Testimony

Testimony

(for my daughters)

I want to tell you that the world
is still beautiful.
I tell you that despite
children raped on city streets,
shot down in school rooms,
despite the slow poisons seeping
from old and hidden sins
into our air, soil, water,
despite the thinning film
that encloses our aching world.
Despite my own terror and despair.
 
I want you to know that spring
is no small thing, that
the tender grasses curling
like a baby's fine hairs around
your fingers are a recurring
miracle. I want to tell you
that the river rocks shine
like God, that the crisp
voices of the orange and gold
October leaves are laughing at death,
 
I want to remind you to look
beneath the grass, to note
the fragile hieroglyphs
of ant, snail, beetle. I want
you to understand that you
are no more and no less necessary
than the brown recluse, the ruby-
throated hummingbird, the humpback
whale, the profligate mimosa.
I want to say, like Neruda,
that I am waiting for
"a great and common tenderness",
that I still believe
we are capable of attention,
that anyone who notices the world
must want to save it.

~ Rebecca Baggett ~


(Women's Uncommon Prayers)

Learn How Men and Women React Differently to a Break Up and What You Can Do to Heal.

Men have more difficulty handling their emotions than women.  Simply because men have been trained to be more independent so they have developed fewer skills at handling their emotions.  They become emotionally overwhelmed more easily and demonstrate it by shutting off emotionally and withdrawing, going into denial or becoming workaholics.  All of this is a bid to cut themselves off from those overwhelming feelings of hurt and pain. 

In the process, those feelings lie dormant and are actually never healed.  When we don’t heal those feelings, we don’t allow ourselves to fall in love again and we miss out on one of the most rewarding, healing and satisfying experiences in our lives that of falling in love again.

The secret that women use in handling their feelings is that women are able to think and feel at the same time.  As a result, women will express their emotions more.  They are better able to verbalize what they are feeling.  By verbalizing their feelings, they are able to come to a healing resolution more quickly than men.

Men, on the other hand, are either in thinking mode or feeling mode.  When men are in pain from a break up, they go right into feeling mode and become overwhelmed with those feelings resulting in shut down, paralysis, withdraw or angry bitterness.  Men cannot make good decisions for themselves or anyone else under those conditions.

Whether you are a woman or a man, it’s important to acknowledge that you are going through a crisis and be more compassionate and gentle with yourself.  Remove any blame you may be putting on yourself for anything you may have done to contribute to the break up or for trusting or having been vulnerable to your ex.  It’s important to be able to trust and experience vulnerability.  Its part of being in a relationship and it allows us to experience closeness with another. 

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You Can Move On From The Hurt of A Break Up…. Here’s How

When we experience a relationship break up, it can be extraordinarily painful, especially if we were the one who was left.  We may be tempted to blame the one who left us for all of our heartache and pain.  We say that they “made” us feel pain by leaving us.  Then, we emotionally beat ourselves up even more.

In reality, we are the only ones who control our thoughts, feelings and emotions.  Whenever we give our power away by allowing others to determine how we feel about ourselves, we increase the pain of our heartache.  When you stop judging yourself, or second guessing what you should have done, your feelings of rejection and self-recrimination will soften.  You can view your ex as having said no to the relationship, but not to you as a person.

All relationships have a beginning, middle and end.  With every hello, there is an implied good bye.  Most relationships are meant to end.  Holding onto them beyond their life span can be very destructive to our own lives and cause us to miss other opportunities that would be more rewarding and possibly more satisfying than the relationship that just ended. 

Don’t follow, spy on, or call the other person.  This only keeps you attached in a very unhealthy way and makes it much more difficult to let go of your hurt and angry feelings.  Resist the urge to try and make your ex understand your hurt feelings or try to get them to see your point of view.  This will only lead to more frustration and feelings of betrayal.  Of course, do not harm yourself in a bid to get them to come back.  Doing so never gets them to come back. 

It helps to throw yourself into an activity or project that you love doing.  While you are doing that activity you love you are processing your painful feelings and this can contribute greatly to the healing of those feelings. 

Keep in mind that relationships are more about personal and emotional growth; happiness is only a byproduct of the experience.   Our conscious minds seek having a good time through a relationship; our unconscious mind is seeking to grow through a relationship.

We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness.  It is our thoughts, and how we choose to interpret them, that affect our feelings about our world and ourselves.  What we think affects how we feel. 

Focusing on negative thoughts or obsessively blaming your ex will keep you mentally and emotionally trapped in the relationship. 

This kind of behavior will only increase the odds of you repeating the same situation with another individual.  Realize that you willingly participated in that relationship with all of its deceptions and mistruths.  Now, you’re participating in the pain of the break up.  You can’t bring your ex back, but you can change the relationship you are now having with the pain.

There are no victims in a consensual relationship, only volunteers.  Blaming yourself or your ex is useless in healing from the pain of a breakup.  There were choices made by both of you that led to the resulting breakup.  You also both made decisions that you thought were best at the time.  

Those choices are now in the past.  Nothing can change that.  However, you may have learned some lessons from your experience and now is the time to look back over those lessons and learn from the mistakes that were made.  Realizing that you have learned something will give meaning to the experience you are going through.  Release yourself and your ex from any blame, and then give yourself permission to move on.

For more free information on handling your thoughts and feelings, log onto www.DrJamesWalton.com  For self-help downloads, log onto www.TheDrWaltonSeries.com

Fear: Wandering in A Desert of The Soul… Here Is a Road Map Out!

Consider the passage in the Bible depicting the liberation of the Jewish slaves from captivity in ancient Egypt in Exodus 12: 35-36. The Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert. Forty years represented a lifetime in the scriptures.  After they had left Egypt and found themselves in the desert, they expressed, “Would that we had died…as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you [Moses] had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!” [Exodus 16:3]

How do we deal with fear? The Roman Senator Cicero stated, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The Book of Numbers contains a fascinating treatment of this spiritual dilemma.

Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food! In punishment the Lord sent among the people seraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died. … Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover.” [Numbers 21:5-8]

This ancient text contains within it the answer for overcoming fear.  The story of the seraph serpents was probably not an actual situation that occurred in history, but rather a parable with a metaphor of wisdom for dealing with the unknown and fear.  The people were instructed to look upon the staff with the serpent.  The serpent was the thing that they most feared in the moment.  By looking upon that which they most feared, they were healed of their affliction.  We will all be stricken with fear on life’s journey. It is only when we confront (look upon) what we most fear, that we are healed.

By facing our fears, we are healed from the poison they inject into our lives.  To face our fears, in our world, means to refrain from going into denial.  We accept the situation as it is.  We are then called to take some form of action.  Taking action, any action, no matter how small, will help to absorb some of the anxiety surrounding our fears. 

Pray (meditate) everyday.  Write down three things you are grateful for everyday.  Take one action that directly addresses that fear everyday.

This means facing our personal fears, and by doing so, we are healed and brought out from wandering in that desert of our fears.

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6 Essential Stages for Healing from A Break Up: You Can Heal!

The person, who has decided to end the relationship, has probably already passed through the stages of heartache before they announced their decision.  Generally, it seems easier for the one who is doing the leaving, although this may not always be the case.  Frequently, the one doing the leaving has had to wrestle with a combination of grief and guilt.  The decision to call off a relationship is never easy and if there has been a true connection, it is quite painful for the one doing the leaving as well.

If you are the one who was left, this is an agonizing position to be in.  For many people, it is worse than a death, because with death, it’s final and there’s no hope of negotiating a return. 

When we’re left, we have to deal with the pain of rejection along with the pain of loss.

There are several stages you can expect yourself to go through in processing your feelings from a broken heart. 

They more or less go in this general order:

Shock

Pleading

Anger

Sadness        

Acceptance

Forgiveness

The first is Shock.  When we first hear the news that the relationship is over, we are usually in complete shock.  We become vulnerable to our feelings.  In shock, we feel as if our world has been turned on its head.  We are not capable of making clear decisions.  We feel a sense of being vulnerable and lost.  It may even be very difficult for us to even make sense of what is happening.  We break down, we cry.  Men tend to explode outward in their reaction to shock.  Women tend to implode, go internal and blame themselves. 

We then proceed to the next stage, which is pleading.  In pleading, it’s our attempt to restore order to our world by attempting to restore the relationship.  In pleading, we may beg the other to return so that our world can return to normal.  We may make offers to change ourselves or throw out grand gestures of compromise that here-to-for had been withheld, in order to call the other back into the relationship and ease our aching heart.  If you come back, I’ll change.  In reality, these overtures rarely last if they are even made at all. 

In most cases, the pleading makes us look desperate and weak in the eyes of the other person and does the exact opposite of the desired effect and pushes them away ever farther.  We are left feeling empty, hollow and in agony.

We then proceed to the next stage, which is anger.  It is a natural and healthy progression, but the anger is really a defense against the depression and helplessness we feel from the disconnect with our ex.  In our anger, we feel like striking out.  This is the time when many people will go into some kind of destructive action that ultimately does not serve them.  They will tear up photos; destroy the ex’s property, or spread vicious rumors around about them. 

The anger comes from a place of helplessness from our loss.  We feel that we are a victim of our ex and we use anger as a way of trying to recapture some of the power that we feel they’ve taken from us through ending the relationship.  It’s a way of desperately trying to balance out our sense of powerlessness.  The anger gives us something new to believe in when the belief in the relationship has been taken away.  It gives us new strength and new structure at a time when we feel weak and loss of structure.  This is especially true if we derived our sense of identity from our ex.  The break up has now taken that identity away so the anger temporarily rushes in to give us a new identity.

We may need to remain in our anger for a while.  Anger over the breakup can be helpful in neutralizing any loving feelings that you once felt toward your ex.  You may want to get in touch with the anger you feel towards this person.  It’s OK to hold onto those feelings for a while, as long as; you don’t act those feelings out with hostility towards the other person or yourself.  Anger can be a part of the letting go process.  Again, you are the one who is in control of your anger.  You create your anger and you are the one who can let it go.  No one else is responsible for your anger but yourself. 

It’s OK to have fantasies of “acting out” against our ex as long as we don’t actually act it out in real life.  Over time, anger helps to break the love feelings we felt towards our ex. 

Do not seek revenge.  It’s OK to fantasize about it, but it is not OK to act it out.  Angry behavior such as hitting things, yelling or screaming only leads to amping up the drive for more angry behavior.  Don’t do it. 

Underneath our anger resides sadness and it comes next in the stages of healing heartache.  Remember, anger is often an attempt to not feel the sadness of the disconnect with your ex.  The experience of sadness moves us into the present and allows us to experience what is.  The sadness is a time of reflection and slowing down.  It is the slowing down process of sadness that allows us to adapt to the new reality of our life.  The sadness cooks and reshapes us from within. 

Experiencing the sadness is an important part of recovering from a breakup.  It causes us to stop and re-examine our lives.  We slow down and process.  The sadness brings a gift.  It allows us to view the world from a different perspective giving us a wider and wiser view of life.  It also gives us some perspective on how deeply we loved and are capable of loving. 

Acceptance occurs when we’re finally able to release the sadness.  We stop fighting what is and allow it to be.  It does not mean that we like the new order of things, but we stop fighting it.  We accept the change.  Things will never be the same and we revise ourselves and our future.  It is a time when we are able to have a vision of the future with our ex no longer in it.  It is the time when we withdraw our energy and expectations from the relationship we had with our ex and are ready to begin opening ourselves up to new relationships and connections with others.  We find ourselves opening back up to life and beginning to live again. 

Part of the healing process is learning something from the experience you just went through.  We come to acceptance more easily when we realize that along with our loss, we have also gained something, we have gained experience, wisdom and a better understanding of our wants and needs. 

To do this, ask yourself:

·      How are you different now from the way you were before you met you ex? 

·      What have you learned from your experience with them? 

·      What lessons have you learned for living the rest of your life? 

·      Have you changed what it is you want out of a relationship?

·      If you’re your best friend just had this experience, what advice would you give them?

Search yourself to find out how you’re different now from having known your ex. 

When you’re able to see that you have received some gifts from the relationship, it makes it easier to let go of the past moving you significantly closer to a true and authentic experience of forgiveness of yourself and the other.  

For more information on Dr. Jim, log onto his website at LAtherapist.com

Considering Divorce? There Is An Easier Way

Separation anxiety frequently holds marriages together.  Not all marriages should be saved.  The couple may want to separate, but they are afraid of it.  The fear is "If I leave the relationship, then I'm never going to get the love I have wanted."  This fear is based in emotional irrationality and only serves to perpetuate the couple's unhappiness by defining themselves as victims of the relationship rather than active participants. 

Victimhood leads to resentment and resentment leads to anger.  Anger eventually kills the love that we feel for the other person, but it can also immobilize us from taking right action.  We can organize our thoughts in such a way through our anger at the other person that we are unable to see that we do have choices.  We then become trapped in our anger and as a result feel trapped in our relationship. 

Instead of taking the action that we need to liberate ourselves, we blame the other person and remain stuck in an unsatisfying relationship.  Our anxiety about establishing a new life for ourselves becomes bound up in the anger we experience with our partner. Yes, this is a way of avoiding the unpleasant feeling of anxiety for beginning a new life. However, we remain stuck in a very uncomfortable old position in a relationship that no longer functions a way we would like.

To begin getting out of victimhood, you have to take responsibility for your half of the problems in your relationship.  Only by letting go of the conflict will you begin to heal and see your way more clearly in creating separate lives.  You will also need to learn how to negotiate with your erstwhile partner without allowing emotions to override clear communication.  A divorcing couple needs to transform their relationship into a business relationship.

In a nutshell:

Forgive yourself

Take responsibility for your half of it

Let go of the conflict so you can begin to heal

Learn to negotiate with your ex

If you chose to divorce, you need to know how to separate while significantly reducing the damage, both emotionally and financially, that comes from a divorce.  If possible, mediation is a good way to go.  It is a more cooperative and less adversarial way of separating hearts, finances and lives. 

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Valentine's Day: The Sting of the Arrow

According to recent studies the time around Valentine’s Day has increasingly become a time when people either break up or seek a divorce. It is been estimated, that filings can skyrocket by 40% or more at this time of year. It may be that people wait to file till after the New Year for file for financial reasons, or for reasons of getting past the holidays without drama.  It is also a time when people who are in relationships, but not married, also find themselves breaking up.

It may be that at Valentines, people become nostalgic about love. They compare their own love situation against the background of advertising in the media with lovers presenting each other with romantic cards and jewelry and flowers and feel they come up short in their own relationship.

It is not surprising that the rate of people breaking up and/or filing for divorce goes up at this time of year. By comparing themselves to others, they may be reaching out for unrealistic expectations within their own relationship. Seeing happy lovers on the television sharing their love may cause them to feel an internal sense of isolation or dissatisfaction for the relationship in which they are involved.

If you are alone at this time of year, or if you are single, you may feel even more alone in the world at this time.  This holiday may reinforce your feelings of being unworthy or unlovable.   And it certainly it can underscore your sense of being alone especially if you hold any  misgivings about being alone.

Valentine’s Day can raise our fantasies and beliefs about love to an unachievable height which may lead to dissatisfaction in our own lives whether we are in a relationship or not. In some ways, Valentine’s Day can trigger feelings of dissatisfaction with those who are in relationships as well. Especially if we have either unrealistic expectations of our partner, or unrest realistic expectations of what love itself can do for us. 

Valentine’s Day celebrates the ecstasy of falling in love. But a relationship takes much more than love and the exchanging of cards and flowers if it is to survive. It takes work, it takes commitment, it takes support, and it takes acceptance of the other, as they are, without criticism.

If you’re in a relationship at this time, use Valentine’s Day as a time to recommit to your relationship, to work on it, and to enjoy all that it reasonably offers as a partnership in life. If you’re alone on Valentine’s Day, go out with your friends and use this time to reaffirm your friendships and your ability to feel loved by others who are close to you.

"And Baby Makes Three..." Can Children Save A Bad Relationship?

Separation anxiety frequently holds marriages together.  The fear is, “If I leave the relationship, then I’m never going to get the love I have wanted.”   This kind of thinking perpetuates the couple’s unhappiness by defining themselves as victims of the relationship rather than active participants.   An unfortunate statistic is that couples with children have higher divorce rates than couples without children. 

Often, couples think that having children will keep the relationship together and give them the love they are seeking in the relationship.  They are surprised to find that the addition of children does just the opposite.   I’m not suggesting that couples not have children, but rather make sure that they are really good at communicating with each other before having children.  After all, good communication skills and healthy boundary setting are the keys for being an active participant in your marriage that creates a loving strong intact family. 

Children can be an added pleasure but will tax your emotional resources, not add to them.  If you are feeling like a victim of your marriage, rather than an active participant, then don’t have children yet.  If this is the case, children will not fill that gap and give you the love you have always wanted.  They may only serve to complicate a situation that is already fragile to the detriment of all concerned.

If you find yourself in this position, I recommend that you find yourself a qualified Marriage and Family Therapist or other qualified licensed professional to help you improve your communication skills with your spouse.  Ultimately, that could be an immensely rewarding experience that brings greater closeness and satisfaction to you both.  Good therapy is vastly cheaper than a divorce.  And who knows, you may actually end up having children after all, and for the right reasons. 

For more information on Dr. Jim's self-help audios with free samples, log onto www.TheDrWaltonSeries.com.  For videos and more information on Dr. Jim, and to obtain free audio affirmations, log onto his website at LAtherapist.com.   You can check out his page on Facebook at Healing A Broken Heart.

Why Do Couples Divorce and What Are The Predictors?

Threats of divorce are often attempts to fix the relationship.  Many times we want the pain within the relationship to die, but not the relationship.   Often times, when divorce is mentioned, each of the individuals in the relationship were young and never achieved individuation from their own families of origin before they were married.  In this case, their identities became shaped by the demands, actions and needs of their partner.  Divorce becomes a highly frightening thought because they have never been on their own and have no idea who they really are as individuals. 

The highest rate of divorce typically happens during the first two years of marriage when couples are in the process of trying out the marriage.  There are many reasons for the endings of these marriages.  Frequently, they are based in the impulsiveness of getting married to feel the rush and not thinking through its commitments and expectations.  Once the romance wears off, so does the desire to remain married.

Marital problems also begin to arise at the seventh year of marriage, after the first child arrives and when the first child turns 14 years old.  Children are a major stressor to marriages.  Often, people will chose to have children to “save” a marriage.  Then, it turns out that the addition of children actually put more stress on the relationship.  This may be one of the reasons that childless couples past the seven-year mark have lower rates of divorce that couples with children.

Two other trouble points are when the marriage is at the 20-year mark and the 40-year mark.  At 20 years, couples are facing the children leaving the nest.  Now, the couple has to re-establish a relationship with each other without the daily interaction and distraction of the children.  They are faced with more intimate interaction with each other, and may have the urge to fulfill desires that were suppressed during the time of raising children.  Conflict can arise if those desires are seen as a threat to the relationship. 

If they had used the children in the past as a way of regulating intimacy or creating distance, they will now have to face each other without that regulating force.  If the couple does not have clear roads of communication, or if they cannot express their feelings, this spells disaster for the relationship.

At the 40-year mark, couples are looking for companionship as they move into old age.  Surprisingly, there are a high number of divorces at this point.  Couples can arrive at this point and discover that they don’t feel companionship with each other.  One may have been at the service of the other the entire time.  They raised the children, they indulged the desires of the other, and they kept things together and basically kept the relationship together through their own sacrifice.  Now, they are tired of sacrificing themselves.  As they approach the sunset years, they want to live in peace or create a space for themselves that they never experienced earlier in their life.  If their spouse is not willing or able to accommodate them on this request, there is a good chance that they will look towards divorce as a way of attaining the space they need. 

Another point where divorce all too frequently, and unfortunately, occurs is when the wife of a couple falls ill. This is especially true for wives with a terminal illness such as cancer.  Men show a higher occurrence of divorcing their stricken wives than women divorcing a stricken husband.  One need look no further than senator John McCain or senator John Edwards to make the case in point.  Both of these high profile men left their wives after the discovery of their illnesses. 

Interestingly enough, an affair does not necessarily spell the end of a marriage in divorce.  In many cases, an affair draws attention to discord and trouble in a marriage and with the right assistance and intervention they may go onto a closer more solid relationship.

There are several predictors for a divorce.  In good relationships, there are approximately seven positive exchanges for every negative exchange.  Relationships that are in trouble have only one positive exchange for every negative exchange.  How a couple speaks to each other is another predictor.  Do you regularly speak harshly with each other?  If so, that can be another indicator.  Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and the silent treatment are all indicators of a troubled relationship.  All of these occurring together are a sure sign of trouble.

For more information on Dr. Jim's self-help audios with free samples, log onto www.TheDrWaltonSeries.com.  For more information on Dr. Jim, and to obtain free audio affirmations, log onto his website at LAtherapist.com.  You can check out his page on Facebook at Healing a Broken Heart. 

Therapist as Shaman

Shamanism appears to be the earliest form of healing that we are aware of to date.  It has existed throughout the world from Russia to Australia, from China to the Americas.  Although there is no one explanation as to how shamanism spread throughout the world, the two that are most popular today is that either shamanism began in Siberia and spread, or that it sprang up spontaneously throughout the world.  There are common aspects of shamanism found throughout the world.  They are findings of teeth, bones, feathers, bird feet, helmets with streamers, skirts with skins, mirrors, crystals, horns, drums, antlers, and statues with toungs that allow researchers to determine whether shamanism existed within a particular society.

            The shaman believes that evil spirits cause illness for the body.  They believe that they can create magic with their words and ritual actions that can drive the evil spirits from the body.  To do this, they must first protect themselves from these spirits, then enter into an altered state of consciousness characterized by a state of ecstasy.  They believe they are able to visit three worlds of reality:  The Under World that represents terror and power, The Middle World in which they see the spirits of this world among us, and The Upper World that is the world of deities.  When Someone claims that they are able to perceive those three worlds, they are having a shamanistic experience. 

                What distinguishes a shaman from a professional priest or healer, is that he is a part-time practitioner.  The training passes down individually from teacher to student.  There are no large schools which train people to become a shaman.  There are two principal ways for a person to become a shaman.  The first way is to be born into a shaman lineage and follow in the footsteps of the ancestors.  The second, and most common way, is to experience a calling for the position.  A calling is perceived by a series of events recognized by the tribe and the individual.  Such events involve:  separation, communication with other beings, ecstatic experiences, a sense they are going to be a shaman and the seeking out of a shaman to train with.

            Psychotherapists can learn much from the shaman.  The Shaman represents a multi-dimensional view of reality.  He believes that reality is a creation of the unconscious.  As therapists, we too would do well to learn how to embrace a multi-dimensional view of reality.  By understanding that there is a conscious and unconscious, as well as the different levels of the unconscious:  the world unconscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious, we may gain a better insight into the issues of our clients.  I have often seen a client's material world appear to match his/her personal outlook on life.  By understanding this process, which the shaman seems to know so well, we may be able to help our clients pull themselves out of undesirable real world experiences. 

            The shaman expands what is and what can be through their and their clients' belief in magic.  There are times when therapists encounter patients who are only able to see the world through a lens of black and white.  Often, a client may feel that there is no way he will ever be able to change his life.  By assisting our clients to view the possibilities of change as the shaman does with his clients, we may be able to help the client break the chains of status quo that binds him to the old and possibly self-destructive ways.

            The shaman acknowledges that she is not the one who is creating the change for the client.  She is aware that it is a greater force that she can not control, but only influence.  We too, must recognize that we are not able to change the client, but can only influence him/her with new out looks and ideas.  It is up to the client to accept what is given to her and use it in her life.  As therapists, we have no control over the client's unconscious mind.  This is a great force over which we have no control.  We may be able to assist with some influence, but we must always be as cognizant, as the shaman, that we cannot control it.

                 The shaman lives in the real world.  She holds employment outside the shaministic activities.  She does not allow her activities as a shaman to fill her with false pride, or allow her to look down on others with a sense of being superior.  It might be easy for some psychotherapists to become filled with a sense of self-importance as they watch their clients improving.  These therapists could easily become arrogant and loose touch with empathy for the client.  The shaman never forgets that she is a human being and is not above or below the client, but is able to stay in touch with the humanness of herself and the client's.  The Shaman works together with the client, as does a psychotherapist.  The shaman does not blame herself if a cure does not come forth.  The same should hold true for a therapist.  If a therapist believes too strongly that she alone is responsible for change in her clients' lives, then she may be setting him or herself up for over-involvement in a client's life and lose her objectivity.

            The shaman also protects himself before practicing his trade.  So should a therapist.  Often therapists neglect to protect themselves from a client's emotional and mental states.  Depression and anxiety are two especially contagious emotions.  There are times when a therapist comes home from the office, only to find that he is experiencing similar emotions of the client, or they just feel especially drained from a particular patient.  Shamans do not feel drained from their work.  They do not take on any of the emotional states of the client.  Shamans enjoy their work.  As therapists, we too need to protect ourselves so we may continue to enjoy our work and recognize the boundary between ourselves and our work, and ourselves and our clients.

            As part-item healers, shamans are able to keep their egos separate from the work.  Professional therapists have a difficult time keeping their egos out of their work.  The part time status of the shaman allows them to deal with the real world.  This is the world from where their clients come.  It also allows them to perceive themselves as a part of the society and an understanding of the people for whom they perform their work. 

               Therapists would do well to work part time, or at least have outside hobbies and activities that involve them out side of their careers.  By doing so, their chances of defining themselves by their careers and losing perspective life would diminish greatly.  They would then be able to maintain and enhance themselves as useful assistants to their clients.

            Both shaman and therapists provide their clients with a conceptual framework with which to work.  The clients of both come to them often with chaotic and vague distress.  Shamans explain to their clients why the client is having the experience, and what they can expect of an outcome.  Just knowing these simple "answers" can help a client begin a healing process.  As therapists, we too can assist our clients in understanding why something is going on for them and what they can expect.  It will help them to conceptualize their distress and give them hope that maybe something can relieve their discomfort.  This arouses a hope for cure.  Without a hope for cure, the client will probably not want to bother with working on their issues. 

            In order to arouse this hope for a cure the shaman creates an air of authority through the belief that she is in touch with powerful forces and fosters the belief that she will struggle with the client against the forces that cause her malaise.  As psychotherapists, we create our authority through our education and licenses.  Knowledge and experience may be viewed as powerful forces that psychotherapists are in touch with.  If psychotherapists take an approach similar to the shaman's with their clients, by fostering the belief that they will struggle with the client for change, then maybe that would encourage a closer relationship with the client allowing for depth work to take place.

            The shaman elicits vivid emotions in the client.  From the shaman's point of view, these emotions are very helpful in the healing process.  We can learn from the shaman to remember the important aspect of assisting our clients in experiencing emotions.  Psychotherapists assist their clients by leading them into the pain and exploring it.  As psychotherapists, we understand the importance of allowing our clients to experience their emotions.

             The work of the shaman should serve as a teaching guide to psychotherapists.  The shaman reminds us that the work of the mind is as much as an art as a science.  It is the art of our work that keeps us in touch with the client.  It is the art that sparks our creativity and puts us in touch with our humanity.  Like the shaman, we experience a calling that draws us to this profession from somewhere deep in our souls, beyond our physical world at the point where we are aware of our connection to all that exists.  If we take nothing else from the shaman, let us take his wisdom that we interconnect with all that exists; and we must work within its laws.  Science gives us the tools and knowledge; but art, the art of the shaman, gives us the creativity and understanding to use those tools in a way that can benefit mankind to the depths of his soul.

For more information on Dr. Jim's self-help audios with free samples, log onto www.TheDrWaltonSeries.com.  For more information on Dr. Jim, and to obtain free audio affirmations, log onto his website at LAtherapist.com. 

Overcome Old Behaviors Around Food

Many of the issues we have around food began in our childhoods.  Old family rules around food and eating can appear in our lives long after we have left home.  They are unconsciously programmed deep into our subconscious.   They show up during times of stress or when we are distracted.  As a result, we find ourselves repeating old behaviors around food that we have struggled with our entire lives, or we find ourselves repeating old behaviors that we thought we had dispensed with long ago. 

What were the rules around eating in your childhood?  Was it important that you finish your entire plate?  Many of us came from households that had very specific rituals and rules around eating and dining.  Some of these rules were helpful like washing your hands before eating.  Others were not, like requiring all the food to be eaten on your plate.  Whatever the case, we carry with us those early lessons around eating. 

It would be helpful for you to take a few moments and write down all the different rules around eating that you experienced growing up in your family.  Make a note of those that were helpful and those that were not. 

Now, take an inventory of those unhelpful behaviors that you continue to practice today.  More likely than not, you do those behaviors unconsciously and may have never thought to question them.  Behaviors such as finishing everything on your plate before eating any desert or if you take a piece of cake you must eat the entire piece and not just the frosting part that you like. 

I’m now asking you to question those old beliefs and learned behaviors.  Make a list of the one’s that are not helpful.  Were your parents over weight?  If so, what were their beliefs about their weight?  Did they hold negative feelings towards themselves?  Did they hold negative feelings towards people of average size?  Do any of those old beliefs affect you today?  Take an inventory and write these and others you come up with down on paper. 

Write down an action plan to address each one.  Then, imagine what it would be like if you no longer did those counter productive behavior around your eating experience.  Also write down what it would be like if you no longer thought those negative thoughts around eating.

For more information on losing weight, and to listen to free samples of Dr. Walton’s award-winning album, named “Best Album of the Year” at the JPF International Music Award,” log onto “Dr. Walton's Ultimate Weight Loss.” For more information on Dr. Walton, log onto LAtherapist.com. Press Release

You Can Find the Motivation to Lose Weight

Losing weight is not about hating the body you have right now.  It is about appreciating and loving that very body.  Within its own physical limitations, this body has been a wonderful and loving servant of your will. 

Your body is the point through which you experience all of your thoughts and feelings, all of your physical sensations and perceptions of the world around you.  Your body is the point through which you experience the entire reality of your life.  It is the one thing that you’ll always have with you from birth until the end of your life.  It deserves your love no matter what condition it is in at this given time. 

Your body is not your enemy; it is not working against you.  The body does not act independently from your treatment of it.  Your body only responds to the way you treat it.  It reflects the care that you give it.  If you feed it foods that cause it to gain weight, it will respond by gaining weight.  If you exercise it within reason, it will become more efficient and toned.  It is a loving servant of your will within its individual limitations. 

How you treat your body affects your health - which affects how you feel about yourself and that affects your perceptions of the world around you.  It is so important to keep it fit and healthy through appropriate exercise and eating habits in order for it to help you experience life to its fullest. 

Losing weight and becoming more fit can be done for no one else but for yourself.  Those members of your family and friends who have been urging you to lose weight love you and have your best interest at heart, but their urging alone is not enough if you are to succeed.  If you are not motivated on your own and are only bending to their demands, then you’ll only end up resenting those people who love you and sabotaging your efforts at losing weight. 

To succeed at losing weight, you must realize that you are the one in control of your decisions and life.  Losing weight is a process rather than an event.  As with all processes, the movement forward is built upon a foundation of successes and setbacks.  Our setbacks can be as valuable as our successes and are opportunities for learning more about ourselves and our desires.  Learning from our setbacks allows us to move closer to the success we desire.

It takes determination to lose weight.  Unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles are not easy to overcome.  It is both a physical and emotional sacrifice you must make when it comes to achieving your desired weight goals.  The result of a sacrifice is to make something sacred.  When you change your eating habits and adopt a healthy exercise program, you perform a sacrifice that symbolizes to yourself, and those around you, that your health and quality of life are sacred to you. 

In some Native American tribes, it was called upon for young men and women to make a sacrifice to achieve recognition of adulthood.  Often, that sacrifice involved a ritual of scaring the body.  The sacrifice you may endure on your journey to achieving your desired weight can be as meaningful to your psyche as any scar left upon the body and deserves to be honored and respected. 

A scar represents pain and injury; it also represents a capacity to heal and grow beyond what has been.  Scar material is always stronger than what existed before. 

You may have begun over eating as a response to medicating yourself from a painful emotional experience.  Food became a way of pacifying bad feelings.  Eating is a comforting and soothing experience that takes us back to younger days when we were children and a loving parent soothed our feelings with food. 

By choosing to lose weight at this time, you have chosen a sacrifice that symbolically moves you beyond the immaturity of your youth.  It may be viewed as a rite of passage into adulthood. 

For a sacrifice to have meaning, it must be a personal choice made by you alone.  True sacrifice is not an imprisonment, but rather, it is the ultimate expression of your free will and that is to be honored and revered.

For more information on losing weight, and to listen to free samples of Dr. Walton’s award-winning album, named “Best Album of the Year” at the JPF International Music Award,” log onto “Dr. Walton's Ultimate Weight Loss.” For more information on Dr. Walton, log onto LAtherapist.com. Press Release

You Can Enjoy Food Even More and Still Lose Weight

A satisfying dining experience is much more than just eating food.  It involves all of our other senses as well as taste.  The environment in which we are dining, the color and presentation of the food, the smells and conversation and even the music contribute to satisfaction of our dining experience.  By noticing and experiencing each of these while you are dining, you will slow down the eating process and open up to a greater sense of satisfaction as you are dining. 

Often times, we eat so fast that we don’t even notice the flavors of what we are eating.  In our rush to consume the food as fast as we can, we miss out on the wonderful and very pleasurable experience of eating.  In an effort to bring more pleasure and awareness to our eating, it is important for us to slow down and enjoy the experience.  Actually tasting the food is an important part of enjoying the experience and getting more out of it.  In order to taste the food, we have to slow down the eating process to enjoy it. 

It is so important to eat slowly when losing weight.  It takes 20 to 30 minutes for the brain to register that the stomach has eaten something and cut off the hunger signals.  We can consume a tremendous amount of food in that 30 minute period if we aren’t careful.  By slowing down and enjoying the other experiences around you during your dining, you will not only have more opportunities to experience a wider sense of satisfaction, you will also give your brain enough time to register that you have eaten something and cut off the hunger signal. 

One way to slow down the eating process to give yourself a chance to cut off the hunger process is to chew your food slowly while putting the fork down between each bite.  While you are chewing, notice the different flavors of the food.  Notice how they mingle and try to pick apart the different ingredients that went into its creation. 

While you are chewing on the food, notice its temperature.  Is it warm or cold?  Notice its texture.  Is it crunchy or soft?  Fully experience the food that is in your mouth and enjoy the experience. 

Play with the food on your plate.  It’s ok to do.  In fact, it will help you slow down your eating.  It is a little trick that will cause you to delay the eating process and

If you are dining with others, do most of the talking yourself.  This will give your stomach a chance to send the signal to your brain that you have eaten something while enjoying conversation and receiving some attention.  

For more information on losing weight, and to listen to free samples of Dr. Walton’s award-winning album, named “Best Album of the Year” at the JPF International Music Award,” log onto “Dr. Walton's Ultimate Weight Loss.” For more information on Dr. Walton, log onto LAtherapist.com. Press Release

I Shop, Therefore I Am

Shopping can be a fun and relaxing experience.  It’s a welcome break from the daily routine and can even take on a meditative quality for some individuals allowing them to process thoughts running in the back of their minds.  The discovery of a desired object or the perfect addition to decorating a room can feel like a small victory that allows us to rejuvenate and gear up for more difficult tasks. 

However, there is a point when shopping for fun on occasion crosses a line and the individual becomes what is known as a shopaholic.

Shopaholics put themselves and their families in financial danger.  Their shopping escapades are often shrouded in secrecy and feelings of humiliation.  Shopaholics will frequently run up large credit card debt and many will work more than one job to keep up with the payments.  They can even spend so much money on compulsive shopping that they are unable to pay more essential bills such as rent or utilities.  They can put their relationships in jeopardy and even put their careers at risk by spending too much time on the Internet while at work.

Some shop to medicate bad feelings.  Uncovering what those feelings are, giving them expression and dealing with them in therapy would be a way of handling this type of excessive shopping.  Some people shop during the manic phase of a bi-polar episode.   They delude themselves into thinking that they are immune to any negative effects of their over shopping behavior.  These individuals could receive benefit from medications such as mood stabilizers.

Some shopaholics are obsessive compulsive.  These shoppers feel compelled to buy multiples of any particular item.  Sometimes, they purchase multiples in different colors, or sometimes they purchase multiples of a single item telling themselves they don’t want to run out.  These individuals don’t get the “shopper’s high” that other shopaholics receive.  Instead, they are responding to the internal pressure of an impulse to shop to feel some relief of its pressure.  These individuals sometimes respond to antidepressants but cognitive/behavioral treatments such as hypnosis have been shown to be highly effective for some.  

For more information on Dr. Jim's self-help audios with free samples, log onto www.TheDrWaltonSeries.com.  For more information on Dr. Jim, and to obtain free audio affirmations, log onto his website at LAtherapist.com.  You can check out his page on Facebook at Healing a Broken Heart. 

 

CREATIVITY AND THE CREATION OF POETRY

In the summer of 1998, my best friend of nine years was diagnosed with a terminal illness.  A pain of rarely equaled intensity shot through my soul upon hearing the news.  I was left feeling helpless to what the fates had decided.  I am including, at the end of this blog, an example of two poems that came from this experience.  The first poem was composed and completed within weeks of the diagnosis.  The second was begun six months after his death in the summer of 1999 and was completed in its final form during the spring of 2004. 
           
I was the last person, with the exception of his nurse, to see him alive.  He died within hours of my leaving his side.  Those last few hours we spent together in silence while I held him.  As I turned to leave, for the first time in our long relationship he mouthed the words "I love you."  We both recognized that this would be the last precious moments we would spend together on this physical plane. 
           
I was left with a haunting and indescribable feeling that would stay with me until the birth of the second poem, which began from a dream I had.  I have not judged these works as good or bad.  They were called from within me to be expressed; they would not let go until they were written down. 
           
When they were completed, I was able to say good-bye to my friend.  Both poems hold for me a mixture of relief and sadness.  I continue to hold onto, and tolerate, the duality of the feelings.
           
The conception of my poems usually germinates through a personal experience.  Often, it is an emotionally difficult experience that inspires me to examine my feelings more closely.  As Von Franz stated, "There must be some disruption to make us aware of what we are swimming in."  For me, the first disruption is a painfully jarring experience.  It first settles into my soul as a feeling and emerges transformed as a written story or poem.  Writing has been for me a medium through which I am able to express a calling from my soul.  Poetry comes from the soul moving to know itself.

The journey of my poetic experience begins through my emotions as I am taken down into the depths of my feelings and prepare for the journey.  The emotions grab hold of me and refuse to let go.  They then begin to make their presence felt in my daydreams and occasionally in my dreams at night.  Through these dreams, a space is created for the experience where none had existed before.  In the recesses of my mind, the expression of the experience becomes a subtle obsession.  It asks for expression.

In the request, I descend with the experience and the associated emotions.  There is always a period of time where I feel confused as to how to respond to this calling.  It is a time when the experience disturbs me.  I also note an internal struggle as to whether or not to give the experience voice.  Self-criticism can often step in the way and suggest to me that I am too small for the task at hand.  This is a time when I might let go of the idea of giving voice to the experience.  I would let it go if it were not for the persistent calling some experiences make to me through my thoughts and dreams.

I am taken deeper through my feelings and encounter the sense of this being "my work" rather than that of the voice of an experience calling from within me asking for it's expression. My ego wants to be the author of the work.  It seems to wrestle with the actual voice of the work.  The ego wants to put its mark on the work and exalt myself as a genius.  The wrestling between the actual voice of the work and my ego can last for lengthy periods of time.  There are some stories and poems I have had to leave and return to over a period of years to hear the actual voice of the work more clearly.

When the ego takes over, I lose sight of the work.  The writing begins to sound stilted.  The ego becomes obsessed with correct expression, grammar, punctuation and approval.  It also becomes obsessed with the necessity of the reader to understand the story with all of its metaphors as the ego wishes them to be understood.  The ego takes away the space for allowing the work to speak for itself.  This is done out of the ego's fear that if the work were to actually speak, it would sound foolish and would not be understood. 

My ego wants to be in control and receive the credit.  In a sense, the ego wants to define the creativity. For if we define creativity, we limit it.  By defining creativity, we place the ego's judgment upon it and thus restrict creativity by defeating its liberating effects.

Being judged is my ego's strongest fear.  It wants to be appreciated and loved by everyone.  There are many times that I stop a creative work because my ego is afraid of being judged.  It wants the work to be completely accepted by all.  It wants to bask in the glory of its brilliance.  It is a time when I have forgotten who is doing the speaking.  I am listening to the ego and not as closely to the work itself, which has its own need for expression.  In the last several years, I have become better at allowing the work to speak more clearly while relaxing my attention on the ego. 

There are also times when in the middle of a creative process, I become very sleepy.  These are times when I am locked in battle with the ego.  It is a time when I consciously turn my attention from the ego and allow myself to dream briefly.  Somewhere in the depths of my subconscious, I am able to hear the voice of the work.  It is heard through the voice of inspiration.  The words for the writing then begin to flow more freely through my mind and onto the creative medium.

This awakening from the dream with a sense of direction and inspiration may be expressed as the "Aesthetic Moment."  By the end of a series of short naps and daydreams, I emerge with a different relationship to the work.  The relationship has changed because the ego has settled and has let go of most of the control.  I do, however, have to remain vigilant of the ego's desire to return to control over the work.  It is a time in the creation process when the work has overcome the narcissism of the ego and is free to speak with its own voice.  The work has finally differentiated from the ego. 

For allowing the differentiation to take place, I am rewarded with the gift of the work.  I must accept the death of the tenacious ego and submit to the creative process of the work without trying to run it.  What was once considered by the ego as worthless drivel spoken by the work has now become meaningful.  When the ego has differentiated enough from the work, the necessary hard work of putting the voice to paper begins.  This is the moment of poesis, the actual creation of the work. 

Through this process, the work now takes on its own life and it is time for me to let it go.  It is at this point, I begin to express the voice of the work through writing.  In a flurry of activity, I begin to write down the ideas as though they are flowing from my head and through my hands automatically without thought.  I then find myself doing major revisions of what I began writing earlier.  It is a process that can take a matter of hours, weeks or years to complete.

During the period of the birth of the work, I am transformed as well.  The work has led me through spaces of my unconscious that I was not aware of.  The experience itself allows me to observe my ego’s struggle for control.  In the process, I view how my ego gets in the way of my creativity.  I become aware of the ways in which I am distracted from the work and gain insight into my resistance to completing it.

During the writing of the work, I am amazed at the depth of emotion it takes me to.  Emotions that have long been held in silence, deep from within, are given voice for the first time.  With my ego's silence, I become aware of their existence with in me.  Through my awareness of their existence, and through their expression, I am transformed.

There was a time when I was resistant about returning to a work out of fear that I was contaminating it with my ego through re-working it.  An internal conflict would take place.  I would question myself as to whether the changes I wanted to make coming from my ego or from the work itself?  I would question myself as to why I was changing the work.  Often, the answer was that there was more information or enhancement that needed to take place before the work was completed.  I often find that when I return to a work it is to enlarge and enhance it.

The anima (Jung's holding and nurturing part of the self), present in my creative process, allows me to hold the work through a period of gestation.  It quiets the goal oriented and driven to control animus (Jung’s driven part of the self) to allow the internal voices of wisdom to speak.  In the process, I gain a greater respect and trust for the ways of the anima.  I gain a greater trust in the moments of silence.  For through the silence and the holding of the work, its voice can be heard and its wisdom understood. 

Upon the completion of a work, I feel a greater connection with and understanding of the world.  It is an understanding of acceptance for the way creation unfolds rather than the drive to conquer and control creative works.  It is a moment of reflection in the process of life. 

During my creative work, I am in transference with the topic. It pulls at my soul and often can bring with it an unwelcome depth of emotional experience that would be far easier for me to ignore than experience. 
            
When I allow myself to step back from the work, I can hear the voice of the work more strongly.  When I re-read the work, I frequently notice nuances and connotations that were never consciously intended; yet they expand the meaning of the work. 

By beginning a work, I am stepping outside of myself and attempting to put on paper the expression of the work.  I am limited by language, intelligence and my own willingness to let go of the work and allowing it to speak.  However, in the creative process there are times I find my ego stepping aside to allow the work to speak.  During those times, the words seem to flow from my hands on to the paper without a thought.  When I allow this to happen, there are many times I am surprised by what has come out. 

By allowing the creative process to flow from me I am able to see depth in a work upon its completion that I was consciously unaware of at the time of the writing.  It allows me to view the internal voice that was calling out to speak.

It is in this "first" reading as a completed work that I am most surprised by what has come out.  This is also a time when the work approaches me again to clarify itself and inspire some changes.  The initial completion of the work allows me to put it aside.  By doing so, I become less invested in the work.  I am also allowed for the first time to understand the completed work as a whole. It now gives the work a presence in my life that seems apart from me.  The initial completion of the work allows me to physically experience its separateness.  It has now been given birth to on paper and is no longer what appeared to be a possession within my head. 

If I can recognize the work as coming from outside of myself, my ego can let go of the work as a possession of its own and learn form it.  The ego can do this if it has let go of the harsh judgment and investment in pride it would have in a work considered its own.  By viewing the work as coming from outside of itself, it does not have the investment and therefore can be open to whatever message the work itself holds.

The experience of my friend's death held a tremendous amount of personal information for me if I were only able to listen to it.  Through the creative process of writing, I was able to access some of those feelings.  The writing also seemed to help ease the pain of loss I was suffering because of his death.  It allowed me to immortalize a thought of him.  This thought was brought into the physical world and given embodiment through the poem.  It is as though if I could not be with him in the physical, I could be with his poem, which has been made physical.

The second poem was initiated by a brief nap I took on a plane back East to visit my family.  My friend had died about 6 months before.  In the dream, my friend was standing on a beach and seemed to motion to me.  I woke up immediately with the original thoughts of the poem in my head.  I hurriedly wrote them down on a piece of scrap paper and when I returned to the comfort of my home in California, I began to work with the poem. 

In the process, many of my own fears of loss and death began to surface.  I began to reflect back on other losses I had experienced in my life.  Their energy went into the poem as well.  I was experiencing transference with the poems.  I would note to myself the different emotional responses I would have each time I would work with them.  At times, they would fill me with sadness, other times I would experience anger and yet at others I would experience a sense of peace. 


THE SILENCE

The wind may not be held in our hands, or stored in a box,
to do so, it would no longer be the wind,
nor may we hold onto or confine the love of another. 
Like the wind, its beauty comes from passing over us
allowing us to feel,
to feel its freedom
and yet, it can never die,
for in its silence, it is always around us 
to stir again at a moment's notice.


THE WITNESS

My friend it is evening.
Come sit beside me
to watch the shadows cast long, reaching toward the ocean's edge.

Stay with me,
in the cooling air
that once fired the burning sands upon which we danced.

Listen with me,
as the sounds of day fade
into the timeless waves that wash upon the shore.

And be still,
as I close my eyes
to linger with the stars;
their soothing light now calls upon my soul.

Dr. James E. Walton, respected Marriage & Family Therapist, TV and