Diagnosis: Unusual; Prescription: Meditation

A pleasant, earnest, and persistent young man telephoned last week intent on ‘helping’ us with a problem that we were about to encounter with the Windows operating system that populates our various computers. His message was clear: he had been instructed by Microsoft to contact us and assist us with the removal of a viral program, origin suspected to be Thailand. While he (helpfully) remained on the phone, we were to go directly to our computer (do not pass ‘Go’; and certainly do not collect the usual $200 swag – that evidently would be his job!), log on to the website he would designate, and presto, we would have dodged another digital bullet. Fortunately, my wife received the call, together with all its urgent instructions – and accordingly informed our obliging young caller that her experience with Microsoft (and it is ample) was that contact is not typically made by telephone. She thanked him for his time (more or less) and ended the call. A few days later, she had occasion to take her computer in for servicing, discovering in conversation with the technician that we were not alone in receiving this uninvited assist. Another less cautious customer had reportedly followed the directives; only to find that, in doing so, he himself installed corrupted code – which then cost him a few hundred dollars to have removed, evidently with the now ‘necessary’ intervention of said helpful and anonymous caller.

I was reminded of the above scenario as I read, with some interest, Ian Brown’s weekend editorial about the soon to be published DSM-V (see our ‘Of Interest’ website, for the full text – of Ian’s article, not the DSM!). The lingo may be a bit unfamiliar to some – the DSM’s are the manuals utilized in making diagnoses of mental disorders, syndromes, etc. Evolving thru’ three previous editions in the past 60 years, the DSM-IV, its current incarnation, is an imposing checklist cataloguing criteria for everything from depression to dementia, psychosis to personality disorders, anxiety to Asperger’s. Ian chooses to highlight the contentiousness that has pretty much preceded the release of each successive edition; largely driven by what some see as a rather arbitrary and scientifically ‘unsupported’ inclusion (and exclusion) of ‘conditions’ that might be better viewed as ‘extremes of normal behaviour’. (PMS, in; homosexuality, out.) He also raises the concern that, with every good (or maybe not so good) diagnosis, comes the need to develop ways of treating said condition. His contention is that, since this is primarily a medical/psychiatric volume (although the ‘protected privilege’ of pronouncing diagnosis is extended to psychologists in Ontario), ‘treatment’ has increasingly come to mean ‘medication’. In short, not to be too inclined to see a suspicious character behind every tree – that would be frankly paranoid, the editorial considers the possibility that the DSM’s have gradually become something of a self-perpetuating marriage between psychiatry (‘we invent the pathology’) and the drug companies (‘we invent the cure’). Hence, my little resonance with the scenario in the first paragraph: first I’ll help you inject a problem into your computer; then I’ll ride in to the rescue (for my $300 fee!). Hmmm, seems a bit circular (and scary).

I also had occasion a few weeks back to catch the end of an interview between Steve Paikin (The Agenda) and an octogenarian, Don Weitz who is a self-described ‘psychiatric survivor’ and ‘anti-psychiatry activist’. (The podcast is viewable at: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=109191&ts=2011-06-28%2020:00:00.0 ). Weitz, an arrival in Canada some 50 years ago as a student in U of T‘s graduate psychology program, became progressively disenchanted with the whole concept of mental illness, partly a reaction to treatment interventions observed during a stint working at CAM-H (formerly Queen St. Mental Health Centre) as a psychologist; and partly responsive to his own earlier experiences on the ‘other side of the window’ as a patient in late adolescence. He has been a vocal critic of all things psychiatric ever since.

As a practitioner, two observations. As a culture, we seem to be getting ‘sicker’, judging from the upsurge in numbers of certain categories of identified dysfunction (depression, attention deficit, anxiety, to name a few). A statistic cited in Brown’s column (NIH survey) notes that presently nearly half of American adults satisfy the criteria for at least one DSM mental illness! I’ve often wondered just what these sorts of reported trends actually reflect. Are there more depressed people in 2011 than in, say, 1990? Are little boys becoming progressively less manageable, more chaotic? My own (perhaps overly optimistic) suspicion is that this increased ‘mental malaise’ may in part be artifactual; that the ‘statistical evidence’ is in part predicated on two sources of somewhat suspect data (not the accuracy of the numbers, but the interpretation thereof): more prescriptions written for conditions typically seen as psychiatric (depression, anxiety); and more lost time work absences, reported as having a ‘psychiatric / psychological origin’. This trend, if my view has any credence at all, is disturbing in and of itself, in that it reflects as much an increased readiness to diagnose a condition – but quite possibly not an actual increase in the base rate of the condition(s) itself. More disturbing still is the reactivity that it seems to engender against taxonomic systems such as the DSM (as typified by Ian Brown’s column), and treatment of psychiatric disorder in general (as portrayed in the Weitz interview). The equivalent of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Certainly there are villains that will attempt to corrupt your computer. And certainly there may be a tendency in some quarters to pathologize eccentric, atypical, unpopular, or extreme behaviours. But it does not mean that we should stop answering the phone or throw out the computer. Nor is taxonomy the problem. What’s that hopelessly overused cliché: guns don’t shoot people; people shoot people. The tools are not the problem. Their application might be.

Oh yeah, the second observation. Restoring my faith on a regular basis is the appearance of clients in my practice, adamant that they wish to implement alternative strategies in addition to and on some occasions in place of medication in management of their presenting symptoms. The capacity for regular mindfulness practice, linked with other cognitive interventions, to sustain gains in a host of areas (anxiety, chronic pain, depression, anger/impulse control) is testament that perhaps we’re not going (straight) to Hell in a psychiatric hand basket. And that we, as a culture are not the uncritical, unquestioning collection of buffoons that the alarmists might suggest.

Endings

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
(Tao Te Ching, 2)

Natural events are cyclical, always changing from one extreme toward an opposite. . .That is the way of nature: to relax what is tense, to fill what is empty, to reduce what is overflowing. . . The wise person follows this natural order of events (and) by remaining disinterested (in outcome) becomes potent and successful.
(Tao of Leadership, 77)

One year ago this week, I attended a memorial service in Lawrence, Kansas for my friend and principal mentor, John Heider, the author of the second of these two quotes – and it put me in mind of endings and how we deal with them, what they represent to us. For the past two decades, I had, more or less annually, joined at least one of John’s trainings as he taught group process, body work, gestalt technique, and meditation. Our final group was held in October 2008, (barely a year and a half before John’s death in May, 2010), prompting me, at the time, to reflect on this bittersweet event:

Without fear of exaggeration, it is this man’s guidance and gentle suggestion, teachings and wisdom, provision of opportunity to explore the truly difficult, conflicted and challenging issues that plague us all, insights, encouragement to cultivate a contemplative and meditative practice, that has sculpted the spiritual framework that has occupied for me mid-life to ‘young’ old age. And this is his last group. This year’s trip is tinged with the sadness and uncertainty that must always accompany a transition, indeed a closing – especially one that will be hard pressed to find equal; and certainly never be replaced.

We sit around the group circle, ‘old style’ – pillows on the floor (no mean trick for a group with an average age of somewhere in the low 60’s). All bound by a few simple rules: tell one’s truth (or as much of it as feels safe); remain present; and above all, ‘trust the process’. This last bit, cryptic and succinct as it may seem, to my mind is the essence of personal and ultimately spiritual growth. It presumes a community that may be relied upon to place each other’s respective interests in a non-judgmental, supportive, receptive, and respectful light. It presumes a set of expectations that does not include ‘getting answers’ – only being granted a full opportunity to ask one’s questions, a forum to be fully heard (not judged, corrected, or advised). And it presumes that speaking aloud one’s dilemmas and enthusiasms, regrets and successes, witnessed in such a community, will advance and clarify, will provide direction, and, most importantly, be listened to – a rare occurrence in today’s world where many speak and few hear. Neither is talk the only medium. Equally important is the silence. If I may appropriate: ‘Be still and know . . ; be still; be’ is something of a maxim easily adopted by this group.

As expected, the sub-text, the ‘elephant in the room’ of this final group is a sense of loss, dislocation, anxiety around ‘where to from here’ – as we say our goodbyes to a group of friends, to a community that has, without exaggeration, been the touchstone, the anchor, the home that this incredibly diverse group of sometime strangers has come to rely upon for all of the above gifts. Equally evident, and somewhat less expectedly is a profound sense of gratitude for having had the opportunity to live in this community – however, briefly.

I believe my personal ‘work’ has ever orbited around endings – as it may for many of us – or perhaps more properly transitions, even evolutions. In this regard, I had occasion to look back at some writing I’d done in the mid-1990’s, at that time centering on frustrations associated with our local bicycle club. A few of us had invested heavily in interest, energy, and time to consolidate and promote the growth of a group of ‘hobbyists’ (hardly!) in a sport paradoxically populated by individualists – despite the superficial identification of a team structure. Adding members, structuring regular group rides that would conform to (supportive) ‘guidelines’ that wouldn’t see loose cannons charging off the front or lame ducks falling off the back, ride schedules, club jerseys, sponsorship – you name it – all became central focuses; and in turn, confirmations of ‘success’. The awareness finding its way into print fifteen years ago was much less about the effort imbued to make something work; and much more about the, at first subtle disappointments forming around something when it starts to stop working. At the time, coming to recognize – and accept – the natural course of things, in John’s language.

Were I a student being graded in a more conventional context, I would likely be scored an ‘NI’ (needs improvement) or, at best, perhaps an ‘S’ (satisfactory). I’m still evidently a work in progress. As if to highlight my forward movement (or lack thereof), this week too saw an email arrive in the in-box from a colleague in our group practice announcing that, after ten-years of affiliation with our collective, it was time for her to establish an independent, unique, and separate identity. The (at least for me) instinctive response to yet another ending was immediate: disappointment, anxiety (over filling the void), a dab of doubt (something I/we did?) – and even a little anger, sense of betrayal (where’s all that loyalty and gratitude when you need it?). Out of sight, but hopefully around the corner, were the celebration of the new venture and the capacity to actually read the words that thanked us for a great decade and a positive association. Still a little stuck in the ending, the ‘what was’; and a little hesitant to embrace what will be – the new beginnings.

Mindfulness practice, with its emphasis on balance, equanimity, acceptance of ‘the full catastrophe’ (the ‘natural course’ of change and impermanence), letting go, and developing an awareness around the paired distractions of avoidance (in this case, of change) and attachment (in this instance, to what was) seems the ideal tonic with which to deal with endings. Quoting John once again, the point of any practice is to ‘shed the light of consciousness on an issue, a concern, a decision’; not to solve the problem or provide an answer in a conventional sense, but to sit in the presence of the question. Evidently, some of our ‘aging’ group from Lawrence still has this work to do. The consensus was to carry on meeting, ‘leaderless’. Perhaps it’s time to embrace a new beginning, letting John go. And 'trust the process' that each ending (as Lau-tzu suggests in the opening quote, 2500 years ago) holds within it a beginning.

The Community of Self

We seem to be social critters. Affiliation becomes us. A few experiences, however, in the past month or so, while not openly challenging this view, at least have given me pause to reflect on some ‘guidelines’ that might be worth considering before memorizing the secret handshake of our next club initiation rite. Most recently, a lovely little film, Another Year, had found its way into our DVD player. Featuring Jim Broadbent, Leslie Manville and Ruth Sheen, it explores four seasons in the contented lives of Tom and Gerri (no relation, as far as I know. . .) as they host in their home various friends and family members (all with some measure of dysfunction and neediness attached); and tend their ‘allotment’, a plot of land subdivided into parcels and made available to individuals and families to be worked side by side but, and here’s the critical piece in my mind, independent of one another.

A second moment of awareness arrived shortly after my return from a bicycle trip in the UK. A neighbourhood friend paused on his dog walk to chat with me while I fussed over the reassembly of my bike, safely (and happily) arriving in the same time zone and universe as its owner on the inbound flight. After the generic inquiries, he asked if I’d enjoyed the group this time as much as last (reference to a similar venture in France last Autumn). Without a moment’s hesitation I replied that “yes, the company had been extraordinary – convivial, cooperative, interesting, timely, and cycling at just the pace I could manage!” My friend, a fellow skeptic by training and preference, raised an eyebrow and scanned my face for the signature irony he has long associated with our conversations. “I was by myself”, completing my reply. I thanked John for drawing my attention to this particular aspect of the trip – with the quite surprising awareness that it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d quite contentedly spent the bulk of each day in the two-week journey with no other company than my own.

What links these two accounts for me is that community forms an intimate part of both experiences. Tom and Gerri are painted as generous, social beings – Gerri working as a National Health counsellor, Tom as a successful, company-based geologist – connected with their extended family, but content to allow them (an adult son and a sadly disconnected brother) to work out their own issues in their own time. Equally, however, boundaries within and between these relationships are the critical elements that makes their community involvement sustainable and healthy. A somewhat pathetic co-worker is included in the couple’s weekly rhythm of entertaining; to the point where the demands cross a boundary that makes her company intrusive and unhealthy; that point where friendship and support become enabling. The couple is acutely aware and protective of this point and take good care to defend against further encroachment. This is the point where we see them, once again, contentedly working in their allotment garden and regenerating their independence. And what a beautiful metaphor for this balance between community (the parcel within the plot) and individuality. And what a healthy distinction between community and communal.

The solitude and time for reflection, offered by the solo bicycle tour, I now see as fostered and driven by a similar balance. This was not some kind of Into the Wild, ill-construed adventure in self-sufficiency and abandonment of social contact. Rather, day’s end would see me check into a (usually highly restorative) B & B, connect with the hosts, even share tales of each other’s lives (Mick’s story will no doubt find its way into a future riff as testament to resilience and coping). More so, the daily phone call back to Canada, partly to ease my wife’s anxious mind (the constructions her imagination could place on the troubles an aging husband, alone in the Dales could contrive were well worth defusing!) but as much to share the day’s adventures, was a pivotal piece as well; the point where community meets solitude. Without one to define the other, both go wanting.

Larke Turnbull, a journalist and regular participant in one of our weekly mindfulness meditation groups, had chatted with me recently with a principal query being the increasing popularity of meditation; and in particular, meditation in a group setting. It is not difficult to see how sitting, with one’s eyes closed, focusing on the rhythm of one’s own breathing might be construed as a solitary activity – but exercised in the greater presence of a group with similar intentions and, most importantly, with great respect for the other individuals in that group.

One additional comment on this perhaps paradoxical concept of individuality within the group, the community. Alone in a crowd is the sometimes negatively construed description of a person who finds themselves surrounded by people – but still feeling isolated and disconnected. What I’m attempting to describe is essentially the opposite: one who feels at peace with his/her self, content with solitude; but intimately connected in a very healthy and salutary way to those around them. Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul; and Soul Mates) has described what I see as an important starting point for the latter of these two relationships. He references ‘the community of self’, alluding to the multiple aspects of self that we all contain. Gestalt psychology pays great heed to the same idea; as does psychosynthesis theory. The essence is that of cultivating an awareness of and taking ownership for all ‘sub-personalities’ – the good, the bad, and the ugly, as it were – and thereby getting quite comfortable in one’s own skin, with one’s own self. (This is contrasted with rejecting aspects that we find discomforting or know to be unpopular – ‘that’s not the real me’ – and embracing those pieces that we feel will endear us to our community, or relationships.) The ‘alone time’, the keeping our boundaries in place in our community connections, the ‘working of our own allotments’ provides us the space and opportunity to get to know ourselves. Then (and perhaps only then) do we have the perspective, the assurance, the self-knowledge, self-acceptance to develop and maintain healthy membership in our communities.

The Glass Is. . . Well, The Glass Is.

I can still recall my reflexive annoyance at seeing the cute little smiley face appended to the signature of a former colleague’s written communications – and the momentary pleasure I’d take in blacking it out. The implied ‘have a nice day’ seemed to invite an ‘I’ll have whatever kind of day I choose, thank you very much’ accompanied by thoughts of pathetic Pollyanna’s and irrepressible Ricky’s (for those of us old enough to have watched Ozzie and Harriet). Give me a good, solid cynic anytime: grounded realists all. In short, I’d always harbored a view (a suspicion) that optimism lacked gravitas, smacked to some extent of self-delusion – or, at best, naïveté; pessimism, while ‘harder to look at’, was the real deal, the unvarnished truth.

Mellowing somewhat, as I expect we must, in the past few decades – and I suppose fortunate, professionally, that psychology as a discipline has gravitated toward the middle ground – I’ve found myself a little less dark and now quite accepting of ‘balanced thinking’. Cognitive behavioural techniques, with their emphasis on rational thought and a ‘just stick to the facts, m’am’ methodology, have displaced, for the most part Freud’s sinister interpretations of our hidden compulsions as the intervention of choice. My personal pendulum had begun its inevitable return trip to the midpoint. Nevertheless I was not about to turn in my cynic’s club membership just yet and become a card-carrying optimist.

So it was with some skepticism (of course!) that I read Sarah Hampson’s piece in the Globe last weekend highlighting the findings of a recent book entitled The Happiness Advantage (Shawn Achor) associating, among other things, a performance edge going to the happy camper. Identifying a range of potential within the individual, research reviewed by Achor reportedly suggests that we operate more toward the upper reaches of that range when we are ‘happy’. In fairness (to us former cynics), he is quick to differentiate between that chronically effervescent, resilient state that so reminds me of those inflatable ‘bobo’ dolls with sand in their feet that pop right back up each time you’d whack the bejeezus out of them – a condition he calls ‘irrational optimism’ – and its more grounded sibling: rational optimism. (We didn’t all buy into The Secret and its questionable, though wildly popular contention that ‘if you put it out to the universe, it will happen’ – and if it doesn’t, it’s because you had a little doubt sneak in the side door – and neither, it seems, did Mr. Achor.)

His rational optimist is not just somebody who thinks happy thoughts (think Chicken Soup for the Soul author tacking his cheque for $1 million on the ceiling above his bed – until it showed up. Oh really!!). Rather, he/she is someone who exhibits three characteristics that Achor claims are responsible for 75% of our performance in any given situation (intelligence, skill set, etc. accounting, in his view for the other 25%): optimism (of course), a positive and supportive social network, and a positive response to stress. The last of the three is the one I found most compelling – and, in some ways, most relevant to and accessible through mindfulness practice. The author identifies, as part of the rational optimist’s tool kit, post-traumatic growth as key. He defines this as the individual’s capacity to respond to crisis, hurt, disappointment, tragedy with a readiness to incorporate these difficult, even tragic circumstances into their ongoing psychological growth – as he puts it, ‘growing because of trauma, not despite it’. I contrast this with what an acquaintance of mine calls ‘victim mode’ – the adoption of one’s tragedies as a defining element in their identity going forward. A wonderful exploration of these two polarities is contained in Rohinton Mistry’s, A Fine Balance, chronicling the undeniably tragic lives of two, poverty stricken tailors from the north of India and their infallible and personally innocent ‘instinct’ for participating in one disaster after another buoyed only by their resilience; and a spoiled relative afforded every opportunity who ultimately suicides, a ‘victim’ of his own ‘thoughts’.

In mindfulness practice, attachment represents a considerable impediment. Among its other ‘roles’, becoming attached to or entrenched in a particular state or event fails to allow us to move on. We become ‘stuck’, in the present context, ‘in victim’ – which then begins to define who we are, how we see ourselves, and even what our expectations for the future might be. (In clinical terms, we may become depressed or overly preoccupied with the past; even making ‘predictions’ about the probable negative direction we’re headed in – the ‘nothing ever changes’ or ‘without bad luck, I’d have no luck at all’ outlook.) Regular mindfulness practice, with its attendant emphasis on the basics of letting go, allowing what is, accepting that change and evolution is inevitable, can be figural in our adoption of a more fluid, tolerant (of all experiences) mindset – living with the ‘full catastrophe’, in Jon Kabat Zinn’s description. In Mr. Achor’s view, this becomes important as we sort out how we’re going to address the inevitable ‘downturns’ in our lives (he claims something of the order of 10% of what we face is externally determined and therefore unavoidable) – do we treat them as ‘confirmations’ of our ‘traumatized’ state; or adaptively, with rational optimism.

This thinking is not new. I can still recall seeing Norman Vincent Peale sitting prominently on my parents’ bookshelf (well, his book, anyway). Much more recently, and for the hard-headed scientist in me, more palatably is the work of Martin Seligman, a prominent psychologist, whose earlier research centered on learned optimism, leading to his very readable book, Authentic Happiness in 2002. In it he provides compelling evidence and manageable formulae for (in language very similar to Achor’s) ‘fulfilling one’s potential’. His listing of ‘signature strengths’ (vs. defining pathologies) – what’s right, rather than what’s wrong – reads like an index to mindfulness practice: openness to experience, objective consideration, social intelligence, perspective, integrity, genuineness, honesty, (loving)kindness, generosity, self-control, humility. . .the list goes on to twenty-four such dimensions. (Just a tad more ‘optimistic’ than reading the DSM-IV, the catalogue of psychiatric mental health disorders, prominent on our current bookshelves.)

For a full, working example of what Achor’s formula might look like in action, have a look at this morning Globe’s lead story at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/from-a-child-with-cancer-a-lesson-in-living/article2067054/

Optimism, supportive social network, positive response to stress – indeed! Maybe there’s hope for this aging cynic after all.

Cheers.

Once You Learn, You Never Forget

I have the sense that bicycle metaphors may hold preeminence for a bit. Sleek and streamlined, narrow-tired, aero-rimmed, the touring bike with which I was about to spend more of my time than with any human being for the next two weeks leaned casually against a corridor wall in Manchester Airport – ready for action. Unencumbered, it was a thing of beauty. Then the ‘encumbering’ began. First the rack that would hold panniers away from the spokes of the rear wheel – and hopefully contain all the ‘stuff’ I would require for this fortnight. Then the brackets for the ‘hungry-man’ sized handlebar bag. Followed by the mount for what some, less well-prepared acquaintances have dismissed as David’s wide screen TV; aka, my GPS that would guide me to those remote B & B’s in the Yorkshire Dales (missing a turn in a car is one thing; 10 kilometers out of one’s way on a bicycle can be, shall we say, a little more frustrating). Frame pump, under-saddle tool bag, water bottle, waterproof pannier covers, front and rear lights – and the kitting out was complete. I gingerly mounted, deluding myself that I could cycle my way out of the bowels of the airport, only to find that my responsive, light-weight, and ‘balanced’ bike had metamorphosed into an awkward, unpredictable, finicky, and decidedly burdened semblance of its former self; mirroring even the most insignificant departures from a perfect perpendicular with the front wheel twisting sideways on itself and the whole unit ready to collapse in a heap with any lapse in the rider’s attention. I was immediately reminded of accounts of Arthurian knights’ steeds caving under the weight of their own ‘protective’ armour.

A second image, also cycle-based but from a much earlier stage, is that of my first two-wheeler presented me by parents as a birthday gift on one of those rare early November days when southern Ontario was blessed with a significant snow fall. Unable to engage the usual father-son ritual of having the former run along clutching the underside of saddle to support and maintain the upright latter unit of son on wobbly bike, I had to content myself using the fridge as father-surrogate as I rocked to and fro in our kitchen, making first attempts at balancing this creature that seemed (not unlike the loaded unit in the airport) more intent on falling over than on remaining vertical. (I really do need to stop biking indoors!)

Either way, balance is a tricky, elusive thing. For the perhaps six-year old David, there was not yet the intuitive ‘once you learn it, you never forget it’ skill that allows dad to let go the seat, the training wheels to come off – or, in this auspicious beginning, the fridge to be abandoned for more free-wheeling days. Six decades later, the intuition might well be in place, but the compulsion to sabotage it with ‘stuff’ – all very essential, but clutter nonetheless – had crept in to undermine. Trust (that inner instinct that is just there – very hard to ‘tell’ someone how to ride a bike) and simplicity: the casualties that are often reflected in an ‘unbalanced’ life. In the case of the former, the more we attend to our ‘riding’ (“how am I doing, Dad?”), the more wobbly we become; in the latter, the more we surround ourselves with the ‘reassuring encumbrances’, the less we are free to attend to the ease and effortlessness of moving through our space.

A few thoughts on what we might do to restore balance. If we consider our subtle ‘vertical’ as some hypothetical mid-point between attachment (those aspects of our life without which we would surely perish) and avoidance (the other end of this continuum wherein reside all those things that, to which were we to be exposed, we would surely perish), then we might be getting a little closer to riding that unencumbered beauty, uphill and down with equal joy. This allows us to position ourselves along the horizontal dimension somewhere between our two ‘extremes’. I had read an instructive midrash (a Hebrew ‘teaching story’) that characterizes these end-points as two cliffs between which one is sailing; perched atop one cliff is one of a pair of characteristics and atop the other, its opposite. Examples might be generosity and stinginess, patience and impatience, impulsivity and procrastination. The task, in retaining / regaining our balance is to first be mindful of what sits on our ‘right’ and ‘left’; secondly, to steer a course between – taking care not to pass too closely to one rocky wall or the other; and thirdly, to resist judging either as inherently good (becoming too attached to it) or bad (avoiding it). A fourth aspect is that of ‘subtlety’ – taking care that our ‘course corrections’ do not represent overly aggressive, ‘over-compensations’ (recall what happens when riding that ‘balanced bike’ when one jerks the handlebars too radically; better to subtly lean in one direction or another – if one is to stay uprigtht!)

Mindfulness practice introduces an additional element that ‘elevates’ us above that horizontal: equanimity; essentially allows us to hover above, rather than simply bouncing back and forth between. Equanimity is seen as a state of mental or emotional stability or composure arising from a deep awareness and acceptance of the present moment. I like a few aspects of this definition. First, stability (in keeping with our mindful cyclist) – keeping upright, balanced and to the middle road, as it were. Secondly, composure; avoiding radical ‘corrections’, pausing and considering a situation before reacting (although that child on the bike path coming into York on that sunny, dog- and child-filled Sunday afternoon did require a tad of ‘act first, think later’ intervention!) And finally, acceptance of. . . beyond an awareness of our ‘two walls’, an allowing of what sits atop them.

Both my bike and I came to accept the ‘middle ground’ between the unburdened ‘lightness of being’ (envied in those that, on occasion passed me peddling up some quite unbelievable hills – as I pushed mine to the top) and the prospects of wearing the same pair of shorts for two weeks as I wandered, totally lost across the North Yorkshire moors. I still had that tail wind and the privilege of sailing down the other side.

Mirror, Mirror. . .Refletions & Projections

Two folks with punk hair-do’s, face-to-face, playing patty-cake. Perhaps engaging in something a little racier! Two sultans high-fiving. Bug ‘blood’ on the windshield. The whole idea is that the picture be sufficiently vague as to allow one to project onto it (hence the naming of Rorschach’s famous ink blot series as a ‘projective test’); but sufficiently suggestive as to not simply elicit blank stares. Maybe as a meaningful pipeline into one’s psychological soul, this and other projective techniques left a bit to be desired – after all, are not the interpretations of one’s responses just as subject to the practitioner’s own projections? (Rather like looking into the mirror on the box of Pot o’ Gold chocolates as the woman’s image is reflected in the reflection. . . to infinity). But the concept of projection itself remains as a most useful awareness for one to ‘reflect’ upon.

My weekly source of inspiration seems to be narrowing – once again from Larkrise. Alf’s ballad, composed as a thank you to the community that has supported him, on the surface appears to be little more than a catchy tune about a wandering gypsy stealing the heart of a land owner’s daughter, with things ending badly for the latter as her wild thing moves on, leaving her with a collection of burned bridges and few prospects. The intention is innocent and well-meant; the meanings attached as varied and unanticipated as the individuals who hear it. An endorsement to risk breaking out of the mold of ‘service’; an invitation to breach boundaries and orchestrate (or try) the future of others; permission to challenge one’s parent; literal instructions in the niceties of catching a man. The tune becomes a template, a screen upon which one is able to project one’s current situation, to which to assign meaning, and in which to read direction and ‘truth’.

The trick of all this is to recognize the process as it happens. Freudian in its origin, projection is defined as a ‘defense mechanism’ – an (unconscious) strategy for dealing with emotions, experiences, etc. that are perhaps a bit too potent for the individual themselves to manage; more comfortably and less disturbingly dealt with at a ‘safe distance’ – perhaps happily assigned to someone else. The pitfall is in seeing this projected image as universally singular – the only ‘interpretation’ – and losing sight of its point of origin: ourselves. The person upon whom we project is generally only that – the screen.

The recognition process should be simple – and obvious. But what’s that expression: ‘simple, not easy’. In many cases, being the ‘projectee’ (i.e., the ‘screen’) is the simpler role. Oftentimes, in (heated or deep) conversation, one is left with the distinct impression that this exchange is just not making sense. That which is being ‘assigned’ to us simply ‘doesn’t fit’. Good chance we’ve just been projected upon. For the ‘projector’, the task can be a little more challenging, the ‘truth’ a little more elusive. A clue can be the goodness of fit between the intensity with which one finds oneself engaging in an exchange and the actual ‘facts’ of the case. OTT (over the top) is typically a good indicator of some measure of projection. Our old friend, attachment, accompanied by our other, by now familiar neighbour, ego, both (and for a change) may be helpful in identifying the projection process. Our ‘need’ to have our interpretation accepted, bought into by our ‘screen’ (often accompanied by little catch phrases as ‘don’t you see’) suggests this is more our issue than that of our ‘target’. Once we’ve become ‘suspicious’ of our intensity, motives, interpretations, a useful question to ask of oneself is ‘what’s being touched or triggered – in me?’ This is quite a different perspective than staying focused on the ‘screen’ and continuing to react to (real or imagined) elements we’re convinced we see in the ‘other’. In one sense, we’re reversing our vision – to that of self-examination and from that of fault-finding, etc. outside of self.

Mindfulness practice is able to provide tools both for ‘catching’ projection and for dealing with our awarenesses, once identified. Zindel Segal outlines a four-step sequence in aid of this process:

Awareness of present experience. “What’s the pull?” Once we’ve ‘reversed’ our vision, take a gentle awareness to the spot, thought, feeling, or place which predominates in our immediate attention. Gently shift the attention away from the stimulus (the ‘screen, as it were) . . . and back to self: “What am I feeling, experiencing; what’s arising in me?”

Notice how one is relating to that spot, thought, or feeling. Am I attaching to it? Becoming entrenched in it? Hanging on to it? OR are you avoiding it, judging it, resenting it?

Stop trying to make things different. Let it be. Notice and observe what is there. Practicing non-reaction, acceptance. A little visual trick at this point: Set a chair immediately in front of and facing you. On that chair, sit the person or issue that is triggering you and gently observe him / her / it. Develop a benign tolerance of its presence – without engaging. As with any strong feeling, we humans are programmed to maintain maximum intensity for a finite time – with that feeling’s strength diminishing gradually as we allow it to be in our presence.
Process: Bring a gentle attention to the spot, thought, or feeling. Breathing into it; and out from it. Accepting what is there (“It’s OK”). Inviting the experience (“Let me feel it”) – using breath in and breath out to ‘soften’ and ‘open to’ the spot, thought, or feeling.

Critical to this sequence is the recognition that we are, in fact projecting.

OK, OK, so it was Mother’s Day last Sunday!

Of Boundaries and Brown Shirts

Growing up in Fort Erie, I and my little coterie of friends would walk the 1 ½ miles to high school (uphill both ways, generally into the teeth of a blinding snowstorm!). Our preferred route took us over a lengthy, vehicular bridge, spanning the several sets of rail tracks which found their Canadian terminus in our small border town. A walkway on one margin of the bridge was ‘protected’ from motorized traffic by a low barrier better suited to buffering pedestrians from the water splashed up by cars as they zipped past – than providing any real safety. Any weekday morning would see long ribbons of students streaming along over the Central Avenue Bridge at one speed: trudge. A common distraction for us was observing the progress of Sammy, the adolescent son of a local restaurateur, as he bobbed and wove past the other students in his attempts to escape his mother, quite possibly at that hour the only person on the bridge older than eighteen, and fixedly intent on ‘walking her son to school’. Loyalties being what were, misplaced and otherwise, we would part to allow Sammy free passage, then reform to block mother’s desperate and frustrated attempts to keep pace with son. The source of mother’s angst was two-fold (my own mother would later inform me): she had lost her elder son to a childhood illness; and two years earlier a student had been struck by a car on this bridge in his own attempts to jump the queue of students by hopping over the inside barrier onto the travelled portion of the bridge. She was going to keep Sammy safe – even if her efforts put him at greatly increased risk, as he struggled to distance himself from the embarrassment of mother’s ‘protection’.

Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, in his pithy little book He, provides a framework for understanding this anxious mother’s plight and purpose, explored through the story of Parsifal, in the Arthurian legend, as the young knight-to-be sets off from his humble beginnings to challenge the world – clad in mother’s homespun singlet concealed beneath his armour. Mother’s caution: ‘take off that sweater at your own peril; as it will magically protect you from harm’. And so the seeds of the prototypic and paradoxical struggle are sewn: as the child, to grow and develop our own identity requires that we defy our parent and shed the very source of our protection; as the mother (why do mom’s always get the rap?), concern and duty require that that ‘brown shirt’ be kept in place – or risk losing our child. And so it would seem young Sammy and his mother were merely acting out another version of the tale.

My memory for both of the above was twigged this week first by a Globe and Mail article, evidently anticipating Mother’s Day in a rather sinister way. Entitled Happy S’Mother’s Day, it reviewed a new memoir by Adam Chester (The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She Mailed to Him). Illustrated cartoonishly with a young man glancing over his shoulder only to see mom, portrayed as helicopter, fast approaching, the column describes the seminal event for Mr. Chester of mother bursting into his junior high school gym change room, full of other adolescent boys, with the pronouncement that Adam had forgotten his sweater (echoes of Johnson!) and that it was going to rain.

Perhaps a bit more substantial was an episode of a BBC favourite of ours, Larkrise to Candleford, examining a similar theme and detailing the unhappy albeit completely unintentional sequence that unfolds as we attempt to ‘protect’ those we care for and about from the slings and arrows of becoming fully individuated adults. (The ‘hat tip’ to Hamlet – and another very interesting mother-son relationship – flows from a viewing over the weekend of the Kenneth Branagh’s amazing and amazingly long film version of same.) The 19th Century drama explores the well-intentioned ‘keeping of secrets’, all in the name of ‘protecting’ a daughter, a sister, a Bishop, and a community from various ‘truths’ that, in the view of the respective protectors, the individual(s) would be better served being kept insulated from – in the dark, as it were. This laudable (albeit questionable) motive of course contains the protector’s own dark side of being overly attached to a particular outcome: be it a visiting Bishop’s not discovering the ‘pagan rituals’ that still continue in his parish, a spinster sister/business partner’s secret relationship or failing retail enterprise, an adult daughter’s attachment to a self-serving journalist, or proof of Darwinian theory in fossilized remains locked inside the partially carved stone of a baptismal font.

The theme is constant: in the making of decisions for and ‘in the best interests of’ others, predicated on our own attachments and fears of dire outcome, we first cross the individual’s boundaries and breech our own; and secondly, ‘protect’ them from experiences that form an essential part of individual growth and learning – at whatever age that may be occurring. A cornerstone of mindfulness practice is the cultivation of awareness of just where those ‘invisible fences’ reside; where my ‘property’ (my entitlement, in a very literal sense) ends and where your turf begins. Only with that awareness fully developed are we able to make intentional choices around our (well-intentioned) interventions. What’s that expression: ‘the road to some place or other (I can’t quite remember the name of the community) is paved with good intentions’.

Perhaps one of the most abiding gifts from my own mother was her relentless effort to stay out of my way and allow me to experience – despite her worst fears of the consequences of same. What she also told me (but not before I was well into adulthood and far removed from our little town – which was also bordered by the Niagara River) was that she herself had very nearly drowned in that river as a young woman; and to watch me disappear down the street with my friends, towels in hand, nearly every summer’s day to swim in that river was, at times almost more than she could bear. My other mindfulness mentor!