A friend of mine who lives in Chicago just sent me this text: “If we’ve all been feeling the “blah of languishing” then why aren’t we all feeling much better since things are going relatively better?”

His text was timely because I was in the middle of writing this blog and contemplating this stage of the pandemic and our current emergence from lock down.

The only restaurant that I had been to during last year’s quarantine was an outdoor Mexican restaurant here in LA. This particular restaurant was not open for much of the lock down, but when they opened up last fall I immediately made a reservation. Because they were trying to survive, like the rest of us, the menu was much smaller, the prices had increased, deserts were no longer available, and the wait staff was obviously in full Covid protection gear which gave me a strange sense of dining on another planet. The bulk of the tables were removed to accommodate guests in their social distancing. I was grateful that my favorite restaurant did not close and I was excited to be able to actually get out and order a margarita. I so longed for an experience of “normal” that any one of those changes to the familiar restaurant that I love would have felt irritating to me.

In Los Angeles most people have been vaccinated. So, when I went out to dinner with a friend this time, nearly 8 months later, it felt slightly more “normal” but only in as much as a David Lynch film feels normal. On the surface of things, people were dressed up (not wearing sweatpants), and they were unmasked. I looked at couples and wondered if they were on a first date. I eavesdropped on conversations curious as to what people might be taking about. Were they talking about the last year, vaccinations, David Attenborough’s nature programs on Netflix, depression, UFOs, anxiety, or baby showers? I have only been privy to what people are taking about in my consulting room in the past year. I was dying to hear a casual conversation. What words were coming out of these newly unmasked mouths?

I received one vaccine, Moderna, back in January and had a terrifying and very unusual inflammatory response to the vaccine. For 4 weeks I was sick, felt a sense of depersonalization, had utterly bizarre nightmares and because the vaccine had affected my nervous system and midbrain, there were even a few days that I could not walk. Because I was one of the first people to be vaccinated, my doctor was honest with me when she told me that there simply isn’t enough data explaining the inflammatory response. I was absolutely horrified that everyone would have a reaction like mine. They didn’t. I am grateful that millions of people are being vaccinated without incident.

But the issue that I became acutely aware of was yet another collective split in our psyches: vaccination or no vaccination. I am not an anti-vaccination person and have no opinion on whether someone should take or not take the vaccine. Likewise, I am certainly not an authority of Covid nor of the vaccine. My personal experience with the vaccine, though, made me very aware of issues around the unfortunate politics of “vaccine.” Our collective polarization has been dumbed down to how “good/smart” people are vaccinated and “bad/dumb” people aren’t, or visa versa if you are on the other side of this issue. The bedfellow of betrayal is naivete. Nobody wants to feel or imagine that they could be betrayed by science. We also do not want to be naive. Just as Covid has not been a simple experience, neither has been the vaccine issue. In fact, nothing around Covid is simple. It is downright mercurial.

So, when my friend asked me about why he isn’t feeling better after being fully vaccinated and Covid numbers are going down, I said this to him: It takes time to realize the trauma of the past year. We want things to be “normal” but they aren’t. We so long for things to be “normal” that we might be missing the point of the last year. We, as humanity, have lost an entire year to Covid. There is grief in that fact. We long for saviors and to be “saved.” Has the vaccine become our projected savior? What about those who can’t or won’t be vaccinated? Does this mean that they don’t deserve a savior or a vaccine visa? I think that I am basically a good person, but I didn’t feel that I got a “jab of savior”, in fact, I felt as if I been given quite the opposite.

As a collective we are also moving out of the survival instincts of flight, fight or freeze. We must understand that our emerging road ahead is filled with collective exhaustion as well as collective renewal. Please understand that we are all healing from collective shock, trauma and grief. While fight, flight and freeze is beginning to turn, if you are sensitive, you might be aware of a kind of “fractured energy” that pervades throughout our collective field. Some of this “fractured energy” is manifesting in extreme polarization in many, many issues as well a a general sense of unease even if, on the surface, things appear to be getting better.

Many mothers that I work with tell me that they are secretly longing for lockdown again as their once simpler lives have gotten back on the freeway without an on ramp.

What I also said to my friend is this: There is no normal. We are in a whole new world. My best advice is to take the best of your insights from the past year and apply it to your life today. Write down any profound insights that you had during quarantine- think about how you wanted your life to be different and then apply it now as you emerge.

Friendships, marriages, parenting, work has all changed because everyone has changed. Write about what you are willing to let go of to gain your own sense of power back after this past year. Think of small ways that you can regain a sense of agency or personal power in your own life. Know that this is a fragile time. Things are groundless and old reference points are shifting and dissolving right before our very eyes.

Did you try meditating over quarantine? Baking? Exercising with more frequency? Less social media? More boundaries with work? The ability to say no to things that you aren’t interested in nor have time for? Did you have spiritual experiences? Revelations? Did you face your own shadow? Did you grow weary of politics? Did you become more curious about what creates health and a strong immune system? Did you promise to love to take better care of yourself? Did you grow your own garden? Stop drinking? Become curious as to why you are compulsively looking at porn when you are bored and not feeling alive? Did you decide to no longer push your children? Make room for these changes. Take them with you out into the new world that we are creating together one day at at time. Most importantly, be prepared for many disappointments as things are not normal- meaning things will never be the way that they once were. Allow for the possibility that experiencing disappointment is a way that we are being reminded that we are no longer in acceptance of what is. Disappointment might just be the strange experience of looking backward. Are we willing to face forward in order to experience a new creation of things? That new world is here right now and whether we like it or not we are its architects. Can enough of us be brought up to speed to find brand new solutions to the failures that we experienced in the past year before the clock runs out?

Yesterday I bought tickets to a concert for May 27. I was so excited to go to the Hollywood Bowl since it was closed last year. While putting the date of the show in my calendar, I wondered why the ticket said Friday when May 27 is clearly on a Thursday this year. It is a good thing that I rechecked the date, because if I had shown up on May 27 I would have been the only one there. The show is postponed until May 27, 2022.

Copyright © 2021  Katharine Bainbridge MFT, All rights reserved.

Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted… Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love. -Elizabeth Gilbert

Courage is defined two ways. The first is the ability to do something that frightens you.

The second definition of courage is strength in the face of pain or grief.

I had to put my dog Lhamu down after being her companion for about 15 years.

Lhamu was a rescue and she had issues.

In 2007 I decided to get a dog after I returned from a month long silent retreat. Somehow on that retreat I had come to the interesting conclusion that my life wasn’t complicated enough and that I needed something to take care of. I got my wish with Lhamu. I don’t really know what Lhamu’s back story was. I only know that she was found on the street- she was homeless, matted from head to foot, and she did not trust people.

With a whole lot of care, training and trust on both of our parts, Lhamu became a very sweet therapy dog for many years. So many of my patients looked forward to Lhamu greeting them in the waiting room.

She was loyal, highly anxious and a very, very loving dog.

Last December, before the Covid pandemic, a friend of mine called me to let me know that a litter of Lhasa apso puppies had just been born to a breeder that she knew. My friend, Jen, was going to take a puppy- did I want the brother?

My husband was adamant that he did not wish to have another dog to take care of. I, as his wife, knew that if he saw the puppy that he might just change his mind. Cunning is a necessary trait for the feminine. My cunning worked, and we took little Pepe Le Pew home.

Pepe, as opposed to Lhamu, was in a healthy and safe environment until he was old enough to leave. He was not only with his litter, but also his mother and caring handlers.

Lhamu lived with tension in her body and anxiety. Pepe, on the other hand, is secure, strongly in his body and he is fiercely independent. It felt strange to not have a dog follow me everywhere as Lhamu did. Pepe could take the company of people or leave it. He was cool with his bones and chew toys.

When I had to put Lhamu down it was one the hardest decisions that I have ever had to make. It an act of courage to face atrophy and death, especially in a beloved pet.

I was not present when my brother, Phillip, actually died. He had been in hospice in another state. After visiting him in the hospital and then moving him over to hospice, I felt that, in his own way, he was telling me that he needed me to leave so that he could die; and so I did. Leaving him to die was hard for me. It was also an act kindness, to him, from me. More likely, it was an act of kindness from him to me.

I hear about how beautiful it is to be the room with someone who is dying. This isn’t always true. Lhamu didn’t breath a sweet last sigh, she gurgled- twice. The shot didn’t work and the vet had to inject something into her mouth.

I wasn’t sure if she was dead. I wanted to reverse the whole process. Was it too late to stop her death? If I did, would she be brain dead or worse? Was that worse than death? These are thoughts that humans have around death and dying. It isn’t pretty. I don’t think that it is supposed to be.

Life doesn’t usually end well like a Disney story. It can often carry much of the injustice, horror, confusion and betrayal that is found in Grimm’s fairy tales. I don’t think that we actually grow psychologically or spiritually when things are going easy. This was Lhamu’s gift to me. My life was not easy with her. But, I learned from her how to be patient how to be generous and especially how to be kind. I most definitely learned about love.

If you can take an adversity and loss and find a way to remain kind then you have done something good for yourself.

I recently read a quote from Nick Cave, who tragically lost his son, about grief. He said,

This feeling… of alertness to the inner-spirit of things — this humming — comes from a hard-earned understanding of the impermanence of things and, indeed, our own impermanence. This lesson ultimately animates and illuminates our lives. We become witnesses to the thrilling emergency of the present — a series of exquisite and burning moments, each extinguished as the next arises. These magical moments are the bright jewels of loss to which we cling.

The natural adversities and loss in life can easily make us hard and bitter. That is a choice. But, we can also allow ourselves to be softened by life and learn to flow with the rough edges that are a natural part of experiencing life actually being alive. It is brave to soften and to say YES to everything that is difficult or not going our way. To quote Zorba the Greek, God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all of his disguises.

Loss teaches us everything, just as love does. Are we willing to let go? Because the truth is that every hello has its goodbye. Every hello is the welcoming of life and every goodbye is way to make continual meaning of what it means to be left behind and yet to stay fully present and living within the natural catastrophe that is life. Life goes up, life goes down, but life goes on. Bravery is getting on the ride and surrendering to the up and the down. We cannot control it. There is very little that we can control. We can be brave enough to make meaning from all of it. Meaning making is our creative alchemical ability. It is our magic. I personally find the god of my understanding dwells within the disaster AND the aftermath as well as the subsequent meaning making about it. My question to you is are you willing to fully open to the paradox of living and loving knowing that those two are not, and will never be, permanent? Are you willing to be brave?

Copyright © 2020  Katharine Bainbridge MFT, All rights reserved.

When I entered into Menopause, my world flipped absolutely upside down seemingly overnight.

Initially I said to myself, “I can handle this. Hot flashes are nothing other than a kind of purification.” BAH! Hot flashes are HORRIBLE!

I often thought about women who decide, ahead of time, the way that they want the birth of their child to be. Most, not all, of those women soon find out that the baby and birth have a mind of its own. The birth itself, as well as this child, will be what it it will be. This experience of ‘it will be what it will be’ is true with menopause as well. Menopause has a life and mind of its own.

Once my symptoms began to be emotional, spiritual as well as physical, I had to understand that I could not control this incredible force of nature. I had to surrender. I was giving birth to myself as a woman.

There was a very serious turning point for me when I began to feel as if my mind was like the computer Hal in 2001 A Space Odyssey. At the end of the movie, the astronaut, Dave, in order to save the ship from further disaster began to unplug Hal.

I did not recognize myself. I could not move quickly. I experienced the sharp mind that I once had begin to dissolve into mush.

I could not remember words, in fact, I couldn’t even string a full sentence together. I had to result to the “the name game” with my husband. Our conversations begin to feel like the gameshow The $20,000 Pyramid.

Then came the tears. I would burst into tears for no reason. Everything made me cry.

So, essentially, I was sweating, crying and unable to string a sentence along. Fortunately, for me, hormone replacement therapy was a solution. But, HRT was not going to take care of the entire story for me.

I’m not sure why, but I was shocked when my Naturopath explained to me that women, up until the 1950’s, were put into mental institutions for menopause.

She also told me something very interesting. She said, “Women who are in corporate America, have the most difficult time with menopause.” She explained that the compulsion to achieve is in complete contrast with the inevitable changes that occur in menopause.

For those of you who are not in this phase of life, let me be first to tell you that you life will change.

It is not only physical changes that occur. It is an ENTIRE life change. Dr. Christian Northrup is one of the only truth tellers who say that your brain is changing during menopause. Mood swings are literally your brain rewiring itself for a new reality.

You might be asking yourself, “Why is she talking about menopause when we are in a world wide pandemic?”

Why? Because I see the outer world mirroring what I have been experiencing in this enormous change happening in my own body.

And yes, this change is absolutely permanent. There is no going back.

Menopause is a time of deep reflection. Women often ask themselves, “What is really important to me? Have I nurtured myself enough? What are my priorities? What needs to change in me as earlier traumas beg for healing and forgiveness? Who and what do I want to love most? What am I willing to sacrifice? How do I move forward? This feels catastrophic.”

In the beginning, these changes are shocking. We ask ourselves, “Am I experiencing a hot flash? Is that what this is?” “How long is this really going to last?” Many women experience insomnia. Often women have the feeling of a panic attack right before a hot flash presents itself. Women experience adrenal fatigue and our metabolism, like our economy, suddenly grinds to a complete halt. There is a brand new normal. It takes some time to accept this. As all former and familiar reference points of being a woman begin to disappear one by one, a brand new and more solid sense of authenticity begins to emerge. Wisdom takes precedent over worrying too much about what others think.

There is no doubt that women understand death. We understand concrete death and we understand the necessity of the death of identity to move into another phase of life. Women becoming mothers must grieve no longer being a maiden. Mothers must grieve when their children leave home, often during the menopause phase. Although women will always carry within them being a maiden, a mother and a crone- these life transitions are experienced concretely in the body.

In menopause there is literally a PAUSE occurring. A deeply spiritual pause.

Collectively, I feel, we are in the midst of a similar and very permanent change.

How we respond to this change is what is most important.
What does this change mean moving forward? How do we accept it?

I have barely had enough time to process what is occurring regarding this pandemic. I am working from home for the foreseeable future.

As many of you know, ten years ago I worked with one of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers in Nepal. Those meetings were both powerful, educational and life changing. It fundamentally altered the way that I work with the psyche.

As my own thoughts and feelings begin to emerge around this worldwide crisis I will share more on my blog. For now, what the Grandmother’s are saying mirror my own thoughts. It also mirrors what my experience has been in menopause. There is a feminine wisdom stepping into to literally make us all STOP.

As you are forced to slow down, stop and sit with yourself and loved ones, accept what is occurring. Accept that there is no going back. We are, as a globe, forever changed.

I have thought a lot about my own Polish grandmother, Stella, during this time. I thought about how she made homemade bread with her own hands. I thought about how she showed her love through her cooking. I thought about how much she loved to listen to music. I thought about her sharing coffee with me in tiny little coffee cups. Food, conversation and laughter could always be found in her home. I thought about how she had neighbors stop by just to say, “hello.” That was a very different time. Primarily, it was a very different time because it felt as if there was more time…

Message from the Council of The Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers:

As you move through these changing times…. be easy on yourself and easy on one another. You are at the beginning of something new.  You are learning a new way of being.  

You will find that you are working less in the old yang (masculine) modes that you are used to.

You will stop working so hard at getting from point A to point B the way you have in the past, but instead, will spend more time experiencing yourself whole and your place in it.

Instead of traveling to a goal out there, you will voyage deeper into yourself.  Your mother’s grandmother knew how to do this.  Your ancestors long ago knew how to do this.  They knew the power of the feminine principle…. and because you carry their DNA within your body, this wisdom and its way of being is within you.  

Call on it.  Call it up.  Invite your ancestors in as the yang based habits and decaying Institutions on our planet begin to crumble, look up- a breeze is stirring.  Feel the sun on your wings.  Remember who we are.

Be safe and take care of each other.

Copyright © 2020  Katharine Bainbridge MFT, All rights reserved.

Dear Friends,

I don’t know if any tickets are still available, but if so then please join me for a discussion after the play Extremities. I have been invited to assist in a conversation after the play about the relevance of Extremities in our current 2018 culture, violence, #MeToo,  and the somatic approach to resolving trauma.  Looking forward to seeing you there!

The director of the play Tina Alexis Allen http://tinaalexisallen.com has just published a book that I highly recommend. Her book is about dangerous family secrets, lies, and truth telling.  Her book is entitled Hiding Out, a Memoir of Drugs, Deception and Double Lives and can be found on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Out-Memoir-Deception-Double/dp/0062565672

More info: dynamo-studio.com/projects