Feeling rushed by obligations and buried in chaos?
Morning space and time may help you set a confident pace for your day. Crafting mindful mornings is an art that needs intentional space for full expression. As a loss and life adjustment consultant trained in architecture and philosophy here is how I make room for my morning mindfulness routine.
Step 1: Clear one seat. Not a room. Not a big space. Just one comfortable chair, yoga mat, bed, step, any place where you can get comfortable. Don’t get sidetracked into cleaning an entire room. This adds yet another obligation to your load. My seat is a simple orange upholstered wide sofa in my study that I try to keep clear and open.
Step one is about identifying and giving yourself a space, location, and foundation for you-time.
Space for Time
Step 2: Clear space for one view. It can be a window, a picture, a candle. My window looks onto a suburban cul-de-sac, so I added little things I find beautiful, funny and calming on the window sill. Again, focus on just one view, spaces on your side and behind you can be filled with laundry, dishes, papers, toys, the mess of life. The key here is to curate a supportive perspective unique to you.
Step two helps you build emotional connections and boundaries, walls and windows that set and clarify your perspective from your chosen seat.
Constructed View
Step 3: Choose something to touch. Something soothing like a blanket, a pillow, or a stuffed animal. Choose something to hear like music, wind-chimes or nature sounds. Choose a comforting smell like incense, perfume, fruit, candles. I keep jasmine incense, a soft pillow to hold, and bird feeder outside my window. All three remind me of my time growing up in Bangladesh. For me, holding the warm cup of tea on my soft pillow while incense swirls in front of the window and birds chirp outside is calming.
Step three aims to support sensory comfort and safety through your personal choices.
Something to hold
How would you design your space for time?
Try sitting in your space for mindful time for 21 days. See if you notice any shifts in your self-confidence and let me know.
The weeks leading up the U.S. election and following have been … uncomfortable. There is fear, distrust and hate all around. My readers know that I am a Muslim-immigrant South Asian woman married to a Caucasian man with two brown daughters and two white, working as a therapist in small community mental health facility in rural Indiana with clients who are mostly Caucasian Medicare/Medicaid/Disability recipients. I do this work because of my faith and because of my “bleeding heart liberalism.” A few clients, engaged over the phone, do not know what I look like and have not asked. The same clients may treat me differently outside the therapy office. Everyday I learn how the combination of trauma, abuse and poverty fuel fear and self-hate. It is uncomfortable to be in service and sometimes exposed to distrust.
I did three things since the day after President Donald Trump was elected. Never posted a single personal word (hair, weight, posture, clothing) against him. I did do the following:
Read 5 newspapers everyday to get a broad perspective. BBC, CNN, FOX, Huffington Post and our local paper.
In an effort to understand and alleviate the fear, hurt, anger, feelings of dismissal, being left behind, I worked to get a Masters in social work (I already have a PhD in philosophy) and started working in community mental health. I focus on grief/loss, trauma and anxiety.
I vowed to support women as a reaction to Trump’s comments “grab her by the pussy,” “blood coming out of everywhere,” “nasty woman” etc. This I owe to my daughters.
So given all my effort to change in liberal recognition that my fellow citizens are deeply fearful of me and people like me, I was hurt, angry, resentful when I saw Facebook posts such these below. Both images were published the same day. Let me walk you through my thought process and my defense of discomfort.
This one is straight forward fear of the other cloaked in a Bible verse, divinely sanctioned hate. This to my experience does not represent Christianity. I was educated in Catholic schools for 5 years. I know better. It got more interesting when I considered the following image and quote.
The design professor in me, asks myself, to consider the pairing of these images, one white: who looks away dressed in black, a paragon of feminine virtue, while the brown one: looking forward, dressed in purple, in front of the capital steps, is an abomination. The quote that accompanied the dark dressed lady, reinforces the aesthetic.
The images above are united by divine imperative, making one the fornicator and other the lioness. These narratives are not accidental. I want all four of my daughters to have the choice to be the “first” or not, but never be denied the opportunity. This is why I worked to become an American citizen. No… I did not get my green card by marriage…but through work as a professor after proving that I’m not taking an American’s job away. It was a long, expensive, painful process. I’ve been here since age 2.
Four years ago, I would’ve simply stewed in my resentment and anger. Today I see the abject fear of dismissal, not feeling good enough, disguised as biblical righteousness.. “do not mistake meekness for weakness.” In the past weeks as a therapist I have met with clients with swelling anxiety and oozing fears of WWIII, loss of benefits, conspiracies of harm and dismissal. One therapeutic CBT technique, works to challenge negative thoughts,”how does the election affect you personally, what has changed from before to after the election?,” another, involves processing grief and loss, “This is a loss for you, what expectations did you have invested in Trump’s reelection?”, another, trauma focused therapy technique aims to increase a sense of safety and self worth, yet another technique (DBT), focuses on circle of control, communicating disappointment, boundaries with others etc. As a philosopher I was taught the art of dialogue. This is not the place for dialogue. This is trauma intervention before words. The words posted with images above are belated. They speak to the fear that being a woman who does not break glass ceilings is not enough, that a woman of color dressed in purple is enough to warrant biblical damnation, that diversity threatens a lack of control and safety.
We are all scared of each other. What we do with that fear sets us apart. This is what I want my daughters to know: have courage to reach out anyway, my beloved ones. The choice to react in anger just repeats and mirrors the rejection. Confront the discomfort, not other people. Notice and honor the discomfort so it may show you a path beyond the simplicity of unfriending, liking, disliking, or one sentence responding. This is not yet dialogue, this is a discomfort to be shared and felt as fuel.
For those who have posted these images, I hear you. I tried to avoid any names, as to avoid blame or shame. The remaining three names serve to identify copyright and authorship. No disrespect. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and challenging me in mine.
I will continue to serve, heal and support people I both agree with and disagree with. May you never know the difference.
As a therapist, I focus on presenting issues, the problems that compel a person to sit with me. Sure, I balance these functional impairments by looking for strengths and support. Still, the focus is on identifying and repairing damage, secondary and tertiary prevention.
I came across a list of indicators for positive ego strength while studying for the licensing exam. It was refreshing to look at a list of positive mental health criteria instead of DSM5 criteria for disorders.
I found myself checking my own emotional/ ego strength. Some items on the list are easier for me than others. Check to celebrate your own strengths and ability to live a full life.
Acknowledging their feelings – including grief, insecurity, loneliness, anxiety
Not getting overwhelmed with their moods
Pushing forward after loss and not being paralyzed by self-pity or resentment
Using painful events to strengthen themselves
Knowing that painful feelings will eventually fade
Empathizing with others without trying to reduce or eliminate their pain
Being self-disciplined and fighting addictive urges
Taking responsibility for actions
Holding themselves accountable
Not blaming others
Accepting themselves with their limitations
Setting firm limits event if it means disappointing others or risking rejection
Avoiding people who drain them physically or emotionally
Tolerance of pain associated with loss, disappointment, shame or guilt
Forgiveness of others with feelings of compassion rather than anger
Persistence and perseverance in pursuit of goals
Openness, flexibility, creativity in learning to adapt
From Social Work ASWB Masters Exam Guide by Dawn Apgar, 2018.
“If I can create a relationship characterized on my part:
by a genuineness and transparency, in which I am my real feelings;
by a warm acceptance of and prizing of the other person as a separate individual:
by a sensitive ability to see his world and himself as he sees them;
Then the other individual in the relationship:
will experience and understand aspects of himself which previously he has repressed;
will become more similar to the person he would like to be;
will be more self-directing and self-confident;
will become more of a person, more unique and more self-expressive;
will be more understanding, more accepting of others;
will be able to cope with the problems of life more adequately and more comfortably.”
From On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers (1961)
Achieving the transparency, acceptance and skill to see another’s point of view that can host self-actualization requires much more practice than I ever imagined. Philosophy had not prepared me for the pragmatic social work demands self-awareness as a necessary condition to help others. To the philosophical imperative to “know thyself” social work adds “so you can help others know themselves.”
Relentless self-assessment, self-care, self-awareness can be demanding. Carl Rogers working during mid-20th century tells us why this practice is the precondition to help another. This is the difference between service as pity and service as love. One make me feel “better than” while the latter makes me feel “better with.” It is a small but important distinction that requires constant cultivation.
What if I’m too afraid to be transparent with others? Isn’t easier to hide behind a facade of a professional distance? This way I don’t have to be human and vulnerable with a client, or ever…
Carl Roger’s client centered approach challenges me to questions:
“Can I be in someway which will be perceived by the other person as trustworthy, as dependable or consistent in some deep sense?
Can I be expressive enough as a person that what I am will be communicated unambiguously?
Can I let myself experience positive attitudes toward this other person — attitudes of warmth, caring, liking, interest, respect?
Can I be strong enough as a person to be separate from the other?
Can I step into his private world so completely that I lose all desire to evaluate or judge it?
Can I free him from the threat of external evaluation?”
Can I meet this other individual as a person who is in process of becoming, or will I be bound by his past and by my past?
If my past is equally implicated in the change process of another, doesn’t the others past also affect me? The philosophical insight of Carl Rogers’ work is that we are always becoming a person with others.
My subjectivity is conditioned by intersubjective experiences.
Social work is pragmatic philosophy. At least that’s my how and why I want to host personal growth, self-actualization, self-awareness.
How about you? How would you describe relationships that helped you grow?
( you are good at that my artist and creative friends),
you walk into my counseling office.
You seat yourself in a red mid-century modern chair. No arm rests. You fold your hands on your lap and notice that you are sitting upright. You allow yourself to lean into the back support. You look around for clues to what might happen next: the white board, the desk, the pens, the walls, me across from you. Your eyes rest on the rug under your feet. I ask you…..
How do you feel about your art?
You are most welcome to share your thoughts in the comments below or just hold them gently in your heart.
Hungry philosophers and starving artists are always looking to fill themselves with meaning and beauty. How do you endure the uncertain tide of human feelings, starting with your own? How do you allow as Betye Saar says “creative grieving”?
Artist Betye Saar with a background that includes social work and design, my hero, talks about risking ridicule in efforts to raise universal consciousness and in dealing with personal emotions. I wonder how she would answer my soft question. In a way it maybe easier to talk about the role of art for society than the role of art for you or your relationship to your own art.
“I think the chanciest thing is to put spirituality in art,” Ms. Saar says as she gently shifts elements of the assemblage around, trying this combination and that. “Because people don’t understand it. Writers don’t know what to do with it. They’re scared of it, so they ignore it. But if there’s going to be any universal consciousness-raising, you have to deal with it, even though people will ridicule you.”
“And you have to deal with personal emotions, because they’re there,” she added. “I think people are afraid of those too. My younger sister’s husband died this year. I said to her, you’ve got to start making something beautiful. Beauty is a form of spirituality. Once you start making something with your hands, the healing starts. I call this creative grieving.”
I studied architecture. I studied philosophy. As my studies of social work comes to an end, I find myself thinking about how I can combine my skills. I wonder if there are any models out there. If there are and you are reading this please comment below. For now this is how I feel….
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for meaning I can tell you I don’t have answers, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a guide for people like you. If you find your own meaning now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will find meaning with you.” Hungryphil ( modified from Liam Neeson, Taken)
My husband and I came up with this parallel. We thought it was funny for those of you familiar with the movie reference. I do have a very particular set of skills that verges on irrelevance. Yet, one that can be very useful to people who confront the seemingly meaningless everyday.
Why therapist for artists you might ask? What makes them different?
It is not so much that artists are different but they may be, in so many ways, avant-gardes of emotional ownership and expression. Artists struggle and transform their pain into material expression. They own and give trauma, life. Some can’t bear the process and fall. Others manage to integrate and map their maze of reality, dream, nightmare, hyper-reality, delusion and ecstasy. Some rely so much on their pain as a creative source that they rather remain depressed, enraged or erratic in order to feed their work. To be a therapist for artists, one has to respect the creative power of dark emotions. It is never about eliminating such powerful feelings. Rather the goal is to harness the power. Without this ability, either the artist dies or the art dies.
I admire the audacity of artists. I fear their invitation and vulnerability to dark emotions. I love art and self-expression. I love self-awareness more. As a therapist for artist, I need to “see” not only the artist as client but also their artwork as client. In essence, my therapeutic commitment must be to both: artist and artwork.
Only with this dedication would an artist trust me.
Show me your art, show me your heart, so I can help you see yourself at the center of all the chaos.
I’m sending this wish, to serve artists, out to the universe. May it guide me on this beautiful warm February Sunday and beyond.
It has been cold and dark for so long. I am so glad to see the sun and see the completion of another piece to my particular skill set.
Yogic psychology says there’s more. Encountering these stuck and painful knots is the path. This perspective teaches us that we aren’t stuck, we’re only identifying with less satisfying “things.” One remedy, Patanjali tells us, is to look for the opposite (II:33). I think of it as the Nourishing Opposite (Fay, 2010) not just any opposite, but something that will actually invite more nourishment into our experience. Pain, then, is a process of pointing out the way to remember and return ourselves to our true nature. In integrating opposites, holding these opposites simultaneously (Bryant, 2009; Miller, 2014), a third higher synthesis occurs (Patanjali 2.48), in which suffering is eased.
Fay, Deirdre. Attachment-Based Yoga & Meditation for Trauma Recovery: Simple, Safe, and Effective Practices for Therapy (pp. 16-17). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
The prescription to nourish the opposite when feeling stuck is the same process as identifying presenting issues and corresponding client goals. In seeking the opposite of what pains us, we seek joy. Treatment plans that include objectives, interventions and modalities chart the path of the nourishing opposite. Together we seek ease for the anxious, joy for the grieving, elevation for the depressed, reality for the delusional, focus for the inattentive. Therapy invites the nourishing opposite.
What pains you? What is this pain’s opposite? Can you invite the nourishing opposite?
As a therapist-intern, I find myself sometimes wobbly having absorbed client anxieties, fears, angers, sadness and confusion. Why am I angry? Is this anger even mine? Is this pain mine? Am I mirroring client feelings? Or maybe my feelings are responding, like a song?
I have been feeling irritable this weekend. What is the nourishing opposite? Feeling agreeable? How do I feel agreeable? Accept what is, accept that for now I’m feeling irritable, sensitive, overwhelmed, cranky without shame.
Writing helps me. Sharing with you nourishes me. I already feel a bit more relaxed, allowing myself to feel irritable and agreeable at the same time.
Now you try it. What feeling is bothering you? What is the opposite? How do you invite the nourishing opposite? How can you sit with the contradiction?
This takes practice, doesn’t it…
May we return to our own nature by listening to our discomfort (over and over again),
Hungryphil
Photography by Nate Dale – New Adventure Production
Chronic anxiety is a crisis of hope. It is the fear of a failed future. Depression is a crisis of hope. It is the belief in a meaningless future. Delusion, addiction, obsession — these are all the mind’s desperate and compulsive attempts at generating hope one neurotic tic or obsessive craving at a time.
The avoidance of hopelessness — that is, the construction of hope — then becomes our mind’s primary project. All meaning, everything we understand about ourselves and the world, is constructed for the purpose of maintaining hope. Therefore, hope is the only thing any of us willingly dies for. Hope is what we believe to be greater than ourselves. Without it, we believe we are nothing.
Mark Manson from Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope
How can we nourish hope within when we have lost, been disappointed, hurt or rejected? This is what the same author suggests,
Don’t hope.
Don’t despair either.
In fact don’t deign to believe you know anything. It’s that assumption of knowing with such blind, fervent, emotional certainty that gets us into these kinds of pickles in the first place.
Don’t hope for better. Just be better.
Be something better. Be more compassionate, more resilient, more humble, more disciplined.
– Mark Manson from Everything is F*cked: A Book about Hope
Wishing the few of you reading this a holiday season being better,
Anticipating the lean back Photography by Nate Dale – New Adventure Production
You know the feeling when you wait for the person in front of you on an airplane to lean back and restrict you even further in to the the tight small seat?
You know that feeling, right? Wishing and hoping they won’t but at the same time realizing that they are perfectly right do so. Should I lean back too? Let the seat backs cascade down the aisle? This anticipation of discomfort to come is not the best feeling. (For a fuller account of airplane discomfort you can read, Inflight Therapy: For those traveling far and within on amazon kindle.)
For now the question is simple, how do you brace for impact, for being leaned into, for constriction, for discomfort?
As Thanksgiving travel and associated anxiety approaches in a few months, what are your strategies for coping? Music, breathing exercises, reading, meditating? Anticipating and thinking of coping skills ahead of time can reduce our anxiety response. Accepting and addressing the discomfort to come helps ironically ease it. Just recognizing discomfort without a related alleviation attempt, I imagine would increase anxiety. So, it might be worth taking the time to think ahead to this moment and find your empowered coping strategy. Resist the lean, at least emotionally 🙂
It is not surprising that I’m drawn to Existentialist Psychotherapy in the lineage of Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, Vicktor Frankl practicing the philosophies of Kierkagaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Husserl and others. The basic premise as Irvin Yalom explains below is the humble defense of the ancient belief that self-awareness leads to a meaningful fulfilling life even if the process of self-discovery is painful:
Wisdom does not lead to madness, nor denial to sanity: the confrontation with the givens of existence is painful but ultimately healing. Good therapeutic work is always coupled with reality testing and the search for personal enlightenment; the therapist who decides that certain aspects of reality and truth are to be eschewed is on treacherous ground.
Irvin D. Yalom. Existential Psychotherapy (Kindle Locations 190-192). Kindle Edition.
In working and volunteering at different contexts such as hospice, domestic violence shelter, food pantries, community health, grief and loss counseling, my role and mission is simple: To invite self-aware ease in myself and in others with me. Sometimes that means asking gentle guiding questions, sometimes breathing, sometimes guiding meditations, sometimes just sitting in silence and making space for self-inquiry.
Self-inquiry is painful, as Plato describes in the Republic, the released prisoner is blinded and stumbling, heading out of the cave. The turning towards truth or meaning is daunting and frightening. The journey inward can only be sustained by moments of ease. Self-awareness rests on self-care. This is the balance I’m trying to learn and practice. Each person sitting with me teaches me a different version.
The existential position emphasizes a different kind of basic conflict: neither a conflict with suppressed instinctual strivings nor one with internalized significant adults, but instead a conflict that flows from the individual’s confrontation with the givens of existence. And I mean by “givens” of existence certain ultimate concerns, certain intrinsic properties ties that are a part, and an inescapable part, of the human being’s existence in the world.
Irvin D. Yalom. Existential Psychotherapy (Kindle Locations 107-109). Kindle Edition.
I hope to practice the humility of the Existentialist perspective: I can never know your experience, your suffering, your confrontation with life, however, I can guide you to map your internal valleys and mountains, joys and sorrows, to know yourself . I am able to do so because I walk with self-aware ease despite the sufferings of my own life. This of course leads to concerns of therapeutic transference. That exploration will have to wait for another post.
Whether you are a counselor, therapist, teacher, creative, what is your mission? Why is it your mission? How do you confront the givens of existence: death, isolation, freedom or meaninglessness?
Bring self-aware ease. Seems so simple, yet it is a life’s work. Mine.
Wishing you self-aware ease,
Hungryphil
Photography by Nate Dale – New Adventure Productions
The Hungry Philosopher 