I recently read an article on the effectiveness of various types of counseling and therapy techniques. It is amazing what "psycho-babble" supposedly educated and intelligent people believe in. The list of discredited and downright harmful approaches to helping folks with emotional pain is staggering. Ever heard of Angel Therapy? Orgone Box Therapy? Rolfing or re-birthing therapy? Imagine two shrinks wrapping someone up in a blanket and suffocating them as a therapeutic technique! Yes, dear reader, it did happen and the perpetrators got sued. For years in my practice I have practiced what I call SAFE therapy. It's not really anything radical, just common sense approaches to helping people that have been validated by years of careful, peer-reviewed research. What works for people and is safe.
The acronym SAFE stands for 4 basic tenets that are really good rules for life. The "S" is for the first rule: "Seek a balance in all things in your life." Aristotle talked about the Golden Mean. "A" is for "Attunement to other people." Pay attention to what people say and mean at the explicit and emotional level. Listen deeply to what is going on with them. "F" is for "Forgive yourself and others." That's not always easy. And the "E" is for "Express your feelings; engage them and do not suppress them." As I have aged and worked with thousands of troubled people I have found that we need to add an "R" to our acronym: "Regular spiritual experience." People of all cultures and eras have been at some level aware of this innate need. The variety of human spiritual experience and practice is endless: singing hymns in church, listening to the preacher, meditating in a Buddhist temple, or time spent in an Indian sweat lodge all come to mind.
At a practical level we on the Gulf Coast are being assaulted on all fronts. The environmental, economic and emotional stresses seem to be increasing to a crescendo. People are losing faith in their leaders, their institutions and themselves. I have some practical tips and encourage everyone--don't give in to the pain!
We have to take time to turn inward for strength in ourselves, outward for connection to others, and to the spiritual dimension for strength that is beyond the human dimension. Simple rules. Turn that TV off!!!!! The constant blare of negativity will make you sick. Read the paper to keep informed. Or watch the evening news for a hour. Then get up and do something useful. Take time to be alone or with a few who are close to you. Converse about good things, successes, happy times. Listen to music, Burn a candle. Remind yourself that when you have self-defeating negative thoughts that they are a signal to you that it's time to go to a Good, happy place physically, emotionally or spiritually.
It is easy to access and retrieve bad experiences. I can close my eyes and travel in time back to a foxhole in Vietnam. Hear the "ssssptt" sound of bullets flying, smell gunpowder, hear screams and see jet fighter planes dropping flaming napalm on the enemy. Scrunch down in the hole and think that the world is coming to an end. On that day 40 years ago I went to a more happy place and could hear my grandmother tell me "This too, shall pass". I can choose to go back to the bad time and make myself sick or I can choose to tap into the good, warm, nurturing feelings that come from connection to my inner strength, my loved ones and God. It is easier to lay down and sink into the hole, but much better to move toward the light. Some day the oil will go and the waters of the Gulf will teem with life. This too shall pass.
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