Taking Care of Ourselves More Wisely

"Sometimes I go about with pity for myself
and all the while Great Winds
are carrying me across the sky."             Ojibeway wisdom

     "Be still... drop in deeper... listen.... sense into these 'Great Winds' that carry you...."                                    WisdomAtWork.com

     It's normal & healthy to look after ourselves. But don't we at times flip-flop between self-neglect & overindulgence? 
     Consider the ideal grandparent. Doesn't she wisely nurture her beloved grandchild? Nurturing means providing whatever's needed to maximize the probability that a person, animal, plant or project will flourish, thrive. 
     Wise nurturing has at least three components: unconditional love, experience & patience.
     Experience requires not just time, but also quiet, patient, honest self-reflection - intentionally, humbly learning from our mistakes, as well as things that went well; always guided by the open question, 'What will nurture us, others & our environment in the long-run?'
     Unconditional love is very rare! It must come, first & foremost, from ourselves! We must generate this precious, vital nurturing energy through self-acceptance, self-compassion - recognizing ourselves as being human beings, instead of mythical superheros. Unconditional love is the one & only source of the essential energy that unleashes & fuels our full human potential.
     All this requires patience, for we need to listen deeply to re-connect with our authenticity. Authenticity is easily drowned out by noisy distractions and the roller-coaster artificial highs & lows of our adrenaline-junky lives. Wisdom waits patiently as we slowly realize that we're fed up with noise, and that we're much, much more than thrill-seeking children. 
     Wisdom awaits - AND - life is short.

Origins of Medicine, Surgery & Psychotherapy

     “Alchemy, descended from shamanism, is the ancient art and science of elemental transformation. … alchemy grew historically out of the work of shamanic miners, smiths, and metallurgists. They were the masters of fire, who knew how to extract metals from stone, blend them into alloys such as bronze, and make tools, weapons and ornaments. In the archaic and classical period the knowledge of metalworking, because of its obvious connection to power and wealth, was preserved in secrecy and handed down in craftguilds from master to student. Such technical knowledge was regarded as magical by ordinary people, because it seemed to involve inexplicable mastery of natural forces. The crafts of masonry, which uses mineral stones in building, and medicine, which uses mineral and botanical extracts in healing (as well as metal tools in surgery), were parallel and associated secret societies. All three movements developed an esoteric or inner component, concerned with practices of psychic and spiritual self-transformation.
     A popular misconception is that alchemy was solely and futilely concerned with the transmutation of base metals to gold. In actuality, it is clear from alchemical writings that the main focus of most alchemical practitioners was healing and what we would nowadays call psychotherapy: the transmutation of the physical and psychic condition of the human being – starting with oneself. The worldview of the archaic and classical eras was holistic – the physical, psychic, spiritual, and cosmic dimensions of life were seen in their wholeness, not as separate fields.
     … the sacred science of the alchemical tradition came to be revived by two twentieth-century scientists: C.G. Jung, who identified alchemical symbolism as the language of the psyche; and Albert Hofmann, who uncovered a secret link between psyche and matter in the form of mind-expanding substances. Medieval alchemists in the Western tradition called this link the ‘water-stone of the wise,’ blending fluidity and solidity. Buddhist alchemists of the vajrayana school called it the vajra – the ‘lightning-diamond’ – blending luminosity and hardness.
     My suggestion is that the language of alchemy, both Eastern and Western, updated with contemporary scientific concepts, can provide the appropriate paradigm for a worldview that integrates rational science and intuitive wisdom." 
 

        Ralph Metzner. “Ecology of Consciousness. The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation.” Reveal Press, 2017. 
 

“Black Sun”, from Splendor Solis, a German alchemical treatise, 1582

Wisdom from Helen Keller

     Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), American author, political activist & lecturer, was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.

"Security is mostly a superstition, it does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men (and women) as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure
or nothing at all!"

"All the world is full of suffering. 
It is also full of overcoming." 

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched
- they must be felt with the heart."

"Your success and happiness lies in you. 
Resolve to keep happy, 
and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."

"All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
  

Life's Journey towards Wisdom

     What is a meaningful, well-lived life? As we age, we realize that most of the things that in our youth we thought would make us happy, actually mean little and have already been largely forgotten.

     “Life (can be seen) as a journey towards wisdom and maturity, where both good or pleasurable and bad or painful experiences can help people learn and develop through six recognizable stages: 
 1. Egocentric (immature, self-referenced existence) 
 2. Conditioning (learning through insistent & persistent family & social traditions) 
 3. Conformist (seeking to belong by following social conventions) 
 4. Individual (starting to think, speak & act independently) 
 5. Integration (shifting values & behavior towards altruism, through recognizing one’s deep kinship with the entirety of humanity) 
 6. Universal (achieving maturity and wisdom, becoming a natural teacher and healer).” 
     Research has shown that in western society, the majority of people past their teen years are at or between stages three or four i.e. are still culturally adolescent.
       Larry Culliford. “Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Manifesto.” Univ of Buckingham Pr, 2018.

     "Fowler’s six stages of faith span the spectrum of development from childhood to maturity:
  a) In childhood, faith is based on fantasy & imagination;
  b) in the mythic literal stage, stories are interpreted literally;
  c) at the conventional stage, beliefs tend to be conventional & unexamined;
  d) the individuated reflective stage is characterized by demythologizing and individual responsibility for values & beliefs;
  e) the conjunctive stage, which usually emerges in midlife, involves a recognition of the unconscious and a more paradoxical understanding of truth;
  f) universalizing faith is inclusive of all being and free from ideological shackles.
      Although development does not necessarily progress in a neat, linear fashion from one stage to another, spiritual maturity implies adequately negotiating all these stages of faith. Spiritual experiences may be interpreted very differently by people at different stages of faith."
        Vaughan F. "What is Spiritual Intelligence?" Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2002; 42(2): 16-33.

     “Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it, but it divides us from truth.” Kahlil Gibran

and the day came
when the risk to remain
tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk
it took to blossom                               anais nin

"For I see the beauty in you...
It is not an idealized picture of perfection,
But rather a mosaic of starlight and blood.
The most perfect poem of a life well lived,
Of pleasure and pain,
The sacred union of dark and light,
A life of redemption, surrender, and hope,
Of selfless acts, and courageous leaps.
For I see the beauty in you...
Your light shines so brightly to me."         Lauren Elizabeth Walsh

     “Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.”           Rainer Maria Rilke

Wisdom in Paradox

      Can I, at the same time, embrace "contrasting themes; that of my deepest heart, which feels the intimacy of all things, and the walls the mind constructs, which separates all things"? (Thanissara) In other words, can I embody the nondualistic, unconditioned, spacious, timeless, empty, transpersonal ground of my being WHILE accepting, honoring & holding the dualistic, conditioned, limited, finite, material, personal aspect of my humanity?
     It's terribly common, easy, even comforting, to allow oneself to be magnetically drawn under by destructive emotions into the recurring nightmare of depressive wallowing or anxiety-ridden catastrophizing. This blows the importance of the personal self out of all proportion, thus failing to provide the essential balance that can only come from embodying our transpersonal nature.

     "... all mystics – Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare."
       Anthony de Mello. “Awareness. The Perils and Opportunities of Reality.” Doubleday, 1992.

     "In our world things are always getting broken and mended and broken again, and there is also something that never breaks. Everything rises and falls, and yet in exactly the same moment things are eternal and go nowhere at all. How do we see with a kind of binocular vision, one eye aware of how things are coming and going all the time, the other aware of how they’ve never moved at all? How do we experience this not as two separate ways of seeing, but as one seamless field of vision?" 
       Joan Sutherland. “Koans for Troubled Times.” Lion’s Roar, April 6, 2018

     “The exploration of the highest reaches of human nature and of its ultimate possibilities and aspirations … has involved for me the continuous destruction of cherished axioms, the perpetual coping with seeming paradoxes, contradictions and vagueness, and the occasional collapse around my ears of long established, firmly believe in, and seemingly unassailable laws of psychology.” Abraham Maslow

 

Helping, Fixing, Serving ... Namaste

     “… an important teaching by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: ‘Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.’ Remen explains that helping is based on inequality: ‘When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of self-worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness of life.’
     Altruism at its best is a radical expression of connection, concern, inclusivity, and a sense of responsibility regarding the well-being of others. It is about consciously not robbing others of their autonomy by ‘helping’ or ‘fixing’ them. It is about the realization that our own survival is not separate from the survival of others. … altruism is characterized by selflessness, unselfishness, courage, generosity, a sense of mutuality, and a deep regard for all of life.
     I believe that our deep work is to build a strong internal infrastructure of character, recognize the perils that are disguised as goodness, and have the wherewithal to step out of the trap before it closes around us. Yet we can also fall prey to self-deception, misguided motivations, and the need for praise at one time or another. And when this happens and we recognize it, here is where we open the great gift of humility borne of failure.”        Joan Halifax. “Standing at the Edge. Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.” Flatiron Books, 2018.
 
     “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” Steve Jobs, Stanford University 

     "Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender our attacks and defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are." Marianne Williamson 
 
      “My heartfelt wish for you: As you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE.” George Saunders, Syracuse University

  

Pathological Altruism

     Are you chronically crazy-busy, multi-tasking, harried, stressed-out & sleep-deprived from work, as well as all the work you do at home? Has this now essentially become who you are - your identity (part or subpersonality)? While one part of you may be thoroughly fused with this self-concept, doesn't another part of you resent it? Are you stuck in the glory and hell of being "stressed-out, multi-tasker, super-hero"? You likely started out being altruistic, but now may be feeling the strain of this inner conflict.
     Can you entertain the possibility that this is not who you really are? Is it possible that all the drama, noise & confusion is just a collection of no-longer-helpful habits of mind (conditioning)? Is it possible that you can notice, accept, and with self-compassion, gentleness & persistence, gradually let all of this extra stuff go?
     What will be left behind? Will you be reduced to a puddle of mush unable to do anything? After releasing the noise, only your authenticity remains. Instead of being driven by fear, you will return to being unconditional love and will nurture the people, places, & projects you deal with, like a grandparent caring for a grandchild or a gardener lovingly tending a garden - spontaneously providing what is most appropriate & necessary for all to flourish. Stabilizing in, & acting from authenticity, you are being altruistic in a healthy, sustainable way. Instead of it feeling like a strain & heavy burden, authenticity feels effortless, pleasant, nourishing, right for all concerned.
 
     "When our altruism shifts out of selfless goodness into obligation, duty, or fear … or we simply feel burned out from giving, we may start to churn with negative emotions.
     We may also believe that helping a patient, student, or relative gives us permission to offer unsolicited advice or to control their actions. … Altruism’s edge in these situations can easily crumble when our anxiousness or need to fix take the lead.
     If we can learn to view altruism as an edge, we will become more aware of the risk and peril of this geography, and can realize what’s at stake: harming others, ourselves, and even the institutions in which we serve. If we find ourselves on shaky ground, we can learn to sense when our actions are likely to send us over the edge. In the best of circumstances, we can pull ourselves out of our precarious situations and move back to solid ground.
     When altruism goes over the edge and into the abyss, it becomes pathological altruism, a term used in social psychology. Altruism that is sourced in fear, the unconscious need for social approval, the compulsion to fix other people, or unhealthy power dynamics easily crosses the line into harm. And there can be tough consequences, from personal burnout to the disempowerment of entire countries. It is important to unmask situations where we see pathological altruism operating, whether in the lives of parents, spouses, clinicians, educators, politicians, aid workers, or one’s self. Recognizing and naming this phenomenon has opened the eyes of many who have found themselves slipping down the precarious slope of good intentions gone awry.
     Pathological altruism is defined as “behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.” (Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhavan, David Sloan Wilson eds.
“Pathological Altruism.” Oxford University Press, 2011.) 

     A familiar example of pathological altruism is codependency, in which we focus on the needs of others to the detriment of our own, often enabling addictive behavior in the process. I knew a married couple who let their twenty-five-year-old son, alcoholic and unemployed, live in their basement for a while. They didn’t want to kick him out onto the street with no job or home – but his presence strained their finances and, as a their resentment grew, tested their marriage. They tried to make him go to AA and to inpatient rehab, and they found temporary jobs for him, but their attempts to control his behavior and modulate his addiction always backfired. For their son, having a free place to stay wasn’t a good thing either, because he had no incentive to change his situation.
     Other manifestations of pathological altruism include animal hoarding and ‘helicopter’ parenting.
     Parents, teachers, health care professionals, employees within the justice system, and activists working in crisis situations are especially at risk of pathological altruism from exposure to others’ suffering. The consequences can manifest as resentment, shame, and guilt, and also as the toxic sides of the other Edge States: empathic distress, moral suffering, disrespect, and burnout.
     Also, viewing ourselves as ‘saving,’ ‘fixing,’ and ‘helping’ others can feed our latent tendencies toward power, self-importance, narcissism, and even deception of ourselves and others.”

       Joan Halifax. “Standing at the Edge. Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.” Flatiron Books, 2018.