6 KEY PRACTICES FOR TRANFORMING SUFFERING #3: DEFINING DESIRE
“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. ”
When something painful throws us for a loop, there isn't a pause button to hit. Often we are simultaneously picking up the pieces, healing from the physical and emotional pain, and hustling like crazy to take care of all of our daily responsibilities WHILE WE SUFFER.
The world does not stop and allow us to heal.
In these circumstances, we often only see 5 minutes in front of us, because to look any further ahead feels overwhelming. The depression, rage, or grief can feel all-consuming.
But it is vital--even in these circumstances-- that we find a way to step back from the overwhelming grind and take perspective.
Why?
If you do not know where you want to go, there is absolutely zero chance that you will get there.
Until you know what you want, you can’t take action to get it. That’s why, no matter how exhausted you are, it is vital that you make time to consider exactly what changes you want to make and how life will look on the other side.
If you want to overcome suffering, it is key that you define your desires.
I know how hard this first step is, so I'm sharing an audio of a guided visualization I like to do with my clients. This is a very relaxing way to start the process of envisioning what change might look like.
I recommend creating a ritual for yourself around this audio. Set up a comfortable place for yourself, perhaps drape yourself with a blanket and light a candle or some incense, and set up a journal and pen so that you can easily write about your experience afterward. Allow yourself about 10 to 15 minutes for this experience.
Once you’ve decided to define your desires, there are so many ways to begin.
Vision boards are popular, and they are a step in the right direction, but oftentimes a vision board is simply a collection of images and words without any plan mapped out for getting to the places they describe. When you are recovering from trauma or the pain of loss, simply looking at images of where you’d rather be can feel like a slap in the face if you don’t have a plan for getting there.
I'm going to share two processes I like to use with my clients to help them define their desires.
If the thought of engaging in either of these practices feels too overwhelming, take a moment to lie back and listen to the guided meditation above. That may be enough for today. Be gentle with yourself.
DEFINING DESIRES EXERCISE #1: Merlin process
I call this exercise the Merlin process because legend says that Merlin lived backward through time, which gave him the ability to apply the lessons of his future to his present moment. This exercise achieves a similar result.
After listening to the guided meditation above, take a few deep breaths and then begin to write. Write IN THE PRESENT TENSE about what your life is like now that you have moved through your suffering and are living the life that you want to live, surrounded by the people you want to spend time with, feeling the way you want to feel, doing the things that nourish and feed you.
Describe what your life looks and feels like---what happens when you wake up in the morning? How do you spend your time? What is your baseline emotion?
It is key that you write this in the present tense! This allows your brain to believe in the reality of these possibilities NOW rather than projecting them into an always-distant future.
For example: “This morning I wake up when the first rays of sun hit my face. I feel so grateful and well-rested. It feels so good to wake when my body wants to and not having to set an alarm. I hug my kids and make myself a cup of tea which I drink slowly outside, feeling the sun on my face. Then I have a few hours to write….” And so on.
Place this writing where you can see it and take a few moments each day to close your eyes and imagine yourself in the reality you described. This reminds your brain what your intentions are and helps you to prioritize the thoughts, emotions, and actions that will take you in the direction of your desires.
DEFINING DESIRES EXERCISE #2: Finding the Slogs
If the Merlin process does not come easily to you, or you find yourself muttering a bitter “yeah right” when you review your writing, this is the exercise to start with!
Break your average day into one-hour increments, starting when you wake and ending when you go to sleep. On each line, write the thing you hate most about that hour and what feeling is associated with it. For example:
TIME SLOG EMOTION
5 am I hate waking up this early. exhaustion
6 am I hate fighting with the kids to get up. resentment
7 am I hate leaving the house right when it is so peaceful. sadness
8 am I hate wading through the pile of work emails. overwhelm
And so on. Now take the emotions you’ve listed and, on another sheet of paper, write down their opposites. For example, my emotions listed above were:
Exhaustion, resentment, sadness, overwhelm
Finding the opposites to some of your emotions may be challenging. Take some time with it. Close your eyes, imagine the negative emotion flooding through your body, and notice what your body feels like when you experience that emotion. Then try to consciously feel the opposite. For example, when I imagine resentment I can feel my jaw clench and my stomach grip; so I try to consciously relax my jaw and breathe into my belly. Then I notice what emotion comes up. Sometimes getting into the body in this way can yield surprising insights.
So now I have my list of opposite emotions:
Vitality, gratitude, joy, spaciousness
Your opposites may be very different than mine, and that’s totally fine. We all experience emotions in slightly different ways.
Take your list of opposite emotions and think about places in your life where you experience them. For example, there is a moment in my day when I am walking home from work and I pass a mock orange tree that’s in bloom. The scent fills the air and suddenly I remember that I have finished work for the day and I am heading back to people I love. Instantly my heart fills with vitality, gratitude, joy, and spaciousness.
Find some point in your day when you feel at least one of your positive opposite emotions, and take a little while to examine it. What is it about that moment that gives you the positive feeling? What are the circumstances surrounding it? What scents, sights, textures, sounds, and tastes are involved?
Now use what you’ve learned to try to extend this moment of positive emotion. In the case of my example above, I might consider bringing a few branches of mock orange in a vase to my workplace and smelling them deeply throughout the day to remind myself of the moment that’s coming in the afternoon. Or I might take a walk on my lunch break and call up that feeling of freedom and motion that I feel when I am walking toward my home.
Any opportunity you get, let yourself experience and savor those positive emotions. That’s enough for now. When you’re ready, you can move on to the Merlin Process exercise.
We don’t have control over our life circumstances, but we do have control over our thoughts and actions.
When we choose to expand the experiences that feel good to us, we are already overcoming the forces that hold us in suffering.
Defining your desires has the same effect as when you hear someone mention an obscure artist and suddenly you see her paintings everywhere. Or when you need to buy a used car and suddenly you are noticing cars for sale on every corner.
This isn’t magic—it’s simply that you’ve gotten your brain onboard.
You’ve told your brain that this information it’s been filtering out is suddenly relevant, so it begins to notice for you. “Oh, cars are important now? Okay, check. Look, there’s a car for sale!” When we take the time to define carefully where we want to go, we use this to our advantage. We get our brains onboard.
Defining your desires programs your destination into your mental GPS. This allows your brain to recognize and act upon any opportunity to take you there.
If you’d like help overcoming your own suffering, I invite you to join Sweet Relief, a skills group I will be leading with the talented and inspiring pleasure coach Briana Anderson.
The group starts in May and will be centered on the techniques and processes for overcoming trauma described here. You will get personal attention and help in developing your plan and daily exercises and support to speed up your healing process. You will work with accountability partners to ensure that you are putting all of the information you are learning into practice.
It will be a chance to participate in a community of transformation as you consciously and powerfully learn these skills and move into the life of freedom and joy that you have envisioned. For more details or to register, follow the link here:
I am always interested in hearing how these techniques work for you. Please feel free to share any feedback or questions in the comments below!
6 KEY PRACTICES FOR TRANSFORMING SUFFERING #2: UPSOURCING
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
I'm curious: where do you get your advice?
I'll tell you a little story. Years ago, when I was going through an extremely difficult time, the only place I felt safe unburdening my heart was late at night, to my sleeping baby. I would whisper all my heartaches and then look to my snoozing infant for answers.
It's not that I really thought my baby could advise me...it's just that I didn't know where else to turn.
Sometimes we feel safe in our complaints, because the specter of change is so overwhelming. We turn for advice to those we know will keep us playing small. We complain to those who complain right back, rather than challenging us to change. We take the advice of people who are similarly stuck....or even, if you are like me, seek the advice of the pre-verbal! Now that's playing it safe.
But what if we sought advice from people who had already created the life we long for?
What if we bravely brought our heartaches to the people that would challenge us to heal them?
What if we only shared our most cherished and vulnerable aspirations with people who have made amazing things happen?
Upsourcing means that you surround yourself with a web of humans who make things happen. You invite the people who inspire you for tea. You write a letter to that author you admire and include a poem you wrote ten years ago. You bravely turn your face to the sun and nourish yourself with the dreams that others have made real.
Upsourcing is NOT EASY. It is terrifying to reach out to the people we admire, and let's be honest, there can be a fair amount of rejection involved. But it is a painful truth that you cannot learn how to get unstuck from people who are stuck. And you never know what is possible until you take your heart in your hand and ask.
There are many, many ways to put upsourcing into practice. Here are three to try on for size, in order of the bravery required!
1) Put a notecard in your pocket.
Throughout the day, notice every time you feel a tug of envy. It might be a facebook post you see from a successful friend, or the joy on the face of a person you pass in the street, or a poster advertising travel to the tropics. When you feel that tug of envy, pull out your notecard and jot it down. What do you envy? What is it you want?
At the end of the day, look at this list of qualities and people and experiences that you envy. Find the one that pulls at you the most and take one step toward it. Maybe that means (gulp!) calling the person you admire and asking them how they got that incredible job. Maybe that means calling a counselor and simply stating over the phone that your depression has become unmanageable. Maybe that means calling a travel agency and asking for a brochure to put up on your wall. When we take action, however small, in the direction of our dreams, envy metabolizes into fuel. It's incredible to experience.
2) Choose a friend or acquaintance whose life you admire.
Ask him if he is willing to be your accountability partner for a month. Then, every day, text him with a brag about something you have done right and an intention that you hope to accomplish. For example: "good morning Sigmund! I brag that I got out of bed and made myself breakfast this morning before the kids were up and took the time to enjoy a quiet cup of tea. I intend to write in my journal today for five minutes any time I begin to feel hopelessness creeping in. Thank you!" Your friend does not have to do anything, although chances are, he will begin to reciprocate with brags and intentions of his own! Simply texting your accomplishments and intentions to someone you admire works the magic of accountability, and you may find that it strengthens your friendship as well. If you don't have a phone, choose someone you'll see in person daily.
3) Write a letter to a person of power in your community.
Perhaps she is an author, or an activist, or a public speaker. The only requirement is that she be someone you consider important and admirable, doing work that connects with what you dream of doing or accomplishing in your life.
Write why you admire her. Be specific. Then tell her about your dreams, what you hope to do, and ask for her advice. Whisper a blessing and mail it off. The worst thing that can happen is she doesn't respond. The best thing that can happen? The sky is the limit. The foundations of your life could shift.
All of these upsourcing activities are free and require only two things:
1) your time and 2) your courage.
So, as the poet Mary Oliver says:
Tell me---what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?
I have worked with people who were caught in situations that seemed completely inescapable, and I have seen them overcome depression and anxiety that felt immobilizing. For all of them, it started with a single step, the bravery to ask the right person for help. I know that's how it started for me.
All those years ago, something shifted when I stopped asking my sleeping baby for advice. I turned to a woman I admired and opened my heart to her, even though it terrified me. She found me a job working by her side and our friendship blossomed; we entered into numerous creative collaborations. The confidence I gained from those experiences led to my application to graduate school, and my life changed completely.
I still whisper to my sleeping children at night, but now it is poetry and lullabies.
When you start sharing your dreams and hopes with people who can actually make them happen, life shifts quickly. Give it a try, and let me know what happens!
If you are struggling in your life right now and don’t know if you can make these changes alone, the Sweet Relief series might be for you. One time-tested method of upsourcing is seeking out a counselor, coach, or skills-training community to give you momentum and support. If this resonates with you, read more about Sweet Relief here and let me know if you want to join--space is limited and it starts in May.
Feel free to share your own upsourcing practices in the comments.
6 KEY PRACTICES FOR TRANFORMING SUFFERING INTO SWEET RELIEF
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
The moments in our lives that require the most power, clarity, and energy tend to strike when we are at a physical, mental, and emotional low point. This feels utterly unfair. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard my clients say
“I am just too tired to put the work in to make things better.”
Does this sound familiar? If life has been difficult lately, then right now you probably feel you cannot put one more responsibility on the table. You may be asking yourself: how can things get better if I have no energy left to make them better? And how can I muster up the energy to change if the circumstances of my life drain every ounce of energy I have?
This is a rough spot to be in. I’ve been there. And I believe you 100% that it feels true that you have no energy to put into turning things around.
And yet, if you can show up to your life with the skills I am about to describe, you will discover a whole new well of energy to draw from.
Every beautiful heroine’s journey begins with the moment a woman says “enough.” And that one word releases enough energy to take the next step, and the next step generates enough energy to make the next decision. You only have to do what’s in front of you, but the end of your journey is a world away from the reality you inhabit now.
In the years I’ve spent working with women, I have had the honor of meeting people whose life stories would break your heart. These women have been abused, disrespected, traumatized, shattered, and abandoned. And yet each of these brave, powerful beings found the power within herself to heal.
Why is it that some women never recover from suffering, and others have the ability to rebound from trauma to create a meaningful, joyful life? In the years that I have studied this, I have learned that women who navigate the journey out of suffering with grace and wisdom have certain key practices in common.
These key practices help women step from circumstances of misery into lives that reflect their inherent value. For the next several weeks, I am going to devote one blog post per week to each of these 6 key practices.
We have very little control over the amount of suffering that is going to exist in our lives. The only control we have is in how we decide to respond to it. We can decide that the time we’ve spent suffering has not been wasted; we can decide to extract every ounce of meaning from our journey and emerge wiser, stronger, and more resilient on the other side.
(And if the very idea of learning another skill exhausts you, remember this: the practice I am about to describe takes less energy than it does to wash a load of laundry. But that laundry is just going to get dirty again, and the progress you make on your spiritual journey is irrevocable!)
THE 6 KEY PRACTICES FOR TRANSFORMING SUFFERING INTO SWEET RELIEF
Practice #1: CREATING PORTALS TO THE SACRED
What is sacred to you?
Take a moment and really consider that. What does your heart beat for? What would you never forsake? What never fails to move you? What lifts your spirits, keeps you awake, gets you out of bed in the morning?
Take a moment and write down as many answers as come to you. For some of us it is art, or movement, or music, or our relationship to the divine. For some it is surfing, or meditation, or poetry, or the wilderness. There is no right or wrong answer. Take a moment and write down as many answers as come to you.
Look at your list. What if every day, for just five minutes, you devoted yourself to connecting to your sense of the sacred?
If art is sacred to you, this could mean five minutes of art making in the morning. If surfing is sacred to you, and you live far from the sea, this could mean listening to a recording of the ocean for five minutes, or standing on a paddleboard, or watching videos of your surfing idols on Youtube. If the wilderness is sacred to you, this could mean holding a pinecone for five minutes, or sitting with your back against a tree, listening to birdsong.
What if you didn’t take no for an answer, and simply threw yourself wholeheartedly into 5 minutes just for yourself, every single day?
There is a magic that arises out of consistency. The whole becomes more than just a sum of its parts. Over time, your five minutes is not just a connection to your personal sacred, but also a portal to every other morning in which you have done this practice. Windows open on windows and create a depth of trust, a depth of experience that infuses your entire day with meaning. This door you open daily expands the possibilities in your life by allowing a wisdom greater than yourself to percolate into your consciousness. It allows the breeze of change to blow across your life, a breeze that contains possibilities your rational mind may never have allowed for.
5 minutes, every day, no exceptions. Are you in?
How can such a simple practice make a difference?
When our needs are met and we are feeling fulfilled, we naturally connect with the people, places, and things that are sacred to us. However, when overwhelm sets in, this practice often goes by the wayside. Perhaps you meant to read that poem after breakfast, but then your daughter lost her backpack and needed you to help find it. Or you want to do yoga every morning but in order to get to work on time it would have to be at 5 am, and you fear you'll wake your family or your housemates, so you go without. Or if you find 5 spare minutes it's a freaking miracle and you definitely would rather use them for sleep!
It can start to feel extravagant and unimportant to take this time to connect to the things that have meaning for you when life is really tough. It can seem as though every moment of your time needs to be devoted to making ends meet, or planning your way out of the mess you are in.
But the women that I have seen recover beautifully from trauma never falter in their daily practice. They never forget what they are fighting FOR, and that makes all the difference.
I challenge you to try this for one week, and let me know how it goes! I’m always interested in your feedback.
If you are struggling in your life right now and don’t know if you can make these changes alone, the Sweet Relief series might be for you. Read more about it here and let me know if you want to join--space is limited and it starts in May.
Next week we’ll explore Practice #2: UPSOURCING.
You can also enter your name and email below if you would like to have each of theseblogs mailed to you as they are written.
How to trust yourself again when you've really messed up
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
We've all been there---in the moments after a marriage comes crashing down, or an important career move goes up in flames, or we burn bridges in a close relationship. First comes the pain, and then comes the self-recrimination.
"If I had only..."
"How could I have been so STUPID?"
"I should have known better."
And then, inevitably:
"How am I ever going to trust my own judgment again?"
These thoughts swirl through our brains, over and over, complicating every decision from what to have for breakfast to whether to go back to school. If you can't trust yourself, how on earth can you trust your own decisions?
This confusion is real. Your brain creates it to protect you, to try and prevent the sort of pain you just went through from ever occurring again. Bless 'em, but these self-sabotaging thoughts don't really help. They just add suffering and shame to an already painful situation.
So what can you do to build trust in yourself again? I'm going to give you a simple, research-based, 3-step process in just a minute. But first I want to get a few things clear.
1) Please understand that I am not negating the value of self-evaluation.
We all make mistakes, and if you've blundered into a big one, it can be valuable to take a step back and figure out how to do better next time. However, if your self-judgment about your mistake is impeding your ability to work through it and put your life back together, it's time to put that sucker on the back burner and start working on rebuilding your sense of self. You can always evaluate later, when you're feeling better and thinking more clearly.
2) If you are hurting too badly over your mistake to even consider forgiving yourself, please hear this:
We do the best we can with the resources we have at the moment.
Did that sink in? This is really, really, important, so I'll write it again:
We do the best we can with the resources we have at the moment.
This means that if you are blaming yourself for a poor decision you made ten years ago when you were just beginning to know yourself, take that into consideration.
This means that if you said some mean things to somebody you love while you were exhausted or grieving, understand that you were at your wit's end in that moment.
This means that if you feel like you screwed up your life by running away from your potential, there was something pretty scary about that potential in the first place.
You did the best you could. And you're in a different place now. Don't judge your past decisions by your present standards.
Chances are, it was that very mistake that helped you acquire the wisdom you're using to evaluate it right now!
Our problems become the source of our wisdom, once we survive them. And we can't compost those mistakes into wisdom until we stop running around on the hamster wheel of self-recriminations and guilt.
Here's a 3-step process for rebuilding self-trust.
This process is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Trust is cumulative, so it is important to commit to this process, and be consistent. If you have thoughts of resistance once you start, just notice those thoughts, allow yourself to be curious about where that anger and pain is coming from, and then do the exercise anyway!
1) Choose a "trigger", something that will serve as a signal to you to do steps 2 and 3.
You can choose any trigger you want, but make sure it's something you'll see at least once a day and preferably not more than every hour. For example: the phone ringing at work. The sight of a baby in a stroller. Picking up your mug to refill your coffee. Every time you see or hear this trigger, you will stop for a moment and do steps 2 and 3. Take a minute, choose a trigger, and write it down.
My trigger: _________________________________________________________________
2) Every time you see or hear your trigger, catch yourself in that moment and pause.
Take a few deep breaths and use your attention like a beam of light to scan your physical body and notice:
How are you sitting or standing?
Does anything hurt?
Is there tension in your shoulders or jaw?
What part of your body would like to move or shift in some way?
Imagine that your body is a friend who has come to you for help. What can you do to ease her hurt? Is there a simple stretch you can take to relieve the tension in your back? Can you gently massage a part of your body that feels sore or numb? Or would your whole system benefit from a few deep, conscious breaths?
It's important to keep this part simple. You notice the trigger, you do a body scan, you take a moment to do something kind for a part of your body that needs attention. If you make it too elaborate, your mind will rebel and you'll tell yourself you don't have time for this. Set yourself up to succeed!
3) After you've engaged in steps 1 and 2 for a few days, add in one more thing: when you do the body scan, do a quick thought scan.
What are your thoughts in this moment? Just notice what you happen to be thinking of. If any of your thoughts are unkind evaluations of yourself, simply notice that and replace those thoughts with the thought:
"I can trust myself to take care of myself when I see my trigger."
With every day you engage in this process, that thought becomes easier and easier to believe, because it is true.
The knowledge that you can trust yourself to do this exercise may seem like a little thing. But every relationship is built on tiny, repetitive gestures that slowly build trust. Why should your relationship with yourself be any different?
Give this three-step process a try, and let me know how it goes.
And if you are really hurting or feeling lost, please contact someone for help. You don't have to do this alone. Consultation with us is always free for the first session, and many other counseling services offer free consultation as well. Don't be afraid to reach out.
One unlikely method I’ve stumbled upon for rebuilding self trust is to tell, and listen to, stories. Why? Because when I can find myself in a story that has been told for a thousand years—when a character in a fairy tale says or does that very thing that I said or did just last week—I can feel that maybe, maybe this isn’t a shameful flaw just in me. Maybe this is part of being human. And so often, there is beautiful instruction in the old stories for how to move forward from those painful moments your humanness created.
This year (2024), I am telling a story for each of the eight seasonal points on the wheel of the year. You can participate from anywhere in the world and listen to the story, then talk it through in community to see what it has to tell us. Often these evenings incorporate poetry, music, and writing prompts for you to continue working with the story on your own.
Learn more and join in the next story by clicking the photo below.
STOP WORKING SO HARD!
posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
I met her at the Farmer’s Market. I was apprenticing on a farm at the time, selling bouquets of fresh flowers I’d been up since 4 am harvesting.
She paid for her flowers and looked at me with sharp eyes.
“Are you a hard worker?” she asked. “Do you take outside jobs?” I assented to both, and I was hired on the spot. We agreed that I would work in her yard weekly for the remainder of the summer.
The following weekend I showed up at the agreed-upon time and address and found a list of tasks pinned to the door. The hedges were to be pruned, the potted plants repotted, the vegetable area tilled and sown, all landscaping mulched and weeded. I rolled up my sleeves and managed, barely, to get it all done by the afternoon. It felt good to have cash in my pocket—the first I’d seen in a while—so I disregarded my exhaustion, and the anxiety and scratched-up arms I’d sustained in the course of trying to prove myself by getting everything done.
But when I showed up the next weekend, there was no note pinned to the door. I knocked, and when she answered she assessed me with those sharp eyes.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
Confused, I stammered “to do the yard work—we agreed Sundays?”
“Yes,” she said, “but that list of jobs I gave you was for the whole summer. You’ve finished them all. You’ve worked yourself out of a job!”
The door closed. Finis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you ever done this to yourself? Dug in your heels, rolled up your sleeves, and thrown yourself deeply into the task at hand, only to find that in the end, all of that hard work actually took you away from where you wanted to go? Have you ever thrown all of your time, energy, and resources at a problem, only to find that your attempts to resolve it only made the problem bigger?
We’ve all been there. We’ve been taught that hard work is the answer to most difficulties, and so we dutifully put our nose to the grindstone and plug away. But there’s an essential ingredient missing in that formula.
Herb spiral design by Toby Hemenway, from his fantastic book Gaia's Garden
DESIGN.
Yes—design: the application of intelligence and strategy. The creation of a plan, a blueprint for not only where you want to go, but how you will get there.
When we panic, we forget our intelligence. We jump right in and throw any solution we can find at the problem. That moment to pause, to wait, to plan, feels impractical, even dangerous. And yet, unless we take the time to design the most practical strategy for arriving at the solution we want, we will be wasting a great deal of time and energy in trial and error.
Had I taken just five minutes before plunging into that yard work job to create a strategy, I could have devised a sustainable, ecology-based plan to guide my work. I could have focused on one task at a time, using the clippings from the hedge to create a wattle fence for the vegetable beds; throwing all the weeds from the landscaping into a bucket to make weed tea to fertilize the potted plants; creating mulch from the spent leaves of last year’s plantings to protect the soil and hold in moisture for the delicate seedbeds.
I would have done a much better job, and yes, it would have taken me more time—but my pace would have been sustainable, and the end product would have been far more integrated and satisfying. I would have earned the money I needed for my hard work and my employer would have received a healthier, more resilient garden.
Before I became a counselor, I was a permaculture designer. Permaculture distills the laws of ecology—the most elegant system of sustainable design on the planet—into a few solid principles that we can follow as we design our own lives. I applied these principles time and time again to gardens in every state of neglect, and watched them thrive. When I began to study psychology, I found that permaculture principles work just as beautifully in the design of human lives and relationships.
One of the principles that translates best is this one: use the least effort to get the greatest effect.
This flies in the face of "no pain no gain" that our puritanical culture preaches. But consider:
Bertolt Brecht said “Grub before ethics.” Maslow said there is a hierarchy of needs: a person must first have food, shelter, fire, and water before she can focus on self-development or creativity.
If certain needs are not met, we stop developing.
This is as true of gardens as it is of people. If the soil on your land is depleted, no amount of backbreaking tilling, planting, or weeding is going to ensure a good harvest. But a tiny investment in building the soil will yield spectacular results.
If you are deeply exhausted, investments in education, nutrition, and exercise are not going to pay off. But if you give yourself a bit more sleep— everything transforms.
The principle of least effort for greatest effect has a beautiful assumption at its center: you are already moving toward self-realization. Everything is. You do not have to work and work and work to achieve perfection. Your only job is to discern what obstacles are hindering your natural perfection, and remove them.
By perfection, I mean a living, breathing balance, such as we see in a climax forest or a well-nourished, well-loved child. In natural perfection there is always room for growth, but there is nothing actively hindering that growth.
Sometimes the obstacles are blindingly obvious: racism and poverty and other inequalities jump immediately to mind. Other times they are more insidious: we think we need to work harder when really we need to relax and be more receptive. We think we need to explain when really we need to listen. We think we need a cup of tea when really we need a relationship. We think we need a relationship when really we need a cup of tea.
If we can somehow open ourselves to the idea that we are intrinsically fine just as we are, the obstacles start to reveal themselves. What, then, is hindering us? Do we need shelter? Water? Fire? Food?
Do we need someone to listen to us? Do we need an hour more sleep per night? Do we need a room we can be alone in? Do we need a schedule that allows us to sleep late, or rise early?
Do we need to be working in a field that utilizes our natural gifts rather than ignores them?
Do we just need a freaking cape?
So: how do we learn what our natural plan is, and what our obstacles are?
When you take the time to build an intelligent design for your life, you look at the areas of overlap between your talents, your training, your passions, and the needs of the world. You find the sweet spot that encompasses all four, and THAT is where you put any extra energy, time, or money.
Tiny efforts in the area of this sweet spot will yield exponential effects, because your passion and education and talent line up to push your ideas into the world.
Think about this for a minute: what if you don't have to DO MORE....what if all you have to do is remove the obstacles that hinder you from what is already happening?
Ahhhhhhh. Did you feel that? That's the power of least effort for greatest effect.
If this sort of ecology/psychology overlap is exactly your cup of tea; if you want guidance and structure to help you create that intelligent life map for where you want to go, join us for Permaculture and the Psyche in April. And, as always, I love to hear from you in the form of questions, comments, or emails!