Compassion, Acceptance and English Holidays

Dear Community, 

Happy August!

Please note that I will be out of the office and out of the country from August 5th until August 26th. I will be resuming sessions on Monday August 27th. See more details below. 

Developing true compassion has been the deepest and slowest aspect of my recovery and of my growth as a therapist. Acceptance and compassion are perhaps the most radical and counter-culture aspects of recovery and of therapy. They are instrumental in creating a psychic change and indispensable in the treatment of addiction, anxiety, depression and relationship problems. 

We simply are not trained by culture or most families to practice acceptance and compassion towards ourselves or others. We are trained to try to fix or avoid suffering. We are taught that if we care we should fix, if we are responsible we should try to control outcomes, if we are respectable we should contort ourselves to please others. We are taught implicitly and explicitly that If we don't don't do these things we are wrong, selfish or in short: bad.

Those of us who grew up with codependence get this message deeply. If we grow up around people with little capacity or curiosity for suffering we learn very quickly to avoid or fix as if our life depends on it. The funny, absurd and ironic thing is that we can absolutely not avoid or fix all suffering nor would it be to our benefit if we could. After all: pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth.

The avoiding and the fixing create secondary, optional waves of suffering that erode our integrity and our ability to grow up and develop secure functioning relationships. The dynamic between the avoidant attached and the anxious attached person is perpetuated  by avoiding and "fixing" suffering. The more the anxious one tries to fix the more the avoidant one withdraws. The more the codependent manages the more the addict acts out. In this dance, true partnership is eclipsed by this dynamic and both are deprived the nourishment and intimacy of acceptance and compassion. I have learned through my work with couples and in my own marriage that acceptance and compassion are the way off the avoidant ~anxious merry-go-round. 

As a therapist I am in a wonderful position to practice compassion. It has been a slow transition away from fixing to truly being with my clients in the beautiful human suffering that is emerging to guide them and grow them up. Some days it is a near constant challenge to walk my talk and be with the feelings even as my codependence and my cultural conditioning are saying: "I better do something!" "I am a therapist, I should know how to alleviate this suffering and if I don't I am wrong or bad." "If I don't fix I might loose my license, get a bad yelp review, lose all my clients, fall apart in the face of disapproval, have a shame attack, look like a fool or a fraud, loose it all and have to support my family on a barista's income. You get the idea. In those moments I dig deep and find my inner wisdom and integrity. I draw energy up from the earth and bathe in the warmth of my heart. I love that my job necessitates this! I get to model not taking the easy way out and to grow personally and professionally in the process. 

I love watching the light go on in couples' eyes when they realize they don't have to fix and avoid. Recently I was coaching one of my clients to breathe, go face to face with his parter and lightly touch her cheek simply saying " I'm right here." He looked over at me and said "Wow, I didn't know I could do this." For many of us being with feelings without fixing or avoiding has simply not been on the menu. Many of us, like myself get to learn this practice later in life. 

How do you develop the willingness and the capacity to practice acceptance and compassion? However you do ~ I wish you courage and success.

Here are some resources that have helped me: 

• Tara Brach podcast on the two wings of awareness

• Kristin Neff's book on
  Self Compassion

• Taking 10 day
  meditation courses

• This audio book by Pema Chodron

From August 5th to August 27th I will be unavailable by phone or email and will be returning calls and emails after August 27th. Please be patient with me as it may take some time for me to get back to everyone. My colleague Vanessa Wolter will be covering for me in my absence. You can find her contact information on her website. 
 
I am so excited to be making a pilgrimage with my husband home to England, where I was born. During our time there we will be visiting many special places and sacred sites. I can't wait to share experiences with you in next months email!

Here is my favorite poem about the English countryside by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 

I dared to rest, or wander, - like a rest 
Made sweeter for the step upon the grass, - 
And view the ground's most gentle dimplement, 
(As if God's finger touched but did not press 
In making England!) such an up and down 
Of verdure, - nothing too much up or down 
A ripple of land; such little hills, the sky 
Can stoop to tenderly and the wheatfields climb; 
Such nooks of valleys, lined with orchises, 
Fed full of noises by invisible streams; 
And open pastures, where you scarcely tell 
White daisies from white dew, - at intervals 
The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out 
Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade, - 
I thought my father's land was worthy too 
Of being my Shakespeare's... 
Then the thrushes sang, 
And shook my pulses and the elms' new leaves... 
I flattered all the beauteous country round, 
As poets use; the skies, the clouds, the fields, 
The happy violets hiding from the roads 
The primroses run down to, carrying gold, - 
The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push out 
Impatient horns and tolerant churning mouths 
'Twixt dripping ash-boughs, - hedgerows all alive 
With birds and gnats and large white butterflies 
Which look as if the May-flower had caught life 
And palpitated forth upon the wind, - 
Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist, 
Farm, granges, doubled up among the hills, 
And cattle grazing in the watered vales, 
And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods, 
And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere, 
Confused with smell of orchards.

XO Hannah