wellbeingandhealth.net

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I can remember that particular tone in my mother’s voice when she told me to clean up my room. Perhaps you can too. And yet she hasn’t said that to me for more than thirty years. Perhaps your parents are even dead. And yet when we remember our parents we often react. Our emotions are affected, perhaps even our actions.

When our parents aren’t around, years after we’ve left home, we still carry our parents around with us - inside our brains. It is these parents we need to divorce. I want to stress this - it is the parents we carry around in our heads that we need to divorce. Our physical parents who exist outside of us are another story - they may even be dead - and so are well beyond us doing anything to them.

So by parents I mean those figures we have in our heads. These may be different (a little or a lot) to the parents who are and were outside us. Here’s an example of what I mean. I am quite comfortable with young children. My mother did and does adore them. I thought my father was quite comfortable around them. It wasn’t ’til my mid-20’s - when he said that he found them intimidating - that I realised this wasn’t true. The father in my head, who was comfortable with children, wasn’t the same as the father outside me. I’m still quite comfortable around children, by the time I realised that my father wasn’t comfortable with children it didn’t matter to me. This is a small example. For those who grew up in places where their life was in danger it will much more difficult to sort out. They will, most likely feel that their life is in danger because it was when they were children, even if it isn’t now (and it there may still be danger now too). So this is what I mean by “parents”.

What do I mean by “divorce”?

I mean being separate from and independant of our parents. Some people speak of the need of ‘killing our parents’ but the violence of this language can lead to the message not being heard. So I prefer to speak of ‘divorce’ than ‘killing’. A divorce has more options too - how much relationship you choose to maintain is up to you. The divorce means that the relationship doesn’t claim you, or define you, any more: you are now your own person. You can choose to listen to your parents when they have wise or useful things to say and ignore them about the stuff they are just weird about. My mother is weird about alcohol. This is not surprising - her brothers came back from WW2 being functional alcoholics. She thinks that if someone has a drink of alcohol they are likely to become alcoholic. This isn’t my experience. Most of the people I know who drink alcohol aren’t alcoholics. And I do on occasion drink alcohol. [Btw the best definition I know of alcoholism is: if it’s costing you more than money it’s a problem.] My father is very different to me on gender issues. He is decidedly of the old school marital roles - fathers are the breadwinners and mothers are housewives. With my adult relationships with women, the money-making and other tasks have been shared, I hope equitably (though this is tricky - if I hate doing one thing is equal time doing it equitable? So the sharing out of tasks has included what we like to do with equal shares of what we both hate to do.). On these issues my parents and I are happily divorced.

How to Get a Divorce from Your Parents
So how can we do this? Being our own person, not automatically following the prescription of our parents, is something most of us probably desire. But how?

In general it means thinking through our own way of life. And, possibly the biggest part of this, is working with the emotions. The reasons we do what our parents tell us is because of the emotions we have. All those things left over from childhood.

Divorcing our parents means becoming our own parent. When we look after the child like part of ourselves - our vulnerabilities, emotions and needs - we are becoming our own parent or divorcing our parents. Very roughly speaking there are two roles for healthy parenting - support and limit setting. Support means nurturing, meeting our needs (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social), getting all the things we need for a healthy life. Limit setting means some discernment. We can’t have everything (or at least not at the same time. If we do things one after the other we can achieve a huge amount in as little as five years.). And some things we want to do have negative consequences. Being our own parent means not just indulging our emotions (or thoughts or sensations) but also prioritising, and following through on commitments (to both ourselves and others).

Let’s take an example of looking at one need we have. A primal need: food. Food is a life and dealth issue, so there are lots of strong feelings attached to it. And most of us have feelings about food left over from childhood. (Part of this is often messages about body shape, but that’s another story. [Note to women: most men don’t particularly care about thinness. Note to men: most women aren’t turned on by the body builder physique.]) To divorce our parents means to know what food suits us, what we like and what fits in with our life. These things don’t necessarily fit easily together.

Here’s a little of my story about food. The hardest part for me has been finding what foods suit me (its pretty basic, baked potatoes are my favourite food); I find it much easier to be in touch with what is going on in my head than what is happening in my body. It wasn’t ’til my 20’s, and I was living out of home, that I figured out that eating mostly bread would lead to constipation. At home my mother had always provided a reasonably healthy diet and so I just hadn’t paid much attention to what I ate.

What to do? How could I eat healthily? My main meal was at night, so I went through a phase of having all the food groups for my evening meal. Vegetables, grains and protein in every meal. (At this stage the protein was meat - at the moment I mostly eat vegetarian.) Pretty much back to what my mother had cooked. From here I started trying out different foods. Asian vegetables, cooking in a wok, using sauces and spices, and eating out at different places. (Currently my favourite cuisine is Thai.) I went through a stage of eating lots of chilli and trying out many other tastes too. Gradually I figured out that lighter foods, with enough protein, is what suits my body. Within this I choose the foods that I like (potatoes and so forth) and stuff that doesn’t take too long to prepare. I don’t mind cooking but it’s not a major joy for me, so when I cook normally it is usually quick and easy. With food I now know how to care for myself. I do really enjoy what I eat, I don’t just indulge in the comfort foods of my childhood - vegemite on toast (an Australian delicacy) and lemonade (what is called “lemonade” in Australia is called “7Up” in America), I don’t follow any particular way of eating - though I learned much from Macrobiotics, and I have found a way to cook that fits in with my other commitments. This is what it meant for me to divorce my parents around food. I hope this gives you an idea of what it means to divorce our parents and start looking after our own needs.

Where have you divorced your parents? If you would like to let me know please leave a comment, I look forward to hearning from you.

Mark Weiss, a GP specialising in mental health, is trying to construct a directory so that he can more easily match clients with healers.

This is free for both therapists and clients.  He is interested in people who are:  Psychotherapists, counselors, yoga instructors, meditation teachers, nutritionists, fitness trainers, community support groups and others providing services which promote emotional well being.

It is called CounselingBook.com.  It is just starting, so have a look - especially if you are a therapist.  I think it could be a very worthwhile initiative.

Image by  Brian - Progressive Spin

Our thoughts can influence our energy level - how good we feel.  To explain what I mean I’d like to tell you a story.

The story is about two friends who will we call Jack and Jill.  Jack started business a business a few months ago.  He’s quite unclear what he is legally required to do or even how to keep the books for his business.  Jill is just about to finish studying a bookkeeping course.  It wasn’t a very good course and so she is still a bit confused about how to set up a set of books for a business.  She thinks that helping Jack set up the books for his business will help Jack and herself too - it will give her some experience with bookkeeping in the real world. 

And so Jill goes over to Jacks place one afternoon.  After saying hello over coffee they get down to the serious business of constructing some accounts for Jacks business.  Things go well for a while but then . . . they hit a snag.  Jill’s course just hasn’t covered the way that Jack needs to keep his books - he sells lots of little items.  Keeping a record of each one would be impossibly time consuming but how else could he keep track of inventory - or find out anything about which items sell best.  This is a major snag: they try and think of ways, the search the net, they look through Jill’s course notes repeatedly.  After three hours they are thoroughly exhausted and fed up.  They can see no way forward, they have been over the same ground five or six times and it is simply no use.  To say they were out of energy would be an understatement.  (Jill’s opinions about her course don’t bear printing on this family-friendly blog don’t bear repeating.)

But then . . . Jill thinks of something to try and, it works!  There is a way.  It’s pretty easy and will do everything Jack needs to know.  They are elated: it is late now, but the rush of energy carries them along for another hour or two.  Finally they finish late at night, content with having got the way to do Jack’s books figured out.

This is a fairly normal kind of story.  Things like this happen every day.  But, in one way, it is very strange.  The elation came from an intellectual insight.  It didn’t come from doing any exercise or eating some food for an energy boost.  It just came because of the realisation that there was a way to solve a problem.  Late night after working a couple of hours more they felt better than when they had worked less but couldn’t see a way to solve a problem. 

This is a simple illustration of the power of our thoughts.  We can go from energy less and miserable to energised and elated in seconds just by realising that we can solve a problem.

It was experiences like this that lead to the founding of positive psychology - the originator of the movement Martin Seligman wrote a book called Learned Optimism.  If we can learn to look on the bright side we will usually feel better. 

Does this mean we ignore the rotten parts of life?  This can lead to crass insensitivity, it’s like saying,  “Sure your friend died a long and painful death, but hey it’s a sunny day!”  I don’t think there are many people who would seriously advocate this.

A friend of mine says that trying to ignore the rotten parts of life is like trying to pull the wool over your own eyes: it just doesn’t work.  When we’re in pain there is no use pretending otherwise.  Pretending our world doesn’t contain awful events is just, well, pretence.  (This doesn’t mean that we need to obsess about them; but to try to ignore them uses up our energy, and we live diminished lives.)

I want to draw attention to how important our attitude to life is.  I don’t want to say that, ‘if we just think the right way, then everything will be fine’.  It seems to me that there is a real world beyond our thoughts.  This is a world of quite wonderful beauty and has some parts that are truly awful; and just trying to think differently won’t make the awful bits go away.  Our thoughts and our attitude to life are powerful but not all-powerful.  Just changing our thoughts won’t change the world.

To become familiar with the power of your thoughts you can try the following experiments.

• Recall experiences you have had like Jack and Jill’s - where a realisation changed how you felt; for better or worse.

• Recall a time when you put a childhood fear of feeling behind you.  How did you do this?  What was the realisation that lead to this happening?

• Close your eyes and recall a time when you were in love with someone.  Recall it as vividly as you can, what it felt like in your body.  Then open your eyes.  It is possible that the world will look slightly different.

If you would to tell me about a time when you learned about the power of your thoughts I’d love to hear it.  Please tell me your story in the comments.  Looking forward to hearing from you.

If you liked this post you might also like

Awareness cures

Positive Psychology

Image by kevindooley

What is the self?

A friend of mine went to a talk by a Buddhist monk. His question about self-improvement was: finally, doesn’t it come down to a hostility to the self? That is, self-improvement means judging ourselves as inadequate: that we need to be something other than we are. Doesn’t self-improvement rely on dis-satisfaction? Once we accept ourselves for who we are is self-improvement at an end?

Is ‘the self’ just what I want? My desires and their satisfaction. This idea of the self leads to the self in the sense of egotism - this narrow person going through the world caring only about themselves. There are more altruistic versions of this notion of the self: it feels good to do things for others; our pleasures aren’t just crass they can also be refined and include appreciating the beauty or the natural world and the extraordinary creativity of artists. But the refinement of the pleasure doesn’t alter the greed.

Is my ’self’ just my thoughts? If so, then when I stop thinking there is no self. I am no longer planning or remembering. I’m just being me, here and now, doing what I’m doing. This may be just breathing. Or, “When eating only eating, when sleeping only sleeping.” When I am simply attentive to what is going on, then I have no ’self’ in the sense of the self as thinking. This sense of no-self is more hospitable to others, we are not concerned to fit another into our plans and schedules, we can simply be with them - and it feels great. The next time you make love, do it from this space and enjoy the difference! It is easy to start with sex because the sensations can be strong and so help get our thoughts out of the way. It also occurs when we are fascinated by anything. Even when we are just playing we are in this space of no-self. These can be times of real refreshment - as the popularity of meditation attests.

And yet . . . I do meditation because it is satisfying, it is satisfying to me. My self benefits from this no-self. So, I think we need to re-think what we mean by self. There are layers here. As I peel back the layers I find what may be called “no thing” but it is far more than nothing. What I am doing when I am just me is different to someone else. Getting beyond the pettiness of our egos we don’t arrive at being all the same. We find our individuality - we often find in what way we express ourselves. If there is a universal self which we tap in to then it is expressed differently in each of us. For me this is the beauty of getting beyond our ego.

Once we get beyond our greed and attempts to control life with our thoughts, then here we are doing what we are doing. In this sense the self is our acting-here-and-now, our relationship to this situation (in all its many-dimensioned complexity).


What would improvement mean?

If we are not discontented why would we want to improve? If this is enough, why would we want more?

And yet . . . Even with meditation, we get better at it. It may be a remembering to not strive and just be, but we get better at that too.

The difference between a new born child and someone not captured by their ego is huge. And the adult has some benefits - they can be far more help to others than the new-born. In this sense the mature adult is an improvement on the new-born. It seems to me that life is (at least partly) about growth.

And the distinction between being and doing is somewhat false. We can express our being in our doing. We express ourselves through our words, even the particular walk that each of us have (and in many other ways too). These are not separate to our being.

Even those times of no-self when we are just breathing or just playing can be part of a larger story of improvement. We can meditate for the benefits it brings. We can play in order to find out how something works.

It seems to me that life is not a neutral force but a positive energy with a particluar ‘flavour’. It is a growing into being (and doing) more of who we are.

[For an extraordinary and brilliant investigation of the philosophy of this read Robert M Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and his argument that quality is a dimension of being. In my view this is the best philosophy book ever written.]

So, simply being with life means some kind of ‘improvement’ - being alive means a process of growth. This, in my experience, is certainly a process of getting beyond our petty plans and our greedy ego. It means being able to be more hospitable to others, more clear in our perceptions, understanding more how we use our thoughts to protect our ego. It means a discovery of a deeper ’self’ - in one sense a no-self, but a no-self that is different for all of us - a no-self that is truly individual.

What does this mean for us?

1.  That when we are greedy our lives are less satisfying.

2. That times of ‘just being’ are important.

3. That when we  find our vocation (what we do when we are being just us), this will mean a path of ‘improvement’, getting better at what we do.  It is at this point that the experience of past practitioners becomes valuable.

I realise that this is a big topic on which people will have strong feelings. So comments are welcome (disagreement and different perspectives are especially desirable).

Robert at Reason-4-Smile has tagged me with a meme.  The rules are:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share 4 things in these themes.
4. Tag 4 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Four jobs I have had

Youth and community worker

Teacher in a gaol

Self-employed (done more than four things under this heading).

Four movies I can watch over and over

Zero.  I get bored too easily.  Movies I love are: Being John Malkovich, Apocalypse Now (the director’s cut), High Fidelity

Four places I have lived

Bendigo in Victoria, Australia

Burnie in Tasmania, Australia

Brisbane in Queensland, Australia

Cairns in Queensland, Australia (my favourite).

Four TV shows I love

The Singing Detective (mini-series by Derek Potter)

Jeeves and Wooster (starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry)

Time Team (BBC)

Spicks and Specks (ABC Australia)

Four places I have been on holiday

Merry Beach (south coast of NSW Australia)

Coolangatta (QLD Australia)

Cairns (QLD Australia)

Four of my favourite dishes

Baked potatoes

Cheese and fruit platter

Pasta with rich Italian sauces

Creme caramel or creme brulee

Four websites I visit daily

Aussie Bloggers Forum

Technorati

Feedburner

Authority Blogger Forum

Four places I would rather be now

In bed with my lover

Cairns

In a restaurant sharing a delicious meal (Splash in Cairns is great, as is Aperitif in Sydney)

Having a massage

Four bloggers I am tagging

 Isabella Mori

Ripples of Improvement

The Pageless Book

Tom Stine 

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What is an archetype?  An archetype is a personal energy that is expressed authentically in a social role.  For me this is very exciting.  It means we can be authentically who we are in our relationships.  Many psychotherapies seem to believe that the conflict between the individual and society is inevitable.   (Freud for instance spoke of the ‘reality principle’, that is the individual had to restrain their desires in accord with ‘reality’.  That reality could be transformed so that we lead a joyous life was not contemplated.) 

Archetypes offer the possibility of living a life that is both true to ourselves and to theat benefit of society as well.   Archetypal psychology sees that individuals functioning as they were meant to is part of what makes a healthy society.  For me this experience of who I am flowing into authentic action is the experience of joy.

Alot of archetypal psychology can be quite ‘airy-fairy’.  There is a sense of wizards exploring their power and rescuing the innocent aspect of their psyche, but less sense of doing the washing up.

I was fortunate that I found a book that brought archetypal psychology down to earth.  It is Awakening the Heroes Within by Carol S Peasrson.  It has 12 archetypes: the innocent, the orphan, the caregiver, the warrior, the lover, the destroyer, the seeker, the creator, the sage, the ruler, the magician and the fool.  Each of these archetypal energies is part of us.  However we each have one that tends to stay with us throughout our lives (for me it is the sage).

The book contains a quiz to help you identify which of the archetypes is dominant in your life at the moment.  (There is also a version, slightly up-dated, that you can do on line.)  It also contains a couple of exercises at the end of each chapter to help you get in touch with each archetype (these aren’t terribly good in my opinion.  The strength of the book is in the exploration of each archetype and how it applies in our life.).

I have gone back to this book over and over.  I discovered it more than 20 years ago and it hasn’t gotten stale.  It has offered a framework for my journey through life unlike any other - it combines both personal authenticity and social transformation: rare indeed.

I don’t want to suggest that it’s perfect.  It was written when the author was fairly young.  In the chapter on the sage she traces its development through our life course (as she does for each archetype) and stops at (US) college age.  She suggests that there may be stages of development after this.  (Just possible, don’t you think?)

How can we identify our own archetype?  There are many books that have lists to help you do this.  Awakening the Heroes Within is the best of these that I have found.  But there are other ways.

• Imagine your life as a myth (I have found it worthwhile to write it out - roughly, the point it to gain insight into who we are not produce a work of literature).  What would you name this myth.  Does it remind you of other myths you know of?  What name would you give your role in the myth?  Then reflect on the resources, strengths and weaknesses of this role.  What assistance does this role need?

• What is it that comes naturally to you?  What role or character in a myth or fairytale does this kind of activity.  (For this you may need to find what kind of energy you are using - there aren’t many myths about computer programmers, but there are lots about artists, craftsmen and artificers.)

• What is your dream job?  What would you name this in mythic terms.  The one job could have many archetypal energies.  An architect may be an artisan, building reliable shelter that people feel good about every time they come home.  The architect could be the artist making our world a more beautiful place.  They could be a healer who heals our relationship with the natural world.   They could be a priest making room for the spirit.  Or a community healer building spaces that invite people to come together hospitably.

For me I’m the sage - I tend to watch and observe what goes on.  And my drive is to do something useful with knowledge; while knowledge for its own sake is fun it doesn’t satisfy me for long.  A common problem for the sage is to be too detached and seeming elusive to others.  This is feedback that I have often received - “I want to know who you are Evan!”

When I have the time and space to be just me I love exploring ideas and how these could be used to build a better world.  I tend to teach stuff about thoughts and feelings and in the counselling I’ve done I tend to teach.  This is my natural approach.

My dream job is doing psychotherapy my own way: the emphasis being on understand, allowing the individual to come to their own sense of who they are and, in a sense, just getting out of the way and letting them get on with it.

For me discovering my archetype has given me the labels to communicate easily about what is most important to me.  Please let me know if you find this way of thinking useful for you (I realise it doesn’t appeal to everyone.)  Let me know what you think your archetype may be.  I look forward to your comments.



If you liked this post you may like these other ones.  These talk about specific archetypes.

The healer and the ruler

 The creator and destroyer

And these give a basic introduction to archetypal psychology and its biggest danger.

Introduction to Archetypal Psychology

The biggest danger of archetypal psychology

Image by  sarcozona

It’s been a while since I talked about Traditional Chinese Medicine, so maybe it’s time I did.

There are various disciplines within Traditional Chinese Medicine.  Most famously acupuncture.  It also includes herbs and food and other things.  But today I’d like to talk about exercise.

There is a whole universe of health exercises in the chinese tradition - these are called “qi gong”.  Translating “qi gong” is difficult; it means something like ‘energy work’ the energy being connected with the air, so perhaps ‘breath work’ or, at a stretch, ‘aerobics’.  qi gong is slowly gaining acceptance in the West and is beginning to be studied.  tai chi - a chinese martial art - is also being studied.  When qi gong and tai chi are done slowly and with attention to the breath they can be very effective at reducing stress - which has huge health benefits.  So here’s some good news on the benefits of exercising in the traditional Chinese way.

1. It helps with diabetes.
After a 12 week programme of tai chi it was found that tai chi may prompt a fall in blood glucose levels, or improve blood glucose metabolism. Alternatively it may boost fitness levels and the feeling of wellbeing, which may then boost the health of the immune system.

Strenuous physical activity depresses the immune system response, but moderate exercise seems to have the opposite effect, say the authors. Tai Chi is classified as moderate exercise.

Reference. Regular Tai Chi Chuan exercise improves T cell helper function of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with an increase in T-bet transcription factor and IL-12 production

First Br J Sports Med 2008; doi 10.1136/bjsm.2007.043562

In a separate study, a 12 week programme of Tai Chi and Qigong prompted a significant fall in blood glucose levels and significant improvements in other indicators of the metabolic syndrome (Insulin resistance-whereby cells stop responding to insulin, a condition preceding full diabetes-also improved significantly.) in 11 middle aged to older adults.

At the end of the 12 weeks the program participants had lost an average of 3 kg in weight and their waist size had dropped by an average of almost 3 cm. Their blood pressure also fell significantly, and by more than would have been expected from the weight loss alone.  Participants said they slept better, had more energy, felt less pain and had fewer food cravings while on the programme.

Reference. Preliminary study of the effect of Tai Chi and Qigong medical exercise on indicators of metabolic syndrome and glycaemic control in adults with raised blood glucose

First Br J Sports Med 2008; doi 10.1136/bjsm.2007.0454

2. It gives a boost to flu vaccination (benefits immunity)
A team of kinesiologists at the University of Illinois suggest that older adults who adopt an exercise regimen combining Taiji and Qigong may get an extra boost from their annual flu shot.

“We have found that 20 weeks of Taiji can increase the antibody response to influenza vaccine in older adults,” said the study’s lead author Yang Yang, an adjunct professor of kinesiology and community health, and a Taiji master with 30-plus years of experience as a practitioner and instructor.

Those in the exercise intervention group participated in three one-hour classes for 20 weeks, while the control group was directed to continue their regular activities for the same time period.

 

On average, he said, the Taiji group had much higher antibody responses to the vaccination than the control group.  However, because of the small sample size, the percentage of persons from the Taiji group that achieved protective levels was not statistically different from the control.

 “Our results . . . suggest that there needs to be a larger dedicated intervention trial with Taiji to definitively determine whether this type of behavioral intervention can improve influenza vaccine efficacy in older adults.”

3. Many Other Benefits
Other recent research, including work by Yang and Rosengren, has demonstrated improvements in quality of life, flexibility, strength, cardiovascular function, pain, balance and kinesthetic strength.

Reference:  August 2007 issue of the American Journal of Chinese Medicine