When I lived in India for a year, meditating daily, surrounded by other seekers, and enjoying the relaxed ashram life, I entered a state of happiness I thought would never end. Finally, it seemed I had achieved what I had been reading about for years. It was ecstatic, every single day. I even planned
The allure of a permanent state of happiness – imagining the possibility is an essential part of being human. We dream that if we do the right things or have it all, we’ll achieve the pain-free, permanently happy life that we imagine celebrities or the super rich have. Advertising promotes the fantasy that happiness can be purchased as possessions, leisure, status, and lifestyle, all of which may contribute to happiness, certainly, but there are no guarantees.
Notice that as soon as you download a new song from iTunes,
Tiffany is looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind. She is a corporate executive for an international, brand-name company; a new mother, a sister, a friend, a daughter and wife. She struggles to control her diet and stay fit. She wants to accomplish more with her time, not less. “Do nothing?” she asks plaintively. “And do what?”
Nothing’s wrong with accomplishing a lot, as Tiffany does. Western culture is focused on achievement which requires a lot of “doing.” People are asking more of their lives than ever before – we want to be successful financially, and have perfect health and
It’s true there are charlatans and egomaniacs in the guru biz. The media delights in dramatic stories of crazed followers doing odd and dangerous things, like that guy who had everyone drink the purple Kool-Aid, or those folks who committed mass suicide while wearing brand new Nikes when the Hale-Bopp comet whizzed by. We shake our heads at such ignorance and smugly reject the notion that people surrender themselves to anything at all.
In the West, we’re prejudiced against gurus. Here, ego reigns supreme, and
“You’re still angry with your father,” I say.
“I don’t think that will ever go away.”
“It has to, if you want to become free.”
Many people are afraid of what’s inside them. They’re afraid of silence, of being alone. Afraid of an unscheduled moment with nothing to do. If it gets too quiet, they’re stuck with the contents of their own minds. Mostly, even though they don’t consciously know it, they’re afraid of the buried feelings inside they have never dealt with.
When you have hidden stuff inside such as still being angry with your father, it may surface when something occurs reminiscent of the original trauma, such as arguing with your lover. You find yourself responding in a much bigger way than the current situation warrants because you are
This quote from The Shawshank Redemption keeps Gary Bowsher climbing mountains, both literally and figuratively, even though he has Parkinson’s Disease.
Shortly after his diagnosis in 2007 at the age of 52, Gary read a newspaper article about “The Top Ten Fire Lookout Hikes in the Pacific Northwest.” So far, he has checked-off eight of them, including the ones on Pilchuk, Granite, Baker, and two on Mount Rainier. He may not be the fastest walker on the trail and sometimes he needs a helping hand but,
Tracy secretly felt better than everyone at the networking group. The others were not as polished as she or as well dressed and were quite a bit older. Later, when she found out the entire group was composed of successful business owners, while she herself had been unable to get her own business off the ground, she felt shamefully embarrassed that she had been so quick to judge.
In therapy, David came to realize
I invented The Egg Meditation after reading Becoming a Woman by Dr. Toni Grant. The book was the first time I encountered the idea that as women, we are losing our yin. Dr. Grant never used that language, but as a Jungian she taught that humans are made up of different components or subpersonalities, and that as modern women; we are emphasizing our active “doing” parts at the expense of our quiet “being” parts. Today, women are
On my 16th birthday, I asked for a cat of my own: a delicate and high-strung silver point Siamese. I named her Ina after a cat that lived on the shoulder of a hippie I’d met downtown the previous summer. Ina was a very anxious cat, not in small part because of the way we taunted and teased her.
Ina produced a litter of kittens whose father we never identified because the kittens were
Many people conceptualize that their problem is “low self-esteem.” Their belief is that when they start feeling better about themselves, they will act to improve their lives. Often the student therapists I teach agree and want to design therapy to address this. To me, they have all got it backwards.
Back in the 90s, schools across the US started programs to boost self-esteem. They were