I am currently working on a book about Happy Coupling. Can't say too much about it, except that it's gonna be awesome.
If you are interested to talk more about the emerging Happiness research and/or Coupling, call me. It's one of my favorite topics, and I'd be thrilled to regale you with tales from my research marinade.
So, in the meantime, the Blog will be sparse, even more sparse than usual, because, it turns out, writing is hard. I'm a shrink, not a writer. There, I said it.
Have a look around though. Hope something speaks to you.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
No guts, no glory
Though I am not a strict Jungian, by any means, I am a huge fan. Indeed, I am as quick to see where Carl Jung was right as I am to see where Sigmund Freud was wrong-- which is to say, really really quick. One of the things Jung was really really right about was the multi-functionality of the Mind. He said there were 4 ways of Knowing: Intuition, Sensate, Thinking, and Feeling.
In fact, from this perspective, therapy can be described as a process of heightening and balancing each of these functions. Learning to strengthen the Intuition is one of my favorite past times.
A simple exercise goes like this: go with your first thought, see what happens....
Our over functioning brains are often highly neurotic. Tapping into your intuition via your first thought lessens the neurotic brain.
People come in to therapy to find answers. The answers come from within themselves, of course, not from what I tell them. I just provide a little extra information, so they can make an informed decision based on their experience and a light education about themselves. From the research we know that experience and education are key in making good decisions. Someone once asked me how I felt about the fact that people didn't do what I told them. I said that I was more concerned that people don't do what they tell themselves!
An example goes like this: A man was learning to date again after a bad breakup. In his pain, he was picking partners who treated him the way he was feeling inside-- which is to say, like total shit. A new contender appeared on the horizon, so we discussed the signs, see what he could see. This new option looked very different from the old pattern, on the outside. However, in their brief interactions, some red flags were thrown. Not knowing what to do about the red flags, he continued to invest with this new love interest. Then some more red flags came out. Then some more. Each session we'd go over the facts, the feelings, the fears, and get a read on the overall picture. There was red everywhere. But! Intellect and Feeling can lead you awry, so we also cross checked it with his gut, because the gut only knows truth. And the gut said "no." So now his Intellect, his Intuition, and his Feeling functions all said "no." But he still needed to know for sure. So, he played it out. It went badly. We laughed about it in the end. No shame, just little by little we're hoping to increase his trust in his Self.
Here's another example: A woman was thinking of applying for a job. The salary was not sufficient to meet her needs, the position was not at her level, and the work life/real life ratio was waaaaay off-- traveling 3 hours to and from work each day, etc. Not only did the job not pay enough, she'd be actually losing money on the cost of gas. All signs read "no". Still, she fantasized about how good it could be if only x, y, and z could be tolerated or changed. In short, she was willing to tolerate the intolerable and try to change the unchangable, but not willing to listen to her own guts. How did we get so off track and come to distrust our own Intuition?
It's a question for another blog. Intuition has long been considered inferior to Logic and Reason. Don't know why it got a bad rap, but it's not true. Go with your gut! Learn to trust your guts again. Think how much needless suffering you (wouldn't) miss out on!
Stay tuned for next blog on Proper Usage of all things therapy-ee.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The Pain Portal
There's this phenomenon I see each day, working with people through all the ebbs and flows of life. The phenomenon is so brilliant, that my Human Brain absolutely forgets it, and then has to be shown it again and again, constantly.
What I see in others, and from what I have experienced in my own life, is that pain is a portal into a (magical) world of Healing. Don't believe in a (magical) word of Healing? Ya, me either. Even though I see it everyday. We in the West prefer to see our pain as the problem to be solved. We have a harder time understanding that the pain we're experiencing in our lives is but a symptom, a rumbling up from deep within us, and an invitation to Heal. What we need is a new perspective about our pain. But how?
Let's first agree that our brains are Lamborghinis. We have at our disposal one of the most amazingly engineered and powerful machines on earth. And we have no idea how to use it. There's an enduring myth out there that we only use 10% of our brains. This does not seem to be backed up by evidence. However, what may be closer to the "truth," is that we only understand a small percentage of what our brains are actually capable of.
What is the Human Brain actually capable of? Well, the Sistine Chapel comes to mind, as does the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, the Brooklyn Bridge, Mozza on Melrose, WWOZ New Orleans Public Radio, the entire City of Portland, Oregon, those Lavender Shortbread cookies at Trails Cafe in Griffith Park, and about a billion other shimmers of magnificence. But how does this evidence of our Lamborghini Brain help us Heal? Well, the same mental power that fueled the Race for the Double Helix and led to a great discovery about our DNA, is the same source of ingenuity that forms thoughts, images, and ideas everyday in all of us. Turns out, our thoughts, about Healing, and about everything else, are very powerful. And "with great power, comes great responsibility." We just gotta learn to drive our Lamborghinis right.
Now think about the last time you experienced pain. It can be physical pain or emotional pain. Whatever the cause of the injury, regardless of it's origins or expressions, wasn't the result some amount of Healing? Whether it was a paper-cut or a broken heart, though the immediate sense was that of pain, ultimately, we tend to Heal. Without our pain, we don't Heal. That simple.
Our Brains sometimes confuse and complicate this. The Brain is a chatty little thing, probably the chattiest 3 pound entity in existence. It's in constant conversation with the Body, as well as other parts of the Brain, and other Brains it senses as well. We just gotta clear the way so our 3 pound chatty Lamborghinis can really stretch out, and the rest seems to solve itself.
I see people everyday whose lives are transforming. Their pain, their reason for coming into therapy, opens the door into all kinds of healing potential that would not have been possible by employing a narrow view of pain management or simple symptom reduction (though I'm obviously a fan of pain reduction whenever appropriate). Many of us have developed a huge tolerance for our emotional pain, and not even know it. If you don't want to Heal, that's ok. It may either subside in time, or it may worsen. But if you're interested in Healing, know it's all there for you, through your most painful parts. Our pain is not a sign of weakness, nor a fly to be swatted away, despite the cultural current to the contrary. It is a portal into a (magical) world of Healing.
I'll see ya there!
What I see in others, and from what I have experienced in my own life, is that pain is a portal into a (magical) world of Healing. Don't believe in a (magical) word of Healing? Ya, me either. Even though I see it everyday. We in the West prefer to see our pain as the problem to be solved. We have a harder time understanding that the pain we're experiencing in our lives is but a symptom, a rumbling up from deep within us, and an invitation to Heal. What we need is a new perspective about our pain. But how?
Let's first agree that our brains are Lamborghinis. We have at our disposal one of the most amazingly engineered and powerful machines on earth. And we have no idea how to use it. There's an enduring myth out there that we only use 10% of our brains. This does not seem to be backed up by evidence. However, what may be closer to the "truth," is that we only understand a small percentage of what our brains are actually capable of.
What is the Human Brain actually capable of? Well, the Sistine Chapel comes to mind, as does the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, the Brooklyn Bridge, Mozza on Melrose, WWOZ New Orleans Public Radio, the entire City of Portland, Oregon, those Lavender Shortbread cookies at Trails Cafe in Griffith Park, and about a billion other shimmers of magnificence. But how does this evidence of our Lamborghini Brain help us Heal? Well, the same mental power that fueled the Race for the Double Helix and led to a great discovery about our DNA, is the same source of ingenuity that forms thoughts, images, and ideas everyday in all of us. Turns out, our thoughts, about Healing, and about everything else, are very powerful. And "with great power, comes great responsibility." We just gotta learn to drive our Lamborghinis right.
Now think about the last time you experienced pain. It can be physical pain or emotional pain. Whatever the cause of the injury, regardless of it's origins or expressions, wasn't the result some amount of Healing? Whether it was a paper-cut or a broken heart, though the immediate sense was that of pain, ultimately, we tend to Heal. Without our pain, we don't Heal. That simple.
Our Brains sometimes confuse and complicate this. The Brain is a chatty little thing, probably the chattiest 3 pound entity in existence. It's in constant conversation with the Body, as well as other parts of the Brain, and other Brains it senses as well. We just gotta clear the way so our 3 pound chatty Lamborghinis can really stretch out, and the rest seems to solve itself.
I see people everyday whose lives are transforming. Their pain, their reason for coming into therapy, opens the door into all kinds of healing potential that would not have been possible by employing a narrow view of pain management or simple symptom reduction (though I'm obviously a fan of pain reduction whenever appropriate). Many of us have developed a huge tolerance for our emotional pain, and not even know it. If you don't want to Heal, that's ok. It may either subside in time, or it may worsen. But if you're interested in Healing, know it's all there for you, through your most painful parts. Our pain is not a sign of weakness, nor a fly to be swatted away, despite the cultural current to the contrary. It is a portal into a (magical) world of Healing.
I'll see ya there!
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Great Article, HuffPost
Hope you enjoy!
And yes, I am totally listening to the full album right now. And yes, it is totally blowing my mind.
Click here for Philip Goldberg's original article on the Huffington Post.
The Old and the New
Once upon a time, in Germany of all places, there lived the first people to ever make their way into the study of people's minds. People have been philosophizing about the role of the soul in people's lives since ancient times. There are brilliant works on the topic dating back to ancient India, Greece, and China. However, it wasn't until the Europeans got their Western Scientific hands on it that the field of Psychology was born. Wilhelm Wundt (say that in your best German accent) set up the first Psychology Laboratory and thus began the West's entree into the mystical realm of psyche.
The word "psyche" means "soul." Thus, "psychology" is simply the "study of the soul." Western Science loves to examine and study things, so psychology got quite a lot of attention. However, back in the days of Wundt and Freud, scientists had to adhere to the stringent rules governing scientific inquiry. Namely, as scientists, they agreed to study only that which was observable to the 5 senses. This was an agreement that pleased both The Church, and the field of Science. Science focused on the physical, not the metaphysical, and everyone was happy. So, instead of studying the soul, they studied behavior, they analyzed people's thoughts, they tried to interpret people's dreams, they observed the innate behaviors of children, they postulated about aggression and sexuality, and on and on.
The culture that existed in the late 19th Century in Freud's Vienna, for example, was Victorian in nature, repressed as the day is long. Piano legs had to be covered up as they were thought to be too risque. Naturally, the "issues" that people had back then looked very different from what we have going on in our lives today. Our culture has swung so incredibly far from Victorian Era principles, it's silly. We can hardly imagine living by those values and ideals. Yet, that is the backdrop of "modern" psychology. And that is what most people associate with therapy. Oops...
The evolution from Freudian analysis to Jung and Adler, to Skinner's Behavioralism, to Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow's Humanism to Rollo May's inclusion of Existentialism, to Cognitive-Behaviorism, and Interpersonal Neurophysiology, to Spiritual Psychology, Positive Psychology, Mindfulness-Based approaches and Solution-Focused Therapies has been essential to our gaining a whole understanding of how to help people heal their insides. That is a compacted list, and says nothing about other fields of science and technology, nor about art, philosophy, music, politics, and cultural commentary. As an integrationist, I look to all these sources and try to synthesize a treatment approach tailored to the specifics of each person. It would be easier to adopt a single view and widely apply it. However, history and Reason disallow that. Today, we have the benefit of all that we know, and all that we know we don't know. The myth that somehow there will be one single idea that will be a cure-all has to be dispelled. We have to do better, think better, so that we can live better. That is my mission.
The word "psyche" means "soul." Thus, "psychology" is simply the "study of the soul." Western Science loves to examine and study things, so psychology got quite a lot of attention. However, back in the days of Wundt and Freud, scientists had to adhere to the stringent rules governing scientific inquiry. Namely, as scientists, they agreed to study only that which was observable to the 5 senses. This was an agreement that pleased both The Church, and the field of Science. Science focused on the physical, not the metaphysical, and everyone was happy. So, instead of studying the soul, they studied behavior, they analyzed people's thoughts, they tried to interpret people's dreams, they observed the innate behaviors of children, they postulated about aggression and sexuality, and on and on.
The culture that existed in the late 19th Century in Freud's Vienna, for example, was Victorian in nature, repressed as the day is long. Piano legs had to be covered up as they were thought to be too risque. Naturally, the "issues" that people had back then looked very different from what we have going on in our lives today. Our culture has swung so incredibly far from Victorian Era principles, it's silly. We can hardly imagine living by those values and ideals. Yet, that is the backdrop of "modern" psychology. And that is what most people associate with therapy. Oops...
The evolution from Freudian analysis to Jung and Adler, to Skinner's Behavioralism, to Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow's Humanism to Rollo May's inclusion of Existentialism, to Cognitive-Behaviorism, and Interpersonal Neurophysiology, to Spiritual Psychology, Positive Psychology, Mindfulness-Based approaches and Solution-Focused Therapies has been essential to our gaining a whole understanding of how to help people heal their insides. That is a compacted list, and says nothing about other fields of science and technology, nor about art, philosophy, music, politics, and cultural commentary. As an integrationist, I look to all these sources and try to synthesize a treatment approach tailored to the specifics of each person. It would be easier to adopt a single view and widely apply it. However, history and Reason disallow that. Today, we have the benefit of all that we know, and all that we know we don't know. The myth that somehow there will be one single idea that will be a cure-all has to be dispelled. We have to do better, think better, so that we can live better. That is my mission.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Fighting Fire with Fire (great, now we have 2 fires)
Here's the thing: Our brains are hardwired to attack anything it perceives as a threat. It's an ancient mechanism in our brainstem, from whence the famed "fight or flight" reflex comes. And it doesn't matter whether the threat is real or perceived or whether its a physical threat or an emotional one. The amygdala doesn't decipher those nuances. Evolutionarily, "fight or flight" has been a huge advantage in terms of keeping us alive. It has also been tremendously effective in weeding out those who either don't "fight" strong enough, or who don't "fly away" fast enough. The result, after millennia of doing this and passing it down one generation to the next, is a highly honed sense of attacking perceived threats or fleeing from them. Is it any wonder that most of us are either fierce attackers in battle or superb evaders of conflict?
This reptilian part of our limbic system hasn't changed in eons. In 2012, this patterning in the brain seems about as meaningful as our appendix. It's a vestige from our past, and unlike the appendix which is either negligible most of the time or explosive only once prior to being removed, our brainstem is often governing our interactions and exploding constantly. It may seem a tad reductive, but many of our current problems can be traced back to this reflexive anger that gets triggered in us when we perceive a threat.
I see it most clearly in the couples I work with. When couples fight, typically, everyone is just doing what they know to do. If they knew something different, they'd likely do something different. In fact, as we work in therapy to build up the newer parts of the brain, and not simply respond from our ancient defenses, that is exactly what happens. Generally speaking, most of us were not taught how to be happily married. We especially were not taught how to resolve conflict in such a way that it bolsters mutual happiness. No, most of us were taught to win. However, happily married people will tell you, there is no winning when we're at war with the ones we love.
Winning, evolutionarily, means survival. So, it seems like a decent value to hold. Here's the tricky part: Let's say a couple is embroiled in conflict. There is so much pain, it's like a fire burning up the house. And let's say their only tool, innately given, evolutionarily honed, is to fight fire with fire. So, in their best effort to "win," they take the already heated battle and pour gasoline on it. Then wonder why they got burned and why their home is destroyed. The tools we have are insufficient. When we get that insight, we realize we're gonna have to grow. When this happens, we put down our anger, our defensiveness, our "gasoline," and we say instead something like, "We are allies. And i feel really hurt and sad and scared and betrayed that..." And that is when we stop adding gasoline to the fire. This is when we start to heal.
Post Script-- The process of rewiring our brains takes Time, just like it took Time to wire them in the first place. The hard-wiring takes place over anywhere between 5 and millions of years, depending on who ya ask. In all likelihood it will take less Time to rewire than to wire. Good news is that the brain is incredibly elastic, and is designed to constantly be forming new neural connections. Even people with devastating brain damage show an ability to grow new neural pathways. Just read anything by Oliver Sacks, Dan Siegel or Louis Cozolino. So, you see, never lose hope, never give up. We'll all have relapses with our anger and defensiveness, but stay with it. Not only are we innately gifted our "fight or flight" response, we're also hard-wired for growth. Choice is ours.
This reptilian part of our limbic system hasn't changed in eons. In 2012, this patterning in the brain seems about as meaningful as our appendix. It's a vestige from our past, and unlike the appendix which is either negligible most of the time or explosive only once prior to being removed, our brainstem is often governing our interactions and exploding constantly. It may seem a tad reductive, but many of our current problems can be traced back to this reflexive anger that gets triggered in us when we perceive a threat.
I see it most clearly in the couples I work with. When couples fight, typically, everyone is just doing what they know to do. If they knew something different, they'd likely do something different. In fact, as we work in therapy to build up the newer parts of the brain, and not simply respond from our ancient defenses, that is exactly what happens. Generally speaking, most of us were not taught how to be happily married. We especially were not taught how to resolve conflict in such a way that it bolsters mutual happiness. No, most of us were taught to win. However, happily married people will tell you, there is no winning when we're at war with the ones we love.
Winning, evolutionarily, means survival. So, it seems like a decent value to hold. Here's the tricky part: Let's say a couple is embroiled in conflict. There is so much pain, it's like a fire burning up the house. And let's say their only tool, innately given, evolutionarily honed, is to fight fire with fire. So, in their best effort to "win," they take the already heated battle and pour gasoline on it. Then wonder why they got burned and why their home is destroyed. The tools we have are insufficient. When we get that insight, we realize we're gonna have to grow. When this happens, we put down our anger, our defensiveness, our "gasoline," and we say instead something like, "We are allies. And i feel really hurt and sad and scared and betrayed that..." And that is when we stop adding gasoline to the fire. This is when we start to heal.
Post Script-- The process of rewiring our brains takes Time, just like it took Time to wire them in the first place. The hard-wiring takes place over anywhere between 5 and millions of years, depending on who ya ask. In all likelihood it will take less Time to rewire than to wire. Good news is that the brain is incredibly elastic, and is designed to constantly be forming new neural connections. Even people with devastating brain damage show an ability to grow new neural pathways. Just read anything by Oliver Sacks, Dan Siegel or Louis Cozolino. So, you see, never lose hope, never give up. We'll all have relapses with our anger and defensiveness, but stay with it. Not only are we innately gifted our "fight or flight" response, we're also hard-wired for growth. Choice is ours.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Investment and Alignment part 1
Thanks to my guys from yesterday who really helped bring this out. Hopefully our experience will be of some use to others who may also be searching.
As an Integrationist, I'm naturally curious about how multiple disciplines can illuminate The Path to Happy. No single entity seems to have THE answer. So, I've become a professional curator of sorts, selecting important ideas, bits of Wisdom, and all kinds of fun stuff from all over the human experience.
Two of my favorite concepts are Investment, and Alignment. Investment is a powerful concept from the Money Realm. It refers to what we get back in by putting something out. It's actually very similar to our breath work in that way, and our sense of Flow. Alignment comes from an ancient notion of our healing, and is explained best by the Chiropractic Wizards. Simply put, Alignment refers to our ability to align ourselves with our purpose. A healthy spine is an aligned spine. If a disc is out of place, we will experience a world of hurt physically, emotionally, and sometimes even spiritually. The same is true in our bodies as in our lives; if something is out of place, misaligned, we're probably gonna hurt. The Path to Happy requires us, whenever possible to align ourselves in the strongest possible fashion. Namely, we want to align our behaviors with our values, our time with our energy, and even align our money with our values, our time, our behaviors, and our full energetic output. When these "discs" are stacked up nicely, and in alignment with one another, we tend to feel much better than when any one or perhaps all of those "discs" are out of whack.
This brings us to the concept of Money. In Eastern Medicine, they say that there are two things in life: Money and Love. Money is everything in the material world: money, job, carreer, finance, possession, etc. Love is all our relationships: family, friends, romance, partnership, etc. (I usually add a third Realm, the Realm of Self, but thats for another blog) For pretty much 100% of all the people I've met ever, "Money" is never about money. Money is usually misunderstood by the elders, and passed down accordingly. What we "inherit" from our family life is not their money, but rather their money issues. The most pervasive money issue seems to be the problem of vagueness.
Whatever we may have learned from our families about the value of money, how to be moral, responsible, good people, is likely to be passed down non-verbally. We just watch our parents interact and do their adult business, and we surmise vaguely how to do it ourselves. In many cases, the lessons we learned from our parents cause us to react or rebel in such a way that we end up doing whatever the opposite of their way was. This is about as far as many of our individuation/differentiation processes go. We just do either as we're shown, or we rebel and do the opposite of what we were shown. It's very rare that I talk with people who have spent a serious amount of energy, effort, time, and money healing this rift. As such, our Money Realm stays largely in the Shadows, and is often the source of our psychic pain, as it represents a substantial 'disc' thats out of alignment with ourselves.
This seems to be especially relevant in the work I do these days. Certainly, I am not the first to notice the intersection of the horrible economy with a newfound need for re-evaluating our Money Realm. Millions of people are finding out what is really important to them through this Depression. Notice how the word 'depression' refers to both the Emotional Realm and the Money Realm. Sufficed to say, Money is never just about money. The emotional components are essential to our sense of Wellness. Stay tuned for more to come on Investment and Alignment.
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