Ecopsychology as part of the Integral Vision

Beloveds: Click on this link for the latest events in ecopsychology, a fundamental dimension
of Integral Psychotherapy.

Love, light and shadow, Jalaledin
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/upcoming-eopsychology-events.html?soid=1101683954453&aid=BEUOOw3ggOg

Trauma and its treatment: An integral approach

Beloveds:

Having survived a head-on collision (as a passenger) on September 3, 2013 with a fractured shoulder that required surgery, a sprained ankle, major seat belt bruises and minor cuts and bruises, I have been observing my own symptoms from this traumatic event. It might be helpful to make a self-assessment using an integral approach.

1) I get tired easily and can get irritable in a noisy or chaotic environment.
2) Sleep has been sketchy because I have had to keep my arm in a sling and cannot turn from side to side easily. I have been unable to do my morning Qigong routine to move my Qi around. My sleep rhythm is off because I sleep earlier and wake earlier.
3) Daily chores such as showering and getting dressed were very challenging for the first 2 weeks. This is getting easier as I begin to heal.
4) My concentration was very poor for the first 2 1/2 weeks and I could not pick up any books to read (one of my favorite leisure activities).
5) I have tired of repetitive coverage on cable news but would probably do that anyway if I was home to watch news all day.
6) I have resisted visits from friends unless they come alone or as couples and visit briefly.
7) It has been difficult to ride in a car/van as a passenger on the freeway. My anxiety level increases.
8) The lack of structured activities in my day has been challenging, but I have managed to hobble along on a walk by the ocean every day.

Taking the integral perspective, here are my observations and my treatment plan:

UPPER RIGHT QUADRANT - SELF PSYCHOLOGY:

1) A lack of restful sleep effects my level of energy, my focus and my concentration.

2) The physical impairments are cause for irritability. Thank God for my chiropractic treatment three times per week! Unfortunately I have not been able to do my regular morning Qigong...which normally helps to move the Qi through my body! Today, October 2, 2013, after reading Pat Ogden's work on "Trauma and the Body," I consulted a trauma therapist who is familiar with her work and the work of Peter Levine. She suggested that I try to do my Qigong even without the use of one arm...I just did this and feel the Qi begin to move again through my body. I have scheduled sessions with this trauma therapist for October 17 and also plan to get a referral for acupuncture which is covered by my worker's compensation insurance.

3) I have not had to take any narcotic pain killers and relied on a 1000 mg of Tylenol for the first 2 weeks, after which I stopped taking any medication.

4) Min-Tran, a Standard Process product has helped to relax me enough to get to sleep at night but not enough to get a full night's sleep. Sleep continues to be periodic instead of restful and refreshing.

5) Bengay on my left elbow, left knee and sprained right angle seem more like a placebo...but it is a form of self-caring.

6) I think I need to drink more water or fluids!

7) I engage in creative imagination exercises seeing myself as whole and very healthy!

LOWER RIGHT QUADRANT - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY:

1) I have been able to access an efficient and reliable health care system from the medic who found a vein in a fast moving ambulance to the doctors and nurses who provided care at the hospital to my chiropractor.

2) I have been able to access a great support system including a) a caring sibling and social network, b) workers' compensation benefits, c) community supported transportation for the disabled and d)  legal aid on a contingency basis.

3) This experience of being held with loving care and attention gives me a great sense of gratitude for so many caring individuals who have gone out of their way to render whatever assistance they can provide.

4) The deep sense of connection that comes from a caring community provides the motivation to reciprocate in kind in the future. Love clearly makes the world go around!

LOWER LEFT QUADRANT - CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY:

1) My sister brought me some of my favorite ethnic foods which gave me much pleasure and a sense of the familiar.

2) Living in a cultural paradigm in which work is so highly valued makes it difficult to rest on one's self-esteem when we are disabled.

3) Finding ways to stay connected and experience a sense of community through social media and the blogosphere have been very helpful.

4) Finding music and entertainment by surfing cable and public broadcasting channels has been a gratifying distraction!

UPPER LEFT QUADRANT - TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY:

1) It has been difficult to maintain a consistent spiritual practice, especially meditation which has been inhibited by a lack of sleep, concentration and focus. Subsequent to my trauma therapist's suggestion on October 2, 2013, that I resume my Qigong practice, even with one arm, I was able to sit for approx. 30 minutes in my pre-dawn meditation practice for the first time in a month, this morning, (October 3, 2013). This is clearly a testament for the need to integrate the body-mind-spirit unity.

2) Healing thoughts and prayers from family and friends feel restorative.

3) Walking meditation and, after an entire month, silent prayer bead recitations have seemed easier than heart-centered pre-dawn meditation.

THE FOUNTAIN OF SOPHIA - FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY:

This post is an attempt to connect all my insights from an integral perspective. I am being gentle on myself and practicing Loving Kindness towards myself. I am cultivating a surrendered state of consciousness and being open and receptive to what meaning this event has in my life. I am being vulnerable and accepting help and support from so many kind souls. I have been reading and researching more about trauma and whether this experience might call something profound forth from my soul. I feel like I am being guided to become a trauma specialist.

Love, light and shadow,
Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, Ph.D

An Imaginal Dialogue with the Immaculate Mary

Beloveds: 

This is an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation which helped me to get in touch with my Divine feminine and which also inspired me to look at the occluded feminine psychology of the wisdom tradition in which I was raised. But in order to begin this imaginal dialogue with the Immaculate Mary, I first had to work through my own Mother Complex, which in itself allowed me to open up with the requisite vulnerability even to be able to approach the Immaculate Mary. This process helped me to bring a more nuanced feminine perspective to my doctoral research.

I really had not thought of presenting this material in this manner until this past weekend when I ran into an artist at the Santa Barbara Art Walk who designs pottery and a nice selection of ceramic magnets. On my suggestion, he had made a small magnet of Mary which I had been hoping to purchase. He then shared with me that his faith in Mary had deepened in the last couple of weeks as he was working through things with his own ailing Mother. I shared with him my own experience with the following imaginal dialogue which caught his interest. I promised I would share it with him through this blog.

Love, light and shadow,

Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT.  

Appendix H: Alchemical and imaginal dialogue

Imaginal Dialogue between Jalaledin (JE) and the Immaculate Mary (IM) on 4-05-12

JE: Beloved Mother Mary, hail. I come to you to seek comfort and wisdom around an old wound that I have kept hidden from myself and others for many years.

IM: Yes, my beloved son, I am present with you and for you. Do you wish to tell me of your wound?

JE: Yes, Holy Mother. I just do not know how to begin to talk about the wound that seems so well hidden. It was when I left my Mom in Kenya to go to boarding school.

IM: Son, can you remember the pain of separation from your Mom?

JE: The closest thing I can remember to that is during my first Christmas in Haywards Heath, near Brighton, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lane. I went shopping for a Christmas gift for my Mom. I bought her a necklace from a store like Woolworth’s. It had a light blue stone. I wrote her a letter and the Lanes sent it to Kenya in the mail. I don’t remember hearing back from Mom. I do not remember receiving many letters from home. I felt like I was in a world that they would not have understood. They could not have known the fear of dogs I had, when I was staying at the Lanes’. Who could I tell? I was terrorized by the Great Dane and the black bull dog. I did not know how to relate to pets. We never had pets at home in Kenya. We were quite poor.

IM: That must have been very painful in itself, son: to be so very far away, not to be able to talk to your parents, not to receive much news from home, not to be able to tell anyone about your fears and probably even your successes.

JE: I guess it was painful, but I don’t remember those feelings. I did have my cousin at the same school, so I did have family, but he did not come to the same holiday home as me that first time.

IM: I am glad you can remember some of it. Tell me more if it comes to mind. The things you did not like, because I know you liked a lot of things about being in England.

JE: I didn’t like the weather and the clothes we had to wear. I did not like sharing a bath tub with other boys or having a bath in someone else’s water. I did not like being forced to take cod liver oil at breakfast. I did not like lining up to go to the loo after breakfast. I did not always like the food, having been brought up with good home cooking. I did not like not being able to go to Church with my classmates on Sundays with everyone else. I had to spend Sunday mornings with Mrs. Brady because she was Catholic and there were no Catholic churches for her to go to either. I did not like not knowing why I was different.

IM: Yes, these were even less likable if there was no one you could tell about them. That must have been difficult, too.

JE: Going back, it’s hard to feel the pain because there was so much I was grateful for and happy about. I loved my school.

IM: What about the other kids? Did they ever feel the pain?

JE: Yes, I remember a Jamaican boy who cried virtually every night. I did not want to be like him. Perhaps he was crying for all of us, but I did not want to go to sleep crying like him. We thought of him as a cry baby.

IM: Yes, he was crying his real feelings, son. It must have been painful and he was able to express his pain.

JE: True, I guess I did not want feel that kind of pain, so I must have shut that part of me down, Holy Mother.

IM: What did you do instead, son?

JE: I remember praying sometimes, Holy Mother, but I really did not know how to pray. I sought pleasure with other boys: what we would call pleasures of the flesh, Holy Mother.

IM: Yes, it was easier to feel pleasure than pain, son. At least you found a way to cope with your feelings, even if you did not have an understanding of them. Are they just a blur?

JE: Yes, Holy Mother, they were just a blur. I ask for your blessing to heal that old wound, Holy Mother. That is all I can do today. I know you know what the wound looked and felt like. It would be such a blessing to heal that old wound so I can find my outcast feminine, Holy Mother.

IM: Yes, son. I send you holy blessings for a full and complete healing to restore your disowned and outcast feminine so that you can experience the Divine Feminine within you. 

JE: Thank you, Holy Mother. I will turn to you again and again. Perhaps I will go to a Mass, from time to time, to seek your continued holy blessings. Or perhaps you will help me find the Divine Feminine within my own wisdom tradition, so I may receive these holy blessings more often.

IM: Son, yes, I send holy blessings that you retrieve and restore your inner feminine so that you can heal this wound wherever you turn your heart and soul for divine blessings from the Divine Feminine.

JE: Thank you, Holy Mother.

Negative and Positive Freedom

Beloveds: 

I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday:What does the 4th of July mean to me? It means the promise of human freedom from tyranny and oppression, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of self-expression, the freedom to imagine and create to the fullest potential of my highest aspirations, and the protection of our civil and human rights. What does it mean to you? Love, light and shadow, Jalaledin

Contextualizing some of these sentiments, far more eloquently, is Dr. Saba Mahmood, Associate Professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, in her insightful analysis Politics of Piety - The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject:

"Negative freedom refers to the absence of external obstacles to self-guided choice and action, whether imposed by the state, corporations, or private individuals. Positive freedom, on the other hand, is understood as the capacity to realize an autonomous will, one generally fashioned in accord with the dictates of "universal reason" or "self-interest," and hence unencumbered by the weight of custom, transcendental will, and tradition. In short, positive freedom might be best described as the capacity for self-mastery and self-government, and negative freedom as the absence of restraints of various kinds on one's ability to act as one wants. It is important to note that the idea of self-realization itself is not an invention of the liberal tradition but has existed historically in a variety of forms, such as the Platonic notion of self-mastery over one's passions, or the more religious notion of realizing oneself through self-transformation, present in Buddhism and a variety of mystical traditions, including Islam and Christianity." (2012, pp. 10-11).

Reparative therapy fails to change sexual orientation, period!

Beloveds:

On June 20, the following story appeared in the Washington Post. This is clear testimony that there is no therapy that can change one's sexual orientation.

"Talk about a one-man culture war.

The president of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, issued a series of apologies and explanations this week about plans to shut down the organization, which for 37 years has worked with Christians dealing with same-sex attraction.

Chambers has been under fire from both Christians who say he has not been vocal enough about their belief that homosexual behavior is unacceptable sin, as well as from gay rights activists who point to stories of deep harm done by so-called Exodus’ ‘reparative therapies’ said to turn gay people straight. He says the mission of the organization no longer fits what he says he now knows about God, and the demands of a “messy,” changing culture.

In an apology to the gay community, Chambers noted that he “cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex” and marriage but added that he will no longer “fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek.”

Chambers, who says he and his wife Leslie “are more in love than we’ve ever have been” but admits to still being attracted to men, said in a nearly hour-long talk Wednesday at the organization’s 38th annual conference that he and Exodus leaders came to the conclusion that God was calling them to shut down the ministry."

It is clearly time for all of us to accept that sexual orientation is not a choice. We need to accept that and honor all those who have been struggling to be who they are naturally and love whom they wish to love.

Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, PhD

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FREUD!

Beloveds:

 

Its Freud's birthday today! I totally enjoyed my visit to the Freud Museum in London a few years ago. Hope some of you get an opportunity to visit. Freud's gift to us was the connection of our dreams to the Unconscious. Whatever we may think about Freud, he did leave us in the therapeutic field with some very enduring concepts such as counter transference and defense mechanisms. The following is an excerpt from the Writer's Almanac sent to me by a friend this morning:

It's also the birthday of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (books by this author), born in 1856 in Freiburg, Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic). He's usually associated with Vienna, where he lived from the age of four until the Germans occupied it in 1938. He moved to London, where he died of throat cancer in 1939.

 People tend to hold very strong opinions on Freud, pro or con, but most agree that his theories completely transformed the study of psychology. He had many pupils in the early 20th century; notable among them were Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, and both of them eventually broke with Freud. Adler believed that aggression, rather than sex, was the primary motivator of the human animal, and insecurity over their perceived failings is what caused people to act out; Adler, not Freud, coined the term "inferiority complex."

While he wasn't too upset by the loss of Adler, Freud viewed Carl Jung as his natural successor, his "crown prince." He was bright, ambitious, and Protestant, which eased Freud's worries that psychoanalysis would be seen as a "Jewish matter." But ultimately Freud, an atheist, couldn't go along with Jung's increasing focus on myth, mysticism, and the "collective unconscious" that he believed was common to all humans. Freud, trained in neurology, was a believer only in the tenets of scientific inquiry, with its mechanisms to check for reliability and validity. Religion had none of these mechanisms, and therefore he saw it as completely useless. Their letters to each other became tense, even hostile. Jung wrote to Freud: "Your technique of treating your pupils like patients is a blunder. In that way you produce either slavish sons or impudent puppies. ... I am objective enough to see through your little trick." Freud reacted to the break with his star pupil by becoming increasingly protective of his work.

 In 1933, Albert Einstein was invited by the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation to exchange ideas about war with a "thinker of his choice," and although he didn't believe in psychoanalysis, he chose Freud, opening his letter with "I greatly admire your passion to ascertain the truth — a passion that has come to dominate all else in your thinking."

Freud responded: "I expected you to choose a problem lying on the borderland of the knowable, as it stands today, a theme which each of us, physicist and psychologist, might approach from his own angle, to meet at last on common ground, though setting out from different premises. Thus the question which you put me — what is to be done to rid mankind of the war menace? — took me by surprise. ... But then I realized that you did not raise the question in your capacity of scientist or physicist, but as a lover of his fellow men." After a long discussion of aggression, he concluded: "How long have we to wait before the rest of men turn pacifist? Impossible to say, and yet perhaps our hope that these two factors — man's cultural disposition and a well-founded dread of the form that future wars will take — may serve to put an end to war in the near future, is not chimerical. But by what ways or byways this will come about, we cannot guess. Meanwhile we may rest on the assurance that whatever makes for cultural development is working also against war."

Their exchange was published as a pamphlet, "Why War?" in 1933, but by then, Hitler had risen to power, and the first German edition only numbered 2,000 copies.
Freud wrote several books, including The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905), and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930).

A PLACE TO STAND

Beloveds:

Just finished reading A Place to Stand, the autobiography of Jimmy Santiago Baca, a young illiterate Chicano who goes to prison to serve a five year sentence in New Mexico and emerges as a poet! His memoir is itself a literary masterpiece giving us a window into the brutality of American prison life which can kill the spirit and diminish the human soul. It details how he discovered his essential self  during periods of solitary confinement and started the process of individuation by refusing to work because his application to take classes to learn to read and write was denied! Check the video in the video bar!

It is a testament not only to the human spirit but also to what I describe as the call of the imaginal self!

Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry.  During a fateful conflict with another inmate, Jimmy was shaken by the voices of Neruda and Lorca, and made a choice that would alter his destiny.    Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, he emerged from prison a writer. Baca sent three of his poems to Denise Levertov, the poetry editor of Mother Jones.  The poems were published and became part of  Immigrants in Our Own Land,  published in 1979, the year he was released from prison. He earned his GED later that same year. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award and for his memoir A Place to Stand the prestigious International Award. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award. The national award recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare. 

   Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, love and beyond. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country.  

   In 2005 he created Cedar Tree Inc., a nonprofit foundation that works to give people of all walks of life the opportunity to become educated and improve their lives. 

Please visit www.jimmysantiagobaca.com

Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, Ph.D

Community Psychology for At-Risk Populations

Beloveds:
I have posted an article titled "Taking Therapy to the Streets: Wraparound's Response to James Hillman" at www.academia.edu. This text provides an overview of a community-based mental health treatment planning process for at risk youth and their families. This is the model in which I have been engaged for almost 12 years. My intention is to write a book on the topic and situate it within the field of community psychology which impacts the two lower quadrants of social and cultural psychology as well as the upper right quadrant of self psychology for the individual client.

You can download this article at www.academia.edu
Love, light and shadow,
Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, Ph.D

Angst about Aging

Beloveds:

Having studied the literature on Aging for the requisite CEUs (Continuing Education Units) for renewal of my state licensure in marriage and family therapy, I noticed the absence of any discussion about community psychology. It is just assumed that as we age in California, there will always be a social safety net for the baby boomers. But the public discourse about making cuts in entitlements tells another story. For those of us who are single and have no children, what will the aging process look like in the next 20 years, especially if there are major cuts in medicare and social security?

From an integral perspective, I think we can expect more angst about aging in the next two decades. We can expect higher levels of Depression in the aging population, despite the optimistic narratives about successful aging. Living in a culture that values youth over the elderly, is there reason for optimism in the future for our aging populations? I understand that in Europe, Canada and Japan, the elderly are more resigned to the aging process, given the assurance of a social safety net. What must aging be like for those who live in societies that have no promise of a social safety net? The Chinese and Indians have much cause for concern in this area, not to mention all the undocumented residents in the USA and elsewhere.

Clearly, the greater need for self-care and personal responsibility for self-sufficiency will be the cause of much angst, if the societies in which we live do not guarantee reliable social safety nets. From an integral perspective, those of us who are aging will need to take full responsibility for our physical, mental and financial health.

Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT

Lil JaXe's story is an amazing example of how to heal the voice. To overcome his stuttering, this Canadian boy from Toronto found a new form in which his voice mattered. Years of speech therapy did not work. He is now a popular rap artist whose voice is heard and appreciated by thousands!

FINDING OUR VOICE

Beloveds: Finding our voice is an all-quadrant-all-lines experience because we work through our personal issues, our relationship with - and in - society, our unique cultural expression, and we make contact with our spiritual source. This psychological principle is embodied in the video clip of Bobby McFerrin doing his magic - see the video bar! In addition to the four quadrants of self psychology, social psychology, cultural psychology and transpersonal psychology, my model of integral psychology adds the central fountain of Salsabil (from the Gardens of Paradise), otherwise known in diverse traditions as Sophia, the Immaculate Mary, Quan Yin, the White Tara or what I call the Imaginal Eve. It is the embodied feminine principle that connects and flows through all the four quadrants with Wisdom, Grace and Compassion. Love, light and shadow, Jalaledin

INTEGRAL PSYCHOTHERAPY

This blog is a re-invention of the Quantum One Life Coaching blog, occasioned by my licensure as a psychotherapist in the state of California and the completion of my doctorate in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Psychotherapy. I defended my doctoral dissertation at Pacifica Graduate Institute on August 13, 2012. Henceforth, as a licensed psychotherapist, I will not be using the language of Quantum life coaching per se, even though coaching is very much an aspect of Integral Psychotherapy.

Another look at the Law of Attraction

Beloveds:

Interesting video on the Law of Attraction:

http://www.habitofattraction.com/?ref=313

CRISIS AS INITIATION

As I am in the midst of making some major life decisions, I thought this excerpt from Joan Borysenko's book "Fire in the Soul" might inspire us all to look at our crises as initiations:

"What a difference it would make if a person in the throes of a life crisis were called, as in the Ndembu tongue, a mwadi - an initiate - and then skilfully led to a rebirth. Instead our psychological initiates are often labeled neurotic, psychotic, addictive or character-disordered, labels that create helplessness and low self-esteem. These labels reinforce the fearful story that we are damaged and less than whole, a belief that prevents accessing the First Stories of initiation that the universe provides to help us move out of liminality into rebirth.

Some of the power of twelve-step recovery programs comes from the context in which addiction is placed - the new stories that Bill W. created that echoed the truth of the First Stories. In anonymous programs, addictions are transitions between a life where the person was out of touch with a High Power and one in which the reality of that Power becomes not only the force for recovery but also a renewal of the meaning of life. Addiction as a mwadi experience, for those who are willing to see it in that light, creates a context of excitement, empowerment and even gratitude for the addiction as a conduit to a new, more self-aware and fulfilling role.

Psychological problems and addiction are not the only challenging life-events where context effects outcome. Psychiatrist Victor Frankl, in his moving book Man's Search for Meaning, talks about life in the Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. In those most terrible of times some people succumbed to the inevitable epidemics that swept the camp, dying before the brutality of the Nazis and the fire o the ovens could consume them. Others, those who were able to find some meaning in their suffering, were more likely to hold onto life. Frankl himself survived four death camps before liberation, and it was in those camps that he conceived of logotherapy, a system of psychological growth and healing based on the apprehension of meaning.

Frankl and others like him created ritual out of horror, growth out of destruction, by choosing to believe that there was some transcendent meaning to their suffering. When we set our sights on a higher meaning, we automatically cast ourselves in the role of a dweller at the threshold, an initiate in a Great Story. We are not powerless, trapped or worthless. We are passing through the fire on the way to a purification of sufficient value that our suffering becomes worthwhile when weighed against it. Part of the value of suffering and dwelling at the threshold is that it initiates or intensifies the search for what is most sacred, for only in placing our minds on the promise of that sacredness can we emerge from the liminal period not only intact but healed.

The late American psychologist Abraham Maslow spoke of the deep need to find in our lives not only personal meaning, but transpersonal or spiritual meaning. A need is like a biological drive, an instinct. It's part of the genes, part of the racial memories that form the collective unconscious that all people share. When a biological drive is thwarted the organism suffers in some way. The particular kind of suffering that accompanies a thwarted drive for transpersonal meaning is a feeling of emptiness, of meaninglessness about life that can progress to depression if the need is not attended to." (1993, pp. 57-58)

~Excerpted from "Fire in the Soul - A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism" by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D

Musicophilia

Oliver Sacks, the renowned neurologist, was on NOVA's program "Musical Minds" today talking about the impact of music on the brain. He writes about some of his research in his book "Musicophilia":

"A Bolt from the Blue:
Sudden Musicophilia

Tony Cicoria was forty two, very fit and robust, a former college football player who had become a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon in a small city in upstate New York. He was at a lakeside pavilion for a family gathering one fall afternoon. It was pleasant and breezy, but he noticed a few storm clouds in the distance; it looked like rain.

He went to a pay phone outside the pavilion to make a quick call to his mother (this was in 1994, before the age of cell phones). He still remembers every single second of what happened next: "I was talking to my mother on the phone. There was a little bit of rain, thunder in the distance. My mother hung up. The phone was a foot away from where I was standing when I got struck. I remember a flash of light coming out of the phone. It hit me in the face. Next thing I remember, I was flying backwards."

Then - he seemed to hesitate before telling me this - "I was flying forwards. Bewildered, I looked around. I saw my own body on the ground. I said to myself, 'Oh shit, I'm dead.' I saw people converging on the body. I saw a woman - she had been standing waiting to use the phone right behind me - position herself over my body, give it CPR...I floated up the stairs - my consciousness came with me. I saw my kids, had the realization that they would be okay. Then I was surrounded by a bluish-white light....an enormous feeling of well-being and peace. The highest and lowest points of my life raced by me. No emotion associated with these...pure thought, pure ecstasy. I had the percveption of accelerating, being drawn up...there was speed and direction. Then, as I was saying to myself, 'This is the most glorious feeling I have ever had' - SLAM! I was back."

Dr. Cicoria knew he was back in his own body because he had pain - pain from the burns on his face and his left foot, where the electrical charge had entered and exited his body - and , he realized, "only bodies have pain." He wanted to go back, he wanted to tell the woman to stop giving him CPR, to let him go; but it was too late - he was firmly back among the living. After a minute or two, when he could speak, he said, "It's okay - I'm a doctor!" The woman (she turned out to be an intensive-care-unit nurse) replied," A few minutes ago, you weren't."

The police came and wanted to call and ambulance, but Cicoria refused, delirious. They took him home instead ("it seemed to take hours"), where he called his own doctor, a cardiologist. The cardiologist, when he saw him, thought Cicoria must have had a brief cardiac arrest, but could find nothing amiss with examination or EKG. "With these things, you're alive or dead," the cardiologist remarked. He did not feel that Dr. Cicoria would suffer any further consequences of this bizarre accident.

Cicoria also consulted a neurologist - he was feeling sluggish (most unusual for him) and having some difficulties with his memory. He found himself forgetting the names of people he knew well. He was examined neurologically, had an EEG and an MRI. Again, nothing seemed amiss.

A couple of weeks later, when his energy returned, Dr. Cicoria went back to work. There were still some lingering memory problems - he occasionally forgot the names of rare diseases or surgical procedures - but all his surgical skills were unimpaired. In another two weeks, his memory problems disappeared, and that, he thought, was the end of the matter.

What then happened still fills Cicoria with amazement, even now, a dozen years later. Life had returned to normal, seemingly, when "suddenly, over two or three days, there was this insatiable desire to listen to piano music." This was completely out of keeping with anything in the past. He had had a few piano lessons as a boy, he said, "but no real interest." He did not have a piano in his house. What music he did listen to tended to be rock music.

With this sudden onset of craving for piano music, he began to buy recordings and became especially enamored of a Vladimir Ashkenazy recording of Chopin favorites - The Military Polonaise, the Winter Wind Etude, the Black Key Etude, the A-flat Polonaise, the B-flat Minor Scherzo. "I loved them all," Cicoria said. "I had the desire to play them. I ordered all the sheet music. At this point, one of our babysitters asked if she could store her piano in our house - so now, just when I craved one, a piano arrived, a nice little upright. It suited me fine. I could hardly read the music, could barely play, but I started to teach myself." It had been more than thirty years since the few piano lessons of his boyhood, and his fingers seemed stiff and awkward.

And then, on the heels of this sudden desire for piano music, Cicoria started to hear music in his head. "The first time," he said, "it was in a dream. I was in a tux, onstage; I was playing something I had written. I woke up, startled, and the music was still in my head. I jumped out of bed, started trying to write down as much as I could remember. But I hardly knew how to notate what I heard." This was not too successful - he had never tried to write or notate music before. But whenever he sat down at the piano to work on the Chopin, his own music "would come and take me over. It had a very powerful presence."

I was not quite sure what to make of this peremptory music which would intrude almost irresistibly and overwhelm him. Was he having musical hallucinations? No, Dr. Cicoria said, they were not hallucinations - "inspiration" was a more apt word. The music was there, deep inside him - or somewhere - and all he had to do was let it come to him. "Its like a frequency, a radio band. If I open myself up, it comes. I want to say, 'It comes from heaven,' as Mozart said."

Now he had to wrestle not just with learning to play the Chopin, but to give form to the music continually running in his head, to try it on the piano, to get it on manuscript paper. "it was a terrible struggle," he said. "I would get up at four in the morning and play till I went to work, and when I got home from work I was at the piano all evening. My wife was not really pleased. I was possessed."

~ Excerpted from "Musicophilia - Tales of Music and the Brain" by Oliver Sacks.

Why should I listen to Simon Sinek?

Why you should listen to him: With an undergraduate degree in anthropology, most of Simon Sinek’s career has been spent in advertising. Although he began law school in London, he shortly left the program, moving to New York where he joined Euro RSCG, with a stint at Ogilvy & Mather, working on accounts for Oppenheimer Funds, MCI, NASDAQ and DISH Network. In 2002, he started his own company, Sinek Partners. His book, Start With Why, outlines the basis of his current work in leadership consulting.

Sinek also contributes to several efforts in the non-profit sphere: He works with Count Me In, an organization created to help one million women-run businesses reach a million dollars in revenue by 2012, and serves on the Board of Directors for Danspace Project, which advances art and dance. He writes and comments regularly for several major publications and teaches a graduate-level class in strategic communications at Columbia University.


"As an ethnographer, we are in search of why but we actually ask what."
Simon Sinek

Aging is just a state of mind!

Oldest still performing showgirl-Dorothy Dale Kloss sets world record

PALM SPRINGS, CA, USA -- Dorothy Dale Kloss, an 85-year-old sensation of youth and energy is continuing a dance career that began decades ago, in the 1930s-stting the world record for the Oldest still performing showgirl.

She began dancing when she was three years old. As a precocious Chicago teenager, she taught a young Bob Fosse how to tap dance, won a tap contest herself at the renowned Miss Abbott’s Dance School and catapulted to stardom at the age of 15 with her own act in the Empire Room of the Palmer House.

She performed with the famed Eddy Duchin orchestra until his band members were drafted during World War II and then danced for the USO. Touring the United States and Mexico, she was on stage at various times with Liberace, the Mills Brothers, Mel Torme, Cantinflas, Howard Keel, Kay Starr, Frankie Laine and Chico Marx and was accompanied in her routines by such noted big bands as those of Ray Noble, Skinnay Ennis, Les Brown and Shep Fields (and his Rippling Rhythm).

In 1946, Dorothy became the hostess and dance instructress on television for Chicago’s WBKB and did the first tap numbers on the little screen.

She still does tap solos in her 14th season with the Fabulous Follies. Doting Dorothy has an admiring son and two granddaughters.
What is your favorite Route 66 recollection? “Driving with my mom, dad and two brothers on the historic road from Chicago to St. Louis, singing from a song sheet.”

MORE FUN FACTS:
* She was paid $35 for the first week of the Empire Room gig and still has the canceled check. She used the money to buy a dress for her mother, who created her costumes.
* Miss Abbott, who booked her, changed her name to Dorothy Dale (from Hunn).
* She isn’t shy about what inspired her to audition at 70 for the Follies. “Money, success and fame,” she says and adds with a laugh, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
* And she doesn’t worry about her feet and body aching after a performance. “I soak them,” she quips mischievously, “in vodka.”
* On a serious note, the most challenging experience of her life was being diagnosed with colon cancer two decades ago and making a full recovery after surgery. “I just never thought about it,” she says. “I just changed my thinking and my eating habits.”
* Personable Dorothy has also put on shows for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and was director of guest services for the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

The Law of Attraction on Valentine's Day!

Beloveds:

There must be a reason why I have resisted Abraham's Teachings on the Law of Attraction as translated by the vibrations received by Esther and Jerry Hicks.
It seemed too easy to accept, even somewhat fluffy, and yet I resisted these teachings for their simplicity. I have been preoccupied by chaos theory or complexity theory, so clearly I have attracted chaos and complexity into my life!

So, perhaps we can just open a little to these teachings and see where they take us.
Here's a taste:

"The Law of Attraction and its magnetic power reaches out into the Universe and attracts other thoughts that are vibrationally like it...and brings that to you: Your attention to subjects, your activation of thoughts, an the Law of Attraction's response to those thoughts is responsible for every person, every event, and every circumstance that comes into your experience. All of these things are brought into your experience through a sort of powerful magnetic funnel as they are vibrational matches to your own thoughts.

You get the essence of what are thinking about, whether it is something you want or something you do not want. That may be unsettling to you at first, but in time, it is our expectation that you will come to appreciate the fairness, the consistency, and the absoluteness of this powerful Law of Attraction. Once you understand this law and begin to pay attention to what you are giving your attention to, you will regain control of your own life experience. And with that control you will again remember that there is nothing that you desire that you cannot achieve, and there is nothing that you do not want that you cannot release from your experience.

Understanding the Law of Attraction and recognizing the absolute correlation between what you have been thinking and feeling - and what is manifesting in your life experience - will cause you to be more aware of the stimulation of your own thoughts. You will begin to notice that your own thoughts may be stimulated from something you read or watch on television or hear or observe from someone else's experience. And once you see the effect that the Law of Attraction has upon these thoughts that begin small and grow larger and more powerful with your attention to them, you will feel a desire within you to begin to direct your thoughts to more of the things that you do want to experience. For whatever you are pondering, and no matter what the source of stimulation of that thought...as you ponder that thought, the Law of Attraction goes to work to offer you other thoughts, conversations, and experiences that are of a similar nature." (2006, pp. 32-33).

~ Excerpted from "The Law of Attraction - The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham" by Esther and Jerry Hicks.

Coaching for Health

Beloveds:

Having been proactive about my chest pains on this past Xmas Day by going to the ER at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and enduring the 5 hours of tests, I know a little something about coaching for Health. The chest pains were on a two to three on a scale of 1 to 10 and I was packed and ready to drive to Redondo Beach to spend the weekend with my sister. The fact that I made my health decision the priority and drove to the urgent care clinic and then the ER speaks well of my sense of values and personal responsibility. Health has to be our NUMBER ONE priority.

Of course, I did not think this was a heart problem. It felt like an esophageal constriction of some kind. But the hospital has to rule out any concerns about the heart, when it comes to chest pains. The conclusion was that I had some gastro-intestinal complications.

I still made it to Redondo Beach and spent time with my sister (another smart decision) because then the GI symptoms flared up and I really needed some special attention. We needed to look at the quality (bland), quantity (light) and frequency of meals. The other major decision was to not return to work until I was stable.

The next step was a follow up with my primary physician as soon as he was available. I remembered to give him the fullest history including concerns about the occasional constrictions in my esophageal area. He decided to order the gold standard in tests: an endoscopy and an ultra-sound of my abdominal area, both tests in the New Year.
He was actually very surprised that I had lost the weight he had asked me to lose.
I think a collaborative relationship with our MD is essential to our treatment. I was honest, open and willing to following his recommendations during my annual physical and clearly an MD likes to know that his/her patient is taking appropriate and timely therapeutic action.

Yes. I decided to use my PTO (personal time off) to focus on my heath and treatment.
I have been reading, resting, watching cable, calling friends, blogging and social networking - all necessary for my healing and self-care. Not to mention being creative with my diet!! And giving my body the rest it craves as well as the exercise it needs!

Of course, as a depth psychologist, I can hardly leave at it that because I know this all has a deeper meaning. In consulting Caroline Myss's "Why People Don't Heal and How They Can" it is clear that these gastro-intestinal symptoms are related to the Third Chakra:

"Within the Hebrew Tradition, the third energy center contains two forces intensely vital to our spirits - Hod, representing integrity and majesty; and Nezah, symbolic of the capacity to endure. In the Hindu tradition, this energy is presented as Manipura, meaning the "city of the shining jewel," and in the Christian tradition, it relates to the sacrament of Confirmation. All of these descriptions refer to the same essential spiritual powers: self-esteem, self-respect, and integrity.

Respect for ourselves is necessary to healing. A lack of self-respect, or a dishonorable character, is itself an illness. when we lack the fundamental spiritual qualities of endurance, integrity, honor and self-esteem, healing the physical body becomes a double challenge.

You can easily sense when you are entering the shadow side of the third chakra: it manifests as shame, inadequacy, self-consciousness, and fear of others. Negative feelings drain the energy you need to heal. Reflection on what undermines your endurance and integrity, on where your energy leaks occur. Integrity is not solely the manner in which you conduct yourself with others. Think of it as the manner in which you conduct yourself with yourself. Can you make a commitment to yourself and keep it with integrity? Can you promise yourself to change your personal behavioral patterns (a discipline associated with the third chakra) and then keep that promise?
To build endurance, can you commit to a shift of lifestyle and withstand the discomfort of walking that new path? Can you look at yourself and feel proud of your own honor code.

While all the chakras play a vital role in your healing, the third chakra contains the energy of endurance - the power to endure the journey. The commitment to yourself to go the distance can be considered the backbone of your healing challenge.

Your commitment to yourself gives you the capacity to endure what may seem psychologically, emotionally and physically beyond your limits. As a matter of spiritual honor and self-respect, your commitment to heal reflects your regard for the sanctity of your own life. Maintaining this commitment - day by day and hour by hour, actively and passively, in your dreams and in your thoughts - generates an intensity of self-esteem and self-awareness. " (1997, pp. 199-200).


Happy New Year!

Marking two huge milestones!!!

Beloveds:

The good news is that

1. I have not eaten any chocolate for 180 days! and
2. I passed the standard written MFT (marriage and family therapy) exam by using all
of the skills I have learned as a life coach.

Yes, I was fully prepared, present mindful and confident,
clear, coherent and confident but...

I had also prepared physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for this exam.
I can share with you without any hesitation that the spiritual support I received
took me over the finish line.

Here's what happened:

I enrolled in the appropriate test prep workshop and took them four times.
I spent weekends taking the online practice tests and a mock exam.
I listened to all the CDs on the exam content.
I studied the prep workbook to review all of the content.

On the day of the exam, I spent a glorious morning walking and
running on the beach after spending the Thanksgiving four day weekend studying.
I spent another hour and a half doing a quick review before lunch. Then I drove to the test site.

On entering the test room and getting myself situated, I took a few minutes to invoke the Light and the Grace of the One, and started the test.

Sixty minutes into the four hour test, I was already 13-15 questions behind because I was perseverating over getting the right answers....So, that meant that I spent the next two hours trying to catch up. In the final hour, I was still the same number of questions behind and I did not know how I was going to pass the exam since I didn't think I was going to complete the exam in time. I did not have time to take a break or a breather even though the workshop instructor had recommended that we do this several times to fight fatigue and the loss of concentration.

In my case, I was fighting the clock and decided I had to speed read by just getting the gist of the questions - not to get the answers right but - to complete the exam in order to improve my chances of passing.

It was in the final hour that many in my spiritual circles sent out spiritual support and somehow, quite miraculously, I was able to complete the exam by answering
the last question in the last minute!

I am providing this level of detail to highlight the need we all have for spiritual support and succor. I am grateful to all those who were holding me in the light.

I still have one more exam to write before I achieve my dream of being licensed as a psychotherapist!

Love, light and shadow,
Jalaledin