It doesn’t matter now. You’ve been drafted and sent to the front lines. The only question that remains is: “Are you willing to fight to become your authentic Self?” No one else can do this for you. You must stand or fall alone. Your two most powerful adversaries are the ideal self and the positivistic self. What’s that? You ask what’s wrong with trying to become my ideal self? To start with it’s not your ideal self that you’re trying to realize. It’s the ideal self of your parents, teachers, boyfriends, girlfriends, and society-at-large. The ideal self is impossible for you to achieve. It’s an image of who you are that has been patched together and projected onto you. It does not even rest upon a foundation that springs from your actual Being.

Your second adversary is much more insidious and cunning. I will go into a more detailed portrayal of its character because it is currently the greatest threat to realizing an authentic Self. Positivism believes that it is the sole possessor of objective truth. Positivism rejects all introspective and intuitive knowledge. The positivistic self creates a schism between what you do and what you are. It ultimately leads to the belief that we are all separate, soulless entities.

The positivistic self is like a balloon. Floating farther and farther away from the Earth. Untethered. Inflated by rationalism. Buoyed by abstraction. A single strand of instinct dangles from its tiny knot. Desperately it waits for someone’s hand to reach out and grab hold of this tenuous thread. To guide the positivistic self back towards the Soul. Back towards Being. Before it drifts deeper and deeper into those infinite spaces. Where dread replaces reason.

The positivistic self will make you its prisoner. Condemning you to serve out an ontological sentence. Institutionalized. Locking you away inside a Cartesian cell so long that freedom becomes a fallacy. Separating you from matter by walls of the mind. Every day you will become hardened, like a criminal inside a mechanized mold. Every day you will become more at home inside this behavioral big house. Until causation eclipses meaning.

The only one who knows if you’re being true to your Self is you. The moments when you’ve lived your truth stay with you forever. They are almost impossible to forget; though some of us have. Those who have forgotten are the fallen soldiers. Beware of the fallen soldiers. Those amongst the ranks who would advise you to deny parts of your Self. Those amongst the ranks who would whisper in your ear: “There is no authentic Self. If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.” Those who would love to see you plunge on your own sword and become disillusioned and disenchanted.

Do not be tempted or tricked into betraying your Self. When you deny parts of your genuine Self these parts do not simply vanish. They linger inside of you and poison your Spirit at its source. Much of what we awkwardly refer to as “depression” is the disowned parts of your real Self that are being forcefully de-pressed into your unconscious. The world is as alluring and full of possibility right now as it ever has been. In fact, your ability to actualize your real Self is what helps to make this so.

You see, by avoiding combat and by choosing not to fight you aren’t the only casualty. We all lose. We are deprived of the unique contribution that only you can give. Whatever offering you had to share is gone forever. As Thoreau remarked: “Most men die with their music still inside of them.” No one really knows what they are capable of being unless they try and find out. The endowment you have could be anything. It is the purpose for which you were born. The joy you can create by defying consensus reality, by resisting fear and by refusing to settle for a watered-down, mediocre version of yourself will inspire others to become what they are. It will also make the world more beautiful.

Are you willing to fight to become your authentic Self?

The dangers of being a chronic people pleaser are dark and deceptive.
They insinuate themselves into your psyche with a calculated subtlety. Before you know it the unholy trinity of stress, resentment and self-alienation has taken hold.

Overwhelming stress is the first sign that your desire to please others has become destructive. When you take on more tasks than you can handle because you are afraid of disappointing someone you are engaging in people pleasing behavior. This starts the cycle. There is a constant feeling that you are too busy to get everything done. Instead of pulling back from some of your responsibilities to others you decide to stop making time for yourself to do things like exercise or eat lunch. You don’t know the power of the dark side.

Then comes the resentment. Unexpressed anger about having to be all things to all people gets suppressed; transforming itself into bitter resentment. Passive-aggressive behaviors begin to surface during this stage as well. Hurtful sarcastic comments towards others and giving people “guilt trips” about how much you’re doing for them are two common ways that resentment reveals itself. Serious damage to relationships can occur during this stage as you drift farther and farther away from your authentic self.

Self-alienation is the third, and most devastating, stage of being a chronic people pleaser. You have spent so much time neglecting your own needs that you don’t even know what your needs are anymore. You have lost touch with your true self and replaced it with the compulsive drive to be liked or needed. Being alone with your thoughts brings up feelings of unbearable emptiness that often lead to addictive behaviors and co-dependent relationships. It does not have to end up this way. There are ways to interrupt or reverse this cycle and get back in touch with your true self. Here are ten ways to stop yourself from becoming a chronic people pleaser:

1. Learn to say no with confidence

2. Set clear boundaries and follow through

3. Realize when you’re being manipulated

4. Don’t apologize when it’s not your fault

5. Make yourself a priority

6. Remember that you can always choose to say no

7. Know what is important to you

8. Set realistic expectations of yourself

9. Don’t justify why you said no: you don’t have to

10. Face the fear of disappointing others

First of all, it heightens the functioning of your brain. When your body engages in rhythmic movements, such as walking, both sides of your brain are being utilized. This results in the stimulation of more complex neural pathways. It also increases access to memories and helps you integrate new knowledge. I have witnessed clients have insights while walking that may never have occurred indoors.

Secondly, there is the immersion in natural beauty. The soul requires beauty in order to remain vibrant. It craves beauty. Something inside of us withers when we become aesthetically deprived. On the contrary, active appreciation of nature’s elegance fuels imagination and allows us to re-connect with our genuine core. I concur with John Keats when he stated that: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

Finally, walk and talk therapy allows clients to put their dilemmas into a larger perspective. Oftentimes problems are blown out of proportion due to an overly myopic mindset. Standing underneath the sky during a therapy session is a reminder that all of our issues occur within the context of the natural world. We are not separate from nature. In fact, our mental and physical lives unfold in concert with the nature. It is our home.

I offer the option of meeting outdoors to many of my clients. Those who take me up on the offer usually want to do it again. Whether we continue to meet in nature or in the office the ultimate goal remains the same: to help people become what they are.

Carl Jung believed that below the surface of our psyche their lies both a personal and a collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is, in Jung’s words: “everything you know but are not at this moment thinking about.” The collective unconscious lies deeper down and is passed along to every member of a species. You could also think of the collective unconscious as genetic, or racial memory that is inherited through the process of evolution. Jung explains that the psyche regulates itself by maintaining an equilibrium between these different layers of consciousness. He also proposed two basic approaches to working with dream material; the subjective and the objective. The objective approach takes every image in a dream at face value. If you dream of your mother that image refers to your mother. The subjective approach is less literal and treats each character in a dream as an aspect of the dreamer’s personality.

The Gestalt theory of dream interpretation maintains that each part of a dream becomes comprehensible only in relation to the whole. Both animate and inanimate objects are considered parts of the dreamer’s psyche, from this vantage point. For example, if you dream of a bridge this may represent an aspect of yourself that is attempting to make connections between two separate elements within your self. The goal of this approach is to accept and re-integrate areas that may have been repressed or ignored. Role-playing is often used as a technique in Gestalt dreamwork. The dreamer can engage any image from their dream in a dialogue. This enables the dreamer to bring fragments of themselves into communication with eachother and resolve unfinished issues.

Australian Aborigines believe that the world was created by ancestral totemic spirits during a sacred epoch called Dreamtime. During the Dreamtime the designs for life were set in place. According to their views, each person dwells eternally in the Dreaming. A person’s spirit enters life from the Dreaming at birth and returns to the Dreaming at their death. Australian Aborigines also view all of life as an interconnected system that can be traced back to the beginning. They experience the Dreaming as “all at once time” rather that “one thing after another time.” This means that the past, present and future co-exist without separation. Dreams confirm this seamless reality for the Australian Aborigines because time and space lose their relevance. Exploring indigenous beliefs about dreams and reality can be an effective way to challenge and refine your own worldview.

Once you have a perspective from which to understand your dreams it can be very powerful to express them artistically.  To take something intangible and give it form.  This also serves the purpose of honoring the dream itself and signals to your unconscious psyche that you are listening. Dreams can be drawn, painted, acted out, turned into stories or even sung.  Small gestures such as these will strengthen the relationship between your conscious and unconscious. Your conscious mind then sprouts wider roots into the depths of your psyche. This, in turn, sets a fertile foundation for sustained personality growth.

Five aspects of William James’ theory of mental life are:

1. Experience is complete chaos without selective interest. Before something can be experienced it must
be attended to.

2. Thoughts emerge from a stream of consciousness. An individual thought receives its force, focus and
direction from the thoughts which precede it.

3. Pragmatism, which holds that truth is to be tested by the practical consequences of belief. It can be
summed up with the phrase: “whatever works, is likely true.”

4. The self is really made up of many selves that exist in a fluctuating field.

5. Human beings have animal instincts, such as fear, that are inborn rather than taught.

William James was one of the most original thinkers in the field of depth psychology. His ideas continue to impact how we conceive ourselves and our world. For further reading I would recommend “The Varieties of Religious Experience” and “The Will to Believe.”

Nature has endowed us with an unconscious mind that perpetually produces streams of images which lie just below the surface of conscious awareness. The unconscious is continually active and never completely turns off. When we sleep, the ego relinquishes control of the mind and allows itself to be submerged back into the depths of the unconscious. During this time, a portion of our awareness stays intact and directly experiences the flow of these images as dreams. A random series of forms cascade over what now remains of the conscious ego. We find ourselves swept along inside of a fantastic story that the psyche simultaneously creates, observes and participates in.

The images we encounter in dreams are symbolic depictions of unconscious processes within the psyche. They animate us from within. They also strive to communicate with the conscious mind and help it to transform. Dream narratives attempt to compensate for the tendency of consciousness to become one-sided and overly literal. When we awaken, the ego reemerges from the depths and regains a sense of authority. Dreams are often quickly forgotten or dismissed by the conscious mind as meaningless fictions, concocted by an unsupervised psyche. Their messages start to sink back down into the unconscious and the images may seem to be irretrievably lost. This is not the case.

The human psyche is always dreaming.

Dreaming does not stop just because we are awake. It only appears to cease because we are distracted by the outer events of life and by waking consciousness. If the conscious mind has been unwilling or unable to decipher the cryptic messages of nocturnal dreams, it is still possible to engage with the contents of waking dreams. Personality transformation absolutely depends upon maintaining this relationship between the ego and the unconscious. It’s the only way the unconscious mind can irrigate the conscious mind and help something new to bloom within the psyche. For this to occur, the conscious mind must release the authoritative grasp it tries to hold on the psyche as a whole. When we allow ourselves to slip into reverie, the images will once again present themselves to us. As a random series of forms float past us, it becomes possible to consciously engage with what we encounter. This is called active imagination. By acknowledging and integrating the imaginal contents of the unconscious mind, we expand the scope of our conscious minds. The process is not without perils. The ego must be strong enough to loosen the filter without becoming completely absorbed back into the unconscious. It also must be flexible enough to let the images permeate the surface of consciousness.

There are dangers and benefits involved in keeping your filter excessively rigid. The main benefit is that you can persist in believing that you have yourself all figured out. You may even get to fancy yourself “sane” or “normal.” This dubious boon comes at the cost of being cut off from the movement of instinctual energy through your personality. This happens when the ego over-identifies with the persona. As a result, we believe that the façade we show to the world is all that we are. Eventually, this results in a sense of alienation from what is truly unique and alive inside of us. We become petrified inside of our own skin. We feel unable to touch, feel or impact the course of our lives. Stagnation ensues.

There are also dangers and benefits involved in greatly loosening the filter:

Someone who cannot integrate the flood of images may become psychotic.
Someone who fully integrates the torrent of images may become a mystic.
Someone who constantly strives to integrate the surge of images may become an artist.

The human psyche is always dreaming.

This article was originally published in the Spring 2016 issue of Catahoula which you can find out more about by clicking here

Four common qualities of a person in a co-dependent relationship are: poor boundaries, need for control, denial and unhealthy levels of caretaking. One of these features alone does not indicate a propensity for co-dependency though the possibility becomes greater when more of these traits are present.

Poor boundaries means that someone’s boundaries are either too weak or too rigid. Healthy boundaries are flexible boundaries. When the line between where one person ends and the other person begins become blurred there are weak boundaries. When one person is totally closed off to another there are excessively stiff boundaries. Someone that is co-dependent will often fluctuate between weak and rigid boundaries in a relationship.

Loss of control is one of the greatest fears of a co-dependent person. To alleviate their anxiety a co-dependent person often becomes excessively controlling. It’s as though they try to avoid dealing with their own inner chaos by strictly demanding external order of others. This can take a positive or negative form. A co-dependent person can easily become a people-pleaser who attempts to control others by being “perfect” all the time. Controlling behavior can take a more overtly negative form when the person constantly manipulates others to achieve a desired result. When this happen wielding power gradually becomes more important than expressing love.

Denial runs deep in co-dependent relationships. It starts with denying one’s own feelings and needs for “the good” of someone else. Then it spreads to include not taking responsibility for how they may be enabling the other person and perpetuating the dysfunction. There is a fierce resistance to admitting anything is wrong or to appearing vulnerable in any way. As long as the problem is outside of themselves they can continue to play the role of savior, victim, hero or all of the above.

Excessive caretaking is usually present in one member of a co-dependent relationship. The caretaker puts everyone else’s needs ahead of their own. On the surface this behavior appears to be noble and generous. The problem arises when the caretaker loses their own sense of self in the process. When this happens the caretaker becomes resentful of the person who does not want their help. Next the caretaker assumes the role of a persecuted victim who isn’t being appreciated “after all I’ve done for you.”

There is always a level of dependence in relationships. A healthy relationship occurs when each person is interdependent. This is accomplished by maintaining flexible boundaries that allow both people to remain as separate individuals. Interdependent relationships are also characterized by mutual trust, respect and willingness to let the other person grow.

If you are struggling with these issues I would recommend reading either “Facing Co-Dependence” by Pia Mellody or “Co-Dependent No-More” by Melody Beattie in conjunction with consulting a therapist trained in this area.

Another option is to listen to disturbing feelings as the voices of our Soul telling us what it needs. Oftentimes when our Souls speak loudly we become ashamed and are told we have a disorder of some sort. There is an impulse to try and fix the problem as if the psyche were a car that had malfunctioned. Many times the real disorder present is the division between our true Being and how we are living.

The Soul is not concerned with who we consciously think we should be. It is speaking up for who we truly are. Soul-work is a way to honor the mystery that we embody and to “live out” the big questions rather than to solve them. It is also a way to reclaim what we have disowned and approach wholeness.

Two ways to begin working with your Soul are through paying attention to dreams and by acting on intuition. Dreams symbolically represent the current state of your psyche as a whole. They also attempt to balance out the conscious mind when it becomes too one-sided. Intuition speaks to us directly from the unconscious. By acting on intuition we build trust in our Being and become less fragmented.

Soul-work doesn’t pathologize the human condition or shame people for not being happy all the time. Soul-work embraces pain as an inevitable and essential part of self-actualization. As Carl Jung has remarked:

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

The Greeks believed that inspiration came from goddesses called muses. The muses were considered to be responsible for all human knowledge of science, literature and the arts in ancient culture. Artists and poets were thought to enter into a state of ecstasy or furor poeticus. During this mood of divine frenzy the artists were carried out of their minds and gained access to the transcendent thoughts of an individual goddess. Each goddess embodied a specific area of understanding or creativity.

If you’re in need of a Hellenic revelation just drive through the Lower Garden District and make an offering to: Calliope (Epic poetry), Clio (History), Erato (Love poetry), Euterpe (Song), Melpomene (Tragedy), Polymnia (Hymns), Terpsichore (Dance), Thalia (Comedy) and Urania (Astronomy).

In Christianity inspiration has been seen as a gift from the Holy Spirit. Christian theologians believe that the writers of scripture were taken over by the voice of God. This kept the text free from being influenced by a person’s mortal thoughts, which would have skewed the divine message.  Johann Sebastian Bach was a Christian composer who found his inspiration to create in the celebration of his faith. He saw music as a sacred art and has been quoted as saying: “Music’s only purpose should be the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit.”

The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge had a particularly fascinating view of where inspiration came from. In “The Eolian Harp” he likens the creation of a poem to the gentle acceptance and channeling of divine air currents. He seeks to find the divine within nature and establish humanity’s unity with nature. Here is an excerpt from The Eolian Harp:

     And what if all of animated nature

Be but organic Harps diversely framed,

That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

Sigmund Freud believed that artistic inspiration was mainly fueled by unresolved psychological turmoil within the psyche of the artist. He conceived this psychic chaos to be the product of early childhood trauma, the repression of erotic energy or the breakdown of the ego’s defense mechanisms. Sigmund also re-introduced the idea that artists have a special capacity to enter into a “poetic phrensy” in attempts to heal their own inner wounds.

Modern psychology is currently at a loss when it comes to understanding inspiration and perhaps this is for the best. Inspiration does not need to be measured nor medicated. It appears to come most naturally when our mind relinquishes conscious control and attunes itself to something more expansive. A double espresso probably can’t hurt either.

The diagnosis of ADHD is very subjective. An ADHD diagnosis is based on a child’s behavior; not on any type of objective measure. There are no biological markers for this disorder. All you need to do is tell a doctor that your child cannot sit still at school or cannot concentrate at home and you will most likely get a prescription for amphetamines such as Adderall or Vyvanse. Research strongly suggests that males and very young children are at an even higher risk for being misdiagnosed with ADHD. A child’s symptoms of hyperactivity or lack of concentration may be natural and healthy reactions to issues occurring in the family or school environment that are distressing. They may also be related to trauma. Treating the symptom does not alleviate the root problem; it exacerbates it.

The story of how Bi-polar came to be so over-diagnosed in children is truly a sad one. Over the past fifteen years there has been a fortyfold increase in the number of children diagnosed with this illness. Bi-polar, formerly known as manic-depression, had always been a diagnosis that was primarily given to adults. One of the hallmark symptoms of this illness is the presence of mania. The definition of mania is: mental illness marked by periods of great excitement, euphoria, delusions, and overactivity. No mania? No problem. In the mid-nineties a small group of psychiatrists began publishing papers that suggested irritability, agitation and hyperactivity in children are forms of “pediatric mania.” Voila, childhood onset bi-polar disorder. Seriously.  I am not making this up. Once this diagnosis is given it opens up the floodgates for prescription of medications such as: Lithium, Depakote, Abilify, Zyprexa, Geodon, Risperdol, Seroquel and Topomax.

So what’s wrong with giving these powerful chemical to kids that may not need them? A few of the possible side effects include: seizures, weight gain, stunted growth, delay in brain development, cognitive impairments, increased thoughts of suicide, stomach pain, sleeplessness, high blood pressure, vomiting, headache, decreased appetite, psychosis that includes hallucinations, heart palpitations and arrhythmia to name a few. It is also very difficult for children to get off of these medications once they start as withdrawal symptoms can be severe. The scariest part is that no one really knows what the long-term effects of these medications are on the development of a child’s mind and body.

A child’s safety is the ultimate priority. There are times when the responsible prescription of a medication that is actually needed can make all the difference though medication does not have to be the first resort. Family therapy, individual therapy, behavioral interventions and parenting skills can effect real change. Please give these things a try. When you go to a doctor ask a lot of questions. Make sure they see you for a minimum of one hour before giving your child a diagnosis or medication. Most of all, take your time to find out what is really causing your child’s symptoms.

Unfortunately, it has become much easier to swallow a pill than to swallow the truth.

For further reading please check out this article in Newsweek by child psychiatrist, Stuart Kaplan, M.D. entitled “Mommy, Am I Really Bi-Polar?”: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/06/19/mommy-am-i-really-bipolar.html , and this report

“Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young” from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02kids.html