6 KEY PRACTICES FOR TRANFORMING SUFFERING INTO SWEET RELIEF
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
The moments in our lives that require the most power, clarity, and energy tend to strike when we are at a physical, mental, and emotional low point. This feels utterly unfair. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard my clients say
“I am just too tired to put the work in to make things better.”
Does this sound familiar? If life has been difficult lately, then right now you probably feel you cannot put one more responsibility on the table. You may be asking yourself: how can things get better if I have no energy left to make them better? And how can I muster up the energy to change if the circumstances of my life drain every ounce of energy I have?
This is a rough spot to be in. I’ve been there. And I believe you 100% that it feels true that you have no energy to put into turning things around.
And yet, if you can show up to your life with the skills I am about to describe, you will discover a whole new well of energy to draw from.
Every beautiful heroine’s journey begins with the moment a woman says “enough.” And that one word releases enough energy to take the next step, and the next step generates enough energy to make the next decision. You only have to do what’s in front of you, but the end of your journey is a world away from the reality you inhabit now.
In the years I’ve spent working with women, I have had the honor of meeting people whose life stories would break your heart. These women have been abused, disrespected, traumatized, shattered, and abandoned. And yet each of these brave, powerful beings found the power within herself to heal.
Why is it that some women never recover from suffering, and others have the ability to rebound from trauma to create a meaningful, joyful life? In the years that I have studied this, I have learned that women who navigate the journey out of suffering with grace and wisdom have certain key practices in common.
These key practices help women step from circumstances of misery into lives that reflect their inherent value. For the next several weeks, I am going to devote one blog post per week to each of these 6 key practices.
We have very little control over the amount of suffering that is going to exist in our lives. The only control we have is in how we decide to respond to it. We can decide that the time we’ve spent suffering has not been wasted; we can decide to extract every ounce of meaning from our journey and emerge wiser, stronger, and more resilient on the other side.
(And if the very idea of learning another skill exhausts you, remember this: the practice I am about to describe takes less energy than it does to wash a load of laundry. But that laundry is just going to get dirty again, and the progress you make on your spiritual journey is irrevocable!)
THE 6 KEY PRACTICES FOR TRANSFORMING SUFFERING INTO SWEET RELIEF
Practice #1: CREATING PORTALS TO THE SACRED
What is sacred to you?
Take a moment and really consider that. What does your heart beat for? What would you never forsake? What never fails to move you? What lifts your spirits, keeps you awake, gets you out of bed in the morning?
Take a moment and write down as many answers as come to you. For some of us it is art, or movement, or music, or our relationship to the divine. For some it is surfing, or meditation, or poetry, or the wilderness. There is no right or wrong answer. Take a moment and write down as many answers as come to you.
Look at your list. What if every day, for just five minutes, you devoted yourself to connecting to your sense of the sacred?
If art is sacred to you, this could mean five minutes of art making in the morning. If surfing is sacred to you, and you live far from the sea, this could mean listening to a recording of the ocean for five minutes, or standing on a paddleboard, or watching videos of your surfing idols on Youtube. If the wilderness is sacred to you, this could mean holding a pinecone for five minutes, or sitting with your back against a tree, listening to birdsong.
What if you didn’t take no for an answer, and simply threw yourself wholeheartedly into 5 minutes just for yourself, every single day?
There is a magic that arises out of consistency. The whole becomes more than just a sum of its parts. Over time, your five minutes is not just a connection to your personal sacred, but also a portal to every other morning in which you have done this practice. Windows open on windows and create a depth of trust, a depth of experience that infuses your entire day with meaning. This door you open daily expands the possibilities in your life by allowing a wisdom greater than yourself to percolate into your consciousness. It allows the breeze of change to blow across your life, a breeze that contains possibilities your rational mind may never have allowed for.
5 minutes, every day, no exceptions. Are you in?
How can such a simple practice make a difference?
When our needs are met and we are feeling fulfilled, we naturally connect with the people, places, and things that are sacred to us. However, when overwhelm sets in, this practice often goes by the wayside. Perhaps you meant to read that poem after breakfast, but then your daughter lost her backpack and needed you to help find it. Or you want to do yoga every morning but in order to get to work on time it would have to be at 5 am, and you fear you'll wake your family or your housemates, so you go without. Or if you find 5 spare minutes it's a freaking miracle and you definitely would rather use them for sleep!
It can start to feel extravagant and unimportant to take this time to connect to the things that have meaning for you when life is really tough. It can seem as though every moment of your time needs to be devoted to making ends meet, or planning your way out of the mess you are in.
But the women that I have seen recover beautifully from trauma never falter in their daily practice. They never forget what they are fighting FOR, and that makes all the difference.
I challenge you to try this for one week, and let me know how it goes! I’m always interested in your feedback.
If you are struggling in your life right now and don’t know if you can make these changes alone, the Sweet Relief series might be for you. Read more about it here and let me know if you want to join--space is limited and it starts in May.
Next week we’ll explore Practice #2: UPSOURCING.
You can also enter your name and email below if you would like to have each of theseblogs mailed to you as they are written.
How to trust yourself again when you've really messed up
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
We've all been there---in the moments after a marriage comes crashing down, or an important career move goes up in flames, or we burn bridges in a close relationship. First comes the pain, and then comes the self-recrimination.
"If I had only..."
"How could I have been so STUPID?"
"I should have known better."
And then, inevitably:
"How am I ever going to trust my own judgment again?"
These thoughts swirl through our brains, over and over, complicating every decision from what to have for breakfast to whether to go back to school. If you can't trust yourself, how on earth can you trust your own decisions?
This confusion is real. Your brain creates it to protect you, to try and prevent the sort of pain you just went through from ever occurring again. Bless 'em, but these self-sabotaging thoughts don't really help. They just add suffering and shame to an already painful situation.
So what can you do to build trust in yourself again? I'm going to give you a simple, research-based, 3-step process in just a minute. But first I want to get a few things clear.
1) Please understand that I am not negating the value of self-evaluation.
We all make mistakes, and if you've blundered into a big one, it can be valuable to take a step back and figure out how to do better next time. However, if your self-judgment about your mistake is impeding your ability to work through it and put your life back together, it's time to put that sucker on the back burner and start working on rebuilding your sense of self. You can always evaluate later, when you're feeling better and thinking more clearly.
2) If you are hurting too badly over your mistake to even consider forgiving yourself, please hear this:
We do the best we can with the resources we have at the moment.
Did that sink in? This is really, really, important, so I'll write it again:
We do the best we can with the resources we have at the moment.
This means that if you are blaming yourself for a poor decision you made ten years ago when you were just beginning to know yourself, take that into consideration.
This means that if you said some mean things to somebody you love while you were exhausted or grieving, understand that you were at your wit's end in that moment.
This means that if you feel like you screwed up your life by running away from your potential, there was something pretty scary about that potential in the first place.
You did the best you could. And you're in a different place now. Don't judge your past decisions by your present standards.
Chances are, it was that very mistake that helped you acquire the wisdom you're using to evaluate it right now!
Our problems become the source of our wisdom, once we survive them. And we can't compost those mistakes into wisdom until we stop running around on the hamster wheel of self-recriminations and guilt.
Here's a 3-step process for rebuilding self-trust.
This process is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Trust is cumulative, so it is important to commit to this process, and be consistent. If you have thoughts of resistance once you start, just notice those thoughts, allow yourself to be curious about where that anger and pain is coming from, and then do the exercise anyway!
1) Choose a "trigger", something that will serve as a signal to you to do steps 2 and 3.
You can choose any trigger you want, but make sure it's something you'll see at least once a day and preferably not more than every hour. For example: the phone ringing at work. The sight of a baby in a stroller. Picking up your mug to refill your coffee. Every time you see or hear this trigger, you will stop for a moment and do steps 2 and 3. Take a minute, choose a trigger, and write it down.
My trigger: _________________________________________________________________
2) Every time you see or hear your trigger, catch yourself in that moment and pause.
Take a few deep breaths and use your attention like a beam of light to scan your physical body and notice:
How are you sitting or standing?
Does anything hurt?
Is there tension in your shoulders or jaw?
What part of your body would like to move or shift in some way?
Imagine that your body is a friend who has come to you for help. What can you do to ease her hurt? Is there a simple stretch you can take to relieve the tension in your back? Can you gently massage a part of your body that feels sore or numb? Or would your whole system benefit from a few deep, conscious breaths?
It's important to keep this part simple. You notice the trigger, you do a body scan, you take a moment to do something kind for a part of your body that needs attention. If you make it too elaborate, your mind will rebel and you'll tell yourself you don't have time for this. Set yourself up to succeed!
3) After you've engaged in steps 1 and 2 for a few days, add in one more thing: when you do the body scan, do a quick thought scan.
What are your thoughts in this moment? Just notice what you happen to be thinking of. If any of your thoughts are unkind evaluations of yourself, simply notice that and replace those thoughts with the thought:
"I can trust myself to take care of myself when I see my trigger."
With every day you engage in this process, that thought becomes easier and easier to believe, because it is true.
The knowledge that you can trust yourself to do this exercise may seem like a little thing. But every relationship is built on tiny, repetitive gestures that slowly build trust. Why should your relationship with yourself be any different?
Give this three-step process a try, and let me know how it goes.
And if you are really hurting or feeling lost, please contact someone for help. You don't have to do this alone. Consultation with us is always free for the first session, and many other counseling services offer free consultation as well. Don't be afraid to reach out.
One unlikely method I’ve stumbled upon for rebuilding self trust is to tell, and listen to, stories. Why? Because when I can find myself in a story that has been told for a thousand years—when a character in a fairy tale says or does that very thing that I said or did just last week—I can feel that maybe, maybe this isn’t a shameful flaw just in me. Maybe this is part of being human. And so often, there is beautiful instruction in the old stories for how to move forward from those painful moments your humanness created.
This year (2024), I am telling a story for each of the eight seasonal points on the wheel of the year. You can participate from anywhere in the world and listen to the story, then talk it through in community to see what it has to tell us. Often these evenings incorporate poetry, music, and writing prompts for you to continue working with the story on your own.
Learn more and join in the next story by clicking the photo below.
STOP WORKING SO HARD!
posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
I met her at the Farmer’s Market. I was apprenticing on a farm at the time, selling bouquets of fresh flowers I’d been up since 4 am harvesting.
She paid for her flowers and looked at me with sharp eyes.
“Are you a hard worker?” she asked. “Do you take outside jobs?” I assented to both, and I was hired on the spot. We agreed that I would work in her yard weekly for the remainder of the summer.
The following weekend I showed up at the agreed-upon time and address and found a list of tasks pinned to the door. The hedges were to be pruned, the potted plants repotted, the vegetable area tilled and sown, all landscaping mulched and weeded. I rolled up my sleeves and managed, barely, to get it all done by the afternoon. It felt good to have cash in my pocket—the first I’d seen in a while—so I disregarded my exhaustion, and the anxiety and scratched-up arms I’d sustained in the course of trying to prove myself by getting everything done.
But when I showed up the next weekend, there was no note pinned to the door. I knocked, and when she answered she assessed me with those sharp eyes.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
Confused, I stammered “to do the yard work—we agreed Sundays?”
“Yes,” she said, “but that list of jobs I gave you was for the whole summer. You’ve finished them all. You’ve worked yourself out of a job!”
The door closed. Finis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you ever done this to yourself? Dug in your heels, rolled up your sleeves, and thrown yourself deeply into the task at hand, only to find that in the end, all of that hard work actually took you away from where you wanted to go? Have you ever thrown all of your time, energy, and resources at a problem, only to find that your attempts to resolve it only made the problem bigger?
We’ve all been there. We’ve been taught that hard work is the answer to most difficulties, and so we dutifully put our nose to the grindstone and plug away. But there’s an essential ingredient missing in that formula.
Herb spiral design by Toby Hemenway, from his fantastic book Gaia's Garden
DESIGN.
Yes—design: the application of intelligence and strategy. The creation of a plan, a blueprint for not only where you want to go, but how you will get there.
When we panic, we forget our intelligence. We jump right in and throw any solution we can find at the problem. That moment to pause, to wait, to plan, feels impractical, even dangerous. And yet, unless we take the time to design the most practical strategy for arriving at the solution we want, we will be wasting a great deal of time and energy in trial and error.
Had I taken just five minutes before plunging into that yard work job to create a strategy, I could have devised a sustainable, ecology-based plan to guide my work. I could have focused on one task at a time, using the clippings from the hedge to create a wattle fence for the vegetable beds; throwing all the weeds from the landscaping into a bucket to make weed tea to fertilize the potted plants; creating mulch from the spent leaves of last year’s plantings to protect the soil and hold in moisture for the delicate seedbeds.
I would have done a much better job, and yes, it would have taken me more time—but my pace would have been sustainable, and the end product would have been far more integrated and satisfying. I would have earned the money I needed for my hard work and my employer would have received a healthier, more resilient garden.
Before I became a counselor, I was a permaculture designer. Permaculture distills the laws of ecology—the most elegant system of sustainable design on the planet—into a few solid principles that we can follow as we design our own lives. I applied these principles time and time again to gardens in every state of neglect, and watched them thrive. When I began to study psychology, I found that permaculture principles work just as beautifully in the design of human lives and relationships.
One of the principles that translates best is this one: use the least effort to get the greatest effect.
This flies in the face of "no pain no gain" that our puritanical culture preaches. But consider:
Bertolt Brecht said “Grub before ethics.” Maslow said there is a hierarchy of needs: a person must first have food, shelter, fire, and water before she can focus on self-development or creativity.
If certain needs are not met, we stop developing.
This is as true of gardens as it is of people. If the soil on your land is depleted, no amount of backbreaking tilling, planting, or weeding is going to ensure a good harvest. But a tiny investment in building the soil will yield spectacular results.
If you are deeply exhausted, investments in education, nutrition, and exercise are not going to pay off. But if you give yourself a bit more sleep— everything transforms.
The principle of least effort for greatest effect has a beautiful assumption at its center: you are already moving toward self-realization. Everything is. You do not have to work and work and work to achieve perfection. Your only job is to discern what obstacles are hindering your natural perfection, and remove them.
By perfection, I mean a living, breathing balance, such as we see in a climax forest or a well-nourished, well-loved child. In natural perfection there is always room for growth, but there is nothing actively hindering that growth.
Sometimes the obstacles are blindingly obvious: racism and poverty and other inequalities jump immediately to mind. Other times they are more insidious: we think we need to work harder when really we need to relax and be more receptive. We think we need to explain when really we need to listen. We think we need a cup of tea when really we need a relationship. We think we need a relationship when really we need a cup of tea.
If we can somehow open ourselves to the idea that we are intrinsically fine just as we are, the obstacles start to reveal themselves. What, then, is hindering us? Do we need shelter? Water? Fire? Food?
Do we need someone to listen to us? Do we need an hour more sleep per night? Do we need a room we can be alone in? Do we need a schedule that allows us to sleep late, or rise early?
Do we need to be working in a field that utilizes our natural gifts rather than ignores them?
Do we just need a freaking cape?
So: how do we learn what our natural plan is, and what our obstacles are?
When you take the time to build an intelligent design for your life, you look at the areas of overlap between your talents, your training, your passions, and the needs of the world. You find the sweet spot that encompasses all four, and THAT is where you put any extra energy, time, or money.
Tiny efforts in the area of this sweet spot will yield exponential effects, because your passion and education and talent line up to push your ideas into the world.
Think about this for a minute: what if you don't have to DO MORE....what if all you have to do is remove the obstacles that hinder you from what is already happening?
Ahhhhhhh. Did you feel that? That's the power of least effort for greatest effect.
If this sort of ecology/psychology overlap is exactly your cup of tea; if you want guidance and structure to help you create that intelligent life map for where you want to go, join us for Permaculture and the Psyche in April. And, as always, I love to hear from you in the form of questions, comments, or emails!
Self-Care and Selfishness
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
If you have spent much time in the field of healing or therapy, you have heard these words:
"Taking the time to do this stuff just seems so self-indulgent!"
When I experienced yoga for the first time, I was 17 years old. I was working on a farm, I was a dedicated activist, and I believed in the therapeutic value of hard work and Just Getting Over It Already. I secretly rolled my eyes when my friends took "a self-care day" or shared about what they'd learned in a counseling session. I thought that asking for help was a demonstration of weakness.
And there I was, at 17, on the floor of a barn, sitting in pigeon pose, tear after tear rolling down my face. For no reason at all.
I was embarrassed. I felt weird and emotionally weak. I had no idea why I was crying. The yoga teacher was very wise; he did not push me, simply held space for me to cry and let me come to him in my own time to ask him about my experience.
That was the beginning of a shift in me, a shift toward the understanding that, to be an effective activist, I need to embody the changes I wish to create. I can't undo pain by overworking myself to the point of pain. I can't fix injustice by hurling my own anger and imbalance into the mix. And I certainly should not go anywhere NEAR trying to help someone else heal if I have not engaged in my own healing.
Here's what I have learned about the way that true self-care works:
When someone laughs at your idea and tells you it's unrealistic; when someone asks you who do you think you are to do that?; when someone criticizes your work, your appearance, your efforts; tells you that you aren’t talented enough, or young enough, or old enough, or strong enough, or smart enough; when someone hits you, or pushes you, or locks the door between you and what you want: that HURTS.
When this happens, a part of you takes note. And that brave, protective part decides NEVER to let you get hurt again. So this part of you notices every time you make yourself vulnerable—every time you stick your neck out, venture a new opinion, decide to play larger—and it shuts you down. Because if YOU demean, belittle, and constrain yourself, no one else will have the chance to do it for you. And you will be safe. Miserable and muzzled, yes, but safe.
What you need to understand is that this part of you, the part that undermines your efforts to soar, is doing it OUT OF LOVE. This is a sweet, fierce part of you that doesn’t want you to hurt. You can’t make it stop by hating yourself, getting frustrated with yourself, questioning yourself, or criticizing yourself, because these are the very actions that kick it into protective gear.
But imagine this. Imagine if, every time you ran into a roadblock or a criticism, you thought it over while taking a slow walk on your most beloved mountain trail? What if, when you didn’t have the answer somebody wanted, you lit candles and treated yourself to a gentle meditation session? What if the next time someone was mean to you, you took yourself off for a weekend of art-making with friends?
When you choose self-care instead of self-criticism, when you start filling your life with the things that make you feel incredible, when you make your decisions from joy instead of guilt or fear, that part of you that has always tried to keep you from hurting is OUT OF A JOB.
It takes time, and repetition, and commitment, but eventually even the most anxious, guarded part of you will see that you are serious about self-care instead of self-sabotage. And then that part will relax. And the creative energy released by that final, tiny surrender is torrential.
Are you wondering how anything ever gets done in a world of leisurely hikes and meditation sessions? Are you thinking that there are problems far too serious to confront with art-making and writing exercises? I mean, how are we going to solve global warming and famine and racism with this kind of self-indulgence?
Well, I have noticed this: hatred is pretty rare among joyful people. Most joyful people I know would rather take a walk with a friend than engage in internet trolling or bullying behaviors. When I’ve taken the time to meditate after a difficult day, I am far less likely to yell at my kids. And I know that the things I use to comfort myself when I am stressed tend to be consumer items that perpetuate the problems we face. When I am relaxed and joyful, I comfort myself with long talks with friends, home-cooked meals, time in the garden. The problems we face require a lot of focus, commitment, creativity, and flexibility–all qualities that overflow in me when I am relaxed and happy, but shrink to nothing when I am stressed and anxious.
And most importantly, when my life is full of pleasure and joy, I do not bitterly deride another person’s dreams. I do not become the voice that stunts another person’s growth out of my own personal pain. I have the energy to walk the streets for my beliefs, to reach out to others who need help, to fight for what I know is right. The energy I invest in my own well-being comes back tenfold in my ability to defend the things that I hold dear.
So: is self-care self-indulgent?
I'd love to hear what you think!
Chrysalis: Art of Being Winter Retreat
Posted by Maeve Hendrix, LPCA
Chrysalis ~
1. The process of developing, the journey between the cocoon state of a caterpillar through to the transformation of a moth or butterfly.
2. a protecting covering; a sheltered state or stage of being or growth
Last weekend, a wonderful group of women gathered in community to celebrate embodiment and bravely invite their VOICE to be expressed through art, movement, speech, rhythm, song, and play. Deeply immersed in the belly of the pulsing forest during the New Moon in Pisces, we created a safe container to dive into the depths of our own birthing process. The symbology of a silken chrysalis inspired our process in utilizing art, movement, and community to contain and support our experience as we unfolded deeper and deeper into our inner world. Learning to sense deeply and listen to the wisdom of the body, we used expressive arts processing to explore and discern what qualities and truths were emerging and what misperceptions were dropping away.
Honoring Movement as Medicine
Yoga, freeform movement, somatic inquiry, playing, feeling and holding shapes can settle the body into its natural state of being, bringing balance to the nervous system, which enables the body to activate its own self-healing mechanisms. Exploring the subtle articulation of movement, breath, and letting go invites an internal focus of centeredness, balance, and attentive movement. Softening energetic straining or effort towards an end-goal is of primary importance. Learning to allow, learning to unwind, learning to listen deeply to the language of the body and opening to symbolic messages attunes us to our intuitive body and somatic (body) intelligence.
Ritual is marked by intention, focus, and meaning.
Expressive arts processing celebrates connection to self, community and nature through RITUAL. Ritual can be infused into the tiniest, seemingly insignificant interactions, re-framing the way we relate to ourselves and the present moment. Tending to, and embracing ordinary activities with reverence and intentionality automatically transforms the experience into a SIGNIFICANT and MEANINGFUL interaction.
Exploration: Personal Ritual
Consider carefully, the ordinary personal rituals in your life. Which of your daily habits could become a ritual for you? How would your attention shift to make this practice a more intentional part of your life? Write or draw about a ritual experience in your life and imagine what it would be like to have ritual become a daily experience for you.
Tasting the Moment.
We are the meaning makers, the magicians of our lives. Every breath, every gaze and expression through our voice and movement is a work of art, an expression of divine manifestation unfolding and rippling out in this very moment. What happens when we engage in the divine discipline of tasting the moment? Through anchoring our attention to this moment, we heighten our senses and discover delight in the simplicity of savoring our breath. We feel the vibration of music and song in our body, see the deep richness of color, texture, movement; smell the temperature of air; feast upon light and the mysterious beauty of shadow.
The Gift.
After a mere 24 hours spent together, we parted ways with a deep bond of sisterhood that will continue to carry and sustain our integration process and evolution. We bring back many gifts to the community, more gifts than we are aware of or can give a name to.
The gifts I feel coming forth include a heightened awareness of my body as a divine instrument through which I have the joy of infusing presence into; creating a precious work of art through every breath, every word, and every movement. I feel empowered to embrace my voice, gaze and body language as sacred symbols that express the raw beauty and agony of being alive. I am discovering that seeing beauty in the dark, rich murky depths allows me to integrate all of my parts, leaving no part disembodied, rejected or ignored. Those dark and shadowy parts are exactly what I have been seeking. They are the diamonds in the rough. They are allowing me to claim my truth more fully, to remember my intrinsic wholeness and see the world through the eyes of my heart.
Special guest, Virginia Rosenberg joined us for the retreat. Virginia is an Intuitive Astrologer and Sacred Movement Artist. She offered a Silk-Reeling Spiral Power Qi Gong session to our group, which is a moving meditation practice that is gentle and fluid, opening all the major joints in the body from top to bottom, inside and out. She offers individualized Intuitive Astrology and Akashic Records Readings in Asheville as well as Qi Gong classes in the community.
To check out her current offerings, visit:
http://virginiarosenberg.com/classes-and-workshops/
Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
-Mary Oliver