductibles of $3,000 or more before any reimbursement is considered. People who are limited to number of psychotherapy sessions they may receive for the year.
I can't share the names and details due to my professional pledge of confidentiality but I can share the story of a close friend whose young adult daughter will be covered by the new law. See the Associated Press story, 2 Million Eager For Health Care On Parents' Plans.
The new law isn't perfect and there is discussion about the best way to implement it. But it demonstrates progress and inclusion and makes our country healthier.
As the for the extreme reactions, I remember, as a psychotherapist, that the left brain logic is currently on vacation while the right brain fear takes full stage. I pray that the right brain of all those who are panicked can be soothed.
I'm gratified to receive lots of positive comments about Saturday's training program for professionals on "Treating & Healing Trauma With Action Methods," which you'll see in my next e-mail newsletter.Watch for more training dates for experiential modalities for addressing trauma.
News of best practices of addressing trauma is rapidly growing, as we understand more about the brain and how it is impacted by traumatic experiences, whether abuse, war or natural catastrophe. Now there are new laws about the importance of current education.
The National Center for Trauma-Informed Care was created in 2005, and it is funded by the Center for Mental Health Services. It assists publicly-funded agencies, programs, and services in making the important cultural shift to a more trauma-informed environment — an environment that is intended to be more supportive, comprehensively integrated, and empowering for trauma survivors.
In addition, the NCTIC has facilitated a Facebook Group called Trauma-Informed to promote dialog about trauma-informed care and to foster the sharing of knowledge and resources through this social marketing network.
That’s what lots of people have been saying when they found out that former Racine mayor Gary Becker purchased a batch of girlish-sized lingerie just two weeks ago.
If he hadn’t purchased the lingerie – or at least hadn’t been recognized and reported for the purchase – he might have walked away with probation at Wednesday’s court sentencing.
However, when the presiding judge found out about the lingerie purchase, he decided to revise his sentence to three years in prison, accompanied by extended post-release supervision. The former mayor was sitting before the judge, charged for his plan to meet and have sex with who he thought was a 14-year-old girl – but who turned out to be an undercover agent setting him up for an Internet sting.
Stupid?
As the judge noted, it’s not a crime to purchase women’s underwear at a department store in the local mall.
However, this man isn’t just any shopper. This is a man who was charged with a serious sex-related crime and had attended an expensive treatment center to address what is most surely a situation of compulsive sexual behavior. Within the context of this scenario, this purchase brings up a number of flags – flags that the judge appropriately noted and then questioned this man’s ability to adequately address and control his behavior.
All addictions – whether they involve alcohol, drugs, compulsive overeating, risk-taking sexual activity, gambling or whatever – are self destructive. The risk-taking behavior typically flares even higher during times of stress, when the rush of terrible excitement overrides the underlying slow-brewing anxiety.
Let’s put it this way: When you’re flying up and down the roller coaster’s steep curves, you don’t think about mowing the back yard, if you remembered to take the garbage out or the amount of the balance in your bank account.
Though we have no way of knowing Becker's exact reason for his choices, here are some general points to consider:
The person doesn’t consciously plan to be self destructive. The person isn’t even typically stupid. But he or she isn't able to manage the extreme pain and inner stress in what we would consider healthy and appropriate ways. In this case, we can imagine that a person would be rightly anxious to walk up the steps of the county court house, walk into a court room and face the judge who would determine the next chapter of a person’s life.
Many, many people who suffer serious addictions and compulsions are able to make significant changes and enjoy lives of peace and productivity with motivation, willingness, humility, support and the right treatment options. And others struggle and flounder. If there is anything good about this unsavory situation, it is the opportunity to learn more about how people use self-destructive behaviors to escape the reality of their inner world and how challenging it is to make changes.
Stupid?
More accurately, a painful and sad situation for all concerned.
A special shout out to endorse “Fresh - New Thinking About What We’re Eating,” a movie by Ana Sofia Joanes, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 2, at the Gifford Elementary School, 8332 Northwestern Ave. (Highway K) Racine. The movie will be followed by a presentation by Will Allen of Milwaukee’s Growing Power who was recently named one of “100 History Makers in the Making.”
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the program is sponsored by Eat Right Racine, a new lively non-profit started by a group of health-oriented mothers who want to encourage everyone to pursue good nutrition. Keep in mind that good nutrition not only nourishes our bodies, it also helps our minds, thoughts and feelings function at their best, giving us good mental health.
We are now learning that sounds -- which are really vibrations that go deep to our core -- can heal or disrupt.
Sound healing is among the newest forms of energy healings, with practitioners creating sounds with Tibetan singing bowls, tuning forks, the voice and and other means. Hope V. Horton and Gabrielle Laden, whose business Sound Accords focuses on the quieting qualities of sound (what may seem like an oxymoron at first read), will teach a workshop, titled Singing Metals, March 19-21 in Madison, Wis.
1. Make spontaneous sounds throughout the day. If something hurts, say "ouch." If something pleases you, laugh out loud. If you have to sneeze, do it as loudly as you can. These kinds of sounds help our bodies to release and re-balance. Stifling them adds to the build-up.
2. Notice the sounds in your environment. What effect do they have on you? What can you do to minimize sounds that make you feel on edge and maximize sounds that nourish you?
3. Use music with more awareness. Notice how you are feeling. Are you stressed? Tired? Irritated? How would you like to be feeling? Choose music that will help promote the desired state.
4. Sing in the shower. Making sounds first thing in the morning can help us to clear out old energy and make space for something new and fresh to enter. Besides, it’s fun!
5. Play an instrument, any instrument. Have you been told that you have no musical talent? Get a drum and play along with your favorite CD. Strike a singing bowl, or a pair of tuning forks. Start to experiment. See what happens to your joy and creativity in life.
6. Be quiet. Spend some time in silence, just listening to yourself. Do you hear your heart beating, your nervous system singing, your stomach gurgling, your breathing moving in and out? How does it feel to just listen to your own sounds?
7. Choose your words carefully. Words are sound, too. Are you creating harmony or discord by what you say and how you say it? Really listen to yourself. Is that what you want to put out? If not, stop and change it.
8. Listen to others. Are there people that you just can’t hear? Relax and experiment with finding the places in you that resonate with them. Be gentle and compassionate with yourself, and them.
9. Get moving to music. Feeling stuck? Then MOVE. Put on some fine, time-tested music. Really listen and start to let the music move you. Notice your own resistance and start to play with it. After a few minutes, you won’t be the same.
10. Hum where it hurts. If you have a pain in your body or are experiencing an uncomfortable emotion, hum into it softly and very gently, with lots of love. Feel the vibrations caused by your own voice. Allow the pain to relax and start flowing again.
In many cultures -- including many Asian countries -- ancestors are honored and revered. In the United States, we might not even know the names of our grandparents. Feeling disconnected from our ancestors and our larger family system has implications for both our physical and emotional health.
Systemic Constellation Work, an unconventional method of healing which views the family system as an important component of our heath and ability to function in the world, is today's topic at Roots and Legends, 3209 Washington Ave., Racine, as we recognize the passing of our Valentine Day holiday and the start of Chinese New Year.
Systemic Constellation Work holds some very different outlooks from traditional mental health concepts. There is no theory. There is no pathology, at least not in the way we think of it according to the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. There are no diagnoses. There is even not very much story about the event that is encouraged.
What is of great interest is what (1) gives a person strength and (2) what allows love to flow within a family, even when it seems on a conscious level that there is no or little love.
Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherpist and former priest, originated Systemic Constellation Work. He started with the person who is wanting healing to arrange representatives of the self and the other people in the situation within a space in a room without any logic or story. Then he noticed what natural physical movements and words appeared to stimulate feelings of calm in a system or grouping of people where anxiety, threat and/or pain were originally present. These groups of people were not the actual people involved in the issue but representatives of the people, including the client.
"As long as our ancestors are still suffering within us, we cannot be truly happy. If we make a step with awareness...we do this for all the past and future generations. Then all arrive at the same moment we arrive and we all find peace at the same time." -- Thich Nhat Hahn
Through these observations, Hellinger came up with the standards of “orders of love,” which identified the importance of the family soul, which may also be described the energy of the family system, rather than the energy of one person.
Belonging. This is the strongest and has to do with our very survival. We often do whatever we must in order to continue to belong to a group, especially our family, even though it may not be best for us. These struggles to leave or stay within a group are often deeply felt. Our families are one "group" we cannot leave, and balancing the "rules" of our family of origin within our adult lives can be a source of a great deal of difficulty. Hidden and unconscious loyalties often govern our actions more than we realize.
Balancing give and take. When we receive or take from another, we feel a debt and some discomfort. When we give back we feel a freedom and a sense of innocence. If giving and taking are out of balance in some way, then we may feel guilt, and sometimes hiding that guilt, we feel anger or other emotions. This can be very apparent between couples and between parents and children.
Social order and place. That is, following the rules of the social group we belong to, the backbone of communal living. It also includes a sense of having a right place in the groups we belong to. This provides a sense of safety and stability. We know where we belong relative to the other members of our group. When this is not clear in a group a great deal of chaos can arise.
It is in telling the “soul” truth that there is love, even when there is pain, that people are able to feel the relief and find the calm and the peace within what appear to be logical contradictions when thinking or talking about it. A key point is that the truth is not some cookie-cutter kind of parroting of certain “ideas” but the individual truth that resonates deeply for that person and that system.
In the time that I have been acquainted with Constellation work -- starting in about 2001 or 2002 -- and in the past two years wheb I've been s studying advanced work in this method., I've seen great healing with this profound method and have experienced many sessions myself. I have been integrating Constellation into my work for some time.
, by another medical doctor David Servan-Schreiber -- who experienced cancer not once but twice -- discusses the standard American diet -- with its meats, fats, oils and processed foods -- that appears to stimulate and feed cancer cells. He also provides thoughts about how psychotherapy, especially experiential therapies, offers another dimension of healing.
When you change the way you look at things, things change.” – Wayne Dyer.
