Location, Location, Location

Some lessons need to be relearned at each new layer of my personal evolution, and today's insight is no different. I am reminded this day how the environment in which a choice is made must be considered when trying to understand how that choice came to be made. Just as a developing fetus can not be viewed as a distinct being away from its womb, the developing human being can also not be understood as separate from its environment.

Every story has a location, a context, an environment, that geographical and psychological real estate which contains the experiences of the story.

Family therapy is built upon the foundation of systems theory, a theory that postulates that the behavioral symptoms of an individual  (i.e., the "identified patient") can not be understood outside of the context of its system (which, in family therapy is the family). Therefore, the family context becomes the corner stone of family therapy because the family creates the system, or environment, that contains each family member. And each family member thus responds to what's happening within that family system. The other foundational cornerstone of family systems theory is that the entire theory was formulated by psychiatrists seeking to understand how schizophrenia develops within a family context. . . .lol. . . .hence the term schizophrenogenic. But I digress. . . .

Systems theory is not just about the family as a system, but any system such as work, school, church, family, social groups, etc. These environments are structured by some kind of unifying system of values, beliefs, rules, regulations, or even laws, but these codes shape and inform the way that people behave and make choices within that system. (I did not say cause, I said shape and inform.)

I love personal therapy, but I did not enjoy the part of my training that mandated that I diagnose mental illness or family dysfuntion after a 40 minute conversation so that the clinic could be paid for said servies. My only saving grace in grad school was a tiny paragraph of the introduction to the DSM, which very clearly stated that a diagnosis of mental illness (or family dysfunction) was not appropriate if there were circumstances in the client's environment that better explained the behavioral symptoms. My work as a social worker always made more sense, because the environmental factors were not just considered, but became a source of restorative intervention.

Why is this important for me today? Because today I am reminded that my panic attacks did not just happen "out of the blue." They were contained within a specific environment, with a specific code of expected behavior, and in response to a specific series of events. They (the panic attacks) have evolved into a habitual way my body communicates when it is stressed by an apparent endless list of circumstances (both identifiable and not). But the choices that I made in how to respond to all of this were absolutely informed and shaped by the extremely restrictive environment I was in at the time.

I am thinking right now about the Sandusky scandal. . . .or the endless scandels that have ever taken place because people do not speak up in response to something that "shouldn't" be happening. It's very easy for outsiders to observe the events after the scandal has emerged and wonder why these otherwise caring, intelligent people didn't speak up in the face of what they witnesses or experienced.

But it's not just about self esteem, self confidence, personal power, or personal agency. . . .and it's also not about how intelligent a person is, or how caring they may otherwise be. It's also about the environment that contains the self and the person. . . .so I need to remember this fact the next time I beat myself up for the choices that I made. . . .and also when I start to question why someone else did not speak up, because people can only speak up when they feel safe and free to do so. . . .

Happy as a Cow

I was sitting in my car last night waiting for the keyholder to arrive and unlock the building door of the meeting I was attending, so I had a little bit of time on my hands. This particular church is on the outskirts of town, so there was nothing but open space past the parking lot where I waited. It was just hitting sunset, and the Arizona scrub backdropped with distant mountains made for a wonderful sight, but that's not what caught my attention.

In the middle of all of that Arizona scrub was a small cluster of cows just walking around eating grass, and I wondered if they even noticed the beauty of the sunset, which was sort of the point of what intrigued me. They may not have noticed the sunset, but they also weren't worried about the economy or their housing status. They weren't angrily mooing in protest of bovine stock market abuse crying out, "Occupy Arizona Fields!" And they certainly weren't having panic attacks because there might not be enough grass to eat tomorrow. For all they knew, tomorrow would be the day the rancher scurried them off to market, but they weren't chewing their cud anxiously worried about how unfair it was that they were going to become someone's dinner. No, they were perfectly content to just mull around munching on the grass as the sky darkened around them, and whatever else was going on in the world was just not something that was going to disturb their inner peace.

What does that say about me, that I envy the cows with their apparent bovine bliss?

I don't know, but I'm thinking about the cows again, the cows and their perfect example of how to live in the now of the moment. Maybe that's where the phrase, "How, now, brown cow" comes from. . . . .lol.

Seeing What's Real

Children learn what they are taught. You show a child a cup, you call it "cup," and thus they learn what a cup is. That's the way God made us. But when it comes to other things in life, things that are perhaps not as tangible as "cup," sometimes this way of learning gets things all mixed, such as when a child is shown one thing, but it's called something else. Like how you can't beat the crap out of someone and call it love. . . .yeah, stuff like that. Because when a person learns about life in this "crazy-making" way, it can make it very hard to look through the deception and illusion to see what's real.

I have always found it interesting how Satan is described as the weaver of deception and illusion. . . .

I think this is one of the hardest parts about life. . . .to see things as they really are. . . .and then name it for what it is. . . . especially when we are being told something other than what we are knowing or experiencing. Which is why I also believe that what we "know" is so much more than simply the accumulation of what is written upon the human being's tabula rasa by other human beings. Because no matter how skewed the world may be presented to us, there is always something inside of us that whispers to our mind, "Something's not right," and it is this inner truth that gives us the courage to see things as they really are, and then to name them, even when that makes other people uncomfortable.

I Am Not Alone

I had an interesting dream last night. In the dream, I am traveling with a group of soldiers, and we stop for food. The driver is an ass, and starts driving so recklessly as we leave the restaurant that he almost hits an elk, so I decide to get out and walk the rest of the way on my own. As I put on my backpack, I take a hard look down the long road ahead and wonder if I will have enough food and water to make it on my own. Then I look over, and one of the other soldiers is putting on his pack and he says to me, "I'm going with you." And in this moment I know that I am the reason he has volunteered for this mission, that he is my personal guardian, and he was going to walk along with me to whatever end.

The funny thing is that I hadn't even really noticed his presence, because he had been so quiet and unassuming, and because I was so focused on the ass of a driver and his erratic and reckless driving and how scared the driver was making me feel. But the solder never even thought twice about picking up his pack and walking on with me. . . .just to make sure that I made it safely back home.

In the Army, we are trained from day one of basic training to never leave your buddy's side, especially when they're down. We weren't even allowed to go anywhere without our buddy, which had it's good points and bad. But life isn't always like that, outside of the Army, at least not the way that I have experienced life. There is a solidarity that I have never found anywhere outside of the Army, that sense of  "we're in this together" instant comradery. I miss that. . . .and I needed to feel that again.

This dream has stayed with me all day, and comforted my anxiety about feeling so alone and isolated down here in Prescott. . . .and I think the soldier in my dream last night was just God's way of reminding me that even though I feel like it right now, I am not alone. . . .not now. . . .not ever :)