a video!

a few weeks ago, my friend carol from alphaglyph productions did an interview with me. here is a picture from it:



and you can see the video on the alphaglyph podcast site. you can try either the "download" or the "play" button. you might need the quick time with itunes plugin for it (for some systems, quick time alone doesn't seem to do the trick).

this video is on the intimacy of the therapeutic relationship.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

overcoming codependency

once in a while i post poetry here. it helps process our thoughts and feelings.

but there's no limit to the art forms we can use to express ourselves. here is the drawing of a friend of mine, literally depicting what's going on inside his head, inspired by a list of codependent behaviours he found on the web:


dealing with the challenges life throws at us by trying to control (manipulate?) others is an understandable and very common coping mechanism. fortunately, my friend is someone who does not want to just cope anymore; he wants to live.

this very insightful drawing is part of his journey towards living a more conscious life where he deals lovingly with himself and those around him. the illusion that we can make others think, feel or act in a certain way is very seductive and can be so subtle. often we don't even know we labour under this illusion. breaking free from it feels risky and scary - but it does lead to freedom, freedom for everyone concerned.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

alternative thought records, pt II

a continuation from yesterday's blog regarding alternative thought records:

this is an example of using alternative thought records. in the beginning, it can usually only be done afterwards. with time, one can get practiced enough to try and do it right in the moment.

this is an example of debriefing the next day:


situation:
harry received an email from his stepmother, where she hints that harry isn’t spending enough time with her. after all she’s done for him, stopping by her place a few times a week after work is the least thing he can do, she claims.

when did it happen?
last night.

who was involved?
harry, his stepmother, and his partner

where did it happen?
at home

what happened?
having just come home from another exhausting day at work, harry read this email, and what little energy he had left totally went out of him. instead of making dinner as he had promised, he just lay down on the couch for an hour, staring at the wall. trying to be understanding, his partner went ahead and made dinner but it was obvious that he was not pleased, especially since harry didn’t explain what had happened.

feelings:

at first, in rapid succession: angry, frustrated, guilty and ashamed. then, nothing. numbness.

intensity of feelings: anger: 80%, frustration 50%, guilt and shame: 80%. numbness: felt like 100%.

automatic thoughts:

• what the %#$& ???
• can i ever do right by her?
• she’s right, she has done so much for me
• i’m such a rotten son. and she hardly ever says anything anymore about me being gay. i should be grateful. i’m such a stinker for getting mad when she sends me these emails.
• i’m such a loser. i promised harry i’d make dinner and what am i doing? nothing!
• the numbness has no words, really, it’s just this freaky dull roar, like being caught all alone in a huge grey machine.

cognitive traps or distortions:
some cognitive distortions in these thoughts:

• overgeneralization: can i ever do right by her?
• shoulds: i should be grateful
• labeling: i’m such a stinker

alternative thought:

• i’m angry at mom right now. that’s the way i feel right now. i can live with that.
• i feel exhausted right now. and i want to make dinner. i don’t need to feel overwhelmed by this. i’ll just put one foot in front of the other.
• i notice this feeling of numbness coming on. being numb has never done anything for me. i’ll remember to focus on the feeling in my hands while i make dinner – that usually keeps me from falling into numbness.

feelings now: accepting (80%), clarity (70%)

(if these alternative thoughts would have been applied right at the moment of the situation happening, this is what the feelings might have been:

angry: 40%, exhausted 50%, accepting 90%, hopeful 55%, present 60%, alert 70%

compare this to the previous list: intensity of feelings: anger: 80%, frustration 50%, guilt and shame: 80%. numbness: felt like 100%)


this is an example for someone who is dealing with depression. however, an alternative thought exercise can be helpful in many different situations. as we can see, most moods (such as depression here) are a complex interplay between many different, and sometimes opposite, thoughts, feelings and actions.

this exercise is in some ways similar to the what i discussed in a previous blog entry, anger transformed.

why don't you try one of them next time you're facing a difficult situation and let me know how it goes?

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

a tool: alternative thought record

cognitive therapies, which focus on examining and “repairing” one’s thoughts, are often seen as the best way to deal with depression. while i believe that the tools that cognitive therapies provides are just one among many ways to help with depression, they can nevertheless be quite useful. so here is a tool from this tool box – enjoy it!

i’ll post it in two postings – the first is the “recipe”, and the one i’ll post tomorrow is an example of an application. (and thanks to depression forums for providing this tool).

alternative thought record

situation: describe an event or situation, that occurred within the last few
hours, or days at the most, in which you experienced emotional distress.

when did it happen?
who was involved?
where did it happen?
what happened?

feelings: describe the feelings that arose at that time. rate the intensity of your feelings from 0-100%.

automatic thoughts: list one or two of the most intense thoughts or images that you had at the time of the event.

cognitive traps or distortions: examine your thoughts and images
to see if there are cognitive distortions (cognitive traps are distorted thoughts such as all-or-nothing thinking, should statements and blaming)

alternative thought: describe an alternative, balanced way of thinking about this event. notice the cognitive distortions in your original thinking, and create a new statement that balances or eliminates those distortions.

rate the intensity of you feelings now, from 0-100%.

tomorrow: an application of this tool.

take care!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

addiction, shame and secrets

medicalnews reports this today:

An article published in the recent issue of Psychological Science ... demonstrates that individuals have a strong tendency to eat only a single unit of food, regardless of the unit's size or caloric value.

The authors conducted experiments with offering free food in public areas, varying the size of the product unit and the size of the serving utensil ...

The results demonstrate an identifiable unit bias, as passersby tended to take a single unit or spoonful of food without consideration for its size or quantity. As tests were conducted both within eyesight of others and in a more discreet location, the bias in favor of consuming a single unit cannot be attributed solely to the avoidance of perceptible gluttony ...

well, that may be the case for some people. however, this last sentence reminds me how little people know about the inner workings of people struggling with addictions. a "discreet location" would still not be safe enough for many people with a food addiction.

the vast majority of people struggling with addictions function quite well in the "normal" world. part of this functioning involves an intimate relationship between addiction, shame, and intricate techniques designed to conceal the addiction.

for many overeaters, a "discreet location" in a public place will still bring forth the need to appear a normal eater. the deep shame over the addiction would be much stronger than the apparent safety of such a discreet location. many overeaters will only overeat in the privacy of their homes, often alone, maybe even with the curtains drawn.

i have met food addicts who had become experts at climbing out of bed, getting dressed and driving off in the middle of the night without barely making a sound, so as to not wake up anyone in the house and alert them to their excursion to a 24 hour convenience store.

of course, this often turns into a vicious cycle. the person wants to eat, eat, eat - but not be seen eating. so she creates a bubble of isolation around herself. this isolation is depressing, and the depression is then medicated with more food - and thus the cycle continues.

ironically, then, eating in public can be the first step towards recovery for some people. eating that second chocolate bar in public, or finishing off the big bag of chips for all to see, can be a healing experience. maybe the eating behaviour is still there, but at least the layers of shame and hiding are taken off.

isabella more
counselling in vancouver

my birthday wish

today is my birthday.

i have a wish.

at this time, there are a few people in my life who are deep in the throes of suffering.

my wish is that whoever reads this, may send good thoughts to my friends, to any friend you know who is suffering.

in the words of the buddha

may you be free from danger and fear.
may you be peaceful, happy, and free from suffering.
may you live with ease

fantasy vs. real world

an interesting chart from the poor in spirit blog:



isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

gender freedom

as my dear readers know, one of the blogs i watch is daily dose of queer, where i found a link to jay sennett’s blog. he’s looking for bloggers to review a new anthology called “self organizing men” – women transitioning into malehood (or FtM, as it’s often called). good for him to use blogvertising to get this material on the market.

i agreed to be one of his guinea pigs, and am i ever glad i did.

first i have to confess that i was not sure what to expect, and was afraid i might stumble into the badly-mumbled outpourings of a confused twenty-year-old.

well, i was wrong. i can’t be male by nick kiddle is very well written. every sentence is clean and clear, so the reader can completely concentrate on the story. as a writer, i want what nick’s got!

the piece traces nick’s travels and travails as he (i’ll refer to nick as a male here, hope that’s okay with you, nick) winds his way through the landscape of gender identity.

unfortunately, not everyone sees it as a landscape.

i guess we should be grateful that we’ve moved out of gender identity being a wasteland of two camps – male or female. at least there is a recognition now that some of us have landed in the wrong camp and need to move, so now we have four camps – female to male, male to female, female, male.

but really, i want my world to consist of more than four camps. i want a landscape with flowers of different hues of colours, many paths to journey along, hidden nooks and crannies to explore.

nick, too, wants freedom around his gender identity. there are moments when he identifies as a man, and others when he finds it useful to be a woman. one of the things that are important to nick is to have children, and children of his own. this is why, for now at least, he decides to stay in a female body.

i can’t wait to hear how other people react when they read nick’s account of meeting a psychiatrist who, instead of assisting nick in building more supportive relationships, cannot tear himself away from a morbid fascination with nick’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria. my first reaction was anger – i just wanted to go and slap that ignorant jerk – and when i got to the point where mr. psychiatrist sits back, smug in his “knowledge” that nick is “really” a woman, i just started crying.

this is not just the story about one of those transgendered people, somewhere off in a far corner of our safely heterosexual world. it’s the story of all of us who need to be free to explore who we are, free to change, free to express ourselves.

thank you, jay, and thank you, nick.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

understanding "enough"

just as hope can be seen from opposing viewpoints, i think the term "enough" can be seen from different points of view as well.

let’s take these three examples:

“you don't need another blanket, joe. it’s not that cold – these two blankets are enough.”

“don’t worry about making every page perfect. remember, it’s a draft; what you have here is great, it’s definitely good enough.”

“no thanks, i don’t need another helping of pasta; i have enough.”

in the first scenario, joe feels he needs more but he is dismissed by someone who feels she is in a position to adequately assess joe's needs (and perhaps assess them better than joe himself).

in the second scenario, someone aspires to be perfect and she is reassured; the situation does not call for perfection, and what’s already there is more than adequate.

the person in the third scenario has a good sense for just exactly how much he needs; that need has been fulfilled, and he effortlessly states what his boundaries are: “i have enough.”

we could say that the first situation is about deprivation; the second one is about perfectionism and the third is about balance.

what do we want to have in our lives? deprivation, perfectionism or balance?

it is interesting to note that in the first two scenarios, both times, it is someone else who assesses what’s enough. only in the third, it’s the person himself who decides what’s enough.

we often have uneasy feelings about the word “enough”. often it’s around the phrase “good enough.” perhaps the next time this unease crops up, you can ask yourself, who is making the decision whether something or someone is good enough? and if it’s you who seems to be making that decision and you still feel uneasy, you can ask yourself, “is that really me talking, or is that someone else’s voice inside me? my mother? my teacher? is that voice still valid?”

let’s get to the point where you decide what’s good enough.

isabella mori
counseling in vancouver

understanding hope

hope is one of those things that can go both ways. let me first tell you about what i believe to be the negative aspects of hope, and then about the bright side of hope.

the carrot and the stick

hope can be the carrot of the famous "carrot and the stick". it can be that delicious something in the future that is always dangled in front of us but which can never (or rarely) be attained. "i love you but i'm not ready for commitment" - ever heard that? what that often means is "if you just stick around long enough - because YOU love ME, don't you? - then some time in the future i might just be ready to get married." but the person who dreams that their lover will eventually come around will often not have their hopes fulfilled. in the meantime, this person has spent a lot of energy wishing for something that might never happen - and when it finally becomes obvious that it won't happen, more energy will go down the drain of disappointment.

getting lost in the future

this is closely related to the fact that hope is about the future. planning and thinking about the future is a good thing but when we overdo it, the precious moments of the present can get lost. we often take the useful, rational planning for the future that is often needed and overextend it into wishful thinking. the subject of weddings comes up again: i'm sure you've all met people who have turned wedding preparations into weeks and months of headaches over obsessive planning, in the hopes that they will have the perfect wedding. in the midst of all that planning, precious relationships with people in the here and now can get damaged for years to come.

ok, now for the good news.

when i think of my personal relationship with hope, the words that come up are reality, affirmation, work, and open hands.

reality

i firmly believe that to a large degree, we make our own reality. quick, think of the first 10 words that come up when i say the word "china".

----

these ten words constitute an important part of your personal reality about china. whenever you hear or see the word "china", the people, things and concepts that these words stand for will colour how you deal with any new information about china that you receive. the memory of these people, things and concept have come to you because of your unique experiences, thoughts and feelings. since we have a great degree of control over our experiences, thoughts and feelings, we therefore have a great degree of control over our reality.

affirmation

hope is a large part of my reality. so just as you have these particular 10 words that you immediately think when the word "china" crops up - whenever i hear someone speaking of a problem, a challenge, a sadness, the concept of hope immediately crops up for me. it's almost as if i insist that there is hope. maybe it's because when i grew up, my mother would often say, "the only thing you can rely upon nowadays are miracles". as long as a person is not dead, there is hope. this i affirm.

hard work

this hope is not an empty, sweet-talking hope. because the next thing to do is to get up and see where that hope is, what it looks like, what avenues lead to it.

that is hard work. i've had a number of clients who in the beginning of working with me just couldn't handle that. i ask them then whether i can hold their hope for now. i'll hold their hope until they're ready to shoulder the work. i think of a client, for example, who had lost hope of having a connection with god. i held that hope for him for over a year, gently reminding him of it once in a while, and then slowly, slowly, he came and picked it up. but it wasn't easy. there were lots of aborted prayers, uncomfortable meditation sessions, fearful dreams about what that god might look like.

open hands

it seems important to me to hold that hope with open hands. if i close my hands on it, it gets all squished up and turns into something else (wishful thinking? crazy fantasies?) i want to hold that hope, fully aware of all the possibilities it entails: that it might come true, that it might come true in a way that i am at this time unable to imagine, that it might not come true. yes, that's a paradox: on the one hand i totally insist on the hope, on the other i am fully aware that it may not be fulfilled. i don't know what it is - it just seems that this openness is the oxygen that hope needs in order to breathe and grow.

so ... in the end, yes, i fully believe in hope - as long as it's sweet, gentle hope, hope full of question marks and possibilities.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver

my latest newsletter

hi - thought i'd post my latest "what's new" email here ... here we go ...

dear friends -

the other day i was walking by my garden and all of a sudden it hit me: this is starting to look like the garden i had always dreamed of! a little wild and chaotic, with lots of flowers in lots of colours, contained yet natural.

it was really touching because this imagined garden was one of those dreams that i hadn't been very sure would come true. it seemed quite distant, and a little impossible. i'm no great gardener, and i am really not very good at being the slow, steady maintenance person that a garden really needs. and yet, here it is:



so ... it's so much about dreams. i think we often don't realize that. for example, i'll ask a client, "it looks like you're not happy with where you're at right now. where would you rather be? what would your life look like if you were happier?" sometimes people find that question hard to answer. but then, a little later, they might say something like, "i look at marcia and don - they have a life! how come i don't have a life?" that is the dream, that's the kernel of the dream. we can then carefully make room for that dream, weed around it like around a precious little plant we just found in the garden, make sure it gets the sun and shade it needs, that it gets the right amount of water and nutrients. actually, it's surprising to see that most dreams, once discovered and nurtured even a little bit, are quite resilient.

if there's anyone you know who needs to have their dreams nurtured, please tell them that some dreams really can come true. tell them about the dreams that have come true for you. and if they're interested in more, i'd be happy to have a chat with them. i'm always there for a phone call or an email.

here is someone who followed his dreams: ken walker was already quite happy in his job where he helped people getting out of the morass of poverty. but he had made a lifetime study of happiness and knew that there was more for him. he quit his job and became the happiness guy. today he helps people discover how they can be happier right now. he'll be our guest next week at our fireside chats, a round of friendly, informal discussions at sacred space at 27 west pender street (across from tinseltown). here are the times and dates:

fireside chat topics

wednesday, june 21 - guest night: meet ken walker, the happiness guy!
wednesday, june 28 - everyday intuition
wednesday, july 5 - "but i'm not an artist!" - and being creative anyway
wednesday, july 12 - the many forms of prayer
wednesday, july 19 - talismans - sacred objects

two other events i'm organizing at sacred space are

bloggers' night on monday, june 19, at 6:30 - meet a bunch of people who're as much into blogging as i am!

pagan coffee meetup - june 30, 7:00. meet other people who are curious about things pagan!

both these events happen at sacred space, 27 west pender street.

blogging for the good of humankind

rick bruner from business blog consulting writes this today:

... why not blogging for the good of [hu]mankind? There are issues-focused blogs like the environmental blog TreeHugger. Now there’s a network of blogs for good, founded by Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing Group. Way to go, Paul! It’s a brilliant idea; I hope it really turns into something big. Doug Kaye (founder of IT Conversations) is another blogger/podcaster with a social conscience… he’s started the podcast channel Social Innovation Conversations.

it's going to be interesting to see where this goes. of course a lot of blogs already focus on making the world a better place - hugo schwyzer, who i quote quite often here, and who writes about all kinds of important social issues, including feminism and body image, is definitely one of them.

do you feel that that this blog, change therapy, blogs for the good of humankind? i'd love to hear your opinions ...

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

international bloggers day

today is international webloggers day so i thought i’d look at what people in other countries do who seem to have interests similar to mine.

in germany, joerg undeutsch (that translates to “george un-german”) has a blog called ”flattersatz” (“flapping sentences”). in one entry, he talks about living life to the fullest. instead of living in hypocrisy, it’s better to

“run naked through the rain, stumble, pick yourself up again despite the bruised knees and bloody lips and eyes where rain and tears mingle – tears of joy, desperation, mourning and lust.”

well, i have to say that’s right up my alley, although i guess i would prefer it if the rain was warm and i could wear sneakers.

then we go to barcelona, spain, where mercedes p., in el divan del psicologo (the psychologist’s couch) talks about her virtual relationship with her psychoanalyst who lives 12,000 km away, in buenos aires, argentina. her blog’s tag reads

“life was created to be lived in eternal enjoyment, infinite liberty, unconditional love and unlimited consciousness. anything less, and you’ve completely lost the objective of having been born human.”

interesting. i wonder what mother teresa would have said about that.

and before we go over to the U.S., a blog written by two danes, brainethics, with a rather more left-brain content than our friends from germany and spain. they report on a scientific paper that investigated people’s responses to other people’s pupil sizes. apparently a diminishing pupil size led to some observers’ believing that the other person was sad. when that was the case, the observers’ pupil sizes also tended to diminish.

so – squint if you need sympathy!

finally, back to good old north america where clearly most blogs reside. i actually went to technorati and tried to find psychology related blogs from all kinds of places (africa, india, new zealand, australia, ireland, scotland) but just couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile.

here are north american blogs i look at on a regular basis:

creating passionate users; love their post on the effect of being around negative people, and how they bust the myth that happy people are boring

good old hugo schwyzer, who has a lot of intelligent things to say about a lot of things – for example, feminism and body image

and finally, the happiness guy – check out the post on decluttering the mind.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

understanding learning disabilities

“i have this young man sitting here, george. i’d like to send him over to you. he’s a real sweetheart but he’s got a problem and some things got a bit messed up.” my friend tessa at the neighbourhood church didn’t tell me more than that; probably he was sitting right beside her and she didn’t want to say more. so we made an appointment for the next day.

a few hours later, tessa called again to tell me his story. his company had closed down a few weeks earlier but he hadn’t applied for employment insurance. there was an insurance claim for a car accident george had been in a month ago but he hadn’t dealt with it. his landlord was causing him trouble but he didn’t want to file a claim.

what was happening?

george had a real hard time reading and writing, explained tessa. when everything went well for him, he could function at a slow grade 5 level but when things heated up, when he felt challenged or threatened, letters just started jumbling up on him.

when we met, it was quite clear that george wasn’t “stupid”, as he called himself. he wasn’t “slow” either – all of the jobs he had held required a high degree of alertness and quick reactions. his problem was simply that he looked at letters in a different way than 80% of the population. 20% of the english speaking world struggles with letters and/or numbers, people like tom cruise, cher or walt disney.

for those of us who were fortunate enough to learn letters and numbers without any great difficulty it’s often very, very hard to understand what it’s like to live in a world where the alphabet and simple arithmetic are always about to slip into a weird, chaotic mess of incomprehensible symbols. george had experienced that a lot, even from teachers and counsellors. that didn’t make him feel better – it heightened his feelings of frustration, shame and fear.

i am grateful that when i sat across from george, i was able to see his reality. because tessa had warned me of his fear of forms, i made sure not to have him fill out any written material. instead i listened to his story. yes, it was a story of frustration over not grasping what other people seemed to grasp so easily; of shame because he seemed so “different” from others; of fear that people would laugh at him; but more than that, it was a story of amazing resilience and intelligence. for example, in order to make up for his difficulty with reading signs, he had trained his memory to almost photographic precision, and had thus become an expert navigator.

“you know,” he said, “it’s not even so much that i have this learning disability. i know people who have it worse. but what hurts the most is that i keep telling myself that i’m stupid, slow, worthless.”

the amazing thing was that he had really never told anyone how he felt about his learning disability. the focus had always been on what he cannot do. when we took the focus off that and simply started talking about what it was like to be george, it was as if a new door, one he had never seen before, began opening for him.

if you know anyone with a learning disability – and chances are you do – don’t let them walk through it alone. acknowledge who they are in their entirety, celebrate the special skills they have, and let them tell you their story. chances are you’ll learn something.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

speaking in my true voice

genkaku, one of my favourite bloggers, wrote this today on speaking one's truth:

The movie "National Treasure" is an adventure about stealing the Declaration of Independence. On the back of this document, in invisible ink, is a clue to finding a vast treasure, which, by movie's end, is found.

In the midst of the movie the central character, actor Nicholas Cage, and a sidekick are looking at the security-encased Declaration and reading a bit of it. Cage reads a part and the sidekick says, "Nobody talks like that." To which Cage responds approximately, "People may not talk like that, but that's the way they think."

I thought it was a good line. People do think about the principles and aims of their lives. And it's not just the small stuff, the beamers and new clothes and corner offices. It's the sweeping stuff, put in various ways with various words ... goodness and peace and compassion and the vastness of the universe and, perhaps, God.

They may think this way, but as the sidekick said, they don't talk that way. They don't talk that way perhaps because they are among strangers or people who are busy talking and acting in ways that run counter to these compelling thoughts. Or perhaps it is all too personal, too private, too somehow touching and tender ... like a newborn baby in need of all possible protections and nurture. Or maybe there's some other reason for not talking about what they actually think about...all that illogical loving that nags and hints and beckons and yet remains without a tongue.

In Hinduism and probably in Buddhism too and probably elsewhere as well, there is the encouragement to bring "thought, word and deed" into accord. No more style over substance. What a compelling idea -- bringing these stars into alignment ... thought, word and deed; body, mouth and thought. Nothing extra and nothing left out. Complete and completely at ease.

This is the way people think, I think. Maybe not with these exact words, but ... well, close enough for folk singing. This is the way they think.

And this is the way they talk even when they don't talk this way.

The Hindus had another encouragement: "Always speak to everyone of God." How is such a thing possible, some may ask?

I guess my question would be, how could such a thing be impossible?

an interesting question. i sometimes ask myself when i pray - is this my voice, truly my voice? and the next question is, what is my true, absolutely authentic voice? how can i tell?

of course i can never get to the authentic absolute. but perhaps if i spoke more "to everyone of god", i could a little close to it.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

how to ...

hello everyone -

maybe you don't need me anymore! i just discovered wikihow, and you can, too!. there you can learn fascinating things, like how to

• Become Emotionless ("a very useful way to handle problems")
  
• Bury Your Burdens
• Cope With Feeling Alone at Night
• Discipline Your Troubling Student
• Find Help For a Suspected Eating Disorder
• Get an Annoying Song out of Your Head ("try tapping out a different rhythm with your fingertips")
• Keep a Sharp Mind and Good Attitude
• Let out Your Sadness
• Live Life to the Fullest
• Overcome a Fear of the Hospital ("Don't go inside, just sit outside (weather permitting) and watch the people. See the doctors and nurses relaxing on their breaks, see the ambulances pull up and watch as the paramedics do their jobs.")
• Psychoanalyze Yourself ("Things you'll need: a brain; a problem")
• Smile When You Think You Can't Smile
• Stop Being a Constant Worrier
• Stop Biting and Grow Beautiful Nails
• Stop Laughing when You Laugh at Inappropriate Times (with a link to "How to not laugh at your own jokes")
• Stop Ruminating (mentally Going over and over Bad Events)

interesting, interesting, interesting. the very definition of pop psychology, i guess.

hey, maybe i should post an article there? how about ... how to wean yourself from dr.phil? no, i don't know enough about dr.phil - haven't watched more than 15 minutes of him in my entire life. or, how to stop being anxious over what to write in your next blog, in 7 easy steps. that's better. too lame, though. or, how about this one: how to tell your father that you've just gotten your 17-year-old teenage self pregnant. now that's something i know something about!

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

understanding addictions

back in april, i said this in regard to a blog entry on obesity research:

the more healthy i live, the more understanding i have for people for whom health is not such a great priority, or who have chosen to focus on different areas of improving their health than i have. i have some hunches regarding what the reason for that might be; fodder for another blog entry, i guess

so here is that blog entry!

i noticed this the first time a few years ago, when i was still working in vancouver's downtown eastside, and all of a sudden it was okay by me that a lot of people who lived in that area were smoking. i realized what an important social glue smoking is, and even started carrying a pack of players on me, for people who i knew would be desperate for a smoke. what a difference to the times that i would rant and rave against the evil of smoking!

don't get me wrong: i still believe that cigarettes are extremely unhealthy. but somehow my attitude towards smokers changed.

what happened?

a few ideas, mostly in regard to smoking but they apply to other behaviours as well:

• as i became more secure in my own healthy behaviour, i needed to protect myself less against a possible "infection" from people who behave in different ways. i did not need to criticize people who smoke anymore because it was clear that i would most likely not feel tempted to smoke again.
• physical and mental health go hand in hand. the more i looked after my physical health, the more my mental sanity increased. one thing that comes with sanity is more tolerance, a greater ability to see that people's paths are infinitely varied. who am i to say that my path is better than someone else's?
• we all use a wide range of behaviours, including addictive behaviours, to help us cope with the world around us. smoking serves a wide range of purposes (social, physical, emotional) and is a better way of coping than violence, crack or meth. the same goes for other addictive behaviour; many people instinctively use the coping mechanism that seems to give them the most benefit for the least amount of pain. the more potential pain there is, the less important become the non-immediate consequences of behaving in unhealthy ways. when confronted with never-ending poverty, what difference does it make that cigarettes may blacken your lungs over time? i became more aware of that.

there but for the grace of god go i. i have been given the gift of walking away from unhealthy behaviour. my job was to recognize that gift, accept it and treasure it. it was a gift, nevertheless. and even the ability to recognize, accept and treasure it - that was a gift, too. what do i know about what other gifts people receive? what do i know about other people's ability to deal with such gifts? not very much. i cannot see into other people's souls. i can hardly look into my own.

what i can do is listen, listen to people's stories, and tell stories about those of us who have received this particular gift. and then we'll see ...

and i can be grateful. humbly grateful.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

breaking free of violent relationships

"you promised me you would never hit me again" - read this story of a woman who heard her son utter these words exactly one year ago and decided to leave a violent husband.

i had shivers running down my spine reading her story. i guess everyone would - but for me it had special meaning. i still think of the day i threw out my abusive ex-husband as the "day of the revolution". in fact, today i did a lifeline exercise where i rated the ten most significant positive and negative events in my life and even though all kinds of wonderful things have happened to me since, extricating my children and myself from this toxic relationship still rates as the best thing i've ever done, 16 years later.

i am grateful that i had the strength to do this, and grateful for every person - man, woman, child, who manages to break the chains. freedom breeds more freedom.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

mental illness in the workplace

read in hugo schwyzer's blog about a tenured professor who apparently was let go because of behaviour resulting from a mental illness, as well as my comments on this alarming situation.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

butterfly chaos - a hypertext poem

what do you know about
the flapping of the butterfly -
the light flap, soft flap, timid flap,
the one that makes no noise, disturbs no sleeper,
that is so utterly erasable, and much more insignificant
than sand paintings in eastern gardens …
and what is there to know about this miniscule event,
what insight, wisdom to be gained from bodies of such
weightlessness?

a hurricane ran over our world last year
and ate up houses, trees, streets, bicycles,
devoured people with its water-mouth
and spat out corpses, broken towers, wrecks,
and twisted sailboats.

what do you know about
the flapping of the butterfly –
the light flap, soft flap, timid flap,
the one that set in motion nothing but a tiny, tiny, tiny breeze –
a tiny breeze that joined another tiny breeze –
and then another one …


isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

so relaxed!

i'm sitting here in my office. not alone. someone is in the chair across from me. very relaxed. is she asleep?

(if you come to my office, will you fall asleep?)

yes, i think she is asleep. just comfortably in the chair.

how much i can learn from her! never ruffled, never offended, always relaxed, always ready for a quick chat. not a picky eater, either. has her preferences, of course, but will not press the issue - it's not worth it.

i aspire to be like her.

i love my cat.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com

the wounded healer

my approach to therapy is influenced by traditions that place some weight on judicial self disclosure, on the idea of the wounded healer, on the notion that there is very little we can know for certain, and on paying attention to the here and now: the here and now of the client's life, of the experience during the therapeutic moment, of the unfolding relationship between the client and myself as we walk a stretch side by side on the client's life journey.

there have been a number of occurrences lately that brought this approach into sharper awareness than usual. for whatever reason, right now i take particular notice of tendencies to speak of our experience as if it didn't really happen to us, as in, "people are really angry these days" or "when you feel this bad, you can't do anything about it". what am i trying to do when i shift my own felt experience onto "people" and "you"?

i have also just taken a workshop where the facilitator kept on asking us to speak from our own experience, not in terms of opinions or hearsay. and when i was on the other end of the stick the other day and gave a lunch and learn presentation at bc hydro, one comment was that i spoke a lot of my own experiences and maybe not quite enough about how i have helped clients.

finally, i have been quite aware lately of how often i think and communicate in terms of questions, rather than statements. as in:

what can i learn from this?

here's one thing:

thinking about this has helped me clarify more what the characteristics are of clients and problems where i think i can help (and where i cannot help).

1) i need to personally feel a connection with the person and
2) with the difficulty they are experiencing, and
3) i need to honestly feel (not just think) that these difficulties can be overcome, and
4) that there are a number of ways out of/through/beyond these difficulties.

people who are confounded by depression, the range of eating disorders, unhealthy substance use and other addictions, chronic pain, questions around spirituality, life transition, sexual and other abuse experiences, posttraumatic stress disorder - these are all difficulties that meet these criteria.

this is also why i do not feel qualified to see couples (and have never sought to learn about it) - i would not be able to meet qualification number 4): i'm way too tempted to have an agenda. it is also the reason why i do not deal well with people with narcissistic or true borderline tendencies - i don't meet most of the criteria.

(nb: when i say "true borderline" i mean someone who actually shows some of the classical borderline characteristics, not someone who has been labeled as such for convenience).

aaaah, and this "nb" could bring me to a lot more comments, such as, when i have grave doubts about the wisdom of psychiatric categories such as "narcissistic", why do i even bother to bring them up?

do i have a good answer to this? i don't know. let me think about it.

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com