damage control

Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA

So, an entirely hypothetical person--I'll call her "Lissa"--was in a situation recently in which she very much wished to take her laptop computer and chuck it through the window.

Now let's say that "Lissa" has quite a few conflict management skills; in fact she has a good deal of training in the mental health field. Why might she get into a situation like this? And how might she get out of it without sustaining hundreds of dollars worth of computer and window repair bills?

First of all, I don't know how you managed to guess, but yes, "Lissa" is really me. 

We all experience those moments when there appears to be NO OPTION other than chucking the laptop through the window, or shrieking at a significant other, or pulling the car over onto the median and banging our heads repeatedly on the steering wheel. We even take a kind of ugly delight in tearing down all of our hard work and stomping around on our relationships with muddy feet.

When these moments happen, you are not going to be able to reason yourself out of your emotional response. 

It doesn't matter how much you meditate, how often you go to therapy, or even how many mental health licenses are framed on your wall.

 The rational mind is not in charge at this point. In fact, it's entirely offline.

This is why when we try to "reason" with a tantruming child or enraged significant other, it so often goes sideways.

When we are highly emotionally activated, the central nervous system goes into fight or flight. This means that blood is diverted from our brains into our muscles, and thinking is limited to perception of threat. The consciousness is focused on fear and short-term survival, not love and long-term life goals.

Which leaves us with two wisdom nuggets:

1) It is important to reason with yourself BEFORE you hit emotional overload (that's where the skills and meditation come in!) and

2) When you are in the moment of crisis, it is absolutely vital to engage in damage control.

How, you ask? Well...

Here is a 5-step process for damage control in moments of crisis.

1) DO NOT MAKE PERMANENT DECISIONS BASED ON TEMPORARY EMOTIONS.

Remember this sentence. Put it on a sticky note on your laptop, your alarm clock, or any other small objects that tempt you to the delights of window-chucking. Write it above the laundry hamper if you have ever pondered upending it over your chore-neglecting child. Memorize it: memory resides in a different part of the brain than logical reasoning and may be accessible to you even in a heightened emotional state.  

2) Walk away. 

Yes, it sounds so simplistic. But if you are on the edge of throwing something or shouting out an unforgivable insult, you are in FIGHT mode. This could very well lead to you making a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. If it is at all possible, put that clothes hamper down and walk away. 

Once we are in FIGHT mode, we can't easily toggle back to calm rationality. But we can easily shift over to FLIGHT, which tends in these situations to be slightly safer.  You might think you can handle a conversation with someone right now. You can't. Walk away, then explain and (if necessary) apologize later.

3) Unhook from your narrative.

As you walk away, your brain will very likely be shouting things at you like "Walking is definitely not as fun as throwing that computer would be!" or "Nothing is ever going to be okay ever again!" or "But that person is WRONG and I absolutely have to set her straight or she is going to be smug FOREVER!"

As much as you can, give yourself some distance from these thoughts. It can be helpful to put them into the third person, like this: "Lissa is thinking what an amazing sound that blasted computer would have made shattering all over the concrete" or "Ah, here we have Lissa, a nearly 40-year-old professional counselor, in the middle of a world-class temper tantrum."

If there is a frequent story you fall into, see if you can name it: "Oh, it's the 'Technology Hates Me And I Should Have Been Born In Prehistoric Ireland Instead of Post-Industrial America' story."

"Aha, here's the I'm The Only One Who Ever Does Anything Around Here Story, chapter 843."

Notice that there is a person who can notice those thoughts. Let yourself rest back into that witnessing self instead of running around on the hamster wheel. The thoughts are going to happen, but see if you can choose to observe them instead of identifying with them. This will help to ease you out of fight-or-flight in preparation for the next step.

4) Re-regulate.

This is a very important and very neglected step. Oftentimes, the moment we get hold of ourselves, we want to jump back into the breach. We want to make it right, justify, and apologize. However, it takes the nervous system a while to step down from fight-or-flight. If you don't take the time to soothe yourself and get your rational mind back online before you try to problem-solve, you could end up in the very same headspace you just escaped. 

Re-regulation is different for everyone, but basically it is doing something that soothes you. Walking by the river, practicing yoga, scrubbing dishes, singing, taking a hot bath, digging in the garden, chucking walnuts into a pond, reading a book, popping and locking...if you feel calm and relaxed after you've done it, it works for you.

Here's the important thing: YOU DON'T GET TO BEAT YOURSELF UP WHILE YOU'RE DOING IT. 

Miserable thoughts are 100% likely to arise, yes, but don't buy into them. Keep your attention on the physical sensations and colors and scents and textures of the activity you are engaged in, and treat yourself with kindness and compassion.

5) Apologize and clean up.

When you feel fully re-regulated, get in there and be accountable. If you scared someone or hurt someone's feelings, you need to honestly, vulnerably, and bravely state your part in that and how you mean to do better next time. If you violated your own values, you need to apologize to yourself and hold yourself accountable for that violation.

Again, this is not a time to beat yourself up, it is a time to take an account of what went wrong, and address it. When you've addressed it, let go of the guilt and move forward. People mess up sometimes. It's a time-honored human tradition.

Finally, and most importantly, it is time to commit to nugget number one: proactively caring for yourself BEFORE stuff gets real.

This means noticing the little physical signals of frustration and giving yourself a break before you hit the point of overwhelm; it means practicing mindfulness or other self-soothing activities daily to lengthen your fuse; it means communicating clearly and honestly from the get-go to avoid the misunderstandings that trigger you.  

Having terrible, violent, heartbreaking thoughts is 100% normal. Our human work is to learn how to keep ourselves from acting on them.  

This means taking care of ourselves, learning communication and stress-relief skills, and practicing them daily. We all have to do that work. Nobody gets a free pass.

Not even counselors.

So once again, all together now:

1) Take excellent care of yourself BEFORE you get to crisis! Counseling, yoga, naps, hiking, and time with friends is NOT wasted time, it is crisis-prevention time.

2) If a crisis hits, remember: NO PERMANENT DECISIONS BASED ON TEMPORARY EMOTIONS!

Your laptop--and your conscience!-- will thank you.

                                                  ~~~~~

 One unlikely method I’ve stumbled upon for building self compassion 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. If you’d like to participate, click the image below.

"The truth is, I'm unlovable."

Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA

Last week, I asked a client if she could try and have empathy for the part of herself that was hurting. I asked her to close her eyes, find that part of herself, and put an arm around it.

"I can't do that," she told me. "The truth is, I'm unlovable."

One of the least-popular things I tell my clients is this:

"In this room, I am not interested in the truth."

Really. I really AM NOT interested in whether a thought is true or not. If you have the thought "I'm unlovable", I'm sure you can give me seventy-eight reasons why you aren't lovable, and one hundred and sixteen memories in which life PROVED to you that you are unlovable. I'm sure we could find a dozen people who would raise their hands and argue in favor of this thought that you are unlovable.

 Once you've done all of this work, and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are unlovable, where does that leave you?

Unlovable, with no hope for change, and standing in a room with twelve hateful people!

This is why the relative truth of your thoughts and beliefs does not interest me in the slightest.

What interests me is the WORKABILITY of your thoughts and beliefs.

By workable, I mean that if you believe this thought, it leads you toward a life of meaning and happiness. In other words, it works for you.

So the thought "I am unlovable" might be empirically, statistically, provably true; but does it WORK for you? Is it getting you where you want to go?

Now, there is a chance that you belong to the small percentage of people who act in hurtful ways most of the time. There is a chance that this thought "I'm unlovable" acts as a motivator for you to change your ways and be kinder. If this is the case, then the thought "I'm unlovable" is workable for you, so you can just go on thinking it until that situation changes.

For nearly everyone, however, thoughts like "I'm unlovable", however true they may feel, are simply not workable. Believing these thoughts leads to loneliness, sorrow, and suffering. Believing "I'm unlovable" can make you so miserable that you act unlovable, turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Once you realize a thought or belief is not workable for you, what on earth do you do?

If "I'm depressed" feels true but unworkable, or "I'm an imposter" feels true but unworkable, or "I'm a terrible mother" feels true but unworkable... how do you step away from something that seems to have the weight of truth behind it, something that sounds so powerful and right?

Some schools of thought teach you to argue with these thoughts, by contradicting them with challenges or affirmations:

I am lovable!

I am happy and lighthearted!

I'm a wonderful mother!

If this works for you, by all means keep at it! However, there can be a problem with this strategy. For many people, given the negativity bias of our brains, stating something positively awakens the cantankerous contradictor that sleeps in our skulls. Our inner critics love to respond to positivity with comebacks like these:

I am lovable! (who are you kidding, remember that time last year when you drank too much and outed your best friend's secret to a crowd of people?)

I am happy and lighthearted! (No you are not, you are still wearing your pajamas and it's 2 pm, you sap!)

I'm a wonderful mother! (oh really? Do you think if we interviewed your kids they'd agree with this assessment of your parenting skills?)

We can argue back and forth with ourselves all day, trying to prove and disprove these thoughts, and in the end, all we've accomplished is the loss of a day!

Here is the simple self-empathy exercise I asked my client to try instead. 

The acronym for this process is TEN-4:

T: Thoughts. Notice the thought or belief that is coming up (I'm unlovable) and ask yourself if it is workable. Does believing "I'm unlovable" lead you toward the life you want, or away from it?

E: Emotions. Check in with the emotions behind the thought. Do you feel sad? Angry? Confused? Spacey? Name the emotions that you notice.

N: Needs. Ask yourself what need is unmet for you at this moment.

If your thought is "I'm unlovable" and your emotion is sadness, you might notice a need for social connection that isn't being met, or a need for laughter, or a need for being appreciated. Be curious and open as you assess what needs you might have that aren't being met in this moment.  

4: For. Ask yourself or a friend for something that will meet your unmet need.

For example, if you have an unmet need for social connection, you can invite a friend to a lunch date this week, or call a family member you haven't spoken with in a while. If you have an unmet need for rest, ask yourself for half an hour's rest time in the afternoon, or five minutes of deep breathing. If you have a need for laughter, text a friend and ask him to share his favorite joke, or look up your favorite comedian on youtube during lunch break. Meet your need, and then move on. If the thought or belief returns, simply go through TEN-4 again until all of your unmet needs are met, or at least recognized.  

Why does something as simple as this TEN-4 process work?

The brilliance of this simple process is that it works with your brain instead of against it.

The thoughts and beliefs that we create are there for a reason. Our brain uses them to protect and warn us. A belief like "I'm unlovable" is the brain's way of making sense of times we were hurt in the past, and its way of trying to warn us to stay away from such hurt in the future.

This is why simply contradicting our painful thoughts and beliefs rarely works. The brain's message didn't get heard, so it retrenches and sends those thoughts and beliefs out even more forcefully!

With the TEN-4 exercise you are actively listening to the brain. You are identifying the message it is sending you, locating the need behind it, and meeting that need.

Once the need is met, the brain does not have to warn you anymore---its job is done!

And one more thing…

The more time you spend truly listening to yourself and responding to yourself with compassion, the more practiced you will be at truly listening to others and responding to them with compassion.

Self-empathy is a crucial first step in healing the wounds of this world.

                                                                                                                                ~~~

One unlikely method I’ve stumbled upon for rebuilding self compassion 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. If you’d like to learn more or join in, click the image below.

I'm too busy for this

Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA

A few days ago, my client settled into her chair with a heavy sigh.

"Can we just skip the mindfulness today?" she asked. There was a quality of sadness to her voice, and it seemed to cost her to even speak this thought.

"Certainly we can," I said, "how would you like to use the time instead?" 

She proceeded to share how exhausted she was, how she struggles to meet the basic needs of the multiple people she cares for, how her schedule is so overwhelming that her head spins at the end of the day-- she can't even sleep to recharge herself before facing it all again in the morning. When she finished speaking, she looked up at me again, even wearier and sadder than before.

"Honestly," she said, "I don't even think I should have made time for therapy today. There's too much on my plate."

Sound familiar?

My client gave me permission to tell her story here because so many of us share these struggles. Sometimes, even the thought of taking a moment of quiet contemplation can seem like an impossible luxury in the face of life's urgent demands.

Even if we deeply long to slow down and savor life, we know that slowing down would swamp us in a tide of unmet responsibilities...and so we forge onward, unhappy, distracted, and overwhelmed, but feeling unable to do a thing about it.

My client had taken a pillow from the couch and was hugging it to herself. I tossed another one to her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm filling up your plate!" I replied, tossing another pillow, and then another. I went into the art room and came back loaded down with pillows and yoga blocks and began to pile them up in a wall around her.

"Here they are," I said, "All of your needs, all of the people and places and emails and forms and appointments and obligations that demand your attention."

I could hardly see my client, though I could hear her laughing behind the wall of pillows.

"Where are you?" I asked. "I can't see you!"

"I'm here!" she called, "behind all of these emails!"

"How do you know?" I asked.  "I don't see you at all, all I can see are the pillows!"

"What do you mean?"

"Where are you in your life?"

She got very quiet. I heard her exhale.  I came and sat beside her.

"How do you know you're here?" I asked again. "What do you see, and feel, and smell, and know, that tells you that you're here?"

She began to describe the sounds in the room, the gentle hum of the air conditioner and the lingering scent of the sweetgrass I'd burned in the morning. She described an aching in her heart that remained after talking about her sleeplessness. She described how good it felt on her spine to rest against the couch. Her voice got softer and softer and her eyes began to shine.

"I believe you're here now," I said. We both started to laugh. "Even though the pillows are still there--you still have all of those needs to meet-- now you are here too!"

"You're so sneaky! We did the mindfulness anyway!" she said through her laughter.

"And what do you notice?" I asked.  She thought about that for a minute.

"I feel happy," she said. "I thought I was too exhausted to feel happy!"

Something lit up inside her at that moment, and she asked in a wondering and resonant voice:

"why do I deny myself the time to feel happy?"

"What a wonderful question. Why do we do that to ourselves?"

"You do it too?" she asked.

"Every day! In fact, may I share this on my blog?" I asked her. "I think there are so many people who could relate to these feelings."

"Only if you tell them that you started the pillow fight," she said.

Okay. I started the pillow fight.

~~~

This matters, because sometimes all we have for ourselves in a day loaded with obligations and responsibilities and appointments is the decision to pay attention. One quick inhale of the sweetly blooming butterfly bush as I walk between appointments. One lingering hug before I wave my child off on the school bus. One moment to close my eyes and smile at the first sip of tea as the sun rises.

These tiny moments of mindfulness place us back at the center of our lives.

When we are at the center of our lives, we are choosing and experiencing our actions, rather than simply going through the motions.

That means that our actions start to reflect our values, and slowly, slowly, even as we meet all of our obligations, our lives start to change.

There is a two-breath meditation that I use to claim the moments of my life. I learned it from a book that Thich Nat Hahn wrote, and it serves as just enough pause that I can realign with my life, my values, and my experience before I resume action. May it be as helpful for you in striking the balance of mindfulness and committed action as it has been for me.

Breathing in, I calm my body.  (inhale)

Breathing out, I smile.  (exhale)

Dwelling fully in this moment (inhale)

I know this is a wonderful moment.  (exhale)

Whatever you may be facing today, I welcome you back. Back to your breath, to the beat of your heart, to the soft animal of your body. I welcome you to the colors lit by the sun, to the scent of flowers and the first fall of leaves, to the taste of warm food and the soothing heat of a warm mug between the palms of your hands.

Whatever you may be facing, however urgent, may it be tempered with moments of mindful awareness, and may you continue to live toward your values in a life that is balanced with joy, self-care, and meaningful work.

Special thanks and gratitude to my amazing client for her willingness to share her story.

When Things Fall Apart: Learning to Stay in the Midst of Chaos

Posted by Maeve Hendrix, LPCA

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Rainer Maria Rilke

Transitions are tough.  No matter how big or small the life transition - in order to move through change, a certain amount of ‘letting go’ is required as well as a willingness to embrace the unknown.  Wading into the deep murky waters of the unknown can be terrifying.  

The unknown is a Liminal Space (unknown threshold) of being neither here, nor there.  It can feel shaky, groundless, exciting and utterly mystifying.  Something is birthing inside of us but we don't know what it is and this birthing process is occurring on a level that our rational mind cannot comprehend.  Our discursive mind scrambles desperately to file, organize, label, and make sense of this liminal space.  In feeble attempts to find a sense of stability, we begin to label ourselves and try to put our experience in a box.  Most of these labels include either judgment or praise of ourselves and our situation. One moment grasping to the glory of approval and achievement and the next moment berating ourselves for laziness, external sources of disapproval, lack of achievement or simply ‘not being enough’.  Sound familiar?  We get caught in a very ancient ping pong match of making ourselves Good and then Bad, Right and then Wrong, Worthy and then Unworthy.  

Interestingly, we are so very accustomed to putting a label on ourselves that this violent swinging back and forth between opposites is familiar... and therefore strangely comforting.  We would rather make ourselves Right or Wrong rather than relax into the unknown, liminal space with no clear identity.  

Pema Chodron, American Buddhist nun and meditation teacher describes this unknown, liminal space as The Middle Way.  Practicing The Middle Way is a brave endeavor that requires a ferocious desire to break old, ancient deeply engrained habitual patterns that keep us stuck.  Chodron says, ‘We have to get to a point where we are utterly sick of the incessant game we play with ourselves.  The game of making ourselves Right or Wrong, Worthy or Unworthy, Good or Bad, as a method of seeking comfort, seeking ground.’  We play this game with others as well, forever inhabiting the myopic dichotomies that so often involve Blame and Praise.  

The Middle Path practice requires courage, compassion, curiosity, humor, and dedication.  

Resting in the uncomfortable space of no label, no evaluation, no judgment (whether positive or negative) feels groundless. In this space of groundlessness, things get dicy. We begin to encounter fears that have been kept at bay for a very long time, perhaps our entire lives. We may feel like our foundation is crumbling and we will give anything to find our footing again.  

It is in these moments of unfamiliarity, discomfort, and instability- that we have landed in our own fertile goldmine of untapped treasure, rich with open-ended possibility.

If we can train ourselves to stay…  to give ourselves the gift of a sacred pause right there in the fiery moment of discomfort, we can increase our tolerance for discomfort and tap into the energy of the middle path.   By radically choosing to be with whatever is arising (thoughts, emotions, sensations) and settle into the energy of groundlessness, we have the opportunity to turn our gaze inward and inquire into the spacious, formless presence that is witnessing each moment.  

Furthermore, in Learning to Stay, we can tap into Bodhichitta: Our Awakened/Noble Heart, a vast limitless well of compassion. This is a fierce training process that can be translated to The Path of The Peaceful Warrior, or Bodhisattva training (training for servants of peace).  The peaceful warrior training prioritizes cultivating patience and compassion for ourselves and others as we practice The Middle Way.

The Middle Way embraces and celebrates impermanence, continuous flux, continuous change and transition, no resolution, nothing to hold onto or seek for comfort.  Furthermore, the Middle Way requests that we walk towards fear and uncertainty and open to the tenderness and strength that emerges when we let our heart be broken OPEN by life. 

I’ve been practicing a mantra that helps me to engage in a peaceful, compassionate, and curious relationship with myself when I feel afraid, uncertain or groundless.  The mantra is, “I’m here, and I’m listening” which offers a willingness to peacefully hold space for whatever is arising within and around me without a need for resolution... a commitment to be in the fertile space of the unknown.  I offer this mantra to physical sensations that I notice, whether they are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  I offer this mantra to feelings and emotions that arise in me, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  I also offer this mantra to habitual thought patterns of judgment, praise, blame, unworthiness, fear, impatience, joy, ignorance, uncertainty, craving, aversion. 

The mantra of ‘I’m here, and I’m Listening’ feels like a peace offering of radical acceptance to all of the parts of myself that have been fragmented from each other.  Watching and holding space from the perspective of my inner witness with an energy of compassion, spaciousness, and wakeful presence is beginning to allow all of my layers, voices, and inner characters to mingle and merge in the liminal space of groundlessness, a fertile birthing ground for fresh perspectives and experiences to emerge. 

This process requires trust and a willingness to Let Go to Divine Intervention while relaxing into the steady presence of Inner Witness.  If I were to describe my experience of the Inner Witness in three words, I would say: spacious, welcoming, and warm.  In trusting my capacity to connect to the Inner Witness and allowing all of life’s experiences to move through me, I train in letting go of seeking resolution, seeking comfort, and open up to the vast birthing ground of the Unknown. 

Pema Chodron offers a wealth of literature on the practice of the peaceful warrior, embracing groundlessness and Bodhichitta- our Noble Heart/Awakened Heart.  Chodron offers, “When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay.  In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all.  Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies.  We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.” 

To find out more about embracing life transitions, The Middle Way and touching into Bodhichitta, read Pema Chodron’s book, ‘When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times’. 

If you are not actively defining your path, life is defining it for you.

Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA

Right now, we are one week into our group "Permaculture and the Psyche". The first principle we study is the permaculture principle Everything Gardens. 

What does this mean?

Permaculture is derived from the observation of natural systems. When we observe a natural system, one of the first things we notice is the way that natural forces work on a landscape. 

A sudden downpour of rain might sweep down the center of a property, creating a stream that erodes the soil and leaves puddles for weeks.

A herd of deer might bed down for the night, crushing vegetation, nibbling bark away from trees, and leaving ticks behind.

People might cut through the landscape in a shortcut to somewhere else, leaving a trail of worn dirt and a hole in the chainlink fence. 

The reason observation is necessary before creating a design is this: we cannot change these forces! There will always be rain and deer and people. They have to be incorporated into the design.  If we don't understand that deer and rain and people are part of our garden system and actively plan for them, they will continue to act as gardeners on our landscape, transforming it in ways we may not like. 

When we think about our own mental landscapes, there are plenty of forces gardening them too! Old beliefs that no longer serve us, unwanted intrusive thoughts, unpleasant moods, unhappy relationships; all of these shape the course of our actions whether we wish them to or not. We cannot remove thoughts, beliefs, or moods from our mental landscape any more than we can remove deer, rain, and people from the physical one!

Here's the thing: those thoughts, beliefs, and moods will be transforming our landscape whether we are aware of them or not. If we become aware of them, we can put them to work in our design.

If you are not actively gardening yourself, other forces are gardening you. 

Let's return to our fictional landscape where deer, rain, and people are shaping our garden. Imagine that we want to plant a fruit orchard on this piece of land, but are worried that the rain will wash soil away from roots and drown the trees, that the deer will kill the trees by eating their bark, that the people will compress the soil and steal the fruit. 

First, we dig a series of swales on the contour of the land. This ensures that as rain falls, it collects in these ditches rather than channeling itself into one erosive stream. Then the water gathered here percolates slowly down, watering our trees for us. The rain is still gardening the land---but now it is working in a way that we wish it to. 

Next, we plant a thick hedge around the border of our orchard, stocking it with native plants that grow thickly and provide cover and habitat for birds and insects as well as forage for deer. As the deer work their way around the hedge, they are kept from the tender fruit trees, but provided with food. They leave their nitrogen-rich droppings in a circle around the property before they move on, adding a source of nourishment to our trees. The deer are still a force on our property, but now they are adding value rather than removing it. As a bonus, we've ensured lots of healthy pollinators by providing habitat for them---as well as a stock of healthy predators for any insect pests that may want to attack our trees. Those same birds and insects will help to control any ticks the deer leave behind. 

Finally, we make the extra effort to notice where the shortcut leads that encourages people through our property. Near the hedge that protects our trees from pilfering, we create a path of old concrete blocks set into the ground along this desire-line, and plant a few edibles along this path to nourish our human companions. Now there is an easy way for people to get where they want to go without compressing our soil or taking our fruit. 

The first step in all of this was awareness. The second was acceptance, and the third was creativity. 

Imagine now if we engaged in the same process for the forces that garden our behavior metaphorically. First, we notice what they are. Social anxiety? Old anger? Fear of rejection? Outdated ideas about who we are? Preoccupation with what others might think?

Then, we accept that these forces are going to be there. 

This doesn't mean we agree with them. However, it does mean that we create a design that allows for them instead of sticking our fingers in our ears and pretending they don't exist!

Finally, we get creative about how we can use them in our favor rather than fighting them. 

Imagine that depression is gardening you by limiting your engagement with friends and preventing you from exploring activities you used to enjoy. 

First, you notice the depression. You take data on the thoughts and feelings that come up, and the toll they take on the dreams you have for yourself. 

Then, you accept the fact that depression is there and shaping you. You don't pretend it isn't there, you don't wish it away with positive thinking, you simply accept that it is a part of your mental landscape. 

Now you get creative. You look at what depression creates and how that can be useful in your life. Does it get you off the hook for activities that scare you? Plan facing fears into your life design. Does it numb you so that you don't have to face a painful past or difficult relationships? Plan counseling into your design. Get curious about what it would take to change those difficult relationships. 

Now depression is still there, but it is serving as a compass to point you in the direction of healing. 

So, what is gardening you?

As always, I love to hear from you in comments or by email.