BEING A SOURCE OF PEACEFULNESS

One of our roles as psychotherapists and counselors is to be a source of peacefulness in the lives of our clients. I don't know about you as my reader, But I know that this aspect of our work was never mentioned to me in my training or any supervision I received. And yet, my clients who come to me with their anxieties and fears need to feel that my office and my presence are a reliable compassionate source of peacefulness. They periodically comment,"It's so peaceful here."
It is important for each of us to find our own pathway of becoming more peaceful within ourselves and then bring that peaceful presence into our sessions with our patients. For me,that pathway has been a combination of many years of psychotherapy exploring the "river of anxiety" that used to flow through me, thirty five years of meditational practice and many years of contemplative walks in nature. As I reflect back upon myself at earlier stages of my development it feels to me that this combination has gradually produced a palpable psychophysical "rewiring" - a significant change in my inner life and my presence with my patients. I also speculate that it has created new neurological patterns.
One nature setting in particular, a beaver pond two miles from my home, has become especially symbolic of the sense of serenity I now feel most of the time. I have a watercolor painting of a pond in the woods hanging on the wall of my office diagonally across from where I sit. In preparing for my morning's work I take a few moments to look at the painting, recall the sense of peace that I feel at my local pond and ask my Higher Self,"Help me to be a source of peacefulness for my patients." During session I will periodically look at that painting and imagine myself with my in-breath tapping into the serenity that I feel at the pond and with my out breath letting go of any anxiety that my patient may have triggered within me or transmitted to me.
I would encourage each of you to discover your own pathway to inner peacefulness that uniquely fits you. You then can bring that presence into the therapy work and become a source of peacefulness for your clients and find a way to tap into it during sessions.
We also need to help our patients find a way to develop a sense of peacefulness for themselves. This usually necessitates that they do some work between sessions. I usually ask my clients "Can you remember some physical place where at some time in your life you have felt a sense of peace?" It is striking to me how often they recall places in nature. And how frequently these natural settings also tap into memories of natural places of refuge during difficult episodes of their childhood and adolescence.
Bart remembered a lake in a park near his childhood home where he used to go as a refuge from his mother's alcoholism. Richard described climbing out of his bedroom window to escape his father's abuse and the sense of safety he felt sitting under a huge oak tree in nearby woods. This is a brief blog entry,otherwise I would cite many more examples. I suggested to both Bart and Richard,as I have done with many patients, that they explore some local nature setting that reminded them of those childhood sanctuaries. Bart found a bench alongside a pond in his local suburban park; Richard felt drawn to a grove of trees in a nearby state forest. I encouraged each of them to develop a regular practice of going to these places between sessions and while sitting down to "Imagine that with your in-breath you are taking in the peacefulness of this place and with your out-breath are letting go of your anxieties and fears." Yearning for more inner peace in their lives they eagerly embraced this suggestion and visited their places a couple of times each week. Gradually they began to report that they brought the peaceful feeling into their everyday lives. When things became difficult Bart would imagine sitting at the bench and Richard under the big tree, focus on their breathing and say to themselves,"Let go of the fear." They were increasingly amazed and grateful how quickly they felt more peaceful.

I DON'T DESERVE LOVE

This is the most insidious love block. This underlying pattern - often unconscious - contaminates all the possibilities of feeling loved. Whenever someone offers love in any one of its myriad forms - praise, affection, help, commitment … - our client is unable to receive it. On the surface they may appear to be receptive, but they are psychologically unable to take the love in at a deep level. Because at some level of consciousness they feel unworthy of what is being offered to them.
The deeply engrained belief that they don't deserve to be loved, that they are unworthy of a good rich life undermines and sabotages all relationships, any positive feelings about work success and all the gifts of love.
The initial task of psychotherapy with my clients is to help them become more consciously aware of this pervasive pattern of being unable to simply take in love in all its myriad forms. I say to them,"Of course it doesn't make any rational sense that you would block love, but at some level of consciousness it makes emotional sense. There must be some reasons why that happens. From my experience these patterns start in childhood. What about growing up in your family may have contributed to this inner belief that you are unloveable?" This begins the process of exploring the historical roots of the love block.
Jim, a dynamic 48 year old successful businessman had been experiencing episodes of sadness about what's missing in his life - primarily a loving relationship with a woman. Whenever a potentially good relationship starts to become more intimate Jim either ends it or sabotages it so that the woman decides to break it off. Through our exploratory work it became clear to Jim that the physically and psychologically abusive relationship with his mother, who was depressed and addicted to pain killers, had made him feel unlovable. In her addicted state she would scream at him that he was "evil, a devil child". These frequent tirades occurred for years and had a devastating effect on Jim's feelings about himself. Because these feelings of unlovability are usually so deeply engrained for everyone with this love block a lot of work between sessions was essential.
I gave Jim two index cards. On one was written "YOU ARE LOVABLE" and the other,"YOU DESERVE A GOOD LIFE". I suggested to Jim that between sessions he periodically look at these cards, say the words and then notice what happened. Of course this was hard and painful. He would complain to me "those damn cards" reporting the painful memories they evoked and his ever deepening awareness of how hard it was for him to believe those simple phrases. Gradually, as Jim understood the roots of this inner belief - including the epiphany that he was the target for his mother's own self-hatred because of her history of abuse and shame about her addiction - he was able to be more receptive to love. It was particularly meaningful - since Jim was in recovery for his own alcoholism - for him to think that the source of the voice that was saying "You" in the phrase "YOU ARE LOVABLE" was his own personal Higher Power. He liked thinking that his own Higher Power was doing the work of helping him to feel lovable that his parents were unable to do.
One of the benefits of a heart-centered approach to psychotherapy, wherein our genuine caring is more overtly expressed, is that their love blocks get more quickly exposed. Clients with the "I don't deserve love" block have a lot of trouble simply receiving our praise and other acts of caring for them. They react with disbelief,"You're just doing your job which is to make me feel better." Or like Sara said,"When you get to know what I'M really like you won't think that I'm such a good person. Whereas my parents really knew me." Her parents were members of a very conservative Christian sect. They responded to her free-spirited nature and acts of disobedience as her being a "black sheep" a "sinner" and "damned to hell."
My approach to Sara was three-pronged. The first prong was to discredit the sources of her deeply rooted belief that she was unlovable by repeatedly raising the question whether her parents really knew her. It became increasingly clear to Sara that they were absorbed in their own lives. Sara was a target for their anger about their own unhappiness and their projections of very low self-worth.
The second and most important prong was to deliberately not be in the role of the neutral professional , but to make it clear that I really valued and appreciated her as a person. Over a period of time my genuine praise, warmth, consistent encouragement, welcoming attitude, celebrations of her moments of growth and laughter at her jokes made Sara feel that she was a lovable human being.
The third prong was self-forgiveness. Because of the parental implant of this inner belief that she was a "sinner"Sara made a number of bad choices and done things for which she was ashamed. She was relieved to hear that the techniques that I was using to help her forgive herself grew out of my own experience of needing to forgive myself. I will not describe the process in this blog entry because I've written about it extensively In my book "Working From the Heart" and described it in a youtube video.
With Sara and Jim, as with most clients with this love block, the work was intensive and only gradually impactful. And very meaningful for myself as well as my clients.


This blog is based on the LOVE BLOCKS chapter of WORKING FROM THE HEART: A THERAPIST'S GUIDE TO HEART-CENTERED PSYCHOTHERAPY

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY

I have just finished reading an excellent book,"Speak But the Word…From Multiple Personalities to Wholeness" by Leilani Claire. It is the extraordinary story of the healing journey of how the author - who had 25 personalities - through years of intensive psychotherapy came to a place of wholeness, a final integration. She also describes - which is extremely rare in the literature - what it was like to live in the world for seven years after the ceremony of final integration without being able to use her dissociative adaptations and defenses. Leilani Clare's intention in writing this book was to be helpful to psychotherapists who are treating multiple personalities and to be a source of hope for other multiples who are still struggling wondering what is possible. From my perspective the book can be beneficial beneficial also for other therapists ,like myself, who don't work with multiple personalities or dissociative identity disorder, but who do work with clients dealing with severe childhood physical abuse and/or sexual violation. And for those of us who will be intrigued by the reflections it evokes about the big question,"What is consciousness?"
This blog entry is not intended as a review, but rather as a description of what the book entails and an encouragement to read it.
The initial sections of the book are presented in the format of letters written by two "host" personalities to the original personality to prepare her for integration. These letters describe the history of early sexual abuses starting at the age of three and the roles that each of the 25 personalities have played in the fifty years of life since the initial abuse. It describes then the final integration ceremony, which Leilani Claire calls "the Sacred Marriage", a "wedding of the soul." The last section is a series of yearly reports discussing what life was like for Leilani Claire for each of the seven years after the final integration.
What deeply enriches the book are the inclusion of many paintings - done by Leilani Claire who is an accomplished artist - of the different personalities at various moments throughout the six years of her psychotherapy. In addition. there are also a number of photographs of her from the age of three up to several years after the Sacred Marriage ceremony.
While she was in the process of finding a publisher for her manuscript Leilani Claire was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer. It progressed rapidly. Near the end she contacted her psychotherapist Stephen Merriman PhD, who is the publisher of Four Rivers Press, and asked if he would take on the publication of her book. Knowing how important it was to her, he agreed. He also wrote the Foreword.
Stephen is a dear friend of mine and that is how I became aware of this important work. While reading it I decided that I wanted to help Leilani Claire tell her story to the many people who could benefit from it. That is why I've written this blog entry.


For more about "Speak But the Word…From Multiple Personalities To Wholeness" go to www.fourriverspress.com

THE SABOTEUR

"I did it again. I know what's good for me to do and I don't do it or I do it for a little while,but can't sustain it. It doesn't make any sense to me why this always happens." This is usually said by my patients with a mixture of frustration, confusion and self-anger. Of course it doesn't make any rational sense to them. Why, even with the best intentions and firm resolve, they are unable to stay with their exercise program, eat the right foods, choose the right partners, not return to their addictions etc. It is so frustrating. And insidious.
My patients want to know why. I usually ask "What comes into your mind about why this might happen?" After he/she gives several possible reasons, most of which are usually accurate, I add "Those reasons are probably correct. And, for most of the people that I've worked with there is usually something else, something unconscious, a part of their personality that I'll call The Saboteur. This is a part of your personality that lurks in the shadows out of your awareness. His/her main function is to undermine your happiness. He loves to be in the dark - that increases his power. So the first step is to bring him out into the light and get to know him, how he works, where did he come from." Of course, it doesn't make any rational sense that we would undermine our own happiness. "Yet", I continue," at some level of your consciousness it makes emotional sense. We need to find out what are the reasons for his/her existence. How did he become so secretly powerful in your personality?" Most of my patients feel a mixture of perplexed and intrigued. It does make sense to them however, that they may be sabotaging themselves because they have witnessed the consistent pattern.
I suggest to them that usually the personal historical roots of The Saboteur are in their childhood years wherein, at some deep level they were made to feel unloveable, unworthy of having a good life. It is not feasible within the limitations of a brief blog entry to discuss all the possible derivations. A few examples may be helpful: one patient was told on multiple occasions by her mother,"I wish that I never gave birth to you"; another patient, in a family of high achievers, was told that he was a "fuck-up" and a source of family shame; another always had a sense that no matter what he dud was "not good enough". One aspect of the therapy is to uncover the roots of this pattern, to look at it with compassion, and to begin to question the validity of this inner narrative.
Another aspect of the work is to use imagery. I tell my patients,"The Saboteur loves to be in the dark out of your conscious awareness, to work in the shadows. That increases his power, his effectiveness. What we want to do is to bring him out into the light, to name him, to develop an image of him." Once they understand how insidious and effective The Saboteur is in consistently undermining their happiness most patients like this part of the work. It makes the perplexing pattern less mysterious, reduces the sense of helplessness and introduces an element of playful creativity. One patient calls this sabotaging part of himself "the little fucker" and imagines him as a gremlin-like creature who stands in the corner of the room and who sometimes has a demonic expression and at other times an impish gleam. Another patient has named him simply "The Voice" and imagines him as a heavy-metal rock star who in a gravelly voice sings a particular song whenever he is trying to get my patient to do something that is not in his best interests. Another person uses her artistic ability to draw pictures of her saboteur and brings them into the office. It is interesting to witness the evolution of these drawings as her saboteur diminishes in power. During sessions with each of these patients whenever I notice an example of the undermining pattern I will say,"It looks like 'the little fucker' or 'The Voice' showed up and ask my patient to imagine what they may want to say or do to their saboteur at that moment. Gradually my patients are able to do that increasingly outside of the sessions and reduce the impact of that part of their personalities.

A WALK IN THE WOODS

At least once a week - often twice - I take a solitary walk in some local woods. Many years ago I recognized my need to be away from everyone to restore myself, to recharge my psychological and spiritual batteries. Our work is depleting. Trying to be a compassionate caring person in the presence of so much suffering and struggle for so many hours each week is draining. As I became increasingly aware of this issue I decided to return to my old sanctuary - the woods. As an adolescent,trying to cope with the inner conflicts created by my father's alcoholism, and needing to find some refuge from the psychological battlefield of the blacktop playground of a working class housing project, I fled to a nearby woods. During that difficult period of my life I spent many hours alone there feeling safe.
It has always been fascinating to me that when I recommend to my patients that they too seek out some local nature setting during periods of profound struggle, they also go to some local nature place - woods, lake, hills, ocean, city park - that was a refuge for them during difficult childhoods.
Whenever I return from my woodland mini-retreats I almost always feel replenished and reenter my ordinary life with a sense of renewed energy for my work and family.
I do not consider these walks as "hikes". They are contemplative sojourns. By walking mindfully I am trying to connect with other levels of consciousness within and outside of me. By physically going away from the pulls and distractions of life I am going toward a deeper connection with my own Higher Self, other aspects of non-personal higher consciousness and the consciousness of the natural world. In this way I am following an ancient pathway. For millennia throughout a wide spectrum of spiritual traditions other seekers, during episodes of personal struggle, have separated themselves from ordinary life and gone out into the natural world in order to connect to higher consciousness. Even though I do not feel affiliated with or attached to any particular spiritual tradition I do not feel alone. I am walking a path that many others have travelled. Many years ago in a moment of playfulness I named this aspect of my personality "the old monk." I have grown very fond of that label.
On the walls of my office I have placed images - a tranquil small pond, an old deeply rooted tree, a woodland path - that remind me of the nature places where I sit in meditation and say my prayers. These images are there to help me to connect with and draw upon those other levels of consciousness as I do my work.


The ideas described in this entry are discussed more fully in the Recharging chapter of my book "Working From the Heart: A Therapist's Guide to Heart-Centered Psychotherapy" and depicted in the Recharging video on www.youtube/WilliamPRyanPhd

….AND….

This blog entry is intentionally brief. It contains a simple concrete suggestion that is very symbolic in its purpose and potentially multi-layered in its impact. Hopefully, as a reader, you do not find it simplistic.
Whenever my patients use the word "but" in the narrative that describes their thoughts and feelings I encourage them to substitute the word "and". "But" is a word that tens to negate or diminish what preceded it, whereas "and" connotes inclusiveness and coexistence. My intention is to help my clients develop an inner landscape wherein conflictual, sometimes polar opposite, thoughts and feelings can be contained with less tension and more respectful coexistence.
Some examples. Often my patients say,"I feel like I did a good job, but …." and then give a list of reasons why it was not perfect. The positive feeling gets negated or diminished by whatever follows after "but". Other clients describing a spouse/lover/friend say "I love/like ___ but …." and then tell about some annoying or hated characteristics or opposite feelings. Again the love/like gets lost or weakened by the litany of complaints.
Usually I will encourage my patients to substitute "and" for "but" by saying to themselves "I did a good job and I could also have …." as away of counteracting the inner notion That I can't feel good about what I've done unless it lives up to perfectionistic standards. I recommend to other patients to say to themselves "I love my lover/spouse/friend and I hate when he …." as a way of acknowledging and honoring the coexistence of opposite feelings about the same person.
Gradually the use of this simple substitution - in conjunction with our deeper work -becomes a useful tool to expand their capacity to have many complex feelings coexisting within their consciousness.