“One thing is sure, a great change of our psychological attitude is imminent, that is certain…because we need more… we need more psychology, we need more understanding  of human nature because the only real danger that persists is man himself, he is the great danger, and we are pitifully unaware of it, we know nothing of man, far too little. His (her) psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.”  C.G Jung 

“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark.”  Zen Proverb

 

I hesitated on writing a blog about the election- until now.  My hesitation was, in part, because I was in shock.  After my initial shock subsided, I began to be disturbed that I had been in shock at all to begin with.  This shock led me to believe that I was quite naive about what is happening in our country, especially in the middle of the country,  and that fact truly bothered me.

In the meantime, as Jung talked about the necessity of being able to hold the tension of the opposites, I found myself moving over the what I considered to be “the other side” of my own view point.  I visited websites and read articles that were not aligned with my own point of view.

Of course, from the other point of view, things looked exactly like my view but just from another perspective.

It is like those images that you see and are asked,  “What do you see first?  A woman or a mountain?”  From first glance you say, “Well, this is of course a woman’s face!  Anyone can see that!”  But, upon trying to see where the mountain might be you say, “Wow, there is mountain.  How did I not see that.”

As a Buddhist, I immediately went into trying to experience some kind of equanimity. I thought about the greatest dharmic truth being the truth of suffering.  I said to myself, “This is nothing new and suffering is endless- that is why where we are is called Samsara.”  I also thought, “In the Great Perfection, all candidates, including the victor are perfectly placed in the Buddha fields, in fact, he is showing me something important about myself.”  This, is also true. One taste.

But, what erupted after the election disturbed me.

I come from a political family.  Because of that, I have never really been very interested in politics.   One often tries to distance themselves from what surrounded them as a child.  This election changed that for me.

I found that my own ignorance/naivete was a part of the problem.  I did not know myself.  Because I do not know myself, I cannot claim to know you, either.

While it is easy to split the opposites in two and focus on demonizing one side, one person or another, that is not helpful for the predicament we find ourselves in no matter who you voted for.

This election has been profoundly polarizing.  Every single possible opposite has been split asunder: men and women, black/brown and white,  us and them, rich and poor, real news and false news, sane and insane.

This is dangerous.

Paul Levy, in his book DISPELLING WEITKO, says, “This collective psychosis or mental virus– which Native Americans have called weitiko- covertly operates through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering us oblivious to our own madness and compelling us to act against our own best interests.”

I am far more worried about these opposites being divided that I am by who is actually inhabiting, or not as the case may be, the White House.

These opposites and the massive gorge that separates them is a product of being years and years and years in the making.  I was naive enough to think that this gulf did not exist to the extent that it does.  I do live in California after all.

Jung talked about the fate of mankind resting in the ability for as many individuals to be able to hold this tension of the opposites as possible.

I, for one, am trying to do just this.  When I find myself swerving into one direction or the other, I bring myself back to an image of holding both.  I imagine that I am a great big woman who has the capacity to listen to both sides and develop compassion for both.  I am not always successful, but when I am, I deeply feel that I am contributing something, at least on a psychic level, to the ability for mankind to not completely destroy itself.

Copyright © 2017  Katharine Bainbridge MFT, All rights reserved.

 

*artwork by Manil Gupta “Love or Parish”

 

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I had a friend in college who told me that she had been a vegetarian for 10 years before her family stopped serving her meat. The person whom she had become while away from home took longer to register with her family than the person they had known before.

Sometimes I feel this way about myself. Do you?

I just returned from a retreat in Colorado. I spent the better of 12 days relaxing with my own mind meditating. Since I have been a meditator for nearly 25 years, when I sit on that cushion my mind is happy and feels like it has come home.

It wasn’t always this way.

I used to wonder, “Whose crazy mind is this anyway? And, who wants to spend any time with it sitting in silence?” I used to sit on the cushion and imagine going shopping and thinking of all of the wonderful things I could buy if I could just get off the cushion and into a store.

The funny thing is, I am not like that anymore, in fact, I am the opposite. What I have discovered is that I no longer think about much of anything on the cushion except being present with my body and my breath. But, when I returned home from retreat this time, I felt bored. This is the kind of boredom that beginning meditation students feel. I am used to the boredom of doing nothing on retreat now, but not the spacious mind that I bring home with me and the habits that I use to fill up that space.

For example, after returning from retreat my husband and I found ourselves binge watching certain television shows. I thought, “Well, this really isn’t any different from meditating- I am just meditating now on Ru Paul’s Drag Race instead of my own breath.” SIGH.

It is as if my habits did not get the memo that I actually don’t really enjoy this any longer. I watched the hints of my mind try to return as if they were saying, “HEY! Remember me! You enjoy doing this, don’t you?”

But, the honest response is, “No, I actually don’t enjoy this. In fact, it feels a bit repugnant to me.” My habits had not caught on with my retreat processed mind.

This is the way it is. We change. We are changing. There is no greater truth than the truth of change and impermanence. But we feel a kind of lingering haze or odor- a kind of hangover from our habits or who we have been. It can be unnerving.

C.G. Jung once said that “All true things change and only that which changes remains true.”

Allow for change. You don’t have to look backwards. The past is gone. Who we were yesterday is no longer. This is good news. We can and we will change- even if our habits would prefer us to stay the same.

Every opportunity is life asking us to take a chance- to be open to changing. The seasons do it.  We can too. We can trust this brand new open space.

 

(photo by Katharine Bainbridge)

 

It would be very difficult to not know what is going on politically unless you have been living under a rock.

I bring up politics because for the first time we have a reality television star running for President of the United States. We also have the very first women candidate nominated by a major party who could be President of the United States.

The media is fast paced, maddening and confusing at times. We are constantly tossed between hope and fear. Not only do we have the election happening, but also, other issues that continue to push their way into the collective consciousness: the continuing ecological crisis, Black Lives Matter, terrorism, the Zika virus, the refugee crisis and more.

These are not uneventful times. These are very, very potent times.  And, speaking for myself, these times can be quite overwhelming especially to the Highly Sensitive among us.

Trying to maintain mental/physical/spiritual balance, self care and courage is a daily practice for me. I do mean daily. Limiting how much time I spend on social media has been very important.

I have chosen to read more this summer. One of the books that I am currently reading is The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. While written back in 1794-1795, Thomas Jefferson encouraged Paine not to publish his work fearing the possible reprisal and retaliation against him. So it was finally published in 1802.

I encourage you to read it. In the most simplistic terms, Paine is a critical thinker challenging religion. You could say, “Don’t always believe what you read, even if it is the Bible itself.”

One reason I am rereading this book is that I feel that critical thinking has largely gone by the wayside this election year in particular. It is as if we have lost our minds. When we are frightened, we look outside of ourselves for some kind of authority to tell us what to do.  When we are frightened, we can be highly reactive instead of aware and insightful.

From a Shamanic point of view, this relinquishing of our personal understanding and power to an outside authority is very dangerous. To subjugate one’s own autonomy and authority to someone outside leaves you very vulnerable.  When we subjugate our autonomy we forfeit our own experience. Experience is necessary for growth.  What is the best way forward in life for YOU?

I am currently offering a new service in my practice.  It is Shamanic Counseling.   Shamanic Counseling is very different from psychotherapy. Shamanic Counseling is a method of experience a direct revelation or insight into a problem.

It is a spiritual method that follows the ancient principles of shamanism. It has as its goal “life-enlightenment.” It is a problem solving system for discovering one’s own spiritual power and the wisdom to deal successfully with daily life.

The Counseling takes place over a series of 5 weeks where the client is trained in this method themselves and has the opportunity to overcome inhibitory fears and gain self confidence while acquiring heart-felt wisdom.

This work is vastly different in its method from Analysis as well as the Energy Healing work that I do.

This work helps heal and restore personal autonomy. It is a way of experience direct revelation for oneself. What could be more empowering?

This method may be good for you for the following reasons:

Do you have some important questions about your life that feel unanswered and you continue to look outside of yourself for answers?

Do you wish to feel empowered or regain some important autonomy that at some point you may have given away to someone else?

Have you been diagnosed with a terminal illness and wish to understand more about your own illness as well as the death and dying process?  Or have you had an ongoing illness that you would like to understand better?

Do you wish to feel connected to a Universe that is much greater than you are but don’t know how to access that kind of power?

Are you wanting deeper insight into an issue in your life that confuses you?

Do the current events in the world have you distressed and you wonder how you might actually be a part of helping or healing it in a very practical way?

This method provides the opportunity to to realize one’s own personal spiritual power: and the discovery of one’s ability to obtain extraordinary, very practical, spiritual wisdom and answers to important personal questions.

In these distressing times, it is important for all of us to remain balanced, centered and as Shamans say “filled with spiritual power.”

 

Katharine

Copyright © 2017  Katharine Bainbridge MFT, All rights reserved.

 

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It’s HOT here in Southern California. Two days ago it was nearly 112 degrees! Summer is most definitively upon us.

Do you feel the heat? The energy? The increased activity?

Did you know that summer is a natural yang season? Yang energy is attributed to the masculine principle. This makes great seasonal sense since the masculine principle is, as an archetype, associated with the sun.  Yesterday the sun was at the Solstice- the longest time of sunshine in the year.  It is said that people actually experience fewer viruses, such as the flu, in the summertime because the “father principle” is so present.   Some believe that it is this feeling of “safety” that the sun provides that allows our immune systems to be more robust.

In Chinese medicine, summer belongs to the element of fire. Once again, fire is symbolic of maximum activity or greatest yang, which means this is the time of heat and moving outward in nature and we, naturally, move outward into the world.

This brings me to the importance of the third chakra and why healing and balancing it is necessary in our lives.

The third chakra is located in our solar (sun) plexus.  It is associated with our ego identity and the color of this chakra is yellow.  The purpose of this chakra is transformation.  The basic rights that are attached to the third chakra are those rights that are connected to being able to act and be an individual.  As Joseph Campbell said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”  This is a third chakra statement.

Basic issues of the third chakra are linked to issues surrounding:
Energy
Activity
Autonomy
Authority
Individuation
Will
Self-Esteem
Shame
Our ability to be proactive
and most definitely our POWER!

Remember back when you were a kid.  Remember how incredibly independent you felt in the summer time? School was out and it felt that the days lasted forever. Back in the day when children were allowed to roam free in neighborhoods, we played outside until dinner time. Summer was a time of freedom and endless possibility to experience confidence and autonomy.

The developmental formation of the third chakra is the age of 18 months to 4 years old. In this stage of development we are developing autonomy, language, impulse control, mastery of holding on and letting go, toilet training and defining who we feel that we are.

Children at this stage need appropriate discipline, but they also need support in their autonomy. They especially need confidence and encouragement as well as loads of time to PLAY.

When and if we experience trauma in this stage of development we wonder what happened to our power? The theme of “lost power” seems to follow us around.  We spend a lot of time wondering how to get our power back. It is natural and healthy to use our life force energy to move forward in our lives. This inclination to use our power in the world is a natural outgrowth of thriving. It is NOT instinctual to curtail our own expansion, even if we are naturally introverted.  It is, however, instinctual to protect ourselves if we fear harm.  Blockages and damages to this energy center can create situations where we are constantly blocking ourselves from harm when there might not actually be any harm.

If there is a trauma at this stage we may fear authority figures, we may also find the need to punish ourselves when we make even the simplest of mistakes. The third chakra is the chakra when it is blocked or not balanced that easily experiences shame. Shame creates a wedge of fear that blocks us from our own natural expression in the world.  If this is true, we may be afraid to venture outward. Afraid of making any mistakes, we won’t venture outward.  If we keep ourselves small and limited we never experience the self esteem that comes with the adventure of going “outward” in the world. If there was severe abuse we may even feel as if our will is actually broken.  Our self esteem may feel beyond repair.  When we feel balanced in this chakra, life is a class room. We never really make a mistake, we only try and fail and learn to try again.

A damaged third chakra shames us for not being perfect- this prevents us from even trying yet again.

When the third chakra is open, it is focused and directed. It the energy becomes excessive we can become dominating or obsessive.

When this chakra is deficient, we may feel weak and aimless.

Sometimes we feel that some of these negative attributes are just “who we are.” This is so far from the truth! You may have some healing to do.  In healing this chakra, the energy of fire must be built up slowly.  This is possible, fortunately, through exercise and keeping commitment to being in our bodies and sweating-the natural byproduct of producing heat.   By tending to the fires of our own desires and goal we stoke the fire of self esteem and mastery.  Knowing what to hold and what to let go of allows us to feel powerful.  Like toilet training, it is a big deal to let something go and not hold on.  This is knowing what to accept and what to reject.  We instinctually know, in our gut, what is right and what is wrong.  The solar plexus is a network of nerves in our gut.  It truly is our second brain.

 

If we need to stick to plan or routine that increases our feelings of power and control and boosts our self confidence.

A longer piece of therapeutic  work may be to confront the debilitating demon of shame.

In any case, summertime is a wonderful time to focus on healing this area in our lives.

I would LOVE to help you heal. Come on in and see me.  I am around all summer long.  I will be stoking the fires of my own creative self will and finding new and creative ways to exert my power and play in the world!   JOIN ME!