Working With Ancestry

Dear Community, 

Happy November!

My heart goes out to any of you that have been directly affected by the fires. Please reach out if there’s anything I can do. I support all of you in slowing down and practicing self care. If anyone wants to stay home and meet online instead of in person just let me know. 

The veil is thin in autumn as we cross from one season to the next. For many people and cultures, Autumn is a liminal time where we reflect on the year so far and back through our ancestral lines. In this reflective time we may have access to different parts of ourselves, feelings and realms of consciousness. 

This year felt particularly potent in terms of connecting with the ancestors. It was wonderful to talk with clients about their ancestral stories and tap into the ancestral pulse in my own life and with others.

I have been thinking a lot about ancestral lines. Some are blood lines and some are not. We have our ancestral family lines and we also have intellectual, spiritual and cultural lineage. For those of us who’s stories include trauma, immigration, adoption or limited access to ancestral knowledge these “choice” or “resonance” lineages are particularly potent and important. It can be really fun to think about your favorite writers, artists, activists, thinkers or healers and learn more about their lines of influence. These are lineages that we can connect to for strength, inspiration and guidance.  

Those of us engaged in therapy and recovery may get a special sense of purpose and meaning knowing that the work we do benefits us as well as out ancestral lines. We do this work for ourselves but also for all those who came before. Many of these ancestors had difficulties that they could not heal in their lifetime and so the healing continues with us. The winds of trauma and oppression blow through the ancestral lines and so the work we do blows back. 

When I am meeting with a client I see them and I see their lineage. There is profound healing that happens for the whole ancestral line when people are willing to do their own work. I honor the work each of you does to benefit yourselves, your ancestors and the world as a whole. 

PS.

Stan Tatkin (one of my relationship gurus) is coming out with a new book called We Do. Here is a short video of him discussing the number one rule when arguing with your partner. This is great advice for having difficult conversations with our partners (or anyone we might encounter over the holiday!)

His advice is especially timely given the fact that we may be worn down and vulnerable due to the smoke and fire. Our nervous systems may be just as impacted as our lungs making us understandably poised for "fight or flight." All the more reason to be really kind to ourselves and each other. 

If you have time through the holidays to spend some time at one of our beautiful museums (where the air is quite good) I recommend the photography exhibit Traveling Light  at SFMOMA. I am also very excited about the upcoming exhibit Gauguin: A Spiritual Journey at the De Young. 

I wish you a restorative holiday filled with what you most value. 

Lots of love to all!

You Are Enough

Dear Community,

Happy October!

I am modeling self care and writing a very short and sweet October email.

My message is this: take it easy - it's OK to slow down. It's OK to feel the feelings that come up when we slow down.

YOU ARE ENOUGH

If you must do something....

Make some soup.

OR

Do some extra self care and get a healing, therapeutic, in home massage.

If you have been on my waitlist for sessions, check the online schedule for availability or shoot me an email. Autumn is a good time to secure a regular time as after the winter break the waitlist will be long. (Everyone wants to start therapy come January).

Lastly, if you want a great show to watch this Autumn try the amazon original series Forever. I really liked the show's relationship stuff, humor and spirituality.

Lots of love to all!

Autumn Equinox and Magical England

Dear Community,

Happy September!

I had a wonderful trip to England and am still integrating all experiences and awakenings I had there in the beautiful land of my birth!

We came to find out that our trip had been intuitively planned along St. Michael and Mary Ley Lines. This ley line is an ancient line of pilgrimage and I felt a profound sense of coming home to myself as the journey unfolded. Along the way we visited many sacred sites, some well known like Avebury, Glastonbury Abbey, St Michaels Mount and Tintagel Castle and also many sweet and lesser know holy wells and stone circles along the way. I particularly loved visiting the Chalice Well - pure magic! Glastonbury Abbey, Silbury hill, White Horse Hill and St. Nectan's Glen are also very special to me. Each place connected me deeply with the earth and with my roots.

I talk more about the places, share photos and experiences on my Instagram account Hannah Green Therapy

During the journey my role as a therapist became crystal clear: I am here to support my clients in developing and trusting their own intuition and natural cycles. This includes helping them to assess and release anything that blocks their connection with intuition and deep Self - such as unresolved trauma and addiction. Over the last years I have become increasingly focussed on the cyclical nature of everything and the mighty balance underlying. I have come to see reality as cyclical and reliable. The moon and her cycles are a prime example! The Many Moons Workbook is an amazing asset for people wanting to connect with the moon and her cycles.

As a therapist, getting to observe my clients in their monthly and sometimes annual life cycles has given me a profound trust in how human beings also naturally and cyclically develop. My clients are always growing, gaining awareness, deepening their relationship to self and other and in short: always evolving. In my view we are developing beautifully however: the modern mind feels separate from these natural cycles and therefor struggles to trust. I realized that many people, especially women come into therapy because they need a space in which to reflect and receive reflection about their cyclical development and again begin to deeply trust themselves.

One beautiful way to envision these cycles is through the lens of the Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother (fully mature, sexual, creative woman) and Wise Woman. As women we flow through these life cycles and each one is amazing! As we flow through these cycles we mirror nature and nature mirrors us. Many women who come to therapy are transitioning from Maiden to Mother or from Mother to Wise Woman. Remembering our roots, shedding our snake skins and flowing through the cycles allows us to see, enjoy and trust the process.

Here are a few of my favorite autumnal resources that foster connection with the earth's natural cycles:

If Women Rose Rooted

This book speaks deeply to any woman in transition: which is all of us!

Autumn Equinox is coming Saturday September 22nd and Starhawk offers an online ritual to celebrate this and other important cyclical transitions.

I am wishing you a wonderful turn of the season. I love this time of year. At the Equinox we begin the journey inward toward winter and longer nights. As we rest we can integrate the experiences of the year and like the caterpillar we will emerge again into light - transformed by another cycle.

Lots of love to all!

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

Jungian Psychology and Individuation

Dear Community, 

Happy July! This quote always comes to mind around Independence Day.....

"The more we become willing to rely on a higher power, the more independent we actually become. Therefor dependence as AA practices it, is really a means of gaining true independence of spirit." - pg 36, 12 Steps and 12 Traditions

Independence of spirit, or in Jungian terms, Individuation is the central "goal" of therapy. For many this can be described as a spiritual process by which one comes into connection with self, others and universe an an increasingly intimate way. 

Questions such as these often catalyze the individuation process and/or become central themes in therapy: Are you connected to something larger than yourself? Is there something beyond our own thinking? Is there something to rely on besides our own limited perspective and unsteady will power? Can you trust yourself? How does your own personal spirituality sustain and guide you? 

I have the pleasure of talking with a wide array of people whose beliefs, practices and feelings on the subject are all unique and different. I find that regardless of spiritual beliefs and practices the desire to trust ourselves and feel relatively secure unites us all. Where does this trust come from? For those of us who grew up with relational trauma, addiction, codependence or any kind of abuse, what can we rely on and how do we build this trust in ourselves and in the universe as a whole? 

I believe this sense of trust comes from wholeness. Jung called this process of integration or becoming whole, Individuation.

Those of us on the path of Individuation are tasked with:

1. Integrating our shadow: This is where we get in touch with parts of ourselves that have previously been repressed or unacknowledged. This is a powerful process by which we lay claim to disowned parts of self and process feelings that may feel scary. Although messy, this process invariably results in more confidence, clarity and choice.

2. Uniting opposites: This is where we integrate the rational and the irrational parts of our psyche. For those more identified with the rational (mostly everyone in our culture) this means exploring and relying on the more emotional and intuitive parts of our nature. During this phase, many people begin to experience what Jung called synchronicity: where we have the veil between the inner and outer worlds is thinner and we get the sense we are walking our true path.

3. Exploring our inner crone or wise one: During this phase we are in relationship to and in dialogue with our inner wise one. At this point we may begin supporting others on their journey to wholeness in more explicit ways.

This path to individuation is not a straight line. It is a process we move towards but it is also simply an uncovering of the wholeness that already exists within. Jung said the mandala was the best visual depiction of this inner journey. His incredibleRed Bookcontains images that point towards the process of individuation and bring it to life through color and symbol. I find the ancient spiral to be the perfect symbol of Individuation. Ever walked a labyrinth? The labyrinth is a physical representation of this inner journey. Try walking the labyrinth atGrace Cathedral.

Through Individuation we come to terms with the paradox and messiness inherent in life. We soften around old black and white thinking that says things are either good or bad, this way or that. 

The process of Individuation is something we are called to often through suffering. Those who struggle with symptoms of depression, anxiety or addiction may recognize these symptoms as the call to journey inward. When we place these symptoms in the context of individuation, our suffering has meaning and we know how to progress - towards wholeness and connection. 

Here are some books and videos on Jungian Psychology, Spirituality and Individuation to support you on your inner journey:

The Tao of Psychology

Varieties of Religious Experience

Meeting the Shadow

Jung's Map of the Soul

Video: Carl Jung: What is the Individuation Process

Video: Carl Jung discussing the Individuation process

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.

During that time 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 dear colleague Vanessa Wolter will be covering for me in my absence. You can find her contact information on her website. 

I am very 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 Septembers email!

XO Hannah