after the darkest hour: learning through suffering kathleen brehony, ph.d

After the Darkest Hour:Learning Through Suffering

Kathleen Brehony, Ph.D.

Death of a Loved One Loss of Independence

Diagnosis of Serious Illness Fired/Laid Off/Downsized

Disability or Impaired Health Financial Ruin

Divorce/Lost Love Disappointment/Unmet Expectations

Failure Midlife: Torschlusspanik (“Fear of a gate closing”)

Suffering, Loss & Grief Arise From Many Sources

etc.

What can I learn from life’s challenges?

How can I reduce the negative effects of what I’m going through?

How can I grow through my life’s inevitable losses?

Important Self-Reflections

The Phoenix

Better or Bitter?

“The Gods have decreed that the ONLY true human path to wisdom is by way

of suffering”

Aeschylus, 6th-century B.C.E.“The Father of Tragedy”

Mystics of all spiritual and wisdom traditions agree that suffering is the only key that opens the door to transformation of the soul and psyche.The process of Enlightenment is the

“Dark Night of the Soul” – John of the Cross

“Pain is a treasure for it contains mercies.” “Spring seasons are hidden in the autumns.” -- Rumi“Suffering is the swiftest steed that brings us to perfection.” – Meister Eckhart

Buddhism’s First Noble Truth: Life is suffering: “The value of human life lies in the fact of suffering, for where there is no suffering, no consciousness of karmic bondage, there will be no power of attaining spiritual experience and thereby reaching the field of nondistinction. Unless we agree to suffer, we cannot be free of suffering.” -- D.T. Suzuki, Zen Master

“When sufferings come upon him, man must utter thanks to God, for suffering draws man near unto the Holy One, blessed by He.” – Rabbi Eleazar Ben Jacob (4th Century)

“…Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” – Bible, Romans 5:3-5

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” – Helen Keller

“Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much are the three pillars of learning.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“The ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“What does not destroy me,

makes me stronger.”-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Oh No! Not another o

ne of life’s l

essons!

Oh No! Not another o

ne of life’s l

essons!

What the heck is he

talking about??!!

You know what I’m going to do this weekend, honey?

I’m going to grow.

Major Illusion: Things Don’t Change

Most of us grow when life pushes us to do so

It is not necessary nor desirable to

romanticize suffering, but suffering is an

inevitable part of life.

“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers.” -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

What makes some people better – wiser, more compassionate, more joyful in life while others become bitter through suffering? A Central Question!

Instead of learning through suffering, some people fall apart. Instead of growing, they become angry, jaded, self-pitying, pessimistic and close-hearted – stuck forever in endless Sturm and Drang.

Compassion is a central spiritual value, and we’re not here to judge who deserves it and who doesn’t. It’s important to show kindness and patience to people who have become hard because they’ve suffered. We have a responsibility to help.

Mark O’Brien – Breathing Lessons

NO SURRENDERA Defiant WRITER concedes only what he must to

the iron lung that sustains and confines him

Expansion of Consciousness

Buddhist Teaching Story explains consciousness:

I Am Awake!

“Buddhism begins with a man who shook off the daze, the doze, the dream-like inchoateness of ordinary awareness. It begins with the man who woke up.” – Huston Smith

What Does It Mean to be Conscious?

From the Latin conscius, meaning “knowing with others, participating in knowledge, or aware of.”

Includes all the things we are aware of and know

An understanding of “knowing that we know”

Sometimes builds slowly and sometimes comes like a blinding insight

Awakening

A dynamic process of growth, change, and evolution

Consciousness best defined on a spectrum or continuum rather than “all or none”

The Expansion of Consciousness Leads to:

The Search for Meaning

Frankl chose “to be worthy of suffering” – as Dostoyevski had once written – and rise above his outward fate, by making inner, conscious decisions about how he would respond to his

circumstances.

“Once an individual’s search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him

happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering.”

-- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Real Suffering Cannot be Avoided

“Real suffering is an authentic and realistic response to the ragged wounds of living a human life. It’s also unavoidable and an essential part of every human life. Illness, loss of loved ones, disappointment, decline, death, limitations, and imperfections startle and shake us. But they awaken us to find meaning, dignity, and significance in our lives. They open the heart to pure compassion and newfound creative energy. Real suffering is useful. It propels us to new levels of consciousness and self-knowledge. It is through suffering and pain that we break down our habitual barriers between ourselves and others and allow for the entrance of a transpersonal, transcendent perspective: a full appreciation of our intimate and profound spiritual connections.” -- From “After the Darkest Hour” pg. 21

Neurotic Suffering Can Be Avoided

Neurotic suffering offers no meaning. Jung called it “an unconscious fraud,” declared it bogus and with no moral merit. Neurotic suffering is a flight from the wounds of life and an unconscious – and unsuccessful – attempt to heal them. Neurotic suffering is a refusal to discover the meaning in our pain through a childish insistence that things should be as we want them to be and not as they are. It is expressed as self-pity and envy toward people whose lives seem better or less difficult.

-- From “After the Darkest Hour” pg. 22

To Jung, neurosis itself must be understood, ultimately, as the “suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.”

Real versus Neurotic Suffering

“Real suffering burns clean; neurotic suffering creates more and

more soot.”

-- Marion Woodman (Author and Jungian Analyst)

Real suffering is required for psychological and spiritual maturation. Without it, one would remain unconscious, infantile, and dependent. It demands questions:

Who am I?

What is my purpose here?

Where do I find meaning in my life?

What is my relationship to God or some higher, transpersonal power?

I ndividuation – Carl J ung

Self-Actualization – Abraham Maslow

Self-Realization – Carl Rogers

The Good Red Road – Lakota

The Pollen Path – Navajo

Tao -- Taoism

The Path to the Self

Teleological Process toward the Self

Michelangelo

The path of individuation: seek meaning

rather than happiness

“He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.” -- Viktor Frankl

On the True Nature of Reality

Or

The Absolute Truth About Life

The Wheel of Life

The Consolation of Philosophy

(De consolatione philosophiae)

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524 C.E.)

Our modern world offers both the mindset and the pharamacology to diminish feelings that other generations may have used to initiate a personal journey of

growth and change.

The Latin root of the word “Suffering” means “to experience” or “to allow.”

This is not the view of our modern world that wants to forego all suffering before it’s meaning can be understood.

Sales of Prozac alone account for more than $2 billion dollars a year – one of the world’s most popular drugs.

Prescriptions for anti-depressants have tripled since 1996 as hundreds of thousands of people turn to pills to cope with life.

More than 1 million US children take an antidepressant – up 60% from the mid-1990’s

Approximately one fifth (20.5 percent) of persons aged 12 or older participated in binge drinking at least once in the 30 days prior to the (2001) survey. Although the number of current drinkers increased between 2000 and 2001, the number of those reporting binge drinking did not change significantly.

Heavy drinking was reported by 5.7 percent of the population aged 12 or older, or 12.9 million people.

Source: US Department of HHS

The National Institute on Drug Abuse's 2003 Monitoring the Future survey of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders found that 10.5 percent of 12th graders reported using Vicodin for non-medical reasons and 4.5 percent of 12th graders reported using OxyContin without a prescription.

Each year, drug and alcohol abuse contributes to the death of more than 120,000 Americans. Drugs and alcohol cost taxpayers more than $294 billion annually in preventable health care costs, extra law enforcement, auto crashes, crime and lost productivity.

Holding the Tension of the Opposites:

Between the alleviation of suffering and honoring the circumambulating path of individuation

We are not alone!

Suffering is a universal human experience.

Everyone’s life is a drama

The Story of Kisagotami

“God sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous

alike.”

-- Matthew 5:45

Perspectives on suffering in the Judeo-Christian view are reflected

in the Old Testament Book of Job

Invented and Engraved by William Blake - 1825

Job is a successful man with every bounty life can bestow – still he is God-loving, “blameless and upright.”

Satan goes before the throne of God – “Big Deal!” It’s easy for Job to love God and be “blameless and upright” when he’s got it made!

Job’s loses his property and his children:

seven sons and three daughters are killed

Messengers tell Job of his misfortunes

Satan smites Job with boils

Job’s Comforters – they see that his suffering is

great

God answers Job out of a whirlwind

God shows Job all that he has created – Could you have made the stars? How about “Let there by light?”

…And how about this behemoth and

leviathan that I made?

Job and his daughters

God blesses Job more than at the beginning

Issues raised in the Book of Job Why me?

“If you suffer, it must be because you have done something to deserve it.”

A conversation and personal relationship with God results for Job.

The Book of Job as a Story of the Self.

We may never understand why good people suffer, but in the process of breaking down – his “dark night of the soul” – Job learns that he can only live with the paradox, experience the mystery.

Positive Thought for the Day:

If you only live long enough, you will lose

everything.Ignorance about the reality of life is a root cause of suffering. When you deny the reality of life, you appreciate it less.

1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannotescape the consequences of my actions. My actions (karma) are the ground upon which I stand.

Buddhism’s Five Remembrances

Interpretation by Thich Nhat Hahn

Existence it seems is, “living our lives saying goodbye.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Everyone suffers

Suffering can be the force that knocks out our illusionary beliefs about life and thrusts us toward new consciousness about ourselves and the true nature of reality

The Vitality of Transformation

Like Buddha -- We Are Awake

Realize the values of the first half of life are not sufficient for the second half

Change in philosophy and worldview

Psychological and spiritual maturity

Coming to our senses

Live differently – with greater joy, meaning, and passion

Buddhism’s First Noble Truth“Life is Suffering.”

Accurate Translation:

Life is dukkha.

Dissatisfaction, discontent, dislocated

A Few True Things

1. Change is the natural order of the universe

2. Change always incorporates loss

3. We cannot control all the events of our lives but we can control our responses to them

4. There are hidden gifts in suffering

Many Spiritual and Wisdom Traditions teach the importance of knowing that change is inevitable and the natural course of the Universe…

Hello!!! Is anyone

listening?!!!

Change is the Natural Order of the Universe

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man – Nothing endures but change.” -- Heraclitus

Navajo Sand Painting of Father Sky and Changing Woman – Changing Woman represents the Earth and the Seasons of Life

Changing Woman represents the cyclical path of the seasons [nináhágháhígíí], birth (spring); maturing (summer); growing old (fall); and dying (winter), only to be reborn again in the spring.

Sand Mandala

“Mandala” is the Sanskrit word for “Circle” and this image is a symbol of the Universe and its Energy. Tibetan monks create these archetypal templates in sand to remind us of the cycle of life and death.

“All true things must change and only that which changes remains true.”

-- Carl Jung, “The Nature and Activity of the Psyche”

Twelfth Century Europe

Western Esoteric Tradition

…Even Pat Sajak and Vanna White have tried to teach us this point!

Sony Pictures Television

Our false and illusionary belief in permanence is the “rickety foundation” upon which most of us construct our lives.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

-- Zen Proverb

All Change incorporates Loss even those changes we deem to be good and to our advantage.

We cannot determine the events of our life, but we can determine our

responses to them.

Meaning is found in the fact that human beings are self-determining. Although we cannot always change the fact that terrible things will happen to us, we have every power to respond to those painful events in our lives. We do not simply exist but have the intrinsic authority – this “last of human freedoms” – to decide what our existence will be, what we will become in the next moment.

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed.” – Viktor Frankl

Gifts Hidden in SufferingOr

Turning Lead Into Gold

“God does not want us to be burdened because of sorrows and tempests that happen in our lives, because it has always been so before miracles happen.” -- Julian of Norwich, 14th Century Mystic

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.” -- Joseph Campbell

The Alchemical Metaphor

“We are born to be awake, not to be

asleep!”

-- Paracelsus, 16th Century Swiss Alchemist

“The truth of alchemy is discovered when we accept it as metaphor – an intricate allegory –

for consciousness and as a clearly defined path for both spiritual and psychological

development in which suffering and loss are seen as initiating

events.”

The Power of Alchemy

From: After the Darkest Hour

Stages in Transforming Lead Into Gold

Nigredo: “The Blackening”

Albedo: “The Whitening”

Rubedo: “The Reddening”

Another Image – The Chrysalis

“Sacrifice” from the Latin “sacrificium” – means the forfeiting of something of importance in the service of receiving something of even greater value. Literally means, “to make holy.”

How prepared are you for the inevitabilities of a

human life?

Uneven Playing Fields

Straw Houses

Illusions

The Problem with Straw Houses

Overflowing Glass

Stress, suffering, pain, hard times, challenges

How full is your

glass?

A specific conclusion will be accepted based on one or

more premises. If the premises are true, then the

conclusion must also be true. Thus, if A (a general statement) is true and B(a specific statement) is true,

then C (the conclusion)must also be true. Yada, yada, yada.

Principles of Deductive Logic

Deductive Reasoning Syllogism

A. All normal dogs are born with one head and four legs. (General Statement)

B. Dorothy is a normal dog. (Specific Statement)

C. Dorothy has one head and four legs. (Conclusion)

Hey, that’s true!

Premise A**: I am worthless, stupid, and will never amount to anything. (General)

Premise B: I failed my exam. (Specific)

Conclusion C: I truly am worthless and stupid. I’ll never amount to anything.**Premises based on one’s history, experience, belief system, worldview etc.

Typical Syllogism That Leads to Self-Imposed Suffering

Negative Self-Image Leads to Suffering Because…

The unconscious cannot differentiate between false versus true premises as it draws all of its conclusions by way of deductive logic syllogisms.

Psst. Here’s the BIGSECRET!

Ways You Can Tell You Are Adding to Your Suffering Through Negative Self-Image and Negative Self-Talk

“That’s just the way I am.”

“I could never do that well.”

“People like me can’t ______ (be successful, change, overcome obstacles, learn to tap dance, fill in your own “can’t”).

Any number of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies.

To hold onto Self-Injurious Scripts or to Manage Our Lives in Ways that determine that we will suffer in the future – is like a train wreck waiting to happen.

Commonly-Held Illusions and Suffering

Life is fair.

I’m immune from Life’s realities.

I’m in total control. I create my life.

If something bad happens to me, I must have done something to deserve it.

Resiliency

“Resiliency” from the Latin resilire – “to spring back.”

Characteristics of Resilient People Insight (includes Sensing, Knowing &

Understanding

Independence (includes Distance and Separating)

Relationships (includes Recruiting and Attaching)

Initiative (includes Problem Solving and Generating)

Creativity and Humor (includes Creative Thinking, Creating to Express Feelings and Humor)

Morality (includes Valuing and Helping Others)

General Resilience (includes Persistence and Flexibility)

“Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.” -- George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Life as we have known it is now over.” – Marion Woodman

“There is a pain so ‘utter’.”

-- Emily Dickenson

How can we move beyond mere resiliency and grow through our suffering?

The Hero’s Journey

“We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.”

-- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Stages of the Hero’s Journey

The Call

The Separation

The Adventure

The Return (Hero is ALWAYS changed)

“There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they never happened before.” -- Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

The story of the Hero is “the only one worth telling.” “For the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known.” -- Joseph Campbell

Here’s what the Hero’s Journey means in Hollywood – in Three Acts:

Act I Get the Hero up a tree.

Act II Throw rocks at him.

Act III Get him down.

Quiet on the set! Action!

“Life is filled with Defining Moments. Cancer is one of

mine.”

Robert Urich1946-2002

Loss, Change, Suffering act as the Call or

Initiation to the Hero’s Journey. They can be

“Wake-Up Calls.”

Luck, Destiny & Free Will

August 9, 1945, 11:02AM

An Atomic Bomb (“Fat Boy”) was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, but the

original target was the city of Kokura. Clouds covered Kokura that day and the bomb

could not be dropped there.

The Three Fates or Moeraedecide the inescapable destiny of men and Gods

alike.

Lachesis – The Lot Giver

Klotho – The Spinner

Atropos – The Inflexible

Are we entirely bound by the inevitable, inescapable vagaries of the gods?

The Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Heraclitus disagreed with the idea of the “The Fates”

“A man’s character is his fate.” -- Heraclitus

“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” -- William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

“Character is our destiny.” -- Novalis (German poet)

The 3rd-Century neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinus endorsed the idea that the soul selects everything about our life before we are born.

Hmm. I think I’ve already forgotten what I agreed to

up there!

An ancient Jewish legend speaks to how we have forgotten the soul’s prenatal choices about the events we will encounter in life. The story says that the truth is pressed right into your upper lip. That little indentation (the philtrum) below your nose is all that’s left to remind you of your pre-existent soul life. That’s why, it is said, when we conjure up a lost thought or an insight, our finger naturally moves to that significant dent. This is, according to the tale, where the angel pressed its forefinger to seal your lips.

This idea that we have ultimately selected our life experiences, while rich in metaphysical implications, can bring us to the slippery slope that people create ALL of their own fate, ALL of their own suffering. A dangerous viewpoint.

Destiny and Free Will are engaged in an intimate and subtle

dance.

“When the cards are dealt and you pick up your hand, that is determinism; there’s nothing you can do except to play it out for whatever it may be worth. And the way you play your hand is free will.” -- Jawaharlal Nehru

We are Co-Creators of our Destiny!

Good Luck? Bad Luck? Who Knows?

“Do you have the patience to wait till

your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving

till the right action arises by itself?”

-- Tao te Ching

“Where there is good, there must be bad; the transition from one to the other is truly like turning over one’s hand.”

-- Lu Wang, 12th Century Chinese Philosopher

How lovely!

Through the torn paper screen

The Milky WayHaiku by Issa

Learned Helplessness – the failure to avoid or escape from an unpleasant or aversive stimulus that occurs as a result of previous exposure to unavoidable painful stimuli.

Learned Helplessness has been observed in dogs, rats,

mice, cats, monkeys and even Walleyed Pike!

On Elephants and Fleas

Rowing AND Flowing

The Middle Way

The Middle Way

“Impermanent are all created things; Strive on with awareness.”

Gautama Siddhartha6th Century, B.C.E.

Jung’s Transcendent Function

A psychic function that arises from

holding the tension of the opposites.

In all dualities, the wise strive to “hold the tension of the opposites” to integrate and balance opposing forces.

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference.

The Serenity Prayerby Reinhold Niebuhr

Pray to God, but row for the

shore!

Russian Proverb

Trust in Allah, but first tie your camel to a post!

Arabian Proverb

The Path With Heart

“Look at every path closely and deliberately. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.” -- Don Juan, Yaqui sorcerer

Ways We Add to Suffering Resistance to change

Expectation that life is always fair

The illusion of egoism (separateness)

Failure to take responsibility for responses

Ruminative suffering

Failure of compassion

Unconscious approach to life

What can each of us learn that will brace us for our next inevitable bout with suffering?

How can we best respond to life’s difficulties and heartbreaks in ways that will help us grow?

1. Everyone suffers

2. Suffering can be the force that knocks out our illusionary beliefs about life and thrusts us toward new consciousness about ourselves and the true nature of reality

Two True Things

12 Strategies

For

Growing Through Suffering

#1 Discover a Larger Perspective

The Eagle Nebula – 7 Million Light Years Away

Explore religious & spiritual traditions

Read about your own tradition

Take classes in philosophy, metaphysics or other disciplines

Investigate your family genealogy

Look to nature

Write down or sketch your thoughts and reflections

Some Ways of Discovering a Larger Perspective

Sand and Water

All alone I came into this worldAll alone I will someday dieSolid stone is just sand and water, babySand and water and a million years gone by

Words and Music by Beth Nielsen Chapman. All rights reserved.

#2 Turn Toward Compassion

and Help Others Look at the things you say to yourself when you’re in pain

Find a voice that expresses compassion to others AND to yourself

Fuel your compassion with action – Volunteer

“Illumined Selfishness” – Healthy Self-Care Nurture BodyMindSpirit

Physical Regimen to Deal with Stress

Quiet Time for Reflection, Prayer, Meditation, Solitude

Creative Activities

Social Support – Talk About It!

Spiritual Support

Optimism

Humor

Approach NOT Avoidance

Cognitive Reframing

Caregivers often think we are the “Energizer Bunny” and can keep going and going and going – This is a dangerous belief!

#3 Recognize and Stop Self-Imposed Suffering

Listen to the wake-up calls about the things you do in your life

Look honestly at your feelings about yourself

Surround yourself with good company and lovingly avoid negative people

Forgive yourself

Change your inner self-talk

Don’t set perfectionistic goals

Celebrate your strengths and achievements

Gravel in Your Knee Can Hurt for a Lifetime

We see the world through “transparent templates” which we create and then attempt to fit over our realities. We use these personal constructs to predict the things to come. This worldview causes unnecessary suffering.

“You are not the victim of your autobiography. But you may become the victim of the way you interpret your autobiography.” -- George Kelly, American Psychologist

Negative anticipations of our present and future (based on uneven playing fields, past trauma, etc.) is what Viktor Frankl referred to as the “expectation of dysfunction” and what psychologist George Kelly called, “being prisoners of our biographies.” It is an extremely self-limiting point of view and adds to unnecessary suffering.

Holding on to a Negative Self-Image and Negative Self-Talk

Believing in Illusions

Avoiding fixing things that can and will lead to suffering

#4 Practice Mindfulness

“Stay here, quivering with each moment, like a drop of

mercury.”

-- Rumi

“Thursday”by William Carlos Williams

I have had my dream – like others –And it has come to nothing, so thatI remain now carelesslyWith feet planted on the groundAnd look up at the sky –Feeling my clothes about me,The weight of my body in my shoes,The rim of my hat, air passing in and outAt my nose – and decide to dream no more.

“This afternoon, I have found quiet hours alone picking tomatoes. As my fingers find ripe tomatoes, red and firm, through the labyrinth of leaves, I am absorbed into the present. My garden asks nothing more of me than I am able to give. I pull tomatoes, gently placing them in the copper colander. Pulling tomatoes, pulling tomatoes. Some come easily.” -- Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge

Practice Mindfulness

Practice daily meditation or pray

Read books about mindfulness

Tap into community support (e.g., yoga or a spiritual community)

Find your unique path

Live in the present moment

Let yourself feel everything

#5 Grieve

“We’re healed from suffering only by

experiencing our grief to the full.”

-- Marcel Proust

“Grief” from the Latin gravis meaning “heavy” or burdened.”

“Bereavement” from reave means to be “dispossessed or robbed.”

“A divine and terrible radiance.”

– Victor Hugo

“A pain so utter.” – Emily Dickinson

Grieve Recognize and acknowledge when you are grieving

Let yourself feel the pain

Sometimes find diversions

Express your sorrow, Talk about it

Forgive yourself

Take care of your physical self

Be aware of “anniversary reactions”

Get help if you need it

Help others through their grief

#6 Build Good Containers

“No Soul is desolate so long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust

and reverence.”

-- George Eliot

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

A Thousand Words for Snow

Become a Lake

Namaste and Aloha:Recognizing our

deep and transcendent

relationship to all beings

Containers

Shore up your connections in your family by frequent contact

Create a family from friends

Build your containers BEFORE you need them (Dig your well before you’re thirsty)

Be a good container to others in your life

#7 Count Your Blessings & Discover the Power of

Optimism

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a

new heaven to the human spirit.”

-- Helen Keller

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘Thank you,’ it would be sufficient.”

-- Meister Eckhart

Optimistic versus Pessimistic Cognitions During Hard Times

Optimistic Pessimistic

Temporary Permanent

Specific Pervasive

External Personal

Source: Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism

Blessings & Optimism

Always, and particularly during hard times, look around at the blessings in your life

Calm your mind through meditation, yoga, prayer, quiet time alone, and nature

Look at your own levels of optimism and pessimism. How do you rate yourself?

Share the blessings you have with others

#8 Find Courageous Role Models & The Hero

Within“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.” -- Helen Keller

Role Models & The Inner Hero

Sit quietly and reflect on your heroes

Study to learn more about them

Write a story – how would your hero deal with your present challenge?

#9 Keep a Sense of Humor

“Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of

prayer.”-- Reinhold Niebuhr

Humor

Don’t ever be afraid to step back from your suffering and laugh

Share your laughter with others

#10 Express Your Feelings

“There is no grief like the grief which does not speak.”

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Express Yourself

Talk about your suffering with a friend, therapist, priest, minister, rabbi, imam, or chaplain

Listen to others when they need an ear

Express your suffering through art or ritual Process

and the

Story of the

Chinese Potter

#11 Silence, Prayer & Meditation

“There is nothing in all creation so like God as

stillness.”

-- Meister Eckhart

Silence, Prayer & Meditation

Set aside time each day to meditate or pray

Read, practice and learn about the many types of meditation and prayer

Discover the joys of prayer and meditation with others through a place of worship or spiritual community

Learn to love silence

Ask your friends and family to keep you in their prayers

#12 Come to Your Life Like a Warrior

“The difference between an ordinary person and a warrior, is that a warrior

takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as either

a blessing or a curse.”

-- Don Juan, Yaqui Sorcerer

The ABC’s of Living as a Warrior

A Awareness

B Bravery

C Compassion

D Discipline

Live Like a Warrior

Gently but honestly look at yourself and your life in relations to the four warrior characteristics. Where are you strong? Where do you need work?

Work out a specific plan to keep yourself physically, psychologically, and spiritually strong.

Every morning ask yourself one question: “What do I need to do today to take greater responsibility for my life and live with the passionate vitality of a warrior?”

This being human is a guest house…

“Open the door to your guest house. Say “yes” to all of your life. Choose to live joyfully even in your pain. Love yourself and everyone else. Be present always – alive to every moment. Grieve when you should, fight when you can, accept when you must. But above all, say yes.”

-- From “After the Darkest Hour” pg. 262

Thank you for coming and Godspeed on your journey

Kathleen and co-author Dorothy

Vocatus ataque non vocatus, Deus aderit.

(“Called or not called, God will be

there.”)

Kelly

www.fullpotentialliving.com

252-473-4004