Tag: pain

How to Write with a Chronic Illness

At the recent Write Your Own Way Summit, Sandra Postma spoke eloquently about how to write with a chronic illness.  Sandra is a book coach for writers with chronic illness.  She is especially well-qualified for this role having studied journalism and literature at university and undertaken a Book Coach Certification with Author Accelerator.  Sandra is able to draw on her own lived experience as a writer with several debilitating illnesses over many years. 

She stated that the book coaching role helped to save her life and motivated her to create her own coaching business, Your Story Mentor.  Sandra acknowledged the technical aspects of her prior training as a writer but stated that the book coaching course helped her to learn “how to coach a writer both on a craft and on an emotional level.”

Challenges for writers with chronic illness

In her Summit presentation and an interview with Savannah Gilbo for the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast, Sandra outlined the many challenges facing writers with chronic illness that exist over and above those experienced by other writers:

  1. Symptoms –  writers with chronic illness have to deal with fluctuating energy, brain fog, and times when they are mentally or emotionally not feeling well.  Other symptoms may include constant pain, itching and/or swelling of joints (e.g. ankles, fingers, hands, arms) and debilitating symptoms such as migraines or breathing difficulties.  Sometimes, it may be impossible for the writer to sit or even to get out of bed.
  2. Low self-esteem – Sandra points out that there is a social stigma associated with having a chronic illness.  There may be emotional baggage arising from a lack of social status (lacking a job or having to constantly isolate to manage disabling symptoms).   Like many other writers, those with chronic illness feel that their voice is not worth hearing but for the chronic sufferers this self- story is amplified by the sense of not being an active contributor to family or society, but rather being a burden.
  3. Momentum – a key element in writing is momentum,  the ongoing impetus to pursue writing whether in the form of a blog, a short story, a novel, non-fiction work or a memoir.  Momentum provides energy and motivation but for the writer with chronic illness this is continually punctuated by disability, so there is a loss of momentum as a result of the fluctuation of symptoms.

Feelings experienced by writers with chronic illness

What is not often appreciated is that such writers can experience genuine grief – from loss of identity, family, friends, social activity and work (with its attendant loss of both a meaningful role and income).  This, in turn, impacts the sense of self-worth of writers with chronic illness.

There can be anger and ongoing frustration from not being able to do what you used to do with relative ease.  Sandra points out that the anger can arise from the knowledge that you “have to surrender to this thing [chronic illness] that you didn’t choose and is with you for the rest of your life”.  With this awareness, you can “lose trust in your own life”.

Sandra highlights the fact that you can lose a sense of agency, your underlying capacity to control your body, your thoughts, your responses to stimuli and your actions.   This can lead to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness – the loss of a meaningful existence and the capacity to change your debilitating situation.

Strategies to use while writing with a chronic illness

In her Summit presentation and interviews, Sandra proposed a number of practical ways to deal with the emotions, blockages and challenges of writing with a chronic illness:

  • Break free – a starting point is to break free from expectations, your own as well as that of others.  In an earlier post, I wrote about the tyranny of expectations – how they hold us back and lock us into ways of doing things.
  • Set your own pace – it is important to overcome rule-bound advice such as writing every day for a set time in a set place.  You have to determine your own writing pattern based on your capacity at the time.  It will be frustrating at times that you can’t write as much as you want, as often as you want or as fast as you want.  You have to get to the stage where your are “at peace with your own pace”.
  • Write where you are comfortable – you don’t have to sit at a desk to write, sometimes “sitting” itself may not be possible (as in Sandra’s experience).  You can lie down and use a mobile phone to write or use a dictation device.  You will have to overcome the self-talk about what “proper writers” do.
  • Practice self-compassion – avoid “beating up” on yourself for failing to achieve what you set out to achieve or for not meeting others’ expectations.  Self-compassion, kindness to yourself, can enable you to overcome the disabling effects of negative self-talk.
  • Write what you know – Sandra points out that people with a chronic illness have a “superpower” as writers.  Because of their experience of pain and loss, they know about “deep emotions and feelings and the hardship of life”.  These are the challenges that everyone meets in daily life, being part of the human condition.  This gives writers experiencing chronic illness a  distinct advantage.  Savannah, in her interview with Sandra, maintained that such writers have  “a rare edge that empowers them to connect with readers on a much deeper level”.   As Sandra herself pointed out, “books are conduits of uncomfortable emotions and explorations of how to deal with them”.
  • Start small – if you start small, you can start “right now”.  At the outset of her writing endeavours, Sandra found that she could not write a lengthy story such as a novel, so she started small by writing poems and short stories.  She acknowledged in her podcast interview that it took “a long time to be right with that” and live with the belief that it is worth the effort.  She found, however, by writing short stories across multiple genres, she improved her writing craft and gradually built the capacity to begin writing a novel.  She recognised that this novel-writing would take at least three years. Sandra is adopting the “start small” principle with her novel writing by treating each chapter as a short story.
  • Write a reflective poem – sometimes it is helpful to write a reflective poem to get your feelings out into the open and to help you identify “next steps”.  This process can also unearth hidden emotions that are acting as a blockage to your writing.
  • Join a support community – Sandra indicated that one of the things that helped her immensely was joining a support community.   In an interview for CanvasRebel, she expressed her strong belief in “the power of the online community of other people with chronic illness sharing their stories and beliefs”.  Her online community reinforced her strength in managing her illness and associated pain, made her feel as though she was “seen” and confirmed that her voice was unique and “deserves to be used and heard”.   These personal outcomes have been my experience with the Creative Meetups, hosted by the Health Story Collaborative created by Annie Brewster, author of The Healing Power of Storytelling.

Sandra provides a free guide on How to Be a Writer When You Have a Chronic Illness on her website.  She has also started an online support community for writers with chronic illness – The Mighty Spoonies Club.  The name of the community is based on the “spoon theory metaphor” of chronic illness.

Reflection

I joined the online Creative Meetup group nearly two years ago and found that the supportive environment and writing exercises helped me “to access and release emotions” and to stimulate my creative expression in the form of poetry.   An added benefit is that I am sub-consciously working on my memoir as I explore and share my life story.

Reflecting and connecting with others who are experiencing their own chronic illness has been very supportive.   Their shared stories and insightful writing provides me with encouragement and practical strategies to deal with the challenges inherent in my chronic illness.

At our February 2025 Meetup, Jennifer Crystal, our facilitator, introduced a poem by Mary Oliver as a stimulus for our reflection and writing.  The poem, The Uses of Sorrow, speaks of receiving “a box full of darkness” but being able to understand over time that “this, too, was a gift”.  In our writing segment, we explored the “gift of illness”.

Illness provides a personal growth experience.  I’ve had to revisit my assumptions, self-image and goals.  Illness helped me to appreciate the small things in life that I often take for granted – that I can see, walk, run, play tennis, reflect, research and write. 

It helped me to realise that my identity is not tied to an image of myself as a very fit, competent tennis player.  Illness helped me to understand and accept the nature of the human condition – it’s vulnerabilities and frailties and undulating character.

I have been able to share with other people who are experiencing a healing journey.  I’ve met some wonderful people who are wise, resourceful and resilient as a result of  their experience of managing pain and losses.

Illness has helped me to become more compassionate towards others – to appreciate the pain, sorrow and distress that others are experiencing.  It has helped me to keep things in perspective and to savour the present moment.  It has forced me to be proactive, resourceful and engaged.

There are times when chronic illness has felt more like an unwanted gift – not desired or returnable.  Despite these setbacks, there have been hidden possibilities that have helped me to flourish and enrich my life and my writing.  As I grow in mindfulness through reflection, writing and storytelling, I am able to progressively develop agency, resilience and creativity.

I wrote the following poem after reflecting on the positive aspects of my illness and what it has contributed to my quality of life:

The Gift of Illness

Illness is a hidden gift,
with a rich lode of rewards,
that need to be mined,
in the fire of pain and loss.

Challenging assumptions,
reshaping identity,
acknowledging the human condition,
growing in awareness of self.

Opening to others,
appreciating life,
learning compassion,
disclosing feelings.

Discovering poetic expression,
rekindling creativity,
energising writing,
grounding in the present moment.

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Image by Leandro De Carvalho from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Writing a Reflective Poem to Manage a Chronic Illness

I participate each month in a writer’s group for people experiencing chronic illness and/or disability.  We meet online on Zoom and undertake reflective writing following a stimulus piece (e.g. a poem, a song or short story) introduced by our facilitator.  We then share what we have written, being open about our challenges and the feelings we experience in dealing with them. 

An added benefit of our Creative Meetups is the willingness of participants to share their strategies for dealing with their difficulties.  While we each have quite unique health conditions, we are readily able to relate both to the feelings expressed by others and the strategies they share to overcome any negative self-talk.  Through the online Meetups, we can see other participants from around the world and progressively build relationships with members of the group.

The facilitator for our Creative Meetup group is now Jennifer Crystal, author of One Tick Stopped the Clock.  Jennifer is a story coach with The Health Story Collaborative that hosts our monthly Meetups.  So we have the distinct advantage of having a facilitator who is experienced in narrative therapy and teaching people how to write for healing.

Reflective poems: a strategy for managing chronic illness and associated feelings

One of the participants in our January Creative Meetup, mentioned that he writes a reflective poem as a means to “tell himself what to do” when he is overcome with difficult feelings such as anxiety or depression.  As an amazing piece of synchronicity, I had done exactly the same thing the night before the Meetup.

I was beginning to get frustrated with the constant flare-ups of dermatitis, set off by my multiple food sensitivities, when I began to ask myself, “Why do I keep eating things that I know will cause a flare-up of dermatitis?” Through the reflective poem, I was able to stand back, look at the consequences of my actions  and form the resolution to behave differently.  My recent reflective poem has enabled me to find light in the darkness.  The poem acts as a “bridge to action” in the face of inertia.

The Creative Meetups are a great stimulus to write and share our stories and the group provides ongoing support for behavioural change.  The insights gained from the stories of other participants are invaluable.  I have found, too, that I invariably write a poem after each Meetup – which is helping me to grow in self-awareness and to address unresolved issues in my life.  For example, I have written the following poems stimulated by activities of our monthly Meetups:

Healing through storytelling

Jennifer Crystal’s book, One Tick Stopped the Clock, epitomizes the healing power of storytelling encapsulated in the Creative Meetups.   She shares her feelings of being frustrated with the medical profession (it took 8 years to obtain a correct diagnosis of her chronic illness), how she had to develop a new identity and find ways to achieve self-care amidst her debilitating experience.  The strategies she employed to manage her challenges and difficult emotions included writing and pacing herself.  Jennifer’s proactivity, like that of participants in the Creative Meetups, act as inspiration for me to take action on my own chronic health condition.

Like Jennifer, I initially sought the advice of my General Practitioner only to find that the issue of allergy was outside his area of expertise.  However, to my frustration, he did not inform me that the clinic had a doctor who was trained in immunology.  After searching the profiles of the clinic doctors, I found a doctor who had a PhD in immunology and had worked in a number of hospitals as an immunologist. Through her referral, I had an appointment with a specialist who was a clinical immunologist and allergist.  Once again, my proactivity led me to unearth an erroneous assumption that I had made. 

The immunology specialist pointed out that I did not appear to have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).  He explained that there were two levels of Mast Cell Activation – mine related to Level 1 which was largely confined to the skin and was reflected in dermatitis.  He stated that MCAS, the syndrome level, was more episodic and systemic (including symptoms such as diarrhea, brain fog, breathing difficulties and digestive problems).

Reflection

I have been trying to manage my chronic condition of an overactive immune system but recently a tick bite set me back considerably as my dermatitis flared up resulting in a short time at the Emergency Centre of a hospital.  My feelings of frustration at not being able to eat a wide range of foods were generating a sense of helplessness. 

I have found that writing a reflective poem helped me to identify what was in my control and to face up to the actions I needed to take to redress my symptoms.  As I grow in mindfulness through reflective writing, I am gaining increased self-awareness, tapping into my creative energy and generating momentum for positive behavioural change.

The following reflective poem flowed from Creative Meetups and related storytelling and shared wisdom:

Managing Chronic Illness Mindfully

The chronic condition:
immune system overdrive,
comfort and pleasure turned to discomfort and pain.

Focusing on deprivation:
makes it more difficult,
harder to avoid the breakouts.

The brief taste sensation:
gluten delicacies enticing temptation,
causing skin damage.

Setting off micro-implosions:
lasting rash, hives and itch,
discomfort magnified by frequency.

The body keeps the score:
registering every aberration,
exacting its toll.

The way forward:
openness to “what is”,
bringing light to depressing darkness.

Paying attention to the body:
listening to the body’s wisdom,
breaking free of emotional blackmail.

Buying time to heal:
avoiding alcohol and sleep deprivation,
eliminating causes of flare-ups.

Reducing the need for cortisone ointment:
protecting the body’s skin barrier,
restoring immune equilibrium.

Mindful awareness growing inside:
opening to nature’s beauty,
savouring life-giving breath.

Discerning the locus of control:
identifying what I can change,
acting on this insight.

It’s time to rebuild:
exercising and osteopathy,
walking and Tai Chi.

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Image by Melanie from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Changing How We Deal with Emotions

Hilary Jacobs Kendel, psychotherapist, author and activist, contends that we learn many things in school that we never use but do not learn about emotions that affect every aspect of our daily lives.  She strongly advocates for education about emotions though her videos, blog posts, presentations, interviews, newspaper articles and clinical practice.  Hilary is the author of  It’s Not Always About Depression:  Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions and Rediscover Your Authentic Self.

The Change Triangle®

Hilary educates people about emotions and how to change the way we deal with them through what she calls the Change Triangle®.  This is a visual representation in the form of an inverted triangle of the different types of emotions we all experience.  At the base are what Hilary calls the core emotions that are calls to action designed to help us negotiate our environment.  To the right at the top are inhibiting emotions which impede us experiencing core emotions in their true form.  These, in turn, often lead us to adopt defenses which we employ to avoid being aware of, or experiencing, our feelings.  

Hilary acknowledges that her own understanding of emotions was developed through attending a presentation by Dr. Diana Fosha, Director and Founder of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)™ which is a treatment model adopted by Hilary that was developed to help adults experiencing difficulties as a result of childhood attachment trauma and abuse.  This transformational model focuses on healing and flourishing despite the experience of emotional suffering and draws heavily on neuroscience, brain plasticity and research on mother-infant development.  Diana advocates strongly for a healing approach (transformation) instead of the traditional psychotherapy approach of a focus on pathology.  In this respect, she addresses the question What Happened to You?, not What’s Wrong With You? – a healing approach also adopted in the book by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry.  Diana wrote the Forward for Hilary’s book.

Core Emotions

Core emotions have been identified as early as Charles Darwin and their impact on the brain is now able to be identified through brain imaging.  Hilary identifies the core emotions as fear, joy, anger, excitement, sadness, sexual excitement and disgust. These emotions are beyond conscious control as they are triggered by our everyday experience and serve as a survival mechanism, activating our flight or fight response, our approach or avoidance stance.  Where real danger exists, this can be life-saving.  Fear, for example, can make us aware of a real, impending danger, e.g., a house fire.  However, through trauma and adverse childhood experiences, the core emotions can be triggered by seemingly harmless activities or events, such as conscious breathing, a smell or a sound.  The core emotions “ready our body for action” as they appear with a lot of biological energy – ready for activation. 

Inhibiting Emotions

Hilary identifies three emotions that she describes as “inhibiting emotions” – anxiety, shame and guilt.  These emotions often arise from the “shoulds” “and “should-not” messaging that we are all exposed to, especially in our childhood.  Deborah Feldman illustrates this very well in her book, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.  She talks of the shame she felt in reading books written in English rather than Yiddish (because of the constant paternal messaging) and the guilt she experienced eating cakes when she felt hungry from the very restrictive traditional diet.  Hilary explains that “shame” is designed to inhibit out impulses and ensure conformity to the norms of our reference group – e.g., family, community or religion.  She differentiates healthy shame from toxic shame – the former brings us safety through inclusion, protection and support.  The latter generates a toxic environment in that it is built on negative self-talk that reinforces negative beliefs about oneself generated by bullying (online or offline), abuse, neglect or alcoholic parents.  Hilary explains that the road to healing is employing the Change Triangle® to unearth the core emotions that lie underneath the shame.   She provides a roadmap through her blog post, 5 Ways to Work the Change Triangle as a Beginner, and offers multiple examples of this transformation process in operation within her book, It’s Not Always About Depression.

Defenses

Hilary explains that defenses are a form of emotional protection in that they are multiple ways “we all avoid painful, uncomfortable or conflicting emotions”.  She identifies the more common ways to avoid emotions in one of her blog posts, including sarcasm, superior conceit, constant apologizing, procrastination, eating disorders and addiction.  She describes some of the more surface level defenses as moving away, rolling your eyes or judging others.  Defenses can be healthy and serve our needs in particular situations such as in a professional environment.  However, unhealthy defenses prevent us from experiencing either inhibiting or core emotions and effectively lead to disconnection from our authentic self.  We hide away from the pain of our deepest feelings by finding a way to deflect them.

In a New York Times Article, It’s Not Always Depression, Sometimes its Shame, Hilary describes her AEDP therapeutic work with a client named Brain.  He had presented with what appeared to be chronic depression and had failed to respond to multiple forms of therapy and medication.  He appeared to be in a comatose state – unable to connect, express his feelings or communicate effectively.  His defenses, in the form of withdrawal enabled him to protect himself form the pain of “emotional aloneness” and toxic shame – induced by a lack of emotional bonding from his parents. His father was preoccupied with earning a living and his mother drank to excess – resulting in “emotional neglect” for Brian.

Hilary employed a range of techniques over the four years of her therapeutic intervention, including throwing cushions to Brian just to engage him in some way.  In his second year of treatment,  he learned to name his emotions, validate them and “safely connect to the emotion he felt in his body”.  On the conclusion of his therapy Brian “felt alive again”,  developed more friends, undertook meaningful work and learned to assert his needs.  In the process, he dissipated the toxic shame he had been experiencing.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness we gain increased self-awareness and are better able to identify our triggers, our habituated defenses, the inhibiting emotions and our underlying core emotions (often, there is more than one at play).  We can also learn to access our emotions through our bodily sensations – a major focus of Hilary’s approach.

In her video presentation of the Change Triangle® to a group, Hilary begins with a meditation – participants are asked to close their eyes, become grounded, get in touch with their breath, and undertake a body scan.  The first part of the scan focuses in on a place in the body where we can feel calm and warmth.  The second part of the scan involves identifying a place of tension or pain in the body.  This is followed by a process of breathing into that place and imagining that we are able to move it aside even for a little bit to locate the emotion that is under there, “pushing up for experiencing and validation”.

As Bessel van der Kolk maintains, The Body Keeps the Score.  In this book, he explains the role of the brain and body in the transformation of trauma.  As Hilary points out, through her Change Triangle®, healing and transformation ultimately lead us to our Authentic Self which enables us to achieve clarity, calm, courage, creativity, compassion and connectedness.

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Image by Ronald Plett from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Accessing the Present Moment through Mindfulness Meditation

Diana Winston, Director Mindfulness Education at MARC, offers a guided meditation podcast on the theme, “Back to Basics”.  She reminds us that mindfulness is very much about the capacity to pay attention in the present moment and to do so with curiosity, openness and a willingness to be with what is, including our habituated distraction behaviours.  Without mindfulness meditation we tend to spend out time thinking about the past (replaying undesirable events/outcomes) or the future (worrying about possible negative events which rarely happen). 

Mindfulness meditation enables us to build our concentration by staying fully focused on the present. The beauty of the present moment is that it is always accessible to us if only we focus our attention.  However, our busy human brains are forever active – engaged in planning, categorising, criticising,  exploring, and many other mental activities that manifest our intelligence.  Diana notes that everyone gets distracted during mindfulness meditation but the power of the process lies in the ability to return to our anchor to restore present moment awareness and build our awareness muscle.

Diana suggests that if we become distracted by thoughts we can name what we are doing, for example, “planning” or “critiquing” and return to our anchor.  She reminds us of the research that demonstrates the benefits of mindfulness, including building relational resilience and relieving pain.  Neuroscience research shows us how mindfulness can increase our capacity to manage stress, enhance positivity and happiness and even alter the physical shape of our brains.  Dr. Dilip Jeste, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, provides research to highlight the role of mindfulness in developing wisdom and compassion.  Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson in their book, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body,  explain that mindfulness research provides very strong evidence that meditation builds self-awareness, self-management and social awareness.   

Diana maintains from her research and extensive training of others in mindfulness practice, that “people who practise mindfulness report more gratitude, more appreciation and more connection with themselves and other people”.  Sometimes, a particular location can provide us with the right environment to develop mindfulness.  It may provide solitude and silence or reinforce our connection to country and community as Brooke Blurton frequently describes in her memoir, Big Love: Reclaiming myself, my people, my country.  Nature has a way of developing mindfulness because it stimulates wonder and awe and all our senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste.

The guided meditation

In the guided meditation, Diana encouraged us to adopt a comfortable posture to enable us to sustain our focus throughout the 20 minute meditation.  She suggested we choose an anchor to enable us to restore our attention whenever we notice that we were distracted.  The anchors suggested were our breath, external sounds or bodily sensations.  I chose to focus on my joined fingers that were resting on my lap.  I find that I can very quickly sense the tinkling, vibration and warmth in my fingertips once I have them joined.  As I focused on the associated bodily sensations, I became aware of pain in my fingers and wrists which then became my focus.

Diana suggests that when you are starting out using meditation, it is best to maintain a focus on your anchor and not be diverted by strong emotions.  There are, however, specific guided meditations for dealing with challenging emotions. 

The guided meditation provided by Diana (which begins after 6.35 minutes of introduction) incorporates a 10 minute silent meditation.  Towards the end of the meditation, Diana encourages us to sense how we are feeling, e.g., whether we are experiencing ease or relaxation.

Reflection

After the meditation, I recalled that one of the first mindfulness books I read was that by Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now.   Also In an interesting occurrence of synchronicity, I had been listening to mantra meditations on Spotify (via a Janin Devi Mix) as I wrote the first draft of this blog post and Alexia Chellun starting singing The Power Is Here Now (a song I have never heard before).

As we grow in mindfulness through our regular mindfulness practice, we can access the power of the present moment to gain greater self-awareness, heightened creativity, improved emotional regulation and a deeper sense of happiness and ease.  There are many options available for us to choose, e.g., chanting, meditation, yoga, mantra meditations or movement meditations.  We just need to choose the modality that works best for us and enables us to sustain our practice.  I find that Tai Chi provides the greatest immediate benefits for me and that is my primary mindfulness practice (supplemented by other practices as well).

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Image by Ryan KLAUS from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness Meditation – Being With Things As They Are

Allyson Pimentel presented a guided meditation on “Mindfulness” for the MARC, UCLA  meditation podcast series.  In the meditation, she described mindfulness as paying attention in the present moment with an attitude of acceptance and kindness and a  “willingness to be with things as they are”.   She suggested that mindfulness can be either formal (as with the UCLA guided meditations) or informal  (occurring  throughout our day as we focus on the present moment).

Mindfulness then entails paying attention in a kind way to things as they are occurring in our life in the present moment – not wishing them to be different or to go away.  In this regard, Allyson maintained that mindfulness meditation can serve as a refuge – a safe place to nourish, restore and renew ourselves in challenging times.  We can feel overwhelmed by external events (such as  storms and severe weather events) or internal experiences (such as challenging emotions, deprecating thoughts or painful bodily sensations).   Mindfulness meditation offers the opportunity to regain our equilibrium when faced with these challenges.

Allyson likens mindfulness meditation to a “wildlife reserve” where our own “animal bodies” are protected, kept safe and nurtured so that we can cultivate the “beauty” of kindness, gratitude, generosity and wisdom.  Mindfulness meditation, then, can be a place of quiet restoration, renewal of our sense of wonder and gratitude and a means to mind-body balance.

Guided mindfulness meditation

Allyson progresses through the meditation by focusing in turn on bodily sensations, challenging emotions, disturbing thoughts and the ease and calmness of our breath:

  • Bodily sensations – we are asked to focus on a part of our body where we feel tightness and to be with this bodily sensation in all its dimensions (such as soreness, pain, tension).  Allyson invites us to soften this part of our body and allow some degree of ease to permeate our bodily sensation.  This involves a process of recognition and acceptance of what we are experiencing in the moment, rather than rejection or fighting against the sensations.  After focusing on a particular bodily part and accompanying tight sensation, we are encouraged to undertake a process of progressive body scan and relaxation.
  • Challenging emotions – we now focus on any challenging emotion such as resentment, anger, frustration or annoyance.  This involves being with the emotion, not attempting to deny it.  It requires an openness to what is – in all its amplitude and disturbance.  Again the process involves recognition and softening towards what we are experiencing, not hardening our hearts.
  • Disturbing thoughts – we might be simultaneously experiencing disturbing thoughts such as negative self-evaluation and self-censure.  As we get in touch with these thoughts and their impacts on our body and emotions, we can learn to diffuse them by accepting their presence and being with their intensity, while acknowledging that “we are not our thoughts”.
  • Breathing – finally, we can take refuge in our breath which is ever present to us.  We can focus on our breath wherever we experience it in our body, e.g., our chest, abdomen or nose.  This involves acceptance of the nature of our breath, not trying to control it.  As we tune into and listen to our breath, we can experience ease and freedom.

Reflection

At the end of the guided meditation, Allyson invited us to observe any aspect of our body that still feels tense or tight and to be with the sensation.  At the time, I had a tightness in my right ankle from a bit of swelling there.   The act of focusing and softening eased the sensation of tightness and pain.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and informal mindfulness practices throughout our day, we can access the well of ease, experience a refuge from challenges we are encountering and restore our equilibrium and sense of balance.

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Image by Dominik Rheinheimer from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

                                                                                                        

Ways to Manage Ourself During Difficult Times

The Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA offers weekly guided meditation podcasts on a wide range of topics and issues.  In one of the recent meditation podcasts Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education at MARC focused on “Practices in Difficult Times” – providing several mindfulness practices designed to help us achieve calmness, manage our challenging emotions and express compassion to ourselves and to others who are suffering.

Diana highlighted the fact that challenging events such as the mass shootings in America and the war in Ukraine can generate “emotional inflammation” in us – we can feel strong emotions of anger, grief, rage or sadness.  We might feel overwhelmed by others’ inconceivable pain and loss and our own emotional response.  We might be confused and continually ask ourselves, “Why the children?”, “Why Ukraine?” or “When will this emotional and physical devastation stop?”

Diana draws on mindfulness practices to help us deal with these challenging times and the emotions they elicit in us.  She reminds us that mindfulness involves placing our attention fully on the present moment while being open and curious and accepting what is in our present internal and external reality. 

Three mindfulness practices for difficult times

The three mindfulness practices offered by Diana are described, in turn, in the following discussion:

  1. Calming Practices: Here we are encouraged to tap into the body’s own capacity to generate calm and ease.  The primary aim is to achieve groundedness in a way that is conducive to our present needs.  We could start by taking a couple of deep breaths and releasing them slowly to let go of the tension within us.  There is the option to find a place of ease in our body and focus in on it, e.g., our arms beside our body, our relaxed legs or our fingers joined and pulsating with energy.  Diana particularly stressed the power of “feeling the support of the earth” through our feet on the floor or the ground.  Our breath with its natural rhythm can provide a basis for experiencing calm and ease (unless, of course, focusing on our breath acts as a trauma stimulus).  If attention to our breath is calming, there are many ways to access a relaxed state through mindful breathing  practices.  We could adopt “micro-practices” such as the  4-7-8 breathing practice often used in yoga, the breathing in time practices (using our breath as a musical instrument) or we could pay attention to the internal physical sensations of our breathing – e.g., the rising and falling of our abdomen or the feeling of air moving in and out of our nose.  Diana suggests another alternative is to pay full attention to the sounds in the room or what is being generated externally (especially if we are in a natural setting with the sounds of birds, waves, or wind).  Sound can also be used as a calming mindfulness practice as we listen to and sing mantra meditations provided by people like Lulu & Mischka (such as their Rainbow Light song as part of their peaceful Horizon album).
  2. Holding strong emotions: Normally, people tend to suppress challenging emotions, deny them, or deflect their attention from them by numbing themselves with some form of addictive behaviour such as drinking excessive alcohol, overeating, taking illegal drugs or over-spending while shopping compulsively.  Mindfulness experts and psychologists remind us that we need to face up to our emotions or they will cause disruptions in our lives through some form of mental and/or physical illness.  Diana encourages us in this guided meditation to pay attention to our challenging emotions and observe how they are manifesting in our body, e.g. tightness in the chest, pain in the arms or neck, headaches, overall stiffness or fibromyalgia (non-specific whole-body pain).  Holding on to these strong emotions enables us to deal with them directly and use the healing power of our mind and body to dissipate them.  If we experience overwhelm while confronting our strong emotions, we can return to our meditation anchor which could be our breath, external sounds, bodily sensations or music.
  3. Compassion practice: Diana explains that compassion practice in this context involves ourselves as well as others who may be experiencing suffering and loss.  She encourages us to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion as we struggle to deal with our challenging emotions and our misguided attempts to ignore them or numb them.  She suggests, then, that we extend loving kindness to others in the world who are experiencing pain, devastation, grief and anger.  Diana offers  a possible expression of compassion for others in the form of a statement of desire, “May you be freed from pain and suffering and find contentment and ease”.

Reflection

We have a deep well of ease in our bodies that we can access at any time, if only we can let go of our damaging thoughts.  As we grow in mindfulness through calming practices, facing our challenging emotions and practising compassion towards ourselves and others, we can gain the insight, courage and capacity to manage ourselves during difficult times.  Mindfulness enables us to achieve emotional regulation, self-awareness and the creative drive to be the best we can be.  Challenging emotions, left unchecked or ignored, can undermine our endeavours at home or at work.

Over time we can develop a regular mindfulness practice that suits our make-up and that we can undertake on a daily basis (e.g., Tai Chi, mantra meditations, chanting or yoga).  This core mindfulness practice can be supplemented by micro-practices that we engage in throughout the day (e.g., when washing our hands, during waiting times, or when boiling the jug).  The compound effect of these core and micro-practices is a calm state of mind, enhanced patience and conscious presence.

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Image by ChiemSeherin from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

How to Overcome being Imprisoned by Self-Neglect

Edith Eger in her book The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life, discusses the “the prison of self-neglect”.   Habituated behaviours that underlie self-neglect can arise through adverse childhood experiences, an abusive relationship or a deficient developmental environment.  Edith suggests that self-neglect often arises because of unmet childhood needs – specifically the need for “attention, affection and approval”.   Our own needs are neglected in order to fill the gap left by unfulfilled childhood needs.  So we pursue the “A’s” (mentioned above) at the expense of our present needs.  An aspect of self-neglect is the avoidance of expressing strong emotions for fear of causing  discomfort to others.

Factors leading to self-neglect

We might have had parents who offered conditional love – on condition that we met their high standards in sport, academic or other achievements.  Their expectations about our performance can create a dependency whereby we are forever seeking approval or acceptance.  We might have suffered neglect as a child through the conscious choice of parents or their own adverse circumstances.  This can lead to our continuously seeking attention.  In one of my workshops, one participant proved to be continually disruptive through constant challenge to anything other participants said.  It turned out she was seeking attention and approval because she was denied this as a very young child – being expected to contribute meaningfully to adult conversation when still very young.

Sometimes self-neglect can arise as a result of the role we played as a child or young adult.  Family circumstances may have led to our being the “responsible one”, “the carer” or “the earner”.  These roles may have been necessary at the time but the unspoken expectation that comes with the role can continue into adulthood.  Edith recounts the story of a client who was imprisoned by the self-expectations that arose as a result of a childhood role as the “reliable one”.  This led to continual self-neglect in pursuit of other people’s needs – often unexpressed but assumed.  The result was personal burnout as well as depriving others of the opportunity to develop independence.  Sometimes creating dependence on ourselves fulfills our desire to be needed.  This was something that Gabor Maté discussed as contributing to his need to be a workaholic medical practitioner.

Gabor maintains that underlying many addictions is an unmet need arising from early childhood.  The addiction, whatever form it takes, is an ineffectual way to address the pain arising from parental neglect, abuse or inattention.  His “compassionate inquiry” approach is designed to unearth the early triggering event(s), the resultant negative self-message and the reward sought through the addictive behaviour.

Overcoming the imprisonment of self-neglect

The fundamental rule to freeing ourselves from the prison of self-neglect, is to begin to put ourselves back into the picture, to have self and our needs as part of the equation when trying to decide how to spend our energy and time.  Edith suggests that there are a number of ways to do this:

  1. Savour the things and people in our life that bring us joy.  We can start small with a few minutes each morning spent appreciating the little things in our life –  noticing a new leaf or flower on an indoor plant, reflecting on a picture or painting that generates positive feelings, or valuing a person who has shown us kindness, thoughtfulness or generosity.  Savouring what is good in our life can extend to appreciating the development of our children, accomplishments and rewards, the wonders of our subconscious mind, the capacity to think and create and our relationships (even our relatives).  We can actively seek to let joy into our lives.
  2. Appreciating nature – nature has a healing power and enables us to cultivate all our senses and develop our sense of wonder and awe.   In nature, we can be lost in the beauty, the sounds, the textures and the smells that surround us.   We can actually find ourselves in this process of being lost in something immense and awe-inspiring that is beyond ourselves.
  3. Edith herself adopted an affirmation that expresses something of her uniqueness and what she has been able to contribute to the world.  We can all find the words to reflect the positive things we have contributed to others and what makes us a truly unique person.  In the process, we can value the people who helped make us who we are – our parents and their positive traits, our mentors and their wisdom, and our teachers who willingly shared their knowledge and insights.
  4. Reflect on an occasion where you were asked for something or to do something.  Ask yourself what were your thoughts and feelings at the time.  What was driving your choices?  How much of looking after yourself was reflected in your response.  How could you have responded in a way that did not involve self-neglect, e.g. expressing your true feelings.  Are there habituated behaviours that you engage in that continually overlook your own needs?
  5. Explore the balance in your life.  Edith suggests that we keep a record (for a short period) of how we spend our day in terms of how we allocate time to work, play and love.  Does work absorb all our time and energy at the expense of our needs for nurturing, relaxation and time to ourselves.  How often do we allow ourselves to become absorbed in a hobby, creation or charitable activities or just enjoy social activities with friends or family.

Reflection

With the busyness of life, it is so easy to lose ourselves through self-neglect. There are often hidden forces underpinning this neglect, so self-exploration is important to unearth what drives our behaviour.  As we grow in mindfulness through observation and reflection, we can gain the necessary self-awareness and insight to understand ourselves and develop the courage to make changes to the way we live our life. 

Edith maintains that we do not change until we are ready to make the change and often this is driven by a need to change habits that no longer serve us in a positive way.  Any changes we make to our behaviour, no matter how small, need to be reinforced by savouring our achievement.   From Edith’s perspective, change involves the process of “finding the real you”. 

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Image by Perez Vöcking from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Expressing Emotions or Being Imprisoned by Avoidance

Edith Eger In her book, The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life, discusses the “the imprisonment of avoidance” – the refusal to express challenging emotions.  She maintains that avoiding feelings through suppression leads to depression – the opposite involves release through expression.  We can supress our feelings for many reasons, e.g. to avoid the pain and hurt of recollection or to protect others from seeing us as vulnerable and suffering. 

If we are suffering from past hurts or trauma we can try to shield loved ones from the discomfort that comes with the expression of strong feelings.  In the process, we are not being honest and we are also depriving them of the opportunity to express empathy and love.  We can also unconsciously train our children to avoid the expression of feelings when they are hurt or upset.   We can try to diminish their feelings out of our own discomfort or sense of sadness.  We might say, “Don’t cry, there will be other opportunities to go to parties”, “You’ll forget about this tomorrow”, “Look how many friends you do have who let you play”, or “Let’s get some ice cream and make the pain go away!” (we can try to substitute something  pleasurable to avoid the expression of pain and hurt, thus setting in place habituated avoidance behaviour).

Edith suggests that sometimes we suppress our feelings by trying to convince ourselves that we are happy and joyful when this is patently not true.  We might even resort to affirmations to hide our true feelings.  This form of subterfuge only acerbates our feelings because it denies our reality – the depth and breadth of our true feelings.  Edith encourages us “to feel so you can heal” because “you can’t heal what you don’t feel”.   Sometimes our underlying feelings can be mired in resentment and can be unearthed through a guided reflection.

There is a real cost to ourselves in avoidance.  Despite our very best efforts, emotions are embodied – they manifest in our bodies as physical tension/pain and/or result in emotional or physical illness.  By not living our truth or accepting the reality of how we are feeling, we undermine our own integrity and personal integration.   Edith provides a detailed and graphic example of the impact of unexpressed feelings on a women who experienced incomprehensible violence by a family member.  Her life was lived in fear and loneliness because she never owned up to her feelings of rage, anger and deep fear of the perpetrator.

There may be times in conversation with a friend that we withhold a true expression of our feelings about some matter relevant to our relationship with them.  Edith suggests that we can revisit the conversation mentally, work out what we should have said and then approach the relevant person at a suitable time and in a neutral place to express our real feelings.  We could even start by practising with restaurant waitresses and expressing our honest feelings about a meal (rather than hiding our true feelings because we do not want to hurt or embarrass them). 

Facing up to our feelings and naming them provides a real release.  Edith suggests that we can practise this by stopping ourselves at any time during the day and naming our emotion, whether positive or challenging,  in the present moment.  This is not only a form of mindfulness practice but is also a way to increase self-awareness and develop honesty about our feelings both to ourselves and others.

Edith explains that sometimes this challenge to express rather than supress feelings appears overwhelming.  She writes about her inability to face the Auschwitz Museum for fear of the pain of recollection of her parent’s murder and her own torture and starvation as a prisoner in the concentration camp.  It took her a lot of courage after 10 years to visit the Museum and she describes in detail what she felt when confronted with images of emaciated people, the cattle trains and arrival platform.  She found herself cringing and curled herself up into a tight ball in a dark corner of the Museum – overwhelmed by grief, pain, anguish and anger.  However, revisiting the trauma and owning the depth of her feelings provided a new level of release to enable her to be even more productive and helpful in her ongoing work as a trauma consultant – she had finally gained release from the imprisonment of avoidance.

Reflection

Edith’s own life experience, which she shares so freely in her books, bears out how difficult it is to free ourselves from the imprisonment of avoidance.  It may take many years of progressive inner work, and trying out various ways of overcoming our entrapment, to achieve some degree of freedom and realise ease and joy.  However, suppression leads to ongoing suffering and depression.

As we grow in mindfulness, we become increasingly self-aware of the different ways we avoid expressing our true emotions, develop the courage to own up to these emotions and achieve the resilience required to break free of the imprisonment of avoidance. _________________________________

Image source: Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

A Compassionate Approach to Addiction

Gabor Maté argues for a compassionate approach to addiction in his book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.   He points out that Portugal has successfully decriminalised the personal use of drugs that were previously illicit with the result that they have seen “a reduction in drug habits, less criminality, and more people in treatment”.

However, he maintains that a key success factor in this decriminalised approach is the development of effective rehabilitation processes and comprehensive resources to support them.   Such rehabilitation approaches need to be viewed as ongoing and long-term as well as “patiently pursued and compassionately conducted”.  Gabor claims too that Portugal’s success in decriminalisation of personal drug use is influencing the development  of a more compassionate approach in Norway and Canada.

Gabor contends that addictions. no matter what their form or manifestation, in very many cases have their origins in the pain resulting from adverse childhood experiences.   For example, in his book he explains that the self-harm (lacerations) employed by “Arlene” creates pain that obliterates, however briefly, “the pain of a larger hurt deep in the psyche” – a deep pain resulting from sexual exploitation when she was young.

Parents reaction to addiction suffered by their adult child or children often involves hurt or anger, instead of understanding and compassion.  This censorious stance is underpinned by self-blame and a lack of self-awareness.

Gabor maintains that parents should not be blamed for their children’s addictive behaviour – they have most likely experienced intergenerational trauma and “unwittingly bequeathed” to their children their “own unresolved or unconscious trauma”.  They have tried to cope with their own pain by what Johann Hari describes as “disconnection from childhood trauma” in his book, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression.  

Adopting a holistic approach

Gabor also argues that a holistic approach to addiction in all its forms requires teaching people ways of self-care including meditation and other mindfulness practices as well as what he describes as “body-work” which covers practices such as yoga and Tai Chi and other forms of martial arts.  Included in self-care approaches would be training in nutrition and overall stress management approaches such as reconnection to nature.

While Gabor acknowledges the benefits of 12-step approaches like that adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and GROW, he asserts that these approaches are not for everyone and other methods may be more appropriate for some people.  He argues for an approach that he calls “compassionate inquiry” which is based on trauma-informed understanding and a depth of inquiry that pursues causal factors rather than just seeks alleviation of symptoms. 

The aim of compassionate inquiry is to help the person suffering addiction to identify the trauma/traumas that they have experienced early in life, to isolate the resultant negative self-messaging and to ultimately confront and name the underlying pain they are seeking to alleviate through their ineffectual addictive behaviour.

Reflection

Underpinning Gabor’s compassionate approach is his unshakeable belief, informed by research and decades of field work, that addiction “arises from thwarted love” and that it is “one of the commonest and most human manifestations of torment”.  He maintains that the addicted person is constantly seeking external solutions for their internal “insatiable yearning for relief and fulfillment” – a state he describes as the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and body-work practices such as Tai Chi we can enhance our self-awareness, reduce self-blame and increase our understanding and compassion towards ourselves and others who are addicted.

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Image by Gisela Merkuur from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Illness and the Impact of Our Psychological and Social Environment

Over the past couple of blog posts, I have focused on the manifestation of trauma and adverse childhood experiences in our negative self-thoughts and addictive behaviours.  Drawing on the work of Dr. Gabor Maté in the area of compassionate inquiry, I have also discussed how the compassionate approach to addiction is to look beneath the self-destructive behaviour to the person and pain that lies beneath.   In this post, I want to explore more of Gabor’s ideas about the negative impact of adverse psychological and social environments and how they lead to chronic disease.

Gabor suggests that a fundamental flaw of the traditional medical model is the separation of mind and body and viewing a person in isolation from their psychological and social environment.  This leads to a symptomatic perspective on illness and the use of medications to redress the symptoms.  He suggests that these deficiencies in the approach of traditional medical practice are no more highlighted than in the pursuit of the search for a cure for cancer.  He draws on the work of a holistic wellness expert who illustrates this flawed thinking by arguing that the research of individual cells for the source of cancer is like exploring the combustion engine as the cause of traffic jams.  

Gabor strongly maintains that his years of family medical practice and his role as Coordinator of palliative services (end-of-life care) for a hospital have convinced him that underlying all chronic disease, without exception, is a deficient psychological and social environment of the individual involved.  His assertion is based, in part, on the assumption that a defective social and psychological environment negatively impacts the immune system as well as other bodily systems (such as the respiratory and cardiovascular systems) that are inextricably interconnected.  He asserts in live with Buddhist philosophy that everything is connected to everything else and that “nothing exists on its own”.  He cites the Buddhist concept of life as the “interconnection of co-arising phenomena”.

He argues that in line with this perspective which reflects the reality of human existence, that a leaf and raindrop should be viewed not as isolated occurrences but as resulting from the interplay of soil, compost, sky, sun, rain and atmospheric conditions.  Louie Schwartzberg would add the role too of mycelium (mushrooms and their internet-like connected tentacles beneath the earth).  Gabor maintains that we have to take a “biocycle, social approach” to really address the causes of chronic illness.

The impacts of injurious psychological and social environments

Gabor in his YouTube© talk on “When the Body Says No”, draws on scientific studies to demonstrate the connection between stress and disease.  He maintains that an injurious psychological and social environment has major implications for the development of illness.  He illustrates this interconnection, for example, by discussing the impact of stressed parents on the physical welfare of a child.  Parents themselves can be stressed by their environments (economic and social systems, the presence or threat of war, racism) and/or their own lived experience of trauma or adverse childhood experiences.  The child, in consequence of this psychological/social environment, is stressed and scan suffer from asthma (which itself is treated with stress hormones to open the airways and reduce inflammation, resulting in the adrenal system becoming overcharged).

The parents’ stress is contagious – the child is aware of their own body and the impacts of parental stress on their bodily sensations.  The pain of the parent, mother and/or father, is experienced by the child but the real problem is that this pain “never gets discharged”.  Gabor cites Australian research that demonstrates that our bodies adapt to our psychological and social environment (as well as our physical environment).  He maintains that some of this adaption is helpful in the short term but in the longer term results in adverse bodily manifestations such as elevated blood pressure, heightened stroke risk, unhealthy sugar levels, arteriosclerosis and defective immune system.

Gabor also refers to research that shows that if a woman is both stressed (psychological environment) and isolated (social environment) her chances of a lump in her breast being diagnosed as malignant are increased immensely.  This research reinforces the interplay of illness and the psychological/social environment of an individual.  Other research shows that if one partner of an elderly couple dies, and the other partner is left bereaved and isolated, there are deleterious changes in the surviving partner’s immune, nervous, hormonal and cardiovascular systems, resulting in a “significant risk of dying”.

The development of illness through the suppression of challenging emotions and our own needs

Gabor demonstrates that suppression of challenging emotions such as anger negatively impacts the immune system and other connected bodily systems.  A person may suppress expressions of anger to gain and/or maintain parental affection and affiliation (because their absence is too painful).  The result of suppression of challenging emotions is “suppression of the immune system”. 

Gabor argues that a  key contributor to disease is a personal stance that is forever worrying about other people’s psychological needs while “ignoring your own needs”.  This can manifest as feeling responsible for the feelings of others and avoiding any words or actions that might disappoint them.  Gabor argues then that there are four significant risk factors that contribute to chronic illness and are life-threatening (18 minute mark of his talk):

  1. Ignoring your own emotional needs to cater for the perceived needs of others
  2. Identifying yourself with duty and responsibility in a way that is rigid (at the cost of your own authenticity, thus creating an external locus of control)
  3. Repressing challenging emotions such as anger or resentment
  4. Believing that you are responsible for how other people feel and, in consequence, trying assiduously not to disappoint them (and, as a result, never saying “no” when you should do so for your own health and welfare).

Gabor contends that “attachment” is the “most important dynamic in human life”.  Without it, we cannot survive as infants or adults.  We seek “closeness and proximity” with another so that we “are taken care of”.   He maintains that pathologies arise when our attachment needs are not met. This, in turn, leads to frustration of our other basic need, the need for “authenticity” – which he expresses in terms of our ability to be in touch with, and listen to, our “gut feelings”.  Gabor instances the  “please love me syndrome” of Robin Williams as an underlying cause of his depression and chronic illness,  leading to his death by suicide.

Reflection

We cannot ignore the impact of our psychological and social environment on our physical health.  At the same time, we have to recognise that we are contributing to the creation of a psychological and social environment that could be healing or harmful for others, especially if we are in a caring or managerial role.  Gabor explains his ideas about stress and illness in his book, When The Body Says No: The Cost Of Hidden Stress.  He also provides training and further resources on his website, The Wisdom of Trauma.

As we grow in mindfulness, we can become increasingly self-aware and aware of our impacts on the physical health and psychological welfare of others.  We can be more determined to take compassionate action, to look beneath self-destructive behaviours to find the person desirous of wellness and associated ease.

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Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.