Learning to Think

We teach our children to read and write before we teach them to think.  Autonomy in the early years does not include deep philosophical thinking.  Who are you?  A reply of ones name will be given.  What does it feel like to be you?  Do you feel safe? Are you sad?  What does love feel like?  Questions I was never given as a child, I never questioned anything. Why do I go school mummy?  Why is the letter ‘a’ the first letter of the alphabet?  As parents we don’t encourage our children to think for themselves from a young age.  We do everything for them.  We decide whether they eat meat, or that they maybe a vegetarian.  We decide where their clothes are bought from.  It is unique for a child to make an informed choice.  I worked in a school recently and the whole school were asked, “Should I eat meat?”  As a result some of those children became vegetarian.  The younger children were not included because the teacher thought it was a very contentious issue.  She believed it was not up to them to decide, it was the decision of their parents.   Because the school is based in a very rural part of England, where some live on livestock farms, I felt the teacher was wanting to maintain the equilibrium.

 I want my children to be able to make their own decsions.  I want them to have choices in life because choices make us feel powerful and in control of our lives.  If we have no choice we can feel powerless.  Feeling powerless triggers a chemical response in our body, leading to depression, anxiety and low self esteem.  We can always create choices. 

The deluded thoughts she had in her mind are just that and she was able to acknowledge another level of her thinking.  Her grounded self would tell her deluded self, “that’s just a crazy thought, it’s not my reality”.  It had taken a long time to feel this way about crazy thoughts and in the past she had let them control her life.  Anxiety, paranoia, low self esteem, self-hatred, depression had all helped her be the person she is today.  She made a choice and would not be beaten by her own mind.  She was on the pathway to becoming an emotionally intelligent person.  As she sobbed on the way home from the school run she waved an unusual wave as another car let her through.  As she saw her fingers move she remembered her mum who died so many years ago, waving the wave.  She remembered her as a powerful women, with great confidence and a beautiful smile.  Something she had not done for a while, there was no weakness only strength.

The Beauty of Being English

Kyanance Cove, The Lizard, Cornwall

She was  proud to be English and the land she was born to is truly beautiful.  She could not help but feel sad for those young, young men who have lost their lives, allegedly protecting this beautiful land that we so often criticise.  In rural Colombia cocaine is used to buy the weekly groceries, there is no money.  She wondered about the Afghanistan economy and wondered what the currency was, poppies perhaps?  If poppies control more than half of the Afghan economy what alternative will the people use to feed their families?  She would not go hungry tonight, as her well fed family sat and watched television in their well constructed house she could not help but wonder what is the reality of those eight young men bought home today, to be buried and grieved for.  Supposedly protecting our green and ancient land.  She would continue to hope and would continue to imagine an angel watching over those who need it most.  A tough decision to make but the right person would get the assistance they so deserved.

Light Everywhere

As she peered through the gap in the door the blue light echoed throughout the room.  Her curiosity incredulous as she struggled to understand where it came from.  She ignored and continued her shower, sensing an unearthliness around her, behind her in the room next door she felt it getting brighter and brighter.  It began as a dense purple light and by the time her curiosity had got the better of her it had changed to deep white, smelling it’s way into every cranny and creavis.  It was not painful, her eyes functioned as though the sun had just set.  As she glanced at her hand it almost vanished as it spread throughout the room and over her body, blending her self with the light as it shone.  As it flowed she could not control the deep breaths her lungs were screaming for as she breathed the light consumed her.  As her mind connected she became matterless, hearing the light and what was beyond filled her with a great sense of hope and love.  There was nothing else only the hope of humanity and the love of Lakshmi.  As she fell to the bed darkness swept through like a thunder cloud ready to explode, the rumbling of machine tickled inside her mind.  She began shaking her head violently to stop the noise but it continued to come harder and faster, faster and harder.

The Status Quo Bores Me

Today she felt like a child again and she wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.  Her lower unconscious was repressing all the unaknowledged experiences she had as a child and she desperatley needed a release.  Today she would pick up her therapeutic writing book and exorcise her feelings which needed owning.  She knew only when she owned her feelings would she feel a sense of relief.  She did not want them stored in the very cells of being any longer.  The status quo is exceedingly boring her very own fairy story, a modern day classic.

 

The Gretel in her loved the lavish house immersed in sweets.  The absence of the woodcutter did not matter, only the sweets.  She found it difficult to relate to the physical hunger of Gretel, there had always been food on the table and she was thankful for that.  She saw Gretel’s hunger as a metaphor for love, there was little love in Gretel’s world, only in the presence of the found treasure.  Money was love in her world and today as a mum she would be there for her daughter in her first sports day race.  There was no money, only an abundance of love and a real sense of connection to another.  She tried her hardest to be the mother she had never seen.

Do Homeless People Need Rescuing?

Why was there so much sadness and anger today?  She gave to her children what her mother had never given to her, reminded of the moments never shared.  There are so many people in this world who are not loved and today she was not responsible for those, they had chosen their own path of self destruction, or had they?  Had they not been forced into their grave by the experiences they were given.  As humans we’re not responsible for our experiences, they just happen to us and we come to feel powerless in a world dominated by power and power struggles.  We are however responsible for how we manage those experiences and what we choose to do with them. 

 

One can choose to be a victim of their experiences which to a certain degree is a great way of blaming for the situation you may find yourself in.  One does not have to face up to the feelings which are attached to those experiences because being a victim allows us to feel like we need to be rescued, our rescue becomes that of another and not our own responsibility.  Today she was not a victim, today she was going to rescue herself.

Self Destruct

As she pulled the soil from the earth her hands filled.  She clenched both fists full of the planets life force.  There was no production or consumption between her hands and the very soil which gave her and her family life.  There were no sweat shops in Indonesia, or dams in China.  Versace, Nike, Adidas and DKNY meant nothing to her as she clung on to the life she had been given.  The global tempreture had risen and killed off a quarter of her people and she did not understand why.  She did not see her Self seperate from the earth she lived in, she was a part of it, belonging to it’s every move.  Each pain it felt, so did she too.  She felt it’s hunger for survival and desperately did not want this life to end.  She was weak and wondered what her children’s life would be like without her.  The world was to become a different place and where she had grown as a child was not the same place she was in as an adult.  Their journey would be there own whether she was a part of it or not.

My Right to be Here

The stereotypical psychotherapist had always been wealthy middle class women, in her mind and of the women who trained her only two she would have classed as ‘working’ class.  As a training psychotherapist she was going against the odds, she was one of those “1 in 6″ families where both parents don’t work.  She was unique in the sense that she was not supposed to be training as a shrink.  She could allow herself to be type cast into a profession for the female form, working only term time so she may watch her children grow.  She did not see her self as the same as other mother’s, she did not want to be the same, she had always always imagined herself as someone different.  She wanted that difference for the sake of her children and no matter how, she would do what she could be the person she dreamt of being.  And at the moment a dream is all it was.

 

Today her aches had been soothed and as she compared her life to a year ago she was in a different place.  Her deep black hole now had walls, she was standing on the foundations surrounded by a perfect square wall, not too tall to block her in.  As she imagined the ladder she would climb she noticed her fingers on the keyboard clicking words onto the screen in front of her.

 

No matter what our class, we all have a right to existence, we all have a right to be here and she knew that in the past she had doubted her right.  It had concealed her aura and hindered her from being who she truly was.   Now she had acknowledged her right to life and cut the umbilical cord which had impeded her journey of fruition, the dragonfly she longed to be was hovering momentarily above her shoulder.

Self and Humanity

Sleeping had become a struggle and waking as the sun rose had left her feeling exhausted and short tempered.  She sensed the solstice approaching and wondered if her connection to the earth was speaking to her.  Lastnight she had dreamt of a wound reopened.  She had been feeling sad the night before with a realisation that her inner child dominated her presence in life.  She had once connected with her inner wise being but because her inner child had always run the show she knew she was too stupid to be wise.  There were aspects of herself which had become lost when she relocated and she desperately wanted to find them.  Her old, old life was never as chaotic  as her new one.  She had left the organised part of her Self in south east London and she anxiuosly wanted to reclaim it. 

 

 

She knew her wounds would become her children’s wounds and her lack of self esteem would be passed energetically to them.  The absence of her own mother would shift their personalities so they may become someone they would not have been.  But she would not be the person she is today either without her experience of loss.  As she looked in the mirror she saw a young women who had meandered through life without a mother, for the first time.  She saw a tired, worn out self who craved the affection of a mother, not for the first time.  She was lucky to have affectionate children who loved her tired face, regardless.  And she knew the affection she needed would never come, it did not exist.

 

As she plunged in to the depth of her psyche she loved her ability to know who she was and was proud to have written 330 words in 20 minutes.  Today she would feel sad for the world and her inner child would not beat her down.  She would continue the battle with her Self and humanity would realise their potential to harm each other and their self.

 

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”  Albert Einstein.

Our Individual Power Struggles

Today the world was a beautiful place and the new age of feeling was in the very air she breathed.  As the sun glowed on her face she felt it’s warmth tingle her entire body.  Her inner child had been left at the school today and her Self was allowing her to be beautiful.  The mindlessness of her meditation session had left her feeling connected with the world today, with a particular power to persevere with protest.  The gateway was begining to unlock and she could sense the hardwork of minority groups paying off.  The power struggle would pay off and become egalitarian, individuals needed to keep pushing, fighting for what is right, it was only a matter of time. 

 

The first five years of a child’s life are the most important, her first ever memory taking tea in a lady like way, with a cup and saucer, bone china of course, in the depths of South East London.  She was a South East London Princess who had been lucky enough to grow with parents who had a social and moral conscious, both members of the Labour Party.  It made her sad to know that her father who was a union man and local councellor had lost faith in British Politics, his interest now lay with muslim fundamentalism.  He had been an affluent man with several properties in South East London, and one abroad.  He now had little to show for his hard working life and she wondered who had stolen all his money.  He had spent a life time working hard, paying his taxes and she doubted the support he would get from the state should he need it.  He never listened so she would not advise, just continue to love her self and her family for the beautiful life she had been given.  We are a long time dead, life is just too short.

Jung – BUY ME $ $ $

She had always found communicating difficult, as far back as she could remember.  Shrouded in her own world of silence as her only friends were the imaginary made up ones in her mind.  When she remembered  their grey  complexions and their goofy teeth she couldn’t remember if she had spoken to them aloud or in her mind.  She played with them frequently, bossing them around and telling them what to do.  Maybe they were the only ones who listened, who made her feel heard.  She heard her own children too much and sometimes it felt as though they wanted her to stop encouraging them to talk.  She transferred her own fears of not being understood or unable to express herself competently, on to her children and desperately wanted them to grow feeling heard and able to express who they truly were.  In the past she’d rather be silent than have to speak the horrible voice she had been given, even though she had been mocked for her silence and made to feel stupid.  She had felt stupid when she spoke and she cared what others thought of who she was, if she remained silent she could be a beautiful women.  When she spoke she became a stupid girl.  

 

She had spent most of the day trying to write but had been distracted in some way or another.  Each time she sat at the keyboard her concentration would weaken and her inspiration shrink.  And as the absence of her shrink was overbearing she looked forward to the moment in September when she would finally be back in the therapy room.  Her training as a psychoanalyst would continue only this time she would be there to learn about the psyches of others rather than her own.  No more losing control in group therapy for her.  She had explored her emotions in a public place and now wanted to explore the emotions of an other with ease.  She knew she had the insight and intuition needed to guide an other through their emotional entanglements and looked forward to the therapy room with Jung.

 

She was not a bored wealthy housewife like some of those she had trained with, her heart was wounded and her altruism deep.  Becoming a therapist was not easy for her and she would struggle her way to success.  She was passionate about psychology, psychiciatry, psychotherapy and the green room she longed for and one day she would give and in return she would feel loved, something that all the money in the world cannot buy.    

 

She said goodbye to the imaginary friends a long time ago but still their faces lingered on in the depths of her Self.