My Blog

Overcoming Addictions

03/20/2012 23:32:00

We live in an ego-based world where addiction runs rampant. I have yet to encounter an individual who does not use either an addictive substance or an addictive behavior to cope with the stresses and challenges of life in our contemporary society. Life truly is difficult and coming face to face with our genuine issues and feelings takes a great deal of courage and support. Some addictions are shamed (illicit drugs and alcohol),while others are actually elevated to a level of deserving admiration (work, romance, money/success) in our culture. Many have become addicted to prescription drugs which create just as much havoc as do illegal drugs minus the legal complications. Food is also a very common "drug of choice". Obviously we are able to completely stop using some drugs but cannot totally eliminate others. We need to define what sobriety is in relation to food, sex, work, relationships, etc. By and large addictions are an escape from emotional pain and a way to bring pleasure and relief to the ego. Eventually addictions, which seem at first to offer us the comfort and pleasure we long for, stop working and, in fact, bring about harmful consequences. The time finally comes when we must face and deal with who we are, our past, our life's traumas and their effect upon us and do our healing work. Addictions provide, at best, temporary relief or escape and then leave us right where we left off. Addictions eventually only create problems on top of the ones we already have. They are essentially a substitute for love, love for ourselves and love for and from others. If we are truly engaged in spiritual growth and development we must confront and overcome our addictions,

What is a Healthy Ego?

01/13/2012 03:15:00

Pathwork is not about eradicating the ego but about developing a healthy ego that is connected and integrated with the Higher Self. One day as I was driving on 1-70 in the mountains of Colorado I entered that state of "driving trance" and asked myself, "What are the characteristics of a healthy ego?". These are the responses that my own Higher Self gave to me. It occured to me that these are,in fact, the goals of successful psychotherapy.

1. To develop a true sense of self-acceptance that is not based on external factors but on an internal acceptance of one's own being.

2. To develop healthy boundaries and limits.

3. To be able to be authentic and speak one's truth rather than present a "false self" or mask.

4. To let go of shame about the past, one's mistakes, history and shortcomings. To practice self-forgiveness and compassion.

5. To be able to feel and express the full range of human emotions appropriately.

6. To practice healthy self-care physically, emotionally and spiritually.

7. To take responsibility for one's life, choices and behaviors rather than blame others.

8. To be able to create and maintain healthy relationships that are interdependent rather than overly dependent or anti-dependent.

9. To separate physically, emotionally and financially from one's family of origin and to individuate with a sense of one's own true identity.

10. To develop a spiritual/philosophical understanding of life which becomes our context for experiencing life's challenges. To see our lives as an unfolding journey that facilitates the evolution of our soul.

What is the Ego?

11/19/2011 17:39:00

There is a good deal of confusion about the concept of "Ego" and I will seek herein to clarify what ego is to the best of my understanding. Ego is simply our human personality and we need it to function in this earthly dimension. That said, however, there is what might be called a healthy ego as compared to one that has been wounded or inflated and as a result has many defenses, distorted thoughts and projections, repressed emotion and behavior patterns that sabotage one's life and relationships. When one's ego is healthy one has a positive, self-accepting sense of self along with the ability to be self-aware and to face and work through personal issues, not only how one has been wounded but how one has wounded others. A healthy ego is psychologically mature and capable of connecting with and receiving guidance from one's Higher Self (God, Spirit) and thereby lives the truth of one's Spirit in the human dimension. An unhealthy or underdeveloped ego has often been wounded by abuse and trauma or has become inflated and falsely empowered (or both) and has separated from Spirit. In that case the ego takes over the role of being in charge of one's life. It craves security, control, being right, and being seen in a certain way. It is full of fear and uses that fear to justify its own will rather than to surrender to a Higher Power. Ego begins to form in childhood and starts to solidify in adolescence. Many people stop maturing at these stages of life and continue to operate emotionally as children or adolescents. Counseling and Pathwork help individuals face their ego issues in order to heal the wounded self, develop a healthy, mature ego and thereby transcend an immature ego-based existence. Psychological growth and maturity leads very naturally to spiritual growth and maturity. They are actually one in the same.

Removing Our Masks

10/28/2011 22:54:00

Many of us actually have no idea of the true Self we really are deep within. Instead we have learned to identify with what the Pathwork calls the "mask self". This is the self-idealized version of ourselves we want to believe we are and want the world to see. Our mask consists of the image we wish to project, the roles we play and the beliefs about who and what we "should" be. We play to an audience rather than come to know, accept and express our genuine thoughts and feelings. Often we are unaware that we even wear a mask because we have come to believe that it is who we really are. Some examples of mask selves are "people pleasers", "achievers", "having it all together", being "good", being "cool" etc. Behind the mask we hide our real thoughts, opinions, and feelings, our pain, traumas, insecurities and human struggles with the negative characteristics we are all capable of. This is what Jung called the "shadow self" and the Pathwork calls the "lower self". I choose to call it the hidden self. In order to grow and evolve and reach higher levels of consciousness we must become willing to remove our masks and face and deal with our ego issues, our childhood and other past traumas, our repressed emotion, our limiting beliefs and come to a place of compassionate self-acceptance as well as honest self-examination. We must do the hard work of healing, understanding where we've come from, changing our distorted beliefs about ourselves and others, release painful or angry emotion and confront our self-defeating behaviors.

Our culture has encouraged the wearing of masks. When we are asked how we are we are supposed to say "Fine!" How many of us actually feel fine all the time? Many of us grew up in families where our honest thoughts and feelings were shamed or even punished. We all long to know ourselves and to be known, accepted and loved in a genuine way, for who we really are. The Pathwork outlines a comprehensive process for letting go of our masks and facing the hidden self beneath. It is only by navigating through this territory that we eventually connect with and live from our Spirits. It is not an easy task but the rewards are well worth the challenges of the journey.

Shame

09/26/2011 22:30:00

Shame is undoubtedly the most powerful challenge we all have to overcome in order to live in our authentic selves. The distinction has been made between so-called "healthy shame" (a bit of an oxymoron, in my opinion) and "toxic shame", healthy shame being the possession of a moral compass, conscience and sense of morality and humility and "toxic shame" being an overly critical, unrelentant "super-ego" who blames us and believes we are somehow fundamentally defective. The antidote to a lack of so-called "healthy shame" is humility, vulnerability and the ability to face and admit our shortcomings and to commit to healthy, responsible behavior. The antidote to toxic shame is self-acceptance, self-forgiveness and the realization that we have often carried the shame of those who have abused us. We must have both a healthy sense of morality and a genuine sense of self-acceptance, the ability to forgive ourselves for our past transgressions and commitment, once we become aware, to change our behaviors. Shame begins to become dismantled once we share our true feelings/ behavior with at least one other human being. Sharing within a safe, supportive group such as The Pathwork groups encourages and allows for even more transcendence of shame. When we finally arrive at a point of self-acceptance of our humanity, our frailty, our transgressions and imperfection, we are well on the way to healing shame.This then allows for a genuine sense of self-love which is the foundation for loving and being loved by others.

Pathwork

09/15/2011 20:38:00

Pathwork is a psychospiritual approach to healing and personal growth that evolved from material that was channeled by Eva Pierrokos for a period of approximately 20 years beginning in the late 1950s. Eva discovered that she had a gift for automatic writing and connected to a spiritual teacher who identified himself simply as "The Guide"in this manner. She channeled many lectures that outlined the process of how to move from a life that was limited by our defended egos to one of living in harmony with our true Spirit and greater consciousness, love and creativity.

The "guide" spoke of the need to shed our masks or false selves, overcome our toxic shame, fear and pride in order to face and work through our ego issues. We must heal the wounded parts of our egos as well as confront our "lower self" with courage and humility. This process leads to greater contact with our Higher Self and the ability to live a Spirit-based life with greater love for ourselves and others and living in harmony with our deepest truth, trusting that our lives are being guided by a Higher Power and that if we surrender to this guidance we will be led to our greatest good.

It is therefore a transpersonal approach to therapy with similarities to the theories of Jung and others who have gone beyond ego psychology, recognizing that we are eternal beings and that our lives are designed for the evolution of our soul.

Spiritually Based Psychotherapy

08/17/2011 14:40:00

Some years ago I read the then best-seller, The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck. I was very impressed from the very first sentence in the book. "Life is difficult", he wrote, and I immediately knew that this was not going to be another quick-fix self-help book that would be long-forgotten within a few days after reading it. Instead it was an honest, straight-forward look at the process of psychotherapy as a challenging undertaking that requires hard work and commitment as well as time. Many do not have the willingness to commit to doing their work, to heal, to grow, to change. Thus those who are follow a "road less traveled", a phrase coined by poet Robert Frost who happens to hail from Vermont, my home state. However those who do take on the challenge and stick with it find that psychological healing and maturity lead very naturally to spiritual development. In fact authentic spirituality must involve doing one's psychological work. Peck's work was a large contributor to the emerging field of psycho/spiritual psychotherapy and had a profound influence on me.