Soul

What I Learned from the People of Haiti

Everyone knows that there is always a gift in a crisis.  I watched this last week, every time I had the opportunity, the devastation in Haiti.  I mean, who could miss that.  But, I saw something else that brought me to tears many times.  I caught a glimpse of the resilience present in so many.  I saw their Spirits, their Essence leading the way for them, including the ones who were recovered after 9 days, 11 days – alive when they “should” not have been able to survive.  What kept them breathing?  What brought them through?  The strength of what we all have inside but many don’t stay aware of it.  We have a Soul that can pull us through things we find unimaginable to have to bear.  Do you use it or just give into your pain or despair or hopelessness at  moments when what you perceive as awful is happening to you in your own life?  

As 56 orphans were flying to the US, none having ever been on a plane before, none knowing about how loud an old military plane can sound, or the turbulence, or…  Did you hear what these 56 children did?  Not one of them cried, not one of them screamed.  Instead, they sang, they were joyous, they knew many spiritual songs and their voices filled the plane with faith, anticipation, gratefulness – for what?  FOR LIFE, FOR A CHANCE TO KEEP LIVING.  

In another part of Haiti a group had gathered at a cemetery.  To cry?  No, to sing spirituals, to praise God that they were alive.  A 15 day old baby was found 8 days after the original earthquake.  How could that be?

It reminds me of a movie I saw many years ago called – The Gods Must Be Crazy.  Did you see that movie?  It was about a coke bottle changing this small island of people who had never heard or seen anything like that. Competition began – we want that bottle, no we want it….  The analogy is that – these people perhaps, in Haiti, have never been introduced to things like “but why don’t I have this” or “how could this happen to me?” or “Life sucks” etc.etc.etc.  I know that baby hadn’t.  I know those orphans hadn’t.  I know that those who were spending their days by the cemetery hadn’t.  

How do I know this?  What would most people you know be doing after such a disaster?  What I became clear about was that, most days we don’t take the time to be grateful for our next breath, for the one we just took, for the privilege of being able to have water whenever we want.  I know that many of you have lived through earthquakes here, downpours of rain, just like last week, but we have lost sight, some of us, of seeing ourselves and each other as Souls filled with the goodness, the joy, the absolute beauty inside and out of people.  Yes, some of us have been very wounded by the cruelty of some, but I know they, the so-called cruel ones, must have been hurt in the past and are taking it out on others, rather than learning how to heal from that great grief they carry. 

My great desire for you (and I trust for yourselves) is that your heart can grow large enough to allow what is to be.  To know that you are doing whatever it is that you are called, by Spirit, not your ego, to do.  You are in charge of what you think (as long as you are conscious of what you are thinking) and you can think “Thank God I am able to walk, to talk, to take a breath, to be generous, to be compassionate, to have the feelings that some are so cut off from.  

I applaud all of you who have taken the time to look at your own life in this past 2 weeks and have seen it from a brand new perspective.  I trust the rest of you can and will.  It is gratifying, to say the least.

Soul

Let out your Self

When you were born, you were only a Soul, a Spirit, a Self.  Soon, you began to develop a false self, a self that was pleasing to caretakers, to all those you deemed necessary to survive.  Thus began the journey of creating that self that is ego, that self that is most likely alienated from the Soul, has no idea about what the Soul may be saying to you at any given moment.  You started acting like you needed to in order to assure you were taken care of, paid attention to, liked.  It expanded, that false self, when you started school.  You then had a larger audience to please.  Yikes, you were bombarded with messages of what was acceptable and what wasn’t.  You, as a Soul, as a Self, got completely lost in all of this deluge of what and who you needed to be.  You had no conscious awareness of it all, you just did what you did in order to have the most likely outcome of “like-ability!” What a job you’ve taken on.  Very few don’t.  I do know some, but very few escape this part of their journey to adulthood.

Now, what is it going to take for you to get back to that original Self, the one that is authentically You?  It is definitely going to take your doing a bit of research on what you are currently doing that is  ”not you.”  Do you even have an inkling of what that is?  Most don’t.  Start by becoming accurately aware of those words coming out of your mouth that smack of “do you like me now?” kind of tone.  Be very conscious of all your actions, all your interactions and see which ones are coming from your inner Core and which ones are coming from practicing what is necessary for those around you to give you attention, to find you acceptable.  

Do you see that others have been defining you for years?  Who are they?  Who are the ones you’ve given over your power to to decide your fate, your personality, your responses to life, to circumstances, to everything.  It won’t take long for you to see that very little of what you say, if anything, is coming from your Soul.  Most, if not all of you, is driven by this need (you think) to be liked, to be accepted, to be popular.  But at what cost, may I ask?  It is so draining to have to be “on guard” all the time, to assess what you say so that you can be sure it will have the correct reactions by those you think you have to please.

When are you planning to live what your Soul came here to experience, tomorrow, next year, in the next decade?  How about now?  What is preventing you from changing now?  Are you too scared?  What is the worst that can happen?  You won’t have any friends, anyone who finds you appealing?  Please, they don’t even know you and you don’t know you, so how can you be sure that your authentic Self won’t be 10 times more appealing than that false self you developed so long ago.  You are still being the self that you created when you were 2 or 3 years old.  How much judgment do they have to decide what is best to be like, what is best to say or do in any one moment?

Take a huge leap of faith and begin to listen to that very quiet voice deep within you that is ready to blossom into a fabulous person that you came into this world to be.  You are an unrepeatable, irreplaceable Being that has unique, one-of-a-kind offering to give the world.  I have told you that before.  It is definitely true.  You must get acquainted with the Soul, though, in order to know what you are to be saying and doing in each moment of  the day.  Ask:  What am I to do now?  Who am I to speak to?  And, about what?  When you are still long enough and have no preconceived notions about what your Soul may be saying, It can speak to you and you will often be astounded at what It may request and require that you do, so that you are living out loud what you came into the world to offer.

I am so excited by the possibility that you may just take me up on this invitation to transform your life.  You can write me anytime and tell me what your Soul is both leading you out of and into as the days emerge.  Let your Soul lead the way, stop trying to outguess it or tell it what you think you need.  Allow the Soul of you to be in charge.  You may be absolutely incredibly blown away by what you find your Self doing, once you start listening carefully to only your Soul.

That Soul of yours has Its own ideas, Its own agenda and Its own voice.  It is unlike anything you have ever heard before and often has ideas you would never have dreamed of considering.  That’s the joy of it all, though.  You are beginning to truly live at that point, not just exist and be at other people’s mercy.

Are you ready?  Begin.

Soul

A Look at Eating Disorders

I used to treat only eating disorders because I was the chief psychologist of an inpatient program as part of the teaching hospital of the medical school at the University of CA Irvine.  We were sent the toughest cases because of our reputation.  (Later I developed, chose the staff for and then directed an inpatient and outpatient eating disorder center at a prestigious psychiatric hospital in another state).  As a result of these experiences, I have many, many stories of extreme cases.  I remember one time a beautiful flight attendant came into the program (she had great pressure from the airline to stay at a particular weight and was taken off of a flight if she was weighed by them and found to be one pound over the limit).  She was a challenge because of her desperate internal struggle between “minding” the authorities and deciding to be a person with her own choices.  One day, she shared with me in a session at the hospital, she came home after a trip, drove to her home in one of the canyons where no stores stayed open very late and found that she had absolutely nothing in her cabinets or refrigerator to eat.  She didn’t keep extra food because she would devour it, no matter how full she felt.  It was late.  No possibilities were open to her to get anything.  She opened the one can she had of dog food and began to eat it.  Suddenly she caught a glimpse of herself in her mind, got very scared and called for help.  There are lots of experiences like that I could share with you.  No one but an eating disorder person could relate fully to this woman.  She wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t mentally ill, she had an addiction.  All of those who have any kind of an addiction, no matter what it is, can also understand her desperation at that moment in time.  It is powerful, it has taken over one’s life when it has gotten to this point.  What can a person do?  Not just because I am a psychologist but because I know this to be absolutely the truth – get professional help.  Go to someone who has experience for several reasons – they have the tools, they have the knowledge and they have a deeper understanding of the depth of your compelling desire to eat until you are overly full and then either purge or use laxatives or…  

Actually, there are two kinds of bulimics, which we are speaking about now, another day I will talk at length about anorexia nervosa but today, it is the bulimic I am describing.  The first kind is drawn to how it feels to get full – they erroneously think that getting full means they are finally feeling fulfilled.  Not a chance is that true, but it feels like it is true, until the next time they feel empty – which is most likely very soon, a day or less.  Then they must do it again, to get that false feeling of fullness.  I once had a bulimic say to me words that I’ll never forget:  ”I will binge to the point of unconsciousness until my Soul is no longer starving.”  Our work together could certainly begin in a deeper way once she had “gotten” it that binging was about a Soul-hunger, not a stomach hunger.  Her Soul was crying out to be listened to, to be honored, to be fed.  Soul-food is very different from regular food, as of course everyone knows. Or do they?  

The other kind of bulimic gets addicted to purging.  That person feels that if they vomit out all the food they had just binged on they would no longer feel the awful feelings they were feeling at that time.  They felt that they would be free of them if they just got rid of them by purging.  Again, not a chance is that true, but ut feels true to them at the moment – every moment- that they go to the food.  ”Maybe this time it will work and I won’t ever have those feelings come up again, or those images, or…”

What is the similarity between these  2 types?  They both have a belief that enough food or enough purging will “cure” them.  That they will never have to deal with emptiness or a myriad of horrid feelings again.  When either of those ways don’t work after awhile, they just do them again, hoping that this time they will have success.

Of course I have only touched on all the complexities of bulimia, but I wanted to bring these particular points up today to have you examine if you or anyone you know is battling with something that does literally take over one’s life.  If so, perhaps awareness will bring a bit of clarity as to what needs to happen next, not repeating the same pattern but interrupting it by getting help.  It doesn’t go away on its own.  It doesn’t solve any issues you may have, it only increased them.

One other thing, it isn’t a good idea for anyone in a family who suspects (or knows) that another member is having this challenge to get in between the bulimia and the behavior you know is going on.  You aren’t the one who can solve this kind of huge issue.  Make a phone call instead.  I have known partners who try to assist with this issue and the relationship suffers because of it.  

No matter how long someone has been having this major challenge, it is very possible for them to recover.  Never think that a person is doomed because they have an addiction of any kind (and I have dealt with really tough ones besides this one).  It is totally possible, with a willingness to reach out, not  for food, but for professional help.