Here is where an aspect of reality can bring great comfort:  your struggle will change.  Even when we wish things to stay the same, it is not possible.  “Don’t ever change”, “Happily ever after” or “I’m turning twenty nine for the fifteenth time!”  We age, we grow, we learn, and we gain new perspective.  From the smallest cell to large life transitions- our situation shifts all the time. I witness this all the time when I talk to people who are upset.  For example, Jack starts talking about his mother’s death and the penetrating, suffocating sadness he feels every day.  As he begins to share his pain, he recalls small interactions that he had taken for granted.  In the retelling, he shares tenderness, humor, frustration, and joy.  It took just a few moments before Jack’s experience reflected the complexity of his relationship and the joy of his rich emotional life.

I have come to see life much like a mountain stream.  One moment it may be clear and cool, while seconds later it is clouded with mud.  It may wind lazily in some areas, but when compressed into a small space, becomes rough and unruly.  Water is a great source of wisdom for how we can approach life.  The water does not lament about what it used to be or should be, nor does it remain steadfast because that is how it has always been done.  If a branch falls into the water, it finds a way around the obstacle.  If the riverbed is disrupted, the water adapts to the new conditions.  All the while the stream flows and makes its mark on the landscape.

Like the flexibility of water, the key is to discern how we need to change when struggle arises.  There will be factors within our capacity to influence and ways we work with what we have rather than attempt to move against the current.  Other elements offer opportunities to gain new skills or learn qualities that build character.  For example, suffering might require:

1. Insight:  what life lessons might this situation offer me that can create a whole new understanding about me and my life?
2. Restraint:  to truly have choice, we must have more options than just impulsive reactivity.
3. Use: the time to find that strength comes through collaboration rather than what we can do alone.
4. Endurance: the true teacher of patience and learning to accept how little we actually control
5. Avoidance:  those moments when the best thing to do is walk away.

There is no path that will not have difficult challenges to face.   Like joys, these will come and go, because your path drives you ever forward.  But in the end, all these elements are only temporary but become part of what shapes who you are and what kind of legacy you can leave behind.    Thank you, dear friend who recently told me, “If you’re going through hell, keep moving!”

Location: Augustana Lutheran Church at 5000 E Alameda Ave, Anna Paulson Room

Date: April 29th, 2012

Time: 11:45 a.m.

Sign up with Augustan’as office (303.388-4678) or contact staff parish nurse, Sheryl Stenseth for more information.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/123485-mit-discovers-the-location-of-memories-individual-neurons

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html

• How do we distinguish those who need the medication from those who could be better served by a placebo?
• Is it ethical to prescribe medication that causes side effects when a sugar pill would have the same benefits but no drawbacks?
• If they are suggesting that we have more capacity to improve mood with our minds, what is going on that we feel such a need for the medical “cure”?
• What is ethical?  Harvard researcher, Irving Kirsch, stated that the phenomenon is more effective the more invasive, and more expensive it is.  He even mentioned placebo surgeries!  Is there no other way to help these people accept that they are o.k. without such drastic measures?
• What is the role of the drug companies and the FDA?

I post this with a word of caution.  Please DO NOT stop taking your medication in response to this.  This is being shared in the hopes of promoting conversation.  Any medicinal changes you choose to make should be done in collaboration with your prescribing doctor.  Meanwhile, I look forward to hearing any reactions to this piece and creating a discussion that will help the community be better informed.

Unfortunately, the MPAA gave it an R rating due to language, almost guaranteeing no kids will see it and certainly making it more difficult for the movie to be used as a wider tool for conversations between parents, students, school officials and our society at large.  Harvey Weinstein is threatening the MPAA because he believes in this movie so much.  Read more here:

http://www.deadline.com/2012/02/harvey-weinstein-threatens-to-break-with-mpaa-fed-up-with-ratings-system/

When this movie comes out, please help support the message by encouraging formats where the movie can be viewed and discussed.

http://www.wimp.com/nofear/

A change begins to occur as the anger takes hold.  First, there is an unconscious tendency to validate the feeling (rather than contradict it) so our attention is drawn towards anything that is “off.”   A certain tone of voice will be instantly labeled as disrespectful.  A look from a stranger will be interpreted as a glare.  Even accidents will be seen as a wrong; attributed to stupidity or callousness.  Someone might be outside where the sun is shining, a bird is gently chirping, and flowers are putting sweet scents into the air.  Yet someone in this state will only notice the bag of trash blowing by.  The world seems hostile, even cruel.

As time passes, the anger can eventually become so familiar, so comfortable, it develops into habit.  Pain is replayed over and over with bitter satisfaction.  To the angry person, this is perceived as a way to stay alert and cautious “so I won’t be hurt again!”  But this is not a true salve.  It is really an affliction that creates distance and indignation.   It is nothing more than repeatedly pulling the scab off a wound.

To ensure that anger remains helpful, it must be approached with respectful caution.  It is helpful when it can be informative, clarifying underlying beliefs or highlighting important issues to stand up for.   It is helpful when it encourages action that promotes needed change to bring about healthy balance.  It becomes something darker when it is as familiar as an old pair of socks, leading to discontentment and hostility.

They key to getting through difficult situations without toxic anger is to remain committed to growth.   Every situation can teach; every trial can develop strength.  A man who did years of intense emotional, spiritual, and psychological work once told me, “I wouldn’t wish my journey on my worst enemy, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world.”  Even in the darkest hours, there is some way our spirit can be blessed with greater depth, strength, and character.  Hold on to this hope.  Seek it out and surround yourself with support so you do not have to depend solely on your own abilities (or weaknesses).

Also, remain active; do not let anger passively enter your life.  Work with it, learn from it, and then do the courageous work of letting it go.  To help:

• Do I have toxic anger in my life?  What is my greatest obstacle to overcoming that which is unhealthy?
• What are the behaviors that often come from my anger?  What would I like them to be?
• I won’t have as much trouble with anger if I practiced…
• An area I commit to working on is…..

What does this fixation do?  Nietzsche said it best, “False expectations create resentful people.  Grateful people emerge in a world rightly defined, where even the darkness is no surprise, but is in fact opportunity.”   To expect happiness means that we will feel persecuted when reality seeps in and burst the bubble.  I would also add that the struggle will be amplified because there will be no coping strategies or skills to rely upon.   There is no way to prepare for something that you do not accept exists.  Therefore, this ensnared person will not only be hurt and angry that the world is difficult; s/he will have no resources to get through it.

Sadly, such a perspective also creates walls.   People who respond to “How are you?” with, “Perfect!” or “It’s all good!”  leave their audience with nothing to hold on to.  Life is too complex for anything to be easy.  Companions know on some level, there is a lack of honesty.  Vulnerability has also been avoided so the friend will have nothing that s/he can relate to, and therefore nothing that can be shared.  Instead, the interaction will be superficial and empty.  A friend of mine recently shared her loving invitation to such a statement, “When you are ready to deal with life’s imperfections, I’m here.”

Questions to consider:

• What have I been taught about distressing emotions that makes it hard to give myself permission to feel them?
• What is needed for it to be safe enough to experience what I have ignored or minimized?  (Ex: support, skills, openness versus judgment)
• What are the benefits of clinging to happiness?  What are the drawbacks?
• What might the unpleasant emotions help me learn or understand?  How can I use this information wisely?

Luckily, I saw a truth that at first was unwanted but has now become a point of hope: it is only during times of suffering that our safety nets are shaken enough to provide access to our deepest thoughts, feelings, and meanings.  Normally we are not open to anything dramatically different from what we already know.   In times of crisis, however, the familiar is gone so we finally have room to try on something new.   This was evident with CS Lewis when his faith dramatically changed with the death of his wife, as revealed in “A Grief Observed”.    Richard Rohr describes this very process in his book, “Hope Against the Darkness.”

This does not mean that there will not be profound moments of grief and loss, because struggle means the loss of safety and security, as well who we were before the event changed everything.   However, there is a difference between confronting the pain and seeing what lessons might lie within, and lying down accepting fate, no longer searching and no longer trying to grow.    For suffering to be the transformative rite of passage that Thomas Moore describes in “Dark Night of the Soul”, we must work hard to find the lessons, we must seek out advice that is hard to hear, and we must be willing to be vulnerable enough to ask for help.

Questions that prompt an active role might include :

• What do I think should be?  How is that being challenged?
• What am I being invited to let go of?  What am I being invited to explore?
• What does the world offer me?  What do I want to offer the world?
• What does it mean to be a good human being?
• Who was I?  Who am I becoming?
• What do I want my life to be about?
• What elements of my life do I want to hold on to?   Why are these important to me?