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Marty L. Cooper, MFT
(415) 937-1620
4831 Geary Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94118
martycooper@
mlcooper.com
www.mlcooper.com
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| September 2012 Vol. 4, Issue 7 |
Greetings!
Greetings!
Well, San Francisco is starting into its summer (after the typically foggy calendar Summer), while in the rest of country it's probably getting a little cooler. Such is the inverse reality of living on the Peninsula. Wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying the various changes and transitions. This month's article is centered on an exercise called "The Confession of Greatness," and points towards how difficult it can be, especially when one is depressed or anxious, to claim and validate our own true greatness. Give it a try--it's really quite powerful. Also, I am presenting a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression (MBCT) class on 9/16 in San Francisco. See below for more information (or click here). |
| "Relating to Depression: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Strategies for Coping with and Overcoming Depression
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"I found it to be the most helpful and best such class/workshop I have ever taken. I am finding what I learned to be invaluable to me every single day"--JM
Description of workshop:
In this one-day workshop we will examine how to best take care of ourselves by learning to change our relationship to depression itself. As many of us know, depression can feed on our own attempts to fix it; struggling to change depression by trying to think our way out of it can often incline us to even more thinking that can lead us to feeling worse!
The MBCT approach focuses not on changing the elements or symptoms of depression, but rather on changing one's relationship to depression itself. Along with examining and relating to our thoughts in some new ways, we will practice the fundamental skill of mindfulness, what Jon Kabat-Zinn defines as: "Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally." Thus, we will be focusing on the basic principles of what works (and doesn't) to uproot depression, and within this broad framework, discussing particular strategies or tools.
During the day, there will be periods to practice together, and time for discussion and questions.
Who is the class for?
"Relating to Depression" is a class intended for those who have a history with ongoing depression (if you are currently in a depression, please let us know so we can together decide whether it might be useful for you at this time). It is also useful in relation to anxiety, as the same perspectives and attitudes apply (depression and anxiety come together for about 50-70% of people), though we'll be using the language of depression more often. This will not be a clinical training (though if you are an interested therapist, please let us know for a possible training in the future).
Fee: $50-$25 (sliding scale)
Date/time: Sunday, September 16th, 2012, 10am-4pm.
Location: 4831 Geary Blvd. (Inner Richmond Dist., San Francisco)
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Confessing Greatness
There's an exercise that the Rabbi Marc Gafni often has his students do, called "The Confession of Greatness." I've seen many people find it more difficult than gold old fashion confession (of sins, etc.); for various reasons, we can find it harder to tell another what's great (not just, well, "kinda nice") about ourselves than it is what's supposedly wrong or broken. I'll suggest some of those reasons below, but first, here's the exercise:
1) Get a partner.
2) Sit together, facing each other, and one person becomes the Confessor, and the other the Listener.
3) Set a clock for two minutes (you can increase if you like), and the Confessor starts by saying, "I'm great at..." and then filling in whatever is true for them (not whatever is necessarily comfortable).
4) The Listener's job is to listen closely, and receptively, giving the Confessor the experience of being received, really received, and accepted. Then, when the Confessor stops or stalls, the Listener's only response is to say, "Is there more?"
5) Continue till the timer rings, then switch rolls with your partner. 6) You can then share experiences of the exercise with your partner.
Simple enough. Try it with someone you trust, though. Don't pull a stranger off the street, or that angry relative at the reunion (at least initially). See what it feels like to be unapologetic about your competance, excellence, greatness, and power. The goal is to be neither demure nor grandiose. This is about speaking the truth.
Now, why might it be difficult to do this exercise? Shouldn't we all want to be mirrored in our greatness, like kids showing off?
I think the short answer is, yes, of course we all want that, but many (if not most) of us don't trust it. One way or another, we expect to be shamed, or attacked. Maybe our parents responded to our young greatness, and assertions of greatness, with, "Don't be arrogant. You're no better than anyone else." Or perhaps we had a parent who felt unworthy themselves, and couldn't tolerate our worthiness, our bigness, finding it too painful. Or maybe our culture has a bias either towards narcissism/grandiosity, or towards homogeneity/similarity, and we learned that either greatness equates to domineering behavior (with narcissism) or attack and diminishment (with a culture of sameness). Regardless of the form, we came to associate, viscerally, speaking to and owning our greatness with pain, ostracism, or shame.
If you have or are around young children, you can see what happens when their greatness and bigness is either received or rejected. The child of three comes running up to Mom and shows a crayon scrawl, beaming, wanting acknowldegment and praise. Mom says, "That is amazing! Good job!" The child has their sense of self and self-validity reinforced. Then contrast with Mom saying, "That's nice, dear," or, "Red doesn't look good. You should do it over." Wilting is probably the best descriptor for what happens in the child. And these memories, when repeated over time, stick with us into adulthood, such that the Confession of Greatness exercise can feel excruciating because it exposes us to painful memories that we'd just as soon, and perhaps have crafted our behavior to forget.
What's great about us needs to be reclaimed (not what's grandiose about us--we don't want to reinforce that because, essentially, it obscures our true greatness) . Especially when you are experiencing depression and anxiety, which revolve and are anchored in a negative, deficient sense of self. When our very selves are seen in their true bigness, and are met (inside and out) with support and validation and appreciation, then the old, "shamed self," starts being displaced by a self that's more true. When that happens, we start experiencing ourselves responding to old depressive messages ("You're nothing, you're worthless," etc.) with, "Wait a second, buddy. I deserve better than that, and I'm worth more than that." The depressive downward spiral, from small slights to major collapse, gets short circuited.
Exercises like the Confession of Greatness, like all other tools, are merely that: tools. But they enact and support a process (that takes time and effort) which truly does lead to less vulnerability to depression, not just because you are coping better, but because the very machinery of depression is, progressively, dismantled.
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My Book is Now Available:
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.
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Archive of Past Newsletters
All past issues of Tame Your Mood can be found here. |
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Audio Recordings Various audio recordings can be found here. |
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About Marty
I am a San Francisco psychotherapist who helps individuals struggling with anxiety and depression to not only manage these "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:
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