Sounds silly put that way, but you’d be surprised. People who had difficult childhoods sometimes use that as a justification as to why their lives are not working today. Oprah Winfrey, certainly a successful person, has shared that she overcame being sexually molested as a child; obviously she didn’t consider that a good excuse. There are many people who had traumatic childhoods whose lives are flourishing, so we really can’t blame the parents.

Clients in therapy may be reticent to do historical work because they love their parents, feel loyalty to them, and don’t want to blame them. The clients are afraid we’re going to find out the parents were villains, which is rarely the case. Usually, although not always, our parents were well-meaning people like ourselves doing the best they could with what was handed down from their own parents.

It’s not necessary to stop loving your parents to see what they taught you that wasn’t helpful, but it is necessary to identify the messages from the parents that were not accurate. I sometimes call these false messages “brainwashing” to underscore for clients just how strong this conditioning can be.

If, for example, you were taught that sex is sinful, you might want to change that brainwashing. If you were taught you should never speak up, or that your ideas are nonsense, or that you don’t have your own special form of attractiveness — these beliefs taught by well-meaning parents are not helpful in the world of adults and would benefit from examination, then elimination.

In psychotherapy, we’re not about blaming your parents. We are about you examining the things your parents instilled in you that are not helpful and throwing them out with the trash. But, we want to make sure you do keep the many useful things your parents passed on. We don’t want to interfere with you having the best relationship possible with them. The more love in the world, the better.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

Nothing’s wrong with accomplishing a lot, as Tiffany does. Western culture is focused on achievement which requires a lot of “doing.” People are asking more of their lives than ever before – we want to be successful financially, and have perfect health and great relationships. These are laudable aspirations, but we’re out of balance, at the expense of non-doing or just “being.” We’ve lost the great art of doing nothing at all.

I knew nothing about this until I spent a year at an ashram in India. It took awhile to wind down from my manic Western pace, but after I did, I fit in quite well. There was plenty of time to sit by the river, watch the clouds and cows grazing, meditate, enjoy leisurely meals, and spend lazy afternoons chatting with friends. Life was so relaxed; we thought we were getting a lot accomplished if we mailed a letter that day.

Of course, the realities of needing to earn a living intruded, and it was time to go back to work. Too much leisure is deadening to the spirit which wants to be of service to its fellow beings. But I learned the great value of doing nothing at all, sometimes referred to as meditation. Some meditations suggest watching the breath or the thoughts: some concentrate on a mantra or sound. Some listen, which was especially delightful in the tropics, with the sounds of birds and roosters reminding us to wake up. All meditation methods involve doing nothing productive. They teach us to just “be.”

One way to incorporate doing nothing into a busy life is to take up a meditation practice. A few minutes of quiet inwardness can balance many hours of outward doing-ness. However, I am reticent to prescribe meditation to my patients, as it often becomes one more item on the dreaded to-do list. It’s often easier to do nothing whenever you can find a moment, such as in the car when you get home before going into the house.

The point isn’t to live a life of non-doing. Instead, we can incorporate doing nothing into our lives in precious bits of time. We have to give up chastising ourselves for taking that time. We need to question our high standards for productivity. If we don’t, we’re in danger of losing the connection to that which makes life most meaningful.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

When I took sex education in high school, we were shown the most amazing video of an egg being impregnated by a sperm. There She sat, unmoving, glowing, queenly, radiating, waiting patiently in all her splendor. The sperm were wriggling and squirming and jockeying for position, all of them anxious to enter Her. One victorious little tadpole finally succeeded. The egg didn’t move a muscle, and, except for a little squeal of ecstasy when he entered, appeared unmoved by the whole experience.

The old fashioned way of pursuit was reportedly like this: men pursued women who were non-active. Men did all the work. Then during the radical changes of the 70’s, Germaine Greer exhorted women to take the lead and pursue whichever men we wanted – it seemed like a good idea at the time. Men and women should certainly do whatever is right for their personal temperament. Nevertheless, neither modern men nor women have any connection to their yin self.

I took some time and meditated on the Egg, imagining myself as Her: sitting silently, radiating, waiting.  After practicing a few times, I took it on the road. Since I’m an average looking woman, I’d never been approached all that much in bars, so as usual, I sat and watched all the hotties move on each other. I closed my eyes there on my barstool and did my Egg Meditation, envisioning myself as the Queen Egg, glowing, unmoving, and calm. When I opened my eyes, much to my surprise, several attractive men had wriggled up, jockeying for position. I never got approached so much in all my life as I did that night.

Yang is looking for yin, sorely missing in today’s world. I’m not advocating that women give up the gains we’ve made, not by a long shot. But both men and women are missing the element of yin. That’s why some men think they want younger or submissive women. Most modern men don’t really want submissive; they want a worthy partner. But yang is looking for yin and not more yang. There has to be a balance.

So just for a few minutes, imagine…you’re the queen Egg, sitting unmoving… getting fully in touch with your feminine side.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

This type of forgiveness is done from the level of the mind, by making a decision to think about the situation differently, which is as helpful as putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm. The pain happened emotionally, physically, and/or sexually, and must be dealt with on these levels. For the mind to pronounce that “all is forgiven” is New Age nonsense, as if all it takes to come to forgiveness is to pronounce it so.

To truly get to a state of forgiveness, you must first fully experience the feelings associated with the betrayal or abuse. This doesn’t mean that you need to act the feelings out, become overly dramatic, or hang onto them for years. But it does mean that the energetic frequency of the emotion needs to be allowed to pass through the physical body on its way out. When forgiveness is merely an idea or a mental construct pasted over the inner rage, horror, betrayal, hurt, or anger, the emotions will continue to exert pressure to be released. When through the process of therapy we drain those feelings, leaving the person free and cleansed, the forgiveness process can begin.

It’s understandable that a person would want to bypass this step, because dealing with these historical emotions can be intense. The work is hard, but it is worth doing. To be free of blame and resentment is worth the pain it takes to clear it out of your system. It can be done. Get some help so that it’s not just a mental exercise.

If you try to forgive prematurely, or before you have done your work, you run the risk of being stuck with painful feelings lying hidden under everything you do. When you explore and confront past emotional wounds, eventually you will come to accept the humanity of whoever harmed you, along with the realization that we all hurt each other. Then true forgiveness is possible and when it comes from that genuine place, it will flow out truly like the love that it is.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

Many people weren’t aware that a quake of far greater magnitude shook Chile, the affluent nation running down the west coast of South America. The Chile quake was 501 times stronger than Haiti’s according to the Huffington Post, and yet we didn’t hear much about it because there was very little damage. Chile has had a long history of handling emergencies so homes and offices were designed to withstand disasters. The country was in all respects better prepared. By contrast, in Haiti there were no building codes, and Haitians had not been schooled in how to react. Although the earthquake was so much stronger, the damage was minimal in Chile.

Of course, there is a lesson here that it would behoove all of us to be physically prepared for emergencies. There are easily download-able lists on the Internet of items we should have in our cars and homes for emergencies: bottled water, snacks, blankets, candles, etc., and it’s a smart thing to do. It’s prudent to be prepared as Chile was.

But what I’ve been thinking about is the lesson these earthquakes have to teach us about our emotional lives.  People whose lives are stable are like Chile; that is, they are more easily able to deal with an emotional “earthquake,” than people whose lives are not.

For example, I often suggest to my single patients that they focus on having enough platonic friends first before they focus on finding a partner. They will be more emotionally prepared for the “earthquakes” of dating if they have enough emotional support in their lives and aren’t waiting for their partners to provide that stability.

If you develop emotionally supportive networks around you now, they will be there for you when life brings you an “earthquake,” as it inevitably will.  Life brings emotional suffering to everyone at some time in their lives. Someone you love will die; someone might leave you; you may have financial difficulties. These events are universally devastating, but if your life is stable, you can survive the earthquake as a prepared country such as Chile did, rather than be rocked to your core and barely able to recover like an impoverished Haiti.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

This disturbing trend reflects the fact that increasing numbers of people are living alone, added to the decrease in people joining groups and organizations that in the past fostered a sense of community. Robert Putnam, Ph.D. from Harvard (Bowling Alone, 2001), puts the blame on the long-term decline in Americans’ civic engagement. Boomers and those younger have been less likely to join churches or other groups that supported feelings of belonging to something meaningful.  The fact that a person has hundreds if not thousands of “friends” on Facebook can actually make loneliness worse, because we seem to need to be in the presence of each others’ bodies.

The hidden costs of this isolation are now linked to serious health problems such as depression, alcohol abuse, sleep disorders, chronic pain, anxiety, and even dementia and Alzheimer’s.  The World Health Organization has rated loneliness as a higher risk to health than smoking and as great a risk as obesity. Lonely people’s immune systems become compromised, increasing their risk of health problems, as well as their feelings of discouragement that affect their willingness to practice good self care.

Despite this epidemic, there appears to be a positive correlation between spirituality and lower reports of loneliness. In a study by Jacqueline Olds, M.D., people who identify as “very religious or spiritual” report half the degree of loneliness than people who identify as “not religious at all.”  People who attend religious or spiritual services once a month or more reported the lowest incidences of loneliness of all.

There is also a correlation between low reports of loneliness amongst people who donate their time to charities and other nonprofits. Volunteers who work together toward a common goal of helping others often develop meaningful relationships with each other.

It appears that spirituality is good for your physical, emotional, and relational health. Research indicates that the best prescription to prevent loneliness is to meet with others on a regular basis, join and become active in groups, volunteer for causes you believe in, and to put into action your understanding that we are all in this together.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

Previously published in Spirituality and Health magazine, May/June 2011

Believe me, I understand. Back when I was a hippie/beatnik/punk alcohol-abusing waitress in the ‘70s, dreaming that some day I would be a writer, I despised the word “normal” and all I thought it stood for. “Normal” connoted people who had sold out, people who were not living on the edge, people walking around half asleep, and worst of all, people who had given up on their dreams.

After being lost for longer than I care to mention, one day in a meeting I heard someone say, “I finally believed I was good enough to lead a normal life.” I realized that was true about me, too. My desire to not get stuck in a bourgeois life had been motivated partly by my artistic drive, partly by not having high enough regard for myself, and partly by a misunderstanding of how life works.

I was lucky enough to find a mentor who taught me that it’s a required step to become “normal” in order to get anywhere in life. Unless you are willing to do what it takes to stabilize your finances, living situation, and emotional life, you can’t get on to solving more interesting problems. Without this stability, you don’t progress and you keep wondering why your life never amounts to anything. They don’t need to be magazine quality, but you’ll need a stable home, stable finances, and a stable emotional life to move to the next level.

Bill also taught me that you have to become willing to be bored; otherwise, you’ll spend your life chasing drama. You’ll make poor decisions like going back to school instead of buckling down to work, or you’ll throw out your perfectly good spouse to buy a more exciting model. You won’t mature, because there is always a new drama to solve. As soon as life starts finally coming together and boredom sets in, you’ll make a decision to ruin it, chasing what seems more intriguing and less “normal.”

To progress beyond sub-normal, Justin will need to pass through “normal” if he ever wants to spend his life in the way he aspires. Normal is a required stage on the way to excellence. What he’s seeking is there waiting for him; he just needs to do the work. He hasn’t yet understood that we all have to work for our success, one difficult step at a time.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

It can be a great help during, or after, the time period when this cleaning-out is going on to have a series of sessions with an experienced bodyworker, in addition to the regularly scheduled psychotherapy. Talk therapy alone is sufficient to release enough of the repressed material for major improvements to be experienced, but for a more complete resolution, bodywork can assist the process by working on it physically as well as intrapsychically.

The repressed material does not exist only in the mind or the heart. It has been lodged in the body: in the tissues, the organs, the muscles, and the fascia that connect the muscles to the bones. Trauma, whether emotional, physical or sexual, can show up in the body as poor postural alignment, stiffness, lack of flexibility, or as more serious health problems. When the bodyworker skillfully eases the physical release of this holding in the body, the result is often a whole new way of being in the world.

Rolfing is one such bodywork discipline that works to change the structural problems resulting from trauma. I have personally found it to be highly effective. Once when the Rolfer was working on my foot, it suddenly began kicking on its own, expelling anger that was trapped in it. I found myself literally “putting my foot down.” In another session, I began crying with relief as he worked on my spine, and the greatest surprise of all was the session when trapped joy that I never knew was there was released and began streaming out into the world.

Other forms of bodywork that can be useful during therapy are acupuncture, chiropractic, the Alexander Technique, Reiki, and Feldenkrais. Receiving a massage is a necessity for those folks who have not been touched enough, which is nearly everyone in the Western world.  Of course it’s always helpful to take up a physical practice, such as running, hatha yoga, martial arts training, dancing, or even walking around the block. It’s wonderful to explore the myriad methods of enhanced physical awareness that can bring you to levels of well-being you had never imagined for yourself.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

Unfortunately, my happiness went away with a THUD when I got back to the West, bringing a depression that was as low as my previous state was high. My chronic depression was perhaps more virulent than ever, now that I was aware of what I had lost. My therapist at the time had never experienced what I had, but he was kind and solid as an oak. “I think your depression is the absence of That,” he said.

I ran around looking for answers, and found some when I was sitting in a small group of seekers surrounding Eli Jaxon-Bear. “I thought it would never go away,” I cried when it was my turn to talk.  Everyone in the group started chuckling softly. “You’re chasing the high,” Eli said. “Look at your pattern of addictions.” I didn’t think I still had them, but there they were – addictions to certain ways of thinking, to expectations, to ideas about how things should be — subtler than I had previously been able to detect.

These high states are not supposed to last. They are little tastes of the Ultimate – the carrot at the end of the stick. They are little morsels to keep us on track, to keep us searching for the real stuff.

People who have peak experiences, either through drugs, through meditation, through sex, or through Grace, often imagine that they have now arrived. It is beyond-belief painful when the realization sets in that the peak won’t be permanent. However, it was predictable, because every high is followed by the low, every mountain has its valley; that is, until you reach Everest, or so I’ve been told.

After the taste, the work resumes: the work on oneself to become more aware, more kind, more surrendered. More open to life, to love, to the divine. Like anything else worth having in life, it takes a lot of work to get there. The little tastes of happiness that don’t last can be reminders to not lose heart and to keep going until you’re home.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

Notice that as soon as you download a new song from iTunes, you’re tired of it. The dessert you carefully chose from the menu never tastes as good as you’d hoped, and when you try to repeat a pleasure that at one time made you ecstatic, it’s always disappointing. Our frustration prompts us to try to repeat an experience that one time brought us pleasure, as we become dulled against the truth that it can’t be done. We try to shift our moods by taking a pill, drinking alcohol, binging on food, or watching some porn, all activities famous for facilitating momentary happiness, but in the long run they create deep rooted and difficult-to-eradicate addictions.

Many of my patients express that, “all I want is to be happy,” by which they mean constantly positive and joyful, never negative, sad, depressed, or feeling angry or grief-stricken. Some people have even gotten to the point that if they aren’t happy all the time, they blame themselves and believe there’s something wrong with them. This frustration comes from a misunderstanding regarding the nature of happiness – it’s not supposed to last.

It’s not supposed to last so you will go on searching for something that does last. You are supposed to be continually frustrated in your search. The fact that happiness is transient is necessary to lead you to that which will make you truly fulfilled, rather than momentarily elated. True happiness cannot be found in that which is impermanent.

Certainly, there are many things you can do and ways to live your life that will make you happier, such as manage your finances, get enough exercise, and live according to your moral code. But no matter what you do, a permanent state of happiness will elude you until you find it in something other that which doesn’t last. It is possible to develop a sense of happiness about whatever is happening, a sense of celebrating all the flavors of life: sadness, lack, boredomk, and even the fact that happiness is not supposed to last.

© 2011 Catherine Auman