That's Just Who I Am
By Dr. Gene Clerkin
Recently a friend told me that his upcoming engagement had been called off. Understandably, he was feeling pretty down about the unfolding events. They were unable to meet on one particular issue which became the demise of the nuptials. In sharing this with me he said something that caught my attention and prompted this article. It went something like this; Yada, yada, yada, “that's just who I am”.
That was a pretty significant statement, and one which I'm sure most us have made at one time or another. Once we state who we are, then we have effectively absolved ourselves from considering any change or adaptation. Throughout our lives we develop patterns which protect us from the idea that life didn't go exactly according to our plan, which makes us inflexible to any other experience. I thought to myself, is it who we are or who we choose to be that defines us? It reminded me of a Billy Joel song called the “Angry Young Man”. I think the lyrics do a great job of explaining this phenomenon, so I included a few verses.
There's a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl
and he's always at home with his back to the wall.
He's proud of the scars and the battles he's lost
He struggles and bleeds as he hangs on the cross
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
Give a moment or two to the angry young man
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand
He's been stabbed in the back, he's been misunderstood
It's a comfort to know his intentions are good
He sits in a room with a lock on the door
with his maps and his medals laid out of the floor
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
And there's always a place for the angry young man
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand
He's never been able to learn from mistakes
He can't understand why his heart always breaks
His honor is pure, and his courage as well
he's fair and he's true, and he's boring as hell
And he'll go to his grave as an angry old man.
It is never about what happens; rather it is about our story about what happens that determines our response. There is also a direct relationship between the degree of flexibility in our structure (body) and the flexibility of our response. As far as my friend goes, who knows whether or not they were meant to be? I do know this; the body never lies and in this case the inflexibility I could feel in his spine was very apparent. My goal with each member of my practice is to help them gain a greater flexibility in their structure, so that they may more effectively adapt to the inevitable challenges and changes that come their way.
Three Minutes That Heal
By Stacie Smith, M.A., L.P.C.
Some who deeply engage in meditative practices say that the mind's natural state is clear, open and luminous, reflecting our experiences like a mirror. This mirror mind can be undisturbed by the images and experiences that reflect in it. This natural state resembles space. It is within this openness of space that our thoughts, perceptions, memories and feelings may arise. Meditation trains and awakens the mind to its true nature, to this natural, spacious awareness.
Hello busy people of the Western world .
And of course there are many of us who don't deeply engage in meditative practices and consider it a good day when they even notice there is a moon in the sky. The “space”, described above, seems jumbled and cluttered with emotional and mental habits of mind.
We have these glorious thinking minds that have been compared to monkeys swinging from branch to branch. Typically reaching for the next branch, our next thought or feeling is not a spontaneous action. It tends to be reactive, automatic, unconscious, what Thich Nhat Hahn calls “habit energy.” Have you noticed that the mind tends to assume it has the ‘true story” at first glance? The appearance of things is taken as fact with little or no awareness of the filter or lens that perceived it.
An experience I use to illustrate this is:
Imagine yourself walking down the street on a beautiful day. You see a friend across the way. You smile and wave. She does not wave back and keeps walking. Close your eyes and notice your thoughts, the sensations in your body, any feelings that may be present.
Three people share their experience of this exercise:
Jane:
Thoughts: “Stuck-up people disgust me. Maybe she thinks she is better than me. I should go over there and …………. I never really liked that woman.”
Sensations in the body: a tightening in my stomach, like a fist, face scrunched.
Feelings: Anger
Mike:
Thoughts: “I wonder why she didn't wave at me. I thought we were friends. Every time I think someone is my friend, I am proven wrong. I guess I can't really trust anyone.”
Sensations in the body: head pulling back, neck contracted, heaviness in heart region
Feelings: embarrassed, sad
Jill:
Thoughts: “I guess she didn't see me.”
Sensations in the body: warmth of sun on my face
Feelings: none reported
Lets take a closer look at these “habit energies” and filters
This exercise can evoke a powerful reaction in some, while others may not register a shift in mood. One's experience of this exercise may provide some clues into habit energies or what some psychologists call schemas. Often these are formed in early childhood and kept out of our awareness, unavailable for updating. These distorted notions of ourselves or others and the body/mind strategies we have unconsciously created to try to get our needs met, often become the lens from which we view our experiences. Our “top ten” schemas can come up again and again in our thoughts, words, body sensations and feelings. These fixations of mind can become so basic to our personal mythology and outlook that without new insight we stay trapped, unable to truly experience the truth of our life right now .
Habit energies in the mind and body can be seen as emotional cloudiness and mental fogginess. For a time, they obscure our understanding of how things truly are, beyond our perceptions and interpretations.
An attention that heals and sees things as they truly are:
What is really happening in this moment of my life? How can I access the present moment, even amongst the filters and lenses of my experiences? Mindfulness, a refined awareness and ancient approach to living, is a transformative tool. It requires that we pay attention to our moment experience with an attitude of curiosity and radical acceptance. It teaches us to become more conscious participants in our lives, gently guiding us out of our automatic tendencies and into a greater sense of choice. Mindfulness is now considered by Western medicine as a wise method and practice for dealing with psychological conditions, physical pain and stress.
Taking Three
Here is a three- minute exercise that I borrowed from the fellows that wrote a book called “Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for the Prevention of Depression Relapse”, (Segal, Williams, and Teasdale, 2002).
A 3-minute Breathing Space- a way to step out of habit mind and into the present. Enjoy!
1.Awareness
Sit in a posture that invites dignity with your spine straight. Invite yourself into the present moment by asking yourself:
“What are my thoughts right now?”
“How do I notice sensation that is present in the body?”
“If there are feelings present, where are they located in my body?”
Acknowledge and register your experience even if it is not desired
2.Gathering
Focus your full attention with the rising and falling of the breath in the belly. Notice that each time you inhale, your belly rises. Notice that each time you exhale, the belly falls. This is called mindfulness of breath and is a powerful way to anchor you in the present moment. It can also bring you into a state of awareness and stillness
3.Expanding
After focusing on the breath for a few moments, expand your awareness around the breath to include a sense of your body as a whole. Include your facial expression and posture in the field of awareness.
Stacie Smith, MA, LPC, the founder of the Center for Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, combines insight-oriented psychotherapy with principles of mindfulness practices and other body-centered approaches. She can be contacted at 404-320-3355 or e-mailed at staciesmithjoy@aol.com. Catch her presentation at the Center for Holistic Health (Decatur) August 23rd, 7:30 PM.
It's A Game I Can't Win
By Dr. Gene Clerkin
The other day Jiang Li, our very popular Chinese doctor, inquired about joining an insurance network. She wanted to know if I belonged to any and what I thought about being a provider. I thought it might be an interesting topic to share with the general public.
Now, I'm not sure about how it is with acupuncture, but I can tell how it is for me. The one advantage I can think of is the possibility of increased exposure to policy holders. As I thought more about it, I found quite a few disadvantages.
One problem is that the insurance companies beat you up so bad. Allow me to explain. If you are an out of network provider, the deductible and co pays are significantly higher for clients than if you were “in network”. This effectively inhibits seeing the out of network provider. If, as a practitioner, you are “in network” you must agree to whatever terms the insurance company sets. Part of the agreement with the insurance company is that they're setting the “allowable” fee which, by the way, can be about 50% of the normal fee. The difference can not be charged to the policy holder, so the doctor eats it. In addition the time involved in verification, processing and follow up significantly raises a doctor's employee overhead. In our office, Mindy was spending so much time within that arena that it took time and energy away from taking care of the clients. (And me :-))
The increased overhead is easier to absorb if your practice lies more in the therapeutic realm because you can add and bill for a number of other modalities each visit, including heat, ice, muscle stimulation, and therapeutic exercises. For the consumer that can mean a 30% co-pay on one hundred plus dollars instead of forty which will bring the co-pay up to and past the original forty dollar office visit.
Last but certainly not least is the simple fact that “health” insurance (it would more accurately be called disease insurance) does not pay for wellness care. Yes, I'm aware that some policies will pay for “alternative therapies." However, there must be a diagnosis and treatment of symptoms which automatically falls outside the realm of wellness. The real problem is the effect this has on the mindset of the practitioner and client.
If we are to render a diagnosis then we first have to make a judgment about a particular symptom. Once we judge the symptom as bad we must find a way to remove it. This is what they call the medical or treatment model, which has absolutely nothing to do with wellness. In fact, if a symptom has manifested to alert a person to the need for change, then treating the symptom would be the antithesis of wellness. That doesn't mean that it isn't ok to have symptoms treated at times. It's just impossible to do both. You've probably heard the saying, “you can't serve two masters." Well, trying to be in the treatment model and the wellness model simultaneously would be doing just that.
Over the last twelve years of practice I have noticed something very interesting. In general, clients who had insurance pay for their care did not get as good results as clients who didn't. I believe this to be due to fact that it perpetuates the idea that we are being fixed by the doctor instead of taking control and responsibility for our own healing process. In wellness the practitioner becomes the facilitator, not the fixer.
Working in the insurance game, and in the treatment model, undermines the fundamental understanding of wellness and it quite simply comes down to this; it's a game I can't win.