The Reward is the Journey

"If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"   Peter Pan Although I have read it before, this excerpt stirred me when I came across it recently: "Being a teenager is vastly overrated. We all make mistakes, we are stubborn and we couldn't give two shits what our parents think, we hate school, we cause shit, we fight, we love, we cry, we give up on believing in a higher power. We're all fucked up and that's the truth, we all come from dysfunctional families, because no family is perfect; we say things that we don't mean, we yell, we scream, we get broken hearts, we get drunk, we have sex. Grades don't mean a thing anymore, we live on quotes and music that describe our lives and most importantly we are tired. We are tired of waking up each morning and having to go to school where we see the people we hate or the people we love, we get tired of waiting for the text me...

"Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.  Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul."   Samuel Ullman Walking down the High Street always provides entertainment - cognitive if not always comic.  On a recent amble something caught my eye, as I saw a rather aggressive mother pushing her super smart buggy (is that the correct term, and what is the difference between a buggy, and a push chair, and does anyone have a pram these days?) complete with very happy looking child on board, overtaking someone with more wisdom and experience who was pushing her own four wheeled apparatus, in the form of a shopping trolley.  Within this quite ordinary, and in many ways quite unremarkable scene, there was so much - about life, and our passage through it.  The young mother, busily going about her day - cramming in the shopping, having fed her infant, w...

The metaphors are plentiful, the research provides confirmation.  I am renown for 'prescribing' exercise.  Anything will do, time spent outside of one's head (as opposed to off it) is valuable to anyone - especially those in recovery.  Getting clean at this time of year has its challenges (it's hard to walk down a street without people drinking on the pavement or in the park) but so too does it have advantages - you can build time spent outdoors into your recovery regimen.  "Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it."   Plato There is an old expression containing a long accepted truth - 'when I got busy, I got better' .  The most challenging question I ask anyone during an assessment is why they want their recovery.  There is no doubt in my mind that they are deserving of it, but both they and I need more than this: they need a purpose.  Without purp...

Downs' apparently simple definitions seem to make a lot of sense:  Passion as the repeated experience of joy in an activity.  Love as the repeated experience of joy in another.*  Passion and love are both meta emotions, or emotions that are only felt after the observation of other emotions over time.  In this sense both require a degree of skill in the act of mindful noticing, for unless acknowledged, the joy which leads to either has a tendency to be fleeting and forgotten. What drives joy is quite different to what drives validation and existences based on the pursuit of validation will quite display an absence of joy, and therefore lack passion two determinants of depression.  Joy is generated and experienced internally; validation by definition seeks external approval and is therefore a public affair.  Joy in contrast, is inherently private:  people find passion for activities which they undertake and experience joy, rath...

"It is one thing to photograph people.  It is another to cause others to care for them by revealing the core of their humanness."   Paul Strand (American photographer 1890-1976) The World Press Photo exhibition made for hard, thought provoking, gratitude enhancing viewing.  As I walked between the photographs I became aware of the parallel exhibition - that of the reactions displayed in the faces and bodies of my fellow spectators.  Between us there was a silent encounter in which so much was communicated non verbally.  The security of knowing that we had our homes and families awaiting our return, and that we could, at any moment, close our eyes, and be removed from the challenging reality the images presented us with. "Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited and the wealth and confusion man has created.  It is a major force in explaining man to man." Edward Steichen ...

"Let your tears come.  Let them water your soul."   Eileen Mayhew It's not unusual for me to witness the tears of more than one person in a day.  There have been lots of tears shed this week.  At different times, and for different reasons.  Sharing in another's emotions is both a privilege and a responsibility.  Bearing witness to someone's inner world is always humbling. Tears speak things that it may not be able to say in any other way.  They are a visible demonstration and external manifestation of an inner process.  Tears can be cathartic.  For some people, crying is part of their everyday routine.  For others, tears are something to hide and crying something to be done only in private.  For others, tears are a last resort; a final surrender.  Tears can release.  Tears can cleanse. For some, crying is the only way to heal.  We may recall sobbing in the aftermath of temper tantrums, and the enormous...

"Sometimes only one person is missing yet the whole world seems depopulated" Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) Speaking to a mother whose son went missing nearly two decades ago really provided me with a radically different perspective.  How would any of us feel to return home and find that someone we expected to be there, was not there, and left no indication as to their whereabouts?  How long would we wait to report someone missing?  What would we do next?  How long would we hope for their return?  How would we cope when there were no leads, no sightings, nothing for the Police to follow-up?  How would we feel to be told that the case was to be considered inactive? Can we ever imagine the unimaginable?  They say that to truly empathise with another's experience it is necessary to 'walk a mile in their moccasins'.  I am having trouble trying to envisage what this journey might comprise.   "Absence from whom we love is worse th...

"Painting and poetry are like love; an exchange of blood, a passionate embrace, without restraint, without defence.  The picture is born of an overflow of emotions and feelings." Miro, The Farm 'La Masia' (1921-22) I learnt a great deal about Miro on a recent visit to the Tate.  I learnt a great deal about a lot more too. Miro wanted to discover the sources of human feeling.  He described his method of creating poetry by way of painting, using a vocabulary of signs and symbols, metaphors and dream images to express definite themes he believed to be fundamental to human existence.  The exhibition displays his sense of humor and lively wit.  His chief concern was a social one; he wanted to get close to the great masses of humanity, and he was convinced that art can only truly appeal when it resonates with roots of lived experience.  "Wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly.  Courage cons...

"People say that they love truth, but in reality they want to believe that which they love to be true" Robert J. Ringer Bryony Hannah's astonishing performance in 'The Children's Hour' has had a lasting impact on me and prompted me to think some more about notions of truth and falsehood, and the line between the two.  The web of deceit a clearly very troubled teenager spins swiftly traps everyone around her and a very sticky mess ensues.  At the moment in their lives when the two main characters' lives seem complete and secure, their world is brought crashing down around them.  And all on the basis of an elaborate story spun by a child fed by her fear, and fuelled by an overactive imagination.  The stories people tell themselves are equally powerful, as I was reminded recently when I watched 'Shattered Glass' - a film about a fraudulent journalist who at 25, from his position as the most sought-after young reporter in Washington D.C...

"To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did.  I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times."   Mark Twain She says she'd love to have just one cigarette.  Even after nearly ten years of having not smoked, her eyes lit up as she recalled with euphoria an after dinner smoke.  The reality is that, after only a few cigarettes the addictive cycle would be reactivated and the vicious cycle of nicotine withdrawal would run her life once again.  Given her present quality of life, with advanced emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, who am I to judge her for wanting to enjoy something, even if only briefly?

"To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead."   Samuel Butler 'Have you thought about putting arrangements in place...?' she inquired, brightly.  When I realised what sort of arrangements she referred to, I was obliged to re-evaluate my present levels of forward planning.  There, in the middle of a busy shopping precinct, was a representative from a purveyor of funeral packages.  I hope that rather than being in denial I am somewhere closer to Anaïs Nin's sentiment that people living deeply have no fear of death. 

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth... not going all the way, and not starting." Buddha As she left the room she announced that if she still felt OK about things next week, she'd probably make it our last session together.  Given that we've met only three times to date this is short term work in the extreme but not, I suspect, unconnected to the fact that this afternoon we touched the edge of something of significance.  Something that has perhaps remained buried or hidden; unacknowledged and unexamined, in the shadows, which maybe feels too threatening to regard with curiosity just now.  Such a premature conclusion is not uncommon, and maybe represents not an ending so much, as the denial of a beginning.  Reluctance or refusal to leave the starting blocks is often for good reason - therapy is challenging.  It is not for me to coerce or cajole anyone at any time, which is not to say it's not frustrating to ...

"The language of friendship is not words but meanings" Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) A recent telephone conversation with a friend was a testament to the connection between us.  She lives overseas and since we last saw one another we've corresponded minimally, and only by email over the last year.  A great deal of time had passed since we were last in eachother's company.  Many months, weeks, and days have gone and we have both had countless experiences the other shall probably never know.  Yet, in the moment we heard eachother's voices we found - complete and in tact - for both of us to feel and acknowledge - our precious friendship - just exactly where we'd left it.  Somehow the fact that our homes are distant, and our daily lives disparate neither makes or breaks the relationship we have which surpasses time difference and geography.

"Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions." Thomas Szasz They were busy building a new fence when I visited to attend a meeting earlier today. The sight of it represented a stark contrast with the sunshine, and seemingly boundless openness of the surrounding rural landscape. Various members of staff alluded to 'escapes' and I wasn't sure whether these were real, or imagined. I was prompted to think about the various walls that the inpatients are confined within - the physical and the psychic barriers dividing them from the outside world. As I walked between the locked corridors I wondered whether any of us ever feel truly safe.

"Art is a major path to knowledge" Leonardo da Vinci I attended a wonderful concert last week held at the Actors' Church in Covent Garden in aid of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art.  I didn't understand a word that was sung and have since thought about what made the evening so special.  I think it may be related to the fact that the Arts have the power to cross boundaries that language lacks.  The Church was full of individuals from all over the world, who shared a passion - music.  In their attentiveness, it felt as though we, the audience, were elevated beyond the divides of culture, religion and I was captivated by this sense of moving beyond their expression through language.  I sat alongside people who have witnessed atrocities I have only seen glimpses of on news coverage, and was able, through the medium before us, to perhaps gain a better sense of their experience.  It was a truly magnificent evening, and whilst the surroundings made an...

"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings." Hodding Carter Junior (1907-1972) Simple time spent with my family is a great joy today.  It was not ever thus, but we have all grown and changed and sharing laughter over lunch in the sunshine was a timely and humbling reminder of this.  As the saying goes, we don't pick our family, but I'm not sure I'd change mine.  I would not be who I am today were it not for the love, support and encouragement I continue to receive from two incredibly special human beings I feel proud and privileged to call my family.  My education is a testament to my mother's foresight and sacrifice.  The doors it has opened and the path I have embarked upon are things for which I feel profound gratitude.  From it, I feel both a sense of strong connection to my purpose and tremendous hope, confidence and inspiration. 

"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame"   Benjamin Franklin Earlier this week I encountered, and not for the first time, an incident of road rage.  Not unusual on the streets of South London, but what was perhaps less usual was the sense of detached observation I experienced at the time.  Somehow, in the midst of the brewing commotion and imminent disarray I was able to see, as though through a different lens, what was happening as the frustrated female leaped from her driver's seat to vent emotions which seemed disproportionate to the immediate events.  It was as though a pot had boiled over, and those of us sitting in surrounding cars witnessed her descent into an abyss of shame, further fuelling her rage.  Having left the privacy of her vehicle with a sense of entitlement driving her fury, she found herself very much alone and embarrassed having so visibly lost control - prompting, I think, a subsequent outburst whose origins were vastly removed from her...

“Time is the most indefinable yet paradoxical of things the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires.” Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) The recent change in weather has prompted me to reflect on time and its passage. We often speak of time 'flying' or 'standing still'. Underlying both seems to be a dissatisfaction, and an unhappiness perhaps borne of the desire to somehow control time, and be able to 'fast forward' when things are difficult or uncomfortable, or live in 'slow motion' when we are enjoying ourselves. I wonder what might it be like to surrender, to give in to time, and become more inclined to accept all experience as valuable...