what's your code?

I saw a PBS special this week on TV Crusaders.  The creators and actors of characters like Hawkeye Pierce, House, and even Xena, Warrior Princess were interviewed.  It was fun and interesting.  On my 'to watch' list for life is the HBO series, The Wire.  This Crusaders special showed some bits of a character named Omar Little.  He was a gangster and he killed a lot of people, I guess, but he never killed anyone who wasn't in 'the game' (drugs).  He was talking with a cop in one clip they showed and the cop says, 'Everybody's got to have a code.' 

I was thinking about that and I like it.  It made me wonder what my code is and who influenced it.  One thing in particular has come to mind this week - maybe because of Thanksgiving, which I find to be the most patriotic holiday.  I was thinking about my dad and some influence he had on me - his code, I guess.  My dad was shaped by the military - he went to military school, was in college ROTC, the Army Reserves.  He'd tell you today that a guiding principle of his life is Duty, Honor, Country. 

Duty and honor are concepts that interest me a lot - I find that there are many ways to be a warrior, and not all of them are literally military.  Through my work in hospice, and of course, as a therapist, many of the warriors I witness look like caregivers.  They get up every single day to battle fatigue, grief, someone else's disease process or despair.  They commit themselves to the well-being and health of others -whether it's their kids or their aging parents, their patients, or community members.  They find honor in living this way and they are steadfast in their duties. 

When my kids were really little, I remember kind of thinking the word duty was funny because it was resonant to me of 'doo - doo.'  Always, highbrow humor at our house!  Some days, I felt like all I was doo-doo doing was duty.  I had to doo-doo the never-ending laundry, doo-doo the never-ending dishes, doo-doo the baths and diaper changes, doo-doo my paperwork for work, doo-doo taking care of the animals, doo-doo church commitments, etc., etc..  Why did I doo-doo all this, I asked myself?  Because I LOVED these people- my kids, my husband, my patients, my church friends.  Or I was supposed to.  Or I think I thought I did.  Oh, no!

See, somehow in all the duty, the responsibility,  I truly had lost touch with the love that was supposed to be motivating me toward all this action. 

Sometimes I get disgusted with gooey self-help words like self-care.  But here's what I think it means.  To be a grown up in the real sense of the world, I think we have to have an understanding of our own freedom.  The literal truth is that we have a lot of freedom.  When we take care of ourselves it gives us room, it gives us a sense of space, time, and freedom.  When we have this space, time and sense of freedom, we can get back to our 'duties', but we can do it with love and not resentment or rote operations.  My husband would tell you, 'I'm a simple man.'   (That might be his Code).  So this is what he says about my topic today: 'if you do something because you want to do it, it's just easier.'

Out of the mouths of babes.  You know, I don't know if I have a one-sentence code, but I know that I value being honorable and dutiful.  I also value being loving and having fun.  In fact I recommend the following:  honor, duty, loving and fun. And at least for today, that is my code.

Happy Thanksgiving and much LOVE to you and your families!

advice from a mentor

It's been a very busy month and I have really just been keeping up with my 'tasks' without much time to think, make connections between one thought and another, and then write about it.  Some times are just like that, but I feel like I am moving out of it now.

In the thinking I have been doing, some advice I received recently is popping up frequently as I go about my days...but maybe the advice isn't the right place to start..I'll start here:  in the last blog I wrote about the Marsha Linehan Mindfulness, Willingness and Radical Acceptance workshop I attended.  She began her seminar with a slide, which read something like this:

Avoidance of suffering leads to more suffering.

I am a skeptic of authority, for the most part, so the first thing I thought, was "Do I agree with that?" 

Here is my answer:  mostly I agree with it.  In my experience, if we avoid the internal experience of our own hurts, anger, grief, rejection, loneliness, this can be a decent immediate means of coping, but if we think we've managed to escape without dealing with the feelings we are wrong - they come back later, and sometimes nastier.

So, it's from that point of view that I will share some advice I was given.  A couple weeks ago, I had lunch with a professional mentor of mine.  I shared with him some feelings of discomfort I have and questions about how to do my job as a psychotherapist.  "Therapy" is a big umbrella and people approach it with diverse points of view.  When my point of view bumps up against someone else's point of view, it is uncomfortable.  Just like in 'real' life - when you're talking with somebody about Occupy Wall Street, or how to raise children, or God, or what changes might improve your marriage, or whatever -  and your essential viewpoint differs from someone else, it's uncomfortable.  For me, I never go to a place of digging in my heels on my opinion, it's just not my nature - I go to a place of questions - whose authority do I accept?  should I try to change the other person's opinion?  what does it mean about them that they think X?  what does it mean about me that I think Y?  It feels sticky, irritating, and like something I might like to avoid.

But here is what my mentor said, something I know and that typically I do, but sometimes it's good to get a reminder or even a directive:  When you are uncomfortable with something, lean into it.  (isn't that great, therapist-y advice!)

That means examine it like a discovery, look at all sides, make notes on it, ask it questions.  Feeling and leaning into discomfort doesn't necessary lead to answers (though sometimes it does), but it will lead to a deeper knowing of yourself and others.  Rather than more suffering, it will lead to less.

Sometimes we don't even realize we are avoiding something.  I think the first place to start is to acknowledge what and when we feel uncomfortable with a person we know and love, a person we don't know well but feel we don't like, an event in our past, a thought about the future.  Do I feel uncomfortable when I think of it?  If the answer is yes, it might be worth taking some time to 'lean into it' and see what we find out.