LEBENSFREUDEN - JOYS OF LIFE
Why Did I Become A Counselor?
About Glaciers and Counseling
988 - The New National Suicide Hotline Number
Joy, Happiness, and Other Challenges
Belonging and Loneliness
Food or Belonging: What Is More Important?
What to do during a pandemic?
Why Did I Become A Counselor?
When I was four years old, I wanted to become my father’s secretary. He had often complained and so, with the healthy arrogance of a toddler I was going to take care of him. When I was seven years old, my mother was dying of cancer. I knew that I could not cure her. At the same time it was also abundantly clear to me that this should not happen to other children or mothers. I decided to become a surgeon and take care of it.
Then life happened and all my professional plans changed. I have had many professions, spanning from secretary to university professor to psychotherapist. As a professor I was teaching international business and economics to MBAs. In that capacity I became aware that more often than expected my students’ ability to perform at their best was less a function of their IQ or commitment and more of their mental and emotional state. I started offering advice and my students appreciated it. Overall, it was highly satisfying to work with students, to encourage their curiosity, to provide access to new ideas and to watch them grow as academics and persons. So why change? The biggest impetus came when I noticed that not only did my students’ academic performance increase, they were also more smiling, joking, and displaying increased enjoyment in their studies. Which of course, showed in the quality of their work. I loved teaching. And maybe some day I will teach again.
None of my professional changes were due to traumatic force though many were due to forces outside my control. Yet, I always found purpose in my work, which resulted in increased competence and added enjoyment. I used to wonder about that. I now recognize that I had always been on the path to become a counselor. Whether working as a secretary, as an imaginative surgeon, or as an actual professor, my desire was to bring relief from pressure, chaos and pain, share and deliver comprehension of theories and realities, whilst always resulting in a joyful and restful calmness in the people I worked with.
I like a good challenge. Always have. I like seeing people getting support, growing and benefiting from it. Always have. And, I love it when I have something to do with that. Always have.
And that is why I am a counselor.
* * * * * * * * *
About Glaciers and Counseling
I have been asked to deliberate about why my home page for my blogs shows the inside of a glacier. Well, here it is: I like the image. I like the colors, the wavy depth of the cave, and the winding path. More than anything though, I like the memory I have from visiting a glacier.
Friends, the opportunity, and sheer curiosity drew me towards the experience.
There was only one path into and out of the glacier. The path was well lit, and I was left to myself to explore the cave. This was exciting and liberating. My inner curious and unsupervised child was making an appearance. It was exquisite. While exploring several carved rooms, I discovered ice sofas, ice chairs, and ice tables. Other people seemed to disappear in the many side caves. It was quiet, I was calm, warm, felt safe, and safely enveloped by the ice. Eventually, I laid down on an ice bed and let my imagination flow. What games one could play in here! What additional ice carvings one could add! Maybe paintings? Would they survive? Ah, the adult in me had returned. I started to contemplate the age of the glacier, its thickness, its speed in moving down the mountain. How long did it take nature to build this glacier? How much storm and cold, sunshine and melting, how much quiet, gentle pressure had this glacier seen? How long did it take mankind to carve the path and the rooms? Had it been fun? Did the ice yield easily?
Was there anything else to see? I could discern small shadows outlined and enclosed in the ice. I was able to thaw some out and found twigs and moss. Structures in the structure. I felt the glacier’s calm strength. I knew it was moving but I could not feel the movement. I found a deserted corner and let my body and mind sense the profound quietness. It was reassuring and comforting. I felt humble. I felt safe.
When I left the glacier, I was excited and calm. I felt happy and content. Something had changed in me and I knew that the memory was precious. I have made sure it has stayed with me.
The picture above does not show the actual glacier I visited but I realize now that my visit then reflects on how I wish for you to experience counseling.
* * * * * * * * *
988 – The New National Suicide Hotline Number
“I want to kill myself”. When I hear these words my entire being shifts into a different awareness and attention state. My years at the Suicide Prevention Service Hotline in Columbus, Ohio taught me to shut up and listen. Often, our callers had been socially and emotionally isolated for far too long. Most callers needed someone who listened well, someone who could also respond in a manner that let them know that they were heard and understood. The caring voice of a stranger was comforting enough to enter a conversation instead of following the feelings of hopeless- and helplessness.
On Thursday, December 12th, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, “started the process of designating 988 as a new, nationwide, 3-digit number for a suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline. This designation will help ease access to crisis services, reduce the stigma surrounding suicide and mental health conditions, and ultimately save lives.”*
I am grateful for this initiative because “988” is easy to remember, which becomes especially important when you are in crisis. In addition, this proposal underlines that mental health emergencies are worthy to receive equal recognition as all other emergencies, which in itself will help reduce stigma attached to mental health issues. I am hopeful that this will become reality.
Alas, it will take another 18 months before the FCC’s planning process might become reality. Until then, I believe I would be amiss signing off without mentioning a few of the currently available Suicide and Mental Health Care hotline numbers in Columbus, Ohio. All that are mentioned here are free, anonymous, and open 24/7.
(614) 221-5445 (614) 276 2273 1 (800) 273 8255
Suicide Prevention Services Netcare Access The Franklin County Suicide Prevention Coalition
*Source: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-988-suicide-prevention-mental-health-hotline
* * * * * * * * *
Joy, Happiness, and Other Challenges …
In my upcoming blogs, I will discuss how various feelings can be challenges and functions of how we may lead happy, satisfied lives. Our feelings ever so often possess the potential to lead to our experiences of the joys of life and their opposites. Joy and happiness seem an optimistic and robust starting point and will serve as good juxtapositioning to other feelings and our dealings with them.
At the risk of stating the obvious, it seems that experiencing too little or too much of anything is a challenge. Good mental health, a balanced life, or life satisfaction is all about how we manage our feelings. Challenge or not, here we come! Let’s start with joy and happiness and see whether they are worthwhile to take on as challenges.
I will define joy as the feeling that has the second most potential to be experienced like intense happiness. Ecstasy would be the most intense one but that is for another day or blog. Our parameters for joy are our ability and attitude. For example, for some individuals becoming a parent is joyful, for others it is overwhelming, or downright undesirable. So, it isn’t the event itself that brings joy but our disposition and mindset toward it. In addition, I believe that the intensity of joy is a function of its negation. For example, if we have not felt love before, when we do feel love and know that we do, we experience joy. If we have not felt loved before, we experience joy when we do feel loved, and so on. If we accept the rarity of this feeling, we will not develop an entitled expectation of its experience and avoid becoming dependent on it. Challenge avoided.
Happiness on the other side can be intense but is not defined by it. Within the school of Positive Psychology, Dr. Seligman talks about three different forms of happy lives.*
First, let’s look at the “Pleasant Life” where happiness is based on experiencing pleasurable feelings. Examples are buying something we like and want, maybe a new pair of shoes, a better car, a bigger house. Or maybe we get a massage, spend a day in a spa, or meditate to our hearts content. Or we spend our time giggling and laughing with others. I call this happiness purchase dependent or the outward based happiness. The need and want to experience this happiness can turn into a challenge. Think of shop therapy or the addiction to consume personal services.
Then there is the “Good Live” where happiness is derived from doing something at which we are highly competent. This is called being in the state of flow. Time stands still. You exist in a state of exclusive concentration. You are fully in the moment. We can experience flow whilst working or playing. It is entirely based on our own competence and ability to concentrate in a specific area of life. It has nothing to do with somebody else providing a good or a service. It is independent happiness. Yet, to experience flow has the potential to become addictive as well. For example, needs for perfect competence are a hallmark of flow’s challenge as a source for happiness.
Lastly, there is the “Meaningful Life” where happiness stems from knowing your biggest strengths and using them for something larger than yourself. Once we identify those parameters and act accordingly, most of us will feel happiness. The interesting part of this source of happiness is that we need others for it. It is an interdependence-based happiness because our lives are void of meaning without others’ existence. Accepting this provides a challenge for most of us individualists.
I am not aware of anyone who generates enough energy to cultivate all these bases of happiness to their fullest. Maybe instead for happiness sources, we ask for what provides most life satisfaction? It turns out, that pleasure and pleasure enhancing experiences lead to the least durable and stable states of life satisfaction. Alternatively, pursuing the meaningful life bases results in the most stable and robust life satisfaction. At the same time, the bases of flow are much more stable than pleasure experiences but less overall impactful than meaning bases. It is as elegant as it is satisfying that the whole of all bases of life satisfaction is bigger than its sum.
In my opinion, that is worth taking on the challenges of joy and happiness.
*Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBxfd7DL3E
* * * * * * * * *
Belonging and Loneliness
About 1 in 2 Americans feels alone or left out and 1 in 4 Americans feels that there is no one who understands them. Smoking 15 cigarettes a day has the same physical effects as loneliness in terms of lowering life expectancy! This is comparable with the risk factors of being obese, physically inactive, and living with air pollution!
Why do so many people feel alone and disconnected? The reasons are as complex and interrelated as they seem obvious. I will only list a few: helplessness, hopelessness, unwillingness/inability to ask for help, fear of rejection, inability to make and maintain friendships, widowhood, spending more time facing computers than people, loosing/never developing interpersonal skills, (fear of) not being interesting to others, (fear of) not meeting others’ interpersonal expectations, (fear of) not measuring up as a friend, anger towards a stranger or a very close person to you who hurt you and this anger is keeping you hostage in your emotional prison, and of course, limited opportunities to establish a personal relationship due to physical or personal restrictions. The opportunities to be or become lonely seem endless.
So, what do we do? I propose that the remedy lies in belonging. Connecting is the first step to belong. Finding a common ground or interest the second. Overcoming ones’ fear of rejection and initiating a connection is the most critical one. The latter applying for the lonely and the helpers alike.
Connecting is a two-way experience and it is actually an adventure. It takes courage or bravery to start this endeavor because we either move and risk rejection or wait until someone gets in touch with us and relieves us of that risk. We can reach out to our nation, community, or individuals. Joining many national organizations carries the least risk of rejection. Joining a community organization increases the risk in terms of rejection but also carries a higher potential of actual personal connection and with that the creation of deeper belonging. Any direct person to person initiative carries the highest risk of rejection but also the highest potential of acceptance, reciprocity, and belonging.
When we are lonely it is most difficult to reach out! I hope and wish I could convince all of us to reach out, overcome our fear of rejection, one connection at a time. We just might create a sense of belonging – for ourselves and all of us!
* * * * * * * * *
Food Or Belonging: What Is More Important?
Who do we belong to first? Ourselves? Our mothers, fathers, caregivers? It’s hard to say because whoever first takes care of our food needs, we will belong to, right? Well, think again!
Harry Harlow, an American psychologist conducted experiments between 1957 and 1963 with baby Rhesus monkeys. Soon after birth he separated the baby monkeys from their mothers and then presented them with a choice of two surrogate mothers. One was a bare-wire structure with a food tube and the other was a soft wool-covered structure. Overwhelmingly, the baby monkeys spent their time with the soft touch mother structure. Now, they did go to the bare-wire structure mom to get food from her food tube but quickly returned to the structure that provided physical softness. Did these baby monkeys feel a sense of belonging, though? I propose that they did and that the need for belonging is as fundamental as the need for food. I don’t believe that baby human needs are significantly different. In fact, I believe that our need for belonging is so deep that we are born with it as an instinct and it then grows into a thought-rooted feeling.
I propose that belonging is an intrinsic part of our psychological as well as physiological health and thus an intrinsic part of all of Maslow’s need stages. How else can we explain that people who are in the self-actualization stage may choose pain and suffering? One reason might be the need to belong. Whether it is to a person or an idea. I believe that the decision is informed by the knowledge that they can calmly rest in themselves without need of approval by everyone. I suggest that it is this comprehension of self-belonging that empowers them to choose to belong to an idea. These individuals have psychologically matured so deeply that they can truly exercise their free will, like choosing the satisfaction that comes from belonging over other needs.
Of course, many of us exist in various degrees of psychological maturity regarding self-actualization as well as belonging. And so, in order to end on a lighter note, please consider this. The next time you feel the sting of not belonging take comfort in the thought that overcoming this disappointment is truly very difficult because we are hardwired with a need to belong first.
Then I suggest that you go eat a good meal at your favorite restaurant. You just might belong there!
* * * * * * * * *
What to do during a pandemic?
Easy and quick hints that are likely to work for most of us.
o Create a routine and follow it. For example, maintain your grooming and dressing routine.
o If you have extra time consider adding time for prayer or explore different forms of prayer (for example, Centering Prayer), explore meditation, take time to daydream.
o Stay updated but do not ruminate about the pandemic. It is what it is. Set a time limit for information gathering, something like 10 – 15 minutes, then walk away.
o When you go to bed, write down one thing you want to accomplish the next day in the morning. Check the thing off once you have done it.
o If you can, move 30 minutes outside.
o Be still for 10 minutes and think of something that you are grateful for.
o Tell someone something they have done well today.
Things that will take more than 30 minutes
o Write a letter to someone you feel gratitude toward. Write it in long hand and use USPS to send it.
o Create a to do list and check it off as you go.
o Consider all the things you always wanted to do like home improvements, clearing out that drawer of miscellaneous stuff, organizing your wardrobe, shoes…endless possibilities.
o Hydrate and eat well, make this a to-do and check it off.
o Spend time connecting with other people, preferably use FaceTime, Zoom, skype … you get the drift.
o Write one sentence every day about the essence of the previous day.
o Imagine and write about how it might feel when you look back to today when May 1st or May 6th arrives.
o Imagine that day and make a plan. Who will you meet in person first? What restaurant is first on your list? Next year, this time, where are you planning on being?
Suggestions that are likely to work for those of us who live in a family with children
o Give yourself and everyone else in your household extra room – literally and emotionally.
o Respect the retreat space everyone is likely to create.
o Limit COVID conversations around smaller children. Watching parents in distress can be very stressful for our children.
o Use humor and share funny YouTube videos, gifs, etc.
o Consider the phrase “I love you, but right now I need to walk away. I will be back but give me a minute”. Everybody will feel relieved.
o Try and work on accepting the new normal, your current situation, your child(ren)’s situation, your spouse’s, your parents’, … This takes away tremendous stress stemming from unfulfilled expectation and provides relief for you and those around you.
o Create a family game hour, say 4 pm in the afternoon, when the whole household gathers and plays together for one hour.
o Think about and discuss what this “Stay at Home” order has given you. What have you learned? How did you grow or mature? Personally, spiritually, socially, professionally, technically…pick one, and then another one.
* * * * * * * * *