7 Ways that Writing Can Help You. (With Special Quotes from Well-Known Writers.) Part 1.

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ Leave a comment

Canva - Person Using Macbook Pro

What is your writing genre?….. Whatever it is, you will inevitably be expressing within it a part of yourself.

Whether it is fiction or non-fiction, academic writing, stream of consciousness, blogging or journal-keeping, the personal you will be very much reflected in what is committed to paper or screen.

Maybe your identity will be expressed symbolically, through describing scenarios and theories that are somehow pertinent to you as a person.

“All our writing is influenced by our life histories. Each word we write
represents an encounter, possibly a struggle, between our multiple
past experience and the demands of a new context.
Writing is not some neutral activity which we just learn like a physical skill, but it implicates every fibre of the writer’s multifaceted being.”

 

Roz Ivanic.

 

Given that writing is such an individual endeavour, it can become very beneficial to us. Below are some of the ways  in which writing can benefit us.

(You may think of many more. Do add a comment if so.)

1. Survival.

Many people feel that writing is essential to their very existence. Without it, they would fade away and die. Why is this? How does writing enable people to live? Perhaps you will discover some answers to this in the points that follow.

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“To survive, you must tell stories.”

-Umberto Eco.

timothy-l-brock-1128491-unsplash

 

2. Telling Your Story.

Writing our story and sharing it with others is a way of communicating, of connecting, making contact. This in itself can combat feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Explaining our thoughts and feelings to another, our ideas, perspectives and world-view, provides a way of reaching out, involving others in our own life.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

― Maya Angelou

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions. -Paulo Coelho

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable – John Steinbeck

chris-spiegl-614974-unsplash

3.  Entering a new and different world.

Writing can provide us with a kind of escape. Comforting, self-soothing, it often means we lose ourselves in a world of our own creation, which can become anything we want.

Again, it is not important what kind of writing we do. We can create whatever we wish, in order to fulfil our writing needs.

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”— Anne Frank

AnneFrank1940_crop
Anne Frank Writing. (Wikimedia Commons.)
‘Writing is the supreme solace.”
-W. Somerset Maugham.
4. Remembering, Re-experiencing and Memorialising.
It is part of the human condition to want to reminisce, to remember, to compare then and now and to learn from the past. One of the ways to do this is to write. Writing

preserves the past, indicates and measures change.

Often, I look back at my own writing and think “Did I write that?” The person who wrote it seems to be different from myself now and some of the details would have been forgotten had I not written them down.

Past written work indicates changes in viewpoint and attitude and shows how we have matured and altered over the years.

 

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

–Anaïs Nin

“Write what should not be forgotten.”

― Isabel Allende

5. Gaining Personal Power

Writing is often a way of stating  “This is me, this is how I think and what I believe.” It is a self-affirmation, a confirmation of who we are. Such an achievement should not be underestimated.

This process can also boost confidence, especially when it is obvious that our writing has had an impact on others.

“A word after a word after a word is power.”

–Margaret Atwood

6. Self Knowledge.

The writing process enables us to discover more about ourselves. Along the way, it will become apparent that we are revealing aspects of our inner world through what we produce on paper or screen.

“What The Subconscious is to every other man, in its creative aspect becomes, for writers, The Muse.”

-Ray Bradbury

 

Félix-Nicolas_Frillié_-_Kiss_of_the_Muse,_c._1863

The Kiss of the Muse. Félix Nicolas Frillié. Wikimedia Commons

Bradbury’s idea about the unconscious as our muse is very apt; when we wonder where inspiration comes from, we can be sure it has emerged from our unknown inner selves. Writing helps us discover this.

Some people find that they cannot think without writing things down; this helps them in find out what is really going on in their mind. It is as if writing comes from somewhere deep inside, from a gut- level, and sometimes we might feel surprised at what emerges from our unconscious self.

“I write to discover what I know.”–Flannery O’Connor

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”  – Virginia Woolf

7. Expression of Pain
Many people find it a little easier to write down difficult thoughts feelings than to express these verbally. Somehow, the writing experience feels more controlled than speaking; there is the boundary of the paper or PC screen to ‘contain’ such thoughts. The spoken word floats into the air, wears something written is held tighter to the self.
There also may be a greater feeling of privacy than there is when verbalising and perhaps a sense of ownership. A sort of copyright of feelings.

“Tears are words that need to be written.”
–Paulo Coelho

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”
― Franz Kafka

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed – Ernest Hermingway

kinga-cichewicz-544949-unsplash.jpg

This post continues next week. Don’t forget to follow my blog and to check it out next Tuesday: 7 More Ways that Writing May Benefit you.

 

Crying : Facts and Myths. A Psychotherapist’s View.

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ 2 Comments

10962390773_3fef7f19fc_z

Picasso. Weeping Woman. Image: Nicho Design. Flickr.

“A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance”

(Ecclesiastes 3:4).

What do you associate with tears?

Are they a relief of stress and tension, a sign of genuine emotion, an expression of  joy and happiness, or of grief, frustration or anger?

Or could they be all of the above?

Are they a waste of time? Perhaps sometimes you may feel they are a hindrance. Tears and crying can have so many different meanings to different people.

“Real Men -and Big Boys -Don’t Cry.”

Real men, we have been told, don’t eat quiche. And they certainly don’t cry. Or do they? Is it a myth or a fact that real men do not shed tears? (What is a ‘real man’ anyway? Any thoughts? Comment below if you have.)

Why crying is important

Actually they do eat quiche and they do cry. (Maybe not at the same time.) Yet from childhood, many men have developed a socialised response of hiding their tears.

As a psychotherapist, I have found that many men in the early stages of therapy feared that they would be judged or mocked for their tears. Frequently, in a caring and non-judgemental atmosphere, these men could reveal that, beneath the macho image, there was an ocean of tears that had been restrained for years.

Sometimes, men might express the emotion behind tears in angry outbursts, whereas women are given more permission socially to cry when they feel upset.

“People cry, not because they are weak. It is because they’ve been strong for too long.”

― Johnny Depp

Hopefully, this holding back of tears is changing for men. Reflected in literature and the media, men’s tears are becoming more acceptable:

“And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off? Or pretending? He let them fall.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

barack_obama_PNG31

Allowing tears to flow is much healthier for both body and mind than repressing them. Withholding such expressions of emotions can result in the development of somatic symptoms. Some physiological effects of crying involve the release of endorphins and oxytocin, which makes people feel better. 

The energy from controlled tears has to go somewhere, and if it is stopped it will emerge in another, less healthy way:

The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.  ~Henry Maudsley

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.  ~Christian Nevell Bovee

man-1465525_1920.jpg

Stop Crying!!

To a child or adult, the injunction to stop crying can be devastating. It reveals an absence of empathy and a condemnation of their emotional selves. Why do people try to stop others from crying?

We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.”
― Alexander Lowen, The Voice of the Body

Such dictates teach people to hide tears, to be ashamed of them, to be falsely ‘strong.’ In fact, it is not strong to withhold your tears, whatever one’s age or gender identity.

They are a way of expressing and communicating something very important. Crying in an empathic setting is especially healing:

“Tears are the noble language of eyes, and when true love of words is destitute. The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute.”
― Robert Herrick

Crying often deepens a friendship; it shows trust and need.

However, sometimes people feel they are crying for too long or they are unable to stop crying. If this is a concern, they may need to see their GP, as it may be that they are suffering from depression.

Crocodile tears: Tears to manipulate.

Crocodiles, long ago, were believed to shed tears in order to lure their prey, or to weep for their victims after they had eaten them. Whilst they do have tear ducts, their tears have no emotional meaning behind them.

In Othello, Shakespeare showed the protagonist striking his wife, Desdemona. Othello saw her resulting tears as insincere, as he wrongly thought she was sleeping with Cassio:

“    Oh, devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!”

― William Shakespeare

Regarding women’s tears as manipulative is unfair and chauvinistic; similarly, women who cry may sometimes be regarded as weak, especially in a public or work setting. This unfairness holds true especially in male-dominated fields.

‘Corporate culture is one that’s still very much male-dominated, and many women, and men, believe that women need to act like men—and yet be more likeable than a man—in order to succeed. This includes not displaying signs of any “weakness,” or even “feminine emotions,” and not making other people uncomfortable. The act of crying can be perceived as all three.’

Peggy Drexler.

Tears may indeed be used disingenuously to manipulate others. But perhaps there is sometimes also a need behind the manipulation; the tears are still expressing the wish for understanding.

In a macabre aside, an extreme version of crocodile tears may be seen in the way that some hardened murderers have teardrops tattooed under the outer corner of their eye. These often represent the number of killings they have carried out.

Gang_tattoo_life_magazine

Freshly tattooed teardrops signifies the number of killings by a young member of the 18th Street Gang in Los Angeles.J. Ross Baughman

This is cruel, mocking the genuine tears of grief and loss. It is a perverse badge of honour.

What emotions may make us shed tears?

Some people cry when they are overwhelmed with happiness, or moved by something beautiful:

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

back-view-beach-boulder-2421457

Washington Irving.

Do you have any thoughts to add? Please do make a comment below.

 

Why We Must Live For Today and The Best Ways to Achieve This.

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ 2 Comments

hourglass-1938677_1920

“Life is but a day;
A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way
From a tree’s summit.”
― John Keats

“No permanence is ours; we are a wave
That flows to fit whatever form it finds”
― Hermann Hesse

blooming-blossom-flora-92933

 

 

 

“And so the spring buds burst, and so I gaze,
And so the blossoms fall, and so my days …”
― Onitsura

 

 

beautiful-beautiful-flowers-bloom-548375

Life is short, transient, even for those who might live for a hundred years. That is still a drop in the ocean of time. The Buddhist concept of Impermanence tells us that nothing endures forever, everything passes.

This is reassuring when times are difficult. During good times, although we know that these will not last, we are also aware that at some point, they will probably return.

The ephemeral nature of life means that there are losses, as well as gains. It means that places and houses and holidays we have had are now just memories, that there are blank, empty spaces where some people and things should be.

Many are still there in our lives, but they have changed, they are in flux, the people and the places that surround us. They are part of the circle of life.

We may wish  that things would stay the same. We may desire a life of constancy and consistency, yet this is a fantasy, a dream that we will never attain. Accepting this is hard.

Twenty-first century society often offers us beguiling ways round the concept of change. A promise of youth recaptured. A turning back of the clock. We actually do not have to grow old! We can surgically alter our faces and bodies to fit in with some contemporary concept of what youth looks like.

Dr_Braun_Performs_a_Botox_Injection_(4035273577)

Dr. Braun performs Botox Injections on a client at Vancouver Laser & Skin Care. Wikimedia Commons.

Yet, even with botox, lasers, face lifts, creams, lotions and potions, we will still grow old and we will still die. That is the one unchanging certainty in our lives.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses,
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
― Ernest Dowson

 

Seize the Day.

Living for now and in the present moment is an important aspect of Buddhist thought. Can we enjoy our lives, knowing that they will end?

Can we appreciate even the small things, the most fleeting of moments, whilst being aware that such moments do not return? They are lost in time, as one day we ourselves will be.

Can we really learn to appreciate what we have, to feel gratitude?

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

butterfly-85628_1920

Staying in the Now. Appreciating the Present Moment.

It is exactly because there is nothing permanent in our lives, including our life itself, that we really need to enjoy what we have.

While we do have life, finding joy in each day is, if this is at all possible, a powerful goal, a way to value our experience.  Perhaps we can practice deriving pleasure from small things. Can we find a moment to ‘stop and smell the roses?’  Can we pause and hear a medley of birdsong we normally might  miss, to taste and savour our food, to gaze at the face of  a sleeping child?

Equally, making the most of our own potential, developing our skills and continuing to learn at every opportunity, enable us to really benefit from what we’ve been given.

If we can grasp the idea that life is but a fleeting experience, then perhaps we will not delay or procrastinate as much.

Maybe there is less time than we think! This is not to be pessimistic, but to urge us to seize every opportunity, to live each day as if it were our last.

This is about truly experiencing the bounties that life has to offer, whenever and wherever possible:

Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent. Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

Rumi

I’m not sure about the instruction not to grieve; I feel that grieving is important. However, Rumi’s beliefs carry him through loss with the reassurance that there will be a compensatory return one day. What do you think?

fish-998553_1920

“‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.” – The Buddha

If you’ve enjoyed this post, don’t forget to subscribe. Just press ‘follow’ for regular personal email notifications about the forthcoming post.

How to Safely Stay in Your Adult Self and Protect Your Inner Child.

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ Leave a comment

 

symbolic-2065442_1920

“We often tend to ignore how much of a child is still in all of us.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

“The most sophisticated people I know – inside they are all children. ”
― Jim Henson

What does the term ‘inner child’ mean?

The child that we once were still remains inside us all. She or he is still there, in memories, reactions, experiences. Perhaps this child partly resides in our unconscious mind:

“So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within
us.”

-Gaston Bachelard

Eckhart Tolle said that “The past has no power over the present moment.” However, the past will ‘flare up again’  if you, the adult, cannot prevent this from happening. If you lose your adult self, or do not have a strong enough set of coping mechanisms, the child that you were will be left alone.

Sometimes, people have been so badly traumatised in childhood that they need others to help them nurture their damaged selves. This is an absolutely understandable need for someone who has been hurt or abused in the past.

Lending Ego.

Then they may need therapeutic help. I like the concept of the therapist lending her ego’, that is, allowing the other person in therapy to ‘borrow’ their adult strength during this painful experience:

The notion of “lending ego” derives from the psychoanalytic tradition; and broadly conceived, it refers to a therapist’s functioning as an “auxiliary ego” for the patient. The patient is allowed to use or “borrow” the therapist’s presumably well-working mind and psychological capacities in order to enhance his or her own, relatively deficient, psychic functioning in particular domains. In effect, the patient is encouraged to think like the therapist, who presumably represents a good role model for mental health.

-Misch.

In a sense, we could extend this theory and say that as an adult, we sometimes might need  to ‘lend to our inner child’ our own, adult, protective ego or self.

Transactional analysis   is a kind of psychotherapy which views each of us as having 3 ego-states : parent, adult and child.

Counselling Directory explains these further:

  • Parent – Rooted in the past; a set of thoughts, feelings and behaviours learnt from our parents and other important people. This part of our personality can be supportive or critical.

  • Adult – Rooted in the present; relates to direct responses in the ‘here and now’ that are not influenced by our past. This tends to be the most rational part of our personality.

  • Child – Rooted in the past; a set of thoughts, feelings and behaviours learnt from our childhood. These can be free and natural or strongly adapted to parental influences.

When childhood, adapted behaviours and memories of trauma are rekindled, this can create difficulties in the present. The following case study illustrates this. (I have changed any identifiable personal details for confidentiality purposes.)

Childhood Fears in the Present 

The person in my therapy room was very afraid. Moira, an elegant, professional woman in her forties, happily married with three children, was curled up in her chair, weeping , trembling. The reason? She was contemplating meeting her abusive mother, whom she had not seen for some years.

Mother now lived in France, but she would see her at a wedding in London the following month. Moira wanted to attend and be strong enough to face her mother, but was terrified. Her fears were those of the child that she had been, revivified in the present.

An only child, she had been helpless and isolated with her powerfully undermining and narcissistic parent. She seemed now to have lost sight of her highly functioning, adult self.

girl-jeans-kid-236215

Over the next few weeks, we gently focussed on her awful memories and how powerfully they were affecting her adult life.

What frightened her most was the prospect of becoming a fearful, tearful wreck, in front of others. It took a while for her to realise this terror was, in fact, a memory. With help, she could regain her adult composure and, most importantly, hold onto this strong part of herself and not slip into her child persona.

She began to understand that she could use the strength gained over the past years. She had achieved this though her extensive education, her loyal friends,  years of psychotherapy, her supportive husband and being a mother.

It also became evident that the scenario she was envisaging had gone, that never again would she be a helpless child. Equally, her once strong mother was in reality older now, ill  and frail.

“Fear of breakdown is the fear of a breakdown that has already been experienced”
― D.W. Winnicott

She was generally comfortable and secure in her adult identity in daily life. She wanted to be able to face her mother, exchange greetings, no more. She could have chosen to ignore her, blank her, but she did not feel this was right for her.

Having focussed on staying in her adult self and on protecting the frightened child aspect, she did manage to enjoy the wedding and cope with the meeting with her mother with dignity and strength. She also saw how ‘weak’ her mother appeared.

“She seems to have shrunk and her voice is less strident,” she told me. I think her mother had shrunk, perhaps physically, but certainly in the way Moira saw her. And Moira had grown psychologically.

“We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are”

― Anaïs Nin

The confidence this gave her was enormous; she could overcome her childhood fears and recognise that the child she was would never be alone again. Time had passed, changes had occurred and Moira could now protect the damaged child that she was. 

time-3769879_1920

“To abandon the child ‘within’ means that the adult ‘without’ will be an adult in name only. And frankly, I can only name a handful of things that are that tragic.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“She held herself until the sobs of the child inside subsided entirely. I love you, she told herself. It will all be okay.”

― H. Raven Rose

kyle-nieber-635997-unsplash

Once the adult feels secure in herself, then she can let her child aspects play and be liberated, enhancing her adult life :

“We nurture our creativity when we release our inner child. Let it run and roam free. It will take you on a brighter journey.”
― Serina Hartwell

gabby-orcutt-98868-unsplash

Do you have anything to add? Have you had experiences of inner child work in therapy? Do share in the comments section below if you can. Thanks. Linda.

7 Ways to Manage Grief

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ 1 Comment

 

3370830781_b0207ed211_o

Image: Conrad Summers. Angel Of Grief. Flickr.

“Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows grief is a long-term project. I refuse to rush. The pain that is thrust upon us let no man slow or speed or fix.”

Grief is the Thing with Feathers

The process of grief is a painful and difficult one. The loss of someone close can precipitate years of heartache and sadness.

In his book (below), Max Porter writes about the process of a young father’s grief after the sudden loss of his wife, the mother of his two young sons. The father is a literary academic and is writing a book about the poet Ted Hughes.

At a particularly despairing time, along comes Crow, a character from Ted Hughes’ poem of the same name. Grief is both harassing and protective, a jumble of contradictory feelings; the entity of Crow symbolises and embodies these aspects.

Crow both haunts and helps the family and will not leave until they have made some kind of recovery from their desperate grieving. This is an imaginative, haunting, sensitive and brilliant study of the grieving process.

26611.books.origjpg

How can we manage such feelings? How can we gain some kind of equilibrium when it feels as though our world  has been turned upside down?

There are certainly no easy answers, no magic remedies; but I have listed below 10 points that may offer some help and comfort to those who are grieving.

  1. Remember that there is no one way or right way to grieve. Each person’s grieving is unique to them, in both form and process.

Other people may have all kinds of well-meaning advice to offer, but if their advice feels intrusive, pressurising, or just inappropriate for you personally, then it is important to disregard it. Some friends may feel easy to be with, able to take their cue from you, follow your lead. Others may be less available, or less able to respond to your needs at this time.

2.   Expect to feel and let yourself feel whatever emerges: shock, denial, guilt, fear, hopelessness, helplessness, anger, anxiety, feeling that one is going mad, extreme vulnerability.

The loss of someone close may make you feel as though your world has come to to a halt:

He was my north, my south, my east and west,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Funeral Blues. (extract) Auden.

3.  Allow yourself time. Grief cannot be hurried. This may be a long and tortuous process.

However, many refute the saying that ‘time is a great healer”:

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

 

Time by itself will not make you forget. However, if the time is spent in ways that facilitate healing (see below) then, in time, there will be more likelihood of  attaining some peace.

4. Talk about your thoughts and feelings if you can. If not, you may, indeed, need to give yourself more time. However, you might find it helpful to express yourself in different creative ways, perhaps through writing or painting. You might try meditation. Cry if you can, but it is also acceptable if you cannot.

5. See a doctor, counsellor, or a group or individual therapist, especially if you think have depression. It is very important to get psychological help if you are finding that your grief feels immovable and too big to manage on your own.

6. Self care is important at this time. Try to not smoke or to drink too much, but maybe accept it if occasionally you do overdo it.  Try to exercise, have nourishing food and get enough sleep; if you cannot sleep, you  may need help from your GP.

7. You will in time find that, in some way, you can move on and gain some kind of peace and acceptance of your loss. If you have allowed yourself the space and facilities to grieve,  “With time, the veil of sorrow will lift.”  Nothing is permanent.

This does not mean you will forget the pain and sorrow and , at times, that grief will be triggered again. Maybe there will be a scent, a piece of music or a place that will revivify memories:

“In grief, there is no stage called closure.” David Kessler.

In time, however, you may find that:

“Your grief will become your companion…The part of you that is compassionate, and strong, and deep.” (Florence)

Unknown

 

“If grief is deep and imponderable, it is because love is deep and imponderable, too.
The world presents us with opportunities for connection, and the flip side of these is the impermanence of opportunity…
The Buddha taught that at bottom, the more we love that which we lose,
the more grief we feel. The world is living and dying, full of birth and loss,
tragedy and change. It is “first truth” that runs like a tragic thread, through all of our lives.”
Michael Stone

beach-366437_1920

Have you found ways of managing grief that have been helpful? Please contribute to this so we can have a discussion! Linda.

Pin this for later;

7 ways to manage Grief

This is why your home is so important to you – Finding a Home Inside Oneself. Part 2.

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ 4 Comments

Finding Our  Inner Home.

chair-music-musical-instrument-237469

Home is so Sad.

Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was: 
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

Time passes. We change. Home changes. Yet, the longing for home is a familiar theme across literature, poetry, drama, music and art.

Sometimes, this might feel like an unmet need, one that is impossible to satisfy externally. People erect magnificent edifices as their homes, each bigger than the one next door.

Yet there is often still a desire to seek further. What is the meaning of this desire?

Collinson explains:

“This is because home, the real home we are seeking is something within ourselves and our own being.  Symbolically, it is the center of the mandala.  Home is connection with the centre of our own being; it is to be accepting of and at home with the deepest part of the self.  But to find that, we must undertake an inner journey.”

Collinson.

For this journey into the self, we might use meditation, religion, psychotherapy. This journey is surely one where we must discover for ourself; we are at the centre of the mandala.

meditation-1384758_1920

It is true that a home inside the self is what many people might be seeking when they come for psychotherapy. In this case, home means so much more than a place, a building, bricks and mortar. This home is related, not to physical space, but to psychic space.

This home is about feelings, unrequited and unmet; it is about memories, some traumatic, some wonderful, yet gone forever. It is also about unresolved loss and grief, perhaps guilt at letting go of loved ones.

It can also be related to fear of change and a need to live in the past. There might be a fear of letting go of objects and people that may once have felt secure.

People with such issues often want to shed their ‘baggage’, as it is often described, but they feel unable to put it down, to feel relieved of their burdens, to relax into their internal space and their present lives.

leather-antique-wildlife-junk-toy-lion-497854-pxhere.com

Perhaps it relates to a fear of growing older and of the responsibilities of adulthood. Just as some people hold onto material objects and hoard them, so we can do this in a psychical way, holding onto the past. We may hold onto both good and bad experiences, which prevent us moving forward in the present.

“There’s nothing more difficult than saying goodbye to a house where you’ve suffered.”
― Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

The ‘rubbish’  that blocks the room in the image below may be compared to the psychological jumble of ‘messy’ feelings from the past that people bring into therapy. This past luggage blocks the person from moving on and really living, just as the junk is doing in the picture.

Household_of_compulsive_hoarders,_Winschoten_(2018)_05

Household of Compulsive Hoarders Donald Trung. Wikimedia Commons.

The journey is one into acceptance of the reality of the self, past and present. For the home that has been longed for is a kind of displacement, a dislocation of feelings onto a fantasy, an idealisation. The longing for home is a longing for a place that has gone, that belongs in the past.

Places change, the people in them change, yet often the idea of home remains unchanged, the same in our memory. Years later, one’s childhood home will look different in reality. Some things will look smaller, other things bigger. Buildings may have altered, been destroyed, or extended, repainted, redesigned, just as we have redesigned ourselves, since.

Loss of Home.

Losing one’s home can precipitate depression and fear. Such distressing experiences as eviction, fire, flood, demolition, divorce can all result in loss of one’s home and all are traumatic and highly unsettling. Hopes and dreams are shattered, as is “the rhythm and comfort of everyday activities.” (Thompson).

We are a part of our environment and it is important to us. Moving house is one of the greatest stressors, along with death and divorce. Some people refuse to leave their home when it is threatened, even risking their lives.

People need a place to go to, to return to, where they can feel warm and safe. With no place to call their own, many people feel disorientated, lost, unwanted. How many people want to return home to die? It is as if they can then rest easier, knowing they have departed the world from a cherished and familiar place, perhaps surrounded by loved ones.

Home is……

Home is not only represented by bricks and mortar. There are many ways of describing home.

People, and objects, may be defined as home. Here are some quotations which illustrate this fact:

“Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?”
― Stephanie Perkins

“Books, for me, are a home. Books don’t make a home–they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.”

― Jeanette Winterson

“Introverts live in two worlds: We visit the world of people, but solitude and the inner world will always be our home.”

― Jenn Granneman

“Home was not the place where you were born but the place you created yourself, where you did not need to explain, where you finally became what you were.”
― Dermot Bolger

“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.”
― Charlotte Brontë.

I don’t care if we have our house, or a cliff ledge, or a cardboard box. Home is wherever we all are, together,”
― James Patterson

“I don’t mean what other people mean when they speak of a home, because I don’t regard a home as a…well, as a place, a building…a house…of wood, bricks, stone. I think of a home as being a thing that two people have between them in which each can…well, nest.”
― Tennessee Williams

 

rustic-vegan-1561505-unsplash

Photo by Rustic Vegan on Unsplash

“Your true home is in the here and the now.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

 

This is why your home is so important to you – from a Psychotherapist’s Perspective. Part 1.

~ waysofthinking.co.uk ~ 12 Comments

home-sweet-home-1458160407CDu

 

“Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like Home.” 

“A gentleman’s home is his castle.’

‘Home is where the heart is.”

“Home and dry.”

What do you associate with home? Perhaps that depends on what kinds of homes you have experienced. Were they warm and welcoming, or cold and forbidding?

The popular notion of home, with all its associations, appears to be about warmth and safety, a place to escape to, relax in, be cosy and comfortable. There will be a fire in the hearth, a cat on the rug, hot drink steaming, furry slippers.

relaxing-1979674_1920

The house has long been known to reflect its owners. In psychoanalytical terms, Jungian theory sees the house as reflective of the whole of the self. In fact, there are houses that do resemble people, with what appear to be facial features.

house-840407_1920.jpg

“….there is the more obvious role as the home as the projection of self. The facade is quite literally the face, the expression with windows for eyes and a door for a mouth and, once inside, each room has a role in the representation of a part of our inner lives. The hall represents a shadow of the time when a home was a single living space containing every activity; it announces arrival and departure.

The kitchen is a space of transformation and alchemy, of raw materials into sustenance, but it is also the space of the mother and of refuge, the warm, secure womb. The bedroom is fraught with a complex symbolism of birth, sleep, sex, dreams and death. The cellar represents the dark recesses of the subconscious upon which our public lives are precariously built; its counterpart is the attic, with memories and secrets of the past. And so on.”

Heathcote.

1000028900

When Jung built his own house, he was aware of how it represented aspects of his inner world. He knew that the unconscious expresses itself outwardly through symbols and that each tower and addition he made was meaningful in terms of his own psyche.

Tour_bollingen_CGJung

                          Jung’s House. Bollingen Tower. Wikimedia Commons.

Jung added various towers over the years. In 1955, after his wife’s death he made the final, symbolic extension to his house:

………..I added  an upper storey to this section, which represents myself, or my ego-
personality. Earlier, I would not have been able to do this; I would have regarded it as presumptuous self-emphasis. Now it signified an extension of consciousness achieved in old age.

Jung.

Jung also wrote about his powerful dream of descending through the storeys of his house, which he interpreted as reflective of moving through different layers of his unconscious mind.

Leaving Home.

Some find it difficult to leave their home; it is a kind of protection from what might feel like an ‘un-homely’ world.

“Traveling is all very well if you can get home at night. I would be willing to go around the world if I could be back in time to light the candles and set the table for dinner.”

― Gladys Taber

Others may be really afraid to leave home, feeling the world outside is dangerous and unfriendly.

For many people, leaving home is a rite of passage. It is often described as ‘flying the nest’:

“You have to go out on your own
So you can find your way back home…”

Barry Manilow- Somewhere Down The Road

 

At this current time, many young people in their late teens have to stay at home, as they are denied this important rite of passage though lack of funds.

Travelling Home.

giant-tortoises-3315158_1920

Of course not everyone’s childhood home is a happy place. There are people who cannot make a home. Fixed roots for them may feel like blocks of cement, tying them down. For them, the open road is home. This often feels freeing.

vangogh-gc

“We both have no home to go back to… so we can go anywhere at all.”
― Kazuya Minekura

“There is no comfort anywhere for anyone who dreads to go home.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Town on the Prairie

 

Sadly, others have no choice but to attempt to make themselves a makeshift home on the streets.

outdoor-wood-street-city-paris-home-125409-pxhere.com

Photo: pxhere. Carlos ZGZ

Without some kind of  home, for whatever reason, people often feel lost and insecure. It appears to be a primitive feeling. Perhaps the home really does symbolise the womb in our unconscious.

There does also appear to be, for many people, a need for their own specific territory; boundary disputes between neighbours can be intense and angry.

In Short : 16 reasons your home is so significant.

Attachment– deep feelings/memories from childhood about home. Feelings of love.

Family/people/friends we live with/nurturing relationships

Routine

Control– home might feel like a place where you have some personal power.

Neighbours

Neighbourhood – amenities like restaurants, GP, bus route etc.

Security, safety, both physical and emotional. Cosiness.

Ownership– ‘our own little corner of the world.’ A part of a massive whole.

Belonging

Belongings– eg photographs, important possessions which are infused with life and memories. Importance also of pets, garden, etc.

A reference point; roots; the centre of our lives.

Containment

Familiarity (and ‘home-cooking!)

Refuge, retreat –

“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” (Goethe)

Memories

Identity– home often feels like a part of the self. 

 

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” – Jane Austen.

peter-boccia-251619-unsplash

Photo by Peter Boccia on Unsplash

Anything to add? Do leave a comment below on your experiences of home. Thanks, Linda.