A Personal note on Preserving the Spirit

“A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
Soren Kierkegaard”

The spirit as I understand it is a part of me that relates to my belief system, what I value and how I motivate myself, the very essence of who I am.  It symbolises for me the quality of one’s life and how much you allow yourself to live and enjoy that life.  To have a thriving spirit I think you need to really understand yourself and know yourself physically, mentally and spiritually.  The spirit can be impacted by the things that we experience in life; these experiences can  be negative or positive and each will have their own individual impact and without doubt it is always interesting to see how we develop and grow from these experiences.

My spirit that I have come to know and love is something that I cherish dearly.  It keeps me motivated, helps me enjoy life, builds relationships, develops friendships, motivates me to work, it helps me learn and experience life and continuously challenges me in that learning.  I worry sometimes that life and the very difficult challenges it brings could ever break my spirit.  However I believe that my spirit is a great source of containment and support to me even when times feel very fragile.  A wounded spirit can be extremely hard to mend, there have been many challenges to me and my spirit but luckily it continues to thrive, despite the bruising and hurt at times.  I wonder what it is that keeps one’s spirit alive and nurtured; no doubt it can be different for everyone, religious beliefs, personal meanings, life experiences, what the world and living means for each individual is of course part of that.

I am forever thankful that I can “bounce back” from challenging experiences and for that I am eternally grateful.  What helps me is a deep determination in me not to allow my spirit to be broken; there is a part of me that no matter what the challenge is that I know somehow I will survive it and eventually make meaning of it.  It may have a huge impact on my life but to remind myself that I will get through it and that I will continue to grow, develop and challenge myself through the experience helps.   Knowing your strengths, and acknowledging your weaknesses is a sign of maturity.

 I know that part of what keeps my spirit going is the people that are dear to me, the people who I truly value in my life,  the relationships I have with them, the love and the kindness that they show to me.  In a funny way the people who haven’t shown that kindness are also people that I do eventually feel grateful for because they have also shown me something too and reminded me of what I don’t want to be like.

I also believe that to have something to work towards, to find something that you like to work at is an important motivator to have in life.  My own work as a psychotherapist brings me into contact with so many people and their stories; I continue to feel amazed and privileged by the stories and the very personal journeys that I am honoured to share and witness.  What people have come through, the challenges, the abuses, and the struggles and yet their stories and their will to survive and work towards a good quality of life are so inspirational.  The work of Psychotherapy continues to make me curious, curious about life, the people living those lives, the learning, and the challenges and drive to understand. When I think about it, it is really what life is all about - transitions.  We continue to change, to grow older, life changes, people change around us, and societies, cultures, and the world we can be sure will never ever stay still.  Living life to the full brings with it challenges risks and opportunities.

Developing resilience is certainly something that helps, being able to support ourselves, trust ourselves, acknowledge our emotions, look for support when we need it are certainly things that assist us in that.  Self-care and mindfulness are two more things that we need to adhere to.  How we learn to value and respect ourselves is also something that we need to continually nurture.  We will not allow anyone else to devalue or disrespect us if we hold those two things dear.  I believe our need and our right to fight for what is right is also an asset to the survival of the spirit, knowing how to use our anger in a constructive way is well worth its weight in gold.

To always remember that you have choices, options and freedom no matter what - something one should never let go of.  Find time to do what you love, something that is healthy and nurturing, walk, sing, dance, paint, laugh, swim, whatever it is, whatever “floats your boat”  they are the kind of things that we should always make time for.  If all else fails take a “leap of faith”.

Lastly I think of Viktor Frankl who survived some of the worst experiences anyone should have to endure in their lives.  His contributions to the world from his experience and his determination to make meaning out of one of the most horrific experiences one could ever imagine is an inspiration to the world and a reminder of why we should keep our spirit alive and well no matter what the situation is.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Viktor E. Frankl

The "Amber" Experience

 Yes, yes I did watch it along with everybody else that was glued to the telly for those four nights to see the outcome of Amber and yes I was utterly disappointed with the ending.  However on reflection the disappointment I felt  was actually more about the fact  that this ending  portrays how it is for an awful lot of families; they have  never got the answer to what  happened to their loved ones who have for all it seems disappeared off the face of the earth.

The programme has certainly stirred up a reaction, from twitter to radio stations to the newspapers - everyone in the media and everywhere else having something to say about Amber and the ending over the last couple of days.  I see this morning’s paper has an article about the ending we never got, but although I found it interesting to read and an interesting take on  how they tied it all up, you know I just didn’t buy it.  In actual fact if you think about it there could have been so many different endings written and that is the only reality, everyone will have a different take on what that ending might be and that is part of what we do as people; we project onto things what we like, what we don’t like, how we would like it to be, it’s about things that get triggered in us and how we interpret what has happened and how we would like to draw it to a close.  It may be easier to wrap things up than leave the unknown.

I really enjoyed watching Amber, apart from the fact that they used Lehauntstown as the Luas Station as the place she disappeared from, which to be honest doesn't surprise me if you were to pick a place yes it fits the picture.  I used to walk that road as a teenager and it was spooky then and even with a few more houses being built on it, it is still one spooky road.  It's a lonely, isolated road and you could well imagine someone disappearing without trace on it.   I thought the editing  was extremely clever, it was constantly going back to different days and filling us in on the story and how different people were coping with the horrific situation they found themselves in as a family, trying to put piece by piece together to see if they could solve the mystery and ultimately get their daughter back.

 We saw the mother who never wanted to give up hope, trying to hold everything together and ultimately accepting the fact that she may never find her daughter or get an answer to what happened.  The brother who kept calling his sister on her mobile to either hear her voice, or just to leave a message in the hope that she might hear it and that it would make some difference to the situation and bring her home.  The Dad who was trying and trying to understand what had happened and ultimately put himself in a very precarious situation, delving into the underworld of trafficking and paedophiles to try and get an answer to his question.  In part four we got a real insight into the complete and utter distress the two parents felt at the loss of their daughter, the not knowing and breaking down in tears in each others  arms – heartbreaking.

What I am left with and curious about at the end of it all is how we cope with the not knowing.  I have heard many people relay the message that they wasted four nights watching this Drama to what most of them described as a “Shite” ending!  Other believe the writers were indeed very brave to leave the ending as they did and I believe from reading in the paper that one of the writers has had the experience of a brother-in-law going missing and never being found so must know only too well how this whole experience would impact on a family.

 When you think about it we spend so much of our lives giving away our time, watching telly,  working, doing things, hobbies, having fun, relationships to name just a few.  We have expectations about the outcomes of all the things we put our time into in our everyday lives, however they are only expectations we don’t have control over any of the outcomes of these things we just hope they work out the way we want them too.  The reality is however we never know what one day is going to bring, one hour or in fact one minute – it is the illusion of control - that control that we don’t ultimately have when we think about it.  I think this is what the reaction to Amber is really all about because somewhere we think it should have been wrapped up in a nice tidy little package – rather than deal with the reality of not knowing.  Scenario 1; a happy ending they find their daughter and everyone goes back to living a happy life. Scenario 2; we find out who was responsible for her disappearance she is alive but has suffered; would that have been any easier to take- I don’t think so.  Scenario three; we find out she is dead, she drowned, an accident or someone murdered her or even a suicide, again would it have been any easier to take.  The family would get some answers maybe but they still wouldn’t know exactly what happened and may at some level not want to know.   Again the distress would not I imagine be any easier.  To finish on a quote:

 “I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”  - Richard P. Feynman http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/uncertainty