“On call 24 hours a day for the past five years, a group of senior citizens has made history by greeting over 900,000 American troops at a tiny airport in Bangor, Maine. The Way We Get By is an intimate look at three of these greeters as they confront the universal losses that come with aging and rediscover their reason for living. Bill Knight, Jerry Mundy and Joan Gaudet find the strength to overcome their personal battles and transform their lives through service. This inspirational and surprising story shatters the stereotypes of today’s senior citizens as the greeters redefine the meaning of community.”
The 2 plus minute trailer is heart warming and inspirational…
Julia Cameron describes the process of engaging in art as tapping into our ‘vein of gold’ – the origin of our creative impulses as well as our connection to the divine. Each of us, according to Cameron, possesses this precious conduit which can be found at the very heart of our lives. However, if our hearts have been wounded, then they must be healed in order for our vein of gold to flow freely. In her book, “The Vein of Gold” Cameron describes this process of healing as a pilgrimage home to ourselves where, “we will be taking the dross of our lives — the disappointments, wounds, and burdens — and we will make them into gold through the power of creativity. All of our lives are already golden — in potential — if we are willing to do the necessary work of transformation.”
I was speaking with a group of women recently about the importance of creativity and tapping into our unique veins of gold when one woman shared, “I wish I were, but I’m just not creative.” I immediately responded, “when I came into this room today, all I saw at first were strangers. I only knew one person here. Now, in spite of the fact that I’ve learned to hide it well, I’m very shy and so it was uncomfortable for me at first. And then I looked over at you, another unfamiliar face and you immediately gave me such a welcoming and beautiful smile that I relaxed right away. Right at the moment you smiled at me you created a safe place for me.”
I didn’t just say those words to her to make her feel better. I meant them from the bottom of my heart. She has a very special gift that not everyone possesses, and she created something wonderful today, and not just for me. I watched her repeatedly project this warm and healing energy into our group. There are so many ways to be creative and I am tremendously grateful for gifts such as hers. I honor her gift and encourage her to claim it. I encourage you to honor and claim your own creative gifts as well.
“There is no greater joy than the feeling of oneself creator.The triumph of life is expressed by creation.”
Henri Bergson
Theologian and author Matthew Fox describes lifestyle as an art form and urges us to create life styles of “spiritual substance.”Fox also observes in his book Creativity that:
“Creativity, when all is said and done, may be the best thing our species has going for it.It is also the most dangerous… When we consider creativity, we are considering the most elemental and innermost and deeply spiritual aspects of our beings.The great thirteenth century mystic Meister Eckhart asks: ‘what is it that remains?’ And his answer is, ‘That which is inborn in me remains.That which we give birth to from our depths is that which lives on after us.That which is inborn in us constitutes our most intimate moments – intimate with self, intimate with God the Creative Spirit, and intimate with others.To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy.It is also to speak of our connecting to the Divine in us and of our bringing the Divine back to the community.”
When I reflect upon the life styles that I’ve unconsciously adopted in my past, I’m struck by the opportunities for joy, growth, peace, beauty and so many other sacred gifts that I have squandered.Michael Brownfield defined life as, “that which creates.”Thus, according to Brownfield, if you’re alive, then you’re most definitely a creator.From my perspective, it makes enormous sense that we each take responsibility for that which we’re creating.
And so, I’ve decided to see myself as an artist now, one who’s in charge of creating as much beauty and meaning as possible on the canvass that’s before me.I want to be sure to add learning, beauty, compassion, love, sunshine, fresh air, and other gifts to the holy canvass of each and every day.We were created, and now, we are creators.What will you choose to compose from the vast array of materials before you?How will you manifest the Divine that dwells within you?
As a therapist who frequently works with writers and other artists, I’m perpetually it seems engaged in the study of creativity. Over the years, I have become absolutely convinced that engaging in creative acts awakens our intuition, cultivates self- awareness, deepens our spiritual lives, and facilitates healing. (I’ll be writing much more about this in future blog posts.) Best selling author, Julia Cameron has written a great deal about the connection between creativity and spirituality. In fact, she asserts that the two are interchangeable.
In The Artists way Cameron writes, “The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity. Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see creator as the literal term for artist. I am suggesting you take the term creator quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly enhance your creative possibilities.” Cameron also offers in “The Artists Way” the following ten spiritual principles as the foundation for which both creative discovery and recovery can be achieved. She suggests that the following principles are read through once a day.
“1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.
2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life — including ourselves.
3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.
5. Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.
8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.”
I love Maine in September.I savor its gentle temperatures, mist filled mornings, and its quiet country roads.While I’ll admit that there’s a slight melancholy in the air as summer drifts relentlessly backward into the past, there’s a whiff of promise too.The leaves are beginning their spectacular turning, the apples and pumpkins grow closer to harvest with the dawn of each new day, and tomatoes hang ripe and juicy on the vine.
Autumn is a time of both abundance and disintegration, of brilliant vistas and diminishing light.In the midst of plenty, as we gather the harvest, the cooling mornings and shortened days inform us that winter is on its way.Making this transition can be particularly challenging to embrace for those of us who reside in the north country.And yet, embrace it we must if we want to participate as fully as possible in the enduring cycles of nature and in our own inevitable evolution.Everything changes, and just as whole new vistas open up in winter, I am reminded that each and every ending contains its own beginning.Transition periods whether welcomed or not very often compel us to stretch and grow, offering us a certain amount of grace if we will only try our best to meet them with acceptance and receptivity.
Joan Chittister in, “Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir observed, “Transitions complete us.We ripen.We learn.We hurt.We survive one thing after another…Then, in the end, we gain what we came to get – a kind of well worn, hard-won wisdom… the problem is that we all too seldom bother to stop and notice how much we have become in the process.”Each September finds me in a different place than I was the one before.Last year was filled with change, challenge, and celebration.This September finds me struggling to keep a healthy perspective as I slowly and faithfully work my way through grief.
Perhaps I love September so much because it symbolizes on some level crossing over a threshold.Just as the natural world begins once more its seasonal process of transformation – from summer to fall, fall to winter and finally winter to spring- we are reminded that during the course of our lives the landscape of both our bodies and our souls is altered again and yet again.
We’re born to create, each and every one of us.I’m not necessarily talking about painting, or poems or novels, although I am talking about works of art.Each of us makes the painful and profound journey down our mother’s dark birth canal and onto a waiting canvas. That canvas is our lives.
We’re not presented at birth with our fair share of resources, nurturing, or opportunities upon our arrival, but we do each receive all that we require in the way of teachers. These teachers school our souls even while at the same time they may break our hearts.
Frederick Buechner in, Our Fiction or our Faith wrote, “There is something deep within us, in everybody, that gets buried and distorted and confused and corrupted by what happens to us.But it is there as a source of insight and healing and strength.I think that is where art comes from.”
Our once empty canvas doesn’t promise beauty or wisdom or meaning.An empty canvas doesn’t promise much.But the world that holds it is overflowing with possibility, more than enough for us to create meaning, and beauty, and wisdom.
In Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood”, Wayne Muller observed that those who suffered in childhood, while baring painful scars, invariably exhibit exceptional strengths including remarkable insight, creativity, and a profound inner wisdom. He challenges those of us who have suffered to not perceive ourselves as broken and damaged, nor to disown those dark and wounded places in ourselves, but instead to work to reawaken that which is wisest, strongest and whole within us.
In working with victims of childhood trauma, Muller noted that while still haunted by the past, many also develop an acute sensitivity to others as well as a tendency to seek beauty, love and peace. He writes, “Seen through this lens, family sorrow is not only a painful wound to be endured, analyzed and treated. It may in fact become a seed that gives birth to our spiritual healing and awakening.”
It’s been my own experience as a therapist that this is often the case with survivors of childhood trauma. While not all survivors with whom I’ve worked possess the characteristics that Muller so respectfully describes, I’m almost always touched by their strength and depth. Each person has brought to therapy his or her own uniques skills, stories, and beauty – gifts that truly seemed to be forged to a significant degree in the flames of the very pain they now seek to escape.
Muller assures the reader that suffering and pain are not exceptions to the human condition. Instead they are inevitable threads that make up the tapestry of a life. He cautions us to not become entangled in our memories of childhood suffering – to not let our pain resonate throughout the whole of our lives. He also points out that many of us would prefer to explain our hurt rather than to feel it. He advises that we acknowledge our pain, allow ourselves to experience it, and then to look for the lessons it will inevitably teach if we only look and listen, particularly to the wisdom contained within the depths of our very own souls.
While I never, under any circumstances want to minimize or justify the pain of another, nor suggest that anyone be grateful for their suffering, I do try to gently suggest (when he or she is ready) that even the most painful path can be a pathway to possibilities not yet discovered.
There have been many hurtful experiences in my own life that I would have adamantly refused to face had I been given the choice, I am also aware that to deny the value of the message, in spite of how painful the lesson or unwelcome the messenger, only serves to add insult to injury. If you have no choice for the time being but to travel a difficult path, at the very least, why not claim all possible compensations along the way?
“…How can we be in touch with suffering and work to transform it, but not react in ways that lead to further suffering?
…One of the most powerful images in the teachings of the Buddha – the image of the ‘two arrows’ helps us to clarify the nature of suffering and how we might learn to open to suffering without creating further suffering.It also suggests an important and precise distinction between what we might call pain and suffering.
We can imagine, the Buddha says, that when we experience pain, it is as if we were shot by an arrow.Each of us is sometimes shot by this arrow of pain.We each have a certain allotment of painful experiences, some of us more, others less.To be human is to be vulnerable to pain and at times to be in pain.Our soft bodies are easily injured and tend to break down over time.We are frequently startled and shocked – physically, emotionally, and mentally.We want meaning and connection, kindness and love, fairness and justice, yet we often find them lacking in our lives.
Typically, because of this first arrow of pain, we react in various ways.According to the Buddha, our reaction is equivalent to being shot by a second arrow.We can call this second arrow suffering.Suffering arises because when we experience pain –when we experience pain – when we are injured or startled, or lack meaning and love, or are treated unjustly – we typically react by lashing out, at ourselves and others.We believe somehow that this will dispel or mitigate the pain.We act in such a way that a second arrow is shot, at us or others, on account of the pain of the first arrow.When we act so that the second arrow is shot, we ‘pass on’ the original pain.
Suffering can thus be seen in large part as a kind or resistance or reaction to the pain of the present moment.We tend to react physically, emotionally, and/or mentally when we have unpleasant or painful physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts.When we experience physical pain, we tend to tense and contract around the pain, as if this will somehow assuage it.Some doctors say that perhaps 80 percent of what patients exper ience as physical pain is not the result of the original stimulus bur rather ongoing resistance to this stimulus.
Similarly, when there is emotional pain (think of the pain that may follow from a perceived slight by someone close to us or the breakup of an intimate relationship) we tend to comment at great length, produce a flow of emotions, and react physically as well, all on the basis of the original stimulus.We may generate anger and harsh judgments of self or others or rationalize continually, sulk in depression, find a scapegoat, or attempt to escape the pain through food, shopping, sex, or television…
…For the Buddha… the task of spiritual practice is not to rid ourselves of all pain, to prevent being shot by the first arrow.Rather, our core intention is to not shoot this second arrow.“
A young therapist, poet, and regular reader of this blog is exploring the intersection between psychotherapy and spiritual practice. In honor of her substantial ability to both create and appreciate poetry, I thought I would offer what I found to be a rather poetic response to the question, “How is psychotherapy and spiritual practice similar?” by Janet Pfunder in Psychotherapy and Religion: Many Paths, One Journey. Pfunder reflects:
“Psychotherapy and spiritual practice both offer the opportunity to actually suffer our suffering, offsetting the ways we have become numbly unreal to ourselves. We listen for the inaudible scream, finger the invisible scar. We reach toward agony X finding yet never fully finding, yet ever reaching toward, on and on. We fall into ravines, scale perpendicular cliffs, enter flames, and cross scorching deserts looking for the baptism of tears – the kind of tears that fall ever faster as the heart opens. The baptism of tears that transmutes the parched, torn , scorched body into a body of light, a body of breath, a body of gems, over and over and over until the body gradually begins to retain some of its glow. It’s the work of at least one whole long lifetime.”
I have found many of the world’s spiritual traditions rich with wisdom which is often both useful and applicable to psychotherapy and life. For instance, while I am not a Buddhist, I have most definitely benefited from some of the lessons that I have learned from the Buddhist tradition and find that there are many Buddhist teachings that make sound clinical sense.
In Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy, edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Shôji Muramoto, Akira Onda observes, “Dhampada, one of the oldest Buddhist texts, begins with the words, ‘We are what we think.All that we are arises with our thoughts.With our thoughts we make the world.’” These ancient words have been echoed by so many models of psychotherapy including but not limited to cognitive, reality, psychoanalytic, gestalt, humanistic, and narrative therapy.
In the same book quoted above, Young-Eisendrath writes, “In my work as a Jungian psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, I have many opportunities… to engage in the struggle of human suffering, and as many opportunities to test my compassion… An American dread of suffering, based on ignorance about what suffering teaches and how it can be transformed, has recently led to more and more physicalistic and materialist explanations of our pain and adversity.Instead of recognizing the role subjective distress- the ways in which disappointment, anguish, fear, envy, pride, and hostility, for instance, contribute to our suffering – the American anti-suffering campaign now addresses people at the level of neurotransmitters, organ transplants, genetic engineering and biological determinism.This cultural movement has already had massive ill-effects on the practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy over the past two decades in the United States…In this same period of time that this has been unfolding, Buddhism has become a major religious and cultural movement in North America in a way that no one could have easily anticipated in the early 1970…As a result, Buddhism…has, perhaps surprisingly, opened up the possibility of a renewed appreciation of psychodynamic practices of psychotherapy.Because Buddhism presents a spiritual argument for the transformation (not medication) of suffering, as well as specific and systematic methods of analyzing subjective distress…”
As both a therapist and a human being, suffering and the alleviation of suffering has been a great preoccupation of mine for much of my life. It was perhaps from my introduction to the Buddhist perspective on suffering over twenty years ago now that my attention began to shift from how suffering can best be eliminated (an impossibility) to how it might be transformed.
Following are links to additional articles that address Buddhism and psychotherapy that you might find of interest:
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” by Donald Rothberg and Jack Kornfield.
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