S PRING OLUME Lotus · 2013-12-06 · B Y C RIS T HURMAN 52 ... B Y D AVID G ERSHON & GAIL S TRAUB...

Lotus�

1 8TAKING STEPS TO A NEW LIFE

An Interview with Elizabeth Harper Neeld on experiencing our grief fully.By Mary NurrieStearns

2 5CLARITY, WILL–POWER, CREATIVITY

The gifts of spontaneous meditation.B Y L U C Y O L I V E R

3 1YOUR GOLDEN SHADOW

The great reservoir of possibilities in our hidden self or shadow.B Y W I L L I A M A . M I L L E R

3 7THE MAGIC OF PROFOUND SELF–ACCEPTANCE

Change occurs when you become what you are.B Y R O B E R T A J E A N B R Y A N T

4 2STANDING UP AND SPEAKING OUTThe challenge of expressing personal power.

B Y M A R I L Y N M A S O N

4 7MAKING PEACE

A photographic exhibit of Antelope Canyon in southern Arizona.B Y M A R G A R I T E H O E F L E R

5 0TRUTH COMES PIECE BY PIECE

Truth is reality as it is, not as it seems to be.B Y C R I S T H U R M A N

5 2EXAMINING DEATH MYTHS

Death might be more easily tolerated if we saw it as a form of healing.B Y C H A R L E S M E Y E R

5 8LIVING YOUR VISION

Our own truth must be the guiding force for creating your life.B Y D A V I D G E R S H O N & G A I L S T R A U B

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6 4SOUL MAKING

Reviewing the direction of one’s life.B Y E D W A R D S E L L N E R

6 7CREATIVITY AND AGING

Creativity keeps us fresh; it keeps us alive.B Y R O L L O M A Y

7 0UNDERSTANDING SHAME

Shame is the painful discrepancy between our image and our reality.B Y M I C H A E L N I C H O L S

7 6HAPPINESS HAPPENS

Finding happiness through self awareness.B Y A N T H O N Y D E M E L L O

9 6TRANSFORMING OUR COMPOST

The art of transforming anger, depression, and racial discrimination into love and understanding.T H I C H N H A T H A N H

4LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

6FROM OUR READERS

1 4SUCCESS STORY

8 0REVIEWS

9 5CLASSIFIEDS

LotusJournal For Personal Transformation

�STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: Society is a reflection of its people. As we are transformed, so is our society. We believe

that personal growth and spiritual awakening co-evolve and are intricately related and that such growth is facilitatedby thoughtful reading. Lotus hopes to energize, stimulate, and inform readers on their journeys of self-awakening andinspired living. Lotus is dedicated to providing resources for personal and spiritual development. Our purpose is toprovide our readers with the most thoughtful writings available, current and time honored.

We chose the name Lotus because it is one of the most sacred symbols from antiquity. The seeds of the lotus con-tain, even before they germinate, perfectly formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what one day as mature plants theywill become. This is a powerful reminder of the vast potential within us to manifest our essence, to be the grand menand women we were meant to be.

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L O T U S4 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

From the Editor...

“What brings you here?” In order to transform our lives weneed to ask some questions. We need to know why weare here and what we want to change. We have to lookwithin. To grow we need focus; we need awareness. To

be aware of ideas, feelings, motives, habits, and body sensations.Making changes is easier when we are conscious of our inner world,when we know what we are dealing with.

Responding with honesty to the right questions can bring usawareness. Questions like, “What’s really important here for me?”“Does this decision or action demonstrate my values?” “What do I sayif I tell the truth?” “This is my familiar way; is it still right for me?”“How am I expressing my feelings?” Questioning is a way to connectus with our deeper selves.

To receive the gifts through questioning we have to be willing,willing to face our beliefs and feelings. Although we may be nervousabout self examination, the thought of gaining freedom from limit-ing, pessimistic, and childish beliefs provides us courage to examineour thoughts. The promise of joy sustains us as we release trappedfeelings. Just one experience of peace of mind can empower us to tol-erate the discomfort of inner examination. When we are open to expe-riencing all our thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, we canrelease ourselves from our past. We can live more in the present andtravel on the road to inspired living.

To benefit from the insight that comes through questioning, wehave to notice. Simply and earnestly NOTICE. We notice the conversa-tions in our head. Some voices argue, some whisper, and others are asclear as a bell. We pay attention to our body: to the sensations in ourchest, heart, stomach, head, and back, and throughout our physicalbeing. We observe what we are doing and link our behavior to pat-terns. We identify habits. We make note of our emotional responses.We discover motives and fears. We become conscious of our innerworld. We can cast away outdated decisions and ways of coping thatno longer work. We tap into a wealth of knowledge about our ideals,aspirations, and true nature.

When we are aware, we can live with clarity. Vague aspirations andquestions of identity evaporate. We become intentional. We respondto life with wisdom and plan according to our ethics. We understandand accept ourselves and are therefore more loving.

“What brings you here?”

Welcome to Lotus

Mary NurrieStearnsEditor

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Lotus, The Journal of Inner Peace,

Mindfulness and Compassionate

Living, (ISSN 1056-3954) is

published four times a year

(September, December, March,

June) by Lotus Publishing, Inc.,

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L O T U S6 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

The following are some letters fromour readers. Telling stories of trans-formation empowers and reading theminspires. Thank you for sharing withus.

T O U C H E D M E

D E E P L Y

The articles in my latest Lotushave truly touched me deeply.Every issue I have received, 3 bythis time, reached to me in suchmeaningful ways but this issue,while I am in a time of transition,I felt with emotion. “When weare ready, the teachers will come.”

In “Experiencing Abundance”the first paragraph brought me totears as I realized how much griefI still feel at not having a motherwho could ever love me or careabout my life and the things thatare important to me. We werenever allowed to say “Mother.”We always used the first namesof our parents at their, or perhaps,her request. Her grandchildrencan’t just say “Grandma,” either,it has to be “Grandma Donna.”Maybe she thinks of herself as the“Grand Madonna.”

I know some of her past, guessat the rest and why she is the wayshe is but I have never quite gotpast the expectation, whenever Icall her, of believing that she willstill want to hear about what ishappening to me and my life andthat she will love me. Your arti-cles are helping me to face the

reality that I am the only one whocan give my “child” the love shenever had and that it is okay togrieve for the beautiful child thatsimply wanted to be loved forherself and not mother’s expecta-tions.

The article on TV truly openedmy eyes to what a terrible detri-ment the medium is. I have livedwith an addict for 43 years andam often disturbed by the “zom-bie” look. I’ve mentally used theterm often, seeing a grown manslouched in mesmerization hourafter hour. I do watch some of itbut give thanks that I have somany creative endeavors and thespiritual path to take me awayfrom it on a regular basis.

I thank God for the beautifulMagical Mandalas I create and formy music and poetry and forLotus. Every piece from my brainand from your magazine is aninspiration that keeps me ontrack.—Betty Jo Olson, Twin Falls,Idaho.

I N M Y L A S T

R E L A T I O N S H I P

Some lessons are so hard! I’m areasonably healthy person. I’mcurious, fun-loving, and havefriends and family who love me. Iread self-help stuff , so I know thedangers of centering my lifearound a man. I did it again inmy last relationship, however. He

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was entertaining and charming.Against my better judgment Ibecame increasingly involvedwith him. You know the story. Ijustified his drinking, immaturi-ty, and financial irresponsibility.At times the relationship waswonderful. But I had to ignoremy voice telling me this was hurt-ing. I had to ignore my fear whenhe wouldn’t listen to me or followthrough with his commitments. Ihad made a lot of personal growththe past few years and I was slip-ping back. Finally, I came to mysenses and stayed away from himafter one of our frequent flare-ups.

Let’s hope I learned my lessonthis time. I saw my therapist afew times to get me back ontrack. I’m focusing on my lifeagain and rediscovering me. Ilearned a lot from this past rela-tionship. Brenda Schaeffer’s articleLoving Me, Loving You came at theright time. I’ve read about addic-tive relationships before. Thistime more sank in! I’ve also beenjournaling and know that I amwriting you to reinforce my recentdecisions. Thanks so much.—Kelly S.,Boulder, Colorado.

T V Z O M B I E

This is my husband’s story. Hewas a workaholic. Through histwenties and thirties, he workedsixty to eighty hours a week andthought about money all thetime. In his early forties, he real-ized there is more to life thanwork and cut back. I was hopefulthat we might get reacquaintedbut the TV got in the way. Thelast few years he has been hookedon TV. A true TV zombie. I

showed him your article on TVand even read him parts of it. It isshocking to see how powerful,toxic, and addictive TV really is.He’s agreed to turn off the tubefor awhile in the evening to walkwith me. Wish us luck. I amangry at TV and welcome an arti-cle to use as ammunition.—BettySmith, Atlanta, Georgia.

T I M E T O

E X A M I N E

Thank you One and All forproducing such a wonderful mag-azine. I’ve just got my first twoissues. I am really enjoying them.I am so proud that so many peo-ple out there are taking time toexamine the really importantthings in our lives. Our PersonalTransformations will make a dif-ference to the people around usand therefore it is very importantthat we take that step.

Also Dear Editor: Could youtell me of someone who would beable to teach me meditation (orquieting the mind) through corre-spondence. Once again, my loveto all of you and thanks for shar-ing that light.—Kannan M.,Singapore

Editors Note: Meditation isimportant for self growth. We are notfamiliar with meditation correspon-dence courses. We recommend that youmake yourself familiar with severalmethods of meditation through booksbefore you seek out a teacher.

E N C O U R A G I N G

I D E A S

I am so pleased with this finepublication. Every issue, I readthoroughly and thoughtfully…

Letters

L O T U S

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then go back to study again ideasthat are helpful. Recently, Imarked some of the passages thatseemed to speak to me and help inhard times.

It is very encouraging to readhow your authors struggle withdifficult times and change them-selves—this helps us as we try todo the same. Also, the letters fromreaders are encouraging.

Anne Schaef’s recent ideas onpeople’s ability to do their ownwork, that feelings need to be nat-ural reminded me of a confusingtime with a counselor. He wantedme to take a ball bat and hit atable. I wouldn’t do it because Ididn’t have angry feelings towardthe table. This was a point of dis-agreement between us because hebelieved that hitting this table

was necessary for me to grow andmy refusal to do it showed mystubbornness. Anne Schaef’s beliefthat it must be natural is welcome.Also, the idea that the process canlead us through a different doorfrom the one which we entered…helps to explore different ways.

Thank you very much for theencouraging ideas and beautifulpublication. I hope everyone willrenew their subscriptions to sup-port our mutual learning togeth-er.—B.P., Mount Airy, Maryland.

R E S O U R C E S

I want to thank you for intro-ducing “Lotus Resources forGrowth” into your magazine.After reading certain articles, someof us yearn to know more aboutsubjects. Your mail-order book-store now gives us an easy oppor-tunity.

An interesting thought came tome, spurred on by a book I orderedfrom your list —Meeting theShadow: The Hidden Power of theDark Side of Human Nature.

I was working my way throughthis book of excerpts and hadarrived at a section on illness andhealth when I was struck with theflu. Unable to read — or do any-thing much except muse and moan— my mind drifted to recent read-ings. The phrase “disowned body”kept coming up in my reverie.Suddenly I was struck with thenotion that people actually enjoyinfirmities.

I don’t mean serious or terminalillnesses, but I think we may wellnurture our aches and pains, gen-eral malaises and lifelong weak-nesses, “ititises” and “ectomies”(“…let me tell you about my oper-

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L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 13

ation”). Why, however, wouldanyone want to be sick? From myown sick-bed, I took an inventoryand this is what I found.

First — illness offers us anopportunity to experience ourbodies. That usually forgotten areabetween head and extremitiescomes alive with pain. Thebronchial tubes wheeze, the stom-ach hurts, the bowel feels funny,the back aches. We become fullyaware of the body’s usually incog-nito “powerhouse.”

Second — illness provides aperfectly acceptable excuse forsomething we don’t want to do. “Ican’t go to school today; I can’tmake that meeting; I can’t startpainting the house yet; I can’thave dinner with my future in-laws.” In my case, I couldn’t even

get out of bed, much less go to afuneral I should have attended.

Third — illness gives life struc-ture and the individual an identi-ty. “I’m allergic to cats…cigarettes…aspirin; You know Ican’t eat shellfish; Remember I’mthe one with the back trouble;Ever since my foot operation…”

Fourth — illness can be a pleafor kindness. Someone with aninfirmity needs to be treatedpolitely and with consideration,certainly not bullied.

I am sure this last point couldbe explored in its many ramifica-tions. Perhaps that will be mynext project. Thanks for the bookand tape list and thanks for themagazine. I wish it were a month-ly.—Bonita Treadwell, Ann Arbor,Michigan.•

Letters

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My success is becomingpeaceful. This hasresulted from making

choices, doing diligent work, andhaving a supportive husband andfriends. Though I am not alwaysat peace, I know how to find itmore quickly and easily than I didseveral years ago. Even in myyouth, I recognized peaceful peo-ple and idolized them. I knew thatI really wanted to change. To doso, I had to go through a longdrawn-out process of dealing withmy anger. I had to find out wherethe anger was coming from. Itrelated to my dad and alcoholismand things that happened growingup. I didn’t really have peaceuntil I confronted my dad withthese issues.

Anger was causing me painand hurting my marriage.Sometimes my attitude towardsmy husband fostered mistrust andanger, not love. I never knewwhere anger came from. I wouldsuddenly be full of vengeance andresentment towards Jerry. Afterwe talked, I would realize that hehad done nothing wrong. Neither

had I really, but thesefeelings kept wellingup.

It was my turn tohave the familyChristmas. All of therelatives were going toconverge on my house.I didn’t want to be ahateful person. Whatwas going to happenwas a big concern. Istarted talking withmy husband and priestabout my anxiety overhaving Christmas.That fall Jerry and Ihad a big fight. I wentto a friend’s house totalk. She kept askingme how I felt aboutmy dad. I had myhands clenched. Istarted getting mad ather but she insisted, “Iwant to know how youreally feel about yourdad.” And I said,“Why do you keepasking me? I alreadytold you I love him.”

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Becoming MorePeaceful

Connie Greany, Missouri.

Success Story�

C O N N I E G R E A N Y

My hands were white fromclenching them. She said “Idon’t believe you.” I startedbawling and finally talkingabout what had happened. LaterI talked to Jerry. I had neverwanted him to know what hadhappened when I was growingup. I thought if I kept it asecret he would think I was anice person. I was afraid hewouldn’t love me if he knew. Irealized that many of the argu-ments I had with Jerry relatedback to parents. Looking back, Irealize that anger manifesteditself in alcoholism, abuse, andaddictions in my family. Eventhen, I knew that Jerry and Ideserved better.

My priest told me that if Ineeded strength to confront theissues, I could get spiritual helpthrough prayer. He also taughtme how to forgive. With thatsupport, I confronted my fatherthrough role playing and con-fronted my feelings by writing. Ifelt like I needed actually toconfront my dad which I didbefore Christmas.

I talked to my brothers andsisters next. After planning thewhole thing, I invited Dad tomy house. I approached the sit-uation by saying, “ I would liketo improve my relationship withJerry and the only way I can doit is to confront some of thethings that are bothering me.” Itold my dad the things I hatedhim for. I told him I forgavehim and asked him to forgiveme for my hate. He didn’trespond. I said, “Well, I want tocome over and touch youbecause that’s how Jerry and Ilet each other know everything’sokay.” I put my hand on hisshoulder and he stood up andheld me for what seemed like avery long time. That was thefirst time I truly felt like my dad

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loved me. I think that was thefirst time my dad ever felt for-given.

I released myself from resent-ment by using imagination,visualization, and role playing. Itried to look at other points ofview and to understand my dad.I learned to express my expecta-tions to others and in a couple ofcases to limit them. I becamemore creative because when Iwas upset, I would stitch, draw,or do pottery. Prayer helped meto focus my thoughts and to feelsomething else out there givingme strength.

One of the best things mypriest told me was that if you’vegot something going on insideand you’re unwilling to forgivesomeone, it poisons you. It takesaway your emotional, physical,and spiritual strength. The onlyway you can move beyond is tolet it go. You have to figure outhow you can let it go. For merelease was in expression.Sometimes I couldn’t myselftalk. I could only express it bycrying or drawing.

I stayed with this processbecause I wanted to have a goodrelationship with Jerry . I knewthat I had to make new choicesto control my feelings.Previously, I put things in theback of my mind where theymight get out of control like avolcano. When you compresssomething volatile, it comes upwhen you least expect it. I didn’twant that to happen. Jerry wasmy friend and I loved him. Ididn’t want to hurt him in anyway, so I decided to open upwith him.

I have changed. Now I knowhow to forgive people when theyhurt me. I know how to forgivemyself. I know how to deal withfeelings. I am more peaceful.•

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L O T U S18 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

An Interview with Elizabeth Harper NeeldInterviewed by Mary NurrieStearns, Editor of Lotus

Taking Steps toa New Life

The moment when we receive the news of the death or

divorce and our normal everyday lives are shattered,

we must choose to experience and express our

grief fully.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 19

Elizabeth Harper Neeld is a former pro-fessor at Texas A&M University; herwork includes sixteen books. She writes,lectures, and conducts workshops and semi-nars on loss, grief, and change. Her book“Seven Choices” marked the culmination ofa comprehensive ten year study on changeshe launched in 1980. It provided thebasis for the upcoming Public Televisiondocumentary on the Challenge of Grief.

�L O T U S : Define the mourn-

ing process that you talk about inyour book Seven Choices.

E L I Z A B E T H : I did not knowwhen tragedy struck my life thatbuilt into us humans is opportuni-ty to live a process that islaunched by loss. I did not knowabout healthy forms of grieving. Iespecially did not know that I hadany participation in this process.Grief was something that had hap-pened to me. I was the victim. Ifelt helpless and hopeless. I ques-tioned my spiritual principles;this was healthy but felt like totaldevastation on top of tragedy.

This process is in everyone.Recovery is available for us all.We teach each other. After myyoung husband dropped dead jog-ging, I noticed that some peoplewho had tragedy or enormouschange happen to them gave upon life and some people were veryvibrant and alive. I talked to peo-ple to find out what they did tobecome vibrant after their loss. Ilearned there is a process that fol-lows a major change or a loss inour lives. It involves a transitionperiod, a limen, that time in-betwixt and in between, when it’snot the way it used to be and notyet the way it is going to be.Limen has the same origin asthreshold, like the threshold of adoor. I learned that making life-affirming choices would result inmy reaching equilibrium. Thisprocess is transformational andliberating and begins in deep sor-row most of the time.

You said this liberating pro-cess is available to us all.

This possibility of making life-affirming choices as we movethrough the mourning process isavailable to every human being in

every culture.If we live long enough we

can’t escape mourning.You’re absolutely right.You say research suggests one

out of three people don’t experi-ence positive resolution.

Is that not a tragedy to ourworld that we do not recognizethat there is a process to be movedthrough, not to be the victim of,

but to move through?Grief is so universal and is

certainly not a new phenomenon.Why do you think that so manypeople don’t successfully trans-form?

It’s a complicated issue ofcourse, but one force in our cul-ture is denial about death or loss.Many people say, “Oh yes, she’sjust doing great.” The best thingthat can really be said is, “Oh yes,she’s falling apart.” “Oh yes, he’s abasket case.” Our culture won’ttolerate that. Finding equilibriumis not the same as getting over

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something. This experiencebecomes part of who weare, just like a stone in amosaic. Our culture hassaid, “Don’t talk about thisand don’t be honest aboutthis.”

“Don’t even feel it.”The unacceptability of

our feelings contributes topoor grief resolution. Thehospice movement is mak-ing a huge contributionbecause hospice is saying itis honorable to discussdeath. It is respectable toadmit someone is dying.When people don’t knowhow to feel their feelingsand don’t have societal per-mission to be authentic totheir experience, manychoose to stay stuck intheir change process. Dr.Beverly Raphael inAustralia said that shefeared one out of everythree people who has atraumatic change in his orher life does not reachpeaceful or centered resolu-tion.

And we’re in a societyof such rapid change.

We have to learn thisprocess. We have tobecause we are going tohave more change.

When people don’tresolve traumatic changewhat happens?

There are several out-comes. For the rest of ourdays we live the changerather than living life. Welive what has happened andour reactions rather thanliving our authentic life.We don’t live life’s mys-tery. We live reaction tothe events that happened.It’s so sad. Some of the spe-cific outcomes are livingillness perpetually; becom-

ing bitter, losing our dreams; notfeeling connected spiritually; feel-ing helpless, lost, and empty; feel-ing like a victim; and experienc-ing life with no meaning.

Without awareness that thereis another way out…

There is another way out.Viktor Frankl who had been in aNazi concentration camp said, “Itisn’t what happens to us; it’s howwe choose to react to what hap-pens to us.” We are not helpless.It is not hopeless. There is nothingwe can do about the events but wecan choose to live this transforma-tive liberation process and belaunched by those events.

I had a friend who said,“Embrace the struggle. Just keepembracing it. You’ll comethrough it.”

I discovered in talking withpeople that there are specificchoices that move us along thecontinuum and toward equilibri-um again.

Where are we likely to getstuck?

The first place I got stuck iswhat I call the first choice, whichis to tell the truth about our feel-ings and to feel them. A lot of usget stuck there because our feel-ings are terrible, painful, dark, ordisruptive. We find it hard to tellthe truth abut our feelings and tofeel them. I made that choicenumber one because if we are notable to face our feelings we are notable to live the process. Thatchoice isn’t optional; you have todo it. People are in touch withtheir feelings in different ways.For instance, when my young hus-band dropped dead, my father was72. He was an old codger in thehills of Tennessee and a taciturnperson. He was in touch with hisfeelings when fishing. He told methat while fishing he could talk toGreg and tell the fish what wastrue for him. Being in touch withour feelings and feeling them does

Family members, friends, co-workersand neighbors all want to help whensomeone they know becomes grief-stricken by the loss of a loved one. Toooften, words and actions fail them —most of us just don’t know what is help-ful until we have lost someone in ourown lives. Here are several suggestionsthat will help:

• Remember the three simple wordspeople most appreciate hearing are, “Iam sorry.”

• Indicate a willingness and an opennessto discuss the loss if the individual wish-es to have a conversation.

• Acknowledge your own grief in thepresence of the individual if you are alsoaffected by the loss.

• Suggest ways the individual can phys-ically take care of him or herself, for lossoften dangerously affects the immunesystem, sleeping and eating cycles, theheart, and many other vital organs andfunctions of the body.

• Be aware that the experience of lossoften affects a person’s ability to concen-trate, to see things from more than oneperspective, to reason.

• Offer specific help, “I’ll be overSaturday to mow the lawn” or “May Itake the children while you visit yourattorney.”

• Recognize that the time of rebuilding,forging a new identity, and workingthrough new conflicts related to lifeafter the loss are as legitimate a part ofgrieving as the acute initial reactions tothe loss.

• Provide support by continuing to beavailable throughout the entire griefprocess — until the individual hasregained equilibrium and is no longerdominated by the grief.

From “Seven Choices.” Copyright 1990 by Neeld& Neeld, Inc.

When Someone You KnowHas Suffered a Loss

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 21

not look the same for everybody.So a person doesn’t have to

talk and cry a lot.Some people never do, and they

can still be in touch with theirfeelings, feel them, and be authen-tic.

Where else are we likely to getstuck?

By identifying with the eventsthat happened. Let me tell youwhat I mean with an example. Afew months after Greg droppeddead I was having dinner with afriend who brought another guest.This guest cried all through din-ner. She boo-hoo’d when thedesert menu was brought. I knewher husband had died. When weleft the restaurant I said to thewoman, “I’m really sorry yourhusband died. How long has hebeen dead?” She said, “Eighteenyears.” At that moment I madewhat I call the choice to make aturn. I chose to make a turn inter-nally. I said to myself, “Elizabeth,no matter what it takes, eighteenyears from now you are not gongto be walking across a room carry-ing this cardboard widow cut-outin front of your face.” That womanhad been seduced into identifyingwith what had happened to her.She had become a widow.

So that was her identity?That had become her identity.

It is very seductive to become ourstories. It is a real paradox. Inmany ways we are saved by tellingour stories. There is a point whereto continue to tell our stories costsus our lives. We become identifiedwith the story. We have to make achoice. We say, “My externalworld is different; it is no longerconsistent with my internal world.I will now do the work, whateverit takes, to make those two partsof myself and my life consistent.Internally, I must somehow alignwith the truth of the externalworld, the change, and move withit.” It’s what you said, aboutembracing. Move with it and

make a turn. I will illustrate one more

place we get stuck. I call it thechoice of working through. It isthe willingness to workthrough the new problems thatcome because we are takingaction towards a new life. A lotof folks think that when theystart living life consistent withwhat has happened, everythingwill be okay. For example, Iwas going to do some smallremodeling to my house tobring in more light. To add askylight I had to move thewalls of my late husband’soffice. I had to sell the officefurnishings and let the wall betorn down. I had a whole newset of problems. I felt much ofthe pain and sadness that I hadfelt shortly after he died, twoyears earlier. The easy thing todo was cancel the project. Thehard thing to do was choose towork through. Problems cameas a result of my new actions.

I see people who do notidentify with their events. Theyexpress their feelings authenticto who they are. But when thenew problems come, because ofthe need to take new action,they stop. They stay stuck.Those are three examples ofthree places that are a dangerpoint in the process.

Please discuss the sevenchoices.

The first one we’ve talkedabout. The choice to tell thetruth about our feelings and tofeel them. The second choice isto endure through darkness andblackness, through depression,hopelessness, and helplessness.In Old English to suffer meansto allow yourself to be subject-ed to something that may bepainful. When we are indepression or darkness the posi-tive choice is to allow yourselfto suffer that place, to allowand endure it. That is a very

Impact: The moment when wereceive the news of the death ordivorce and our normal everydaylives are shattered. We must chooseto experience and express our grieffully.

Second Crisis: The bleak periodsof hopelessness and loneliness whenwe realize how devastatingly emptyour lives have become in theabsence of the loved one. We mustchoose to suffer (allow to happen)and endure.

Observation: A relatively quiettime of self-reflection when we stopdwelling on the event and begin tofocus on how we are reacting to it.We must choose to look honestly atour situation and ourselves.

The Turn: The point at which webegin to think realistically aboutthe future and realize that we mustmake long-term adjustments to ourloss. We must choose to make anassertion, to proclaim either inwords or in actions that we will goforward.

Reconstruction: The periodwhen we begin to set goals and wedream about the future. We bravelystart to build a new life withoutbeing certain of its outcome. Wemust choose to take action.

Working Through: The difficulttime when problems and challengesrelated to our new life begin to con-flict with those from our past. Wemust choose to acknowledge andaddress these conflicts.

Integration: The gradual returnto a state of balance. We recognizeour grief but we are no longer para-lyzed by it. We must choose to con-tinue to make choices.

From “Seven Choices.” Copyright 1990 byNeeld & Neeld, Inc.

The Grieving Process:Phases and Choices

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life-affirming choice. The third choice is to look hon-

estly. This is where we observe ourown behavior. It is almost as if weare two people. We are the personthe events happened to and we arethe person observing us. This isvery high state, this choice to lookhonestly. It allows us to siftthrough the past. This almostalways involves solitude. This is asolitude of communing with our-selves. We ask questions. “Howam I choosing to respond to this?Do I want to keep on doing this?Do I want life to feel like this for-ever? What do I want? What do Isee here?” We find solitude inmeditation, in prayer, and inwalks in the woods. We findanswers by the sea shore, whileriding, dancing, or going to anaquarium. Looking honestly issuch an important choice.

The fourth choice is to make aturn, an internal decision to liveconsistent with what has hap-pened. We decide not to be iden-tified with the event, not to takeit as an identity. The fifth choiceis at appropriate time to take theappropriate action. For some thatmeans get a job. For some it is tobe vulnerable to a new relation-ship, to relocate, to clear out acloset. to give away an item, or tohave a conversation with some-body. We choose to take appropri-ate action at the right time. It’s adynamic process. You don’t justmake one turn, you may make amillion turns. You don’t choose tolook honestly one time; youchoose to look honestly for the restof your life. The sixth choice is thechoice to work through the newproblems that come from takingnew action. We choose to do thatwork. The seventh choice comeswhen these changes are integratedinto our lives. We have becomedifferent. The choice now is to bewilling to continue to make choic-es.

Live and make the choices all

over again…It is very dynamic. You learn

the process; you learn the choices;then you make them in any orderthey show up in your life.

And does that become a livingprocess?

It becomes your life. It becomespart of the very foundation abouthow you live your life. Then youare not afraid of change . To lots offolks any kind of change feelstraumatic and devastating. Onceyou know that there is a processthat you can move through towardequilibrium and spiritual peace,you are not afraid of change.

In the earlier choices we dealwith the reality of loss and theaccompanying pain, then identi-fication with the past. We turnto look at the future and finallylive in the present.

When you’re at integration youare living in the present. You haveintegrated the experiences of thepast and they are part of who youare now. You know peace and cen-tered-ness. You probably have agreater sense of humor. Lifebecomes deep and spiritual.

In our culture we use a lot ofdrugs during grief, especiallymedication for depression.

It is very unfortunate that peo-ple are sedated to avoid their grief.There is a tendency in the medicalprofession to manage grief by giv-ing sedatives. It does not allow aperson to engage authentically ingrief. Glen Davidson, inUnderstanding Mourning, citesstatistics showing 87% of physi-cians in Illinois, prescribe barbitu-rates or tranquilizers as “standardcare.”

Oh my goodness. That isappalling!

That is the attitude in this cul-ture. Give anti-depressants forgrief, for something that is normaland healthy and life giving.People should take medicine thatis life-giving for them. But a blan-ket attitude to respond to griefwith medicine is very sad. Wecan’t escape grief. If we don’t dealwith it through an active process,it will show up in another form. Itwill show up as illness. It willshow up as accidents. It will showup as death. It will appear asmeaninglessness and hopelessness.

The temporary comfort ofdrugs can have some real longterm ill effects.

That temporary comfort canend up costing people their lives,metaphorically and literally.

Let’s talk about family andfriends. How can we helpmourners? And how can othershelp us mourn?

Refrain from giving grievingpeople the benefit of your infinitewisdom. Refrain from repeatingclichés like “every cloud has a sil-ver lining,” “there’s a purpose to

People shouldtake medicinethat is life-

giving for them.But a blanket

attitude torespond to griefwith medicine isvery sad. Wecan’t escape

grief.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 23

all things,” and “everything turnsout right.” Those statements areirrelevant when people are in thefirst phases of grieving. We needto be with people, not tell themthings. We need to be with themin a way that they know that weare comfortable with, however it isthey grieve. That’s the greatestgift.

We honor the process ratherthan trying to alter it.

We intercede if a person isstuck in identifying with theevents that have happened. Wemay do what I call ruthless com-passion and tell them there areother choices that they can make.The most important help thoughis to be willing to be with them intheir process.

You wouldn’t prompt peoplealong in those early months?

You would not make judgmentor say, “You’ve already cried overthat or already looked at those pic-tures.” This is a very recursive pro-cess. We make these choices againand again. The greatest support isto be present to that person’s pro-cess.

By supporting another we alsolearn about the grief process.

When we are able to be presentto others’ process they are givingus a gift for our own process.

When we are grieving, whatwe can ask from our family andfriends?

We ask for what we need. Weask for companionship. We ask forphysical assistance. We ask formoral support. We tell our owntruths. We don’t let ourselves beshaped or our process structuredby how others think we ought tobe doing it. We affirm our processand we do it consistent with whowe are.

We’re in a culture that sayswe should grieve for a week ortwo and be on with it. Our pro-cess is undervalued. We have tosay, “This is my truth, my ongo-

ing grief.”It’s very difficult. It’s very

important to surround ourselveswith people during this processwho have made life-affirmingchoices in their lives.

How do we find those people?Here’s the good news. Research

shows that it only takes one. Thewhole culture doesn’t have tochange for us to be able to do this.You look for this person. You lookfor him or her in a support groupor in therapy. I really believe ingetting professional support asyou move through this process.One of the greatest gifts we giveourselves is professional supportwhether it’s a spiritual teacher, ora therapist, or a grief counselor.Make a commitment to find thisperson. Sometimes you have atleast temporarily to get rid ofsome old friends. There are peoplewho are the happiest when thingsare going bad.

…Who have an identity withsuffering?

They’ve made it a life style. Wehave to get away from people whoare nay-sayers and surround our-selves with people who are yea-sayers, who affirm good and bad,pain and ecstasy.

How long do we grieve?There are two kinds of time to

think about. There is Chronostime, measured by the calendar.There is Kairos time, measured byour insights, by our own innermovements, by our own innertruths. People make these life-affirming choices at differentpaces, over different amounts oftime. Each has his-or-her ownKairos time. Chronologically thisprocess is longer rather than short-er. Three hundred and some peo-ple were studied at the medicalschool in San Diego University.The average length of time toreach equilibrium following amajor change was four years. Itdoesn’t depress me to think it’s

• Do not try to comfort withclichés: “You’ll bounceback… He wouldn’t wantyou to cry… This will makeyou a stronger person… Youcan handle this… There is areason this happened.”

• Do not avoid mentioningthe loss and do not shy awayfrom the individual’s expres-sions of pain, anger, or grief.

• Do not think the need foryour support is over when theinitial impact of the loss isover.

• Do not expect everyone toexperience grief in the sameway, at the same pace, orwith the same intensity.

• Do not treat the individualas incapacitated, too weak ordamaged to make choices andto take actions that allowmovement through the griefprocess.

• Do not attempt to do thejob of a minister, rabbi, orpriest or the work of a profes-sional counselor or therapist.

• Do not try to rush the indi-vidual through the grievingprocess for your own comfortor ease of mind.

• Do not expect the passageof time to heal all wounds,but recognize that the inte-gration of a traumatic loss isdetermined over time by theindividual’s choice.

From “Seven Choices.” Copyright1990 by Neeld & Neeld, Inc.

Suggestions on WhatNot to Do:

L O T U S24 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

going to take four years or threeyears or two months. It doesn’tdepress me because it’s not likeyou live in a cave during thistime.

It’s not all miserable.This is life. When we are at

equilibrium we are living this pro-cess as a way of life. We havechanges every day. Tragedies hap-pen. All of us know loss at somepoint. We are living this processand it’s not all painful. It isdynamic, like a river flowingthrough all different types of ter-rains. Sometimes it flows throughthe rocks and sometimes it flowsthrough meadows. To try to mea-sure grief in chronological time isnot useful.

We are in an instantaneousculture that grants us a fewweeks to grieve. Research thatreports four years recovery time ispermission giving.

I agree.It is reassuring to know that

one is not abnormal. It is a great relief for people to

find out that they are not crazy orremedial. I thought I was a reme-dial griever because I miscon-strued the wonderful work byElizabeth Kubler-Ross. The griefprocess she identified was for peo-ple who were dying, not for sur-vivors. I tried to apply her ideas tomy own life. I thought I was aremedial griever because I couldnever get to acceptance.Acceptance is not where you wantto go. For most people acceptanceequals resignation. Where youwant to go is embracing the pro-cess, living the life-affirmingchoices, making the new moveswhen they are appropriate, work-ing through the new problems,and suffering and enduring whenthat happens. Our process movesback and forth in a very fluidriver. I thought I was deficientbecause I could not hop throughthose stages to acceptance and be

done with it. Any process for deal-ing with changes for survivors hasto include living life again.

Which gives us hope.Hope lies in the recognition of

this life-giving, life-affirming,transformational process. Somemedical researchers assert it isbuilt into our genes. Dr. GeorgePolluck from NorthwesternMedical School believes that thisprocess of going from dis-equilib-rium to equilibrium is built intothe human cell system. The pro-cess is our hope. We have a choicemaking mechanism in our brains.We have this gift of being able tomake choices. There’s wonderfulhope here.

Hope is also in our knowledgethat after we have chosen to livethis process we don’t numb our-

selves. We live fully. We become enlarged. We

become more who we are throughthis process. We have more com-passion for ourselves and theworld. We have more confidence.It is ironic that we end up withmore self-esteem and more confi-dence. We suffered and enduredbut we know that the processleads to equilibrium. No matterhow terrible it is at any point it isnot an end point. That is Hope. Itmakes me happy.

Please discuss how this processleads us to a deeper connectionwith our spiritual self.

After we choose to look honest-ly we began to be in touch withthe spiritual part of ourselves, ourspiritual core. Looking honestlyinvolves solitude and communingwith oneself. It involves observingourselves. In quietness we start tohear the inner voice. In stillnesswe hear with much more hearing.We hear the inner voice of wis-dom, God’s voice. When we lookhonestly we are making the oppor-tunity to be in touch with everpresent wisdom. We quiet downand are more available to connectwith a deep river of wisdom. Aswe take new action and workthrough the problems, we inte-grate the choice of looking honest-ly. We learned through trial anderror to wait with patience.Wisdom will come as we reachequilibrium. Having these experi-ences is part of the flow of ourlives.

What about transcendingexperiences of feeling connectedto something beyond self?

That happens in a very naturalway. It’s a moment of total tran-scendence, of other-ness, thatsweeps over us. It’s like an oceanicwave. It gives us mystery and holi-ness and it forever changes us. Oneof those moments alters us for alifetime. You don’t seek those

The fear isgone… Once

you haveengaged in the

process andmade the life-

affirmingchoices you

know that youdon’t have to beundone by these

things.


L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 25

L U C Y O L I V E R

Clarity, Will–Power,Creativity:

The Gifts of Spontaneous Meditation

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Lucy Oliver was born in Australia. She movedto England in 1972. She is trained in theSaros tradition of meditation, which she hastaught for more than twelve years.

�

Meditation arises natu-rally when the con-ditions are right, andpeople often seek out

the conditions without realizingwhat it is that draws them to theexperience. For example, one ofthe characteristics of such situa-tions is repetition. You can imag-ine our earliest ancestors sittingaround a fire and watching itsflames licking upwards and flick-ering, holding their translucentoutlines but continually changing,swaying and leaping off at a pointinto the darkness. When vision isheld by watching the fire, wordstend to die away into an innerreverie and, for moments, evenwandering thoughts sink intosilence and there are only theflames. When this happens, medi-tation enters.

The same can occur to a watch-er on the bank of a river, whoseattention rests lightly on theswirls and eddies of the current,on the perpetual fans of waterround rocks in the stream, on theslow procession of leaves floatinginto and out of vision.

The combination of the sightand the steady sound of rushingwater may produce a similar effectby a waterfall or if your attentionis caught by a repeated sound suchas the cooing of a dove in themorning, a soft little sound alwaysthe same, yet always subtly differ-ent. There are forms of music,notably Eastern modes orGregorian chant, which lendthemselves to inducing medita-tion–music without distinctmelodic lines that carries on andon without seeming to arrive any-where in particular, but in which

the notes and patterns are alwaysfresh to an ear which hears themwith a relaxed, alert attention. Theexperience differs from beinglulled into a light stupor or doze;and no emotion, as it is commonlyconsidered, is present. Musicwhich raises a strong emotionalresponse can produce a temporarystate of heightened energy and

feeling, but this is not meditation. Some types of rhythmical

movement are linked to naturalmeditation. Swinging or rock-ing–whether in a rocking chair orin the rhythmic sway of Jewishprayer–is an instinctive actionconducive to it. Walking is anoth-er, and many a dedicated walker orrambler knows the state which canarise after hours of solitary walk-ing when the internal monologueis finally exhausted and the steadyplodding of the feet takes place in

an internal silence. The senses areactually very acute and the cry of abird overhead strikes into thesilence as if laden with signifi-cance. There is a sense of every-thing being full of meaning,poised, and about to be grasped.Then you think about it, andinstantly the familiar self reasserts,your usual thought processesreturn, and suddenly you are hun-gry, or in fact rather tired andlooking forward to reaching yourdestination.

But that brief space when itseemed “you” were not there, andonly the world was, has fed some-thing, rejuvenated a nameless partin a way which makes the dayworthwhile and slightly wonder-ful. “You” were present doing thewatching but as an objectiveobserver, part of, yet apart fromthat observed. All the trappings ofyour personality and personalview, which normally interposebetween that which sees and thatwhich is seen, had somehowdropped away. Suddenly a moreessential You, different from yourpersonality, was seeing; andessence beheld essence.

T H E M E C H A N I S M

There are certain conditionswhich facilitate such instances ofspontaneous meditation. The bodytends to be out of its normal pat-terns, either very relaxed or wea-ried. This affects the rhythm ofthe breath, which in turn calmsthe feelings and establishes anemotionally tranquil and receptivestate. In addition, there is usuallysome form of repetitive stimuluswhich acts as a device for side-stepping the continuous mentalbabble of associative trains ofthought and feeling which occupyany unconcentrated mind.

This internal babbling consti-tutes an obstacle which is very dif-ficult to bypass. Anyone who triesto make his or her mind go blank

You do not have topush the body to itslimits or dance with

death to bringabout a state of

clarity, power, andexpanded

perception. There isa much more

economical way…

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 27

quickly discovers that it is almostimpossible to put a stop to theinternal chatter. It has a life andenergy of its own; and the moreyou try to quash it directly, themore active it becomes, as if youare fuelling it in the attempt. Tryit and see! A more indirect andskillful approach is required,which amounts to wearing it out.The perpetual self-generatingmental activity dies away if it isdeprived of the energy whichkeeps it running. Energy followsattention. When conscious atten-tion is hooked by a gentle repeti-tive stimulus and held steady,energy is directed to this place andthe associative engine runs out ofsteam. Silence ensues in what weordinarily know as the mind. It islike opening oneself to a differentdimension of experience.

The silence, or space, combinedwith steadiness of attention,allows a particular sort of aware-ness, not normally present when

the familiar busy mind holdssway. It is a simple focusing,which is alert and open. The worldlooks different. Everything insideand out is subject to a completelydifferent type of perception.

This is in no way comparable tolosing one’s grip on reality.Clarity and the Ability to focus areenhanced. Neither is it the same asconcentration, which focuses downto a particular object, and there-fore narrows awareness. The medi-tative awareness is wide, poisedand potent. Its focus does not needto have a particular object, butrather resembles a shaping in the“substance” of the mind itself, ashape containing silence and per-fect receptivity. When the organthrough which we perceive theuniverse is in this “shape,” theuniverse is not the one we habitu-ally inhabit, and which we acceptas “reality.” Reality tends to be aname for what we have labeled. Itchanges as we alter the criteria by

which we demarcate and classifyexperience.

Experiences of spontaneousmeditation occur almostcertainly to everyone, atsome stage of life, though

not all as full-blown as those col-lected in books which describemystical experiences. It may bejust a moment, quickly forgotten,when the world looks different, oran extraordinary peace descends,or everything seems to stop, oracquires an unusual clarity, orseems transparent and suddenlymeaningful. It may be as momen-tary as the pause between the out-breath and the in-breath. For somepeople these moments bring aboutchanges in their lives, even if theynever try to recapture them, andwould not know where to begin.Some may identify them with thereligion they practice and receive aboost in their faith. For others,they are quickly buried as toostrange and momentary to be

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believed, too unfamiliar, toounnerving.

Other people again go toextraordinary lengths to recreatethe conditions in which suchmoments occurred or may occur.Sex can be used in this way, andmountain-climbing, explorationand treks through difficult terrain,sport, racing cars, testing fighteraircraft. What compels peopletowards all kinds of challenging,dangerous or emotionally demand-ing pursuits is that, under extremeconditions, the normal modes offunctioning which shield us fromimmensity may cut out. Such situ-ations knock out personality andforce people to the edge of them-selves, the edge of endurance orthe edge of death where some-thing else takes over. The resultsare well documented: a surge ofpower; renewal of energy; an open-ing out into a space of clarity,insight, carefreeness and detach-ment; intimations of immense

potential, of joy, of peace, of feel-ing more and more alive. Thesestates are of ultimate value tothose who encounter them, suchthat they justify all the effort, andindeed the desire to re-create themmay become a drive shaping a per-son’s life, beside which all otheractivities are secondary.

M A I N T A I N I N GT H E M E D I T A T I V E

E X P E R I E N C E

Experiences of spontaneousmeditation raise important ques-tions. Do they have to be so brief?To what extent are these meaning-ful states dependent on setting upexternal conditions? Thosemoments when a curtain seems tolift or be rent, when a thick cloudor stone rolls away, when it feelsas if some heavy garment or set ofveils has been shed–are they bynature only fleeting and fortu-itous, occurring just when condi-tions can be manipulated or arise

accidentally? If such experiencesare so rare and difficult to achieve,they would seem to be rather irrel-evant to the average sort of personleading an average sort of life!

You do not have to push thebody to its limits or dance withdeath to bring about a state ofclarity, power, and expanded per-ception. There is a much moreeconomical way of doing the samething, which because it is not tiedto physical conditions also allows amore enduring experience, irre-spective of circumstances. There isthe art of meditation.

Meditation is a systematic pro-cedure for bringing into conscious(that is, ordinary) life the dimen-sions of being which are part ofour normal potential, but whichotherwise remain unconscious, orare but fleetingly and erraticallyexperienced. A changed perspec-tive, and all that goes with it inthe way of energy and clarity, canbe through meditation sustained

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for longer in the life of an individ-ual, and become more and morenormal instead of extraordinary.No extremes are needed, noextraordinary conditions, andthere are no pre-requisites of per-sonality, skill, cleverness, or any-thing else except intention andwill.

T H E M I N D I N I T SP L A C E

Meditation techniques haveevolved on a very practical basisand all methods work on identicalprinciples. There may be compli-cated or inspirational philosophieselaborating upon them but themethods are basically simple anddesigned to get over the big prob-lem of the traveling circus of themind. You have to find a way todisestablish its dominion. It comesdown to a procedure for “sneakingpast” it by giving it somethingwith which to occupy itself, whilethe self-aware and observing You,who are not the same as yourmind, grow like a crystal in thespace which appears. Then themind with all its abilities becomesa useful servant. The function of ameditation technique is not tocontrol anything or to block any-thing, but to act as an anchor andguide for finding out more aboutthe mind and its characteristicsand for bringing into operationfaculties which belong to a widerorganization than the mental pro-cesses we know as the ordinarymind.

B E I N G

A human being is much biggerin size than the form enclosed inskin. The latter is merely its phys-ical body. Each individual beinghowever extends as far as its inter-ests and preoccupation’s reach,that is, to the limits of its day-to-day awareness. The things whichmake life meaningful for you aresetting the parameters of your

being. You could almost see peo-ple as interpenetrating spheres,overlapping where their interestsand occupations come together,but each with a focus of identitywhich maintains its integrity as anindividual being.

Some people are “bigger” thanothers. You know when youencounter a really “big” man orwoman. His or her presence is notonly stronger, seeming more con-

centrated and focused, but alsoextends a great deal wider, in anindefinable way. Contrary toexpectation, a public figure, apolitician perhaps, with a largerange of responsibilities andweighty decisions to make for oth-ers, is not necessarily big at allalthough there are some who are.There may be a faint, borrowedextension conferred by publicity

and the attention of others butthese factors are no measure of theextent of being.

There is no objective standardfor measuring it. It is a question ofpresence. Presence can be per-ceived almost like a field of energysurrounding a person. It is diffi-cult to “take the measure” of suchpeople because they may seem totranscend familiar stereotypes. Forexample, occasionally someoneenters a social gathering and near-ly everyone in the room is aware ofhim or her. It has nothing to dowith the person’s appearance orwitty conversation, nor withextrovert behavior or any form ofattention-seeking, but there is aquality of power and self-possession which compels respect.The qualities of presence cannotbe counterfeited. It is not a matterof wide interests but of a life andbeing on wide foundations.Having a lot of cosmic or spiritualideals does not extend awareness,nor does diffuse thinking andemotion in any way ‘raise’ con-sciousness.

Largeness of being is difficultto categorize but perceptible, andit is invariably accompanied by alife-style which is strong, clear,and disciplined–for good or ill; itmay not necessarily be turned topositive ends. A capacity for self-discipline is necessary because theenergy which is spent in uselessand self-imposed suffering, stressand emotional difficulties is theenergy which is needed to feed thegrowth of being. Energy for livingis a finite store and much dependson where it is directed and howpositively it is managed.Suffering, for example, can eithergenerate energy or drain it. So canrelationships. The transformer isconsciousness.

Living is a skill. The pursuit ofexcellence in any field demandsdiscipline and the exclusion ofmuch that is not relevant to, or

Meditation is notabout avoiding

conflict or aboutachieving some

sort of harmoniousplatform where the

push and tug ofconflicts cannot

touch you.

L O T U S30 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

that works against, achieving thegoal. Indeed the higher your aspi-rations, the more your life-stylemust be organized. There is notonly a limited amount of energybut a limited amount of time avail-able, and neither can be wasted ifparticular skills are sought. Theeffort of self-discipline is evenmore critical if what you seek isnot a particular skill but a ques-tion of knowing more and beingmore, of becoming bigger as a per-son in the sense we have been dis-cussing. The “muscles” or skillsinvolved in this primary enterpriseof living more creatively are themind and emotions. If either men-tal processes or emotional founda-tion is flabby or chaotic, they can-not do the job. The greatestassistance for the growth of beingis a method for maintaining anoverall direction, for setting stan-dards, and for resolving the con-flicts of life creatively. Meditationoffers a method of this kind.

T H E R O L E O FC O N F L I C T

Living is full of conflicts on thegrand scale and on the personalscale. It could almost be said thatlife is a study in conflict, from thestruggle of saplings to reach thelight, to the struggle of differentspecies of animals to survive in theone environment, or of peopleaspiring to the same job, and soon. If conflict were eradicated, sowould be life as we know it.

Meditation is not about avoid-ing conflict or about achievingsome sort of harmonious platformwhere the push and tug of con-flicts cannot touch you. It is awidely prevailing notion that thepeace which the struggling humanheart seeks is of this order but if itwere so, the state achieved wouldnot be one of more abundant life.It would be the imposition of anunreal desire, an idol, like resort-

ing to the worship of a golden calfwhen the trials of wandering inthe desert in the service of a livinggod seem too much for one’s faithor will.

In fact, beginning meditationcreates more conflict rather thanless. For example, there is the con-flict to do with time. Finding thetime to meditate in a busy lifemeans a continual reaffirmation ofthe decision as to whether medi-tating is really employing timemore fruitfully than doing task X.The instant you allow a focusingfactor like the decision to meditateto enter your life, it will come intoconflict with your established pat-terns of activity and with yourinternal “freedom” to wander inevery direction at the behest ofyour habitual patterns of thoughtand feeling reactions.

Conflict is unavoidable. Youare continually in conflict withyour environment in order to sur-vive. Every breath you need tomaintain your life destroys thelives of millions of micro-organisms; if you occupy a house,thousands of other needy or home-less people cannot occupy it; if youhave a job, there are others equallywell-qualified who cannot have it;if you do not have a job, youincrease the pressures on others.And so on.

Given that conflict is unavoid-able, you are left with a choice ofmaking it constructive, destruc-tive, or futile. From constructiveconflict life grows, from destruc-tive it perishes, while futility ismaintaining conflicts which neednot be maintained. Every con-structive/creative conflict has adestructive side. What is construc-tive for one objective is inevitablydestructive for something else, butthrough a chain of balances and ahierarchy of interests, the harmonyof life is maintained. Any ecosys-tem illustrates the principle, but

the complication is that everyecosystem exists within and servesa larger one as well. Only futileconflict benefits nobody.

You will not have to look veryfar to identify an example of futileconflict in your own life. All kindsof internal agonizing, anxieties,chronic bickering and bad feeling,either within yourself or relatingto others come into this category.You will also see examples ofdestructive conflict without toomuch effort when some project orintention failed to fully material-ize. Lack of money, lack of time,lack of will won the day and like asmall sapling in the forest, thedevelopment which was initiatedlost out to the bigger, more estab-lished trees. Not every tree cangrow in the same space but as faras you are concerned, and youraim, the outcome was destructive.The mark of creative conflict is notonly achievement in the face ofdifficulties but also whether youlearned something. If you did,there was a creative element in theconflict (for you). For exampleeven if you lose a particular “bat-tle,” if you have truly learnedsomething, the conflict was tothat extent creative for you.Everything you have ever achievedwill have been at the expense ofsomething else. The achievementswhich are most valuable andmeaningful have a trail of at leastinternal conflict behind them,such as the overcoming of indo-lence or having to reject someother persuasive option and proba-bly external conflict as well.

W I L L

In the end it is your will whichboth sets and maintains a course ofaction. You may choose to dosomething but the desire alonecannot carry it to conclusion.


L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 31

W I L L I A M A . M I L L E R

Your GoldenShadow

We can be much more than we are. Researchers regularly remind us that we utilize

only a small portion of our potential for development. No matter how long we live,

most of us tap into only a comparatively tiny portion of the vast internal resources

available to us. The great reservoir of possibilities is our hidden self or shadow. Our shadow is our “private life,” as

compared to the “public life” of our personality. This private life is so private that it is largely unknown even to

ourselves. Our shadow is an unconscious force within us—a source of power and possibility that we can bring into

consciousness and use creatively and constructively for a fuller and more enriching experience of life.

L O T U S32 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

William A. Miller is a former presidentof the Minnesota C.G. Jung Association.He is author of several books, including“The Joy of Feeling Good,” “MakeFriends with your Shadow,” and “WhenGoing to Pieces Holds You Together.”

�Because all human beings are

capable of both great goodand great evil, our shadow

is likewise a source of both. Theusual treatment of shadow is toperceive it as a dark, sinister coun-terpart to the bright persona wepresent to the world. Our shadowcertainly is all that—it possessesthe potential for the enactment ofgreat evil. But the shadow is muchmore than that. It is the potentialresource for the enactment of greatgood. It can be the gold mine ofour lives, and we may enter it touncover its treasures and bringthem to the surface.

Most of us intuitively knowthat there is more to us than meetsthe eye, but we are uncertainabout how to bring the gold ofshadow into consciousness. Wemay also be reluctant to act on arevelation of our Golden Shadowwhen, of its own accord, it taps uson the shoulder and suggests, “Trythis.”

Many people in their later yearssay, “If I could live my life again, Iwould take more risks, be moreassertive, and exercise greater self-discipline.” The discovery and ful-fillment of our undeveloped selvespeaks directly to these concerns.We don’t have to wish for anotherchance at life. All of us, if wewish, can make these changesnow.

A concept such as the “theGolden Shadow” conjures up allsorts of images in our minds.Shadows themselves are not par-ticularly inviting; they seem tobode ill because of their darkness.We are almost intuitively reluc-tant to approach darkness because

of the unknown and the indistin-guishable within it.

Gold, on the other hand, ishighly to be desired. It is preciousand valuable; it offers promisebecause of its great potential. Weare drawn to it and eagerly surren-der to its drawing power, hopingto possess it and capitalize on themultitude of possibilities itpromises.

How can there be gold in theshadow? The concept of “GoldenShadow” almost appears to be acontradiction… unless, of course,it is possible to perceive the bril-liance of gold in the darkness ofshadows. The concept becomesintriguing as we consider the pos-

sibility, and our interest growscautiously. We want to seek thegold, and this desire gives us morecourage to risk the forebodingdarkness and the unknown ofshadows. Soon we are on our jour-ney, our quest for the GoldenShadow.

A woman once told me in allsincerity that she had no shadow.It was during a retreat for marriedcouples where I had been speakingabout the projection of shadowonto one’s spouse in a marriagerelationship; how it is imperativethat we own our own dark side sothat we do not unconsciously pro-ject it onto and accuse our spouseof our own shortcomings.

It was a Sunday afternoon inautumn. During the refreshmentbreak this woman attending theseminar approached me at the cof-fee urn and pleasantly reported tome, “All this stuff about the shad-ow is very interesting and all but Idon’t have a shadow. I wouldnever think of doing such terriblethings that you say I have thepotential to do.”

She was a pleasant and brightwoman who appeared to me to bequite genuine and authentic in herdeclaration. Her statement wasnot atypical; most of us initiallyfind shadow concepts to be inter-esting observations, but not neces-sarily applicable to ourselves.

Before I could respond, howev-er, a man approached. Heacknowledged my presence butquickly said to the woman, “I’mgoing home now; I’ll see youthere,” and turned and left.Immediately the woman’s facechanged from a pleasant smile to ascowl.

“That was my husband,” shesnarled. She was a slight woman,but feisty. As she spoke, shebecame quite animated.

I chuckled and started to say,“Yes, I gathered…” but thosewere the only words I got out.

The GoldenShadow is the

potential resourcefor the enactmentof great good. Itcan be the gold

mine of our lives,and we mayenter it touncover its

treasures andbring them to the

surface.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 33

“Do you know where he’sgoing?” she interrupted.

“Well, he said he was goinghome…”

“Do you know what he’s goingto do?” she snapped.

“No.”“He’s going home to watch

that stupid football game. He’sgoing home and sit down in frontof that stupid television set andwatch that stupid football gamewith a can of beer in his hand.”

As she became more agitated,her animation increased and thevolume of her voice rose steadily.

“I tell you I am sick and tiredof his attachment to that stupidgame and that stupid set. I callhim to come to dinner and he callsback, ‘Just another minute,honey.’ I call him again, and I say,‘C’mon Harry, everything is onthe table,’ and he hollers back,‘Wait just a minute; I want to seethis one more play.’”

By now she was speaking quite

rapidly and loudly, so that othersfrom the seminar standing nearbyhad stopped their conversationsand were listening intently. Thewoman went on, oblivious tothem.

“I say, ‘Harry! Will you comeout here before everything is coldas ice!’ And he yells back, ‘Yeah,I’m coming. I just want to see ifthey’re going to kick or try to runit.’”

“I tell you,” she said to me witha steel-cold voice and fiery eyes, “Itell you, one of these days I’mgoing into that living room andI’m going to take that can of beerout of his hand and I’m going topour it over his head and smashthat can down on his baldskull…”

She ended in mid-sentence, hervoice loud and at high pitch, herarm poised over her head, clutch-ing an imaginary beer can.Suddenly she had become awarethat there was no sound in the

room save her voice and that alleyes were on her, gleefully observ-ing her performance.

She turned red with embarrass-ment and began to shuffle her feet.She straightened up and smiled aCheshire cat smile. She giggled anervous laugh and by then thehubbub of conversation hadresumed.

The “woman with no shadow”had just experienced her first con-scious glimpse of the dark side.This small, gentle woman whoshortly before told me she “wouldnever think of doing such terriblethings” had just heard herselfplotting to assault her husbandwith the intent to do him physicalharm.

T H E D I F F I C U L T YO F F A C I N G

S H A D O W

Some may discount such anaccount as this and dub it only ahumorous anecdote that one

LON

HA

RD

ING

L O T U S34 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

should not take too seriously.“After all, people do tend to exag-gerate things in colorful ways,”they may say and want to let it goat that. This kind of response isfairly typical of those who areafraid that there might just besome truth to it all for them andwill therefore not allow it to haveany veracity at all. They eitherlaugh it off as something not to betaken seriously or they becomehighly defensive and quiteadamant in their denial of anyshadow possibility within them.

And yet, if we are even slightlyaware of ourselves, we know thatexperiences such as the aboveanecdote are far from rare. In fact,this turns out to be one of theclearest ways to identify our shad-ow’s attributes—through slips ofthe tongue and slips of behavior.Any time we hear ourselves sayingsomething we claim we wouldabsolutely never say, we have comeface to face with a facet of our per-sonal shadow. Any time we expe-rience ourselves doing somethingwe have said we would absolutelynever do under any circumstances, wehave come face to face with anoth-er facet of our personal shadow.

These experiences are notuncommon occurrences to thosewho are aware of themselves. Sinceshadow is a part of us, it accompa-nies us wherever we go and is pre-sent in whatever we do. WhenRobert Louis Stevenson wrote thechildren’s poem, “My Shadow,”was it only a children’s poemabout the shadow that our bodycasts when we stand in the light?Or was it about the dark and hid-den side–the shadow side–of ourpersonality?

I have a little shadow that goesin and out with me,

And what can be the use of himis more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from theheels up to the head;

And I see him jump before mewhen I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him isthe way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children,which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up tallerlike an India-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so littlethat there’s none of him at all.

He hasn’t got a notion of howchildren ought to play,

And can only make a fool of mein every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he’sa coward you can see;

I’d think shame to stick to nur-sie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning very early, beforethe sun was up,

I rose and found the shiningdew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, likean arrent sleepyhead,

Had stayed at home behind meand was fast asleep in bed.

Most of us know more aboutour shadow than we think weknow or even want to know.Shadow taps us on the shoulderquite regularly, pressing for equaltime on the stage. But we elbowour shadow back to where itbelongs and smile broadly to the“audience,” assuring them that wetruly are what they see. But shad-ow persists and begins to push andshove, and we nervously kick andelbow it back into the wings ordown the trap door into the darkroom under the stage, tenselyshouting out of the side of ourmouth and over our shoulder (sothe audience cannot see or hear),“Shut up, you devil, and get backdown there. Do you want to ruinme?” If we do happen to glanceover our shoulder and get aglimpse of this dark counterpart,we quickly snap our head backfront and say, “I didn’t see that.”

Children watching a horrormovie will cover their eyes at aparticularly frightening scene. Buttheir curiosity is so great that theywill spread their fingers ever soslightly to get a shaded glimpse ofthe terrifying pictures on thescreen. Likewise we and our shad-ows.

There is no point in hedging ortrying to disguise the possible fearof entering into our shadow. It isboth attractive and repulsive,inviting and frightening. Becauseour initial perception is more neg-

To discover ourGolden Shadowwe lay prudence

aside andjourney into the

unconscious;and our labors

are notunrewarded.

The surprise ofdiscovery may be

shocking,healing, and

growth-producing.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 35

ative than positive, we are morehighly motivated to put it off thanto enter into the journey.

O U R R E L U C T A N C ET O L O O K I N W A R D

We are not alone in our reluc-tance to make the journey inward.In The Archetypes and the CollectiveUnconscious, psychiatrist Carl Jungdescribes a dream often dreamedby an unnamed Protestant theolo-gian of his acquaintance:

[In the dream this man] stoodon a mountain slope with a deepvalley below, and in it a dark lake.He knew in the dream that some-thing had always prevented himfrom approaching the lake. Thistime he resolved to go to thewater. As he approached the shore,everything grew dark and uncan-ny, and a gust of wind suddenlyrushed over the face of the water.He was seized by a panic fear andawoke.

The clergyman had dreamedthis same dream many times. Eachtime was identical to the others.In the dream he has begun hisjourney inward, obviously insearch. He has descended into thevalley as he has numerous timesbefore. In the past, however, hehas gone only so far; he hasstopped short of going further tothe dark body of water. Sincewater is the universal symbol forthe unconscious, we know thatwhile the dreamer has apparentlywanted (or has told himself hewanted) to enter into his uncon-scious for healing, for insight, forgrowth, he has stopped short eachtime. And it happens again. For inthis dream, as in dreams past, hehas become frightened and pan-icky because the experience sud-denly becomes supernatural.Everything becomes dark and aspiritual power rushes over thedark water, a power that is so realand spontaneous it spooks the

dreamer and he must flee byawakening.

Jung concluded that the dreamis quite right in telling the manthat down by the dark waters,foreboding as they are, he could“experience the working of the liv-ing spirit like a miracle of healingin the pool of Bethesda.” But thedreamer was still reluctant to jour-ney ahead.

In the same volume, Jung tellsof another theologian whodreamed that he saw on a moun-tain a kind of Castle of the Grail.He went along a road that seemed

to lead straight to the foot of themountain and up it. But as hedrew nearer, he discovered to hisgreat disappointment that a chasmseparated him from the mountain,a deep darksome gorge withunderworldly water rushing alongthe bottom. A steep path leddownwards and toilsomelyclimbed up again on the otherside. But the prospect lookeduninviting and the dreamerawoke.

Moving into the unconsciousfor the sake of self-discovery ishard work but it is rewarding.

JIM

WH

ITM

ER

L O T U S36 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

What will we find? Shall we takethe risk? This dreamer saw the verydesirable goal of the “shiningheight,” the mountain top, thepeak. But to achieve the goal ofascending the mountain he hadfirst to descend into the depths ofthe foreboding gorge and thenclimb the other side. It is a highlysymbolic dream of the great quest.

This theme is repeated over andover in myths, legends, tales, andstories throughout the history ofhumankind. But people in generaldiscount the significance of thisgreat symbolism and believe theGrail may be won by a straightupward climb. This is particularlytrue of people in our Western cul-ture, whose grail is only materialwith no spiritual interest who doclimb the mountain and reach thepeak without having descendedinto the gorge. Many, however,find the victory strangely emptyand unsatisfying.

The dreamer was a cautious,moderate, judicious man. He choseto play it safe. Prudence was thebetter part for him. Certainly noone may be critical of such a deci-sion. After all, did we not learnearly on that if we do not look outfor our own neck, who will? Wheredo we find truth, wisdom, spirit,insight, knowledge, understand-ing? Is it not in the heights? Whatis in the depths but refuse, slime,disgust, rot? Mythically, the spiritssoar overhead in the heights;demons inhabit the underworld.Light is up; darkness is down.Heaven is above; hell is the pits.

In the face of such overwhelm-ing “evidence,” it is not too diffi-cult to understand the “reasonable-ness” of the dreamer’s choice in hisdream. Many, if not most of ushuman beings live under this greathoax that “enlightened” civiliza-tion has perpetrated for centuries.After all, as Nathanael said ofJesus, “What good thing couldcome out of Nazareth?” (John1:46).

Nathanael was wrong and the

hoax is just that. Returning to thedream noted earlier, Jung says,

For people who think in thisway [the way of the hoax], spiritmeans highest freedom, a soaringover the depths, deliverance fromthe prison of the chthonic world,and hence a refuge for all thosetimorous souls who do not want tobecome anything different. Butwater is earthy and tangible, it isalso the fluid of the instinct-drivenbody, blood and the flowing ofblood, the odor of the beast, carnal-ity heavy with passion.

Gold is mined out of the earthand washed out of the water. Todiscover our Golden Shadow we layprudence aside and journey intothe unconscious; and our labors arenot unrewarded. The surprise ofdiscovery may be shocking, heal-ing, and growth-producing.

In the myths, legends, and talesof “the great quest” theme, it isalways necessary to surmount aseries of obstacles before the questcan be successfully completed andthe object of the quest is won. Ourquest for the Golden Shadow is noexception. We, too, have obstaclesto surmount and hurdles to clearon our journey inward to theGolden Shadow. The major obsta-cle we face is the interference andinfluence of the outer world. Mostof us develop in an environmentthat is not only not conducive tolooking inward, but may actuallydiscourage or even forbid suchbehavior.

Imagine, if you will, youngBobby sitting quietly in his room,simply looking at the wall, rathervoid of expression. Mama entersand asks,

“What are you doing, honey?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes, dear, I can see that; butwhat are you doing?”

“Just thinking.”

“But it’s such a beautiful after-noon, why don’t you go out andplay with the kids?”

“I’d rather just sit here.”

“Billy is working on that modelairplane in the garage; whydon’t you go help him?”

“I don’t want to.”

“What are you thinkingabout?”

“I guess I’m sort of contemplat-ing.”

“Bobby, do you feel all right?”

“Yeah, I’m OK.”

“Let me feel your forehead; doyou have a temperature?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Are you tired, is that it?”

“No, I’m not tired.”

“Well, I just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Why anyone would want tojust sit here doing nothing!”

When mama speaks with daddylater in the day she will be sure toreport this incident and possiblysuggest that they take Bobby tothe doctor to determine if thereisn’t indeed something physicallywrong. After all, no healthy, red-blooded, developing boy shouldwant to sit quietly in his room“contemplating” when he could beoutside romping with his fellows,or working on a model airplanewith his brother, or doing some-thing.

For most of us the outer worldis virtually all that we know; theinner world has never been a veryvital part of our experience. It is atrue stranger. Few of us realize howpowerful the influence of the outerworld has been and continues to beon our development. It is thereforeimportant and necessary that wereview this issue, so we may be asrealistic and practical as possible inour quest.•

From the book “Your Golden Shadow:Discovering and Fulfilling YourUndeveloped Self.” Copyright 1989 byWilliam A. Miller. Printed byarrangement with Harper San Francisco, adivision of HarperCollins Publishers.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 37

R O B E R T A J E A N B R Y A N T

The Magic ofProfoundSelf-Acceptance

True change means becoming who you really are in a natural and organic way. Although

true change is possible and sometimes happens during therapy or in good recovery programs,

it seldom results from self-improvement promises or programs. It occurs in three ways:

� A near-death or life renewal experience.

� Bottoming out—a state of physical, emotional, or spiritual bankruptcy.

� Profound self-acceptance.

L O T U S38 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

Roberta Jean Bryant, the author of“Anybody Can Write A PlayfulApproach,” was educated in the librariesof the West. She has raised four childrenand has written many published articlesand stories.

�“There is another way,”

Aaron protested afterhearing me lecture one

evening. “When I’m around a per-son who is loving and nurturing,then I begin to change.” Hischanging, however, was dependenton having someone else for a cata-lyst, and he admitted that onceagain he was seeking the kind ofperson who could provide it.

Examples of this kind of depen-dent change occur for personsinvolved in self-improvementgroups or programs. That is oneway of experiencing profound self-acceptance. However, the changesthat happen are the result of “Iaccept myself, because this personor group that I esteem acceptsme.” The falling-in-love phe-nomenon and the therapist-as-guru relationship are two exam-ples of this kind of conditionalchange.

These routes to change areoften less productive, less lasting,and less satisfying than seekingthat experience of acceptancewithin oneself. The dependence onan outside source for a positivesense of self always places our“okayness” and our authenticity atrisk. Good therapists do notencourage that kind of dependen-cy, but consistently remind clientsthat their quality of life is deter-mined by themselves, not thetherapist or well-meaning friendsand family.

“When we must deal withproblems,” observed Carl Jung,“we instinctively refuse to try theway that leads through darknessand obscurity. We wish to hearonly of unequivocal results and

completely forget that theseresults can only be brought aboutwhen we have ventured into andemerged again from the darkness.”

Profound self-acceptance is asearch for truth within the dark-ness of oneself. Albert Schweitzernoted, “Truth has no special timeof its own. Its hour isnow—always.” As a matter of fact,people always tell the truth; eventheir lies reflect the truth of theirsecret wishes, hopes, and dreams.Truth, however, is layered, like anonion or an artichoke. So the taskof becoming free is akin to peelingaway layers of truth, like theleaves of an artichoke, to uncover

that core truth that transformsexperience.

Profound self-acceptance is asearch for the truth, the individualand personal truth of the seeker,not some abstract eternal truth.This ongoing search requires hardwork, an investment of time inself-examination, andhonesty—honesty with oneselfprimarily and possibly with atrusted friend, spiritual advisor, ortherapist.

J A N E ’ S S T O R Y

Jane, an insecure homemakerand mother of two, found it im-possible to accept herself. Yearsearlier, when she was first married,her greatest fear was that if herhusband ever found out what shewas really like, he wouldn’t likeher anymore. Therefore, she wasalso unconsciously afraid of evenallowing herself to know what shewas really like because if that hap-pened, it could rock the boat.

Her belief that if she discoveredsomething wasn’t right she had todo something about it kept herstuck in denial of her unhappymarriage. She unconsciously knewthat doing something about itwould be too difficult and wouldjeopardize her family’s security.Those fears, conscious and uncon-scious, were one layer of truth.

Eventually, Jane began tobecome more honest with herselfand to risk sharing that discoveredself with her husband. She alsospoke up more often and on occa-sion even contradicted what hesaid. Sure enough, he complainedabout her getting “uppity,” theybegan quarreling more frequently,and she felt that he didn’t likeher—her greatest fear come true.That layer of truth ultimately ledto divorce, which did indeed jeop-ardize her family’s security. Soonafter her divorce, Jane experienceda chaos of emotions but also dis-covered a core truth that trans-

Change occurs whenyou become whatyou are, not whenyou try to becomewhat you are not…Change seems tohappen when you

have abandoned thechase after what

you want to be (orthink you should be)and have accepted

and fullyexperienced what

you are.—Janette Rainwater

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 39

formed a major emotional prob-lem in her life.

Jane had emerged from herdivorce at the tender age of fortyfeeling profoundly abandoned byher ex-husband who did not likeher and irrationally angry at hisrefusal to contest the divorce. Shewas devastated by his plans toremarry. A confusing jumble ofresentment and self-pity about herabandonment dominated her wak-ing moments. No matter whatelse happened to her, those deeplyfelt obsessive thoughts and feel-ings overshadowed the rest of herlife.

This wasn’t the first time she’dfelt so hurt and lost.

When Jane was five years oldher mother had deserted herfather, packing hurriedly andsneaking off one afternoon withJanie and her brother. Janie hadnot understood what was hap-pening and had no chance to saygood-bye to her father. Also, shewas never allowed to talk about it.Consequently, a part of her oftenfelt hurt and lost when people didnot keep their agreements, and onoccasion when a trusted person lether down, the abandonment feel-ings overwhelmed and devastatedher.

Whenever those feelings weretriggered, she became in effect anadult Jane with five-year-old Janiein the driver’s seat; she looked andoften acted like a responsibleadult, but emotionally the hurtchild ruled. Her relationships suf-fered because other people oftenbecame targets of Janie’s unpro-voked and irrational emotionaloutbursts. Jane herself found itterrifying to be an unpredictableadult with no control over herreactions and feelings. Evenunderstanding the whys of herproblem didn’t help her to react orfeel different. Insight brought norelief, just greater frustration.

The day things changed was

the day when she uncovered andaccepted the core truth about herabandonment issue.

Jane and her best friend Tom,whom she thought of as the olderbrother she’d always wanted, usu-ally shared their problems overlunch in local restaurants. Thatday Jane, feeling bereft and lonely,began weeping as she often did inthose days following her divorce.“How could he let me divorcehim?” she wailed, recounting hergrievances against her former hus-band. “And now he’s planning tomarry her! How dare he abandonme and the children like this?”

Finally Tom reached across thetable, touched her hand to get herattention and said, “Janie, I will

never abandon you.” That sincerepromise from a man she totallytrusted stopped her litany of self-pity and resentment. Thatmoment of affirmation and friend-ship warmed a frozen place withinher; she began to feel loved again.At the same instant, though,inside her head a little voice whis-pered, “But, it’s not enough!”

She couldn’t believe what washappening. That clear momentwhen Tom expressed his loyalty toher was rudely interrupted by thatinvalidating whisper. Then, justto make sure she couldn’t ignoreit, the little voice repeated, “But,it’s not enough.”

Later, at home with her journal,Jane attempted to reason with thatlittle voice. “Don’t you believeTom?” she wrote.

“Yes, but it’s still not enough.”Janie, the abandoned child withinher, wouldn’t be persuaded.Finally, discouraged by the deter-mined stance of that young part ofherself, she remembered how she’dlearned to deal with her own chil-dren during their tempertantrums—putting her armsaround them, saying, “There,there, everything’s going to be allright.” So, Jane began listing allthe things she really appreciatedabout that young part of herself,comforting and consoling Janiewithout being dishonest.

Finally she wrote, “I will neverabandon you.” Jane, the grown-uppart of her, would not abandon orinvalidate the feelings of the Janiepart of herself. Jane’s core truthwas the realization that she couldnot experience such total devasta-tion unless she also ran outon—abandoned—that hurtingchild within. At that moment herexperience of feeling abandonedprofoundly changed and improvedher control over her own life.However, she continued to strug-gle with a festering load of resent-ment against her former husband

• The ways you are likeyour parents

• Any socially inappropriatebehavior

• All your thoughts—past,present, and future

• All your feelings

• The physical body youwere born with

• Your looks, your height,your weight

• Any relationships thatdidn’t work out

• Your income and socialstatus

• All your faults and charac-ter defects

• All the ways you have dis-counted yourself

• Anything you’ve evertried to improve or changeabout yourself

Accepting YourImperfect Self

Includes Accepting:

L O T U S40 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

and sought relief from that grow-ing obsession. Three years afterthe divorce, still engaged in hersearch for truths, she peeled off thefinal leaf and encountered theheart of the artichoke—the coretruth—about her relationshipwith her former husband.

C O R E T R U T H SA L W A Y S

T R A N S F O R ME X P E R I E N C E

That final leaf was the suddenrealization that she was spendingso much time reacting to what hehad said or had done, it was as ifshe was still married to him. Aftershe’d acknowledged that, the coretruth lay revealed. Jane finally dis-covered what she was really likeand had to admit that she hadn’tliked her husband very much.Divorce had been her idea, not his.

Recognizing and accepting herresponsibility for all that had hap-pened freed her from the resent-ment of “Look what he did tome!” Core truths always transformexperience and always have to dowith oneself, never with one’supbringing or what anyone elsesays or does, past or present. Coretruths always evolve from pro-found self-acceptance.

T H E F O U R L E V E L SO F P R O F O U N D

S E L F -A C C E P T A N C E

Profound self-acceptance is nota fixed state of being, but a spiral-ing evolution of truth and aware-ness that seems to consist of fourlevels. During the course of anyperiod of growth, we move up anddown the spiral many times, ormove from one level to the next,or even back to the previous one.

The first level of profound self-acceptance appears to be negativeand may not be experienced byeveryone. A person at this levelsays, “Something is wrong withme. I know I’m not okay.” No one

can talk the person out of this feel-ing. “I don’t need anybody.Nobody cares anyway. I’m noteven worth improving. Peopledon’t like me; they won’t give mea chance.”

The person is passive, depres-sive, and feels and sounds like avictim: alienated, unconnected,feeling unworthy of human com-panionship.

These individuals either lackheroes and goals, or their stan-dards for themselves and others areso perfectionistic that they tend tohear only negative feedback or toinsist on a gloomy interpretationof all events. But in this stage, thebeginning of profound self-accep-tance is becoming aware of hownonaccepting one really is, accept-ing it, and not punishing oneselffurther for it.

The second level is character-ized by what is now being calledcodependency—in which anotherperson’s behavior affects us sointensely that we are obsessedwith controlling that other person.On the second level the focusoften shifts from knowing some-thing is wrong with me to know-ing there’s something wrong withyou, too, and often evolving to“What’s wrong with me is all yourfault,” or the notion that if you gethelp, then everything will be justfine with me.

Moving from the first level tothe second level sounds like this atfirst: “I’m okay, if you tell me I’mokay.” The person works hard atself-improvement and at pleasingothers to get approval. Sometimesthe person tries to “fix” others andthereby gets the illusion of controlover people, events, and circum-stances.

In another variation the indi-vidual moves from self-blame toblaming others: “I’m okay ifyou’re not okay” or “I wouldn’toverspend if you only earnedenough money” or “I wouldn’tdrink if you didn’t nag me somuch” or “I wouldn’t nag you somuch if you didn’t drink.” It’s avulnerable and volatile level, how-ever, because the person’s worth isdependent on outside reassurance.

Individuals at level two live onan emotional seesaw, seldom intouch with their true feelings,usually operating out of fear—fearof anger or fear of rejection. Theyoften have unrealistic expectationsof themselves and others andignore reality, lie, or manipulateto avoid direct conflict. They overidealize their role models andobjects of affection. Addicted toimmediate gratification, intensity,and drama—the soap opera oftheir own lives—they live in aworld of denial and fantasy.

Cultivating profound self-acceptance creates awareness;awareness is the opposite of denial;

Profoundself-acceptance

saves us from theego trips of the

comparison game,the I’m-better-thanor holier-than-thou

attitudes ofarrogance and

righteousness, orthe lesser-thancomparisons

resulting in “poorme” or

self-pity.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 41

becoming aware and acceptingsmall truths begins to replacedenial. Denial diminishes withevery accepting thought or state-ment; an attitude of profound self-acceptance also fosters true respon-sibility that gradually replacesfantasy.

On the third level individualssay, “I’m okay, even by myself,”accepting responsibility for theirhappiness and solving their prob-lems. They work hard at helpingothers for their own satisfactionand not just to please others.Active, reality oriented, and oftenself-actualizing, they value them-selves and others and see formerheroes and role models as equals.If no one is any better than I am,if no one is any lesser than I am, ifI see all of us as imperfect humanbeings, then I can be open andlearn from all human encounters.This level is where people tend tobe goal-oriented.

The fourth level attitude is,“Isn’t this interesting!” There’s acheerful curiosity toward possibili-ties and a willingness to show upand see what will happen today.For these individuals the wholenotion of self-improvement isalien; the idea wouldn’t even arise.They have an easy acceptance of allevents, circumstances, and people.Value judgments of good and bador right and wrong seldom aremade. At this level they remaindetached, immune to being influ-enced by popular opinion—likethe best mothers, who, accordingto Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha,“learn not to care; to separate.”Open and flexible, happy moreoften than not, they live fully inthe moment with great apprecia-tion of the cosmic humor of thehuman condition.

A C C E P T I N G Y O U RI M P E R F E C T S E L F

Whatever level you find your-self at, profound self-acceptancedoes not require approving of

yourself or liking all aspects ofyourself; neither does it mean asuperficial Pollyannaish countingof blessings. Accepting yourselfdoes not require you to announcethe character defects you discover;neither does it entaildefiance—”That’s just the way Iam; take it or leave it!”—or apolo-gizing for what you find. There’sno blaming yourself or others andno explaining or over-explaining.

Profound self-acceptance savesus from the ego trips of the com-parison game, the I’m-better-thanor holier-than-thou attitudes ofarrogance and righteousness, orthe lesser-than comparisons result-ing in “poor me” or self-pity. Themagic in profound self-acceptanceis that the more you are willing toknow and accept in yourself, the

more you know about and acceptin other people. As human beingsthere are more similarities amongus than real differences; we all areled or driven by our feelings—oursorrows and joys as well as ourassumptions and beliefs about our-selves and others.

Profound self-acceptance issometimes bound to be difficult.To love and accept ourselvesunconditionally is no problemwhen things are going well; it’seasy when we get up in the morn-ing, look in the mirror, smile atourselves, and like what we see.The real challenge is to acceptourselves when we’re really mess-ing up. We straggle out of bed;we don’t want to look in the mir-ror; things are definitely not okay.That’s when profound self-accep-tance is most necessary.

The process of profound self-acceptance is simple but not nec-essarily easy. I start by acknowl-edging the obvious, making adetailed inventory of everythingthat’s going on for me at the pre-sent moment. It may sound like Iwas crabby: “I don’t feel like get-ting up today and I don’t want tolook in the mirror.”

Then I look in the mirror anddescribe what I see. “That facedoes not look happy. That is anangry-looking face. I do not likefeeling angry; I don’t want toknow what I might be angryabout. I really blew it yesterdaywith the boss. Today I can’t evenfigure out what to wear. I’d like tocancel my dental appointment.” Icontinue in that vein until Ibecome bored or run out of time,and I conclude with the state-ment, “I unconditionally acceptmyself with all my weaknesses andshortcomings.”•

From “Stop Improving Yourself and StartLiving.” Copyright 1991 by Roberta JeanBryant. Printed with permission of NewWorld Library. Call (800)227-3900 or(800)632-2122 in California to orderthe book, ($10.95).

As human beingsthere are more

similarities amongus than real

differences; we allare led or driven by

our feelings–oursorrows and joys as

well as ourassumptions and

beliefs aboutourselves and

others.

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M A R I L Y N M A S O N

Standing UpAnd Speaking

Out:The Challenge of Expressing Personal Power

Marcia showed up for church at her regular time, as she had for twenty years. Seating herself on

her familiar, worn organ bench, she began to play the Prelude. Then suddenly, something took

over—Marcia began to pommel the keyboard, her fingers expressing the most intense feeling

she had ever felt. Congregants stared as they entered the church; those seated in their pews turned their heads and

looked up at her in contained disbelief. The sounds thundered louder and stronger. Marcia, very present, was also

very present with her self. What her congregation did not know was that Marcia was playing the Prelude back-

ward!

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 43

Marilyn J. Mason is the co-author of“Facing Shame: Families in Recovery"and is a Licensed Consulting Psychologistin private practice. She teaches on the clin-ical faculty in Family Social Science atthe University of Minnesota, leads work-shops nationally and internationally, anddirects wilderness expeditions as founderand director of Journeys Inward.

�All her life Marcia had been

obedient to her family, herreligion, and her commu-

nity. Recently, however, she hadbeen reflecting on how trappedshe felt and had been readingwomen’s books in her Women’sIdentity course. Her agitationgrew about as rapidly as herawareness. She described her act assomething that just happened; shehad not planned it. She realizedshe had made a statement. Whenshe told me about it later, I com-mented, “Well, you surely wereexpressing your personal power!”

Personal power? Just what ispersonal power? How does person-al power, our real power, differfrom role power and power byassociation? Where does personalpower come from? What do we dowith it once we feel it? Before weexercise our power, we have tosearch for meanings that fit ourlife experiences.

J U S T W H A T I SP E R S O N A L

P O W E R ?

I thought of Rosa Parks, thecourageous black woman whobecame the “mother” of the civilrights movement by sitting in thewhites-only section of a bus inSelma, Alabama. I thought ofBella Abzug, a powerful rolemodel for women in politics, andactivist Dorothy Day, whoseinspiring words “speak truth topower” are reflected in BettyFriedan’s The Feminine Mystique

and in Jean Baker Miller’s Towarda New Psychology of Women . Ithought of Gloria Steinem, whofounded Ms. magazine, and CarolGilligan, who in her book In aDifferent Voice, refuted the tradi-tional (male) think-ing on women’smoral development.All these womenacted on personalpower in the publicdomain.

Whether expres-sed through actionor nonaction, inpublic or private,power simply is.The word powercomes from theLatin word poterewhich means “to beable.” The essenceof personal power isreflected in the waywe live our dailylives through oureveryday acts.Lecturer and authorJanet Hagbergdescribes personalpower as, “theextent to which oneis able to link theouter capacity foraction (externalpower) with theinner capacity forreflection (internalpower).”

We exercise per-sonal power whenwe tell a doctor thatwe no longer will be his or herpatient because we refuse to bekept waiting for more than onehour each visit. We exercise itwhen we say no to our childrenand refuse to deny them their ownlife struggles, even though a partof us wants to protect them fromlife’s pain. We exercise personal

power when we confront a friendwho has hurt us. We act on per-sonal power when we write a letteron the abortion controversy to theeditor of the local newspaper. Jeanfelt personal power when, several

years after her divorce, she movedfrom the “passenger” side to the“driver’s” side of her bed. Myfriend Ann has exercised her per-sonal power by influencing a greatmany women to enter doctoralprograms. Clearly, personal powermeans acting on what deeply mat-ters to us. When we express and

ROBERT BRENNER

L O T U S44 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

act on our personal power, wehonor our inner knowing, our“infallible gut.” Each act of “per-sonal authority” shapes andenriches our life story of which wealone are the “author.” Acting onour inner power to give and tonurture is also called actualizationpower.

My friend Moira is a glowingexample of actualization power.She and Dan, her husband, sharean equal commitment to work inthe social justice movement. Apsychologist, Dan’s primary role isto earn the family income; Moira’sprimary role is to engage in acts ofcivil disobedience which has led toher spending several months at atime in jail. With each passingyear, Moira’s voice has grownstronger and more passionate. As aresult, she has empowered manyothers to act with purpose and facelife’s challenges.

P E R S O N A L P O W E RV S . R O L E P O W E R

Power has been and for themost part still is bound to statusand success in our patriarchy,where domination, whatever thecost, is the name of the game. Noone in this society has escaped thedomination, authority, and controlinherent in the role power wieldedby parents, bosses, clergy, teach-ers, and political leaders. (And agood share of us exercise rolepower ourselves to negative orpositive effect.) Moreover, womenand men alike know only too wellabout power imbalances imposedby language, appearance, class,age, ethnicity, and race. Forwomen, gender heads this list.

Lacking real power in the male-dominated public domain, womentend to adopt power by associa-tion, that is, power bestowedthrough relationship with some-one else’s name or role. Socialized

to accept and value this “unreal”power, many women either areunaware of the flimsy security itaffords or fear the consequences ofasserting their “real” power. Onesuch consequence is poverty;another is the stigma attached topowerful women who traditional-ly have been viewed as dangerous,devouring, and castrating.

The meaning of power is grad-ually changing. Today we arerediscovering the old ways ofancients like the Cretans to whompower meant responsibility, care,and nurturing. We dip back tothe past to move forward. Themovement is universal, not limit-ed to American women. Forexample, the women in an Africanvillage demanded that theirdaughters not be subjected to cli-toridectomy (removal of the cli-toris). Connected by their valuesof responsibility and care, theyexerted their nurturing power toface and overcome a challenge totheir daughters’ physical and sex-ual well-being. These womenmade a moral decision. They tookresponsibility for their relation-ships.

W H A T D O W E D OW I T H I T , O N C E

W E F E E L I T ?

It is not enough to know; wemust give voice to our knowledgeand we must act. KathleenMichels, freelance editor, says,“Only if you can disclose what’sreal do you have personal power.”Those around us sense it when wehave personal power; we don’thave to advertise it or lean on arole or someone else to express it.

F I N D I N G O U RV O I C E S ,

S P E A K I N G O U RT R U T H

In live burial for many years,

Somewhere alongthe line of

development wediscover what we

really are and thenwe make our realdecision for which

we are responsible.Make that decision

primarily for yourselfbecause you cannever really haveanyone else’s life,

not even yourchild’s. The influenceyou have is through

your own life andwhat you become

yourself.—Eleanor Roosevelt

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 45

my personal power did not have aclear, direct route of expression.Calling myself a “recovering nicelady,” I felt overwhelmed andfrightened when I began to movefrom my anonymous, unknownself and recognize my personalpower. I can recall words gettingstuck or coming out in “fast for-ward” or sometimes even in“reverse.” And I can still recallwith some embarrassment thosetimes when I was discovering myanger, seeing it flash out inappro-priately, not only toward thosearound me but myself as well. Myunconscious seemed to speak loud-ly and clearly, almost without myfiltering. I asked myself, “Did Ireally say that?” I saw how hurtfulI could be. Not that I had neverbeen hurtful to others; of course Ihad. But now I was aware of mypersonal power and felt responsi-ble for the way in which Iexpressed my voice. Others proba-bly called me a troublemaker ordeviant. For a while I thought,“Maybe I’ll have growth with nofriends.” But of course that wasnot the case; I was a beginner andin transition. Disclosing what isreal is a risk. Sometimes we candisclose and don’t, sometimes wecan disclose and won’t. I could listpages of incidents when I didn’tspeak up because I didn’t even seethe injustices or hear insults. Ihadn’t known what personalpower was then.

Later came incidents when,after I had learned about personalpower, I still walked away. Iwalked away feeling shameful andguilty because I did know and didnot act. At those moments I wasafraid to take the risk–fearful ofdisapproval, anger, or confronta-tion. As I look back, I would alsoadd that risk–taking was oftenpolitically unwise. Often I havefelt guilty when I heard myself

recounting my stand in a riskingscene in much fuller strength thanI actually took at the time. Otherwomen tell me that they too havereported scenes the way they wouldlike to have heardthem. Perhaps theseare rehearsals for thenext scene; each“stand” is still a victo-ry.

As we develop ourvoice, we often experi-ence a real transforma-tion in our self-con-cept. As we examineour relationships anddevelop new ones, weoften feel a waffling ofthe self as our integrat-ed voice strengthens.Moving through ouradult challenges welisten and developempathy, includingothers with differ-ences. But we mustalso listen to our ownself.

The integration ofthe layers of our voicetakes a long time.First, we find our voicewithin us by hearingour own voice. Innervoices that told you tofollow the family’sunspoken rules—thatvoice that meant sur-vival in a pain-filledfamily. That voicetenaciously held thedelusional beliefs. Learning moreabout the language, voices, andmeaning systems of women, wefind our true voice is often muf-fled by delusional messages we tellourselves to survive and to protectothers.

Polly found her voice to bedelusional. When she heard herselftell the police, “Everything is

okay,” after Tom, drunk at thetime, had tried to throw her out ofthe car, Polly realized she was introuble. She had just lied about alife-threatening event; this time

she heard herself. Polly had to hear herself before

she could claim her core voice andtalk back. In “talking back,” weexpress our movement “fromobject to subject—the liberatedvoice.’’ Polly began acting like asubject when she let herself hearher words of denial. Polly knewshe had to act after hearing her

Anita Hill helped empower women by speaking outabout sexual harassment at the Senate hearings forClarence Thomas.

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delusional voice. She told herselfshe was going to live and thatmeant taking responsibility forher life. Polly told her husbandshe was through being self-decep-tive and would no longer be partyto his self-destruction. Sheaffirmed that she truly cared abouthim. Then she said she was goingfor help on her own, since herefused to seek outside help. Shemade it clear that she would nolonger live in terror.

This was her “different voice,”coming from her caring and herresponsibility to herself. Nolonger would she focus onunderstanding Tom and neglect tocare about herself. She had “hadit” with the selfless, over–respon-sible caretaking into whichwomen are socialized. Polly hadbegun meeting the challenge ofexpressing her personal power.

M E E T I N G T H EC H A L L E N G E

Polly’s statement to her hus-band was a dramatic turning pointin her life. Polly’s story is herstory; yours will be yours. Each ofus will find our own way as werecognize and master the fiveunderpinnings of personal power:valuing, finding our feelings, set-ting limits, taking risks, and giv-ing up control.

A C T I N G O N W H A TW E K N O W

Polly’s decision was based onher values. She valued her mar-riage and her commitment to it.She cared deeply about their child,families, and friends—all of whomwere tightly intertwined in herlife. Reflecting on the scene afterthe car episode, she realized hervalues of self-respect and honestymeant little unless she acted onthem. Our moral decisions require

acting on our values, which meanswe unravel our own concealed val-ues from those we internalizedfrom others. Our “truth” is trust-ing our intuition, our “gut.” Thisis our “home-brewed epistemolo-gy,” the part of us that simplyknows and knows that we know.When we know that we know, wemust act.

F I N D I N G A N DF A C I N G F E E L I N G S

Polly had been unaware of howresentful she had been. In herdenial, she had lied to herself,telling herself to be patient. Intherapy, she took a good look atthe smoldering chamber in hergut that burned each time shefaced another drinking scene. Shesaid it almost felt like an internalorgan.

Have you ever noticed howclearly you see situations whenyou are angry? We often have anear shift in consciousness whenthis clarity illuminates our innerknowing. When we feel the injus-tices, our center is touched and weknow. We cannot have grown upin an oppressed group withoutbeing totally unaware of the injus-tices and discrimination of race,class, and gender. Many women gothrough several years of anger,working through the buriedwounds of the past. Socialized toplease others, we have oftendirected our anger against our-selves or our children. When wespeak directly, we will often belabeled a “hostile bitch.” This, ofcourse, is often a way for others tocontrol our voices.

We know when our anger istrue; we also eventually learn todiscern when our anger isexpressed through manipulation,defensive rage, or survival tactics.It becomes easy to blame the vic-

tim when we encounter this angerand rage. This defensive power is,for some women, a necessary pen-dulum swing in their process ofdeveloping real power out of vic-timization experiences. Thereforefor many women, the feelingsaspect of personal power involvesfacing hurt, sadness, and unre-solved grief. Any of these feelingscan be motivating.

S E T T I N G L I M I T S

When Polly took a stand thatday, she knew she was doing it forherself. Her feelings reflected hervalues; and her values tugged ather emotional cords. As we learnand live our values, we becomemore definite in saying no and yes.Often we have been saying noinwardly before we express it out-wardly. Polly had been takingstands in other places in her life;now it was time to make a state-ment to her husband. Drawingour lines, setting limits, ourboundaries become firmly defined.No longer walking away from ourvalues, we no longer walk awayfrom our core self, going deeper innourishing our self-worth.

T A K I N G R I S K S

Polly had to consider the out-come. She knew about Tom’s tem-per and his control over themoney. She also knew her work asa nurse could never bring inenough to keep her in their pre-sent life-style. She also knew thatshe would be working full-time ifshe left her marriage and wouldprobably end up with responsibili-ty for child care. She also knew asa woman in her late thirties thatshe would most likely be singlefor the rest of her life. We consid-er the relationship consequences as


L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 47

Making Peace

Seek peace in your own place.

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A photographic exhibit of Antelope Canyon in southern Arizona.

M A R G A R I T E H O E F L E R

L O T U S48 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

You cannot find peace anywhere but inyourself.

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L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 49

When we have made peace with ourselves,then we can make peace with others.

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L O T U S50 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

C R I S T H U R M A N

TRUTH COMESPIECE BY PIECE

Truth is reality as it is, not as it seems to be. Can we know the unvarnished truth of a situa-

tion? Yes, but seeing and understanding the truth are skills that have to be learned, and as

with most skills, learning them can be quite difficult and painful at times. But the more you

practice, the better you get. The better you get, the healthier you become.

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L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 51

Dr. Chris Thurman is a licensed psycholo-gist who maintains a counseling practiceat the Minirth-Meier Clinic inRichardson, Texas. He is a consultant tomajor corporations in the areas of stressmanagement, self-esteem, assertiveness, andself-talk. Dr. Thurman lives inRichardson, Texas, with his wife, Holly,and their two children, Matthew andAshley.

�Truth, generally speaking, is

not something we receiveall at once in a life-chang-

ing, road to Damascus manner.Anais Nin said that there are veryfew human beings who receivetruth, complete and staggering,by instant illumination. Most ofthem, she said, “acquire it frag-ment by fragment on a smallscale… like a laborious mosaic.”That’s a good mental image. I seetruth more like putting together athousand-piece puzzle. Piece bypiece, we look for truth andattempt to “fit” it together. Theeffort to see what fits and whatdoesn’t is painstaking. Our lies,the false pieces that don’t fit in,didn’t get there overnight, norwill they leave overnight. So wehave to be patient with the processof exchanging our lies for thetruth.

There’s another painful truthabout truth. With our truth puz-zle, we don’t have all thousandpieces to work with and we won’tbefore our time for putting thepuzzle together is over. Simplyput, we just don’t know the wholetruth while we live.

Carl Jung, one of the leaders ofmodern psychology, put it, “Arewe related to something infinite ornot? That is the telling questionof life.”

Almost everyone wonderswhether or not something infiniteexists. Highly intelligent peoplehave argued all positions on this

issue, some concluding that thereis no infinite being, some conclud-ing that there is (giving us anamazing array to choose from),and some deciding that we can’tknow so we shouldn’t worry aboutit. I agree with Jung, though.Whether or not there is an infinitebeing and whether or not we arerelated to it is life’s most tellingquestion. If “it” does exist, thenwe must ask, “What is ‘it’ like?”and “What does ‘it’ want?”

Hundreds of writers haveaddressed this question, and theanswer is beyond the scope of thisarticle. But I am convinced thatwe have to address Jung’s questionin our personal lives before we canmove on to deeper levels of under-standing and recognizing truth.My own answer to Jung’s questionis “Yes!” and that the “somethinginfinite” is the Creator—God—and he alone knows the wholetruth. As Montaigne put it, “Weare born to inquire into the truth;it belongs to a greater power topossess it.” He will make theimportant pieces of the puzzle,those which keep our lives con-nected and whole, available to usif we seek the truth through him.And that is what I attempt to leadmy patients to do—to seek outthe truth available to them and tolive by it.

We must seek truth and live bywhat is true because what we seeas truth is what primarily deter-mines our path through life.Psychiatrist Scott Peck states thisnicely:

For truth is reality. Thatwhich is false is unreal. Themore clearly we see the reali-ty of the world, the betterequipped we are to deal withthe world. The less clearlywe see the reality of theworld—the more our mindsare befuddled by falsehood,misperceptions, and illusions

—the less able we will be todetermine correct courses ofaction and make wise deci-sions. Our view of reality islike a map… If the map istrue and accurate, we willgenerally know where weare, and if we have decidedwhere we want to go, wewill generally know how toget there. If the map is falseand inaccurate, we generallywill be lost.

There is another important rea-son why we must seek the truthand live by it. There is a direct,inescapable connection betweenour self-esteem and whether or notwe are dedicated to truth. If dedi-cation to truth characterizes ourway of living, we develop stablepositive feelings of worth. Themoment we wrap our lives aroundlies, genuine feelings of self-worthare virtually impossible. We’ve allhad moments in our lives when wesuddenly saw that something webelieved to be true was false. In-stantly, the truth cuts like a knife.The writer of Proverbs wrote thatas a man “thinks in his heart, so ishe.”

B A R R I E R S T OK N O W I N G T H E

T R U T H

Among the many barriers toknowing the truth are prejudiceand pride. Prejudice is a barrier toknowing the truth because yourmind is already made up. Pride isa significant barrier to knowingthe truth because it makes us arro-gantly believe we already knowthe truth whether we do or not.With prejudice and pride, thetruth can come right up and biteus on the nose and still go unno-ticed.•

From the book “The Lies We Believe.”Copyright 1989 by Chris Thurman.Printed with permission from thepublisher, Thomas Nelson.

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C H A R L E S M E Y E R

Examining Death Myths

RON CHAPPLE

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 53

Charles Meyer is the director of Pastoral Care at St. David’sHospital in Austin, Texas. He has had over twenty years of bed-side experience with dying persons and their families, and lecturesnationally on death-related issues.

�

As everyone knows, medical decision makingin the area of withholding, refusing, orwithdrawing life support has becomeincreasingly complex and difficult. New

technology has had the most obvious impact on thesedilemmas as patients, families, and physicians areoffered more and ever newer diag-nostic and life prolonging equip-ment. • CAT scanners have been supplant-ed by Magnetic Resonance Imagery(MRI) machines which use noradioactive materials and produceincredibly clear (computer assisted)pictures. They will soon be able todo blood chemistry and enzymeanalysis without venipuncture(drawing blood). • New neonatal respirators push airinto the undeveloped lungs ofinfants with greater impact, forcingmore oxygen exchange and enablingeven more and smaller prematurebabies to stay alive longer.• Laser technology will soon be usedin cardiology to replace the current“balloon” technique of destroyingplaque inside clogged arteries, virtu-ally opening them entirely.

While technology has increasedour options for treatment (or non-treatment) in both crisis and longterm illnesses, it is usually not thedetermining factor in making suchdecisions. Rather, there exists a set of subtle andextremely powerful internal presuppositions whichinform and direct our choices regarding withdrawing,withholding, or refusing life support. It is necessaryto examine these deep seated, culturally reinforceddeath myths in order to more openly and realisticallyevaluate the appropriate options for and with dyingpatients and their families.

Whether based on medical tradition, social obliga-tion, or religious teaching, the death myths influenc-ing which treatment decisions we make are indeliblyembedded within our collective psyche. They flashthrough our minds when the doctor tells us thepatient’s condition is poor. They are the screens

through which we hear the diagnosis of serious illness.They are the standards against which we weigh ourresponse to the terminal prognosis. They are not“myths” in the traditional sense of beliefs which rep-resent symbolic truth, but are myths in the usual,popular sense of ideas which obscure the truth or evenserve to perpetuate falsehoods. The death myths mostprominent in our culture are as follows:

1“Only old people die.” Conversely stated, This meansthat “Young people should not die.” Neither

assumption is true. The mortality information frommost hospitals shows that nearly equal (and, as AIDSpatients become more prominent, increasingly

greater) numbers of people underage 65 die, especially in the 0 to 10category.

It is agism at its worst to thinkthat an old person has “lived his orher life” and therefore is moreaccepting or more deserving ofdeath than a younger, 20- to 40-year-old counterpart. In fact, it isentirely possible for the situation tobe quite the reverse; the aged personmay be more vital and have more tolive for than the youth.

Belief in this myth can result inyoung persons undergoing ex-traordinary efforts from chemother-apy to intubation just because theyare young, or old persons prema-turely denying further treatmentjust because they are old. The mythalso serves to reinforce our own wishfor a long life and to defend againstour fear of our own death coming“prematurely.”

The truth is, whether we like itor not, people of all ages die. Deathis no respecter of age. There is noguarantee of life span given with

conception. Each death is sad, tragic, acceptable or arelief based on the life of the person, the quality ofthat life, and the kinds of relationships that personhas had. Each dying situation, therefore, where a deci-sion must be made to withhold or withdraw artificialintervention, needs to be evaluated on those criteria,not on a myth about age that presumes that it is“okay” for old (but not young) persons to die, perhapsintimating that the elderly want to die or even oughtto die.

2“Medicine can cure everything.” Even in the face oflong term illness when the patient is finally about

to die, panicked family members frequently ask,

The truth is,whether we like itor not, people of

all ages die.Death is no

respecter of age.There is no

guarantee of lifespan given with

conception.

L O T U S54 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

“Can’t you do something?” The panic and the request(or demand) reflect a strong belief in this country thatmedicine can find and cure all illness and physiciansare or should be omniscient.

The media to the contrary, most physicians andother health care professionals do not act to reinforcethis image. (They know better.) Rather, the myth per-sists because it is what people very much want tobelieve. As anotherdenial of theinevitability of ill-ness or death it is weourselves who wantto believe thatdrugs, medical tech-nology, and theirphysician purveyorscan prevent or curethe effects of disease,self inflicted injury(smoking, diet, life-style), and aging.

But it is also truethat the medicalcommunity has fre-quently oversold theefficacy or advisabil-ity of a particulartechnical or thera-peutic break-through. The artifi-cial heart was anexample of such amedia event.Regardless of theavailability, advis-ability, and ruinousfinancial cost of thisdevice, the heart wasproffered as another example of technology’s ability tocheat death, and the myth was reinforced. Similarclaims are being made for transplantation of fetalbrain tissue and for the use of other exotic, experi-mental, and expensive treatments that often laterprove to be equally or less effective than the previoustreatment.

It is more honest to be straight with patients andourselves about the limits of tests, treatments, medi-cations, and tentative prognoses. Not to do so is toembrace this myth of medicine and to end up feelingangry, disappointed, guilty, and resentful.

Medicine cannot cure everything. Death is a nor-mal bodily function. It is not optional for the humanrace.

3“Life is always the highest value.” The initial pre-sumption in nearly any accident or illness is always

in favor of preserving life. But once the patient is sta-bilized and the prognosis is clear, considerations otherthan the priority of “life” come into effect. It is at thispoint that the meaning and quality of life as the patientexperiences them are of the highest value in making thehard decisions of treatment and life support.

The easy tempta-tion is to presumethe patient eitherbelieves or ought tobelieve this myth,especially if thephysician does. Topresume that life isof the highest valuesupports our ownrefusal to see deathas an acceptable out-come for the patientand for ourselves.Fortunately, howev-er, families andpatients are increas-ingly moving towardthe “meaning andquality” standard ofjudgment for dis-continuing treat-ment. They seem tounderstand that lifeis more than breath-ing, living is morethan subsisting, andpresence with usmeans more thanphysically beingthere.

4“Money should not be a consideration.” This myth issupported by those who believe it is crass and

insensitive to give the cost of treatment any weight inmedical decision making. In our “bottom line” orient-ed culture we see the consideration of money to some-how diminish the image of the person. We rightlyreject placing a monetary value on a person’s life. Weemotionally recoil at the prospect of finances deter-mining treatment, preferring to spend “whatever isnecessary” to save the life of our loved one.

But what of the young couple whose baby is dyingyet can be kept alive a few more hours or days in ourtechnologically equipped Intensive Care Nurseries?Or the elderly woman maintained by a respirator inICU whose husband is barely subsisting on Social P

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Security? And what of the use of resources devoted tothese dying patients (not just for comfort but for con-tinuing active treatment that is much more than pal-liative) that could be used for taking care of other,curable patients, for research, or for reducing hospitalcosts for everyone?

The honest, if uncomfortable, truth is that moneyis already a consideration in medical decision makingand it will continue to play aneven greater role as healthcarerationing becomes a reality in theUnited States. Given a limitedamount of resources and a virtu-ally unlimited demand, it is rea-sonable to conclude that financialconcerns are and will be a part ofthe process of deciding to with-hold or withdraw treatment.

As many European countrieshave done, the United States hasbegun to experiment with health-care rationing. In Great Britain,if a person over the age of 55comes to a hospital with cardiacarrest, she or he can be treatedand kept comfortable, but openheart surgery will not be done;neither will renal dialysis. InSweden the age cut off is 50.

Similarly, as mentioned earli-er, if patients are on Medicare(where hospital bills are reim-bursed at 80 percent of reason-able cost) and have less than sixmonths to live, they can switchinto the Medicare/ Hospice track.Bills will then be reimbursed at100 percent of reasonable cost,but the patient agrees to go aheadand die.

And it is not unreasonable, inthe case of dying patients, to suggest that the focus ofcare switch from curative (an unrealistic goal) to pal-liative. Concentrating on pain control, dignity, safety,comfort, and quality of remaining life, the patientwill usually no longer receive further chemotherapy,blood transfusions, CAT scans, or antibiotics for infec-tions. Pain is palliated, patient comfort is the highestgoal, and costs of expensive and extraordinary tech-nology and treatments are dramatically reduced.

As our entire healthcare system undergoes morechanges in the coming years, more areas of rationingwill inevitably appear. In the meantime, it can beargued that, sensitively done, consideration of the

family’s or patient’s financial situation is a very caringgesture, as is weighing the effect of treatment on thecost of healthcare to the entire community, indeed tothe nation. As the percent of GNP spent on health-care jumps from the current 12 percent to as much as15 percent by 1995 (approaching 20 by the year2000), financial considerations will become even moreimportant as patients weigh their treatment options.

5“Death is evil. Death meansfailure.” While the church is

largely responsible for promot-ing the first of these, the medi-cal/ healthcare profession isresponsible for the persistence ofthe second.

Many people, desperatelyattempting to make some kindof logical sense out of their ill-ness, have been told by theirreligious community that goodis always rewarded and evil isalways punished. They thenextrapolate that good is always areward and evil is always a pun-ishment. They are sick or dying,therefore they must have donesomething bad and incurred thepunishment of a wrathful God.

In fact death is not evil; nei-ther is it intrinsically good.Sickness and death are amoraloccurrences. They have nothingto do with good/bad, right-wrong, punishment/reward. Weget sick. We die. As one doctorsaid: Welcome to Earth; thedeath rate here is 100%. Oneout of one dies.”

The only thing “good” or“bad” about death is the mannerin which one responds to it.

Death, like any other amoral occurrence (birth, acci-dent, marriage, divorce, trauma) is merely an occasionfor good or evil to become manifest. That manifesta-tion is shown in our response to the event, not in theevent itself. Likewise death has nothing to do withfailure. Assuming one has done everything necessary(not possible, but necessary) and the patient’s condi-tion is said to be “incompatible with life,” it is under-standable that the person dies. The death has nothingto do with the ability of the physician or nursing staff.“Success” and “failure” are value judgments thatreveal the bias of the training of healthcare staff (usingmilitary terminology—triage, fight, battle, win/ lose,

Death might moreeasily be tolerated byall of us if we saw itas a form of healing.

Death as healingtransposes its

symbolic meaningfrom that of evil

enemy to that of anacceptable and at

times even welcomedalternative.

L O T U S56 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

bravery). Such judgments have no meaning when applied to

the event of the death, which is amoral. In fact, itseems the height of arrogance toassume that we (patient, family,or physician) have “failed” whena natural process (death) has fol-lowed its normal route. To sup-port this myth is the same assaying hurricane or earthquakevictims “failed” to stop the hur-ricane or earthquake. All this isnot to imply that death is notoften sad, angering, relieving,unfair, or crushing. It is all thisand more in feeling terms. Theproblem arises in treating deathas though it should not happen,denying it as a logical, accept-able, and sometimes desirablepossibility for the outcome ofthe patient’s illness.

Death might more easily betolerated by all of us if we saw itas a form of healing. Death ashealing transposes its symbolicmeaning from that of evil enemyto that of an acceptable and attimes even welcomed alternative.

6“Where there’s life there’s hope.”This myth, though frequent-

ly cited when making treatmentdecisions, is patently untrue.Where there’s life there is quiteoften the opposite of hope. There is agony, fear, excru-ciating pain, anger, frustration, loneliness, anddespair. The sentiment really expressed here is thatwhere there is biological activity (whether mechani-cally assisted or otherwise), there is reason for opti-mism that the person may recover, even against allodds.

The questions to be asked of this myth are, “Whatis life?” and “What is hope?” Is life merely the activi-ty of air being forced into stiffening lungs or bloodbeing pumped inside a human cavity? Is it biologicalactivity mechanically produced or substantially sup-ported? Again the quality of life standard (as judgedby the patient if competent or by the patient’s signifi-cant others if incompetent) comes into consideration.Increasing numbers of people believe that life is notlife if there is no quality of relating, quality of experi-encing and enjoying, quality of being. Life for themmeans much more than the rather shallow definitionof longevity.

“Hope” also is quite different from “optimism.”Optimism demands the patient get well (not just bet-ter) and return to the former state of health. Nothing

less is desirable or acceptable.The meaning of hope, on theother hand, was expressed by acancer patient who commented,“It’s okay with me if I live andit’s okay with me if I die.Because either place I’m loved.”Hope implies that death is asacceptable an outcome to one’scondition as life. Hope embracesand affirms both life and deathas parts of a greater whole ofexistence. Hope sees life not as aproblem to be solved but as amystery to be lived, and death asa part of that mystery.

7“Suffering is redemptive.”Believe it or not, some people

(patients, families, physiciansand nurses), will refuse painmedication, withhold palliativemeasures to increase comfort, ordeny the obvious existence ofpain because they see the suffer-ing as cleansing, deserved, orredemptive. Followers of thismyth, based on a conservativetheological or philosophical tra-dition, conquer their own help-lessness in the face of illness anddeath by assuming that dis-

comfort and pain are spiritually or psychologicallyhelpful to the patient.

Of course it is sometimes true that suffering can bean occasion for redemption, for the healing of memo-ries, relationships, hurts, fears, or guilts. Pain and ill-ness often are the precipitators of change in behavioror perspective on the person’s lifestyle. But sufferingis also quite often the occasion for unquenchable bit-terness, debilitating despair, collapse of faith, and dis-integration of personhood.

Once again, in our attempts to make sense of anillness we want to believe there is some purpose, someplan, some reason for the horrible suffering we or ourloved ones are enduring. Once again, the truth is thatsuffering is as amoral as the virus, bacteria, or sys-temic condition that is its cause.

But redemption or collapse are responses to the painand discomfort. These individual and varied responsesdepend largely on the personality and belief system ofthe patient, and the quality of interactions between

Hope embraces andaffirms both life anddeath as parts of a

greater whole of exis-tence. Hope sees life

not as a problem to besolved but as a

mystery to be lived,and death as a part of

that mystery.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 57

the patient and loved ones, not on the condition oramount of suffering the patient experiences.

8“Once you start something, you can’t stop it.”Physicians, nurses, and technicians are the most

common purveyors of this myth. It is also reflected inthe common knowledge bank of misinformationabout healthcare on the part of families and patients.Usually stated in relation to respirators, artificialhydration and nutrition, or heart pumps, it representsthe reluctance to withdraw treatment, based on thepremise that it is morally better (and easier) not tostart a procedure than it is to withdraw or discontinueone. By not starting a treatment, death is seen to bepassively allowed; when treatment is stopped, death isthought to be “caused” by the deletion of “life sus-taining” interventions. The truth is that any treat-ment may be withdrawn at any time if and when thattreatment is futile or harmful. There will be some in-stances when it will be apparent that such treatmentsare futile and should not be begun. In other cases,there will be a modicum of doubt and treatment willbe started to see if in fact it is futile, in which case itshould—as with any other futile or inappropriate orharmful treatment—be stopped.

9“Pulling the plug is suicide or murder.” Many peoplerefuse to make a decision to withdraw hydration,

nutrition, or respiratory maintenance because theybelieve such an act constitutes murder. Likewise, to

designate a personal directive such as a Living Willmay seem tantamount to suicide. The underlying pre-supposition is that it is improper to take any controlover one’s own death. To do so is seen to usurp thepower and prerogative of an all-controlling God. Infact, not to decide is to decide. Not to make a LivingWill, designate a surrogate decision maker, or with-draw artificial intervention systems is to decide toabdicate responsibility. It is to relegate the burden ofdecision making to someone (physician, hospital,committee, court) far less qualified to make it andrefuse to accept our ability and responsibility as “co-creators with God” to share in the rational determina-tion of our destiny.

One could just as easily argue that not to pull theplug or make a Living Will designation is to stand inthe way of Nature, God, and the normal procession oflife to death.

A major theological task for the church is to re-examine its beliefs regarding suicide, assisted suicide,active and passive euthanasia, to adjust to moderntechnological developments, and to enable individualsto exercise options that heretofore were unacceptable.

10“To die of dehydration or starvation in a healthcaresetting is inhumane, cruel, and immoral.” When

many people think of food and drink, they imaginesitting down at a table with steaming dishes and goodfriends. But that image of wholesome food staring

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D A V I D G E R S H O N & G A I L S T R A U B

Living YourVision

Emerson said that what we think is what we create; he called this principle the “law of laws.”

Job stated, “Thou shall decree a thing and it shall be established unto thee.” James Allen

said, “The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect inner beliefs.”

Seth said, “What exists physically exists first in thought and feeling. There is no other rule.” � These are just a

few of the many significant thinkers who pondered the nature of reality and came to understand the same principle:

Our thoughts and beliefs create everything that happens in our life. What manifests in our life is a direct result of

the thoughts that we are affirming.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 59

David Gershon is leader and co-founder ofthe human potential training, theEmpowerment Workshop, and offers man-agement training and consulting to orga-nizations throughout the world.GailStraub is leader and co-founder of theEmpowerment Workshop, an internation-ally recognized human potential trainingprogram, and has designed and led train-ings for thousands of people worldwide.

�What this means in prac-

tical terms is that theconditions and

circumstances of our life at thisvery moment in time are directly aresult of what we presentlybelieve. If we want to change anypart of our present life, we mustfirst change those beliefs that cre-ated it. If we want to create any-thing new in our life, we mustfirst mentally create the newbelief. Nothing happens in our lifewithout a pre-existing belief thatbrings that thing to pass.

This sounds so simple at first.Why can’t we all just affirm goodthings in our life and see themcome to pass? If only the humancondition were so simple! Whatmakes the process complex is thatwe are generally not aware of what webelieve. The vast majority of thebeliefs that we are manifesting areunconscious, and unfortunatelymany of them are self-limiting.

We indiscriminately acceptmany limiting beliefs and neverrealize how much of an effect theyare having on our lives. Thoughtslike “I’m not good enough” or “Idon’t have what it takes to have aloving relationship, prosperity, thework I want, peace of mind, etc.”profoundly influence the shape ofour individual worlds. Most of ourpain, fear, and suffering is causedby these unconscious, unexam-ined, self-limiting beliefs.

To change these beliefs requirescommitment, concentration, andcourage to examine thoughtfullyand alter the ways you view your-

self and the world. The process ofexamining and transforming theselimiting beliefs is what we callmental clearing.

T H E P R I N C I P L EO F M E N T A LC L E A R I N G

To be able to create the new wemust first clear out the old. Wecan’t effectively manifest a newbelief if we are simultaneouslyholding on to an old, entrenchedbelief that opposes this new idea.

One of the major mistakesmade by people working with themanifestation principles is tothink that all that is required ofthem is to affirm what they wantand it will happen. They don’trealize they must first clear fromtheir mind the self-limitingbeliefs. What manifests is what we

really believe, not what we would liketo believe. Until our self-limitingbeliefs are made conscious andtransformed, they will continue toget in the way and inhibit ourability to create what we want.

Before we can create a beliefthat we have more financial abun-dance in our life, we must releaseour belief that there’s not enoughto go around. Before we can mani-fest a more loving attitude towardourselves, we must first clear awayany self-negating beliefs that saywe’re not good enough. Before wecan learn any new spiritual ideaswe must be willing to let go ofour old ideas.

A story that illustrates thisprinciple tells of a haughty ZenBuddhist scholar who goes to visita Zen meditation master to learnhow to meditate. The masterinvites the scholar in for tea, andimmediately the scholar launchesinto a monologue on Zen philoso-phy.

The meditation master listenspatiently for some time and thenasks the scholar if he would like tohave some tea. The scholar agreesand the meditation master beginsto pour the tea into the scholar’scup. The cup fills up, yet the mas-ter continues to pour, and teaspills all over the table and thescholar. The scholar angrily askswhat the teacher is doing. Themaster quietly replies that his cupwas so full there was no room forthe tea.

The master made the point thatthe scholar was so full of his ownknowledge that there was no roomfor new learning. We must createspace in order for the new to comein. Yet it is difficult to let go ofthe familiar. Even when parts ofour present life are causing us painand suffering, we often still won’tlet go. Our present discomfort isfamiliar and safe. It may representour whole identity. So how do welet go?

An empoweredperson is one whohas gone throughthe effort to find

his or hervision and is

consistently overtime living his orher life based on

this truth.

L O T U S60 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

T H E P R I N C I P L EO F V I S I O N

We are most willing to releaseold beliefs, emotional pain, andother baggage when we have aclear vision of what we willreplace it with. The clearer thevision, the more we will beattracted to it, and the less we willneed to hold on to self-limitingbeliefs.

It’s hard to get motivated toclear out the rocks, weeds, andstumps that presently exist on ourplot of land without a vision of agarden. We need to see the newtrapeze before we are willing to letgo of the old one. We need to havea vision of the joy we will experi-ence by loving before we willrelease the fear we have of beinghurt. The principle of vision is: Inorder to create anything you must havea vision of what it is you want tomanifest. The more definite and clearthe vision, the more definite and clearthe manifestation .

You are a sculptor molding anextraordinary, flexible, creativesubstance—thought. Your cre-ation, which happens to be yourlife, will exactly embody the ideasand pictures you hold in yourmind.

You may not know how youwill get from here to there. In fact,you certainly won’t know all thesteps in between. But until youcan envision the possibility, youwill not begin to move toward it.Becoming clear about what youwant your life to look like is notnecessarily easy. Creating a visionfor your life requires a willingnessto explore and discover what’s impor-tant to you, not somebody else. Youneed to ask yourself questions like:What do I value? What are mypriorities? Where does my passionlie? What gives me meaning?What is my purpose in life? Whatis possible for me? This processhas to be one of the most creative,dynamic, and demanding under-

takings in which you will everengage.

To the degree that you have alucid personal vision in yourmind, your life will begin tochange in response to it.

What is personal power? It isthe ability to find your own indi-vidual truth and then create yourlife around this truth. It is findingthe essence of yourself, validatingit fully, and welcoming it into fullexpression. An empowered person isone who has gone through the effort tofind his or her truth and create a lifevision around it and who is living thisvision consistently over time.

It takes time and effort to lookat the limiting beliefs you haveformed over a lifetime. These arethe things that restrict personalpower, that impede your fulfill-ment, that disempower you. And ittakes personal power to transformthose beliefs and create an evolv-ing life vision that you sustainover a lifetime.

C O M M I T M E N T

Imagine that you have justmade a breakthrough in theempowerment process. You havegained a wonderful insight intoyourself and the changes you wantto bring about. You’ve clearedaway the mental weeds. You’vecreated an affirmation and visual-ization that’s right on your grow-ing edge. You have a good under-standing of how to nourish thisaffirmation on a daily basis.

What’s needed now is the will-ingness to stay with your affirma-tion and visualization until it’smanifested. The quality of person-al power that enables this to hap-pen is commitment.

Commitment is the willingness tostick with your vision throughout theinevitable ups and downs that occur.It is the active engagement of yourfull will and whole heart to carryyour original intention through tofruition. It is the willingness to

keep peeling back the layers ofunconscious beliefs that come upin the form of your resistances.

Commitment requires muchand gives back even more.

It gives us pride, the pride thatcomes from making good on ourinner promises to ourselves.

It gives us confidence, the con-fidence that comes from seeingthat we have what it takes toembody a vision.

It gives us satisfaction, the sat-isfaction that comes from stretch-ing beyond ourselves and becom-ing more than we were before.

What is the key to developingcommitment? It is having a com-pelling vision that attracts youirresistibly. You need a visionstrong enough to sustain youwhen your energy and spirits flag.There is where the self-awarenessyou have embodied in your affir-mations and visualizations is sovaluable. It enables you to create avision that you can believe in, avision that is on your growingedge, a vision that so motivatesand excites you that you’re willingto stick with it through all thebumps on the ride.

D I S C I P L I N E

What happens after we committo affirming and visualizing thevision we want to bring into ourlife? What can we do on a dailybasis? We practice discipline.

We set up a time and a place todo our mental practice each morn-ing or evening. In between thesetimes, during the day, we stayaware. When old self-negatingthoughts come into our mind, wedo not allow them to hang around.We deliberately replace them withself-affirming thoughts.

Discipline is the hands-on aspect ofcommitment. It’s the daily dedicationto our vision. Discipline is verystraightforward. It is rhythm witha clear purpose.

Discipline fails when we

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 61

attempt to apply it without acompelling vision. Discipline fordiscipline’s sake is pure drudgery.It is not sustainable over time.Athletic coaches, teachers, parents,and others have misunderstoodthis very important source ofpower. “Discipline” employed tobuild character, toughen, or pun-ish is motivation through the neg-ative. It will quite often, in thelong run, produce the opposite ofwhat is intended. Negating whatyou don’t want energizes andmanifests it. What we think aboutwe create. A compelling visionnaturally brings about commit-ment. Commitment naturallybrings about discipline. When ourdiscipline starts to waver (as itwill over time) we need to recom-mit to our vision. This brings lifeenergy to our daily practice. Weneed to keep remembering why we’redoing what we’re doing. This is thesecret of true discipline.

S U P P O R T S Y S T E M

We may have an excellent senseof commitment and discipline, yetstill find ourselves slacking off. Tokeep up our motivation we needsomething else. That somethingelse is a personal growth supportsystem.

A support system is comprised offriendships and relationships dedicatedto helping us grow. A support sys-tem is a network of people whosepriority is to both acknowledgeour growth through love and affir-mation and to give us honest feed-back when we need a push.

A support system can includeprofessionals (like a therapist ormentor) and close friends. It caninclude a women’s group, a men’sgroup, a couple’s group, a twelve-step group, a therapy group, aspiritual organization, or some-thing similar.

The critical factor in a supportsystem is that the stated objectiveof the relationships involved is

personal growth. There are manyfriendships and intimate relation-ships that are not explicitlyintended to help us grow. Theseare fine. But we should not misun-derstand the nature of such rela-tionships.

You also need to recognize thatsome relationships actually holdback your growth. These peoplemay be afraid of self-discovery,and this may prevent them fromsupporting your growth. Or theirapproach to growing may be dog-matic—they attempt to force theirpath on you. They may beself-destructive, and their negativ-ity may close you down. If you

have these kinds of influences inyour environment, it’s all themore important that you seek outa personal growth support system.It’s also important that the non-supportive person be directlyaddressed and the situationchanged.

It requires effort and a clearintention to seek out and build asupport system. It often takes sev-eral attempts before you get whatyou want. Once you have a sup-port system in place it requires acommitment to keep it alive andvital. It’s so very easy to getcaught up in the endless busynessof life and neglect your support

Living our vision of life may be as simple as making and keepingcommitments for family support.

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system. Of course there may be atime when it’s appropriate to letgo of some aspect of your supportsystem if it’s no longer servingyou and you’ve grown beyond it.You know whether or not you’veoutgrown it by asking yourself onesimple question: Am I growing asa result of being in this group?

Another important kind of sup-port is our physical environment.Our environments at home and atwork are constantly affecting us.The colors, the type of art, thesense of order, the noises, and soforth are all influencing our inter-nal state. We can create an envi-ronment that offers us calm, joy,inspiration, fun, or any other qual-ity we feel will enhance ourgrowth. However, to create ourenvironment as a conscious part ofour support system requires a clear

intention. Many people create a physical

environment when they first moveinto a space—and never change it.The environment that they areinteracting with, day after day,reflects who they were as a personmany years ago. They have beengrowing but their environmenthas remained static.

With high-quality people and aphysical support system, ourgrowth can flourish.

I N N E R G U I D A N C E

How do we get answers toquestions like, “Is this supportgroup helping me grow?” “What’smy growing edge?” “What fears orlimiting beliefs are blocking me?”

We get those answers from ourinner guidance. Inner guidancehas many names, depending onhow it’s being used. Some of thesenames include “intuition,” “ahunch,” “the still, small voicewithin,” “our higher self,” and“the wisdom within.”

To become more aware of one-self, it is essential to draw answersfrom within. The more facile weare with this process, the easierour growth becomes. And it iseasy—it’s just a matter of doingit.

There are four steps that wehave found helpful in accessinginner guidance.1. Get still. We first need to turnoff the mind chatter. This mentalchatter is like the static on aradio—it disturbs our ability tohear anything significant. A fewdeep breaths can usually quiet themind. If the issue on which youare attempting to receive innerguidance is of a deeper nature, sev-eral minutes of meditation on acalming image, such as a peacefullake, will help. 2. Ask. If we want information, weneed to ask for it; it doesn’t justcome. We need to turn on theradio if we want to hear music.

The more clearly we ask the ques-tion, the clearer the answer wereceive. 3. Trust. Many times people getvery clear inner guidance but theydiscount it. They don’t trust theirown internal knowing. They don’tbelieve in their intuition. They aretotally bound in the rational modeof knowing. To prove its validitywe must trust the inner guidancewe get. 4. Act. When you receive innerguidance you must act on it. Itdoesn’t do you any good to knowsomething and not act on it. Afteryou’ve followed your inner guid-ance, make a mental note of whathappened. How did it turn out?As you experience concrete resultsfrom acting on your inner guid-ance, you begin to use it more.The more you use it, the morerefined it gets and the better theresults you achieve.

Inner guidance, a receptivesource of personal power, is animportant complement to themore active powers of commit-ment and discipline. It is like thefine focus on a binocular. A smallcorrection is often the differencebetween seeing and not seeing orbetween a vision manifesting orlanguishing. Inner guidance pro-vides the fine focus in our lives.

L I G H T N E S S

Unless we approach our growthwith a light spirit, we can easilylose perspective. Although weneed to be serious about ourgrowth if we want to change, wecan’t take ourselves too seriously.We need to walk our growth pathwith a light heart. The very centerof the word enlightenment is theword lighten. As we grow we liter-ally lighten. We shed the heavi-ness of limiting beliefs and emo-tional baggage that have weighedus down.

We all have different ways tocreate more lightness in our lives.

To become moreaware of oneself, itis essential to draw

answers fromwithin. The more

skilled we are withthis process, theeasier our growth

becomes.

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Some people like to go dancing,others sing; some like to gettogether with the kinds of peoplewith whom they have a good time.We have several couples we gettogether with for the sole purposeof having fun. We call our groupthe Space Rangers and our mottois “The Space Rangers—dedicatedto high adventure, play, andflights of magic.” For each meet-ing we learn new jokes, create sillyskits, or find new boogie music todance to. Almost every time weget together our sides ache fromlaughing so hard at ourselves.

If we can keep our spirits lightas we grow, it makes the wholeprocess of growth a great deal easi-er. When was the last time youhad a good belly laugh? Make sureyou have a way to keep yourselflight.

L O V E

To love ourselves, to loveanother, and to be loved by anoth-er all stimulate us to expand andopen. It is in this state of lovingopenness that we are most capableof profound growth. For when weare in such a state our whole beingis charged with love, and love isthe most powerful motivatingforce in the universe. We are notapproaching our growth out of“shoulds,” or fear, or pain, or suf-fering. We are approaching it outof love.

The more we approach ourgrowth as an act of self-love, theeasier it becomes. It is fine for theimpetus to grow to emerge out ofloving and being loved by anoth-er, but we need to be careful notto set up a dependency on externallove to motivate us. The primarylove relationship needs to be with theself. We need genuinely to accept,validate, and nurture our selveseach step along the way. It is vitalthat we regularly take time toappreciate and value ourselves forwho we are now and who we’re

becoming. We need wholeheart-edly to love ourselves.

The way to cultivate this love isto do just what you’redoing—committing to self-dis-covery. As you open to deeperparts of yourself, the more intouch with your true nature youget and the more you discover itsessence—love. It is this love thatmelts resistances, fears, andself-negation. It is this love thathas compassion and patience forthe human condition. It is thislove that makes being human thespecial privilege and wonder thatit is.

F I N D I N G Y O U RO W N T R U T H

This source of personal power iswithout doubt the most central toour definition of empowerment.An empowered person has gone throughthe effort to find his or her own truthand is consistently over time living hisor her life based on this truth.

It is so easy to let someone elseset up camp in our minds, toaccept another’s beliefs, to run ourlives by another’s values. Emerson,in his famous essay on self-reliance, says it well: “Nothing isat last sacred but the integrity ofyour own mind… When privatemen shall act with original views,the luster will be transferred fromthe actions of kings to those of theindividual.” Every one of us is aunique being with particular gifts,strengths, needs, lessons to learn,challenges to overcome, and con-tributions to make to the world.Our primary aspiration should bethe discovery and creation of a lifebased on this composite of ouruniqueness.

Yet it isn’t easy to break out ofthe strong enculturation of expect-ing someone out there—theexpert—to figure out the truth forus. We expect the doctor, theattorney, the newscaster, thepolitician, the priest, the guru, the

therapist to give us the answer. Inour fast-food culture, we aren’tencouraged to take the time toknow who we are and what’simportant to us. We have becomeestranged from ourselves and oneof our greatest sources of personalpower—our unique inner truth.

Finding our own truth allowsus to have a strong foundationupon which to build. It gives uscore values and beliefs that we canuse to evaluate our decisions. Itgives us a solid identity fromwhich we can develop a point ofview. It gives us criteria for howwe want to grow…and muchmore.

Your own truth must be theguiding force for creating your lifeas you want it. And no one butyou can create that truth.•

From “Empowerment: The Art ofCreating Your Life as You Want.”Copyright 1989 by David Gershon andGail Straub. Used by permission of DellBooks, a division of Bantam Publishing.

Your own truthmust be the

guiding force forcreating your life

as you want it. Andno one but you cancreate that truth.

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E D W A R D S E L L N E R

SoulMaking

The Irish have an ancient tradition they call “soul-making,” reviewing the direction of one’s

life and eventually attempting to make peace with the physical and the spiritual worlds, so

closely connected, and our place within them. This reconciliation process necessarily involves

self-confrontation and the courage to change and as such can be especially disturbing and anxiety-provoking. It can

induce and often does bring out a great deal of grief, anger, and rage. Yet in the long run, soul-making is most

rewarding, for it can teach us wisdom, compassion, and when we have gotten some distance from the pain, gratitude

for all that has been a part of that reconciliation process—even the depths of our despair.

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 65

Edward Sellner is associate professor ofpastoral theology and spirituality at thecollege of Saint Catherine. He is alsoauthor of “Mentoring: The Art ofSpiritual Kinship.”

�Soul-making is the crucial task

when we reach midlife.Although similar to all of

life’s major transitions, that rite ofpassage especially is a time ofstruggle, of deep and aching pain,of the unmasking of illusions. It isdefinitely a journey into theunknown. It is as if we awake oneday and find ourselves in a strangeland, a foreign territory, a twilightzone where traditional roles, oldperceptions, and comfortablehabits no longer seem to fit. LikeAlice in Wonderland or the chil-dren of Narnia, what we findthrough the looking glass orbehind the wardrobe door can fillus initially with wonder andamazement. These early responses,however, soon give way to confu-sion over the strange beastsencountered in those mysteriouslands as well as the terror of ourown powerlessness.

We discover the need toacknowledge, accept, and inte-grate inner polarities we didn’tknow existed. We find that for-gotten wounds from early child-hood and fears of growing old canno longer be repressed. Webecome excited about new ideasand dreams yet to be fulfilled, andwe feel guilty for destructivebehaviors inflicted often uponthose we love the most as wesearch for new expressions of ourcreativity. We want to belong andwe yearn for solitude. We arepulled between qualities andstates-of-being that in the pastwere associated exclusively withthe “masculine” or the “feminine”but by midlife can no longer be soeasily dichotimized. We come tosee that we must be both assertive

and gentle, just and compassion-ate, nurturing and challenging ofthose people and institutions welove. Most of all, in our search forwisdom we find, as did the Frenchwriter Pascal, that truth is dis-cerned “not only through our rea-son but also through our heart.’’

Whatever the length or dura-tion of the journey into midlife, itnecessarily involves the painfulprocess of conversion in which onebecomes less concerned withrecognition, success, and powerand more with the values of self-knowledge, self-acceptance,integrity, generativity. It is a pro-cess that can lead to forgivenessand reconciliation, often withone’s parents, siblings, spouse,

children, friends and enemiesalike—but only, it seems, if onebegins with oneself. For those whosurvive, this journey, accompaniedas it is by much agony, can alsoresult in the joy associated withgiving birth. It can become a pil-grimage toward greater freedomand wholeness when we are giventhe courage to face the terror ofthe unknown and to persist,despite all those parts of ourselvesand all those relationships andinstitutions that seem to want usto stay the way we were. Perhapsmost importantly, the journeyinto midlife, like so many of ourcrises and transitions, can becomea form of pilgrimage when weinvite God to join us as our com-

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panion, even though that Godmay seem at the time more antag-onist than friend. (In retrospect,we may discover, as Jacob did inhis struggle with the angel, thatthese two forms of relating are notnecessarily exclusive roles.)

This process of soul-making,since it must begin with ourselves,is intimately related to the devel-opment of our own spirituality,based not so much upon exteriordogmas and formal doctrines as itis on a personal commitment tothe search for wisdom and theholy life. Ultimately, it may resultin the important ministry of men-toring, for developmental psychol-ogists as well as our Judeo-Christian spiritual traditionsbelieve that, although we canserve various mentoring roles andfunctions earlier in life, webecome mentors in the fuller senseonly after reaching our forties orfifties. While we may become bet-ter mentors, friends, and spiritualguides at midlife, it is also the

experience of many that as wemove into midlife help is oftenfound in unexpected people andplaces along the way.

These benevolent helpers havebeen identified in various ways bydifferent peoples. The Greeks andRomans believed that every personhad a genius, daemon, guardianspirit, or “heavenly twin” which,linked with one’s personality andsoul through friendship, providedpersonal care, protection, andguidance. Certain NativeAmerican shamans and those ofpre-literate peoples identifiedtheir spiritual power and vocationof service to the tribe with at leastone guardian or tutelary spirit,often acquired in a vision quest inthe wilderness. This helpful spirit,frequently identified with someanimal, became an alter ego oranother self and was called simplya friend or companion. The DesertChristians of the third, fourth, andfifth centuries in Egypt, Syria, andPalestine looked to each other, as

well as to angelic powers, for spiri-tual guidance and healing–always,of course, placing their ultimatetrust in the Holy Spirit.

Eastern Orthodox Christianshave the tradition of the staretz,the wise person, ordained or lay,who acts as a confessor and spiri-tual director, and whose guidance,frequently in the form of dreams,can continue after his or her death.The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jungexperienced in his personal andprofessional life the help of whathe called “living” and “ghostlygurus,” including at least one sig-nificant inner guide, Philemon,who appeared in his dreams.

The ancient Celtic Christianshad their own tradition of guid-ance and a word associated with it:anamchara, Gaelic for “friend ofthe soul”; and they believed, as theEarly Christian saint and shamanBrigit said, that “anyone withouta soul friend is like a body withouta head.”T U R N T O P A G E 8 6

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R O L L O M A Y

Creativity andAging

In “The Courage to Create,” I tried to make the point that all of us have the potential to be creative. I

think the later years ought to be the time when we enjoy the creativity that we have. I’ve always felt that

asking people if they are creative or not is a foolish question. The question really ought to be put this

way: What is it that you make? What is it that you do? When we think in those terms, then all of us are

creative—we all do things, make things. � The problem isn’t that all of us aren’t creative but that some of us are

using our creativity more than others. Some of us have developed the courage to use what we have, while others have

not. And the stumbling block is fear, simply fear. Let’s face it, creative tasks are scary. It takes a throwing of one’s

self into it. When you throw yourself into something completely, you run the risk of failure. You are alone in the

process, and this requires solitude and courage.

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Rollo May, a therapist, is a humanist bytemperament. He is committed to the basicprinciples that we are responsible for thelives we lead and that we make choices inall things and must accept the conse-quences. The more we know about our-selves, the more fulfilling these choices canbe. His books include “The Courage toCreate,” “Love and Will,” “Man’s Searchfor Himself,” “The Meaning of Anxiety,”and “Freedom and Destiny.” Writing,thinking, and theorizing continue to domi-nate Rollo May’s later years. He iseighty-two.

�One of the problems of liv-

ing creatively in late lifeis that it gets harder as

you grow old. Thomas Mann oncesaid that writing is somethingthat becomes more difficult themore you do it. This is becauseone’s idea of what’s acceptable andwhat’s not becomes more rarefiedwhen one gets older. You havehigher standards, you might say.So you have to work harder andharder the older you get, which isthe exact opposite of what we’veplanned for.

But I feel very strongly thatcreativity keeps us fresh, eventhough it requires great disciplineand struggle. Fresh is the word Iuse, not young. I don’t see becom-ing young as desirable at all,because young people often don’thave the creativity that we have aswe grow older. Creativity keeps usfresh; it keeps us alive, keeps usmoving forward. You are neverfully satisfied; you are alwaysworking and reworking your art,your book, your garden, whatever.I don’t buy this stuff at all aboutyouth being the happy time. Myyouth was not, and I don’t thinkother people’s youths were so greateither. I think the older we get,the fresher we ought to get. Weface our fears. We tackle themhead on. We have the courage to

create. People in their eighties I’ve

talked with, like B. F. Skinner orHannah Tillich, have told me thatthey have only two hours a day inwhich they can work creatively.The rest of the day they devote tobusy work. So you have to planyour days properly and guard yourworking time—your primetime—very carefully. I stay in mystudio each day for four hours, butthe last hour and a half isn’t worthvery much. It was hard for me toaccept but what can I do? All Ican do is make the most of thecreative time I’ve got. So for twoand a half hours I’m moving mar-velously; the rest of the time I’msimply fiddling around. But I findjoy in fiddling too. I have toaccept the fact that I’m not a god.I have to accept my destiny. I haveto accept the fact that I can onlydo creative work for a few hours aday, but that doesn’t diminish oneiota the joy I get from those twohours. I don’t believe in happiness,

but I do believe in joy. I don’t seek happiness particu-

larly, but I do seek joy. Joy is thefeeling of exhilaration, the buoy-ancy that comes from creatingsomething you are pleased with.When you are in a state of joy, youdon’t feel like eating and youdon’t feel like sex—all of these areput aside and you are in a state ofcomplete excitement. Joy is notlimited to the young; it is therefor all of us.

As I have said many times overthe years, all of us have to takeresponsibility for our lives. If wewant to live joyful lives, we’ve gotto work at it. When I contractedtuberculosis as a young man, Igave myself over to the physicians,did everything they told me to,but I wasn’t getting any better.The X rays each month lookedworse and worse. Then I realizedthat I’ve got to take responsibilityfor my recovery, that I’m the onewho can tell whether I’m gettingbetter or not, whether I’m ener-

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getic or whether I need to rest. Ibegan to listen to my body andslowly I got better. I was verypoor then; we had three children,and my wife and I had no money.I borrowed whatever I could frommy friends, and it was such that Inever got out of debt until I wasfifty years old. But I still thinkthat period of tuberculosis was thesingle most important experiencein my life. I learned then that notonly was I responsible for the dis-ease, but I could stand up, I couldfight back, I could creatively tack-le my problem.

To this day I believe stronglythat overcoming disease is a cre-ative process. One of my lungsfrom the tuberculosis never cameback fully but I now ride my biketwenty-four miles a week, I swim,and I climb trees. I had to learnthat health is not something thatis given to you; it is somethingyou have to achieve, which is whyI see it as a creative process. You

must learn to be sensi-tive to your strength,about when you needrest, what you can do,what you can’t do, howyou must exercise. Allof these things are cre-ative processes. Now Iwatch my health veryclosely. For one thing, Imeditate. I eat withcare. I watch mycholesterol. I makesure that I sleep atleast seven and halfhours a night, and Ialways take a half hournap after every lunch.If I stopped thesethings I would, intwo or three months, be awreck. Those things are necessaryfor the life I love.

I believe that one lives as longas one has something to con-tribute. All the creative peoplethat I’ve known have died once

they stopped being creative. Now,I may have the cart before thehorse there—they may havestopped their creativity becausethey sensed that something wasbeing blocked—but I have thisprejudice that we live so long aswe have something important tosay. Once we’ve said it, we die.Kierkegaard died in his middleforties, but he said what he neededto say. Pascal died in his latefifties, but he said what he neededto say. So I don’t know that timeis so crucial in this matter ofdeath. Does it make a differencewhether you die in your thirties orin your eighties? It seems to methere is an element of eternity and

you ought to judge these thingsnot by the number of years some-body lived but by the concept ofeternity. One can live an eternallife at thirty or one can live such aT U R N T O P A G E 8 4

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Understanding ShameM I C H A E L N I C H O L S

Shame is apainful

discrepancybetween ourimage of who

we’d like to beand our

perception of anugly reality.

DAVID L. DEVRIES

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 71

Michael P. Nichols, Professor of Psychiatry at Albany MedicalCollege, is the author of “The Power of the Family” and “TurningForty in the Eighties.” He is on the editorial board of FamilyProcess and The Family Therapy Networker.

�

The first stab of shame comes from suddenand unexpected exposure to the criticaleyes of another person. We standrevealed, painfully diminished. The gen-esis of this emotion is a process that

moves from the outside in.Shame has to be taught. Welearn to be ashamed of, and evendisown, those parts of ourselvesthat are rejected, ridiculed, orhumiliated by our parents.Conflicts that originate interper-sonally with anxiety or shamegenerated between parent andchild then become internalizedand eventually unconscious. Theresult of this process of internal-ization is a selective disowning,which alienates us from shamedparts of the self, and a graduallowering of self-esteem, whichalienates us from other people.

One of the problems with dis-cussing shame is that, because itis so painful, it’s buried—notdead, just buried. Most peoplehave very little idea of the roleshame plays in their lives; it’sburied too deep. The way toachieve self-respect is not to denyshameful feelings of inadequacybut to face them. Let’s begin byexamining the experience ofshame.

S H A M E A S A N E F F E C T

The immediate shock of shame is sudden exposure.It has the quality of an unexpected, caught-in-the-actfeeling, like dropping through a trap door. Shamefulexposure can come about when someone penetratesour privacy or when we lose control. The prototype ofshameful loss of control is when a child wets the bedand is then scolded and punished for it. One of themost important lessons of childhood is that our bod-ies, “temples of the soul,” are filled with disgustingdischarges that must be hidden, put in special places,

and gotten rid of as quickly and noiselessly as possi-ble. “Full of shit” did not start out as a metaphor.

As children we learned the imperative to gain andmaintain control over strong desires and weak emo-tions: “Don’t touch yourself there!” “Don’t you speakto me that way, young lady!” “Big boys don’t cry.”“That isn’t very ladylike!” So much to learn, so muchto hide.

By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve been incul-cated against “losing control.” We’ve learned that foradults it’s shameful to give way to lust or violence, crymore than a little, get mad and start yelling, look

where we’re not supposed to, beseen when we’re not supposed tobe—give up, give in, let go, falldown, or reveal what should beconcealed. Much depends on thesetting. Imagine an exquisitelygowned, superbly coiffed, subtlyscented, beautiful woman whosuddenly belches.

We have rituals for relaxingcontrol—“Loosen up, have adrink”; “It’s a party, enjoy your-self”—and taboos against over-doing it— “Get a hold of your-self”; “Don’t be a baby”; “Whatdo you think you’re doing?”and, of course, “You should beashamed!”

The experience of shame isbipolar. At the subject pole isthe actor; at the object pole, awitness. The critical aspect ofthe subjective experience is whatone is ashamed of, originallysomething specific, eventuallythe whole person. Shame is anaffect with an inverse relation-ship to self-respect and integri-

ty. The more shame we feel, the less we respect our-selves. It is a self-related, narcissistically orientedfeeling. Beneath pretense and self-doubt, we areobjects of our own affection. Shame is a piercingawareness of ourselves as somehow fundamentallydeficient–instant self-hatred.

S H A M E A S A N A T T I T U D E

We think of humiliating experiences as causingshame. Consider: At the moment of passionateembrace a man’s erection wilts and the woman he’swith gives him a scornful, disgusted look. After a

We feel shame, notwhen something

happens to make usashamed but when

something happens toexpose the shame that’s

already inside us.

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woman delivers a very importantpresentation, she discovers that herdress is spotted with menstrualfluid. You can imagine how thesetwo burned with shame, and you’dbe inclined to say that these terri-ble incidents “made themashamed.” But that’s not quiteright. The humiliations of adult-hood don’t cause shame, theyexpose it. Pay attention, this isimportant: The shame is alreadythere. We don’t normally noticebecause it’s repressed but deep inour hearts, most of us have a vastreservoir of self-loathing. Thatself-loathing is unbearable, so westuff it down and lock it away.Repression seals it in. We feelshame, not when something hap-pens to make us ashamed but whensomething happens to expose theshame that’s already inside us.

Shame is a painful discrepancybetween our image of who we’dlike to be and our perception of anugly reality. The experienceimplies being caught, beingobserved by an outside witnesswho condemns. The original wit-ness to our shame is, of course, ascolding parent; later, thesuperego will do. Yet shame isdoubled when it’s exposed to theeyes of others.

Repeated re-exposure to shame in adulthood reca-pitulates the process by which a shameful image ofthe self was laid down in the first place. Isolated expe-riences of shame are like cold drops of water. Whenthere are enough of them, the drops run together intoone big icy puddle. The result is an abiding sense ofnot being good enough as a person—defective. In thisway, shame becomes part of one’s identity. “I feelashamed” becomes “I am shameful.” The consciousexperience of internalized shame may be feelings ofinadequacy, rejection, or self-doubt; feeling guilt-rid-den or unlovable; and permanent loneliness—but theunderlying problem is shame.

S H A M E A S A N A N X I E T Y

Shame is also a form of signal anxiety, evoked bythe imminent danger of exposure to humiliation.Anxiety is a primitive physiological reflex pattern;

shame is this biological responseplus the idea that the upset is dueto one being despicable andworthless. What is feared is con-temptuous rejection. This anxietycan be acute when, for example,we’re called on to perform orspeak in public. The wish is toparade one’s self with pride, tofeel the opposite ofshame—honor, dignity, respect;the fear is that you’ll fall flat onyour face.

This shame-anxiety can lead toa general attitude of bashfulnessand the avoidance of situationsand actions that might bringabout humiliation. The manyforms that insecurity takes are, infact, shame-anxiety expanded andgeneralized. Embarrassment, shy-ness, social phobia, inferiorityfeelings, and low self-esteem—allof these radiate from shame-anxi-ety. Anything that can radiatethat far must be highly chargedindeed. Shame is hot. It burns. Onsome people it even shows. Onething you can’t hide is blushing.Here, for example, is TennesseeWilliams’s account of how shameanxiety becomes a self-fulfillingprophecy.

I remember the occasion onwhich this constant blush-

ing had its beginning. I believe it was in a classin plane geometry. I happened to look across theaisle and a dark and attractive girl was lookingdirectly into my eyes and at once I felt my faceburning. It burned more and more intenselyafter I had to face front again. My God, Ithought, I’m blushing because she looked intomy eyes or I into hers and suppose this happenswhenever my eyes look into the eyes of another? As soon as I had entertained that nightmarish spec-

ulation, it was immediately turned into reality.Literally, from that incident on, and almost with-

out remission for the next four or five years, I wouldblush whenever a pair of human eyes, male or female,would meet mine.

We blush, we burn, our hearts pound from fear ofshame. What is it we’re so ashamed of?

The shame of dirtinessapplies literally touncleanliness and

figuratively to moralcorruption. “Dirty” is theword we use for uncheckedhuman appetites. Givingway to any of the seven

deadly sins—pride,covetousness, lust, anger,

gluttony, envy, orsloth—makes us vile,foul, and filthy—but,

after all, human.

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“ W H A T ’ S W R O N G W I T H M E ? ”

We may speak, incorrectly, of being ashamed ofcertain actions, but shame is about who we are, notwhat we do. We feel guilty about breaking the rules,ashamed of ourselves for doing so. Shame is closer toidentity than action; no single act is seen as wrongand therefore reparable.

If you lie to a friend and feel guilty, you can confessand apologize. If you lie to a friend and get caughtbefore you can confess, you may feel so ashamed thatyou can’t even face that friend. In shame, it is the selfthat feels worthless. If you are bad, you can makeamends. If you are worthless, there’s nothing you can doabout it.

What is it about the self that is so unacceptable?What is the basic content of shame? According toLeon Wurmser, one of the most astute psychoanalyticstudents of shame, human beings are ashamed of threethings above all else: weakness, dirtiness, and defec-tiveness.

W E A K N E S S

Children, in their naive cruelty, mock each otherwith these shameful traits. What do they call weak-lings? “Sissy,” “wimp,” “namby-pamby,” “fraidy-cat,”“big baby,” “chicken,” “momma’s boy,” “teacher’spet.” Most of these names are so overworked that theylose their sting—unless you are the kid they call“chicken” and you’re afraid it’s true.

We may outgrow the name-calling, but we don’toutgrow the fear of weakness. As we grow older, phys-ical weakness becomes more acceptable but not

incompetence, stupidity, or moral cowardice. Theworst weakness is where we’re supposed to be strong:impotence, literally or figuratively, for men; selfish-ness for women. A person who prides himself or her-self on brains may even feel ashamed of not being ableto remember answers to Trivial Pursuit questions. Inour culture, even old is bad, shameful. When we getold, we become “feeble,” “invalid,” “incompetent,”“incontinent,” “senile,” “old fogies.” Better stayyoung—and strong.

D I R T I N E S S

The shame of dirtiness applies literally to unclean-liness and figuratively to moral corruption. “Dirty” isthe word we use for unchecked human appetites.Giving way to any of the seven deadly sins—pride,covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, orsloth—makes us vile, foul, and filthy—but, after all,human.

If you have any doubt about how anxious peopleare to avoid the shame of being exposed as dirty, takenote of the number of advertisements for personalhygiene products—not to make us beautiful, just tohide our dirty smells. It’s not enough to take a showerand brush our teeth. We have to scrub, scour, disin-fect, deodorize, scent, spray, powder, and perfumeourselves. We disinfect our homes and then cloud therooms with scents of pine and flowers. We deodorizeour kitchens and bathrooms and rugs and cars and thecat’s litter box. We can even buy deodorizing bone-shaped biscuits for Bowser, in case he has doggie badbreath. Much worse, of course, is the dread prospect ofhuman bad breath. So gargle twice a day with Scope

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(Listerine if you’re tough), freshen your breath withClorets, and spray it with Binaca if someone attractiveapproaches. To protect ourselves from an outbreak ofBO, we can choose “long-lasting protection,” “longer-lasting protection,” or “super-long-lastingprotection”—depending, I suppose, more on howanxious we are than on how bad we smell. Somedeodorants are “manly,” others are “strong enough fora man but made for a woman.” Ladies are also advisedto…well, you know…use Summer’s Eve. And don’tforget Odor Eaters for your shoes. God forbid youshould smell like a human being.

In the same way, extreme politeness which most ofus admire may be a negative achievement, drivenmore by shame about what is natural and sponta-neously human than by consideration for other peo-ple’s feelings.

D E F E C T I V E N E S S

The third of the three shameful qualities is defec-tiveness. We are ashamed of physical or mental short-comings. The content of this shame, what anyoneconsiders defects in the self, varies greatly. Some peo-ple are ashamed of anything that makes them conspic-uous—their height, weight, hair color, facial

features—especially if it runs counter to sex-rolestereotypes. A young man may be proud of being tall,a young woman may be ashamed of it. Culture shapesshame, and every now and then we have public cam-paigns to rescue certain groups from shameful regard.It’s now officially okay to be black, female, crippled,homosexual, or old. But how real is our acceptancewhen we sugarcoat reality by relabeling these varia-tions on the human condition? So far, women are stillwomen, but homosexuals are “gays,” crippled peopleare “handicapped,” elderly people are “senior citizens”or—yeuch!—“golden agers,” and as of this writingthere is a campaign to substitute “African-American”for those we used to call blacks and before thatNegroes.

H I D I N G F R O M O T H E R SB E C O M E S A L I E N A T I O N F R O M

T H E S E L F

Just as exposure is the immediate cause of shame,the immediate response is to hide. In fact, the linguis-tic root of the word “shame” is to hide or cover up.According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word“shame” is derived from a Teutonic root skam/skem,meaning “sense of shame.” Earlier still, it can be P

HO

TO

BY

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RA

HT

HA

RP

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 75

traced back to the Indo-European root kam/kem,meaning “to cover, to veil, to hide.” The prefixed s(skam) adds the reflexive meaning, “to cover oneself.”The wish to hide is inherent in and inseparable fromshame.

Imagine for a moment the soul-chilling humilia-tion Hester Prynne had to endure when not only washer adultery exposed, but she was forced to submit tothe scornful eyes of the community, shackled to thestock, and branded with the scarlet letter A.

There can be no outrage, methinks, against ourcommon nature… no outrage more flagrantthan to forbid the culprit to hide his face forshame… under the heavyweight of a thousand unre-lenting eyes… Hester Prynnemeanwhile kept her placeupon the pedestal of shame,with glazed eyes and an air ofweary indifference… her spir-it could only shelter itselfbeneath a stony crust of insen-sibility.Small children hide their faces or

run to their rooms when they areshamed. The adult version of thiswish to disappear is withdrawal.When we’re shamed, we want to bealone, to regain equanimity, andavoid further humiliation. In time,shame leads to a pattern of with-drawal and avoidance. Shame casts alarge shadow over relationships,eclipsing the pleasure of compan-ionship with fear of further expo-sure and with it rejection.

You don’t have to move your feetto hide. Psychological retreat isevery bit as isolating as physicalseclusion.

Perhaps more so. Even when thehabit of avoidance becomes stampedin character, it is still a defenseaimed at external danger: the dan-ger of exposure, shame, and rejec-tion. What happens when theenemy is within, when shame is internalized?Defenses must now be aimed at one’s self. Avoidanceis transferred to the inner life, where it is installed asselective disowning of potentially shameful parts ofthe self.

How can we live with ourselves if the self is shame-

fully flawed? We do to ourselves as was done unto us.We disown those parts of the self that were rejectedwhen we felt helpless in a hostile world.

One of my patients was the youngest of fourchildren in a highly competitive BostonBrahmin family. The children anxiously paradedtheir achievements for their parents’ approvaland just as anxiously belittled each other’saccomplishments. Mockery flowed downhillThe fact that the mockery her three older broth-ers dished out was a projection of their own anx-iety did not lessen its mortifying impact. Whenthey allowed her to play with them at all, they

relegated her to subhumanroles. If the boys were cow-boys, she was a dog. Notwanting to be left out, shecomplied. Later, when prizeswere won in school, the boysscoffed at any accomplish-ments their little sister mightdare to share with them. Soshe first learned not to shareand then, to make her defensecomplete, she learned not tosucceed, not even to compete.Today, the brothers are suc-cessful attorneys like theirfather. Their sister, with her140 IQ, works as a secretaryfor some man with half hertalent. We know so little about our-

selves, least of all the nature ofpainful feelings against which weprotect ourselves by forcing themout of consciousness. This is per-haps more true of shame than ofany other unhappy emotion. Weunderestimate the importance ofshame in our lives because it’s toopainful to bear. So we keep itlocked away where we don’t have toface it.

Another painful emotion withwhich we are more familiar is guilt,

which is often confused with shame.

S H A M E V S . G U I L T

The primary distinction between guilt and shameis the difference between the evil of being too power-

The primarydistinction betweenguilt and shame is

the differencebetween the evil ofbeing too powerfuland the disgrace ofbeing too weak…

Guilt is bad,shame is worse.


A N T H O N Y D E M E L L O

HappinessHappens

Come home to yourself. Observe yourself. Self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary

thing. After a while you don’t have to make any effort because as illusions begin to crumble;

you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness. Everything changes

and you become addicted to awareness.

L O T U S76 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

Anthony De Mello was known throughoutthe world for his writings and spiritualconferences. He died suddenly in 1987.Among his many books are “Sadhana"and “The Song of the Bird."

�There’s the story of the disci-

ple who went to the masterand said, “Could you give

me a word of wisdom? Could youtell me something that wouldguide me through my days?” Itwas the master’s day of silence, sohe picked up a pad. It said,“Awareness.” When the disciplesaw it, he said, “This is too briefCan you expand on it a bit?” Sothe master took back the pad andwrote, “Awareness, awareness,awareness.” The disciple said,“Yes, but what does it mean?” Themaster took back the pad andwrote, “Awareness, awareness,awareness means—awareness.”

That’s what it is to watch your-self. No one can show you how todo it, because he would be givingyou a technique; he would be pro-gramming you. But watch your-self. When you talk to someone,are you aware of it or are you sim-ply identifying with it? When yougot angry with somebody, wereyou aware that you were angry orwere you simply identifying withyour anger? Later when you hadthe time, did you study your expe-rience and attempt to understandit? Where did it come from?What brought it on? I don’t knowof any other way to awareness.You only change what you under-stand. What you do not under-stand and are not aware of, yourepress. You don’t change. Butwhen you understand it, itchanges.

I am sometimes asked, “Is thisgrowing in awareness a gradualthing, or is it a ‘whammo’ kind ofthing?” There are some lucky peo-ple who see this in a flash. They

just become aware. There are oth-ers who keep growing into it,slowly, gradually, increasingly.They begin to see things. Illusionsdrop away, fantasies are peeledaway, and they start to get intouch with facts. There’s no gener-al rule. There’s a famous storyabout the lion who came upon aflock of sheep and to his amaze-ment found a lion among the

sheep. It was a lion who had beenbrought up by the sheep ever sincehe was a cub. It would bleat like asheep and run around like a sheep.The lion went straight for himand when the sheep-lion stood infront of the real one, he trembledin every limb. And the lion said tohim, “What are you doing amongthese sheep?” And the sheep-lionsaid, “I am a sheep.” And the lionsaid, “Oh no you’re not. You’recoming with me.” So he took thesheep-lion to a pool and said,“Look!” And when the sheep-lionlooked at his reflection in thewater, he let out a mighty roarand in that moment he was trans-formed. He was never the sameagain.

If you’re lucky and the gods aregracious or if you are gifted withdivine grace (use any theologicalexpression you want), you mightsuddenly understand who “I” isand you’ll never be the sameagain, never. Nothing will ever beable to touch you again and no onewill ever be able to hurt youagain.

You will fear no one and youwill fear nothing. Isn’t thatextraordinary? You’ll live like aking, like a queen. This is what itmeans to live like royalty. Notrubbish like getting your picturein the newspapers or having a lotof money. That’s a lot of rot. Youfear no one because you’re perfect-ly content to be nobody. Youdon’t give a damn about success orfailure They mean nothing.Honor, disgrace, they mean noth-ing! If you make a fool of yourself,that means nothing either. Isn’tthat a wonderful state to be in!Some people arrive at this goalpainstakingly, step by step,through months and weeks of self-awareness. But I’ll promise youthis: I have not known a singleperson who gave time to beingaware who didn’t see a differencein a matter of weeks. The quality

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 77

Someone once said,“The three most

difficult things for ahuman being are not

physical featsor intellectual

achievements. Theyare, first, returning

love for hate;second,

including theexcluded; third,

admitting that youare wrong.”

of their lives change, so they don’thave to take it on faith anymore.They see it; they’re different. Theyreact differently. In fact, they reactless and act more. You see thingsyou’ve never seen before.

You’re much more energetic,much more alive. People thinkthat if they had no cravings,they’d be like deadwood. But infact they’d lose their tension. Getrid of your fear of failure, yourtensions about succeeding, youwill be yourself. Relaxed. Youwouldn’t be driving with yourbrakes on. That’s what would hap-pen.

There’s a lovely saying ofTranxu, a great Chinese sage, thatI took the trouble to learn byheart. It goes: “When the archershoots for no particular prize, hehas all his skills; when he shootsto win a brass buckle, he is alreadynervous; when he shoots for a goldprize, he goes blind, sees two tar-gets, and is out of his mind. Hisskill has not changed, but theprize divides him. He cares! Hethinks more of winning than ofshooting and the need to windrains him of power.” Isn’t that animage of what most people are?When you’re living for nothing,you’ve got all your skills, you’vegot all your energy, you’re relaxed,you don’t care, it doesn’t matterwhether you win or lose.

Now there’s human living foryou. That’s what life is all about.That can only come from aware-ness. And in awareness you willunderstand that honor doesn’tmean a thing. It’s a social conven-tion, that’s all. That’s why themystics and the prophets didn’tbother one bit about it. Honor ordisgrace meant nothing to them.They were living in anotherworld, in the world of the awak-ened. Success or failure meantnothing to them. They had theattitude, “I’m an ass, you’re an ass,so where’s the problem?”

Someone once said, “The threemost difficult things for a humanbeing are not physical feats orintellectual achievements. Theyare, first, returning love for hate;second, including the excluded;third, admitting that you arewrong.” But these are the easiestthings in the world if you haven’tidentified with the “me.” You cansay things like, “I’m wrong! If youknew me better, you’d see howoften I’m wrong. What would youexpect from an ass?” But if Ihaven’t identified with theseaspects of “me,” you can’t hurtme. Initially, the old conditioningwill kick in and you’ll bedepressed and anxious. You’llgrieve, cry, and so on. “Beforeenlightenment, I used to bedepressed; after enlightenment, Icontinue to be depressed.” Butthere’s a difference: I don’t identi-fy with it anymore. Do you knowwhat a big difference that is?

You step outside of yourselfand look at that depression, anddon’t identify with it. You don’t

do a thing to make it go away; youare perfectly willing to go on withyour life while it passes throughyou and disappears. If you don’tknow what that means, you reallyhave something to look forwardto. And anxiety? There it comesand you’re not troubled. Howstrange! You’re anxious but you’renot troubled.

Isn’t that a paradox? Andyou’re willing to let this cloudcome in because the more youfight it, the more power you giveit. You’re willing to observe it asit passes by. You can be happy inyour anxiety. Isn’t that crazy? Youcan be happy in your depression.But you can’t have the wrongnotion of happiness. Did youthink happiness was excitement orthrills? That’s what causes thedepression. Didn’t anyone tell youthat? You’re thrilled, all right, butyou’re just preparing the way foryour next depression. You’rethrilled but you pick up the anxi-ety behind that: How can I makeit last? That’s not happiness, that’saddiction.

I wonder how many non-addicts there are reading this. Ifyou’re anything like the averageperson, there are few, very few.Don’t look down your nose at thealcoholics and the drug addicts;maybe you’re just as addicted asthey are. The first time I got aglimpse of this new world, it wasterrifying. I understood what itmeant to be alone, with nowhereto rest your head, to leave every-one free and be free yourself, to bespecial to no one and love every-one—because love does that. Itshines on good and bad alike; itmakes rain fall on saints and sin-ners alike.

Is it possible for the rose to say,“I will give my fragrance to thegood people who smell me but Iwill withhold it from the bad?”Or is it possible for the lamp tosay, “I will give my light to the

L O T U S78 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

We were told thathappiness is a

smoothcomplexion, a

holiday resort. Itisn’t these things.

invitingly at us (and we, hungrily,back at it) is vastly different fromthe reality of the dying patient, oreven the vegetative non-dyingpatient, who is maintained byartificial nutrition and artificialhydration. Instead, picture bluehumming boxes sucking highcalorie pastel liquid from bags andbottles and forcing it throughclear plastic tubing into thepatient’s nose or directly into thestomach or intestine. This artifi-cial intervention is ethically andlegally parallel to the use of a res-pirator that artificially pumps airin and out of failing lungs. Inaddition, it is important to realizethat the natural process of death istotally subverted by our demandthat loved ones die in the midst ofhigh-tech drama. In fact, beforethe technological armamentariumincluded such things as respira-tors, i.v. pumps, or the Thumper(mechanically-conducted CPR)patients usually went home to die,assisted only by drugs to relievethe pain. Anorexia (lack or loss ofappetite) first set in, followedclosely by dehydration and malnu-trition.

Dehydration and malnutri-tion cause azotemia, (a con-dition in which) the body’swaste nitrogen productsbecome elevated in theblood, and these products,acting as a natural sedative,diminish a patient’s aware-ness and elevate the painthreshold. Appetite decreas-es, alertness diminishes, andthe obtunded patient (onewhose senses are dulled)dies; the stuporous state suf-fices to free the patient ofpain.

The technological impera-tive to have patients die inelectrolyte balance and well-hydrated is a grave disser-vice. It serves only to ward

off the sedative effect of theazotemia. The result notonly increases pain percep-tion, but also adds to themental agony of the patientwho is kept alert enough toappreciate his or her situa-tion. For increasing numbers of peo-

ple, to die of dehydration or star-vation while being kept comfort-able with the large array ofpalliative drugs available is prefer-able and much more humane thanthe prolonged dying by incessantmedical intervention that isdemanded of patients by misin-formed relatives and practitioners,acting on outdated and ineffectualdeath myths.

It is clear that these deathmyths at one time served a properand meaningful role in medicaldecision making. It is equallyclear that they can no longer servethat same role. As a part of thestandard cultural presuppositionsabout life, death, and medicine,these myths stood to call all theavailable medical resources to theservice of life at any cost. But cur-rent technology has changed theperspective about and meaning ofthe concepts of life, death, andmedicine. As these concepts arerevised in light of even newertreatment options, we will need todevelop a different, more flexibleset of “death myths” to guide ourtreatment decisions. It is impor-tant to examine and acknowledgehow much we rely on these out-dated presuppositions. Only thenwill they not become impedi-ments to caring, meaningful deci-sion making regarding the treat-ment and life support choicesoffered to our loved ones and toourselves.•

From “Surviving Death: A PracticalGuide to Caring for the Dying andBereaved.” Copyright 1991 by CharlesMeyer (144pp, $9.95). Printed withpermission from the publisher, Twenty-Third Publications, POB 180 Mystic,CT 06355. (800)321-0411

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 79

good people in this room but Iwill withhold it from the evilpeople?” Or can a tree say, “I’llgive my shade to the good peoplewho rest under me but I willwithhold it from the bad?” Theseare images of what love is about.

It’s been there all along, star-ing us in the face in the scrip-tures, though we never cared tosee it because we were so drownedin what our culture calls lovewith its love songs andpoems—that isn’t love at all,that’s the opposite of love. That’sdesire and control and possessive-ness. That’s manipulation andfear and anxiety—that’s not love.We were told that happiness is asmooth complexion, a holidayresort. It isn’t these things but wehave subtle ways of making ourhappiness depend on otherthings, both within ourselves andoutside ourselves. We say, “Irefuse to be happy until my neu-rosis goes.” I have good news foryou; You can be happy right now,with the neurosis, You want evenbetter news? There’s only one rea-son why you’re not experiencingwhat in India we callanand—bliss, bliss. There’s onlyone reason why you’re not experi-encing bliss at this presentmoment, and it’s because you’rethinking or focusing on what youdon’t have. Otherwise you wouldbe experiencing bliss. You’refocusing on what you don’t have.But, right now you have every-thing you need to be in bliss.

Jesus was talking horse senseto lay people, to starving people,to poor people. He was tellingthem good news. It’s yours for thetaking, But who listens? No one’sinterested; they’d rather beasleep.•

From “Awareness” by Francis Stroud.Copyright 1990 by the Center forSpiritual Exchange. Used by permissionof Doubleday, a division of BantamDoubleday Dell Publishing Inc.

Death MythsContinued from page 57

L O T U S80 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

Reviews�

B Y R I C H A R D H O L M E S

Passion for Life: Psychology and the Human Spirit

By John James and Muriel JamesNew York: Dutton, 1991$19.95 Cloth

A mother and son—both psychotherapists, educa-tors, and much more—offer a theory on Passion forLife that required twenty years of scrupulous study,research, and observation.

John and Muriel James have placed the “humanspirit” or “spiritual self” back into psychology, hencegoing beyond the mere study of human behavior toinclude our innermost yearnings, “the hunger of thesoul searching for ‘something more’.”

This is more than a psychospiritual textbook,though. The book is a mirror of the authors’ own pas-sion for life, reflecting in diverse ways what they callthe seven “basic, universal urges” of humankind—tolive, to be free, to understand, to enjoy, to create, toconnect, and to transcend. Throughout the book theyecho their agreement with Viktor Frankl that humanexistence is “spiritual existence.”

The Jameses offer a theory of the human spirit thatcould have easily lapsed into abstraction. It doesn’t,though, because they have discovered through researchmany historical and contemporary examples of behav-iors that flesh out the theory and demonstrate in verypersonal terms “the deeper aspects of human motiva-tion.”

Many of these examples are inspiring and memo-rable. Each one is like a template of an urge that char-acterizes the human spirit. You will read about MitsuFujisawa, who enrolled in Japan’s Open University atthe age of 112 (urge to understand). Or about JacobTimerman, who suffered tortures in a Buenos Aires

prison that would have broken the spirits of mosthumans, all because he advocated human rights. Nowexiled, he still champions freedom of speech, freedomfrom torture, and a right to a fair trial (urge to befree).

“Passion for life,” the authors write, “is the intensedesire, interest, and willingness to release the innerurges of the soul.” A psychological urge without pas-sion leads to passivity, but if we travel on what theycall a “path with heart” and cultivate personal expres-sions during our search, the spiritual dimension of ourlives will shine forth in meaningful ways.

This book can certainly heighten our awareness ofthese universal urges, but more importantly, it canserve as a catalyst to balance and develop them as fullyas possible in the service of humanity. John andMuriel James are obviously inviting us to see that theBig Picture will never come into clear focus without abetter understanding of our spiritual nature.Psychology without spirituality is empty.

Of course the authors draw from psychologicalsources, especially transactional analysis, which pro-vides a commonsensical framework about the warringegos called Child, Parent, and Adult. In their discus-sions about humans searching for meaning, they haveconsulted Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy. Amajor philosophical influence was Martin Buber, whowrote inspiringly about humans relating to God or the“Eternal Thou.”

Weaving together many conceptual strands, theauthors have designed a theory about passion and spir-ituality that is most importantly recognized as, to usephysicist David Bohm’s phrase, “a form of insight.”Such theory stirs up more academic appreciation; itimpels us to act upon our understanding.

Indeed the authors are always intent in Passion forLife to consider the many ways that humans can act

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 81

upon their inner urges by “releasing the passions ofthe soul to search for goals with personal meaning.”

This praiseworthy book can be an aid in thatsearch.

The Inner Lover:Using Passion As a Way to Self—Empowerment

By Valerie HarmsBoston: Shambhala, 1992$10.00 Paperback

“Love is an adventure of the self, destinationunknown.”

These words, which Valerie Harms wrote, areindicative of the kind of book The Inner Lover is. Herautobiographical approach to how we can unite withour Inner Lover is unflinching in its honesty, unspar-ing in its directness, and teeming with a passion thatone rarely encounters in psychological literature.Because Harms has frequently surrendered to, as sheputs it, “being refined” by love’s fire, she has learnedto balance Psyche and Eros and has accepted the“major gift” of the Inner Lover, which is “being athome with oneself.”

But it has not always been that way. Until her latethirties, Harms tolerated a marriage in which neitherpartner found fulfillment. She tells the story of thatmarriage and of long-term or short-term relationshipsand of very close same-sex friendships that suffusedher psyche with Eros and eventually taught her—when listening to and accepting messages from herunconscious—that conscious suffering can be transfor-mative. Echoing Jung, she learned experientially thatthe individuation path can be difficult but ultimatelyuplifting.

What is the Inner Lover? It is that unconsciouspotential within you that harbors your strongest pas-sions and what Harms calls your “soul’s desires.”Integral to releasing its messages, which often comein the form of dreams and fantasies, is a deep under-standing of what, among psychologists, is known asprojection, especially its dual nature. First, sheexplains, projecting is to “see in another attitudes orqualities that originate in ourselves,” hence we mightmake impossible demands on a partner we loveinstead of accepting the individuality of that person asit presents itself. As to the dual nature of projection,that means “to involve us with another person as wellas bring us messages from the unconscious aboutpotentials for life.”

An important psychological growth process, shewrites, is “owning the projection,” meaning that we

must see in ourselves those very qualities we see soclearly in others. Otherwise, we continue to suffer theconsequences of “unaware projections.” Example: “. ..when a man tries to unite with an ideal goddess fig-ure by having sex with a woman and ignoring herindividuality.” When this happens, she reasons, “theman is suffering from an undeveloped relation to thefeminine within him.”

Besides discerning the meanings of our dreams andfantasies, Harms recommends that we, to someextent, research mythology to understand better thearchetypal figures that emerge from our unconscious(e.g., reading the Greek myth about Psyche and Eros,which she thinks is the ideal model for the InnerLover dynamic). She offers what has proven to be aninvaluable aid to people on paths of learning anddevelopment—the Intensive Journal. From her pointof view this is an optimal tool, for she recommendswithout equivocation that one “let the fantasies roll.”

Recording and noting fantasies are important, butshe also shares several passages of “internal dialogu-ing,” which might involve communicating with aperson, a relationship, or with an “Inner WisdomFigure” (e.g., mythical beings).

Harms divulges same of her deepest suffering inInner Lover. Although she has endured setbacks andhas often experienced “love, beauty, and joy,” shewants you to know that love’s “most vehement flame”needs to be understood, too. She writes, “The fire thatburns and tortures us is a very creative and transfor-mative fire. It burns parts of us to a crisp and leavesour egos in a desert of white ash so that one surrendersand is open to deep joy.”

And what this means for us is “that we are weddedto our inner source of passion and know how to con-nect with it.”

Healing Energy: The Power of Recovery

By Ruth Fishel, M.Ed., C.A.C.Deerfield Beach, Florida, 1991$9.95 Paperback

Ruth Fishel is one of many recovering alcoholicswho has experienced a painful past, learned from it,and grown as a person. A firm believer that a changedperson can change others, she is now applying herconsiderable studies of the psychology of addictions,spiritual traditions, and neurosciences to a recoveryagenda that includes seven steps: meditation, aware-ness and insight, finding peace in our inner sanctuary,


L O T U S84 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

life and die at ninety. I hope, inci-dentally, that I don’t get too old. Ihope I will die with a heart attack,say, in my late eighties. I’d like tojust faint and go out. I don’t dreadit at all. What there is, if any-thing, after death I don’t know.

One of the saddest thingsabout growing old in America isthat we don’t honor the old at all.We don’t revere older people near-ly as much in this society asIndians, Native Americans, othersocieties have done. Greek society,for example, revered the old. Now,I think this is a sign of the deca-dence of our age, that we nolonger value, no longer see thecontribution of, older people. Weworship youth, and I think that isthe craziest thing I ever heard of. Inever want to live my youth overagain, and I never met anyone whoreally did. It’s just a figment ofone’s imagination. But I thinkthat our civilization is now goingthrough a radical decadence andthe real question will be, willthere be a renaissance or will weblow ourselves up?

I really think creativity is theanswer to aging, and by creativityI mean listening to one’s owninner voice, to one’s own ideas, toone’s own aspirations. It may besocial work. It may be gardening.It may be building. But it mustbe something fresh, somethingnew, some idea that takesfire—this is what I’d like to seeamong older people. WhenMatisse was in bed and couldn’tget up the last year of his life, hefound something creative to do.He got himself a pair of scissorsand made all these cutouts inpaper, and they are fantasticallybeautiful. I love them very much.I have a reproduction of one in my

office, leaning up against one ofthe walls to remind me of whatold people can do in their lastyears.

When I die, I will surely beunhappy that I haven’t done asmuch reading of Greek mythologyas I would have liked. I get soinvolved when I’m reading Greekmyths that I move very, very slow-ly. I don’t turn many pages, butit’s a wonderful joy to me. Now,that is what age ought to do forus. Sure, you don’t remembernames so well, you can’t run thisor that marathon, your joints arestiffer … all this is certainly true.But at the same time, you have alot of experience you can callupon, you have a kind of wisdomthat leaves out the details andsimply goes straight for theimportant things. This is themeaning of the wisdom of theages.•

From the Ageless Spirit. Copyright 1992by Phillip L. Berman and ConnieGoldman. Printed with permission fromthe publisher, Ballantine Books.

Creativity and AgingContinued from page 69

we take risks. Polly wonderedabout being made to feel guiltyby Al-Anon friends, rejected bysome neighborhood friends, andcalled an “uppity feminist” whenshe wanted something for herself.

When we face our challengesand set limits, we risk. We oftengo through an internal dialogue,reviewing all aspects of the situa-tion. We may call a friend and askhim or her to listen while wethink out loud. When we aremotivated by our morality, ourethic of care, we consider others aswell as ourselves.

Standing UpContinued from page 46

G I V I N G U PC O N T R O L

Polly knew there was little shecould accurately predict. Whenwe express our personal power,we have to recognize that we areunable to control outcomes. Sherealized she could not controlwhat others would think of her;she knew some would disagreeand caution her to change hermind. Some would say, “You’rereally risking!” But others wouldsay, “Of course you must; Irespect you.”

On the one hand, we havecontrol; on the other hand, wedon’t have control. We can dowhat we can; that is all. We canbe responsible to ourselves andconsiderate of others, yet not beresponsible for the feelings andactions of others. Some situationswill be satisfyingly smooth; oth-ers will test our voice. TheSerenity Prayer of AA helps us inour choices about where andwhen we express our voice: “Godgrant me the serenity to acceptthe things I cannot change, thecourage to change the things Ican, and the wisdom to know thedifference. But we always voicepersonal power in relationship.•

From “Making Our Lives Our Own.”Copyright 1991 by Marilyn J. Mason.Printed by arrangement with HarperSan Francisco, a division of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Give a gift oftransformation,

Give Lotus

L O T U S86 s p r i n g 1 9 9 3

ful and the disgrace of being tooweak. We feel guilt for being bad,for transgressing against others;we feel shame for being weak andworthless. Guilt is bad, shame isworse. Guilt is about somethingyou’ve done; shame is about whoyou are.

Guilt is the inner experience ofbreaking the moral code. We feelbad about what we’vedone—worse than that,terrible—and we imagine beingpunished. But it’s punishment forwhat we did, not for who we are.

Shame, on the other hand, isthe inner experience of beinglooked down on by others; it is apainful feeling of unworthiness.Shame involves the entire self andthe self-worth of a human being.We feel shame as humiliation andembarrassment, a sense of beingdiminished or insufficient. A per-vasive sense of shame is the deepconviction that one is fundamen-tally bad, unworthy, inadequate,defective, and ultimately unlov-able.

Guilt restrains strength; shamehides weakness. Guilt-anxietywarns us not to cross the boundaryaround the rights of others, andthe affect of guilt is the punish-ment for having done so.Shame-anxiety marks the bound-ary around the private self, beyondwhich one cannot permit others tointrude. The affect of shame is thefeeling we get when the boundaryaround the self has been violated.Guilt limits action; shame limitsexposure.

Both shame and guilt lie closeto the heart of human experience,and yet we hear so much aboutguilt, so little about shame. Whyis that?

We’re more conscious of guiltthan shame because we rememberthe lessons of morality better than

those of self-worth. Much of child-hood is taken up with learningwhat to do and what not to do.Once we learn what’s expected ofus, we take it upon ourselves torestrain our actions, using guilt inthe service of self-control. Whenloving parents teach their childrenright from wrong, they do sodeliberately; in fact, passing onthe cultural code of conduct is oneof the primary functions of thefamily. The messages we get aboutour self-worth come earlier and areless intentional. Before they beginteaching us to control our motoractivity, parents have already con-veyed a great deal to us about ourvalue.

Shame is more archaic, moreencompassing than guilt. Guiltrelates to a code of actions; shamerelates to the core of the self. Guiltis the more familiar conceptbecause it is simpler—easier toexplain and easier tounderstand—and more immedi-ately tied to deliberate action.(Guilt has long played a largerrole than shame in psychoanalyticwritings because it is so directlytied to conflict between unbridledlibidinal and aggressive wishesand the mechanisms of socialrestraint, Freud’s primary concern.As the psychology of the selfbegins to correct the unbalancedemphasis on the psychology ofconflict, however, we will seeshame becoming a topic of muchgreater concern.)

Although shame is at least aspowerful a motivating force asguilt, guilt-induction is moredeliberate and more familiar thanshame-induction. Methods fordealing with guilt have been insti-tutionalized in custom, religion,and law. For example, paroleboards consider it essential thatprisoners not only admit theirguilt but also express remorse forwhat they’ve done. It’s not enough

to feel bad. Before he is consideredrehabilitated, the jailed criminal isexpected to feel guilty for doingwrong, not just ashamed of get-ting caught.

Rituals of atonement, confes-sion, penance, punishment, repen-tance, reparation, and forgivenessare universal and well known. Notso with shame. Shame cannot beforgiven, only concealed. We con-fess our guilt; we hide ourshame—from others and fromourselves.•

From “No Place to Hide” by MichaelNichols. Copyright 1991 by Michael P.Nichols. Printed with permission of,Simon & Schuster Inc.

Whatever term we prefer touse, these various spiritual tradi-tions clearly reveal resources thatcan help us on our journeys, cer-tain relationships of intimacy anddepth that transcend time andspace and death itself: spiritualmentors whom we perhaps havenever met in this lifetime but whodefinitely can make a difference inthe direction of our lives. Suchspiritual mentors might includecertain dream figures who come tous at night or in the early wakinghours, “when our minds, moregrim from the flesh,” as Dantetells us, “are less imprisoned bythe bonds of thought and in theirvisions have prophetic power.”Whenever they appear and inwhatever guise they may take ordisguise they may wear, the soulmakes its presence known at suchcritical junctures.•

Printed with permission from “SoulMaking: The Telling of a SpiritualJourney.” Copyright 1991 by EdwardSellner (208 pages, $9.95). Published byTwenty–Third Publications, POB 180,Mystic CT 06355. (800)321-0411.

ShameContinued from page 75

Soul MakingContinued from page 66

moments; they are gifts of grace.They happen. What you can do isput yourself into a place to beavailable for the gifts.

Solitude and being withnature.

Listening to music, praying,meditating, being by water and inthe mountains, reading spiritualclassics, sewing, fishing, baking,knitting, weaving, plowing, gar-dening. All are avenues towardsthat introspective still place wheremoments of transcendence can anddo occur.

We have integrated, reachedequilibrium, and built a newlife. Talk about what happensthe next time we go through amajor change.

The next time you go through amajor change you are not immunefrom all the pain, trauma, confu-sion, or dis-equilibrium. You havethe very same responses you hadbefore, but now you know thatthere are life-affirming choices andthat it is a process. You have con-fidence in that process, and youmay move through the process inless chronological time. You arenot nearly so likely to get stuck.

I don’t look forward to thenext time I go through traumaticloss yet I know that I will, if Ilive long enough. However, Idon’t dread it in the same way.

The fear is gone. I feel the sameway. All us with elderly parentsknow that there is a grief processcoming. In this economy manymay have to make drastic changesin our lives. Once you haveengaged in the process and madethe life-affirming choices youknow that you don’t have to beundone by these things. Youwon’t be destroyed by them.While you don’t wish them andcertainly don’t court them, youknow that you will have the abili-ty to live the process and that you

will receive strength to live theprocess.

Maturing comes from success-fully undertaking the grief pro-cess.

That maturing can be for afourteen year old as well as aeighty-four year old. There is amaturing in our faith, there’s amaturing in our confidence,there’s a maturing in how we holdlife, there’s a maturing in the con-text that we put around eventsand our role and our place in thoseevents.

Maturing is one of the gifts ofmourning. Please share the giftsthat you received.

The gifts of this process to mehave been increased faith, hope,love, and connection with thetranscendence.

That’s a wonderful closing.•

Other equally powerful desireswhich are in opposition to it arisealong the way, such as the desirefor more time to relax, or tospend with the family, or formore money to maintain a certainlife-style. The extra factor whichis needed to realize an intention isa colorless, usually semi-consciousforce called will.

It is not easy to identify willand to separate it from desire orintention. What is it, however,which takes you to your saxo-phone practice or to writingessays as a mature student whenyou are very tired from a hardday’s work, it is a balmy evening,and all your family or friends aresipping drinks, relaxing, and oth-erwise enjoying themselves? Atthat time, desire it is not! Desiresare always of the moment. Anyapparently longer-term desire ordesire so strong it overrides

L O T U S s p r i n g 1 9 9 3 87

Taking StepsContinued from page 24

opposing forces is heavily sup-ported by will; and will is themachinery which brings it torealization. Will could be called“colorless,” because it is notinfluenced by feelings and desire.It operates despite them.

You may begin meditation formany reasons, with many ideas ofwhat you want out of it or noneat all, but the only thing whichwill hold you to it over time isyour will. Ideas change, thedesires which initially motivateyou will wane and your enthusi-asm will fluctuate. Such is humannature and such things areinevitable (except perhaps forthose driven by the machine-likeenergy of fanaticism. Meditationis not a crutch which will supportyou undemandingly in yourproblems. It will of itself createconflicts but unlike many of theareas of conflict in life, medita-tion sets up conditions whichalways by their very nature can becreative. From the continuedpractice of meditation your beinggrows.

The growth of being expandsand organizes mental and emo-tional life. There is no doubt thatthe world becomes a richer placeand that a level of personal stressand suffering is relinquished. Theresult is that calmer, profounderstates of emotion are given achance to be established. But ittakes organization on the mostpractical level to keep to the sortof self-discipline which medita-tion involves. Being is not just astate of mind. It is a state of life.Being is recognizable not in whatpeople think, or think theythink, but in how they are andhow they conduct their lives.•

From “The Meditators Guidebook.”Copyright 1991 by Lucy Oliver. Printedwith arrangement from Inner TraditionsInternational.

MeditationContinued from page 30

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acceptance, emptying ourselves, visualizations, and affirma-tions.

Although Fishel has integrated quite a number ofresources in her life, her book Healing Energy especiallyappears to credit the mind/body field called psychoneu-roimmunology, Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve-Step movement and most recently, Vipassana (also calledInsight or Mindfulness) meditation. In its connection tomeditation, she discusses mindfulness in the followingsense. “We learn that mindfulness is the quality of attentionwhich notices without choosing. It is choiceless awarenessthat, like the sun, shines on all things equally. Mindfulnessis breaking the chain of conditioning.”

This book illustrates in many ways how her openness tonew learning experiences has been responsible for her ownsuccessful breaking of the “chain of conditioning.”

What many teachers of meditation call self-observation,Fishel refers to as “noting.” Noting is the age-old practiceof watching our thoughts and perceiving what feeling oraction they lead to. She breaks this meditative process downinto consciousness, perception, sensation, and reaction. Theall-important moment, she reasons, is between sensation—“the crossroad where body and mind meet”—and reaction,the point at which “value is attached to incoming data.”Between sensation and reaction lies volition, the “momentof choice,” where will and mindfulness can be developedand addictive urges ignored.

Turning to psychoneuroimmunology (PSI), Fishel dis-cusses this field in introductory terms that will be under-standable to any inquiring reader. It is a scientific disciplinethat is yielding amazing findings about the human brainand its capacities for healing, stress reduction, and height-ened perception of bodily needs. Not surprisingly, she joinsthe throngs of truth seekers, recovery experts, doctors, andscientists who are beginning to see how a deeper under-standing of PSI can be linked practically and meaningfullyto a spiritual framework for healing, recovery, and transfor-mation. Neuroscience and spirituality are joining hands.

This kinship is welcome news for people enslaved toaddictive rituals of the self-destructive kind; for now themeanings we have perhaps yearned for and sought all ourlives are forthcoming as we learn about both our humannature through psychology and the biological sciences andour spiritual nature through traditional lore transmittedsince antiquity.

Ruth Fishel conveys her enthusiasm for all this newlearning as it applies to addictions and dependencies. Sheshares what is known to date about neuro transmitters,most notably endorphins, which act in an opium-like wayto alleviate pain and, depending on the sensitivity of certain

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neural pathways, either enhance orsuppress response to stimuli. Herstudy of endorphins led her to askthis question: “Is it possible thatthe bodies of those of us who havegrown up in alcoholic or dysfunc-tional homes, with all their stressand pain, have closed down theirability to produce endorphins?”

Healing Energy is a usefulplace to start not only to find ananswer to this question but to alsolearn how one can meditate one’sway to a life affirming recovery.

Private Moments, Secret Selves:Enriching Our Time Alone

By Jeffrey Kottler, Ph.D.New York: Ballantine Books, 1990 $8.00 Paperback

“The ability to enjoy and uti-lize one’s solitude is a core psycho-logical task, an essential tool formaintaining optimal mentalhealth.”

Jeffrey Kottler, a practicingpsychotherapist, makes this claimnear the beginning of PrivateMoments, Secret Selves, a book he feltmotivated to write because of thecovert cultural sanctions that haveconcealed the topic of solitarybehaviors from public view. So hemailed out 1500 questionnaires,received hundreds of audio tapes,and kept extensive notes onclients, students (he teaches too),and other therapists. The informa-tion that he amassed can be plot-ted along a continuum whichunsurprisingly shows that people’sexperiences of aloneness rangefrom the depths of despair to theheights of ecstasy.

The book, he writes, became“not only about what people dowhen they’re alone but about theessence of being alone.”

In our Western culture solitudeis craved but paradoxically ques-

tioned. Kottler works through thisparadox with sensitivity and intel-ligence and shares with PaulTillich the observation that whatlies between our innermost psycheand our public persona is “the bat-tleground for creation anddestruction.” Doing and being are

out of balance in our private aswell as our public lives.

Kottler does not question anyof the behaviors his respondentsshared with him except thosehighlighted in the chapter called“Avoiding Self-DestructiveBehaviors,” in which he discussessuch “compulsive styles of soli-

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tude” as the workaholic, comput-er addict, exercise fanatic, eatingdisorders, superstitious behav-iors, and the obsessive-compul-sive. For people enslaved to thesesolitary excesses or who havegone underground with thesebehaviors—obsessions, compul-sions, addictions, social with-drawal, shyness, loneliness—heoffers a 17-step program thatborrows largely from such cogni-tive therapists as Albert Ellis andA.T. Beck. Through such a pro-gram a balance between “exces-sive isolation” and “solitudedeprivation” is sought—a bal-ance, Kottler believes, that canbe sustained.

Nearly the rest of the book is asystematic breakdown of respon-dents’ answers to questions abouttheir most secretive solitary acts,obstacles to being alone, howthey spend their time alone, howthey differ as a public and soli-tary person, and the ways thatsolitude enhances their lives.Kottler adds psychological com-mentary, historical perspectives,and research findings that willbroaden one’s understanding ofthis important topic. He sharesthe view that solitude is a biolog-ical need but he also agrees withMaslow that people who pursuepeak experiences have “an intensedesire for solitude.”

The marriage between biologyand spirituality is perhaps bestsummed up in this passage, “Thedegree to which we can tolerate,and even revel in, our solitude isdirectly related to our havingconfronted our fears and havingbecome comfortable with ourinner self. For anyone who wantsto live fully and consciously, thisconfrontation is an essential stepon the path of personal growth.”

Private Moments, Secret Selvesmight put you in touch with

your self by reminding you thatsolitude need not be a shamefultaboo. In a higher sense, it canremind us that we are never alonebecause we are all interconnect-ed. Alan Watts, quoted byKottler, knew this. “This feelingof being lonely and very tempo-rary visitors in the universe is inflat contradiction to everythingknown about man (and all otherliving organisms) in the sciences.We do not ‘come into’ thisworld; we come out of it, asleaves from a tree.”

Daydreaming: Using WakingFantasy and Imagery for Self-Knowledge and Creativity

By Eric Klinger, Ph.D.Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher,Inc.,1990$12.95 Paperback

Eric Klinger, a Professor ofPsychology at the University ofMinnesota, has researched andstudied daydreaming for wellover twenty years. His research,and that of many others world-wide, is surveyed comprehensive-ly in Daydreaming. Everythingthat is known to date about thistopic from a scientific viewpointis presented here in clear, jargon-free language.

Daydreams, Klinger writes,“are you in action within thearena of your mind.” They arealso “a life within.”

You will surely learn aboutdaydreams in considerable detail,but one caveat needs to be aired.This book is classified as psychol-ogy/self-help; a close reading willreveal it is more psychology thanself-help. The subtitle—”UsingWaking Fantasy and Imagery forSelf-Knowledge andCreativity”—refers to just onetopical consideration amongmany. Klinger is the rigorous

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scientist who seldom goes beyondthe information given to specu-late on how daydreams truly fur-ther one’s knowledge of self.

This is less a criticism than anexplanation of Klinger’s overallapproach to daydreaming, whichis to rely on scientific methods tothe greatest extent possible inorder to provide an anatomy ofdaydreams. For instance, the tenchapters of the book discuss whywe daydream, their contents, fre-quency, styles (i.e., links to per-sonality), storytelling modes(e.g., fantasy), emotional make-up, and so on. In addition, onegets an historical perspective onthe myths and misconceptionsconcerning daydreams.

In other words, don’t expectan in-depth exploration of howdaydreams might be harnessed tofurther potential, except in thelimited sense of making refer-ences to improved sex, physicalskills, problem-solving, socialrelations, fantasy excursions, andself-organization. This book lacksthe spiritual dimension of a booklike Lucid Dreaming in whichStephen LaBerge, a leadingdream researcher from Stanford,is equally rigorous with his scien-tific methods but is also drawn toa broader perspective thatincludes developing lucid dreamsas a means towards consciousevolution.

Klinger has more modest aimsin discussing daydreams. He willinform you that your daydreams“come out of the very essence ofyour being,” but what he refersto as one’s most private innerdepths is, for the most part, awell-documented overview ofhuman nature as it is, (with allits quirks and oddities and tor-rents of thought). In short, yourdaydreams are a mirror of yourself in all its present, unenlight-

ened complexity. It is probablyuseful though to know that yourdaydreams more than likely don’tset you apart from others. Or asKlinger puts it, and as researchshows, you are not likely to day-dream yourself into insanity.

Daydreaming is directly con-nected to those ancient parts ofthe brain that maintain survivalinstincts. Beyond that, day-dreaming can of course relax andstimulate us, help us to organizeour lives, assist us in honingsocial or physical skills, andinvite us to have a good timewith the “mental repertory com-pany.”

As human nature evolves, sowill daydreams. In a rare passagepertaining to this evolutionaryperspective, Klinger shares thefollowing, “When you daydream,you exercise parts of your brainthat are responsible for the activi-ties you are daydreaming about.When you exercise these brainsystems in such a way as to teachthem something new, that learn-ing alters them and sets them upto apply their learning to thenext real-world occasion forwhich they are relevant. And thatis what makes the mental imagesof daydreaming a medium forpersonal change and growth.”

Daydreaming is certainly infor-mative; Klinger covers the topicwell. Turning to daydreaming asa developmental medium,though, will require further seek-ing.

Touching Peace:Practicing the Art of MindfulLiving

By Thich Nhat HanhBerkeley, California: ParallaxPress, 1992$9.50 Paperback

In 1967 Martin Luther King,

Thomas

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Jr. nominated Thich Nhat Hanhfor the Nobel Peace Prize, threeyears after he had himself receivedthat honor. He had this to sayabout Hanh “I do not personallyknow of anyone more worthy ofthe Nobel Peace Prize than thisgentle monk from Vietnam.”

It is a quarter of a century laterand having now read TouchingPeace, I am inclined to think thatThich Nhat Hanh should still be acandidate for consideration of thisprestigious prize. All that is writ-ten about him strongly supportsthe fact that Hanh is a livingexemplar of mindful and compas-sionate living. His latest bookillustrates once again that he hastruly taken to heart the five pow-ers taught by the Buddha—faith,energy, mindfulness, concentra-tion, and understanding—andapplied them in everyday living.

Hanh also obviously practicesthe five precepts that the Buddhabestowed upon humankind (seethe Winter 1992 Lotus for a con-cise adaptation of these precepts).

“Our true home is in the pre-sent moment,” he writes, no mat-ter where we live on this planet.Hanh, when not conductingmindfulness retreats around theworld lives in Plum Village, asmall community in France. Hiswriting, as usual, is a bright,though not blinding, reflection ofhis own mindfulness. No apolo-gies for the cliché, but he indeedpractices what he preaches,“touching peace” wherever hegoes.

What does touching peacemean? It means conscious breath-ing, looking deeply, interbeing,walking meditation, learningabout “suchness,” compassionate

listening, living the five precepts,interacting in a sangha (a commu-nity working towards harmonyand peace), and understanding thetensions that abound because ofthe dynamics between store andmind consciousness. All of theabove terms and phrases refer topractices that comprise the “art ofmindful living.” Hanh discussesthem fully.

Take store and mind conscious-ness as an example. Hanh adaptsthese Buddhist psychologicalterms for a contemporary audi-ence, referring to store conscious-ness as the ground level of themind where seedlings of all ourpast and present thoughts, actions,and perceptions germinate andlive or die according to the upper-level processes of the mind con-sciousness.

“When a seed manifests in ourmind consciousness,” Hanh writes,“it always returns to the store-house stronger.” The point here issimple but by no means simplis-tic; for if the seeds are consistentlytoxic our behaviors will reflect thistoxicity (behaviors which Hanhcomments on at length). “To prac-tice mindfulness,” he continues,“means to recognize each seed as itcomes up from the storehouse andto practice watering the mostwholesome seeds whenever possi-ble.” Water these seeds, he teach-es, and “we can trust that our storeconsciousness will do the work ofhealing.”

Believe me, Hanh doesn’t rep-resent the Be Happy Do NothingForget Your Worries school ofthought. You face your pain, suf-fering, anxieties, doubts, fears, andall those other negativities withunflinching present attention. Inturn, the seedbed of store con-sciousness transforms the “habitenergy” of our most unregenerate

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thoughts and behaviors into anew-minded consciousness thatwill bring forth mindfulness. Andmindfulness, Hanh tells us inTouching Peace, “is the seed ofenlightenment, awareness, under-standing, care, compassion, libera-tion, transformation, and healing.”

Read the words of Thich NhatHanh and start a garden with thisseed. Start it, then grow.

Living Presence: A Sufi Way toMindfulness and the EssentialSelf

By Kabir Edmund HelminskiLos Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., $9.95 Paperback

Living Presence is a masterfulpsycho spiritual work by a SufiShaikh of the Mevlevi Order,which was founded by one of thegreat mystical poets of all time,Jelaluddin Rumi. This will be oneof the most treasured books in mylibrary.

Kabir Edmund Helminski—also a publisher and a practicingtranspersonal psychotherapist—utilizes the refined spiritualvocabulary of the Sufis withremarkable clarity. Your intellectwill certainly be challenged, butmore importantly, the subtler fac-ulties of your subconscious mind(what the Sufis call the “heart”)will stir and powerfully attractyou to an intense and lovingobservation of all that intersectsbetween the world of the sensesand the world of Spirit.

Reviewing this book seemssuperfluous. As many Sufis andmasters of other spiritual tradi-tions have done, Helminski isstretching language to the limit injolting us again and again toremember our God-given her-itage, which is to awaken to our“presence”—that is, “the quality

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of consciously being here.” (italicsthe author’s) This common themehas been of pivotal importancewithin many of these traditions.“It goes by many names,”Helminski writes, “—awakening,recollection, mindfulness, dhyana,remembrance, zhikr, presence—and by no name at all.”

A recommendation you mightwish to consider before starting onthe main text is to read carefullythe glossary of fifty-seven words atthe end of the book. This glossaryis a treasure chest of words thatcan literally put us in mind of thevery penetrating Reality of Spirit.After reading the definitions ofsuch words as being, conscious-ness, faith, freedom, God, grace,heart, human being, knowledge,spirit, and will, you might get thefeeling (as I did) that a spiritual

blueprint for conscious evolutionis being made available.

Ponder just this one word,which so many persons havedebased through constant misuse:“Love: the electromagnetic milieuin which we exist, which exertsvarious forces of attraction amongall that it contains; the greatesttransforming power; our experi-ence of Spirit.”

Or think about freedom, anoth-er word made almost meaninglessby too many meanings: “Freedom:1. the result of greater presence. 2.the state of having will. 3. psycho-logically, being free of negativity.”

When reading the main text,you will possibly sense thatHelminski is granting the recep-tive reader the gift of a spirituallanguage that reflects the wisdomof the ages. In his personal case, hegravitated towards Sufism, whichhe most aptly defines as follows:“Sufism is a way of life in which adeeper identity is discovered andlived.” But being present is not aSufi phenomenon alone. In fact, ithas been said by other Sufis thatSufism is a name for a reality thatgoes beyond names. For my part,though, I confess that Sufis havebeen particularly adept at trans-mitting literary treasures thatreflect human possibilities butalso act as critiques of our limita-tions. The best Sufi literature—like the one reviewed here—are ofdevelopmental value.

Living Presence will work onyour mind to work on itself. Inother words, it will be difficult toread this book and stay comfort-able with the negativity, delu-sions, and other myopic tendenciesof our “false self.” Helminskioffers a challenge that is lovingbut also stern. He wants us tounderstand with our hearts that“Remembering God is the begin-ning of remembering ourselves.”•

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When we look deeply at a flower, we noticethat the flower is on her way to becomingcompost. When we look deeply into our-

selves, we see both flowers and garbage. Each of us hasanger, hatred, depression, racial discrimination, andmany other kinds of garbage in us, but there is noneed for us to be afraid. In the way that a gardenerknows how to transform compost into flowers, we canlearn the art of transforming anger, depression, andracial discrimination into love and understanding.

Consciousness can be described as a field, a plot ofland where every kind of seed can be planted—seedsof suffering, happiness, joy, sorrow, fear, anger, andhope. Store consciousness is also described as a store-house filled with all our seeds. When a seed manifestsin our mind consciousness, it always returns to thestorehouse stronger. The quality of our life dependson the quality of the seeds in our store consciousness.

We may be in the habit of manifesting seeds ofanger, sorrow, and fear in our mind consciousness;seeds of joy, happiness, and peace may not sprout upmuch. To practice mindfulness means to recognizeeach seed as it comes up from the storehouse and topractice watering the most wholesome seeds wheneverpossible, to help them grow stronger. During eachmoment that we are aware of something peaceful andbeautiful, we water seeds of peace and beauty in us,and beautiful flowers bloom in our consciousness. Thelength of time we water a seed determines thestrength of that seed. For example, if we stand infront of a tree, breathe consciously, and enjoy it forfive minutes, seeds of happiness will be watered in usfor five minutes, and those seeds will grow stronger.During the same five minutes, other seeds like fear

and pain will not be watered. We have to practice thisway every day. Any seed that manifests in our mindconsciousness always returns to our store conscious-ness stronger.

One wonderful seed in our store consciousness—the seed of mindfulness—when manifested, has thecapacity of being aware of what is happening in thepresent moment. If we take one peaceful, happy stepand we know that we are taking a peaceful, happystep, mindfulness is present. Mindfulness is an impor-tant agent for our transformation and healing, but ourseed of mindfulness has been buried under many lay-ers of forgetfulness and pain for a long time. We arerarely aware that we have eyes that see clearly, a heartand a liver that function well, and a non-toothache.We live in forgetfulness, looking for happiness some-where else, ignoring and crushing the precious ele-ments of happiness that are already in us and aroundus. If we breathe in and out and see that the tree isthere, alive and beautiful, the seed of our mindfulnesswill be watered, and it will grow stronger. When wefirst start to practice, our mindfulness will be weak,like a fifteen-watt light bulb. But as soon as we payattention to our breathing, it begins to grow stronger,and after practicing like that for a few weeks, itbecomes as bright as a one-hundred watt bulb. Withthe light of mindfulness shining, we touch manywonderful elements within and around us, and whiledoing so, we water the seeds of peace, joy, and happi-ness in us, and at the same time, we refrain fromwatering the seeds of unhappiness.• From “TouchingPeace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living.” Copyright 1992by Thich Nhat Hanh. Printed with permission from ParallaxPress. For information on this book see page 89.

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S PRING OLUME Lotus · 2013-12-06 · B Y C RIS T HURMAN 52 ... B Y D AVID G ERSHON & GAIL S TRAUB...

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