The Problem is the Solution
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
When mental or emotional discomfort enters my awareness, I have a choice: I can view the feeling as a problem, or I can view it as a solution.
How can a problem be a solution? Because discomfort engages the awareness. When I notice that something is wrong, for the first time, I can take action to change it.
In the name of efficiency, whenever we take in information that doesn’t fit our previous experience, the brain simply disregards it. It is only when this information reaches a critical mass, or induces a certain level of emotional discomfort, that our brain is willing to even “see” it at all.
Our brains aren’t bad—they do this to protect us. It’s important to be able to process information quickly.
But it is just as important to be able to perceive true information about the world around us, rather than working with old ideas that may no longer serve our development.
To do that, we have to be able to feel discomfort, the discomfort of being WRONG. We have to be able to notice and face the information that tells us we are incorrect, rather than avoiding it. We have to be willing to revise our opinions of experiences that have felt true in the past.
In short: we have to have PROBLEMS!
So: how do we use our problems to create solutions? How can we use our awareness that something is wrong to reshape our brains?
According to current neurological research, there are two ways you can create new brain circuits as an adult. One is through overwhelming emotion. For example, if you have always loved chocolate cake, and then one night as you are eating a piece of chocolate cake you get the terrible news that a family member has passed away, your ideas about chocolate cake are going to change. You won’t associate eating cake with happiness anymore, you’ll associate it with grief. Now, when you think about chocolate cake, you'll feel sad instead of happy. Overwhelming emotion can rewire our circuits instantaneously.
The other way to make new circuits as an adult is through repetition. This entails laboriously repeating a behavior or thought again and again until the brain takes to it. For example, last year I undertook a challenge to eat completely clean for 30 days. Every morning, for 28 days, I reached for the sugar bowl to stir sugar into my morning tea. And every morning, for 28 days, I remembered that I was not eating sugar, and put the sugar bowl back.
On the 29th morning, I did not reach for the sugar bowl.
Slowly, through repetition, my brain changed its circuitry and learned not to reach for the sugar bowl in the morning.
The Permaculture and the Psyche group that will be starting in April is a deep dive into these two life-changing skills: emotion and repetition. It will be a hands on exploration of transforming problems to solutions by building new circuits in the brain.
This is what I so love about the Expressive Arts: if you want your life to transform, deep emotion and repetition have to be engaged. When the emotion is evoked by lovely music, by delicious motion, by moving and heartfelt words, by brilliant colors and lines and brushstrokes and shapes; when the repetition is engaged by exploring a theme first through art, then poetry, then movement, then music; the transformation happens seamlessly. And it is passionate and powerful and safe and lasting.
Process from a previously held Permaculture and the Psyche workshop
I love this about permaculture too. Yes, the world is full of terrifying and desperate problems. But as we learn from nature and repetitively, with deep passion and emotion, apply her solutions to the land around us, we gain agency and hope. As we transform problems into solutions, again and again, we find that we are transforming not only ourselves, but also the world around us.
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If you are interested in joining the Permaculture and the Psyche group that starts on April 3rd, contact me below. Sign up with a friend and I'll send you a special discount code for 1/2 off the series registration price!
Self-love
posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
Self-love (especially these days, with narcissism parading itself all over the news) can get a bit of a bad rap. If we love ourselves, where is our motivation to change? If we pay attention to ourselves, where is our compassion for others?
The decision to love yourself can be greeted with disdain, with accusations of greed or pride or self-centeredness. And that’s just in your own mind! The accusations from others in your life can be even louder and stronger.
So—is it worth it? Or will self love merely morph you into a navel-gazing hedonist?
I invite you to take data for yourself. Below, I have written out a practice for self-massage that includes a meditation on self-love. Here’s the challenge: for the remainder of this week, at the end of each day, write down honestly the answers to each of these questions:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being abysmal and 10 being delightful, rate the quality/depth of your interactions today with your family and friends.
- On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being abysmal and 10 being delightful, rate the honesty and authenticity of your interactions today with your family and friends.
- On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being cruel and 10 being exceedingly kind, rate your interactions with strangers today.
- 1 being all day and 10 being practically no time at all, rate the amount of time you spent today feeling grumpy, moody, or self-deprecating.
- 1 being all day and 10 being practically no time at all, rate the amount of time you spent today feeling lighthearted and positive.
Then, next week, make time every day to engage in the practice below. It’s self-absorbed! It’s completely self-centered! It will appear to squander a full ten minutes of your precious time! Do it anyway. Engage in this practice every day, then answer the five questions above each night. Then compare your answers from week 1 and week 2.
If you are anything like me (and you may not be; we are all wired so differently!) your numbers on week two will have shot upward (except for question 4, which will have dropped).
Why is this?
Because you, my dear, are a person. You are the person with whom you have the most intimate relationship of all. And the way you treat yourself cannot help but have an influence on the way you treat others around you.
There is also a sneaky way in which, when we are not filling our own cup, we begin to expect others to fill it for us. We grow needy and angry and frustrated with other people. Filling our own well with self-love means we lessen our expectations on the people around us. And that is a very loving thing indeed.
SELF-MASSAGE PRACTICE
- Begin by sitting quietly in a place that you have made sacred through lighting candles, burning sweetgrass or palo santo, or spritzing an herbal mist. Take a few deep breaths to calm and center yourself in your body.
- Take a massage bar or place some warm oil into your hands and cup them, warming it between your palms. Close your eyes and think of something or someone that brings you deep joy. As you inhale, pull the sensation of joy up your spine. As you exhale, pour it down your arms and through the palms of your hands into the massage bar. Continue breathing in and out, visualizing joy like light pouring into the bar, until you can feel a radiance between the palms of your hands. Allow this radiance to fill your mind and heart, thinking only thoughts of love, joy, and acceptance throughout and toward your body, for the duration of the massage.
- Deep in the center of your heart, ask yourself: what are the words I am always longing to hear? What do I most wish someone would say to me? Whatever it is that you most long to hear, begin to whisper it to yourself internally. It doesn’t matter if you believe it at first; simply repeat it internally as a mantra.
- Continue to warm the bar with your left hand. Stroke the fingertips of your right hand across the warmed bar to gather some balm. With these fingers, using small, concentric circles, start at the nape of your neck and very slowly press your fingertips side to side along the back of your neck, working from side to side and down toward your shoulders. Work very slowly, using your inhale to massage and your exhale to press deeply. With each touch, visualize the radiance of the bar soaking deep into your skin, energizing and nourishing your cells.
- When you have reached your shoulders, return the bar to your right hand, gather some balm on your left fingertips, and use side-to-side motions down the right arm, continuing to massage on the inhale and press deeply on the exhale, all the way down to the wrist. Continue to send a sense of radiance and joy into the body through your fingertips. Clasp your wrist gently for a full breath.
- Repeat this process using the right fingertips on the left arm.
- If you have time, repeat on both sides working upward from the sole of the foot to the groin, cupping the hands over the pubic area for a full breath to finish.
- Take the bar itself and press it gently into the skin of the stomach using the fingertips of both hands. Massage in gentle concentric circles, moving in a circular motion clockwise around the belly button. Finish the belly massage by placing both hands palms-down on the belly, pressing gently inward, visualizing radiance and joy flooding from the palms of your hands into your belly.
- Finally, gather some balm on the tips of the left fingers and massage the right hand, pressing deeply into the palm and gently pulling each finger outward. Concentrate on the feeling of giving the touch, the sensations that your fingertips encounter as they stroke and press on the hand.
- Gather balm on your right finger tips and massage the left hand. This time, concentrate on the sensation of receiving the touch, both in the skin of the hand and in the heart.
- Complete the self massage by pressing the palms of both hands together at your heart. Breathe deeply, allowing the inhale to swell your heart into your hands, and as you exhale, visualize the light and warmth from the massage swirling throughout your body. Whisper the words to yourself one final time, or speak them aloud. Close the space by blowing out the candles or smudging a final time with sweetgrass, palo santo, or herbal mist.
Sustainable Activism
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
As activists, we are being called to long-term, sustainable, embodied action. The way that we choose to engage will, to a large extent, determine how effective we are. Some points to consider:
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Think about your nervous system.
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Regardless of your political viewpoint, this is a stressful time. When stress is triggered in our bodies, the chemicals coursing through us compel us to fight or run. If we do not, if we continue to stay still, over time we learn a third response: freeze.
This “freeze” response is also characterized as learned helplessness. Our bodies shut down because we cannot fight or run. Over time, this leads to multiple adverse health consequences (look into the classic ACES study for more on this).
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Our brains can trick us. Especially on social media, it is easy to get our mental and emotional energy invested in “actions” and arguments that give us the feeling that something has been accomplished. Actually, it hasn’t.
True change happens in the body.
We need to be able to physically respond to our stressors to feel agency.
The felt experience of agency tells us that our fight/flight system is working the way it should. We feel a stressor, we respond physically, and we feel a sense of agency and empowerment. When we put our feet to the ground in service to our beliefs, we protect ourselves from all of those adverse consequences of learned helplessness.
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Get your body on your side.
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1) Don’t let your mind trick you into believing that any action is effective action. Set aside a time each day to be politically active in effective ways: community organizing, outreach, and participation, letters and calls to congresspeople, and donations of time, money, and expertise to causes that you believe in. Sign up here for a good place to start.
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2) When your time is up, stop for the day and engage in an equal amount of parasympathetic activity—a walk in the woods, meditation, yoga. Why?
· Because this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. We aren’t doing anybody any good by working ourselves into early heart attacks.
· Because my work is only as good as the quality of my information. And if my information is coming from facebook and huffington post instead of from the trees and people of my community, or the place of wisdom that I land in when I take the time to get centered, then it is highly imbalanced information.
· Because quality of life is what I am fighting FOR. Sacrificing my quality of life to fight for quality of life is inauthentic.
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3) If political stressors come up at any point after you have already engaged in your time of action, physically move your body. Shake for five minutes, or do a quick sun salutation, or walk around the block. Move the feelings through you. You can address them with political action tomorrow. Keep your boundaries strong and focused.
Decide what you are willing to do to defend the part of yourself that will never die.
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This is an important question, especially considering the myriad ways that self-care can be misinterpreted as self-indulgence.
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We are all going to die. None of us get out of here alive. I would much rather die speaking up for things that will live on after I am gone—equality, respect, kindness—than to live a long life in silence. What are you willing to die for? Figure out what it is, and make it a non-negotiable part of your self-care to feed that extremely important aspect of yourself.
When when we talk of self-care, remember how much bigger you are than your body. Remember to nourish the part of yourself that goes deeper than your face, your age, and your story.
Remember that it is not just about the conversation, it is about HOW you have the conversation.
I have seen a lot of shaming surrounding this march. Body-shaming, Republican-shaming, Liberal-shaming….every kind of shame that can be served up. As a counselor, I have learned that shame shuts a person down. Literally.
If you look at brain scans of a person feeling intense shame, there isn’t any activation in the rational/logic/language area. If you shame a person, you have deactivated their ability to take in what you have to say.
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We want people to hear what we have to say, right? So let’s not shut them down. Here is how I have learned, as a counselor, to gain enough trust that a person will hear what I have to say.
When you have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you, try this:
1) Listen. LISTEN. Take the words in actively.
2) Validate the words you hear. Repeat them if necessary.
3) Find a bright spot or point of agreement to emphasize. Even if overall you find you are disagreeing with the person, find one place where you can honestly and authentically praise or agree, and do it.
4) Gently express your own view in this way: a) what you see, b) how it affects you, c) what you would like to see changed, and d) how it would feel to you if it did change.
It looks like this:
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Person A: I get why some people marched, but I think it was frivolous. All those women in pink hats. What does that change? Nothing.
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Person B: Hey, thanks for being so honest about your thoughts. It sounds like you are really hoping for effective change and you are worried that the march won’t create it. I have the same fears.
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Person A: Yeah, the whole thing was just really self-congratulatory and stupid.
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Person B: I can see how you could feel that way. I’m curious about what you would like to see in terms of effective action. For me, when I hear you say that the march was frivolous, I feel a slight recoil, as though the unity and power that I felt there is being discounted. It also makes me think that you view me as frivolous and stupid, even though I’m sure that’s not what you meant. I would like to tell you about my experience of the march. I think if you would be willing to listen to me tell you what I saw, I would feel a lot more open to hearing your perspective.
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Does that sound like a lot of work?
IT IS.
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Is it worth it?
YES.
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Why? Because this is a divide-and-conquer game. Already we are being characterized as the “enemy”, and we cannot play into that. Infighting will destroy us.
We cannot afford NOT to listen to each other.
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A final caveat on this type of conversation: if you are a person who is privileged in a way that the person you are talking to is not—i.e. if you are a man talking to a woman, or a white woman talking to a black woman, or an English-speaking American talking to a Spanish-speaking American, or an able-bodied person talking to someone with a disability, the first step gets WAY WAY WAY MORE IMPORTANT. The onus is on us to listen, listen, listen.
However frustrated or uncomfortable we get, however triggered or angry or sad we get, we are being given the incredible opportunity of seeing the world in a way that we could otherwise never know.
Build bridges, not walls.
Many of us came to activism, or herbal medicine, or counseling, because there was some trauma in our lives that we wanted to overcome. We are very, very good at climbing up on our stumps and proclaiming our stories. As a group, we tend to be less skilled at listening to the ways that our lives have impacted others. And this is extraordinarily important, because in order to build bridges, there is a certain amount of “sucking it up” that is going to need to happen. There is a certain amount of simply listening to others’ stories and giving space for their anger WITHOUT REACTING IN ANGER OURSELVES that will be required.
Again, it is so key to remember what we are fighting FOR. If we are fighting for a voice, for equality, for the human rights of all, then we cannot get there by silencing others’ voices or denying their right to share their perspective.
In action, what this means is that we are going to need to valiantly keep our eyes on the prize and ride out the pain of critique, the awful feeling of being judged and found wanting, the terrible feeling of not being heard, and CONTINUE TO BUILD BRIDGES ANYWAY. Build those bridges, and then go take a sweaty run or cry with your friends and get the feelings out in a safe and supportive way. NOT with the person you are building bridges with. Take care of others, and then take care of yourself. Repeat.
We are incredible people. We can do this.
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