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Friends United Meeting |
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May 2000
Creating Sustainable Lives
By Carolyn Wilbur Treadway
For thirty-eight years, as a social worker, family therapist, and pastoral counselor, I have practiced counseling and psychotherapy. Over the years I have witnessed changes in people and their lives. People seem more stressed, more frantic, less grounded, more unsure about the direction and meaning of their lives. The speed and velocity of life gets faster and faster; workplaces demand more and more-with less and less support. Underneath wonderful sounding mission statements, "production" and "outcomes" consume persons. Money matters, people don't. Employees and executives alike are working hard to earn needed money, but are craving time.
Not surprisingly, many people come to therapists burdened with personal and relational issues of all kinds, and with various "mental health" symptoms such as extreme stress, depression, and anxiety. They are troubled that something is wrong with them, and may not even realize the connection between their own distress and the context in which they live and work, in which people are being devoured by their daily lives!
In his 1941 book, Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly wrote words which have lured me ever since I first read them:
We are unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful. For over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center!
Thomas Kelly's words are just as relevant today as they were in 1941.
Extreme stress, or anxiety, or depression are some healthy responses to an unhealthy environment. They are the psyche's way of saying: "I just cannot do all that is being asked of me." As a therapist, I try to help my clients realize that the expectations and demands placed upon them (by others or even by themselves) may not allow them to lead a sustainable life. I seek to help them address not just the symptoms, but the context of their lives which gives rise to those symptoms, and to find ways to change that context and their response, a little bit at a time.
A new professor at a large local university, Susan, came to my office one gray October day after being referred by her physician. She was experiencing many of the symptoms of major depression: she could hardly get out of bed, found it hard to muster her teaching, was extremely fatigued, couldn't concentrate, didn't want to see or relate to anybody, had no pleasure in anything anymore, was excessively guilty, moody, hopeless, irritable, and felt worthless and very fearful. Her profound sense of failure was connected to major questions about her identity. "I've spent so many years of my life getting my doctorate, yet I find I don't like teaching. If I don't teach, what will I do? I am trapped and there is no way out. I am no longer even me."
Across town from Susan, Joe was having strikingly similar struggles. He worked at a major corporation in a competitive environment with great expectation to "rise in the ranks." He wasn't making it, and was stressed out trying. When he first came to my office, he was so depressed that even with medication he was not able to work, and was on medical leave of absence. Also, he was so anxious he could not sleep without still more medication.
Crunched by their lives, Susan and Joe were round pegs trying to force themselves to fit into constraining square holes, and were burned out from trying. They each had an intense sense of failure, of something being wrong with them because they could not meet their own expectations, nor the demands of their workplaces. They were riddled with self-doubt and fear of the future. They had lost a sense of being rooted in their own values, and of having personal power to affect their lives. No wonder they each were "depressed."
Therapy, then, became "spiritual direction" as well as "counseling." It became a gentle and safe place where the issues underlying Susan's and Joe's lives could find awareness and voice and be explored. In this process, they could connect with their deep selves, find that which "called to them over the margins of life," realign with their own values, and begin to make choices, a little bit at a time. They came to view their daily lives in terms of the larger context or matrix, and how that context affected them directly. Each reclaimed their selfhood, got more clarity, and took back power over their own life. As this happened slowly and carefully, depression gradually just disappeared. Instead of self-doubt, each now has a clarity, confidence, enthusiasm, and even a radiance that comes from within.
Freed from the panic of "I have to teach, but I hate it," Susan was able to discover what she does love about teaching (her connection with students) and what she doesn't (the publish or perish demands of academia). She is now well on her way toward shifting her career so that she can teach in a different kind of setting, and is happy, calm, and joyful about her daily life. She has discovered and claimed her deep self, and feels that "a miracle has happened." Joe, too, is making preparations to find a vocation more in line with his interests, personality, and values. Even though he is back at work full time in his same corporation, his depression and anxiety are gone. Step by step, he has learned how to cope and handle stress, what he needs for himself, and what is really important to him (time with his wife and children), and what is not (advancing up the corporate ladder.) He feels competent and good about himself again, and is eager-not pressured-to see what changes will unfold!
Jan and John Smith, along with their four teenagers, came to counseling in crisis after the sudden, devastating death of a member of the extended family. As we explored ways they could cope with this tragedy, we discovered many difficulties they were having in trying to cope with ordinary days. Daily life was chaos in this family. At times, it seemed to be almost a random "hurtling through space," punctuated by outbursts of violent anger and other expressions of being "out of control." Both parents were stressed out by their demanding jobs in large companies; each child was overwhelmed by the pressures of school and numerous extracurricular activities. On the run from early morning until late at night, each person was exhausted every day. Literally nobody was home, nobody was in charge. There was no time to talk, connect, look at the big picture, make choices, set priorities. Small household tasks mounted up and became monumental. Interpersonal, health, financial, and other problems took over.
Therapy offered this family a place to come together, to begin to communicate about things, to slow down enough to consider what was happening to their lives and their relationships with each other. Very slowly but surely, the family is finding better ways to handle daily life, one small piece after another. Mary Pipher, in her 1996 book The Shelter of Each Other, talks about family mealtimes as a primary context where children are socialized by family members (rather than by television) on a daily basis. If there are no family mealtimes, this human socialization does not occur, and children grow up lacking social and relational skills. In the gathering of the family around the supper table, the Smith family is developing these skills and rebuilding connections with each other. Finally, someone is home.
Lucy is a single parent with a boring, low paying job. She is financially strapped and has very high expectations of herself derived from rigid parental and religious upbringing. All this was so stressful that Lucy used the dissociative skills she had developed in childhood to escape from it all. When she "zoned out" as a way of coping, she would only get into bigger difficulties. Therapy helped interrupt this negative spiral, and Lucy is now much more able to be active in taking charge of her life.
Ralph, a devoted husband and father, courageously chose to become a stay-at-home dad for his preschool daughters. He is also a talented artist who feels impelled to create, but with young children can find no time and space to do this. He came to therapy to deal with the sense of lostness and failure he felt after "abandoning his profession," and the lack of support-even ridicule- he receives for his choices. He came as a self divided and at war within. Is it any wonder that his presenting issues were not only severe depression but episodes of rage?
Enough! STOP!! There is NO WAY to deal with all this, with all the ways people are currently devoured by the pressures of daily life, with what is happening to our social structures, our environment, the very context and matrix of our life. It is overwhelming indeed. That is exactly why we each have to slow down, stop, stay still, and breathe.
Every day of our lives-not just in a therapist's office-we have to consider the big picture, and see what is happening to ourselves and our world. We have to wake up and become aware of what is happening: we are using up ourselves and our world! Living at the speed we do, life is not sustainable either for persons or our planet. In his burnout workshops, Quaker healer John Calvi says if you are too tired to have good energy with your family when you get home after your day at work, you are "living more than one day in a day." He reminds us that if we live more than a day each day, we will use up our days (or at least our energies) very quickly. If I remember correctly, Calvi also advises an hour a day, a day a week, a week a month, and a month a year for recuperation and renewal. Do you know anyone-Quakers included-whose lifestyle allows them to follow this suggestion?
Gently, quietly, slowly, we have to unhook from all the demands and frenetic rushing around. We have to be still long enough to consider what it is all about, anyway. We have to allow enough silence, and enough space to even begin to hear that faint call to us over the margins of our lives. Meditate, pray. Consider your life, and take charge of it in small, minute-by-minute segments. Slowly but with deep commitment, reclaim and take power over your own life and the choices you individually make. Focus, discern, set priorities.
Which really is more important to you: more money or more time? Do you really want to earn and care for so many possessions? How can you create a better balance in life? Simplify your life so that you-and others-can simply live. What allows you to live in harmony with your deep values and from the core of your being? Center; re-ground your self in that which endures. Go to the woods or the sea and reconnect with Mother Earth. If we realize the depth of our connection with the earth (we are part of her), we will not be able to take her for granted or destroy her like we do. Turn off your TV, and get to know your neighbors again. Get off your computers and cell phones so that you can even see and relate to the persons right next to you who, because of your preoccupations, you may not even notice.
For the sake of ourselves and our world, we must slow down so that we can live more deliberately and sustainably. Reconnect with people, rebuild relationships, create networks of support. Connect with your spirit, open doorways to allow God to come in. Live each day with at least some calmness, peace, joy, and wonder. If you have forgotten how to do this, take a slow walk with a small child, and learn again to see all the tiny things of the world through eyes of amazement and awe.
To quote Joanna Macy, "there is only time to work slowly; there is no time not to love." May we proceed slowly, deliberately, wisely, carefully, and with deep commitment, gratitude, and love.
Carolyn Wilbur Treadway has recently created her own practice, Connections Counseling and Resource Center-a center for therapy and deep ecology work. She is a member of Heartland Friends Worship Group in Normal, Illinois, Illinois Yearly Meeting.
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