Tame Your Mood Newsletter
In This Issue:
Feature Article:The Wobble of Progress
Depression Essays Book
Archive of Past Newsletters
Audio Recordings
About Marty

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 Marty L. Cooper, MFT

(415) 937-1620

 

4831 Geary Blvd.

San Francisco, CA 94118

 

martycooper@
mlcooper.com

 

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June 2012                      Vol. 4, Issue 6  
Greetings! 

Greetings!

I hope the late summer finds you all doing well, with appropriate challenges, and increasing curiosity about this astounding human life. Ahem.  I've been into another phase of studying the neurosciences, and am flushed with excitement for the amazing complexity of our grey matter, and the incredible fact that we're able to actually get out of bed in the morning.  And especially, with the deeply hopeful findings about the plastic nature of the brain, and its ability to self-heal, and transform itself into greater and greater integration and satisfaction.  

Which will no doubt show up in future articles, but this month, I'm writing about something a number of my clients have found useful, what I'm calling the "wobble of progress."  I hope you also find these thoughts useful.

 

Enjoy,

Marty


The "Wobble" of Progress

 

Given the linear mind of our mainstream rational American culture, it seems to take many of us some time to come to terms with the "wobble of progress," which is the way in which our own growth and development moves forward in...wobbles.  There's a natural wave form to unfolding as a human being that isn't explained by the progressivist idea that growth and success is a simple step-by-step process, like walking down a straight road.  Rather, human growth (and the healing and uprooting of depression and anxiety) looks more like the switchbacks up the side of a mountain.  The path is a straight line;  you can trace the trail from bottom to top.  But when you're on it, it often feels like anything but a straight path.

The reason understanding this is important, when working to roll back the wild moods of depression and anxiety, is that the experiences of hopelessness and despair need to be gingerly negotiated.  We need a map which is more or less accurate because, more than folks without the wild moods, our tendency is to interpret bends and curves in the path as regression, failure (ours or the world's), and proof of the futility of moving forward.  Lowered and more accurate expectations, for the wild mood'ers, are prophylactics against despair.Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, why does human progress snake?  

One way to understand it requires switching metaphors.  Imagine a pond that is covered with water hyacinth (that plant that can choke waterways), covering the surface of the pond.  We can imagine, with it dominating the pond, that little else can thrive.  Ok, so we have a huge rake, and go to work raking off the plants till we get the whole pond surface cleared.  Now we're able to swim, fish, paddle around in the open space that is now there.  That openness is a state of the pond which will sustain for some time, but over time, what was trapped or dormant under the cover of those hyacinth, now has the open space to pop up and announce themselves.  That might be more hyacinth, other flowers, etc.  But then that space starts getting filled in again.

The thing to note in this metaphor is:  our very act of clearing away one layer of "obstruction," allows, naturally, the space needed for the next layer to arise and be dealt with.  So Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net subjectively, we experience:  work, then clearing (space), then openness and freer movement, then gradual (or not so gradual, at times), closing of that space.  

More concretely:  say you are working with the grief of losing a parent.  You've gotten overwhelmed with the feelings, and seek out a therapist to help you move through them.  You work with understanding and experiencing the sadness, getting support and finding how to support yourself such that you're not overwhelmed, and move through to a calmer, more accepting place in relation to your loss.  You're experiencing the relief and poignancy of this acceptance, and after some time of this, you're calmly having memories of your beloved parent and suddenly get a burst of rage. An older set of memories arises around (say) when your parent was drinking early in your life and totally unavailable or harsh.  In that clearing away of the sadness, in the development of acceptance, you've actually made it possible to feel into this deeper wound (the anger), which has always been there in some form, but now has an opportunity to be healed because now it is in conscious awareness.

This, then, is the "wobble of progress."  Openness and closedness, relief and tension, alternate, not because we're regressing or failing, but because of our very success in clearing one level, we are allowed to go deeper and work through the next.  

Which would be a dismal state of things if there were (to switch metaphors again) no top to the mountain.  It may be a lot of work getting through those switchbacks, but there are endpoints, where the view opens up and clarity is obtained in a more or less permanent way (phase shifts or emergence of new insight and understandings).  So with depression and anxiety, clearing and filling and clearing is not the whole path, but does describe the "wobble" on the way up.

Knowing that this is the natural order of things, that which actually brings us to the mountaintop or to a self-clearing pond, is so important in changing the framework of understanding from one of futility/failure, to one of progress/forward movement.  "Oh, this seeming regression, this curve in the road, this emergence of more hyacinth, is actually a marker of my own unfolding progress.  This actually indicates that I'm closer to a stable peace and clarity!"

Having that different understanding, checked out over time by our own experience, allows us not to freeze on the path, afraid of walking, when we reach an unexpected curve, but to rather accept the inevitable "wobble" and to keep moving on in trust and grounded faith.

 

My Book is Now Available:

Anxiety and Depression:  42 Essays on Overcoming the Wild Moods

My book,

Anxiety and Depression:  42 Essays on Overcoming the Wild Moods, is for sale as paperback or Kindle.

 

It is a collection of short essays, focusing on the challenge of managing, and ultimately, uprooting depression and anxiety.  You can find a few sample articles here, and can purchase the book on Amazon here.

Archive of Past Newsletters
   All past issues of Tame Your Mood can be found here.
Audio Recordings
   Various audio recordings can be found here.
About Marty

I am a San Francisco psychotherapist who helps individuals struggling with anxiety and depression to not only manage theseMarty L. Cooper, MFT "wild moods," but eventually learn how to overcome them.  I work comprehensively with mental, emotional, bodily, and spiritual dimensions and anxiety and depression, all
of which are necessary to overcome the chronic quality of anxiety and depression.


If you are interested in exploring working together in psychotherapy, please contact me at:

 

415.937.1620,
or email at: