DECEMBER 12, 1961
Early in the morning the Dutch ocean liner Maasdam landed in Hoboken NJ.
On it was a little family, a mom, a dad, an 8-year-old girl, a 6 year-old by and a tiny 3 year-old toddler. Each child carried a little suitcase with some extra clothes, a handkerchief embroidered by the mom, and a couple of favorite toys. They disembarked among the hustle and bustle of many others, boarded a bus, or maybe it was a ferry, and shortly thereafter arrived in New York City. It was a dull, dreary, dark and misty day with heavy low clouds.
The family, probably with a guide of some kind, went to the German consulate and filled out many forms. The day was spent in the city until it was time to go to the huge bus station and board another bus. The family settled in and made themselves comfortable for the long trip to their new American home, the children quickly falling asleep after their exhausting day.
At 10 PM, the bus stopped in a little Massachusetts town, the family stepped off the bus, glad to stretch their legs. They were met by the dad’s old college friend, the Professor, who piled their suitcases into the trunk of his car and the family into the seats. It seemed like another long ride, but eventually the car stopped in front of their new 200-year-old house with a sagging roof and crooked floors. It was fully furnished with weird-looking furniture (what Americans called “colonial”) and the fridge was fully stocked.
Mom helped the kids wash their faces, brush their teeth, get into their PJ’s and hustle off to bed. It was 10:30 PM — SOOOOOOOO late for the little ones. But they slept well that night and began their new adventurous lives bright and early the next morning December 13, 1961.
Did you guess? That little 8-year-old girl was me! and this is how I remember it.
SEVEN
Many years ago I worked with a client who was returning to the community after serving some time in jail. I have never gotten his story out of my head and I have finally been able to put into words my perspective of his story.
SEVEN
seven years clean
he's made himself a life
successful paramedic
he volunteers to help clear wreckage
from the broken New York towers
he loosens
he digs
he lifts
he carries
those challenging chunks of concrete
those twisted beams of steel
he breathes in fine poisonous powders
he coughs up blood but must continue
he must continue digging
keeps digging
he sees a hand thrust out between the ruins
he scrambles over rubble
he hears her muffled cry
his hand outstretched as far as possible
Reaches to touch one finger ---
He calls for help
They are too late
She slips away
Away...
seven bags of heroin
seven holes in his arm
and seven in his legs
and seven years imprisoned
behind the wall ---
and forever imprisoned
inside his mind ---
POETRY!
Writing poetry is one of the creative methods I use in my coaching. It gets you there (wherever “there” is) much faster than simple dialog.
As such, I have recently taken a workshop with Magdalena Gomez, the Poet Laureate of our city, Springfield Massachusetts, and our group is going to perform what we have been working on.
We are 12 women, the poetry is powerful and amazing. If you have never seen poetry performed, you will soon see what I mean about getting you there faster (even if you don’t speak the language)!
Watch this space for the link, which I will post as soon as I receive it myself.
Extraordinary poets performing Dec 4, 2021 online.
WHY COACHING? WHY NOT THERAPY?
Since life coaching is a relatively new field, many people are confused about it and have many questions.
"Why not just stick with my therapist?" they want to know. "I am fine just where I am, I don't want to switch."
Some people may have fallen into a comfortable routine with their therapist and are reluctant to end such a relationship. They may also fear having to face a new situation, not knowing if they will be confronted with scary emotions that they are not ready for, or having to explain something they can't or don't want to. Or having to do homework they don't want to do.
Perhaps they need more emotional stability in their life. Therapy can certainly help.
Perhaps they want to understand why they feel so angry or depressed all the time. Therapy.
But let me ask you... how long have you been seeing your therapist? A year? Three? Five? More?
I myself went to therapy for seven years. With seven different therapists, in three different parts of the country. They were all very nice, and I did like going -- it felt good to be heard and acknowledged.
And you know what? It did feel good to be heard and acknowledged and to get some things off my chest. I did gain some insights into what was going on with me, but after seven years I was still not sleeping, not being able to give my all to my children (who turned out great nonetheless), not getting to complete my education, or follow what I felt was my true purpose. Still living the same old stressful life. On top of that, a lot of my money was flying out the window into my therapist's pockets. And I spent a lot of time not only in the office but traveling back and forth. For about a year I even drove from Las Vegas, where I then lived, to my therapist's office in Los Angeles two weekends every month. I had to leave my little ones in something of a madhouse. My parents and friends all lived on the East Coast and couldn't help out.
Enter life coaching... and the journey to real change in my life began.
To help you decide what may be best for you, here are some things to consider when you get ready to get help. There are many differences between the priorities of therapy and coaching.
* In therapy, feelings are processed, and the goal is to heal and be more stable emotionally. The focus is often on understanding and healing past events and traumas. It's all about feelings. The therapist asks how you feel about these events, or how you feel in general, and explains how things work psychologically. The client takes a lot of energy to relive a trauma, to draw up all his/her/their courage and bring up all the old feelings, to talk it through and examine it from all angles. It is draining and exhausting, and sometimes, with the wrong therapist, it can be re-traumatizing. Sometimes the session is over and the client is left in tears and has to resolve it on the way home or back to work.
In coaching, the goal is to move from where you are today, from where you are stuck, to a higher level of functioning, both in the full program and in each session. It focuses on getting from the unsatisfactory present to the bright future where the client (I like to use the term traveler since this is a journey) feels fulfilled in living his/her/their life's purpose. It is all about taking action to getting there. Goals are well-defined by implementing evidence-based exercises, worksheets and some pretty creative methods. Coach and traveler brainstorm solutions together, talk through which ones might work best and try them out until the problem is resolved. The session ends leaving the traveler feeling energized and more confident.
* In therapy, each session may focus on a completely different topic, often about something distressing that has occurred since the last session. At times, the original reason for therapy falls by the wayside and is not addressed until near the end of the session, leaving the client hanging when the time is up.
In coaching, there is a specific purpose for each session, such as learning or practicing a new skill, or building on insights gained in the previous session, or reviewing a new concept, behavior or solution that was practiced since the last session. The client clearly sees that progress has been made over the sessions.
* The therapist is the one to offer answers and solutions, making the client feel powerless and dependent. The client, not trusting him/her/themself, continues to see the therapist for getting needs met. And the client can often be heard to say "My therapist says...".
The coach says "Yes, but what do you say?" The coach acts as a guide and a cheerleader. This guide assumes the traveler already knows the answers deep down, and only offers the means to draw them out and the encouragement to implement them. The traveler has a lot of power in his/her/their own growth, gaining self-confidence along the way in making good decisions resulting in positive, authentic and permanent life changes. The traveler can often be heard to say "I have decided to do ..." and "I have already done ...".
* In therapy, it's on the client to get to the therapist's office. The client has to make sure the car is gassed up and in legal and mechanical order. Or the client has to find someone who is available to provide a ride, to overcome embarrassment when making calls to family and friends, and to have cash or another offering to contribute towards gas costs. Or the client has to take a bus, in which case there's a bus route and schedule to figure out, bus stops and transfers to locate, finding the exact change. Once on a packed bus, the client must fight through the crowd to that empty seat in the back, which is not empty by they time they get there.
In coaching, the traveler grabs a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate, sits back in a comfortable quiet space and gets on the computer or the phone. There is no need to factor in travel time, saving the busy person hours. No need to put on your shoes, go searching for your wallet, struggle into your coat and maybe rain gear. It should be noted, though, that some coaches do meet in person if a client prefers that.
* Therapy is long term. Some people stay in therapy all their adult lives, maybe all their lives. This can be 20 years or more, and they are ultimately no better off. Still in bad relationships, still struggling with distressing emotions, still stuck in that unfulfilling job, just like before. And a lot of time and money down the drain.
Coaching is short term, from a few months to a year or maybe two, and at the end, the traveler is in a new and better place. The original problem is resolved, and if a new problem arises, the traveler has the tools, the self-confidence and emotional strength to meet it head on. Going back to coaching is optional.
* The therapist is only available at the scheduled time for the scheduled time frame, usually 45 - 50 minutes. Say your appointment is scheduled Tuesdays at 3pm for 50 minutes. It may take you 10 minutes to settle into your seat, organize your coat and bag(s) and slow your mind down enough to focus on the task at hand. At the end of 50 minutes, no matter where you are, it is time to pick up and leave. I have heard people say that this can feel like they are being cheated on. On your way out you meet the next client, making you feel that you are only one person in a sort of conveyor belt dropping money into someone else's kitty. Or they run into a co-worker or even a boss, breaking confidentiality.
The coach schedules a convenient time agreed upon by the two parties together. The appointments are flexible, lasting from 15 minutes (this is rare) to even an hour and a half, as needed. Between sessions, the coach calls the client to check in, provide encouragement or to help figure out snags encountered while the traveler is practicing a newly learned skill. The traveler can also call or email the coach any time with questions or requests for encouragement.
* Finally, in therapy, all the "work" is done during the session. The client relates situations and expresses feelings, receives emotional support and gains some understanding. The client leaves the session behind and continues the same life and behaviors as before.
In coaching, the "work" happens between sessions. The traveler may read an article or a selection in a book; complete a worksheet; create a poem, dance, drawing or piece of music; or practice a new skill. It can take a little more time, but skills and insights are assimilated and incorporated into the traveler's life immediately, affecting a concrete step towards the ultimate goal.
These are some of the differences between therapy and coaching, and now you can make a good decision on which you might need.
Still not sure? One plan might be to follow a course of therapy with a course of life coaching.
If your life is already fairly ok, but you feel like something is missing -- life coaching will guide you.
What if your anger issues continue despite therapy and multiple anger management courses? I would try life coaching.
All this being said, some people do use a coach in conjunction with a therapist because of the differences mentioned above. And that's fine. Go for it! Here's to you!
DON'T LOOK BACK
Here is the end of the long hard road --
They had told me don't look back.
Don't look back--
but I must
Because I felt defeated
I took inventory
not of failures
or setbacks
or losses
but of my victories and triumphs
no matter how small
or how obvious
Because they weren't so obvious to me.
My friend said
“You are my every-day hero”
What -- Who? Me?
Can't be---
Look at all my failures -- but
She listed my survivals
She pointed out my triumphs
She emphasized my skills
"Oh" I said,
"I never thought of that…"
I wrote them down to remind me.
And so began the end
of the long hard road.
And now I don't need to look back.
THIS LITTLE GIRL
This little girl
with nothing but love
and nothing but joy ~
She dances for horses
This little girl
with nothing but dreams
and nothing but hope ~
She dances for trees
She dances for butterflies
in green summer meadows
and flies away with the bluebirds
Off she dances into the sky
into the Milky Way
and into the Universe
This little girl
is your little girl
is my little girl
is me …
CREATIVE IMAGE-MAKING in PSYCHOSYNTHESIS
Roberto Assagioli, “Father of Pyschosynthesis,” noted the great importance of "artistic, scientific or technical" creativity, and it is true that human beings have always found meaning in their lives through the arts. Here are some of my experiences in the use of the arts and psychosynthesis.
The creative arts (art, music, drama, poetry/literature, dance, film) bypass the psychological function of thinking in "talk therapy" as the primary way of resolving issues, relying instead on the other five functions: feeling, sensation, imagination/image, impulse/desire and intuition.
People who "think too much" can drive themselves to distraction. They can also consciously or unconsciously mislead a therapist who only wants to help. While talk therapy definitely has its place, clients can filter out what they do not wish to admit to or share, but the other functions can compensate for that.
I have used the arts in my counseling and coaching work with diverse populations for many years. For example, with my group of homeless pregnant teens we took photo field trips around the city and to various parks. Their favorite subjects were each others' growing bellies, and dogs in the local dog park. With the prints they created collages or shadow boxes of their safe spaces where they could feel the comfort and unconditional love they expected from their babies, and from "their" dogs.
Bellies and Puppies
I facilitated another group for young men returning from prison without job skills, an education or a home. They were angry, depressed, and hopeless in their expectation, per statistics, to return to prison within a few years.
As their art specialist, I guided them to develop social skills like sharing materials or disagreeing without fighting -- skills they had never been taught as children. Several of them also accessed their untapped spirituality through their creations, which was clear through their comments, or the reverence towards their materials and finished products.
They created dream catchers from wire coat hangers, stained glass "windows" from corn syrup, origami from their own decorated papers, and many other projects. They took pride in their works, showing them off to staff, other program participants and their girlfriends.
The highlight however came whenever I brought my camera and created portraits of them.
"Hey, Ms. D! Your boy is lookin' fly today and ready for a picture now!"
It was a time of fun, relaxation, and self-expression. They loved choosing their settings and their poses. The agency printed, framed and displayed the photos in prominent spaces throughout the building, which definitely boosted their self-esteem.
These were young men who had transformed from destructive street-fighting gang members with little to no chance at success into productive, contributing citizens with a future, and the portraits reflected their new self-confidence and pride.
Plank
Photography is my own go-to form of creative, technical, and emotional expression. All the psychological functions come into play at the moment of pressing the shutter (sensation, thinking, feeling, image, desire, and intution). I explore this in detail elsewhere, but I should at least mention that here.
Not only does photography afford me the chance to put my technical and artistic skills to work, but it also motivates me to get out into the fresh air, get some exercise and to record the things that attract me.
Resting Dragonfly
It also lets me share my vision with others. I have created a series of slide shows for my local Naturalists Club. Maybe my favorite of these was The Art of Nature. It emphasizes the ready-made art that I can find in nature right in front of me. All I have to do is put the frame in the right place, often using my intuition for the best choice. Oh, yes -- and what lens to use, and what exposure to use. There are many technical decisions to make (thinking) in order to recreate the image I had in my mind, and to reproduce the feeling I had when I first saw my subject.
Soul of the Iris
Photography is also my outlet and guide for the grief process. Another slide show honored the life of my beloved aunt, 98 years old when she passed. I included photos from her albums in the presentation, which ran during the memorial her many friends held for her.
Photos used in the healing process don’t have to be created by me. Spending time choosing special images from Auntie’s photo albums gave me the chance to, think about her life, my relationship with her and to deeply join with her. The photo below triggered my admiration for her strength, determination and independence when she sued her boss for sexual harassment forty years before the Me Too movement encouraged many women to do the same.
She won her case!
GISELA JULY 1959
Photographer Unknown
I produced another presentation for family and friends as a celebration of my father's life. It included photos of his childhood, some of his favorite places in nature, and his love of cloud-watching. I also talked about his contribution to the environment through his teamwork in preventing MIttineague Park from being developed into yet another golf course.
Again, in creating this visual celebration, I was able to join with my father, to think about what his life was like for him, surviving his WWII POW camp, organizing the Big Move from Germany to the US, and all the grief I probably gave him as a teenager.
Sunset in Mittineague Park
Conversation with
Dr. Seuss and
the Cat in the Hat
Creating these presentations helped me to mourn, to honor, to remember, to learn about my lost loved ones, and to carry a legacy forward to my descendants.
The Fam
Another way that photography serves me is as a form of meditation.
I am always relaxed and calm and I take slow deep breaths to avoid camera shake (sensation). I am laser-focused on only the task in front of me. It is a very intimate thing. When I look through the lens, what is there is all there is in the universe. Nothing else matters at that moment. I have chosen to frame the image in a certain way, and nothing exists beyond that frame. I've left things out, and I may have had to move my physical location to get the exact right composition from as little as an inch to a foot or even a completely different angle.
A crazy example:
I wanted to capture a certain hill in the desert with a large cactus in the foreground. I felt reverence for this hill’s unwavering presence and hoped to pass this emotion on to others. Words would simply not do. I backed up step by step until the image was in the frame the way I envisioned it in my mind (imagination). Several different exposures helped to make sure I had at least one good photo, i.e. quality of composition, focus, color, lighting, lead lines, shapes, etc, all coming together correctly to fulfill the purpose of the photo (thinking).
Then I stepped forward to collect my belongings, and, checking behind me, realized that one of my feet had been exactly on the edge of a 50-foot cliff. Talk about sensation ! Stomach in my throat! My professor's voice: "Do whatever it takes to get that picture -- hang from the chandelier if you have to." But hanging from a cliff is another matter. Having been completely absorbed in getting the image I was determined to capture (desire/impulse), I had forgotten to attend to my immediate surroundings. Had I moved back one step more, no one would ever have seen me again -- I was in an isolated area and no one knew where I had gone except "into the desert."
Photography taps into emotions on two levels: images are created by the feelings of the creator, and they evoke feelings in the viewer. This was the case one day at sunset on a lakeshore. Several people stood still as the sky evolved into one of the most spectacular sunsets we had ever seen. We looked at each other speechlessly, sensing the spiritual reverence of the moment. While staying in this mood, I impulsively took as many photos as I could -- sunsets only last around 10 minutes. When the magic began to fade, we returned to our normal day-to-day awareness levels, gathered our belongings and started leaving.
As I approached my car, a woman was just arriving. I commented to her that she had just missed a beyond-belief vision, and she regretted that she was too late. I showed her the photos in my camera's playback, and even from these tiny thumbnail images, she was able to experience some of the emotion the sunset had elicited in me.
I impulsively took as many photos as I could.
Heading to Shore
ON MEDITATION IN JAIL, Roberto Assagioli
I want to share this description by Roberto Assagioli, father of psychosynthesis, of how he was able to still his mind (one of the goals of meditation) while in solitary confinement in 1940. He was arrested by Mussolini's fascist regime for the crime of "praying for peace and inviting others to join him". It came from his book Freedom in Jail, where he explores the use of challenging life events as a chance to grow personally and spiritually.
The Stilling of the Mind
I adopted the method of letting it jump and run, while observing it in a calm, detached way. Better this than forcible suppression.
At first a mild interest, a sense of humour, a smiling observation, coupled with a close firm watchfulness in order not to become involved in the mind’s activity.
At first many failures, but by and by less and less ...
Gradually, the mind got tired, calmed down spontaneously and, like a child or a boy who had had his fill of running and playing, came back subdued and in an attitude as of asking what to do, of waiting for orders.
Then:
Gradually a sense of light, of stability, of permanency as a diamond. Then a sense of power, of calm indomitable power, mastery.
Then, a sense of radiation, effulgence.
From: Freedom in Jail, Roberto Assagioli
FAREWELL, LITTLE JUMPY...
It is sad for me to tell of Jumpy’s passing a few days before her 14th birthday.
She was the best little companion anyone could have.
I will tell more about her when I am able.
DOUBLE JUMPY WITH BOOKS