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Loss

It was first Hippocrates- the ancient Greek philosopher who mentioned the meaning of loss. In Greek the word is ‘apolia’ that has its roots in the verb of the word ‘apolime’ that means I am lost!

To lose something, I must first have it and fully tasted it. If I had it and I am hurt by its loss, it means I deeply loved it. But if I am capable of loving someone or something it means I am alive, human and mortal capable to feel and sympathize. The more I loved, connected, surrendered the more I will feel hurt. One thing is interconnected with the other. Pain and joy are hand in hand. But, how will I live a mortal life if I don’t get hurt, how will I enjoy if I don’t know how it feels to lose someone or something. I will mourn all delights that I first had. How will I run if I don’t fall first and get hurt. I could crumble but then I would never learn how to fly.

Whenever something hurts, we look forward to getting rid of it as soon as possible. But I wont heal if I don’t mourn first. We have the feeling that the pain will last for ever and we wish it could just vanish. We refuse to see that pain is calling us to let it be and be experienced as it washes away. Loss brings the cracking of our comfort as we thought it was. The milestone in

mourning is when we realize that our life won’tbe the same ever again . And this is when we need to negotiate and find new meanings…

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Emotions and Suffering

Life is unpredicted and there will be days where we suffer more or not all. Not accepting our suffering by resisting to its difficult emotions makes the suffering more persisting. “What we resist, persists”.
Recognising the suffering letting the emotions flow is the first step. The days of our lives are like the weather. We have no control over the weather conditions but how we will feel towards the conditions, will depend on the interpretation and meaning we give to the weather. The weather is not good or bad and all seasons are necessary for the nature to grow and bloom and life itself. A rainy day might be a blessing when you are outside looking for snails.
Allowing yourself to feel all kinds of emotions creates room for healing and change, whereas having feelings unexpressed can lead to unhealthy ways of dealing with them, like alcohol to escape from them. Instead of escaping try to embrace yourself as mother would embrace her child. By showing self-compassion you free yourself from guilt and anger making room for connecting.

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Mind and Body

Should we always listen to our body? There is a famous saying ‘listen to your body, it knows best’. Is that the case always? What if someone told you, that is not your body who needs to be listened to? The body speaks for what the mind thinks or fears or chooses to suppress. So if for example, your mind does a thought that stresses you out, then your body instantly will try to adapt to the coming ‘threat’. That means the physiology of your body changes in order to ‘flight or fight’. Bumping heart, increased breath rhythm, sweaty palms, increased blood travels to leg muscles. The body system responds perfectly right in order to rescue you from the threat. You are so lucky having such a responding system. What if the mind gives the ‘threat’ signal too often to the body? Then the sympathetic nervous system gets excessively aroused. What happens next is several psychosomatic symptoms. Among them is the feeling of exhaustion. That is one of the cases that listening to your body and staying out of an exercise session ‘feeling too tired’ choosing to stay in bed to rest, will only feed the cycle of stress- > tensed body -> fear -> stress-> exhaustion.
Breaking the cycle by going for a walk or a training session, you balance your hormones and a signal back to your brain that there is no threat. Nourish your body as you have no other. It is your own and only home for your mind, soul and body.

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Is stress an enemy?

What exactly stress is and what happens to our body. It is a mechanism from ancient times to prepare our bodies to survive from a threat. An area in our bodies to survive from a threat. An area in our brains called amygdala gives the signal (accelerate) to our nervous system to prepare different parts for fight or flight. This mechanism takes place even before we realize the thought if it. The breath becomes faster, glucose is released in the blood, heart beat increases to send more oxygen through blood, lungs hyperventilate.

Another center in our brains called hippocampus (the brake), in long-term anxiety, ‘’forgets to stop’’, as a result for the body being always in alert. It is as if a machine works at all times in maximum. This is when health issues start to appear, like cardiovascular or blood pressure problems, headaches, insomnia et.

However, If stress can be seen as a ‘friend’ instead of a toxic enemy, then it will work for your benefit and not against. One of the chemicals released in our bodies while stressed is cortisol. Cortisol has a normal physiological role, coordinating the metabolism with activity and sleep and helps us to adapt to stressors. We can never avoid an experience, but it is our responsibility to recover and re direct.

What is a Therapeutic Relationship
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What is a Therapeutic Relationship

“A soul connection is a resonance between two people… a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence’’ J. Welwood

A very well said quote from a psychotherapist and teacher that shows the importance of two directions relationship that as a goal is the inner enlightment and the self-awareness.

The therapeutic relationship is a unique bond of two minds and two souls and has a transformational power on the journey of self-understanding.

Everyone has a healing within themselves and during the journey of therapy, the exchange dance of back and forth, offers present-moment, conscious and unconscious feedback to each other.

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Depression

Depression, a word that is being misused daily by more and more people to describe their emotional state…’the weather seems so bad…i feel depressed..’

But what does it mean in clinical terms

Depression is mental disease; it is not an emotion such as sadness or feeling blues. Thus saying to someone who has actually depression ‘you have no reason feeling like that. You are just fine if you look around you!’, it just might sound so wrong and helpless. It is as if saying to somebody who suffers from asthma to breath well.

We might feel sorry about something in our lives that went wrong and we have various ways to express it. There is reason underneath and the duration of that state does not cause long-term dysfunction.

In depression, a chemical in the brain called serotonin is reduced, which might be due to genetically factors in combination with environmental factors having depression expressed. If the duration of the symptoms such as loss of appetite, sleeping problems, concentration deficit, social isolation, loss of interest in things that used to offer pleasure, lasts more than two weeks then we probably have to deal with depression.

There is proof that medication in combination with psychological therapy sessions usually has significant results after the third week. A video that follows describes what depression is like.

 

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Child Psychology

Family is a system alive. Its memebers interact with the enviroment and with each other. Each member also interacts according to its characteristics that are formed through various reactions. When one family member is ‘sick’, it has automatically an impact on the rest members. When we refer to the ‘sickness’ we do not necessarily  mean the pathological/psychological disease but any attitude that causes disfuntion. What follows is that in most case when that individual is a child, the parents will address their concern to the professional councellor asking for help or not. What should be noted is that behind it something lies beneath causing the reaction. For instance, when a child has an inappropriate attitude in school, it is usually becase its parents are having very intense arguments. Especially when the child is of young age when the nervous and psychosentimental system have not grown yet, the child feels that is the centre of the world and therefore feels responsible for evey thing that feels going wrong in the family. I would suggest to the parents that before judging  your child’s inappropriate attitude, try to read behind the lines and wonder why is he/she doing that.

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Personal Development

We are all wondering and trying to find happiness. Dozens of articles and guidelines are all around with happiness recipes. What is truly happiness and how it is being pursued and found. For each one of us it is personal matter. I am not a fan of those theories promising a ‘happy life’. There is not such a thing like happiness as a constant state or phase. There is growing, gratitude of life its own,  mental peace, growth, soul fulfillment, short moments of pleasure that without the ‘negative’ emotions, we would not be able to know the difference. Emotions of sadness, pain, anger, disappointment are all very useful and we should not try to avoid them. They are an alert, trying to help us overcome a situation or learn, express ourselves, grow through maturity. When ‘negative’ emotions do not insist for long periods of time and do not affect the every day functionality, are mostly welcome and in need. It is of great importance to recognize them, accept them and embrace them recognizing an opportunity through them to learn and grow.