Madness and Beauty in the Heart of Darkness

Originally posted on May 27, 2015 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

John Forbes Nash, Jr.

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.       –R. D. Laing

I begin this writing shortly after learning of the unexpected death of John Forbes Nash, Jr. and his wife, Alicia. John Nash was a Nobel Prize winning mathematician who suffered from a lifetime of paranoid schizophrenia beginning around 1959. He ultimately learned to live productively, if uneasily, with his condition. He was also the subject of a biography written by Sylvia Nasar, entitled A Beautiful Mind, as well as a movie of the same name. I am invariably fascinated with individuals who make a colorful impact in multiple areas, relating very much to a refusal to obediently and quietly remain in any one given box. John Nash’s ideas and work had a significant impact on economic theory, politics, computing and artificial intelligence, and military strategy—to name just a few of the areas where he inspired deeper work in others who carried his efforts forward.

Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair. –R. D. Laing

According to Nasar (2011), John Nash was first considered for the Nobel much earlier in his life for his work on game theory, but he was dismissed from consideration due to his evident “mental illness.” He was finally given the award over four decades later when his schizophrenia was deemed to be in remission—when he was not taking any more antipsychotic medication. Over the course of his life, John Nash somehow managed to go into the heart of his own seemingly strange fears and paranoid isolation, accepting that those terrors were part and parcel of the same phenomenon that gifted him with ability to see around corners, infusing so much beauty into his thought and work. He came through the suffering engendered by his experiences. He faced squarely the disappointment, despair, and chaos that characterized his career, relationships, and life. In doing so, he found near the end of his road a bounty of love, acceptance, and meaning. Moreover, he was able to liberate himself from his enslavement to his delusions and realize the freedom to be truly who he was, in all of his delightful eccentricity. He undertook a true initiation, a death and rebirth, of his selfhood. He could not live in such a way as to be considered conventional and normal in the eyes of professional colleagues, but he partly encountered and partly constructed a context in which he could simply be.

In London, on Sunday, May 17, Sarah Kass, Jason Dias, Louis Hoffman, and I presented a panel entitled “The New Existentialists: Re-visioning Our Being-in-the-World.” Mick Cooper (counselling psychologist, professor, and author of several books on existential therapy) attended our presentation and astutely posed a question about what exactly existential notions really have to contribute to contemporary issues and problems. He tweeted from the presentation his understanding of the consensus that emerged from our ensuing discussion. What they bring, he said, is “radical valuing of compassion, of deep human connection, and of each human being in all their uniqueness.”

Insanity—a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. –R. D Laing

Reflection spurred by John Nash’s death, as well as these quotes by R. D. Laing, have brought into greater clarity for me a fourth quality that I would add to Cooper’s list—one that has been lurking for the past week in the shadows of contemplation following my rush to the airport and flight back to Chicago immediately after our presentation.

The fourth “radical valuing” that makes existential approaches to therapy so critically important now is the value of gently yet resolutely facing the shadows and darkness in ourselves. These approaches have a unique ability to bring to the contemporary purview much philosophical wisdom that has withstood the test of time, in conjunction with our own inner resources of embodied, intuitive insight. They help us realize that the insanity we seem to find within ourselves is actually a reflection of (and a natural response to) a world in which isolation and alienation from each other has reached unprecedented levels—even as technology has paradoxically brought about global communication and greater awareness of each other.

Conversely, we are all too ready to blame external factors for our problems as well. Racial violence, religious bigotry, conflicts about gender expression and sexuality, hostility arising from the increasing gap between the wealthy and privileged few and masses of the impoverished, and a general readiness to engage in “othering” are very real problems and are intensifying and escalating at a truly alarming rate. Yet, as Prince Ea (American rapper and social activist) has asserted, peace in the world will never happen without inner peace and a willingness to recognize in ourselves that which we loathe in others.

Existential therapies, as well as humanistic and transpersonal approaches (particularly when they are oriented to diversity and social justice), empower us to face with courage what we might otherwise numb in ourselves through medication and addictions. In facing ourselves, we might then find peace in the acceptance that what we are feeling is a true reflection of the world in which we are living together. In that acceptance, we also come to radically value our own capacity for self awareness and choice, authentically experiencing the freedom to engage in deep, relational, empathic connection with others in contrast to (and in seeming defiance of) the insanity of global human conflict. Never before have we been more in need of such a heart-centered, courageous intentional choice on the part of each and every one of us, so that we may illuminate our beauty for each other. That potential is a seed waiting to germinate in the heart of darkness.

The R. D. Laing quotes also remind me that existential work is a viable alternative to medication in addressing at least some forms of psychosis. John Nash was unhappy about the side effects of his medications, and he felt that contemporary antipsychotics offered only marginal benefit over those that he was prescribed earlier in his life. Nash learned that the fragmentation and separation from his authentic selfhood that was a consequence of his medications was little better in its way than the isolation stemming from his psychosis. Radical acceptance of his own Being-in-the-World was not possible until he was able to liberate himself from his dependency on them to be “normal” and face directly the threat of his personal demons, cloaked as they were in the violence of the world around him.

As Joseph Campbell reminds us, “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” While no map of the cave is available, and no warning signs of dangers ahead are evident, existential therapy—arguably more than any other approach—perhaps reveals the entrance to the cave and helps us discern and accept the invitation to enter it, our hearts pounding in unison with the one deep in the darkness within.

References:
Nasar, S. (2011). A beautiful mind. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

— Drake Spaeth

Reflections of a Psychospiritual Therapist or a Psychotherapeutic Spiritualist

Originally posted on March 26, 2015 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

“It’s all in your head. You just don’t know how big your head really is.” –Lon Milo DuQuette

I write this essay two days before the start of the Eighth Annual Conference of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA Division 32), held this year at the school where I teach. I have spent most of the day stuffing manila envelopes with workshop sign-in sheets, evaluation forms, learning objective forms, and CE Certificates. As Continuing Education Chair of Division 32, I oversee compliance with APA standards of the workshops approved to offer CE credits. In that role, I often feel like I straddle two different dimensions—one governed by measureable learning outcomes, operational definitions, and conformity with rigid scientific standards, and the other characterized by an emphasis on personhood, lived experiences, phenomenology, existential meanings, and critique of diagnosis and pathology. I sometimes wonder if the two perspectives are truly reconcilable.

As I reflect here on where I have been and how I am living my experience as psychologist and professor now, my excitement mounts. I am relishing the prospect of my annual immersion (or immolation) in conversations of substance that invariably re-ignite my passion for Existential-Humanistic Psychology and empower me in endeavors to shift worn-out paradigms in my field that have become frayed by the pull of scientism and reductionism. I may well indeed be equal to the task of balancing APA expectations with the ideals of Existential-Humanistic Psychology. In a different context after all, I am not entirely unaccustomed to moving between worlds! My success in that regard was recently validated by a request I received from the Council for A Parliament of the World’s Religions to re-publish on their website three of my essays from the New Existentialists. Apparently, words that I wrote for this psychology audience are equally comprehensible and appealing to an interfaith organization. Of course, I am not truly surprised; my spirituality informs my approach to psychology in ways that are consistent with my lived experience of healing.

When I was a young graduate student in clinical psychology, I kept my private, evolving, animist spirituality rigidly separate from my academic and professional efforts to become a psychologist in a mainstream setting. That separation started to become less meaningful after writing a doctoral thesis that was as firmly grounded in religion, mysticism, and spirituality as it was psychology and psychotherapy. As I have gotten older, I have come to embrace the notion that the psychotherapeutic relationship at its “I-Thou” best is a spiritual healing connection in which our separation from each other is mutually revealed for the illusion it is—even in our uniqueness and diversity that lends richness to the universe that birthed us. Awareness of this unity is a potential of all genuinely loving relationships, and is itself healing and therapeutic (a phenomenon well known to Gestalt therapists).

In psychology, the surrender of these rigid boundaries have awakened me to the critical importance of not only transpersonal psychology in its emphasis on experiencing our humanness and reality itself through a broad spectrum of consciousness states, but also ecopsychology, which seeks a deeper understanding of the nature of our interconnectedness to the wellbeing of the planet from which we have organically emerged. In this awareness, my existential anxiety not only encompasses the inevitability of my own death and nonbeing but also now the impact of all of my choices and actions on the totality of the earth and its wellbeing. I am empowered to act freely not only on behalf of my own autonomy but also for social justice causes that impact those to whom I am connected—those with whom I share my humanity, and those plant and animal beings with whom I share the experience of living. In a humanistic psychological sense, I work to achieve my own wholeness and in that striving become more capable of having a similar impact on others and the world.

Much of what I do and who I am is more “spiritual than religious,” in the sense that spirituality is a living connection with Mystery that is sometimes embodied in religious structures and sometimes not. Spirituality can exist without religious containers, though the converse—religion that is devoid of spirituality—is (in my opinion) soulless and offers comfort exclusively through mindless, habitual repetition of practices in the name of tradition. To be clear, I am not criticizing tradition itself, especially when it serves as a vehicle of ancestral wisdom or lore. For me, a wordless experience of truth runs like a golden thread through many religions, however problematic and limiting as those religions each may be in other aspects. This wordless truth emerges in the more mystical aspects of those religions and has been described and articulated as a “perennial philosophy,” and if religious practice puts one in direct contact with it, then in my opinion one is well served by that practice! At the same time, I do not forget that there are simply unbridgeable differences in the exoteric or external structures of religions that are endlessly causing strife and needless suffering, though much of those differences also make for a uniqueness in each that is beautiful.

I call myself a Pagan, since I see myself in that particular religion more than I do in any other. The others simply feel too “small” for me as containers due to dogma and authoritative restrictions on what I am supposed to believe and practice and values I am supposed to hold. Paganism opens access to the earth-honoring wisdom and lore of my pre-Christian European ancestors. I also embrace and love Zen Buddhism and Taoism in their emphasis on fluidity, dynamic balance, and harmonious embrace of struggle—though both of those are not true religions as much as they are philosophical ways of living.

I am also an animist, in that I believe and experience the spiritual nature of things. That is not a religion either. It is more of a belief system. While I do not believe in anthropomorphic deity except in the deepest archetypal sense that goddesses, gods, and similar entities exist as living presences within our psyches, the term “atheist” does not feel quite right either.

I do not call myself a shaman. I have not earned that appellation and have not been acknowledged as such in any cultural context. However, I have been trained in shamanic contexts grounded in and respectful of indigenous cultural traditions, and I incorporate many aspects of it into my spiritual counseling work. Moreover, shamanism is also not a religion! It IS an archaic spirituality and a “paleolithic psychology” that tends to use and mold itself to the forms and practices of religions and cultures in which it finds itself (with a nod of gratitude for conversations with C. Michael Smith, a Jungian psychologist and medical anthropologist, for that understanding). Shamanism is arguably more fully manifest in Paganism than any other religion, and in that sense I do fully embrace its impact on me. I am also very aware, however, that there are problems with the term “shamanism” only technically being correct for one cultural context in Siberia, even though it has been widely used for so long that indigenous healers around the world have adopted it as a name for themselves. I am considering the term “spirit worker” as an alternative to “shaman.”

At my deepest core, what I really am is a nature mystic. Mystics, like shamans, are found in all religions and outside of them as well. In general, I’ve found that mystics teach while shamans heal, though it is possible to be varying proportions of both. In non-ordinary states of consciousness (engendered by modalities such as trance, breathwork, and ritual), I regularly have the direct tangible experience of being an inextricable yet utterly unique part of a Universe that is alive and spiritual. My recent immersion into the life and work of Alan Watts for a class that I am teaching has helped me conceptualize the understanding that we each arise organically and naturally out of the universe like fruit on a tree, and may even be the means by which the universe is aware of itself. Coming full circle back around to existential psychology lends me a sense of perspective in the face of my anxiety and insecurity in facing the responsibility inherent in the freedom I experience in being alive and in the driver’s seat of my life. It also lends itself to moments of great joy, creativity, and exhilaration. I am blessed with a sense of wonder connected with ever-present opportunities for transformation and growth—even in the most ordinary of circumstances. My clients open to it as well when the relationship is a living one.

Mysticism is par excellence the means by which we experience our unity with each other and the natural world. It calls forth our accountability to each other and the planet, and it heals our fragmentation from deep wounds to selfhood acquired in the course of our lives. It helps us understand that the soul or core of the Mysteries that we can touch in each of our religions has been present long before the origin of those religions as organized entities. Mystics thus threaten the insistence that any one way or religion has a monopoly on truth and wisdom, which is why they have not historically been welcome or treated well in some religious (or dogmatically scientistic) contexts. They threaten the stability of the status quo and deliberately foster insecurity that leads to questioning and more effective and enriching ways of being.

As a matter of fact, this description well suits the rowdy children of Division 32 of the American Psychological Association, with whom I shall be playing and plotting much trouble in the next few days.

— Drake Spaeth

I Will Always Find You: The Homing of Human Connection

Originally posted on February 26, 2015 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

In Chicago, as is usual for this time of year, winter’s clutch is still a tight fist. Yet, the blue of the sky is creeping into the jewel tones. This very morning I caught with deep satisfaction my first glimpse of a flock of wild geese arrowing unerringly and urgently northward toward their home, the location of which was known clearly only to them. I reflected for a moment about their uncanny sense of timing and navigational sense—easily reducible, I suppose, to seasonal, physiological, and ethological explanations. Still, I thought about a story I read recently about a little dog that managed to find her way across several city blocks to the hospital room of her owner. This is not the first account of its kind that I have heard in the course of my life. Such stories are invariably related and received with astonishment, wonder, and curiosity, as an element of mystery lingers around the edges of glib explanations. After all, even the most jaded among us realize deep down that something truly marvelous and extraordinary has happened in connection with such events.

Later in the day, I gazed out my office window overlooking the Chicago River, watching city workers raise the Franklin Street Bridge to fix some mysterious problem that had them shaking their heads in perplexity. I also observed confounded pedestrians gazing at their watches and smartphones, contemplating this glitch in their travel plans that necessitated a possible detour to the Wells Street Bridge to cross the river to make their way to their destinations. Some clearly decided to simply wait for the unforeseeable moment that the Franklin Bridge would be reopened. Others buttoned their coats tighter against theminus 4 degree wind chill, gritted their teeth, and resolutely started to jog to the other bridge. I spared a smile for the resolute Midwestern stoicism of the Chicagoans in both choice situations, braving the elements to do whatever is necessary to get where they are going. We are extraordinary animals too.

I turned back to my desk, needing to prepare for a meeting with a student. I gathered the necessary documents for the course-related questions that the student had and awaited his arrival, wondering if he would find my office without difficulty, as he had not previously met with me there. I pondered some more the “homing instinct” and locational senses of human beings. I fondly recalled the first time my wife and I facilitated a ritual for our spiritual community at Samhain, the Celtic ancestral celebration that takes place on Halloween, where we encouraged participants to dance with their ancestors in pitch darkness. We both laughed softly when we knew by touch and scent that we had found each other quickly in the absolute pitch darkness. When it happened again the following year, she whispered, “I knew I would find you.” I responded, “No matter how lost we may be, I will always find you.”

To be clear, I am not speaking here of the concept of “soulmates” or the notion of predestined romantic connections. I refer instead to the embodied sense of each other that is built of time spent together, conversations that linger long into the night, fights fervently fought, and much more. Moreover, I make no idle boast. In 2003, she came within a hairsbreadth of dying from a rare blood condition called Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP). She wandered in the Otherworlds for a couple days, comatose, as I felt the thread of our connection stretched thinner than I could ever have imagined. She chose to come back, though, on the wings of many prayers as well as the hopes and dreams of our community. I myself have become lost in very different ways, wandering far even from myself, as she has waited with superhuman patience and love for me to find my way back.

In any given moment, she and I frequently find ourselves voicing the same thoughts, both of us having apparently followed the same “random” chain of private associations, like schools of fish darting in the same direction simultaneously, or like those geese flying in unison silently alighting in the same resting place. When I come home from an errand or work, I know the moment I enter the house whether she is home, and I usually guess pretty accurately where in the house she is.

All of us have in our bodies a capacity to feel a slight, somatically based sense of opening, or even a pull, tug, or shift toward where we will know we will be welcome or toward what will feed our spirit. In a previous essay I spoke of the work of Eugene Gendlin and colleagues. They have taught for many years now an approach called “focusing” that helps us attune to this “bodily felt sense,” intuitively understanding the sense of something just out of reach of words (Gendlin, 1998). C. Michael Smith more expansively links this capacity to Jungian psychology and shamanism, stating that Jungian individuation can be understood as an intuitive and somatic hunger for the sacred in life (Smith, 2007). Smith conceptualizes this pull as a heart navigational sense or NGS, stating that it is the best means by which we can recover from being lost or find others and life circumstances that authentically reflect who we are.

Intimate, authentic relationships are anything but easy, of course. They typically entail at least as much capacity for suffering as bliss! Those struggles offer opportunities for greater closeness and understanding. Perhaps, as I have alluded in prior essays, the very best ones are those that create in the midst of struggle (or perhaps out that very struggle) a deep, intuitive sense of home for each other. Our deep, embodied yearning can help us find them and grow within them. Moreover, there are moments in an intimate romantic relationship, a deep friendship, a healing therapy relationship, or an inspired learning relationship between professor and students, when the serendipitous, simultaneous, and identical flutter of the navigational sense toward home makes itself known within each of us. When such moments happen frequently, they indicate the presence of uniquely transformative potential and collectively characterize the relationship as sacred. This capacity can also be enhanced through awareness and practice of it.

And why not? As Alan Watts stated in his autobiography, we are the natural, organic result of the universe, inseparable from it, growing out of it like apples from a tree, artificially and illusorily severed and separated only by the impositions of words and concepts (Watts, 2007). Even though the universe needs each of us to be completely, utterly, and uniquely ourselves in order to be complete in and of itself, why would we not feel a thrill of recognition—and be utterly at home with—phenomena in that unity that mirror or complement our own?

References

Gendlin, E. (1998). Focusing-oriented psychotherapy: A manual of the experimental method. New York, NY: Guilford.

Smith, C. M. (2007). Jung and shamanism in dialogue. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing.

Watts, A. (2007). In my own way. 2nd edition. San Francisco, CA: New World Library.

— Drake Spaeth

Holding Fire With Parchment: Personal Power and Greatness Through Soul Loss

Originally posted on August 28, 2014  by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

Very recently, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, poet and Jungian psychoanalyst, said of the late Robin Williams, “He learned for 63 years of his life how to be ‘the fire handler.’ That is where I would praise him, for what he has managed to do for six+ decades; handle fire, while being made of parchment” (Estés, 2014).

I gasped after reading her words, letting them kindle again for a moment the brittle parchment of my own soul, which has itself apparently survived many conflagrations ignited by failures, losses, and challenges—as well as many other unexpected moments of ecstatic wonder, inspiration, and triumph. Indeed, Estés’s words and Williams’ career—during which we encountered him as Fool, Trickster, Sage, Poet, Hermit, Sacred King, and many more archetypal embodiments—have me reflecting on the true power of the Sacred Wound.

That which might be termed “soul loss” in indigenous and shamanic healing contexts, suffered as a consequence of life’s vicissitudes, is certainly painful and responsible for so much despair and disconnection from meaning, purpose, will, power, beauty, and love. Yet, the hunger to be whole, while leading to a seemingly endless array of mistakes and false starts, can also serendipitously bring wisdom and sow the seeds of transformation. The effort to heal those perpetual wounds engenders—or perhaps illuminates—the unique gifts that only we possess, and more to the point, that only we can deliver to the world in our utterly unique way. After all, no one else can be us better than we can. We have but to make the seemingly foolish choice to turn and face our pain, to lean into that which wounds us, to face with courage what has victimized us, addicted us, or had us on the run for most of our lives.

However, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with ever growing assurances from well-meaning memes and media that the act of turning, confronting, and fighting our demons will itself magically vanquish them and automatically transform everything in positive and helpful ways—as if the act of doing an about-face in our flight guarantees the desired outcome. Irrational thoughts don’t go away just because we dispute them effectively. Beliefs and attitudes built over a lifetime don’t give way to different ones in an instant. Addictions don’t die just because we admit we have a problem with them. Leaning into the storm does not banish its tempests, and one day those storms might indeed have their way with us. Powerful emotions can arise from very deep, abysmal, murky wells. As these fragile bodies lose strength and vitality over the course of a lifetime, we may have the will but not the strength to keep confronting the monsters, and eventually even our will could erode.

Yet, bones that break do often become stronger when healing around the break. Our bodies and spirits can develop an ethereal, silvered grace through the adventures and misadventures of our lives—just as storms and floods etch beautiful lines and curves into rocks, trees, and riverbeds.  

Authentic heroism and greatness do not expect, demand, or depend on success. In the best stories, the goal or objective of the quest actually plays a minimal part in comparison to the courage, passion, and integrity of the hero or heroine. These qualities arise out of the decision to remain true to oneself even in the face of doom and failure. Happiness, is not after all, everything.

Moreover, what we understand to be “mental health” might be a chimera against a reality that is itself meaningless, arbitrary, and “insane.” Our artists, poets, actors, mystics, and crazy people—and perhaps some teachers as well—live on or close to that edge of realization, where there is much terrible beauty and beautiful terror.

By no means is a deliberate exposure to being abused repeatedly by those who have shown themselves to be chronically malicious and untrustworthy a good or noble thing to do. Yet sometimes, when heart and body together experience a moment of rightness in a relationship or context, an unprecedented opportunity or growth may present itself. In such a moment, being deliberately, honestly vulnerable—particularly after all that has demolished us and that perhaps continues to wound us—is possibly one of the greatest acts of courage, insanity, and strength that we could ever imagine or embody. To show our tenderness and risk being torn apart again can be an act of power.

Talking about our vulnerability with someone that we hope is trustworthy is admirable, deserving of validation and support, even as it may risk scorn and judgment from others. Actually embodying it, though, in particular moments is wonderful and takes breathtaking courage. It empowers us to be windows on Beauty for those who have eyes to see it, appreciate it, and be inspired by it. Actually living it in an ongoing way reminds me again of Estés’ metaphor of the parchment that holds fire—a life lived fiercely and fully, most likely for a span that passes all too quickly, albeit unapologetically.

That parchment will not be of long duration, and how tragic for those who might never witness directly the beautiful flame it holds. But what wonder is there for those who do, and what secret language written upon it might be momentarily revealed in the heat of the flames?

References
Estés, C. P. (2014). Robin Williams is gone, ay! Long live the fisher king. Retrieved from http://themoderatevoice.com/197743/robin-williams-is-gone-ay-long-live-t…

— Drake Spaeth

Silence, Shunning, and Shying Away: Destroying Personhood and Connection Through Preserving the Peace

Originally posted on September 25, 2014 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

My well-intentioned parents repeated this injunction so often to my sister and me throughout our childhood, presumably to discourage us from bullying other children and to encourage us to model pro-social behavior for our peers. Words certainly do deliver deep, emotional wounds that can arguably linger far longer in memory and body awareness than the impact of physical blows. Threats, degrading insults, abusive epithets, and aggressive intimidation leave indelible marks on the sensitive psyche of a child—and sometimes that of an adult as well. Excuses and rationalizations that perpetuate generational cycles of abuse do, in fact, need to stop. Public outpouring of concern currently directed at the traumatic impact of bullying and cyber-bullying is long overdue and thankfully seems to be having a constructive impact. In that context, the above cliché about keeping silent seems to makes sense if one believes oneself to be simply incapable of constructive, active kindness toward another person.

But does it actually make sense? In this essay, I may rub a bit against the grain of strong public opinion and suggest the possibility that that silence may often be more psycho-spiritually harmful than active verbal abuse. Few would argue against the notion that recognition by others supports one’s sense of personhood, and close friendship nurtures it. Acts of kindness communicate the message to another person that he or she is seen, recognized, cherished, and loved as they are. Yet, even difficult, challenging people deserve to have their personhood actively affirmed and supported. In fact, they may need that even more than most! If I am ignored because I make people uncomfortable in social situations, and if those around me construe their own silence as being “nice” to me, I receive no reflection of myself through interpersonal actions. I remain essentially invisible as a person despite my strenuous attempts to be seen.

“Silence like a cancer grows.” –Simon & Garfunkel

Larry, a homeless person that I see most days on my walk to work, has often expressed gratitude to me that I stop to talk to him for a few minutes. He shared with me yesterday that he would rather be insulted than ignored. He admitted that he occasionally tries to antagonize people into insulting him—taking guilty, almost cheerful pleasure in firing insults back. I was initially startled by his words, and then I was gobsmacked when I fully understood what he was telling me. Essentially, he was saying that lack of recognition of his existence, or the attempt by all of us to render him invisible through silence and shunning, was experienced by him as more abusive and aversive than active aggression. Moreover, even hostile recognition helped him feel more alive and connected than none at all!

Make no mistake. I do not attempt here to justify or rationalize verbal abuse and bullying. I am trying to make the case that sometimes silence, motivated by a desire to keep the peace, can be an even more insidious and potentially hurtful form of maltreatment. I wish to advocate in existential fashion for at least the occasional choice not to remain silent—to say the difficult thing out loud in the face of strong feelings or reactions. I extend an invitation here to join me in my endeavor to lean into conflicts with others and attempt wherever possible to face difficult and complex interpersonal issues directly and honestly, with integrity. Too often, remaining silent and ignoring someone’s provocative words or behavior in order to preserve a veneer of peace and stability—shying away from conflict in social contexts—can unfortunately perpetuate injustice and harm in those very relationships, some of which we prize highly.

If active abuse as well as silence are both destructive to personhood and connection with others, then intentional, constructive action on behalf of the welfare of others would seem to be the best approach overall. However, on occasion, active kindness is very difficult, if not impossible, until we speak out loud to each other about how we have hurt each other. Fortunately, assertiveness training techniques in interpersonal communication provide a wealth of instruction and information about how to be honest with others without being passive or aggressively hostile. They take practice, but they generally work well. Even so, maybe it is okay sometimes to be a little rude with each other in service of authenticity. Maybe we can occasionally let go of the veneer of fake politeness that we work so feverishly to maintain and instead let it wash away in streaks, like mascara after a run through a rainstorm.

How many work environments turn into a toxic stew of factions, cliques, and excruciatingly awkward and awful interactions because hurt feelings are held back, assumptions and preconceptions are not verified directly, and anger is allowed to fester? No one is willing to risk being perceived as a troublemaker or pot-stirrer.

“True friends stab you in the front.” –Oscar Wilde

How many cherished friendships rot over time due to simple misunderstandings that pile up and are never fully resolved and brought to closure? I recall sadly the precious connections in my life that I have allowed to die. In too many instances, I feared irrevocably hurting the other if I brought up something potentially difficult or challenging. In such situations, my desire to avoid conflict denied to the person their right and freedom to be fully themselves, fiercely and unapologetically.

It is not only other people that we harm through our silence. If I feel that parts of me are unacceptable to the other, I am very limited in how close I can be to him or her. Sadly and ironically, I keep silent for fear of harm to the relationship and fail to see it dying a slow death anyway through disconnection. Fears that are unexpressed and difficult conversations that we refuse to have with loved ones tend to creep around inside us and isolate us by building strong walls of indifference, imprisoning a lonely and disconnected ego, one which is futilely yearning to be a whole and authentic self. We ourselves need to be seen and recognized clearly to experience wholeness.

Mustering our courage, taking the risk, and facing the prospective loss of relationship can be excruciatingly difficult. Yet, the potential reward of a closer rapport with someone who knows us thoroughly, still accepts us, and loves us is a prize well worth the venture. Breaking out of silence and shells of indifference can readily deepen feelings of love and kindness toward each other, leading to inspiring and transformative relationships. We also have increased freedom and power in our social worlds.

I have quite frequently found that I learn the most incredible things from those whom I find challenging. I was once quite eager to surround myself exclusively by individuals who are easy to be with, agree with me all the time, and admire me. Unsurprisingly, I did not evolve during that time. Now those who tell me the things that I find most difficult to hear still do irritate me to no end. They have also presented me with unprecedented opportunities for growth.

As I gazed this evening upon the colorful leaves that begin to fall here at this time of the year, I recalled with gratitude how the earth herself would never dream of withholding from me her bounty and beauty. She unapologetically gives me feedback about my own behaviors, attitudes, and values. If I open my senses fully, lessons are plentiful. Trees, bushes, and grass sip from morning dew even when the rain has not fallen in some time, thriving on surprisingly little moisture at any given time. The garden spider patiently waits under our second floor balcony for the automatic sprinkler system to stop, rebuilding her web every morning and reaping a plentiful harvest from the last flying insects of the year before the cold settles in. That same encroaching chill in the air reminds me that I am not in control of everything. These phenomena show me how my own impulsivity and frustration defeat what I am trying to achieve in my life, when patience and trust yield far better results. How much may we also learn from the other human beings with whom we interact and share this existence if we have the courage to speak openly and honestly with them?

If you have a question about or of someone, consider asking them directly. If you are confused about something a person does, ask for an explanation. If you are curious about a quality or talent they possess, enter into a conversation with them. If a coworker chronically irritates you, consider trying to address it with them. It may, as Jung once said, present an opportunity to learn more about yourself.

It is not an all or nothing choice, and timing is everything. I just feel that polite silence is dangerously overrated.

Blessings of the Autumn Equinox my friends. May the darkening days remind us that the shadows hold riches for us.

— Drake Spaeth

Found Sunglasses: Existential Elation and the Summer Solstice

Originally posted on June 26, 2014 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

I write this just after the Summer Solstice, and I am on FIRE.

The heat of my excitement seems to come directly from the Sun in its annual prime. Varied, multi-hued, beautiful images—recognizably concrete or mercurially abstract—are bubbling up from the deep spring of my psyche, ideas like reflected glints of light from liquid crystal, tumbling merrily over each other in my head. I am drunk with sunlight, elated about the lush fullness of trees and plants all around me casting dappled midday shadows, the humid air lending my hair that certain wave I love, the scent of freshly mown grass tickling my nose, and the ever-present birdsong that celebrates summer in one of the best ways possible. My blood sings in harmony with the great song of life, and with Rumi, I agree that “the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.”

 “the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.”

I am also feeling mischievous and impulsive, displaying a vexing tendency toward inappropriately timed jokes that fall just short of their well-meaning intent. While inspiration, intuition, and creativity flow as freely as mead at a Viking feast table, I have noticeably more difficulty focusing and sustaining attention. I catch myself making grandiose, visionary plans, with little thought or worry about organizational details or financial challenges. It seems unlikely that I could hold grudges or harbor irritable feelings for long even if I wanted to do so—even in the presence of those who do not necessarily have my best interest at heart.

This is how I experience what my field has unimaginatively labeled “hypomania”—a state that I typically experience more frequently as the days lengthen to their peak before declining again toward the darker part of the year. Of course, such a reductive and pathologizing term will never encompass the pervasive sense of wonder and perpetual astonishment that accompanies the more problematic aspects of this state.

Before writing this article, I read again what I wrote for this blog during the Winter Solstice.I am now shaking my head, wondering how the author of those ruminative, morose words could even be related to me. In the grip of the existential elation that marks this side of my seasonal mood pattern, during which time energy seems plentiful and readily available, I find myself wondering how anyone could feel depressed or sad when such Beauty is eager to reveal itself to any who are awake enough to fully experience it.

I know deep down, however, that if I did not descend into my winter “dysthymia,” I could never fully appreciate, understand, and utilize the fertile potential of my summer euphoria. Winter contemplation and planning lays the groundwork for summer productivity, which reaches its peak when my concentration is most poor. I find I am better able to “ground” or develop an earthier foundation for the visionary work I can do in summer. At the Summer Solstice, I feel little need to question or second-guess myself; I simply live my purpose in a more fully embodied way.

Teaching, counseling, and writing bring me the most joy at this time of year. Moreover, amid current brainstorming for my courses for the next academic year, I am recalling how often the innovative concepts or ideas born of summer inspiration nurture and enhance my teaching throughout the energetic ebb time of winter. In this way, I have learned how to ride the waves of my emotions and moods, using the costs and benefits experienced during each half of the year to greater advantage. Summer’s beauty and fire warms me through the winter; winter’s practicality anchors and supports me during the summer.

This notion of inspiration grounded and supported by practicality also reminds me of just how much we need our artists and poets! They are not merely indulging a creative whim or hobby. It is they who play a practical and critical role in revealing and illuminating the Beauty of the world. They are best equipped to put Mystery in our grasp, and to enable us to enter into lived experiences in our own unique ways without reducing them or destroying their complexity or uniqueness. They may also inspire and awaken creativity and wonder in those who have not come to such experiences directly or tangibly themselves. I feel strongly that artists need to be supported and nurtured in their own creative process, which is frequently not easy or pleasant for them. They certainly sustain US when we become lost in our own shadows.

Before this writing today, I took a moment to watch the sunset. The last rays of the setting sun turned low-lying clouds into rosy splendor. Trees on the horizon seemed otherworldly. The setting summer sun brought to my awareness the three rays of the neo-Druidic awen symbol, which seem very sun-like to me in appearance. Harris (2011) states the Welsh word “awen” may be roughly translated as “inspiration” of a poetic, artistic, divine, or sacred nature, and that the Welsh root of the word suggests “breeze.” I feel it captures well what I experience and channel at this time of year. I certainly like it much better than “hypomania”. It encompasses the sacred nature of inspiration as well as the divine calling of artists to awaken us to magic and beauty, blowing like a purifying breeze through our souls.

It carries its own dangers too. Those who archetypally embody or channel awen in the myths—stortyellers, bards, poets, magicians, and tricksters—are not always stable, reputable, or sane individuals. The enormity of the sacred can erode the boundaries of conventionality, and creativity can be like a storm or a river that refuses to flow in orderly channels. I experience awen most strongly at this time of year, being in the grip of the divine spirit that inspires wisdom…or madness. The sun illuminates my path, or it can blind me if I stare at it too long.

Perhaps if I don these sunglasses I found last winter, I can stare at it safely. Can I get an awen?

Oh yeah.

References
Harris, M. (2011). Awen: The quest of the Celtic mysteries. Cheltenham, UK: Skylight Press.

— Drake Spaeth

The Two-Way Mirror: Projection, Responsibility, and Connection

Originally posted on April 10, 2014 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

Here in Chicago, we have been experiencing the first tantalizing hints of spring after the coldest winter on record. I am giddy with excitement to see the tips of tiny daffodil shoots poking shyly through the soil. The weeping willows that line our yard have quite suddenly and boldly sported the yellow tone that heralds the imminent growth of strands of elongated, deep green leaves. Chipmunks have dutifully and enthusiastically begun their seasonal scolding of the squirrels.

I paused this evening on my walk from the train station to our house, just to savor the rosy glow of a sunset that lingered on the horizon. My heart strained to hear the first notes of summer’s song that were almost discernible in the gentle evening breeze. The lavender sky above me and my workday-weary self—shirt rumpled and hair standing up in a dozen different directions from dozing on the train home—were reflected perfectly in a puddle of water that gathered among a stand of evergreens. Gazing at myself in the pool of water, I was reminded about the many ways in which we mirror ourselves through a phenomenon that mental health professionals have perhaps inadequately labeled “projection.”

Projection is the notion that we attribute to others qualities that we have difficulty identifying or acknowledging in ourselves. Melanie Klein referred also to “projective identification,” an unconscious attempt to attribute one’s entire identity to a significant other (Klein, 1946). Projection also came to be used with therapeutic efficacy in Gestalt therapy and psychodrama techniques such as the empty chair. This technique allows clients to project (intentionally and with full awareness) emotions centering on important people in their lives, as well as components of the self, and to engage in active dialogue with those parts. For example, my inner critic can, in this way, speak to me through the expression of unfinished business with my father, other authorities, or even component parts of my personality. Any one of these aspects at various points can be purposely projected onto the neutral background of the chair and brought to closure or into healthy and authentic connection through such dialogue.

I frequently encourage my students (and myself) to develop greater awareness of what most irritates us about other people, exploring the realization that such feelings are sourced in ourselves. They are thus opportunities to illuminate our own shortcomings, struggles, and problematic life patterns. The depth of our irritability is a clue to the critical importance of such themes in our own lives. Projection without awareness can delude us into a false, protective belief in our own superiority or perfection, as we miss opportunities to glimpse ourselves in others, their faceted mirrored surfaces offering us different angles and perspectives. It helps us avoid responsibility for mistakes, faults, and problematic patterns. Conversely, projections are also wonderful opportunities for growth of self-awareness as we painstakingly identify them, and consciously assimilate or withdraw them. Doing so enhances the quality of interpersonal relationships, connecting us more intimately with others, and bringing online more of who we genuinely are.

Taking Jung’s lead, Plotkin (2013) asserts that we also frequently project onto others positive qualities that we are unable or unready to acknowledge in ourselves. He refers to this phenomenon as “golden projection.” We over-idealize teachers, mentors, and significant others in our lives, tragically unable to understand that the qualities of leadership and charisma that so often seem to attract us in others are actually evidence of the dormant potential within us that is trying to awaken. As that song by America asserts, “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have.” Golden projections can be dangerous, because they motivate us to relinquish personal power to those who could harm us. They are certainly exploited in destructive cults and abusive interpersonal relationships. Yet, awareness of them allows us the opportunity to unlock potential and claim personal power, cultivating hitherto unsuspected talents.

Sometimes, discussions of projections neglect or gloss over the fact that those individuals on whom we hook these pieces of ourselves are not chosen arbitrarily for our projections. Some phenomenon intrinsic to specific others mysteriously and genuinely connects or lines up with something in us, a core of authenticity at the heart of illusions we construct, offering the prospect of real relationships when all is said and done.

The concept of projection has certainly been embraced in mainstream cultural contexts and seems to me to have become a buzzword in communication. In conflicts, it is often misused as a clever way of turning an argument back on a person. If you tell me that I am blind to certain truths or problems, and I respond that you are projecting that observation onto me, I have then effectively put you on the defensive and sidestepped any possibility for awareness of personal responsibility or need for introspection. In this manner, projection is used (improperly) like a defensive weapon—a mirror that deflects laser shots directed my way. Mental health professionals are particularly capable of abusing the concept of projection in this manner in both personal and professional relationships, with devastating impact and harm. Projection and responsibility are certainly intertwined in convoluted ways!

Gazing at my reflection in the puddle, as spring once again brings opportunities to birth new potential in myself or to start from scratch, it suddenly struck me that I regularly see myself glimpsed in others in an infinite variety of ways. I wondered if life is not a stage, as Shakespeare says, but instead a hall of mirrors—funhouse mirrors—mirrors that would initially seem to reflect in only one direction.

Moreover, it is not only people that offer us reflections of ourselves. I have increasingly come to see myself in the natural world and to learn powerful lessons about who I am through the antics of animals and the behavior of natural phenomena—projecting myself (in psychological terms) onto the natural environment in which I live and thrive. I have also come to understand that we unconsciously project ourselves onto the natural world in terrible ways too, attributing our own personal darkness to the environment while engaging in a misguided attempt to tame it, exploit it, and make it pleasant or acceptable. We fail to fully discern our role in environmental devastation or destruction and could be undermining the prospect of our own long-term well-being and survival.

A startling, less familiar thought also occurred to me as I stood by that puddle, experiencing Something Bigger momentarily looking through my eyes. What if Nature also sees Herself in me, just as I see myself in Her? Other humans certainly see themselves in me. In therapy, I try to be useful and helpful as clients integrate and assimilate their projections—showing them glimpses of themselves through the therapeutic relationship with me. But am I not also an intrinsic part of the natural world? What does Nature, as an intelligence I may not fathom, learn about Herself? What does She endeavor to express through me? How does She express her beingness in me? Am I allowing Nature full awareness and expression through me or am I blocking and distorting Her? Am I giving Her an expressive voice as other animals and plants do for me and others, and as I strive to do for my clients?

I am suddenly aware that in the term “projection,” we have a useful psychological concept that is also only a limited and constricted understanding of a bigger spiritual mystery. What we call projection may be a facet of a much larger, open invitation to understand our embodied connection to the natural world—an ever-evolving, endlessly fascinating opportunity for us to experience ourselves in reflection and grow in the unfolding of that experience. But I also may well be a means by which Nature can understand and express Herself. Nature is a mirror and I am a mirror. I am an inextricable part of Nature. I am a thus mirror that reflects two ways. I AM Nature and She is me. That connection is real, and we both languish in my lack of awareness of it. Indigenous peoples around the world have intuitively understood this truth for a very long time.

And as I type these words, I realize that what I REALLY want to be is not a two-way mirror at all but a clear glass window.

An open window, actually, that lets in all the spring sunshine and breezes.

References
Klein, M. (1946), Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In The writings of Melanie Klein, Volume III (pp. 1-24). London, UK: Hogarth Press.

Plotkin, B. (2013). Wild mind: Field guide to the human psyche. San Francisco, CA: New World Library.

— Drake Spaeth

Floating Shards of Ice: Insights from a Frozen Urban River

Originally posted on January 24, 2014 by Drake Spaeth - New Existentialists Posts

During any active semester, my commuting routine every Monday through Thursday includes in part a brisk walk in the morning and again in the evening back and forth between Chicago’s Union Station and the Merchandise Mart, one of the buildings that houses The Chicago School of Professional Psychology where I teach. I cross over the Chicago River twice by way of the Madison Street Bridge and the Franklin Street Bridge. On very cold winter days, if I am lucky, I am able to catch the rare moments when fragile fragments of ice form like white mosaic puzzle pieces, floating downstream almost imperceptibly, seeming to seek and never quite find a pattern in which they will all come together perfectly. This winter, an intoxicated jet stream brought the record-breaking cold and winds of the polar vortex to Chicago, and I snapped some pictures of this ice phenomenon with my iPhone.

The thing is, I will stand by the rail at the center of one of these bridges for quite a long time if the ice is floating. I just gaze at it, willing to abide the most painful chill for the privilege. I love arranging and rearranging the ice shards on an inner canvas in my mind, some stubborn part of me insisting beyond all reason that I can make them fit perfectly together, perhaps even recreating the original way they must have been connected before they broke apart and started to drift. The shards also awaken in me an inchoate sadness and longing, as another part of me accepts the futility of my mental efforts, knowing that no such “solution” exists—and that their heartbreaking beauty lies in their chaos, a natural randomness that contrasts starkly with the orderly buildings of brick, chrome, and steel that line the riverbanks.

During the summer semesters, I sometimes have lunch on a bench along one of the banks of the river. Last summer, I sat with an elderly stranger who told me that he grew up with the river, and recalled the early 1980s when the river was fairly clogged with refuse until Mayor Richard M. Daley instituted a massive purification and cleaning effort. Even before that, he told me, in the early 1900s, industrial pollutants that were dumped mercilessly into it were responsible for the river being called “the stinking river.” Many folks, he said, even caught typhoid and other diseases from it. He explained that a series of canal locks were instituted to reverse the flow of the river, so that it no longer flowed into Lake Michigan but now flowed from the lake into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. All of these historical efforts served to significantly clean the river and restore at least a fraction of its once-pristine beauty.

This knowledgeable man also related that in winter, the river develops strange, bidirectional currents that are not evident in warmer months. In other words, the surface of the river still flows away from Lake Michigan. However, a deeper current moves sluggishly but inexorably BACK to the lake. I experience an obscure reassurance somehow, that during what seems to be the most adverse and contrary season of the year, the river somehow strives to mysteriously return to its original template. Oh, I am quite certain there are natural and logical explanations for these phenomena, but my heart finds magic and comfort in this.

In fact, the more I reflect on the history of this river as revealed by the elderly teacher of my serendipitous encounter, I am ever more astonished and pleased. The Chicago River has historically been abused in a manner that is beyond the pale with pollutants and litter. It has had its entire course and flow completely reversed. Every Saint Patrick’s Day, it is turned some toxic (albeit celebratory) shade of green. It has been cross-stitched with bridges, tamed and locked into orderly channels between mind-boggling skyscrapers, and exploited as a sort of highway for barges, yachts, tour boats, water taxis, crew practice, kayaking, and yes, even fishing excursions. Still, it manages to sing to me, and to produce the ice mosaics that so mysteriously mirror my own deep yearning for wholeness and completeness.

The river, with its accompanying winter ice floes, has helped me understand that my fragmented psyche is never going to be pristine and whole in the way I once expected and wished for. Some parts of me connect and line up loosely, synchronistically, and even quite surprisingly, with other parts of me. This makes me almost believe myself that what I teach my students is true—that I move naturally and organically from fragmentation into wholeness if I learn to stay out of my own way. What truly happens though, is that all these beautiful fragments flow slowly downstream, even as deeper parts of me flow in the opposite direction. It is anything but orderly; yet it produces an experience of unexpected completeness that has little or nothing to do with putting the puzzle together perfectly. It has everything to do with healing and seeking beauty. Like the Chicago River, I have suffered trauma and loss and have inflicted the pain of my injuries on others. Yet even challenged, and blocked, and coerced into channels not of my choosing, I flow.

And I take my beautiful shards with me.

— Drake Spaeth