Month: June 2016

During my 15 years as a mental health therapist and more than 25 years as a life coach and spiritual director, I have exposed that the most fear of every human being is rooted in the helplessness of childhood. This kind of fear can probably be described as an instinctual fear. That fear was born when children had to leave a fully protective environment in the womb. The cry for the first time is an instinctual reaction to survive.

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The helplessness of childhood is indicated by at least 2 factors, such as (1) being physically handicapped even to fill the basic needs. Because of these physical limitations, children are not able to remove themselves from the dangerous situation, therefore, become highly dependent on others to give protection; and (2) cognitively limited, which gives limitation to recognizing danger, knowing who can be trusted, but instinctually surrender and trust to parents or caregivers.

Within this dynamic, fear becomes one of the primitive emotions and primitive imprinted dogmatic voice that teaches children to surrender and attach to their caregivers regardless of their condition to survive. Therefore, they are highly vulnerable to mental and emotional intimidation and manipulation. They are very sensitive to the reality of rejection and abandonment. The instinctual terror arises from the mind that thinks not in words but in feelings and images.

Most of the children I asked about their nightmares gave descriptions with specific patterns of similarity that they have about being chased and devoured by monsters or wild animals that can talk in their nightmares. Interestingly, these nightmares still occur even in children who have never been exposed to the idea of a monster.

The study (2008), published in the journal Sleep, suggests that most children’s nightmares may be linked to the child’s personality traits. Researchers found that most parents of preschoolers reported that their children had nightmares “never” or “sometimes,” with less than 4% having nightmares “often” and “always.”

Children with frequent nightmares were likelier to be considered anxious by their parents and have difficult temperaments. They found that the risk factors for nightmares shared common traits that emerged as early as 5 months of age.

Moreover, researchers also found that young children with frequent nightmares have similarity psychologically and emotional defects, as shown in the study of adults with frequent nightmares. Both of them generally suffer from distress and other emotional problems. Protective factors, including parents’ or caregivers’ capability to provide emotional nurturing after children awake from nightmares, also play a significant role.

The question is how to liberate the self from destructive fears that terrorize and paralyze your life?

Based on my experiences, at least three levels of approaches need to be incorporated into one’s psyche during therapeutic interventions.

• The first is the personal level. Because the root of the fears is probably in the helplessness of childhood, with professional help, you need to uproot the deep sense of worthiness, unveil the hidden self-worth, and redraft the positive self-image. Through the therapy process, you move from pessimism to optimism, embrace low self-esteem through positive self-talk, and transform self-critical to self-appraisal & gratitude.
• The second is the interpersonal level. Because of the fears rooted in defective primitive relationships with parents or caregivers, you must acknowledge that you are visible and voiceable. You learn to acclaim that you exist and are worthy. With the professional therapist, you move from rejection and abandonment thoughts and emotions to self-worth and mutually projected truthful, genuine relationships. The maladaptive imprinted dogmatic voices are then unlearned by replaying transforming voices from true, genuine, trustful, intimate, non-judgmental positive regards relationships. You are transforming all your senses from the sense of impossibility to possibility.
• The third is the transpersonal level. You embrace the areas of consciousness beyond the limits of personal identity. You embrace a greater sense of surrender, awe, and gratitude. You allow yourself to be transcended. You move away from your “ego-centered, ” continuously restating self-pity and self-stupidity. You come to believe you are not alone and are the worst victim in this universe. Through the profound healing therapeutic encounters, you and your therapist walk together to find gratitude, happiness, peace, forgiveness, and freedom from the depth that transforms you to experience the absolute within.

You learn to see, hear, and experience the possibilities. You have multiple chances and ways in the therapeutic process to reconnect with the “unlimited absolute peace, forgiveness, compassion, and total positivity.” You are “there” naturally, even without carrying a dust of fear. Beyond all of your accomplishments, you understand that these connectedness experiences are as free given states of grace. You experience your total worth of you because you allow it happens. You open and allow your mind and heart to be in the therapeutic journey. You interact genuinely in the profound therapeutic healing encounters offered, which then become sacred healing transforming therapeutic experiences. You believe in it and work on that wholeheartedly, yet you still let the possibilities from the unlimited blessings happen.

You are experiencing “Satori” (i.e., an experience that is often described as a turning over of the mind, surrendering, going through the gate, awakening, as a result of an inner decision to be in harmony with yourself and your physical world. It is a decision of sacred surrender, mind, and heart, to let go of control). Click here to read more about the meaning of Satori.

Do you agree with this statement?  If somebody really wants to be happy, nobody can stop him from being happy. Happiness definitely is an inside job! Nobody can ruin one’s happiness! They can probably upset someone but can only temporarily displace one’s happiness. Because still, nobody can take away one’s happiness. Thus, to cultivate the fullness of life, one needs to trust this reality as a daily truth ~ every day, every morning when waking up in the morning ~ that “nobody can ruin one’s happiness unless he or she allows it to happen.”

Some people probably think the statement above is too simple and untouchable with reality. Still, some findings tell that one’s happiness positively correlates with one’s capability to develop the character of saying yes to the statement “nobody can ruin one’s happiness.” When a person can say yes to his or her “self” about that matter, that person believes that he or she can enhance the capability to make life happier. Therefore, that person will have better and greater chances of being a happier person in the present moment and in the future.

Saying yes for own happiness to the “self” and meaning it and doing it is significant. One needs to agree and commit first to allow one to be happy and become a happier person. With that positive conviction, one can strive more and believe more in the possibility of being a happier person. In this dynamic, the person flows with positive core belief and then becomes a part of the flow itself, and the flow becomes a happening, which transforms this person into a happier one.

The challenge is when one doesn’t believe in it but still says it and then feels miserable inside. Or, when one says it but doesn’t know the meaning of it and keeps saying it but doesn’t go with it. Or, when one says “yes” only to please the others who are “asking” or “inviting” to satisfy, not to hurt, not to disappoint the others. Or, the statement “yes” is already a daily commodity, stored in the subconsciousness, which is stated by a person without depth, without entity and meaning. Or when to scare off the consequences of saying “yes” and not wanting to take responsibility for being seen differently. Even there is a more painful reality when one says “yes” only to compromise with the screaming of the wounded inner voices trembling and shaking with only the thought of saying “No.”

Again, “nobody can ruin one’s happiness.” When a person says “yes” about that matter with bold, depth, and strong entity, then there will be a movement that follows. This inner movement brings to the real possibility that change is happening; that challenges the status quo of the self is starting. It is an inner act of bugging and correcting the comfortable position.

When one says “yes” to the statement “nobody can ruin one’s happiness,” the inner self is just telling the mind, heart, and body to listen to the inner thirst. One starts believing that thirst is real. The thirst becomes an inner calling to shred down all self-defense. Then plunge one’s mind and heart into the call and enter the core, and then discover the grit that doesn’t let the mind and heart rest until it is uncovered.

You will experience those things in the therapy sessions. You will learn that ambivalence is a wake-up call to move on and to change for the better version of you. You will be challenged to choose between the conflicts because you have power over yourself to be happy, and “nobody can ruin your happiness unless you allow it happens.” You need to choose to be happy, either you are in the positions: (1) All the choices are sweet—sugars—positive; (2) between the devil and the deep blue sea—when all the choices are negative; (3) at the time you are attracted to and repelled by the same object—Fatal Attraction–“I can’t live with it, and I can’t live without it!” Roulette Game! Or (4) when you are torn between two alternatives (lovers, lifestyles, work, and children, etc.)—Each has both enticing positive and powerful negative aspects.

Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow and hollow, then this light is nearest of all to us ~ Meister Eckhart.

One of the great fears of modern society is the fear of loneliness and alienation. This is the most personal of fears. Loneliness or alienation is hurt. The pain is not just psychological; it often manifests through physical symptoms that refuse to go away—or even walking away, escaping from others. It gets worse when it is followed by panic attack symptoms and becoming a codependent person. The uncertainty, feeling isolated and imminent threats preoccupied my mind. There is a deep hollow inside the heart, empty at the core of being. Worthless becomes a reality. T.S. Eliot expressed this experience in his poem, “The Hollow Men,” saying:

 We are the hollow men.

We are the stuffed men.

Learning together

Headpiece filled with straw.

Hollow people feel they have no foundation, nothing to build their lives upon. They feel that no one, above all, no one cares for them. Look at how the Samaritan woman was not willing to draw water in the morning or in the evening together with another woman who would habitually come to the well because they were avoiding the heat.

Amazingly, the deepest yearning to quench the thirst is actually unstoppable.

The story of the Samaritan woman (John 4:5-25) probably can explain this miraculous guidance. She, who was in a sorrowful and hollow situation, finally met with the divine professional “Healer.”

When she whispered, her dried voice was quiet and meaningless, as the wind in dry grass… She was thirsty inside…

Searching for water under the midday sun perhaps spiritually symbolized how desperately she needed to find something to quench her thirst. She had tried everything, including “five husbands.” She had forgotten—that mostly, the lonely—and the alienated person often tended to reconnect with someone who was equally lonely, alienated, isolated, rejected, and empty within. She leaned on just another person of straw.

The healing transformation story started when she was aware of her shadow (i.e., sorrow and hollow), miraculously meeting with a great professional divine “Healer.” Jesus began the conversation: “Give me a drink!” It meant, “I thirst!” He put himself at the same pace as the thirsty woman. He got her attention.

That starting conversation was powerful and very therapeutic. It was explained by Carl G. Jung, who said,

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious”

At no time is the Samaritan woman more conscious of her “darkness” of life when it is exposed in the noon, in the midst of heat and burning light. At that moment, she could trust that her dark night of life had come in service of the light. She could breathe through the transition and did the necessary work to prepare for her rebirth. She moved from a codependency to an interdependency personality. The therapeutic conversation guided her to stand on the threshold and commit to the healing transformation journey to becoming new.

She was more aware at that moment that she was not alone. She was standing and talking with a professional divine “Healer.” The external and internal ideologies, belief systems, and old-time dogmatic statements that block the genuine, truthful relationship were crumbling down. Her statement, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” didn’t mean anything now. Instead of debating or reasoning, she experienced directly that the Healer offered her “living water.”

Furthermore, she was challenged to be more mindful of managing her faith and confidence in the healing transformation process. Her new belief system was installed. Her awareness of her inadequacies had been transformed throughout the direct therapeutic conversation with the professional divine “Healer.” She journeyed from deficit to the fullness of discipleship.

The walls of the frozen culture, religious boundaries, ideologies, theologies, beliefs systems, or dogmatic teachings that had divided and abandoned one another in the family of human race, between Jews and Samaritans, between the status or position of male and female, husband and wife, between parents and children were broken down.

The miraculous therapeutic encounter freed her as a person. She had the strength and courage to rush back to her city to become a witness that the healing had happened. She proclaimed and gave testimony to the whole village. She left her water bucket at the well and her old way of life behind. She had been healed and transformed.

Her heart was not hollow anymore.

Her heart delights with divine mercy!

Her soul has not filled with straws anymore!

Her soul was filled with a spring of water that welled up to eternal life!

Her soul worshiped, proclaimed, and gave testimony and gratitude wholeheartedly to the world!

One thing you need to be more mindful of is that when you say “living in the present,” you must first cultivate “trust.” It is almost impossible to experience the flow of life and grow up to fullness if you don’t have trust. When you don’t trust someone or something, it will raise inside you some possible “inferiority thoughts or feelings,” which will stop the flow.

Those thoughts and feelings are associated with the state of being resistant, judgmental, hesitant, fearful, dishonest, indifferent, shut down, closed, suspicious, and paranoia. They directly and continuously filter your ways at the time you interact with your spouse, partner, children, or others.  

On the contrary, trust enables you to proceed with unconditional assurance to tap into the unknown. You just be and flow. You can experience the total realities with the whole of you. You believe that what you do will not fail, and if it fails, then you know there are reasons behind it. You won’t regret it because the value lies in the process, not a specific outcome. You convince, ultimately, everything works for the greater good. You dare to expose your vulnerabilities to someone or to your surroundings.

You create a safe presence in your thoughts and feelings. You believe that someone or the surroundings will not hurt you but is helping you grow even more. You become less defensive. You develop a unique capability to open your mind and heart more to the larger realities, with more positivity and possibilities, more receptive to uncertainty,  and more passion in the interaction or in giving responses. Amazing right!

In other words, trust is incredibly healing and transforming. Trust leads you to hear the voice within and you follow it without hesitation. Trust gives you courage to tell the truth, to be more flexible, to recite gratitude, and of course to be more generous.

Unbelievably, trust, by itself, is an unconditional positive regard toward self and others. The trust then welcomes others to see themselves as they were and are “in and with” you and transform them for the better. That is why professional therapists will convey trust in their therapeutic journey with clients for both individuals and couples. Again, trust is the groundwork and the primary goal of therapy that show the way of healing.