All Our Waves are Water

 A very different book, All Our Waves Are Water. 

Journalist-biographer-resident surfer, and guru,  Jaimal Yogis (he might shudder to be referred to as "guru", a modest man) is on a quest. Jaimal takes his mind's-eye with him, his awareness, and ramps it up, as he journeys through life, a search for his best self, and more than that, he's running away from a bad break up. It is a physical journey, and an inward trip, too. 

Having one parent of Jewish ancestry but raised in a Buddhist tradition, it is no surprise that a stream of guilt is laced into the words of this delicious biography. I look forward to reading his other book, Saltwater Buddha.

All Our Waves Are Water

All Our Waves Are Water

All Our Waves Are Water might be a metaphor, but is probably what every surfer is feeling while finding his way in the ocean. There is an attachment to water, detachment from all else, as it must be, because anything else, and down you go. Fall off the board, hit a reef, good for no one. So unconsciously, unknowingly, every surfer is something of a Buddhist surfer, at one with the water. It may the same with skiers like Kristen Ulmer, who wrote the thought-provoking Art of Fear. (I was a little hard on her in the review, but she's totally got a point, even if it isn't new, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Skiers, back to the point, are at one with the snow. 

Not so different from swimmers. In my imagination, we swimmers all share the wondrous feeling of weightlessness in water, the unbearable lightness that our heavy human bodies attain, floating (or riding) atop of it. 

Unless you have flying dreams, there's no better way to feel it, save becoming practiced at meditation, which takes years. But swimming is easy, and relatively cheap, as surfing must be, excepting the occasional payout for a new board, or neoprene shirt, or trip to Thailand or Hawaii. (We'll talk). 

So I relate to Jaimal because he is surfer, and as a woman who makes it her business to find a pool, be it salt or chlorine, finding a swim, common knowledge, isn't hard to manage. Unless the pool is closed for some reason, which can be infuriating, which may or may not be  Zen-like, depending upon your master. More than likely, anger is tolerated, even encouraged, also good. Jaimal's best friend, a Bali monk, about a depressive episode: This too, good.   

All Our Waves Are Water, aside from being about the oneness between our bodies, mostly water, and all of the water in the sea, the ski, also promises words about enlightenment, and who doesn't want to explore enlightenment? Even if it only to quiet us down, meditation is the cheapest form of bio-feedback around.  

It is a quest for enlightenment, a search for the ultimate answers to consciousness, awareness, our very existence. Some of us live vicariously, we read about these things in books, we even pray, too, hoping to connect to something higher than ourselves, or use meditation apps like HeadSpace, or videos. (Have we talked about the F-that Meditation video? Not for everyone, but it had this therapist laughing.) 

We talk about it, achieving serenity, but Jaimal walks the literal walk, travels the miles, to find his answers. We'll like this author because he's not a rigid guy, or even particularly messed up. The journey, as most trips go (just wait for this weekend's trek to see the eclipse in totality) is stop start. Find one master, switch gears, work an internship for school, meditate on the fly, get on a plane, find another master. Start the journey, fall off course, get back on, lose focus, find it again. And relationships will be at the core of everything, learning and love. Being in contact, attached to people, loving them is very much what enlightenment must be about.

And always, always, look for the next wave. The metaphors about water, waves,  bring meditation into the non-meditator's world, the world beyond introspection, more accessible than repeating a mantra. We each have a zen as we walk, run, surf through life.  

Nice worldview.

Wise, too, in knowing what all yogis and scientists know, too, that everything is dying, the moment is gone before we're aware that it ever was. There is no true present, it is only a line between the past and the future, like that line on the horizon that doesn't exist (I heard that part on an NPR Ted talk, Shifting Time.)

Being here now means being between yesterday and tomorrow, which is impossible, so meditate on that.

If you liked Eat, Pray and Love, you’ll like All Our Waves Are Water.

A winner. Take Jaimal to the beach with you. Watch the waves.

therapydoc

President-Elect Trump

I know, I know I said it.
I said that both Mr. Trump and Mrs, Clinton needed therapy (last post). People are taking down their FaceBook accounts because of things they have said publicly, and this should worry me. 

But that was yesterday. And the theme of this blog, remember, is that everyone needs therapy. So it isn't an insult, okay?

President-Elect Donald Trump acceptance speech

Today, the day after the election, I'm thinking more of the President-Elect. No matter the personality we saw during the contest, he knows this country better, more intimately, than any of us. We underestimated him.  

And this intimacy, this knowledge, is the reason he won the election without contest.  It is why he said he would give us hell if Mrs. Clinton had been elected, that he wouldn't accept the election results. He knew. He had his finger on the pulse of America all along, when nobody else did. 

America, to most of us, has been the America that is outspoken, everyone shouting at everyone else on some media or another. Yet in the big bell curve, in reality, not everyone wants to be the center of attention, and Mr. Trump spoke to that majority. President Nixon called his electorate the Silent Majority. The shape has changed, as has the demographic. But people wanted change, and they had no place to channel that desire until Donald Trump walked into their lives.

And that’s a type of social intelligence, is it not? Understanding the people in the country, the forgotten ones, those who have for years felt disenfranchised, unimportant. It could be interpreted, rightly, as intellectual, even emotional empathy. We’ll soon see if such empathy is universal, if it spans across the universe, if it is inclusive. 

People are really worried, or so we hear on the news, the radio interviews. Many woke up this morning, and hearing the outcome of the election suffered features of panic attacks— literal panic attacks-- shortness of breath, heart palpitations, dizziness. 

Jews just make jokes about being sure their passports are current. It is how we think.

The results seemed remarkable, unbelievable. For the polls had us ready to crown Mrs. Clinton, and whether we liked her or not, we had prepared for that, her resumption of Clinton rule. .

It was the surprise, the upset, that set off an arousal response, the panic, as much as the fear of what a Trump presidency might look like. Those who have learned the art of meditation, or emotional management might easily reverse the negative symptoms. A tried and true intervention is to remember not to dwell on the past, and equally as important, let go of the future. Only the present, what we are doing in a given moment, is within our control. Not that we can't work towards the future, put plans into place. But under the influence of anxiety, the here and now serves us better. Stay there. Do what feels good, right. Live one day at a time. Maybe pray. It is hard, but wrangling thoughts is a major component of serenity. 

Or just watch the President-Elect's acceptance speech. His voice, his posture, his very persona are reassuring, convincing, healing. There is none of the narcissism he’s been labeled with, none of that NPD, or Narcissistic Personality Disorder* that scares so many. Our new president looked and spoke Presidential. 

“It is time for us to come together as one people.” 

He doesn't say, "It's time to get to the work of deporting people." He talks of uniting, which is what new presidents all say after an election, but some of us expected another Donald, the one that is unbridled, who can't resist a snarky remark. But no, not a single I told you so, nothing negative about anyone, certainly not Mrs. Clinton. Only magnanimity.

If you read my last post, the one about social justice, you might remember that human rights activists and social workers do what they can to make things happen, to change deplorable conditions. Dr. Luis Zayas told an auditorium full of academics at the Council for Social Work Education annual program meeting that cynics and conservatives believe there will always be injustice, that it is inevitable. Get used to things being hard. But the social work response is just the opposite: Injustice is intolerable. 

So here's the big challenge, and a message to President-Elect Donald Trump. 

We’re all in agreement for the first time ever. Mr. President-Elect. It is time for us to come together as one people, a task that seems impossible. But the divisiveness, the hatred especially, should be intolerable, especially to you.

Accomplish that, make the seemingly impossible, possible.  Because you have the power to do this. Create an inclusive culture, one that bring us all together, and don't dial back the progress of your predecessors. Do it, make this country great again, as only a strong leader can. We are counting on you. Many fear you, disperse the fears. We could use a mentally healthy, loving United States of America.

And we know you hear the country's voices, that plurality, crescendo above us, above you. Make good, Mr. President-Elect Donald Trump. Go for it, the one people idea. Even if it wasn't exactly a campaign promise.

therapydoc

P.S. For those readers who feel this is a totally, ridiculously naive essay, I say. . . maybe.
For a much more rational opinion, one based upon everything we've seen in the past year's campaign, not based upon hope and a belief in the potential of man (when reaching potential, true potential is within his reach) read David Remnick's essay An American Tragedy, in The New Yorker. 

*Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by (five or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

(4) requires excessive admiration

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

When Mindfulness Isn't Helpful

Meditation:  Yes. Wonderful.
Hatha Yoga:  For sure, who can live without it?
Controlled breathing: A life saver.
Guided body focus: Best thing for you.
Containing, holding, focusing only upon depression, anxiety, or anger: Maybe think about drawing the line when this particular intervention is making you sick.

At least don't feel badly that you have failed the class, can't get all cozy with your negative emotions. Because that's the goal, understand, oneness, full acceptance. Mindfulness.

Tell yourself that it isn't your fault if you can't befriend your sadness, if you hate the training, if you aren't getting any better and want to run away, to be anywhere else than in that room full of mindful people.

Who could blame you?  Attending to pain won't  magically bring on peace, certainly isn't nirvana, not for every deep sufferer. It just isn't.  Fine, let's qualify. It works for some, certainly not all of us.

There, I've gone public about something that has bothered me for a long time. I held them in, my mixed feelings about this part of mindfulness, getting close to the pain, because I like the rest of the therapy, and I know that pain does lift and when it does, nobody tends to notice.  So say hello to unhappy moods because they have a shelf life. They also spontaneously regenerate, which is a shame, but it''s called being alive.

The mindfulness therapists will surely tell me I have it wrong, will spleen me for what is to come, but it is worth the risk, shouting to the blogosphere, reaching out and yes, relating to the confused and the angry, the still depressed and even more anxious, those who have plunked down their five hundred dollars to take the 8-session class, if not go on a weekend retreat.

But I'm giving you permission to Just Say No, to say I'm Not Doing This. To say, This Was Okay Until Now, But You've Crossed the Line asking me to lean into my bad feelings.

Lean into the pain?  You want to know who else leaned into the pain?  Aaron Swartz. He killed himself a little over a month ago.

Saying No! when told to embrace depression, anxiety, etc., should empower more than one somebody, and that process, asserting feels good.  Assertiveness is one of our more successful emotional management strategies, tried and true.

No question, each of us gives negative emotions their due in our lifetime. There is no escaping or denying, and those who battle their feelings regularly have spent countless hours in their presence, mostly fighting them, wishing they would go away. It makes a certain amount of sense, therefore, that changing one's attitude, which is what mindfulness is really all about, is worth a try. This is like any other behavioral technique or strategy, in that it deserves a try.

Rather than run, rather than medicate, if we get into it a little, feel the sadness, the anxiety, the anger, it will lose its power. Stop fighting it, it can't kill you unless you let it. Ironically, we tell alcoholics and drug addicts to do this all the time because using is truly hiding, avoiding emotion. So for them feeling is educational.  We tell addicts, Stay with it, feel badly for a change. It won't kill you and it won't mess up your life like substances does.

Staying with a bad emotion might not kill you, but staying in a bad marriage probably won't, either. That doesn't mean you should.

And then there's Aaron.

It is very unlikely, working with a professional mindfulness therapist, that you would do anything self-destructive in the process of getting well. Aaron had severe mental illness; he needed more help than he had, or he simply couldn't take it any more, that spontaneous regeneration. The mindfulness trainers who have trained with the best, and who hasn't, are setting themselves up if they know how seriously mentally ill their trainees are and still pretend it will all be okay. Close your eyes.

No matter, for those who are not severely distressed, it is still possible to feel like a big loser, a huge loser when making the mark feels impossible. If the sadness, anxiety, the anger is no better when you embrace it. If you feel like exploding or imploding while focusing on the pain and don't feel a whit better when it is all over, it is likely that you will feel worse.

Are you not embracing it enough?  Are you a poor embracer? If it feels worse because you are giving it your undivided, your full attention, worse isn't what you are looking for; it's not the goal. Less is.

Theoretically, the major disorders are compounds of negative thoughts and feelings. That's all. Sadness is just a feeling, no more no less, anxiety and anger, too. Emotions are realities like every other reality, anything else that grabs our attention. Hanging out with them should be seen in that light, a fleeting reality. One long moment.

Except that hanging out in this reality, watching pain, hurts a little more than say, watching a sunset or maybe visiting someone, holding someone's baby.

I prefer the sunset. The baby.

You could say that cognitive behavioral therapists who recommend distraction, the sunset, Modern Family (television), taking a walk around the block, or doing a crossword puzzle over embracing the pain are chicken. We also like anesthesia for surgery.

A patient says to me:

 Like I don't know what it is like to be consumed with anxiety?  Every day of my life I suffer from anxiety. And they want me to invite it in?  Makes no sense. I tried and it made me feel even crazier than usual.

Nice.

I recall being a young therapist, a hundred years ago. The patient is crying and I am saying, "It's okay, cry. Crying is good. You have a lot to cry about." And the patient continues, throughout the visit, weeping, and it won't let up, and she won't get up off the floor at the end of the visit, won't leave, continues to sob, and I have to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital.

Wouldn't it have been better if I would have taught her to manage her sadness? Would it have mattered? I think so. I'm pretty sure it would have been better if I had guided her to disengage from the pain, not embrace it.

Of course, I'm not a mindfulness teacher and hope to hear from someone who can clarify for me. But one thing I know. Give me a good distraction, a good procrastination, a good rewrite or a new script, a napkin full of obsessive thoughts, a hand on the heart, a phone-a-friend or any one of the hundreds of emotional management strategies we can all think up with only a little imagination, any day.

therapydoc

Eat, Pray, and Love and Chanukah

Looks like we could melt that snowman with our candles. Totally unintentional.

This is the time of year my patients come in with holiday questions, and I happen to see a lot of Italian people. (Thank you, thank you, thank you Sopranos). A lovely Italian man who has been seeing me for a long time sweetly asks,

"So. Chanukah. This is the holiday when you light candles because the Romans tried to sack the Temple. But the Maccabees beat them off, right?"

He asks this before we begin to talk about real stuff, real problems, talk about self. It is pre-therapy chat, much like chit chat about the weather. I ordinarily don't usually let in questions about me, but this is a question about history. And who doesn't love history?

"Almost!" I exclaim, for it is hard to contain enthusiasm. "It was the Greeks who ransacked the Temple. They didn't hold by our doing things our way, like the way we want to rest on the Sabbath, check out from our ordinary lives, and they really didn't like that we prayed in a different language (Hebrew). This emperor's rules went like this: Be like us, be Greek, or die.

I am not making this up. And I love the Greeks, don't get me wrong, but this particular ruler, well. . .

So a bunch of Jewish rebels, both men and women, got together and decided to take back their turf. And they did."

"But the Romans did take over the Temple once, right?" he asks, confused.

"Uh, yes. Much later. They decimated it, leveled the whole beautiful city of Jerusalem, too, to make a point. Might makes right. It was important to do that, make that point. I don't know why."

"I feel ashamed to be Italian," he said.

"Hold on! We don't think of Italians in this way, or Greeks, either, although some people do have a little difficulty with the Germans and won't buy a Mercedes. But who can afford one anyway, these days? It is against the Jewish religion to hold grudges.

And anyway, since Eat, Pray, and Love, everyone wants to be Italian!"

And we move on.

Eat, Pray and Love is a biographical novel by Elizabeth Gilbert. I mean, I would call it a biographical novel, but not being truly literary, meaning barely passing Rhetoric 101, I don't know for sure. But this little book is in the first person and reads like a novel and is in fine chick lit form and I love it. Liz breaks down after her divorce and takes a year to find herself. She chooses to divide her time between Italy, India, and Indonesia. She chooses Italy because she loves Italian.

This, of course, hooks me, because I didn't realize either, my love for Italian until mid-life, when it hit me that I loved opera- Italian operas. These two revelations changed my entire life and I bought disks to learn Italian, but failed miserably. You can not learn a new language after 40. Or let us say, I could not.

Anyway, if you haven't picked up all of your presents for the holidays and you know someone who likes stories about spiritual quests, this is a fabulous little book, for it does a lovely job of explaining meditation. Therapists are always recommending meditation (if you're a therapist and you don't, you really should reconsider.) Not that people have to run off and find a guru, but the quieting of the mind is a wonderful thing.

We do it in all kinds of ways, work to quiet the mind, for it takes work. Meditation is just one way.

I could write for hours about how much I love Elizabeth Gilbert's book, how funny she is, how well she describes depression and joy. How well she describes how hard it is to let relationships go, and how important it is to do that; how important it is to own your best friend, your most reliable companion, you. But we have bigger latkas* to fry today.

Holidays are therapeutic, right? But only, I think, when the family is happy together. When it isn't, we family therapy type docs use the inevitable, inescapable family reunions as opportunities for patients to try out new ways of relating to family, new behaviors. I tell people, "I'm on call, baby. If it doesn't work, and you're freaking out, just call me. If I don't answer, assume you're on your own. Of course, you have you, you know. And you are very cool."

I tell them if all else fails to go out and build a snowman, unless that's against their religion, building snowmen. Frozen images. In which case, doctors orders, but ask your rabbi, you might consider doing it anyway and leaving off the nose. Make it an imperfect frozen image.

All that, by way of introduction.

Chanucha.

It's hard to believe that the time has flown so quickly, that it is time for the annual Chanukah post. I think all I really want to do here is focus on spelling. Let's make a game out of it.

I'm going to try consistently to spell Chanukah the same way throughout the post. See if you can find the mistakes. Down a latka as you read. Your local deli probably has them. Down a virtual one if you have to, think of it as a very large, round french fry laced with onion. Dip it in apple sauce if you wish.

First of all, let's get the differences straight between Hannukkah and all the other December holidays. Leave out birthdays.

Like the others, I think, Chanucha is a happy holiday, and we have a pretty good time, all in all. Jewish children play with a cute little spinning top and we all light candles each night. The more careful among us buy electric menorahs (theme candelabras) to be sure there isn't a fire. But the more trusting among us light an additional flame each night with abandon, often with olive oil. As years go by we make less of a mess with the oil. It glows quite nicely even if there is a mess. The excess can always be used on the skin.

My brother-in-law tells me that you can't ever have too much olive oil in your life. He may be right.

Anyway, I feel that someone has to tell you that Channucha is not Xmas. It's not an imitation, has nothing remotely to do with that festival, except the timing sometimes, and we don't have a Santa, although I, personally, love the concept. My kids didn't even know there wasn't a tooth fairy until they were sixteen, so we can totally respect the concept of Santa, some of us, for sure.

This Festival of Lights (as some call Channucah) is a festival dedicated to differences. I'm surprised everyone doesn't celebrate it, honestly.

It's the original celebration of diversity.

You can read the whole story over at Judaism 101, but basically, here's the story:

Alexander the Great, a Greek emperor, went about conquering territory, and when he did, he allowed people to continue observing whatever they liked. He didn't make everyone worship Zeus or Athena or Dionysis or any of the Greek gods. And because he was so nice and the Greeks seemed to have so much fun and stayed so fit, under his rule many Jewish people adopted some of the Greek customs and their clothing, even language.

But more than a century later, a successor to Alex, Antiochus IV oppressed everyone who didn't go with his program. He prohibited the practice of the Jewish religion, particularly, and massacred the Jews, desecrated their Temple. He required the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar, knowing it repugnant to us. The Hitler of his time.

Not a nice guy. The Jews teamed up as a nation and revolted, basically took back their holy site and rededicated the Temple by lighting the everlasting flame with a tiny bit of pure olive oil. The oil had been left over, untainted by the invaders, and should have lasted only one night. But it burned for eight. That's why we get eight nights of Chanucha, eight nights to light olive oil, and for most of us, eight nights to lubricate life with pizza and latkes, anything greasy will do. And we drink wine, some of us, each night. But we drink as Jews used to drink, meaning, not a lot, not to get drunk.

And THE WOMEN, because they were instrumental in this victory, ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK while the candles are glowing. We settle into a comfy chair with a book and let our minds wander to where ever they may go. Or we talk on the phone. Or catch up on our favorite blogs.

Merry Xmas, everyone, and Happy Chanucha, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year. Don't drink too much, don't eat too much, and enjoy whatever there is to enjoy, for there has to be something, there has to be something to feel good about. And if you can't find anything, search for your best friend, that person inside who is always with you, always watching you, suffering right along with you. And talk a little Italian, if you can, with one another.

therapydoc.

*A latka is a seriously fried potato pancake, a traditional Chanucha delight. Some eat them with apple sauce.

P.S. If you happen to be looking for a present for an accountant, or anyone who likes history or the history of big firms, I just read (okay, skimmed it, bought it for my nephew) The Sex of a Hippopotamus: A Unique History of Taxes and Accounting by Jay Starkman. You can get it at Amazon or through Jay's website.

P.S.S. Thanks to http://www.judaism.com/search.asp?nt=bZdS&sctn=022&startPlace=9 for the pictures of the menorah, wicks and oil, and to clipart, for the snowman.