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Archive for the ‘personal growth’ Category

Lighten, brighten and enlighten

Posted in creativity, from the consulting room, from the living room, from the reading room, health, life, personal growth, philosophy on June 16, 2011| 3 Comments »

passing the light

June is the month of the light. Next week in Scotland, it’s midsummer’s day – the shortest day of the year (you’d never know we’re in the middle of summer, given all the rain and wind we’ve had!). So, I’ve been thinking again about light.

Candle light in particular reminds us how sharing light increases it. Have you ever lit one candle from another? When you do, the first candle doesn’t get any dimmer. By lighting one candle from another, you end up with more light.

I wonder what kind of light I bring into this world? You might like to wonder about what you pass on to others too, because, although we might not physically pass light to each other, we certainly pass our emotions, our attitudes, our way of being onto to those around us and spread them the way that light can spread.

Around the turn of the year, when I was thinking about my Life (with a capital “L”), I played with this idea of light and I thought, actually, what I try to do, as a doctor, can be captured in three verbs about light.

Firstly, I try to lighten others’ loads. I try to ease their suffering. If I didn’t achieve at least that, I’d not be much of a doctor. I hope that everyone I see has their life, or the burdens in their life, lightened a bit as a result of my care.

But that’s not enough for me. I don’t want patients to come back and just say they feel a little lighter. I want their lives to be brighter. By that I mean I hope their days become better days, more fulfilling, more colourful, brighter days. I hope for others, and I hope for me, that life becomes brighter, and by that, I really mean an increase in that “emerveillement du quotidien“.

But even that’s not enough for me. I hope, at best, to enlighten, to show new possibilities, to support and stimulate new growth. I just love when I hear that a patient’s life has become lighter, brighter and, yes, transformed – that they’re experiencing a personal enlightenment.

If you think about light this month, why not think of it as a metaphor, as well as a physical phenomenon? What metaphors of light seem most relevant in your life?

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Victoria Satir

Posted in from the consulting room, from the reading room, health, personal growth, psychology on June 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I recently came across this summary of Victoria Satir‘s approach to health and personal growth….

The Five Freedoms – Using Our Senses—Virginia Satir
Satir keenly observed that many adults learned to deny certain senses from childhood, that is, to deny what they hear, see, taste, smell and touch/feel.
The Five Freedoms are:
The freedom to see and hear what is here, instead of what “should” be, was, or will be.
The freedom to say what you feel and think, instead of what you “should” feel and think.
The freedom to feel what you feel, instead of what you “ought” to feel.
The freedom to ask for what you want, instead of always waiting for permission.
The freedom to take risks on you own behalf, instead of choosing to be only “secure”.

 

Satir’s Therapeutic Beliefs and Assumptions
Satir’s therapeutic model rested on the following assumptions, that:
The major goal in life is to become own choice makers, agents and architects of our life and relationships
All human beings at heart are beings of love and intelligence who seek to grow, express their creativity, intelligence, and basic goodness; need to be validated, connect, and find own inner treasure.
We are all manifestations of the same life energy and intelligence.
Change is possible. Believe it.
We cannot change past events, only the effects they have on us today.
Appreciating and accepting the past increases our ability to manage present
The most challenging tasks in life are relational. Simultaneously, relational tasks are the only avenue for growth. All challenges in life are relational.
We have choices, disempowering and empowering ones, especially in terms of responding to stress.
All efforts to produce change need to focus on health and possibilities (not pathology).
.People connect on similarities and grow on resolving differences.
Most people choose familiarity over comfort, especially in times of stress.
No task in life is more difficult as the role of parent. Parents do the best they can do given time the resources they “see” available to them at any given time.
Next to our role as parents, no task in life is more challenging. We all have the internal resources we need to access successfully and to grow.
Parents often repeat own familiar patterns, even if dysfunctional.

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May, the month of beginnings, budding and new growth

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, personal growth, photography on May 1, 2011| 3 Comments »

seedling

new growth

In my “months with meaning“, May, is the month of new beginnings (think of the Darling Buds of May). It’s a time for new growth, of the unfurling and unleashing of potential.

So, what are you going to begin NOW?

How would you like to grow, NOW?

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How we see the world

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on April 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

As I wandered today I wondered……don’t we all perceive the world differently? If our stories, our personal stories, shape our selves, which is how it seems to me, then our experiences will frame our present reality. We experience today in the light of our past experiences and our imagined futures. Stories all have this movement….from the past, to the present, to the future – a beginning, a middle and an end I suppose.
So one of the most powerful ways in which memories and dreams can create our present is how they frame our perception and our interpretation of today’s experiences.

through the round window

What frames are you aware of? Which memories, which dreams or fears, create the frames of your present?

The other thing I wondered about today was about the uniqueness of our individual perspectives. We can only experience the world as a subject, as this subject, living this life. So, how does the world look from your unique, subjective perspective?

room with a view

(this is a view from the tatami mats, across the strips of carpet, towards the Japanese garden – this is a view from where I was kneeling)

Finally, how can we share these ways of seeing? How can we develop our inter-subjective experience? One way, for me, is through the sharing of our stories. You can share your experience by telling me it. I can share mine, by telling you…..or by showing you what I caught with my camera…..(I’m sure you can think of other ways too)

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Moral development

Posted in from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, psychology on April 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ken Wilber proposes in his Integral Theory, that there is a over-arching map which you can see in various theories of psychological development. Essentially, he proposes four levels of development – egocentric, where the child’s issues are all about their own needs, to ethnocentric, where there is an awareness of the family, tribe, or community of others like us. At this level, accepted norms of morality are adopted. These levels are sometimes termed “preconventional”, then “conventional”. The next, “postconventional” level, Wilber identifies as worldcentric, where we become aware of being part of all peoples, or all Nature. He goes beyond that level to propose a fourth, “integral” one.

One of the authors he cites as an example of this framework, is Carol Gillegan, whose “In a Different Voice”, describes a theory of gender difference along this developmental path. Here’s a wee summary (I think this is an interesting take on development)

All children start out with this selfish stage, but as females progress into the next one, they are taught to care, and as they learn to care for others, they develop feelings that to care for yourself is selfish and wrong. At the next level of development they learn that to fail to care for yourself is as wrong as failure to care for others. They learn this because of their focus on relationships – relationships involve two parties and if one party fails to look after herself, the relationship will be damaged.

Gilligan’s theory about males, takes a focus on justice or rights. The little selfish boy develops through learning that all people have rights to life and self-fulfillment which are protected through non-interference. In other words, rights set limits. As they mature they learn that they have to take increasingly more responsibility for care.

I’m not a great fan of such tightly gendered understandings, but there’s certainly food for thought in this theory. Maybe these two approaches are better thought of as right or left brain approaches as McGilchrist describes them…..with a right brain approach suiting a focus on relationships and the left on logic and the individual. We all need both halves of our brain after all, so maybe these “male” and “female” paths are better thought of as “intelligences” (as in multiple intelligences theory) , or “lines” (in the Wilber model).

There’s certainly food for thought in why we have feelings of guilt or selfishness when we take some time to care for our selves. And how we balance that with feelings of guilt or selfishness from too great a level of “non-interference”. We need to be both self-caring and compassionately engaged.

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Female and male “voices” or tendencies

Posted in from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Female/Male, yin/yang, moon/sun, there are these two aspects, types or tendencies described in many cultures throughout history. It’s too simplistic to say men are one way and women are the other. However, it’s also too simplistic to say men and women are the same. This way of thinking can be helpful if we consider male or female qualities are tendencies, rather than fixed types, if we see their interaction as being present and dynamic in all human beings, and if we aspire to an integrated, mature state, where each of us access both ways of being.

One helpful discussion about this is in Carol Gilligan’s “Different Voices”, where she highlights masculine and feminine ways or types of being in terms of “voices”.

A man’s voice tends to be focused on autonomy, justice and rights, whereas a woman’s voice tends to be focused on relationships, care and responsibility. In other words, men tend towards agency, and women towards communion (see the qualities of holons).
Men follow rules, women follow connections. Men look, women touch. Men tend towards individualism, women to relationships.

Neither of these are better than the other. For example, if the masculine way goes too far, or goes wrong, we see

not just autonomy, but alienation, not just strength but domination, not just independence, but fear of commitment. And if the feminine way goes too far, instead of being in relationship, she becomes lost in relationship, instead of healthy communion, she becomes dominated by others, and instead of flow, panic, or meltdown.

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An Integral framework of psychological development

Posted in from the living room, from the reading room, life, neuroscience, personal growth, psychology on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

In Ken Wilber’s integral map of development, he describes an evolution from egocentric, to ethnocentric, to worldcentric. By this he means an initial focus on “me”, to an identification with others like us (“we”), to an identification with all living things.

He demonstrates how this relates to stages of moral development, from preconventional, where a child is self-absorbed, to conventional, where they learn the rules and norms of culture, and identify with their tribe or group, then onto postconventional, where their sense of identity expands out to include all humanity.

Interestingly he suggests there may be another map which lays nicely onto these – body (a focus on my physical body), mind (expanding to shared relationships and values) and spirit (all sentient beings).

Or even, from a neurological basis, from the reptilian brain stem (centred on me), to the mammalian limbic system (centred on we – the seat of attachment), to the neocortex (able to perceive and identify with the world).

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Seeding as becoming

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on June 9, 2010| 5 Comments »

different seed

When I saw this seed on the very verge of breaking away from the seed-head the other day I thought it wasn’t only beautiful, it was both wondrous and moving.

Here’s that moment we’ve all experienced where we break away to launch out on our own path. Here’s that moment where we commit to Life, to adventure, to exploration and growth and becoming.

Here’s that moment where Chance takes a hand and who knows where we’ll land next……onto comfortable, nurturing ground, or hard, stony ground?

Here’s where we fly off to embrace opportunities and difference. To find the new. To connect with whatever it is we haven’t connected with until now.

Here’s where we embrace change.

Here’s becoming…..

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Mindsight – it’s changing my life

Posted in books, from the consulting room, from the reading room, health, neuroscience, personal growth, psychology, tagged , on June 1, 2010| 8 Comments »

I like to read books which change my life. Lots of books do that for me. In fact, the books I enjoy most are those which do just that, the ones which open up new ways of thinking to me, new ways of seeing, expand my understanding, stimulate my creativity, books which, once I’ve read them, my world is not the same.
I’ve read a lot of books like that, and if you browse this blog reading the posts in the category “from the reading room” you’ll find reviews of several of them.
I’ve just read another. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I felt this excited reading a particular book. It’s Dan Siegel’s “The Mindful Therapist” [ISBN 978-0393706451]
Now, I haven’t come to this book cold. I’ve read, first of all, his “Mindsight” [ISBN 978-1851687619] (and if you’re inspired to explore this body of work I recommend you start with that), his “The Mindful Brain” [ISBN 978-0393704709], and “The Developing Mind” [ISBN 978-1572307407], before I got hold of this, his latest book, “The Mindful Therapist”.

I’m also well into his online course which I’m thoroughly enjoying.

So, a lot of the concepts in this “Mindful Therapist” were already familiar to me before I opened it up – the idea of the mind as “an embodied, relational process of regulation of energy and information flow”,  the idea of the triangle of wellness – mind, brain and relationships, the understandings from neuroscience of integrated function of differentiated parts, of the key roles of the midfrontal cortex, and of neuroplasticity,  and the practices of the wheel of awareness and other meditations
Despite my familiarity with all of that, and more, this particular book has blown me away. I’ve already begun to introduce patients to the idea of health as a flowing, adaptive, coherent, energised, stable river, with the opposite banks of chaos and rigidity which we end up on when we become unwell.

I’ve begun to share with some patients the deceptively simple wheel of awareness meditation. But now, I’ve got a whole new level of insight.
Into this familiar mix, which Dan expands and reinforces throughout “The Mindful Therapist”, he gives exercises in self-discovery, and models of personality and behaviour which I’ve never seen described elsewhere. I’ve said before I’ve got a synthetic brain – always making links, seeing patterns, associations, expanding through increasing connections – well, I’m pretty sure that’s how Dan’s brain works too. He draws on insights from a multiplicity of disciplines and together, (in a “consilient” way), they create a whole which is way greater than its parts.
If you’re a health professional of any kind, I urge you to read this book. You practice, your life, won’t be the same again. You’ll find new depths as well as new horizons.

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Seeing ourselves reflected in others

Posted in from the living room, life, personal growth on March 6, 2010| 1 Comment »

I had a conversation with someone this week where we discussed how you can’t know someone in isolation. If you put a person into an empty room and observe them through a video link for example, you’re not going to discover a lot about who they are. We need others to reveal that.  We are fundamentally social, relational creatures. I stumbled across a comment recently which went something like this “isolation is the dark room I go to to develop my negatives”.

I’ve known that truth about how we reveal ourselves in our interactions with others for a long time. I’ve also long been aware of how we can see ourselves in others too, both in the positive sense of empathy, feeling resonant with another, and in the revealing sense of how the behaviours of others can teach us something about ourselves (ever met someone who consistently presses certain of your buttons? How would you know what buttons even exist without those people?).

I think this is an aspect of being human which we often neglect. A lot of attention to the “self” is focused inwardly, but our “selves” are not contained within us. Another phrase I heard this week was something about how limited it was  “to consider the self  from the one skull perspective”. A striking way of getting us to realise that the self is inter-relational, not isolated within the human body.

I just read this by Virginia Woolf, writing about watching people looking at a portrait of Montaigne.

There is always a crowd before that picture, gazing into its depths, seeing their own faces reflected in it, seeing more the longer they look, never being able to say quite what it is they see.

She goes on to write….

As we face each other in omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror…And the novelists of the future will realise more and more the importance of these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those the phantoms they will pursue.

Now there’s a creative writing project to explore!

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