Mental Health Blogs

When we talk about enmeshment, and we’re not doing that now, but just so you should know, when we talk about enmeshment it’s really about fearing strangers. Parents are afraid that other people will steal their kids away from them emotionally. And they need them.

You need to know that to tie this post together.

I don’t know where I learned it, or if it’s a Jewish thing, or if someone taught it to me in school or I read it in Ann Landers, but I believe that everything you learn in life will come in handy someday, somehow. You use it all along the way.

Now that’s a world view, realize. Basically what you get on a blog is a world view, the way someone looks at life. And because world views have to be generalizations, exceptions don’t exactly fit. Here, for example, I’m saying that everything we learn in life comes in handy, meaning will be useful one day. Yet there are many things kids learn growing up in abusive homes that they wish they never learned, never had to know.

But even this, even having suffered, can come in handy. Abused people belong to a huge club, and empathy for this club is a handy thing to have, a human thing to have. Sometimes I wonder if anyone gets through life abuse-free. I don’t think so. Of course, there’s abuse. And there’s abuse. Ask any Holocaust survivor.

Let’s get to something happy, though, talk about how sometimes things tie together and how cool that is.

THE STORY

For years now I’ve heard people in therapy complain that it’s hard to clear their heads of intrusive thoughts, not necessarily traumatic memories, just junk thoughts, to-do lists, mainly, and things we forgot to do or should do, maybe know we’ll never do. We experience our busy lives, racing minds full of responsibilities and “musts”, most self-imposed, as irrepressible chaos. Too much data. Too many words. Pressure for time and energy, a sense that there just isn’t enough of either.

On my last post I didn’t even tell you that riding to work from the hospital, which should have been an idyllic bike ride, the junk thoughts in the brain would not quit.

Forgot to do this. Forgot that. Didn’t respond to this. Didn’t buy that. Need to write this. Need to send that. Need to clean this. Need to order that. Have to call her. Have to call him. Oh, and let’s not forget her. And him. And him and her. And her and him. And her mother. His sister. Her sister’s doctor. A third cousin once-removed. That cousin’s teacher.

Sure, I’m exaggerating. But all I wanted to do was to enjoy the weather, see the robins peck for worms, enjoy the sunshine and the sky. It was a nice day.

But it doesn’t work that way. Trapped on a bike with nothing to do but enjoy the ride. Couldn’t do it.

Crazy. What’s a therapist to do?

I did what works for me, drudged up an age-old anti-anxiety strategy, simple but reliable. I count. I think it started while clock-watching in fourth grade waiting for the bell to ring for recess, timing how long I could hold my breath. Something about that underwater drill at swimming lessons over the summer, gets into your head.

One, two, three, four. . . as high as I could go.

What counting does is focus just enough attention to a task that the rest of the noise in our heads has to take second to it. You can’t think about other things and still count. You can’t really sing and think about other things, either. So singing works, too, but I didn’t like any of the songs that came to my head that day on the bike. Barbra singing Smile just didn’t cut it.

Counting, singing, humming. These function as Western mantras. I know this because although I’ve never taken a formal meditation class, I still learned a little about it, and not from the Beatles, either. It’s just another one of those things you learn along the way, assuming you’re let out to do that.

I had just graduated high school (a semester early—couldn’t wait to get out of there). Every morning I took the train downtown to Roosevelt University. All kinds of people go to Roosevelt and although I was a commuter, I’d sit and try to get to know other students sitting in front of the big picture windows that overlook Michigan Avenue and the lake.

Somebody gave me a mantra in a clandestine way, like someone who is selling drugs.

Nam myho ren ge kyo. (rhymes with or sounds like palm-m’yo ho-wren-gay-key-oh!).

It’s a Buddhist chant. I think. I pick up languages quickly, or did then, is more accurate. All the way home on the train. . .

Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo, Nam myho ren ge kyo,

I think it’s your basic surrender your issues to some Higher Power, a Buddha, probably, maybe someone named Nam. The exact translation according to a YouTube video implies this. No idea if it’s true or not.

So the crazy thing is that if you repeat a phrase like Nam myho ren ge kyo often enough, you never really forget it, even if you never chant it again, even if you only chanted it in your head all the way home from school that one time. And when a patient asked me for a mantra, many, many years later, asked did I know any mantras, I had one to pass along. Such a bag of tricks, why wouldn‘t I have a mantra?

I’ve done this only once, passed the mantra along, but I did it with a disclaimer, one that you’ll get right now, that

There is no way in ___ that I can swear that this mantra helps anyone.

And if people are Jewish or Christian they’re probably better off saying Psalms. Pick a line, any line from King David’s poetry and tunes. Can’t say if these will help those of you who practice Islam or any other faith. You’ll have to use your own discretion, look into your liturgy.

Although I couldn’t then and still can’t swear by the efficacy of the mantra, I do know that the turning it over intervention can be useful.

Whatever your problems are- just give them to a Higher Power, ‘cuz seriously, you don’t need them, and the Universal Boss will take them, so give ‘em over already

This idea helps millions who work 12 Step programs to relinquish control. And we know that psychologically, when we surrender, when we relinquish control, something relaxes in the brain and everything feels a little better– under ordinary circumstances. I know there are exceptions.

So this is one way of clearing the disk. But there’s nothing like doing something we like, something that requires concentration, to help us forget the rest of the chaos, to put it off for a little while, maybe even indefinitely. When we’re busy exerting ourselves to the degree that it requires concentration, there’s no pathway open to junk thoughts. Think basketball or tennis, probably not golf.

There’s focus and distraction at our jobs, too, or should be. We either take charge or take orders, but if we’re in the moment, doing the task, paying attention, putting out, we might be able to shred the junk thoughts, although they do seem to reassemble, do they not, rally at inconvenient moments? But temporary relief beats no relief at all.

Helping someone can work, too. The spinning settles down when we’re useful, maybe helping someone load or unload some groceries, or mowing a neighbor’s lawn. You have to be careful not to scare anyone while offering to help, seriously. We’ve grown suspicious, as a society, of those who do this. There must be an ulterior motive.

We can clear our heads with a good walk, you know. The walk has to be long enough to go over every conceivable iteration of a problem, spill them all to the wind, every one of them, or release them to whomever is kind enough to walk with us, to listen.

And there’s nothing like a good puzzle, not a jigsaw, you can still think and do that, but maybe a crossword or a scramble. My mother does the scramble with my sister-in-law and I’m jealous of this, but it’s okay. It works for both of them better than it would work for me. And some of you, I know, like video games.

It isn’t like talking in therapy, no question, using these mini-interventions– helping someone, taking a walk, counting, turning it over, humming, concentrating on our work, playing games. But when people start offering you things like mantras for free, think about it. Can you trust someone who does that, gives you a mantra for free?

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