The Seed of a Flower
Sandman
I was having a conversation with someone close to me recently and we were on the topic of recurring dreams and nightmares. This person describes a periodic dream, the nightmare involving being relentlessly chased by a shadowy figure and being in a panicked sprint to evade the chaser. This is not an uncommon dream and one that I too have experienced. My response was acknowledging that I have experienced this dream many times in the past and that there is a method to alleviate this nightmare from reoccurring, simply turn around. Rather than empowering this terrifying figure, rid it of its power over you by instead of running away, turnaround and run towards it, attacking it. When you realize that dreams are nothing more than the manifestation of unconscious thought, you realize that this shadowy figure has no control over you, you control the environment within the dream because you control your thoughts.
Gabagool
I’m currently in the midst of my annual Sopranos binge. In it, the head of a mafia organization experiences frequent panic attacks so he seeks the help of a therapist to help him work through it. The therapist in the show is a symbol meant to represent the protagonist’s subconscious mind. When he has his appointments, what it represents is the consultation of his unconscious mind, introspection, or the examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes. There’s a scene in which he is asking the doctor to up his Prozac prescription because his anxiety is not lessening. The doctor explains that it is not the medication that will help him but instead it is therapy or the symbolic internal examination of his thoughts and feelings.
Organic
A few months back we had “Mental Health Awareness Month.” The purpose of which to bring to light symptoms such as anxiety and depression that afflict millions of us. Bringing mental health to the forefront is good in the sense that it allows us to be comforted in knowing that we are not alone in these battles. However, simply bringing awareness to an issue does not offer a solution, it only gets us halfway there. I think that we as a society oftentimes treat mental issues as something that is a physical ailment to which we have no control, akin to diseases such as cancer or multiple sclerosis. I feel as if we only “Spread awareness” to reduce stigma and in-that is an added element that implies an acceptance of victimhood and defeat. Rather than attempting to help people and offer a way out, our proposed societal solutions involve coddling, the idea that mental illness is something that has happened to you so its understandable to simply accept it and allow it to defeat you, treating only symptoms and not root causes as there is a lot of money to be made in treating symptoms, not in inward growth. This is not to say that medications aren’t often needed, there are absolutely situations that render individuals helpless without the aid of them. The best treatment route for many is often a combination of medication and therapy. However, we would not tell an alcoholic simply because they’re an alcoholic that is “Ok” to lean into their affliction and not attempt to do anything about it, to keep putting the bottle to their mouth and destructively binge drinking because after all, alcoholism is a disease.
“Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.” -Epicteus
Stoicism
In a previous essay I referenced the power that can be derived from cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is defined as, “The type of psychotherapy in which negative patterns of thought about the self and the world are challenged in order to alter unwanted behavior or treat mood disorder.” This method is relatively new, only becoming developed in the ’60s however the ideas that are the basis of the therapy have been around since long before that.
I had the chance recently to audiobook and study a collection of some of the wisest words ever recorded in Marcus Aurelius’ journal entitled, “Meditations.” Marcus Aurelius was an ancient Roman Emperor who lived between the years 121-180 AD and comes from the Stoic school of philosophy. Philosophy literally means, “Love of Wisdom.” Defined by Florida State University’s School of Philosophy, philosophy is, “An activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other.” The Stoics or Stoic philosophy, centers around the ideas of maximizing positive emotions, reducing negative emotions, and personal growth through character development. Author Rohan Williams breaks down stoicism into three main points…
- How to lead a happy and fulfilling life
- How to become a better person
- How to be calm and resilient in the face of fear and pain.
The source of anxiety and depression is oftentimes the result of allowing drudged-up events of the past or the fear of what awaits us in the future to affect our present emotional state. Aurelius says, “Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all- The fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering, since the latter no longer concerns me, and the future concerns me not yet.” The inevitable tragedy of life is that we all will experience pain and suffering. We can either decide to let suffering define us, beating us to a pulp, or we can embrace it and use it as an opportunity to add steel to our spine, developing resolve and resiliency through it all.
A way to gain control of our negative thinking patterns that manifest themselves physically is to add context to why we feel the way that we do. We must center ourselves in the present for we have no control over what has already occurred and we have no control over what may occur in the future, only how we respond in the present. We can add context to the helpless feeling of the world caving in on us, instead of hyper-focusing on what is bringing us suffering, we can instead think about all that we do have whether it’s family, friends, or health, and imagine our lives without them. “Yes I’ve fallen on hard financial times but I have a family that loves me and I am alive.” “Yes, I just lost my job however I reside in the most prosperous country in the most prosperous time in all of human history, there will be future opportunity that lies ahead.” Things can always be worse in life, we must be thankful for the meaningful things that we do have instead of focusing on what we do not, as difficult as that is at times. Whatever trials and tribulations we’re experiencing, we can take comfort in knowing, “This too shall pass.”
‘Today I escaped my anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not the outside. “ – Marcus Aurelius
We do not have control over much of what happens around us and in the broader world, we only have control of our own thoughts and our own actions. Our thoughts shape our perceptions, our thoughts are our own internal reality. Although we have very little control over what happens outside of ourselves, we can control how we react to negative stimuli. In times of turmoil, we can ask ourselves, “Does getting irrationally angry or wallowing in self-pity aid in a resolution to what is afflicting me?” Often the answer is no, so what is the point in doing so? If we allow our past to hurt us in the present, we are empowering what has already occurred, living it over once again. If we worry about what the future may bring, we are worrying about something that has not occurred in addition to the possibility of suffering once more if it does eventually come to fruition. Rather than experiencing hardship only while it is occurring, we allow ourselves to suffer in perpetuity. By not allowing our emotions to run away from us, we can better learn to become resilient, using logic to find solutions or the best possible outcomes.
Nietzsche
We do not grow as humans by staying comfortable, never facing adversity and hard times. The old adage goes, ”Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.” The intellectual and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is famous for this perspective on suffering, stating, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Adversity, tragedy, and pain, is an inevitability in life that awaits all of us, we can either choose to give power to the negativity we’re experiencing and let it define us to the point that we stop living our lives, or face it head-on while growing and developing ourselves in the process. Rather than running away from the shadow figure chasing us, turning around and running towards it, finding out what it represents with the understanding that you are in control of it’s existence within your mind.
Les Fleur
Driving this morning, I was listening to the song “Les Fleur” by Minnie Ripperton and in it is a phenomenal line. “Inside every man lives the seed of a flower, if he looks within, he finds beauty and power.” Authentic fulfillment does not come from external sources of gratification, rather, it comes from within and it starts with the knowledge of oneself, and with that comes tremendous power. While it is important to bring awareness to afflictions such as anxiety, depression, and mood disorders, it is of equal import to know there is a way to work through it and find your way out. Like all things of deep meaning, it does not come easy and requires work, but it is possible to achieve. There is light at the end of a tunnel of suffering, should you decide to seek it out.
I conclude with these quotes from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, “You have power over your mind- not outside events. If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”