Category: Mental health

Awakening, Bondage, Change, Creativity, Feelings, Freedom, Grace, Insanity, Mental health, Mindfulness, Nature, New Life, Night sky, Sacred Pauses, Self care, simple joys, simple pleasures, Skies, Stars, Transformation

From Insanity’s Bondage to Creativity’s Freedom

kathymfindley

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INSANITY 

Not a word we are fond of. Nothing inspiring about the word. And when the word insanity is more than just a word, we shudder in its grasp. Insanity brings its own bondage, stealing one’s freedom to live, confiscating one’s creative expression. Insanity can be a complete, all-encompassing mental breakdown, even bordering on madness, OR it can be a state of being that most of us have experienced — irrationality, instability, disorientation, mania. Many people (noted scholars) have mused that “the definition of insanity is the most overused expression of all time.” (Salon.com)

Remember the declaration about “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?” Yes, I know you remember that definition, probably have said it yourself in an exasperating moment!

Where am I going with these bizarre introductory words?

I’m actually going to a place you may not expect. I’m going to the rush and swirl of color in one of my favorite paintings, A Starry Night by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. The painting draws me in — into the little village with its steepled church, into a sky filled with sparkling stars, into the glorious luminance of the crescent moon, into the swirls of blues and whites and yellows. I have pondered many times what sort of mind and soul could have created a painting like this one.

The story behind A Starry Night is the unnerving story of Van Gogh. A few months after experiencing a mental breakdown on December 23, 1988 that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear, Van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole Lunatic Asylum. During the year Van Gogh stayed at the asylum, his prolific output of paintings continued and he produced some of the best-known works of his career. A Starry Night was painted by around June 18, the date he wrote to his brother Theo to say he had a new study of a starry sky.

A Starry Night was the only nocturnal painting in the series of views he saw from his bedroom window. In early June, Vincent wrote to Theo, “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big”. Researchers have determined that Venus was indeed visible at dawn in Provence in the spring of 1889, and was at that time nearly as bright as it could be. So the brightest “star” in the painting, just to the viewer’s right of the cypress tree, is actually Venus.

Too much information? Probably, but here’s my point that is not really about insanity at all. Rather, it’s about breaking free from bondage and taking back my life. You see, sometimes the sight of a big, bright morning star can replace whatever fear or angst I am feeling. Sometimes looking into the deep of a starry night can carry me to resplendent places. Sometimes even my slight insanity can transport me to my deepest expressions of creativity.

For me, insanity is my incessant scurrying around with too many things to do, a kind of mania. That frenzied scurrying is of my own choosing and therefore, leans a little too close to self-imposed insanity. I wonder if instead of that scurrying life of bondage, I could make time for moments of thought that would enable me to say something like what Vincent Van Gogh said from his asylum: 

“This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star — the brightest star — which looked very big!“

Contemplate for a moment the insanity of a life encumbered — filled to overflowing with too many things to do — compared with a life of stargazing that might just awaken fresh and bright creativity in you.

As for me, I’m heading toward a spiritual transformation — a life of sacred pauses, a stargazing life, a grace-filled re-awakening!

I hope you are, too.

Advent, anxiety, Bitterness, Darkness, Despair, Exhaustion, Faith, Fear, grief, Guilt, healing, Hope, Light, Loss, Mental health, Mourning, Pain, Perseverance, Reflection, Sorrow, Soul, Suffering, Unfaith, Weeping, Worry

Dark Night or Advent Light

kathymfindley

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The Second Day of Advent
Transplant Day Twenty-One
December 2, 2019

THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

The Christmas spirit
is that hope
which tenaciously clings
to the hearts of the faithful
and announces
in the face of any Herod the world can produce
and all the inn doors slammed in our faces
and all the dark nights of our souls
that with God
all things still are possible,
that even now
unto us
a Child is born!

What could this beautiful poem titled The Christmas Spirit possibly have to do with my recent kidney transplant? At first glance, not much. But lingering on the poet’s words made some of them leap from the page for me. I have to admit that the words most piercing to me are these: “. . . all the dark nights of our souls.”

Guilt overwhelmed me after the transplant was complete. I was back in my room six hours after the surgery — barely awake, a little confused, exhausted, in pain and, they tell me, very quick-tempered. I yelled at my husband, something I may have done twice in 50 years of marriage. The truth is I was feeling covered with a blanket of guilt. The nurses, my surgeon, my family were all celebrating the transplant miracle. I was in pain, second-guessing my decision to even have the transplant in the first place and feeling guilty for not acknowledging the miracle everyone else saw.

For the next two days, every person on my transplant team who came to see me entered my room with a large smile and expressed one word, “Congratulations!” said with joy in a most celebratory voice. All the while, I was often weeping pain’s quiet tears. I stared at each congratulating person with a little bit of concealed contempt. In my mind, if not on my lips, was a response that went something like this: “Congratulations? Do you have any idea what kind of pain I am experienced right now? And have you had this surgery yourself? Save your congratulations for another day!”

The physical pain was very real and very intense. The soul pain hurt even deeper. Body and soul — the physical, spiritual and emotional — were so intricately fused together that it was all but impossible to isolate or separate them. Is this just physical pain? Is part of it emotional pain? Am I experiencing, heaven forbid, a spiritual crisis? I found no way to tell. For me, it was pain in all three parts of me and that made it almost intolerable.

For two nights, I did not sleep at all — awake all night, feeling alone, abandoned and in a wrestling match with my pain. As I went over and over in my mind all the reasons I had for getting a transplant, my thoughts morphed into a fairly clear “What have I done?”

It felt so much like a dark night of the soul as I grieved my aloneness and isolation, mourned the loss of my previous life and felt deep fear of the dark, unknown path ahead. And all of those points of crisis made me feel that guilt for not being grateful for the living gift of a kidney.

As Ann Weems’ expresses in the poem, “Hope tenaciously clings to the hearts of the faithful and announces in the face . . . of all the dark nights of our souls, that with God all things still are possible, that even now unto us a Child is born!”

Twenty-one days separated from my transplant, I am able to attest that hope does cling tenaciously in my heart, that hope announces in the face of the dark night of my soul that with God, all things are still possible. And most importantly, “Unto us a Child is born!”

Into me a Child is born, and that presence empowers me to walk through my soul’s darkest night into the light that Advent brings.

Thanks be to God.

    

Complaints, Contemplation, Courage, Discovering, Emotions, Introspection, life, Mental health, Mindfulness, Reflection, Self Awareness, Vulnerability

What’s Underneath?

kathymfindley

A07A5421-F042-40D4-A143-32391BBC79FBToday, a friend’s blog posed a provocative question. It was provocative enough to stop me in my tracks. Likely, I was right in the middle of a tirade of complaints when this question challenged me. This was the question: “If I let go of my complaints, what might be underneath?” *

The question presented a plethora of thoughts for me. It opened up that place underneath just for a second. But then I quickly moved back to the complaints. I have many. Or at least I believe I have many reasons to complain. But I’m realizing that complaints are surface things. They live outside of us and do not always reflect the inner emotions we are truly feeling.

A complaint develops easily and blurts out what’s on the surface of our lives. It flows easily off the tongue and falls upon any willing listener. The empathy we receive from that willing listener keeps the complaints alive. If someone listens to us and responds with caring about our complaint, it is then cemented. We have given it life, perhaps life beyond what it deserves.

This brings us back to the probing question: “If I let go of my complaints, what might be underneath?”

If gratefulness for the obvious graces that we have received replaced the urge to complain, we would be surprised at the result. If, instead of lodging a complaint, we spent some time exploring what lives “underneath,” we might well gain true insight into our emotional state. 

So we would do well to ask ourselves what’s underneath the complaint we speak out loud? Is it true that our complaint rises from a deep place inside of us but hides the emotion there?

If my complaint, for instance, is that I am overworked, perhaps underneath is the constant feeling that I’m being taken advantage of. If my complaint is that I have to endure an illness, perhaps the feeling underneath is that I fear suffering, even death. If I am terrified of death, perhaps I am not certain I left a good and lasting legacy. If I’m languishing in retirement, perhaps the emotion “underneath” is that, now that I am not “ministering,” I am questioning my self-worth.

You might be asking why this is important. It is important because whatever lives inside of us holds the power to harm us physically, emotionally and spiritually. What could we do instead of complaining? 

  • We might begin with silence that moves us a bit towards serenity.
  • Next, we will practice mindfulness that helps center us.
  • We woukd do well to contemplate gratitude for the graces of life. 
  • Then we should pray for insight, comfort and healing, not only praying for what we need from God, but also listening for God, abiding for a while in God’s presence.
  • Then we must take time for what might be the most important practice of all: introspection and self-reflection.

One of the primary goals of introspection is to better comprehend our inward life and to learn to focus it towards fulfillment of self. To go there is to invite vulnerability, healthy vulnerability that softens the hard places inside me that are wounded. Then we need to pull up from our inner resources just a little bit of courage.

When all is said and done, each of us is given a critical choice: do we complain about all that is not right? Or does courage enable us to look underneath our complaints and discover what our true emotions are?

For myself, I have to ponder these questions: What am I grieving? What have I lost? What do I fear? Underneath my whining and complaining (which I am very apt to do) I will find a gift, a treasure that is my very soul and spirit, and the emotions that abide there.

And as a bonus, I will have found a better way to live my “one wild and precious life.” **

* From A Network of Grateful Living

** From a poem by Mary Oliver. 

Anthony Bordain, Kate Spade, Mental health, simple joys, Suicide prevention, Suicide prevention resources, Travel

Depression’s Heartbreaking Hold

kathymfindley
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Depression’s Heartbreaking Hold

Depression wields a heartbreaking hold on those who suffer its relentless assault. It has a harsh clench, a grasp on one’s life that steals all traces of well-being. Men and women suffer depression’s attack. Young people are besieged by depression’s terror. Even the youngest among us suffer from that elusive sadness that a young child could never understand. Depression sometimes results in the most tragic of outcomes: suicide. Depression overwhelms people we know and care about, our children, our parents, our close friends, and the friends we know from afar.

Anthony Bourdain was such a friend to many. My husband and I loved watching Parts Unknown, just relaxing while Anthony Bourdain took us on exotic journeys near and far. He had a way of bursting into our living room through the television, grabbing our attention with his friendly swagger, and taking us along on an adventure in food and culture. We took for granted the delightful experiences he created for us, but now that he is gone, we are grieving as if he had been a best friend.

He had this special way of inviting us into his life experience. He was gifted in making us feel present with him in his current adventure. He took us to places we never dreamed of going, and made us see the possibility of eating foods we would not normally put even near our mouths. He expanded our wanderlust and our taste buds. He made us feel that we really knew him.

But we really did not know him, it seems. We did not know the depth of his emotional life, his bouts with depression, the dark place that he was obviously dealing with. Even his close friends and family did not expect that he would take his own life. But he did and, as his colleagues expressed, it will be a loss of creativity, talent, and the delightful quirkiness that would say, “Your body is not a temple; it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” (Anthony Bourdain)

We are left to wonder, though. Perhaps Anthony Bourdain did not always enjoy the ride. Mental health challenges can take all that one enjoys and twist all of it into something unrecognizable, something hurtful, something that steals one’s joy. It has been too much to take in, the deaths of Kate Spade and then, so soon, Anthony Bourdain, both apparent suicides. We cower at the thought of an epidemic that we are not prepared to control. Those who know tell us, again and again, that the interventions for mental health in this country are woefully inadequate. The current reality is that suicide rates rose steadily in nearly every state from 1999 to 2016, increasing 25 percent nationally, according to a report this past Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2016, there were more than twice as many suicides as homicides.

These are statistics that should cause us heartbreak, enough heartbreak to compel us to use our voices to advocate for more appropriate and effective mental health interventions in our nation. But the heartbreak gets more personal when we lose a friend, a bigger than life friend like Anthony Bordain. It appears that he, too, knew something about heartbreak. In his own words:

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s OK. The journey changes you; it should change you . . . You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

Anthony Bordain did leave something good behind, something that he showed us each week: how to open ourselves to other cultures, how to join strangers around tables of friendship, how to try new things and learn new things, how to enjoy food, drink and friends, and how to know yourself better because you stepped out of your comfort zone to know another person from another land.

He gets the last word, the last poignant word:

It’s been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

 

 

How to Help a Loved One Who Is Severely Depressed

Don’t underestimate the power of showing up

You may not feel that your presence is wanted. But just being by the side of someone who is depressed, and reminding her that she is special to you, is important to ensuring that she does not feel alone, said Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

 

Don’t try to cheer him up or offer advice

Your friend has an enviable job and two lovely children. He’s still ridiculously handsome even though he hasn’t gone to the gym for six months. It’s tempting to want to remind him of all these good things. Not only is that unlikely to boost his mood, it could backfire by reinforcing his sense that you just don’t get it, said Megan Devine, a psychotherapist and the author of “It’s O.K. That You’re Not O.K.”

“Your job as a support person is not to cheer people up. It’s to acknowledge that it sucks right now, and their pain exists,” she said.

 

It’s O.K. to ask if she is having suicidal thoughts

Lots of people struggle with depression without ever considering suicide. But depression is often a factor. Although you may worry that asking, “Are you thinking about killing yourself?” will insult someone you’re trying to help — or worse, encourage her to go in that direction — experts say the opposite is true.

“It’s important to know you can’t trigger suicidal thinking just by asking about it,”  said Allen Doederlein, the executive vice president of external affairs at the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. If the answer is yes, it’s crucial that you calmly ask when and how; it’s much easier to help prevent a friend from hurting herself if you know the specifics.

 

Take any mention of death seriously

Even when a person with depression casually mentions death or suicide, it’s important to ask follow-up questions. If the answers don’t leave you feeling confident that a depressed person is safe, experts advised involving a professional as soon as possible. If this person is seeing a psychiatrist or therapist, get him or her on the phone. If that’s not an option, have the person you’re worried about call a suicide prevention line, such as a 1-800-273-TALK, or take her to the hospital emergency room; say aloud that this is what one does when a loved one’s life is in danger.

 

Make getting to that first appointment as easy as possible

You alone cannot fix this problem, no matter how patient and loving you are. A severely depressed friend needs professional assistance from a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker or another medical professional. What you can do is to try to make getting to that first appointment as easy as possible. That might mean sitting next to your friend as he calls to make the appointment, finding counseling that he can afford, or even going with him that first time, if you’re comfortable with it.

 

Take care of yourself and set boundaries

When the thoughtful and kind people we’ve loved for years are depressed, they may also become uncharacteristically mean and self-centered. It’s exhausting, painful and hard to know how to respond when they pick fights or send nasty texts. Just because someone is depressed is not a reason to let their abusive behavior slide. Set clear boundaries with straightforward language such as, “It sounds like you’re in a lot of pain right now. But you can’t call me names.”

Boundaries about how much you can help and how much time you can give are important. Although you want to be present with your friend, set boundaries that keep you healthy and stick to them.

 

Remember, people do recover from depression

It can be hard when you’re in the middle of the storm with a depressed friend to remember that there was a time before, and hopefully a time after, this miserable state. It is important to remind yourself — and the person you’re trying to help — that people do emerge from depression. Because they do. 

(From a New York Times article, “What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed” by Heather Murphy, June 7, 2018, http://tiny.cc/yqyiuy)

 

A helpful website providing many resources for help:

https://www.speakingofsuicide.com/resources/

 

Recommended Reading:

4D1432A6-EA0F-47EB-B111-A35D095D42DARethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning, February 14, 2012, by Eric Maisel.

https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Depression-Mental-Personal-Meaning/dp/1608680207

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Why Smart People Hurt: A Guide for the Bright, the Sensitive and the Creative by Eric Maisel, https://www.amazon.com/Why-Smart-People-Hurt-Sensitive/dp/1573246263/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=72HYRNBE90SYMTN8PMY7

 

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Mindfulness for Kids: Create a Happier Life for Your Kids by Reducing Stress, Anxiety and Depression, November 27, 2017 by Jasmine Warren.

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jasmine-Warren/e/B0788M6G2R/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

 

The following website offers an excellent resource:

http://www.drugrehab.com/guides/suicide-risks/