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Gestalting YOUR Day

What is happier?

This week PBS featured a 6-hour documentary on This Emotional Life, an exploration of personal relationships, resolution of negative attitudes/depression/anxiety, pros and cons of medication and other treatment approaches and, ultimately, what really is important to make us happy. Harvard profession Daniel Gilbert covered a great deal of territory, answered questions many individuals might pose and, no doubt, evoked countless questions about the how-to, purpose and meaning of becoming happier. It is clear that we all are genetically hard-wired to want to feel good, have positive feelings, and have the inherent tendency to avoid discomfort and pain at all cost. Therein lays the paradox indeed. We live in a society where every citizen has the right to the pursuit of happiness. Is it possible that for many, “pursuit” lost its meaning as originally intended by the Founding Fathers and has turned instead into a frenetic search for more or different as better, immediacy being paramount and individuals’ wants reigning supreme? I sometimes wonder if the word “possibility” for happiness would not be more fitting. Let’s face it, we live in a fast-paced, society, unemployment is high, finances in shambles, addiction and divorce at a peak, depression and other mental and social problems abound and medication use is at an all-time high, but nothing is improved. Could this be cause and effect? And who thinks of “happier”? I do!

Personal Reflection – What is happier?

As a graduate of Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness Coaching Program, I have gained a very different understanding of what it means to be genuinely happy. Happiness cannot be forced to happen; it has a sometimes unexpected ebb and flow and is invariably part of a process and I believe, is an expression of the soul. I have also discovered the many emotional benefits by allowing this process to emerge without forced intention and can actually relish the feeling longer when savoring or remembering the moment. I have also discovered that merely thinking of good friends, nourishing relationships, can make my heart sing.

Has learning concepts/theory alone fostered this appreciation? No, not really, it was experience. I had an excruciating 10-year depression during my early mid-life, with several hospitalizations, shock treatments and meds that didn’t work (there weren’t many meds then). Today I would be diagnosed with PTSD resulting from childhood war experiences, a diagnosis which at that time did not exist and no one ever asked me the right questions to open up because I had been trained not to talk. Looking back at the experience, I call these years the call of my soul, yes, soul – not necessarily in a religious sense but the indivisible, irreducible life-force within me pushing me to suffer until I could no longer bear it and began coming out of myself. It wasn’t therapy – cognitive or otherwise – I had to first suffer myself; it was my path, I had to separate myself from my experiences and look at what was good, what I have learned and how it contributed to making me the person I am today - I am very grateful. Why grateful? Because life is full of trials and tribulations for everyone, no one is exempt and to me, paying attention to and learning to bear the calling of my soul was ultimately worth the journey. It is interesting that Freud used the word Seele (soul) in his original writings all the time. In fact, he named mental illness Seelenkrankheit (soul-sickness). I feel like being home.

In a different vein, I want to add a poignant story that had tremendous impact on my husband and me when we were on a trip to China. We had the privilege to meet a couple, past midlife, living in a mud hut dug out of a sizeable hill that was covered by a small apple orchard. The authorities had rented them the apple orchard to tend, and the reward was permission to create their little mud cave house. They themselves had dug it out. It was a small room, floor and walls all mud, a large wooden platform that served as a bed at night and had underneath it a stove that could be heated during the day while the heated bricks kept the wooden platform warm enough for the night. They had a tiny television on a wooden stand. What was most striking though was the couple’s beaming non-stop while showing off every detail in their abode. They were proud of the TV and told us (through an interpreter) that they were happy because this is the only place they could ever call their own. That’s right, happier does not require money; resiliency of the human spirit and someone to share it with is what makes life worthwhile and happier and makes the down times bearable.

I wish you many happy moments!

So, how about you?

We all have our unique stories that describe our experiences throughout our life. No one can claim to know better. Our unique interpretation of an event includes every possibility of what we have learned from the earliest time until now including what has worked and became habitual without any specific recall of an event. Yet, our stories continue to be recreated in the present under different circumstances, people, and events. Puzzling, is it not? I would like to tease you with a little exercise.

Write a short autobiography with a little twist. Since we all remember what didn’t go well and would like to assign our personal dilemmas to others or circumstances, I would like you write a story and:

1. write a positive story about yourself only from your perspective
2. describe yourself with glowing adjectives because, cite evidence to support yourself
3. include your dreams and hopes
4. write about where you are today – what is good
5. conclude with a powerful title of your life
6. quietly note what you have discovered

If you are interested, we could begin the process of becoming happier from one newsletter to the next, if you like the idea. Please let me know via email if you are interested.

• "We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are." Anais Nien
  
  
• "No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in overcoming them we may grow strong, and they only who have suffered are able to save." Anne Besant
  
  
• "The more you depend on forces outside yourself, the more you are dominated by them." Harold Sherman
  
  
• "To see your drama clearly is to be liberated from it." Ken Kayes, Jr.

For All Mental Health
Professionals and Coaches

Introducing SOUL – Ingredient for harmonizing
diverse theoretical applications and eliminate
haunting treatment issues.

Workshop January 23, 2010
9 AM – 5 PM (break between 12 noon – 2 PM)
Fee: $120.00
Location: Matunuck, RI

In this 6-hour totally experiential workshop you will explore your own unsynchronized personal issues and learn to:

• Differentiate between spiritual and secular meaning Soul
• Resiliency and its components
• Recognize language of the Soul
• Create harmony with past
• Harmonize uncommon symptoms with common ground
• Organize symptoms from perspective of soul
• Realize neglect of the soul in – physical/emotional symptoms
• Recognize need for inclusion of soul when in fear of relapse

Honor yourself/soul for annoying reminders of unfinished business

Enhance your and your clients’ daily life.

Reserve Your Spot Today!

Want to learn more, click here.