Posted on Jul 21, 2023
How much discomfort am I willing to endure to get what I want? This is the question that popped into my head while I was picking wild raspberries at the edge of the woods near where I live. I was surprised when my brain connected it to the blog idea that has been percolating this month.
I have been working as a counselling therapist for over a decade. In that time, I have seen little, if any, improvement in accessibility to mental health services. Whether that be subsidies, income tax benefits, insurance reimbursements, or attitudes and stigmas. We all know systematic change occurs at a glacial pace. Plenty of lip service has been given toward making mental health services a priority and/or accessible to all. It’s an empty political promise. But my frustration isn’t only directed at governing systems. I am also fascinated by society’s attitude that mental health services are only for the insured, wealthy, and/or desperate.
We treat our vehicles, houses, and pets with better care than our own psyches. Mechanics have been known to charge an hourly rate higher than my counselling fee (which is on the low end, to be fair). And while folks complain about vehicle and housing maintenance costs, they do follow through with takin action and paying the bill. People save up, go into debt, or splurge on houses, vehicles, motorized toys, clothes, beauty treatments, etc. We don’t bat an eye on spending money to look good; but many balk at the idea of investing similar amounts of money into their own Selves. I wish we could normalize the idea of seeking assistance for, splurging on, or investing into our mental and emotional well being as easily as fixing a car or getting our hair and nails done. I know for many there really isn’t any “extra” money for the “luxury” of counselling which is sad on so many levels. For the remainder, the funds are technically available, but spent on “normal” or “socially acceptable” expenses like clothes and cars.
So how does this relate to berry picking? Focusing on our mental and emotional well being makes people uncomfortable, and spending money on it, even more so. We don’t, as a society, value improving how we think and feel or relate to others. We take daily functioning for granted. I wish it were normal for folks to see a therapist on a monthly or even quarterly basis. Just to check in with ourselves and see how we’re really doing. I wish it wasn’t considered an odd or unusual thing to do. I wish people were comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable. Short term pain for long term gain.
As I picked berries, I thought of all the ways that berry picking resembled the counselling process. For starters, one must be prepared for discomfort by anticipating it. Insect repellent if there isn’t a breeze to keep the bugs away. Dressing appropriately, as I don’t recommend berry picking barefoot in a bathing suit. 😊 Picking in the bush, not a groomed orchard, means long pants, socks, and sturdy footwear (like hiking boots for the ankle support). Footwear is key given the terrain where I live in the Boreal Shield. Rock outcroppings. Hidden holes. Tangled underbrush. At one point, I slid onto my bottom down a rock embankment in order to reach the tantalizing red fruit. The biggest deterrent for most berry pickers is the prickly thorns.
So, to answer that initial question, I am willing to endure the discomfort of insects, awkward picking positions, and prickly thorns to acquire fresh, juicy raspberries! They are my favourite fruit, next to Saskatoon berries—which also require most of the above (minus the thorns).
Like berry picking, accessing the benefits of counselling requires anticipating discomfort and being prepared for it: be it financially, mentally, emotionally, relationally. The berry picking process is fairly straight forward once you are prepared with a bucket and appropriate attire. See ripe fruit. Pluck it into the bucket. Usually a gentle tug will do. If it doesn’t loosen readily, it is either unripe or dried out. In the case of unripe, move on to the next berry. If hardened from age or the elements, it can be picked and discarded. For the more a berry bush is picked, the more it will produce the following year (weather permitting) plus sweeter and juicier! I was taught at a young age to pick “everything” for this reason. It didn’t matter if the rejects fell into the bucket or onto the ground because the next step is “cleaning” the berries in cold water. Not individually with a tiny brush, mind you. 😊 But a sorting process. Scoop a few berries into your palm. Pick out the bugs, leaves, twigs, and “bad” berries (Bird taste tested or bug infested. Dried out or under ripe).
And to all my fellow OCDers and over thinkers out there: for goodness’ sake, don’t try to actually pick ALL the berries. And if some escape to the ground (it’s usually the perfect ones), let them be! Some ground dweller will be delighted with the unexpected treat at their feet. And the birds will find the remainder. Yes, these are notes to self. 😉
Also, be sure to practice gratitude. Thank the bush or tree and/or mother nature for providing this delicious and nutritious fruit for you. Treat its branches with respect. Pull weeds that may choke it out. Make its life easier in whatever way you can. I even apologize when branches get trampled or bent. I somehow think that if we treated nature with more respect, maybe that would translate into treating human beings better.
So, to summarize, in counselling as in berry picking, we need to keep adapting and tweaking to be our best Selves. We need to be mindful of our inner workings and outer surroundings as well as be open to new opportunities. Just as berries can be many things (jam, pie, eaten fresh with ice cream…), so can human beings if we attend to our well being. Discard that which isn’t working for us, allow time and space for what needs to mature or come to fruition, adapt to our surroundings (bend a little or stand our ground), and become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth isn’t easy or pain free; but it is worth every discomfort for what we can become.
What discomforts are you willing to endure to get what you want out of your one precious life?
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Posted on Jun 23, 2023
My healing journey this month took me on a detour I wasn’t expecting. At first, I assumed it was just a depressive episode hovering, waiting to land, due to having dysthymia (a low mood disorder with major depressive episodes now and then). While that may still be the case, there was a trigger: Father’s Day.
In the meantime, I managed the hovering depression with physical labour (working on projects for my 1926 fixer-upper house) and music. I also was open and up front with certain people about what was going on for me. Normally I turtle. I hide. I isolate deep within myself until the episode passes. Not this time. I wasn’t worried about making people uncomfortable or trying to fix me. They simply understood where I was coming from and respected any boundaries I may have set. I wasn’t pushed to be anything other than what I was in the moment.
As I write this, I realize that was an emotionally corrective experience for me. In the past, my depressive episodes were considered a weakness and not to be acknowledged, something to overcome and get out of the way as quickly as possible. Other people were not to be inconvenienced by my depression. Yet, depressive episodes are not “all bad.” When my depression was its worst, before it was diagnosed and medicated, I was the most creative. I wrote poetry and short stories. I made attempts to draw and paint. That creativity has dimmed as I’ve aged; but it’s still there, dormant. Or emerges if there is a practical application for creativity. I have yet to rediscover being creative just for the sake of being creative.
Depressive episodes are also times of deep reflection and introspection. If I pay attention, depressive episodes have potential to heal cavernous inner wounds. That is, if I don’t get sucked in to the shame messages that also lurk in the darkest shadows. But if I pull those shame messages out of the murky depths, then I can inspect them and decide if they get to stay or not. In the better times, they get thrown out and the depression lifts—maybe not completely, but definitely the darkness lightens.
It took about a week to let the depression “do its thing.” I spent quite a bit of time yesterday journalling. It didn’t completely clear the air; but the depression is hovering a bit higher up. Reminding me to keep paying attention. To try different coping strategies. To be open to emotionally corrective experiences, giving people a chance to respond differently than I’m used to. I’m going to have to sit with that one a bit more: the idea that I don’t have to worry about people being inconvenienced by my depression. And yes, that does tie in with Father’s Day as a trigger.
My family dynamic history is far too complicated to dive into for a public blog. You will have to wait for my memoir/self-help trauma recovery book for that. I will write it when I’m ready to write it. I recognize I have a few more healing hurdles to overcome. Suffice to say, being depressed was not “allowed” around my father. Still isn’t; but it’s the past tense of that condition that negatively impacted my development. I couldn’t control the depression. It was simply a part of me that I learned to hide as best I could in all contexts. But I was quiet and withdrawn. I have no idea if that was the depression or my personality or trauma response, or all three.
Now I try to use friendliness to hide my social anxiety and overall insecurity. I have not yet found that place within to hold myself safe and secure. But it’s coming. Lately I have had reason to look through photographs from 20 to 30 years ago. The darkest days of my existence. I pull away from that girl, adolescent, young woman. So much shame attached.
In talking with a client recently about our essence, I realized I need to explore that more for myself. I need to look at those photos and see the essence emerging and/or hiding. The essence that I am connecting to these days is the same one buried within my younger self. I have to unlearn hiding my essence (my True Self as it were or the Divine Spark), and discover ways of expressing my essence. We are all bio-psycho-social-spiritual-sexual beings. As such, our essence has a myriad of avenues to be expressed via our human bodies.
There is, of course, much more that I touched upon in my journal writing. However, to unpack it all will take some time. Hopefully as I do, the depression will keep lifting and my essence will burn that much brighter. As the uncredited image and quote assures me: In times of doubt and confusion, the phoenix symbolizes strength, transformation, and renewal. For only from the ashes of who we were, can we rise up to become who we’re to be.
How profoundly accurate. Rise up my fellow phoenixes. May your essence burn brightly today.
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Posted on May 29, 2023
This month’s blog is very late. And not for lack of thinking about it. I continue to ponder attachment needs and witness it’s importance in my personal as well as professional life. It is the key, for me, to make sense of the hand I’ve been dealt. Trauma recovery, also, is simplified through this lens. In a way, it forms a worldview for me.
Unmet childhood attachment needs influence the core beliefs we develop to help navigate life. A common one is that if my primal needs go unmet by the (un)responsible adults in my world, there must be something wrong with me. As children, our brains haven’t developed the ability to think rationally or abstractly. The world still revolves around us. So when things go awry, we assume it’s our fault.
We cannot yet use the minimizing statement: my parents did the best they could with what they had. Or lay blame at the feet of the truly responsible parties (and sometimes this is generational abuse/trauma–not only learned behaviours passed down, but also on the cellular level).
The only way our little child minds can understand our basic needs for affection and attention going unmet is to presume that something is wrong with us. Ergo, we try to determine what we can do better to rectify that by such efforts as perfect tests scores or flawless playing of a musical instrument or monitoring and managing the emotional equilibrium in the house. The list is endless. None of this is conscious. It is part of the way our brains develop. Neurons firing and wiring together. Making connections and neuronal pathways that govern how we function in the world as we understand it. Another ‘side effect’ of this process is that our core beliefs become self-limiting and self-fulfilling prophecies. Every failure or bad experience is understood through these filters that we are bad or somehow deserve bad things happening to us. So to our developing brains, these beliefs are reinforced rather than corrected or counter-balanced–hence becoming part of our structural being.
One of the challenges of recovering from unmet attachment needs is to unpack these core beliefs that formulated in less-than-ideal circumstances. As we unpack them, we can determine if they are worth keeping, tossing, or adapting. My work ethic is one I wish to keep but must be adapted to my current reality. Work must be its own reward, not the definition of my essence. As such, I am a recovering work-aholic. It was my crutch against the barrage of internalized shame messages insisting I was worthless unless I could be productive and perfectly at that. I had to ‘prove’ my worth. It wasn’t innate.
When we choose to toss a core belief—such as I am worthless unless I ‘perform perfectly’—we need to create a new neuronal pathway. We have to break the old connections, the old pathway, and get new neurons firing and wiring together. Find a new way to define our sense of worthiness.
One method is Daily Affirmations. These are statements we create that help counter the old messaging by establishing a new way of thinking. Similar to a mantra, these statements are left in a prominent place we see daily, such as by the bathroom mirror or coffee maker. Repetition helps create a new neuronal pathway. These statements are simply read, not argued with. That is a bad habit that is not helping retrain your brain. When the arguing starts, it must be stopped and redirected to the affirmation, the new core belief that is being built and reinforced.
One of the first affirmations I used was: I am worth the effort. Initially meaning my own effort to make positive change in my life (namely trauma recovery which requires a great deal of effort). As I gained confidence, I was able to tackle other beliefs and corresponding affirmations. One that came a few years later (and helped prepare me to eventually leave an unhealthy marriage) was: I count and I matter. This one was primarily geared toward unmet needs in my marriage.
Earlier this month, to my surprise, that affirmation resurfaced. This time in reference to myself. I need to learn how to plan my days with the thought that I count and matter—not just my clients and other people in my life. I tend to put others first, a coping strategy learned in childhood to keep the peace and to convince myself, and others, that I was likeable.
If I truly believe I count and matter, then the time I reserve for activities other than counselling needs to be honoured—not tossed aside simply because someone needs my help. If I have a window in which I see clients, I need to respect that boundary and not give away that time because I ‘could’ help someone. Otherwise, ‘helping people’ risks becoming like my old work ethic. There is more to me than counselling. If I forget that, then counselling also risks becoming how I define my essence, my ‘raison d’être’ (catchy French phrase for ‘reason for being’).
While counselling is certainly one aspect that contributes to how I find meaning in my life, it is not the only way. Like everyone else, I am a composite of interests and abilities. And I must remember that I count and I matter just as much as my clients, friends, and family. Something I did not learn as a child.
As I write this, I recognize by body awareness (paying attention to what I sense and feel in my body) that I have more grief and inner child work in this area. Also like everyone else, I want to gloss over the painful feelings and jump to restoration. Which reminds me of my house. If I don’t first pay attention to what’s wrong, I cannot properly fix it. I cannot simply paint over structural issues in my walls and expect my house to stand another hundred years.
As in renovation as well as recovery, we want to ‘make it pretty’ for a quick sale or get on with life. However, buried problems always rise to the surface. We all know how avoidance tends to exacerbate issues rather than resolve them. Sometimes we have to remove what isn’t working before we can make it better. In recovery work, this means holding the pain long enough to recognize it, understand where it comes from, then let it go to make room for improvements.
Recovery also requires taking a hard look at our coping mechanisms (which tend to be automatic) and determine if they are helping or hindering us. Once we establish what isn’t working, we can then choose to learn healthy coping strategies to strengthen us structurally—and improve quality of life. For that’s what the hokey pokey is really all about it, isn’t it?
What core beliefs improve your quality of life and which ones need refurbishment or outright discarding?
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