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Tess' Blog
6/3/2008
Weighty issues
Can you stand one more time, observations and opinions about weight..?
Believe it or not, I am going to write a bit about weight loss. It would be pretty easy to write volumes on the subject, especially since I have been working with eating disorders since 1986, but I am going to refrain from covering the archetypal, social, cultural, nutritional and emotional aspects of eating. You all have already heard all or most all of it anyway.
Here are some observations after thirty years of seeing people for therapy and analysis.
1. Body type and hereditary are more important than almost anyone is telling you or we want to believe. For fun, find some web sites with identical twins. Even ones separated at birth they are the most convincing. The congruent body types, even the fat deposits are so identical it is astounding. Twins who live very different life styles can affect a 10% to 15% difference in body weight according to one study I read. So, acceptance is one of the big factors in this collective hysteria about not if you are obese which brings me to.
2. I have noticed over the past thirty years that my unemployed wealthy clients, both female and male tend to be slim. Some have come into analysis and become slim, keeping it off, too. Of course they can afford the best gyms and trainers, but some have not used either so it cannot be only be wealth that makes the difference? It is fascinating to me to see how people, especially women who over work, have too much responsibility, pay all of the bills, fight hard battles out in the world and probably have serious home obligations as well are often pudgy. And I have observed almost every woman who retires looses weight in the first year or two of freedom. Sleeping more, stressing less, working less and getting help paying the bills and sharing the responsibilities are key ingredients for people to be able to keep weight off.
3. Exercise does not do much unless you do a lot of it over and over and over. Recently several people who had various forms of obesity and poor conditioning were taken through a training program that resulted in all of them running the Boston Marathon. This was a recent PBS special. The weight loss for the women was small, except if it was paired with food control. That is quintessential: exercise will do hardly anything in terms of weight loss (but there are countless other benefits not the least of which is ameliorating depression). The one exercise that does change shape (not necessarily weight) is weight lifting and resistance exercise. Just go to late night TV, catch a women’s body building competition and you will see all the women with the identical shape, same with the men. I do not know how much of that is due to steroids, surely not all?
4. Food control takes libido. Not the sexual kind, but rather the Jungian kind, simply defined as energy. It takes planning and drive and focus and desire to grocery shop, come up with options, cook and think ahead in order to eat well. The Re-decision therapists call it making a decision. That about says it. Deep down, like deciding to stop at red lights, one has to make a total commitment to find the necessary energy to make this change.
So, talk to me...
Tess
5/11/2008
Movies
I had the opportunity to lie around the TV room and get well for a few days so I indulged in perhaps a dozen films. The Coen Brothers stood out, first I saw Fargo, then one day later, No Country For Old Men —as I watched, I tried to understand these captivating yet disturbing, even horrifying films.
And there is a link, from my last post on this blog—The Road, a recent book written by Cormack McCarthy, with which I was deeply impressed, I responded to from the perspective of a Jungian Analyst/author/lover of literature. McCarthy also wrote the story that became the film, No Country… So here I am again, feeling compelled to grapple with this curious and, for me, totally incomprehensible blood lust that permeates collective consciousness. I wonder about the psyche of these creative and (largely) masculine writers/directors who focus on bad ass narratives?
By contrast, I also saw numbers of Bette Davis/Norma Shearer/ Joan Crawford melodramatic films from the thirties and forties. Milky black and white stunning sets and costuming amplified the utterly sur-real world being depicted. It resembled absolutely no history of which I am aware, but I wasn’t alive then, either. The bridge film, the one that seemed to span both gritty suffering with passion and emotion was The Member of the Wedding (1952), one of the Carson McCullers stories that is just as heartbreaking as Old Country but for me has more pathos, more soul. Julie Harris and Ethel Waters are memorizing in this film.
Is this judgment simply a matter of taste? I loved Old Country; Tommy Lee Jones stole the show with his precise portrayal of the West Texas law officer beaten by wind, harsh sunlight and blistering defeat. I have been to Marfa, where this film was shot—it is a magical place, and not because it is sweet. It reverberates with a steady cry of pounding, relentless wind. It is dry and almost nothing grows there. It is plain and unkempt, there are far more trailers than trees, and yet a couple of gourmet restaurants have recently landed, how long is not yet clear.
This is the same setting for the old film, Giant. The mythic proportions of this town have long been noticed, it seems. The opening of Old Country depicts a deer hunt, violence is all around the director tells us. From the beginning, we see dribbles of blood, again and again we and the camera will follow trails of blood in Old Country…, we watch and look, wondering where the blood will take us, into what dark and twisted scenario will this shocking film go? Fargo, after seeing it several times was mostly amusing, except for that chilling preface that assures us this story is true. Not so funny, anymore.
I am a card carrying Jungian, so by default I have reminded people they have a shadow for decades now. The dark side, the less attractive side of self, the way we project onto others our own worst qualities, et. Al. So why is bloody, sadistic, sociopathic violence so troubling? Do I want art censored?-- absolutely not.
I think maybe I came in on another boat. I hated guns as a child, cringed every time I saw a dead animal and can’t eat meat now due to extremely inconvenient guilt feelings. Elementally, I have no real understanding of violence—maybe someone will respond with your own ideas and thoughts.
6/12/2007
The Road
The Road by Cormack McCarthy has received an avalanche of publicity recently, first by winning the Pulitzer Prize, then around the hype given to Oprah for bagging an interview with the reclusive author. The interview reinforced to me that, once more, art frequently supersedes the artist.
McCarthy seemed most animated telling about designing his life so he didn’t have to work. In Jungian Psychology we call that the Puer Aeternus Complex.
But The Road is great art--perhaps the finest book written in this generation. Why? Because McCarthy has told, albeit unwittingly, a post modern myth that reaches to a quintessential core of despair as well as to a nugget of hope with which humanity struggles. In a post apocalyptic world a father and son trudge through a lost and desolate landscape finding remnants of past civilization along with evidence again and again of cannibalism. Within this horror some redemption is found chiefly by the son/father forging an identity of being “one of the good guys” who carries the fire--rather than one of the bad who devours others for their own survival.
Isn’t this where we are as a society? Don’t we, in the West, devour the dignity as well as the resources of third world nations for our own gratification and materialism? We just don’t identify ourselves as the “bad guys” which is psychologically rare and difficult to do.
The story presents a metaphor for the internal process as well as a stern warning for our flagrant warring behavior and where it is likely to lead if kept out of check. As one travels through life encountering inevitable stages, milestones, and reversals, one is faced with an arduous journey that requires perseverance, integrity and compassion to survive. In the modern/post modern era humanity is faced with a lack of meaning and mystery unlike former times when the sacred was alive in all aspects of life. Even the great scientific age that was going to save us from ourselves has failed to secure a future free from environmental and political disasters. The myth of the end of human life has recurred in a number of cultures, this is an image that is universal in some sense--the terrible death, the death of everything that marks the end of time.
For McCarthy there is a hope, the hope of human decency that can bring meaning to an otherwise completely meaningless existence.
The question is, “What is it when all is burned away, when money and ambition and health and leisure and the comforts of life are gone, what gives one meaning to live?
5/3/2006
Dream Poetry
In one of my dream groups recently we tried writing "dream poetry". This is an exercise I have described in my upcoming book: Sacred Circles: building dreaming community.
Here are some of the fascinating examples, generously provided.
Untitled
Some kind of powerful experience has
touched me deeply.
My heart has opened.
Thinking of the son I've been out of
touch with for a long time,
To find out how we can have some healing,
I sit down to write him a letter.
An unfamiliar room,
An open-hearted younger woman.
Something more than family friendship is happening.
In her eyes, a new softness.
As we gently kiss, I cup my hand
over her breast.
The kiss becomes more passionate,
our tongues active.
My woman and I go to a party.
A sumptuous house.
Some kind of disagreement
soon becomes a fight.
But rather than parting,
We reach out to each other.
The conflict is part of who we are together;
We are close again, perhaps
even happier.
--Nicholas French
Young girls playing in the meadow
Who is the father?
Yes, our children
her smile warmed me
you will be home soon enough
warm and comfortable
close my eyes and rest.
--Jim Swayze
Freedom to Love Safely
Light appeared
Cupped her hands around it
Ball of light
Flying ahead
Swiftly writing out
words of love
Mist of white smoke
Essence
Intermingling of thoughts
Experience
Walking through the mist
Trying to impart
Writing out in script
Rapidly conveyed
My pen became a wand
Moving my hand
Words flowed out instantly
--Brenda Spencer from dream April 25, 2006 Paris, France
White with Royal Blue
A ceremonial container for a dead soldier's medals,
Shiny, on ribbons of grosgrain and satin.
I scratch with my fingernail
to see if there is blood left in the grooves.
Looking over my shoulder:
it is the father.
Gaunt and haunted, with a deeply lined face.
He is so sad, so full of regret.
"I was here."
He needed me. I needed it, too.
"I could have touched you."
His hand on my shoulder;
The gesture is comforting.
I think maybe the man was God.
The program, almost like poetry.
A deep sense of loss that I was not present.
He has drawn for me a few eggs,
very fine and clear, with fullness and color:
the cracked and open shell.
--Anita Harkey
4/17/2006
Conscience
This is a word that is not taken into account enough in psychological circles, including Jungian ones.
What is conscience?
Most of us are familiar with the term sociopath or psychopath. No doubt you have heard this is an unfortunate fellow who cannot tell right from wrong, one who has no conscience. Or he has no ability to feel sorry for his actions taken nor to feel compassion toward his victim. Hitler said in his last days in the bunker, “I never allowed myself the luxury of compassion.”
Ok. That is clear. We say to ourselves, “I’m not one of those.” But we know now that there are many more people with this disorder than ever before understood—one in twenty five the latest research tells us. (The Sociopath Next Door) So that means that in a classroom of students, one or so will be a sociopath. Chilling. And now we know that many sociopaths are not necessarily serial murderers. Imagine not feeling anything if you kill a cat while driving in your neighborhood? Or lying at work to your boss resulting in a single mom being fired? Or, cheating on every man or woman with whom you ever have a relationship? (“But I don’t feel guilty”, you tell me….). The absence of guilt is a key ingredient in realizing this disorder has surfaced. As Jung said, “no good analyst takes away his patient’s guilt.”
And there is another point to mention: conscience occurs on a continuum. We in the psychological field are fond of labeling and naming pathology—much less astute about healthy personality and the gradations of consciousness. Again, to quote Jung: “Through our conscience one becomes conscious.”
So…some feel guilty just taking a penny from the sidewalk or lying to anyone for any reason. Others feel guilty killing the aforementioned unfortunate cat, but not so with anything like keeping extra change when a cashier makes a mistake or cheating on income tax or carrying on a sexual flirtation at work or lying to your children about smoking marijuana. But, your wrong and my wrong don’t necessarily line up – that is where the continuum of conscience comes in. Kohlberg and Fowler both attempted to make stages of integrity and spirituality, but that is quite a linear approach for me. We circle and cycle and spiral in and out of maturity, thoughtfulness, kindness and letting the spirit in.
The challenge is this: rather than letting life beat us down with old anger, chronic depression and a sense that nothing like lying or cheating matters anymore, let your life bring you increased consciousness, maturity of personality, spiritual growth—through looking at dreams for starters if you don’t know where to begin a journey of soul.
3/29/2006
Falling in Hate
The term, "falling in love" is used often--it is the archetypal, ubiquitous experience of being swept into the madness and blindness of humbling obsession. We are transformed by our love and in some ways possessed by it. Love, as many have pointed out, drives much of human behavior. Love makes the world go 'round we have heard since antiquity.
My premise is that we can also "fall into hate" and it is just as powerful and ubiquitous as the contrary experience--it possesses us, makes us mad and blind and drives much of our behavior.
Let's begin with simple hate--a friend who betrays our trust, a colleague who insists on nasty competition, a neighbor who shoots your cat (this actually happened to a friend on my street growing up) are all experiences that may engender falling into hate. Then we are hot and fiery, vitriolic and venomous; we deprecate our enemies, gossip, undermine and steal from them whenever possible. Revenge is the rationale and the archetype of war is the engine that drives this human emotion.
It is clear that not only individuals but certainly clans and nations can fall into hate with one another as well. Then the destruction is widespread, and, when viewed in retrospect is almost impossible to understand how any of it could have happened. Torturing people with power tools? Annihilating a whole race of people? Bombing and shooting and abducting until human beings are broken, bloodied and defeated? This is a powerful energy and one about which we have limited consciousness. Just how do these conflicts become a justification for violence? Isn't war legalized mass murder? Our individual conflicts cannot be resolved with violence without consequences, but on a national level we can do just about anything if the people have collectively fallen into hate with one another.
I fell into hate with another Jungian analyst for several years. Perhaps I have seldom been more miserable. I hated, obsessed, and plotted -- all without any satisfying outcome. It was only after I realized how ashamed I was of myself could I make a move toward healing myself and the relationship.
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"Her book is a rich compilation of dreams, stories and theory that blend well and make for delightful, almost easy reading."
– Fredrica R. Halligan, Ph.D
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Contact Tess for more information on her book or her seminars:
4054 McKinney Ave.
Suite #212
Dallas, Texas 75204
214-520-3663 |
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