Anthony Rella, MA, LMHC

Category: Therapy

  • Sit There, Then Do Something

    “Why are we trying to think less when we need to think more? The neutered, apolitical approach of mindfulness ignores the structural difficulties we live with.” – Suzanne Moore

    “The abused are trained to not talk about the abuse. It keeps the system in place. And when it becomes necessary, not talking about abuse is brutally enforced. We are living in the Panopticon. We police one another. Or we cower under our blankets.” – T. Thorn Coyle

    As a therapist who works with mindfulness and is organizing a group called “Declutter Your Life!” I am someone implicated in Moore’s article, cited above, which is worthy of a read. With this article, and the recent events in the media, I feel the need to take a stand. I do not agree with everything Moore says, but I think she is speaks to real problem in the way we market and understand mindfulness work. In a religious context, meditation and mindfulness practice is not primarily about relaxation or feeling better, it’s a means of developing increased calm and focus to become more effective at doing the work the religion calls its adherents to do, which can include service to gods, service to humanity, and service to the Earth. In Western pop psychology, we took the technique out of its context and left a vacuum of purpose.

    Rushton, Kaszniak, and Halifax cite a definition of moral distress as ‘‘the pain or anguish affecting the mind, body or relationships in response to a situation in which the person is aware of a moral problem, acknowledges moral responsibility, and makes a moral judgment about the correct action; yet, as a result of real or perceived constraints,
    participates in perceived moral wrongdoing.’’ These authors are doing intriguing work studying moral distress among palliative care workers, but I think the concept has implications for all of us.

    We are living in an age of outrage, in which we are constantly bombarded by news and images that stir up moral feelings and empathy. Media feeds our horror and anger, emotions that want to move our bodies to action, for protection or nurturing, but for most of us it stops there. Maybe I think about going out and volunteering to deliver first aid to a devastated county and then think about how hard it will be to get vacation time from work, or board the dog, and who’s going to take care of the house while I’m gone? Or I get outraged by some news and feel afraid that talking about it at work in the wrong way will endanger the lifestyle that feels so secure and precarious at the same time.

    by Jason WIlson

    When the urge to act, the feeling becomes stuck inside, and we suffer. We return to self-numbing habits, shut down emotion, and avoid action. But the alternative often looks like going to unrealistic extremes, to feel overwhelmed, because the problems are so huge and I feel so small.

    In my approach to psychotherapy, Individuation is not about becoming more walled-off and separate from the world. Individuation is about recognizing who I really am and what really matters to me. The Self is embedded in relationships. My family, my cultures, my work community, and my country are all facets of my Self that I must recognize and integrate over time, including their darkness and complexes, because it all already affects me. I think this truth is harder to recognize for people in the US whose identities were treated as the norm, such as White people, masculine-gendered people, non-transgendered people, heterosexual people. These groups are not necessarily compelled to consider how culture, politics, and history shape their identities, whereas those who do not share those identities cannot see anything but that truth.

    Mindfulness, in my practice, is a technique for improving consciousness about one’s self and experience. We learn to dis-identify from thoughts, feelings, and sensations, creating space to understand our larger Selves, including those unconscious complexes that show up in patterns that affect us in ways difficult to recognize. These include complexes of culture, history, and identity. This includes awareness of the stress and pain that arises when I want to do something to help the world and stop myself. Mindfulness helps me to free myself of those automatic defaults to inaction and numbing. Self-observation helps me to see, “Oh, every time I want to do something I automatically think either I need to quit my job and start a revolution, or else I need to do nothing. Maybe there’s something in the middle that I can do.”

    Meditation is not about lying to ourselves. We look at the mirror of our hearts and minds and learn to see who we really are, including what matters, what is painful, what is challenging. As we become better at separating our thoughts, feelings, opinions, and sensations, the mind is freed to engage in more incisive analysis, to contemplate solutions to challenging problems with less reactivity. When the mind and body become more intimately connected, we learn how to step out of the energy-draining patterns of analysis and argument that keep us from taking action.

    The above-linked article from Rushton, Kaszniak, and Halifax offers a nuanced and useful articulation of the problems that arise with moral distress. Without emotional equanimity and self-awareness, many of our reactions tend up being about reducing our own discomfort. If I feel genuine empathy for your pain and I lack the skills to keep myself calm and remember this is your pain, not mine, then my response might be more about trying to get you to stop making me uncomfortable. Offers of “help” become self-serving and ignore the other person’s genuine needs. That’s how we end up saying, “Oh, don’t feel bad! Cheer up!” to people who are miserable or grieving. That’s how we end up in these loops of moral outrage, shouting and insulting each other to drown out the feelings of pain and helplessness. Mindfulness and self-observation help us to find our real boundaries. We can face someone who is suffering, feel their pain, and find out what they need from us.

    There’s a joke that in the West the saying is, “Don’t just sit there; do something!” and in Eastern spiritual traditions it is more like, “Don’t just do something; sit there!” In my opinion, Doing and Being are partners. When we act without reflection or examining our inner selves, I think we tend to react and perpetuate the problem. If we do nothing but contemplate and examine our inner selves, then we deny the world our gifts and ability to make change. I often see quoted the lines attributed to Gandhi about being the change we want to see in the world, and there is a truth to that, but we can also remember that Gandhi changed himself in a way that was radically confrontational to his culture and government, and his work was not isolated but done in community.

    I advocate for working on knowing yourself and finding mental and emotional healing. That is the work I do. If that’s what you need to focus most on now, that is a huge undertaking and worthy of respect. I think your healing can be the healing others need as well. I think the causes that touch your heart and move you are the causes that can further your own healing and the healing of the world. You do not need to start by sacrificing everything. You can start by reading a book to get more information, finding out who else is working on the issue and what they’re doing, showing up to an event and being present, having a conversation with someone who disagrees with you. Right now, you are co-creating the world. If it’s not the world you want, you are the best person to start making it so.

  • Peace

    “Peace in the struggle to find peace.”

    – Sarah McLachlan, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy”

    Sometimes what we want most is freedom from our suffering, and we take shortcuts to get there. We silence ourselves when we need to speak, we make ourselves smaller. We cut people off and disconnect. We get angry and rail against our suffering. We abuse drugs and alcohol. We abuse sex or food. We tune out watching TV.  We try to get rid of parts of ourselves that only become more stubborn and vicious. We go numb.

    There is something within us that does not want to sit out life. That is the part of us that gets angry, resentful, and toxic every time we fail to speak up about an injustice, fail to speak on our own behalf, fail to set a boundary we desperately need.

    Justice, Edward Onslow Ford

    It takes courage to face the conflicts in our hearts and minds, let alone the conflicts in our relationships and communities. There is a world out there that needs us to show up. The world needs us to live for our values, even when it means conflict, even when we’d rather pull the blanket overhead and sleep until the world gets better.

    The world won’t get better on its own. The world is us. We are creating the world every day. Even our inaction is an act of creation, colluding with the world as it is.

    No one can solve the world’s problems alone, but we will not find peace within or without by standing by or going numb. Peace is not the absence of conflict. Inner peace comes when we know who we are and act according to that knowledge. We can feel this peace even in the midst of chaos, because we realize we are acting with integrity and purpose. The struggle feels rich and suffused with meaning. We are doing the best we can to create the world in which we want to live.

  • Flow

    “Flow” is a concept proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, described as a state of single-minded immersion in a task, where one’s emotions align with the task and energize us. A person experiencing a state of flow becomes so immersed in the task as to lose a sense of the separate self, but also experiences spontaneous feelings of joy. A state of flow requires involvement in a structured task; a task that offers immediate feedback that requires adaptation; and a balanced experience of one’s competency and the challenges of the task.

    by Malene Thyssen

    Flow is often explored in the context of work or hobbies, where one’s skill and passion join in a state of “doing without doing.” In my practice, I work with the concept of flow as also a feeling of alignment and integration. When I am in the flow of my life, my relationships and obligations feel nourishing and intriguing. I am not always in a state of ecstasy, but I have the sense that I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing. My sense of purpose arises from within and feels validated by what is happening around me. I perceive problems and challenges as natural responses to having purpose, not a sign that my purpose is wrong.

    There are places within us that get stuck and pull us out of flow. I might love what I’m doing but feel preoccupied by what’s going on at home. I might hate what I’m doing but resist making any changes out of fear. Old traumas might prevent me from saying what I need to say or doing what I need to do, blocking up energy. If I cannot act with my heart, mind, and gut aligned, then my life can begin to feel empty and lacking joy.

    Integration of self strengthens flow. Dishonesty with myself or others diminishes the strength of integration and the capacity for flow. The emotional integrity necessary for flow means the ability to bring everything I am into the moment without getting distracted by my multiple stories or efforts to protect ego, as those interfere with the small adjustments necessary to support flow. If all I do is smile and say everything’s okay when I’m seething with anger inside, then I am not in integrity and certainly not in flow. If I’m unwilling to discuss my pain because “men don’t do that,” then my pain will stay buried within, out of reach of healing.

    This does not mean flow is out of reach for people who are working toward healing and integration, because that would include almost everyone. What it means is that the work of healing and integration creates more and more inner space, freedom, and capacity for flow.

    The paradox is that we approach flow through sinking into these stuck places. The wound is the pathway to healing. Avoiding or numbing ourselves only further limits and impedes our ability to experience healing, authenticity, and joy. We can practice patience and the gentle opening of attention, noticing more and more the unconscious patterns that constrict energy and flow.

  • Ease

    Western Heart’s Ease, by Franco Folini

    Some days, everything feels hard. We might not feel equal to the task of living life, let alone becoming the person we long to be. We might forget how much we’ve grown and matured in the past several years, feeling stuck in old patterns and habits that keep us miserable.

    Ease is a state of adaptability to the changing conditions of life. It is not limited to the absence of struggle or pain, rather it is the ability to accept problems and pain and adapt. Ease arises from the ability to observe ourselves without judgment, accepting whatever arises and returning attention to what is most important to us. We can invite ease into our experience of daily life.

    One of the hallmarks of a master of a craft is the appearance of effortlessness and ease that arises from hours upon hours of practice and study. We rarely are privy to those hours of failed attempts and frustration, and we might assume that this ease and confidence is intrinsic to the person and beyond our own capacity. In a movie, the transition from amateur to expert passes by in a video montage of five minutes at best. Practice, failure, and re-attempting is not dramatic enough to entertain us, so we do not see it represented with accuracy. All we see is our own daily frustrations, loss of patience, feelings of overwhelm or anxiety, the bad days, the down moods, the nightmares, the feelings of defeat and failure. Sometimes we think we’re alone in this.

    Years ago, I had a job that required my cold-calling a few hundred people once per year. I dreaded this task as it approached, looked for ways to put it off. I felt anxiety when looking at the list, imagining all the ways the calls could go poorly. As long as those calls remained undone, they were a source of agony to me. I would tell myself that I could wait until I felt better about the calls before starting, but the anxiety never went away.

    What I learned, however, is that once I began, things weren’t so bad. Even the calls that went poorly were over quickly and I could move on. I realized that I simply had to make myself begin, over and over again, accepting that anxiety would always be there and yet I could do the task. With practice and repetition, I got better at the calls and my anxiety felt more and more manageable. What’s more, finishing the calls left me feeling more energetic, now that I no longer wasted energy worrying about it. I felt more ease, even though the anxiety never went away.

    Ease flourishes with discipline. Not self-punishment but the constant return to committing and following through. Telling myself that I will sit down and read the scary email, and then doing it. Accepting my feelings as they are, accepting even my resistance as it is, and moving forward allows tension to relax, energy to expand, and emotions to soothe. We might need to work harder at first, to struggle with new habits or sit with painful experiences, but over time this struggle unfolds into greater and greater ease.

  • What is Possible

    “All that you touch
    You Change.

    All that you Change
    Changes you.

    The only lasting truth
    is Change.

    God
    is Change.”

    -Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

    A life transition can be moving to a new neigborhood. A life transition can be the end of a relationship, or the beginning of a relationship. A life transition can be the beginning or end of a career, the change from student to working person, or changes in phase of life. A life transition can be the change from one identity to another, whether it be social, gender, or sexual. Life transitions are the space between chapters in a book. One chapter has ended, a new one begins, and all we really know is what has happened before.

    Life transitions stir things up.

    by Felix Burton

    We might not fully grasp it. With all the busyness and stress of, say, putting a house on the market, packing, finding a new place, moving, and unpacking, we might not have the space or time to see how the experience affects us until it’s all over and suddenly there is this strange heavy cloud that’s difficult to shake.

    Life transitions bring us back to core questions. Who am I? What do I want in life? Where will I fit? What are my needs, and how do I get them met? 

    Old ways of being may no longer fit, no matter how much we try to make them work. Our relationships change as we change; our friends and loved ones might not understand the change. Issues and problems we thought long-buried might rise to the surface. No matter how much we long to change, something within us may resist, something scared or angry, something that is unable to see what is possible.

    When I was young, my family moved neighborhoods and school districts in the middle of the school year. I went from being an outgoing, joyful kid to being shy and depressive, meeting other kids who did not immediately accept me in a household with conflict I did not understand. Much, much later in life, moving from the Midwest to Seattle, I felt excited but also overcome with anxiety, overwhelm, and inexplicable, ugly emotional displays. I became depressed after the move. With time and reflection, I realized that I became depressed every time I moved houses or went through a major change, even when the change was exciting and welcome. I realized that some part of me was still reacting to that difficult transition that happened twenty years ago.

    There is much that is possible. Every transition, every crisis involves a loosening of our habits and limiting beliefs about ourselves. If we create without consciousness or intention, we may end up re-creating the things that did not work.

    Life transitions are opportunities to grow up while growing down. We can look within to find what it is we truly value in life, not what values have been imposed upon us. We can look within to find what has been left out and what no longer feeds us. We can look within to find those echoes of the past that continue to limit us from becoming who we truly are. We can risk sharing ourselves with our loved ones with greater honesty and vulnerability, meaning greater intimacy. We can create a life of meaning, depth, and gratitude.

  • Honoring the River

    “I don’t know why I feel like I always need to look like I have it together.”

    Someone in particular said this to me yesterday, but it could have been a number of people. I know I have said something like that. We talked about the lost opportunities that arise when we do not admit to others that we are not as together as we want to look. Anger boils over into a conflict that an honest admission might have averted. Hurts that could have been shared and healed linger and deepen. Resentments build because we do not share our longings. And even if we dared to show each other our needs and vulnerabilities and the other person refused to join us, we would at least know who is not worth our hearts.

    I have also seen people admit that along with their bravery and apparent having-it-all-together-ness, they feel vulnerable or bruised, sometimes discouraged. Frequently others respond to these admissions is with an encouragement or praise, an effort to harden that façade of strength that can leave the vulnerable person feeling as though it is not okay to feel weak, to be a little moody and irritable, to be vulnerable, to ask for help or even just want to be seen. Unfortunately we do not see how allowing ourselves these moments helps us to become more resilient and whole. If we could allow ourselves to really feel sad, defeated, or whatever it is we feel, that energy could move from its stuckness and re-enter the river’s flow.

    How often is it when people are hurting the first instinct is to tell them to stop feeling? “Don’t cry.” “Don’t be sad.” “Oh, you’re better off.” We think we’re saying, “Be happy, focus on the good,” but what we’re generally saying is, “I don’t have the time or tolerance for your feelings now.” We want to believe we can choose and reorient our feelings, but often the choice is to experience them all or experience nothing. There are people, of course, who become stuck in particular feelings and seem unable to move no matter how much they process, vent, or share, and we have every right to set boundaries about how much we can stay with them.

    Grand Canyon Horse Shoe Bend, Christian Mehlführer

    How would life be if we could allow ourselves to feel sad together without needing to fix it? What if we trusted that these moments of vulnerability could be honored without diminishing all the other wonderful things about ourselves?  What if we also were willing to say, “This is as far as I can go with you and we’ve had this conversation several times now. I think you might need to talk to someone else.” What if we gave each other the opportunity to treat us with respect, thereby treating ourselves with respect?

  • Redeeming the Critic

    Firsov-Kubla Ancestral Voices by Dmitrismirnov

    When we begin to listen to the inner conversations, we might learn to discern different “voices” that are speaking internally. Not voices we hear with our physical ears, but the range of thoughts and impressions that can seem like they’re pulling us in different directions. Difficult emotions may go with the voices, like guilt and shame, anger or a longing for something different.

    With greater refinement we might come to label these voices as “the inner critic” or “my mother’s voice” or something else. Some of these influences feel good and positive, others feel daunting and harmful. Inner critics can become overwhelming or immobilizing, and some of us have to learn how to quiet the critic or develop mindful awareness of it while continuing to act and live.

    With time, I think we can develop an even deeper level of integrity with these voices by remembering that they are our own. Yes, they sound like the teacher who said we’d always be a failure, the ex-lover, the parent, the boss. They use their words and call up the memories of them saying it, but if it is the present moment and this person is not physically in front of you repeating the statement, then it is no longer their voice. It is yours. (Stay with me!)

    We develop complexes about ourselves, what Jung termed as sensitive clusters of emotional energy in the psyche, that continue to grow and gather meaning and weight with time. If, for whatever reason, a complex says “I am incompetent,” it will always be on the watch for evidence confirming its worldview and ignore evidence that disproves it. It will remember the critical comments from the teacher and forget all the other glowing reviews.

    This is painful, but it does not mean that we have to ignore or try to get rid of these complexes. Generally, that does not work. One thing that does work is taking it a little seriously (a little meaning not too seriously!). If I feel guilty about something, it’s worth taking time to think about the situation and why I might feel guilt. Perhaps there is something for which I need to apologize—not for the entire situation, but a lapse in judgment or failure on my part.

    I once worked in a very hectic environment in which I had a number of shifting responsibilities and no clear guidance on which ones were the most important. Come to think of it, that describes most of my jobs. When I felt overwhelmed by tasks and walked by another one that was not done, I noticed that I often had inner visions of being yelled at by my boss for failing to do the task. This felt even more stressful and overwhelming, and fed into this complex that I was a failure and inept.

    One day, however, I noticed this happening and thought—“Maybe this is just a part of me saying I should deal with this now.” So I did not walk by the task, I addressed it. It was over quickly, I felt more energized, and I no longer had those images of being yelled at because I knew I had done all I could.

    This is where taking those inner experiences seriously, but not too seriously, and owning these voices as our own is deep and enriching. The particular boss was never happy with what I did and always found some flaw, but I felt freer when I followed my inner guidance and acted in integrity with myself. The “inner boss” acted out when I was giving into my feelings of overwhelm and my beliefs that I could never get everything done so why do anything. I needed to own that the “inner boss” was me, some part of me speaking out, and to look at it with curiosity about how it might be helpful to me instead of overwhelming.

  • Between Two Great Opposing Poles

    “Take your well-disciplined strengths, stretch them between the two great opposing poles, because inside human beings is where God learns.”

    ― Rainer Maria Rilke

    As a person studying the psyche, Jung spoke often of polarity, the play of opposites. Where we notice one thing, the opposite is also somewhere within us. This is why Jungian psychology invites us to pay special attention to the people who annoy us, repel us, or even the people who intrigue us. Whatever we see in that person, particularly those things that we could never imagine being true for ourselves, is at some level within.

    To embrace the teaching of polarity and internal opposition, we must begin to let go of many long-cherished beliefs about ourselves, our capacity, and our feelings about others. We lose the certitude of defining ourselves by surface personality traits. The checklists of “Caring for Your Introvert” and “Caring for Your Extrovert,” while having value for helping us to better accept ourselves, become limitations when we remember that Introversion and Extraversion are two opposing poles themselves, with a vast gulf between.

    We do not need to deny the things we know about ourselves, only to begin to face the truth that we do not know everything. The ideas we have about why we are who we are are the truths that helped us get to this point in life, but they can become the next fence posts we need to leap to get to a bigger pasture. Or, if you do not like land metaphors, they become the eggshell we need to break to get bigger and become more free. Truth exists and we cannot apprehend it with our minds alone, or our hearts alone, but with every facet of who we are.

    We could realize more of our potential. We can move beyond tendencies to -, to get swept up in emotion, to numb ourselves with drugs or work or food or television or sex. What do you know about yourself? What is the opposite of that? Can you imagine what it would be like if both of those things were true about you? Could you sit in the space between those two polarities and hold them? Could you be loving and stern? Could you be a leader and a follower? When you hold both polarities, does a third thing arise? Not “the truth that is somewhere between,” but the truth that is both and neither?

    I have published an eBook! Check out and download my personal-growth workbook, Develop New Contracts, either by clicking the link here or in the header. If you like it, please let me know and share!

  • Balance

    Balance is a state of dynamic tension between forces. When this tension has reached equilibrium, for one moment we can experience profound stillness and peace. This peace cannot be static. Forces eventually shift.

    For those who can afford it, “balance” is a virtue that inspires clearer boundaries or more engagement in life, but it also can become yet another stick with which we beat ourselves. Striving for outer balance means we have yoked our capacity for peace upon things that will never be within control. Balancing one’s finances is an important practice and one that will inevitably be offset by some unexpected occurrence: a car breaking down, a medical bill, an impulsive buy.

    Justice from The Ukioye Tarot Deck

    What feels balanced in this phase of life will not work for another. Sometimes it’s worth putting in the extra two hours of work to guarantee a weekend of relief from concern or feeling that things are undone. Other times, we need to learn to stop ourselves from working and invest energy in play, or family, or cultivating another kind of joy.

    Equilibrium is a state of presence. We arrive at deep, responsive, fluid balance by starting within. The heart offers a fulcrum upon which one’s inner state comes to rest. We can bring attention to what is occurring inside, whether it is a storm of thoughts or multiple competing feelings, and we can bring a gentle acceptance and equanimity. If all inner experiences are welcome to occur and subside as they will, space becomes available for deeper attention. We can hold a pose for longer, subtly adjusting our muscles and weight and holding even while parts are screaming that they will go insane if we don’t stop.

    Even this equilibrium is fleeting, though with practice we can become better and better at returning to balance when balance is upset. To paraphrase Bruce Wayne’s father in Batman Begins, we lose balance so that we can learn how to regain it.

  • Surviving Despair

    “Paradoxically, the moment of utter defeat can be the traditional turning point in the journey. It is the moment when all conscious strategems have failed, the ego abdicates, and deeper forces of life may make their appearance.” – Marc Ian Barasch

    Toko-pa recently posted this quote, and it has lingered in the back of my mind. What has been at the forefront is despair.

    Belief has a fiery quality to it. When all else seems murky and confused, we can fall back upon what fuels our sense of purpose: belief in ourselves, belief in a power greater than ourselves, or faith in the power of a system of beliefs. Even those who disavow theism may show some quality of devotion to a virtue that calls them forward.

    At some point in every journey, however, even these lights grow dim. Perhaps this occurs at the moment right before the discovery of treasure, the last mile of the marathon, the last gasp when all energy is exhausted and some part of the being cries out, “How much more of this can I take? And why?”

    Sometimes this enormity of frustration, somehow unlocks exactly what we need to push through into success. Perhaps there was some burden we’ve been carrying that we finally abandon, realizing there was no purpose to it. Perhaps we have nurtured some secret fear or grievance, some way of being that no longer works but we cannot bring ourselves to abandon it, and this is the very thing getting in the way of what we need. If you are a person given to caring for others, perhaps it is your secret selfishness. If you are a person who walks with callous indifference, perhaps it is your secret wounded heart. The thing we always held up as our strength must fail for the deeper strength to emerge.

    Or perhaps you look upon your path and see a trail of mistakes and failures. In spite of your best intentions, things did not work out as you hoped. Perhaps you failed someone or lost your integrity, enabled someone to do terrible things that can never be undone. Perhaps you did not speak when you could have, or you spoke and hurt someone deeply when you could have remained silent.

    These are dark feelings, and tender, and they can lead us to who we truly are. Despair is not the end of the path. This feeling is like a cry in the wilderness, but it could become the crowing that breaks open the sky for the light of dawn. Beneath the weight of despair is joy, fierce and urgent, wriggling for freedom.

    What keeps you going when you reach the edge of the map and you’re no longer sure if you trust your compass? What keeps you going when you feel despair?