Tammie Byram Fowles, PhD, MSW

Duane Elgin

   Duane Elgin is one of my favorite people.  I was introduced to his work when I read his first book, Voluntary Simplicity, in the mid eighties.  While it took several years for the impact of the book to be reflected in my behavior in any significant way, reading it changed the way I viewed myself, my culture, and the world around me.  On Episode 40 of Living Dialogues, Elgin shares his hopeful vision for humanity’s future with Duncan Campbell.  A vision that was taking shape while Elgin was working on the book, Awakening Earth and culminated in the publication of Promise Ahead.

   Part Two and Three of the Dialogues between Campbell and Elgin are available to listen to as well.

Emotional Health During the Holidays

I just watched an interesting and informative lecture entitled, Emotional Health During the Holidays by Dr. Sudha Prathikanti shown on University of California Television.  This isn't a sweet, feel good pep talk, but offers very helpful information on depression, stress, menopause, etc.  You can watch it by clicking on the title.

Creativity, Fulfillment, flow and Gratitude

   What a wonderful resource the internet can be, from my little cottage in Maine I attend lectures held all over the world.  Yesterday I was whisked off to Duke university where I listened to Kenneth Pargament speak about Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy. 

   Today I attended a lecture by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at TED entitled, "Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow" that offers significant food for thought on happiness, meaning, creativity, and more...

   With all of the challenges that surround us today, I count my blessings each and every time I take advantage of this amazing opportunity to learn, share, and grow from the comfort of my home...

   

Staying Afloat During These Challenging Times

   I just watched an interesting video online entitled, Middle Class Life Boat: Careers and Life Choices for Staying Afloat.  The interview is timely, informative, and hopeful.

Eco Annxiety

   I came across a blog yesterday written by Sarah Anne Edwards entitled, Eco Anxiety.  She is the author of an article I referred to in my last entry which addresses psychological and behavioral responses to crisis.  In her blog, Edwards offers a significant amount of information regarding the environmental crisis that we face while at the same time providing hope and direction.  I highly recommend it to anyone who as Edwards describes it is suffering from eco anxiety, "Feeling concerned about the seriousness of what is taking place ecologically in the world today and the personal, spiritual, and economic consequences" of what is taking place now, right now. 

Break Down or Break Through? Part Two

Break Down or Break Through?

Part Two

   

   My last entry referred to an article on Brain Blog entitled, “Can This Economic Down Turn Lead to Better Psychosocial Health?,” an article that explores positive emerging trends which appear to be fueled by the daunting environmental, economic, and social crises we currently face.  While the title may very well seem offensive at first, it ultimately offered the reader some semblance of hope.

   

   In “The Waking Up Syndrome,” published in Hope Dance magazine by Sara Anne Edwards and Linda Buzzell, the authors outline a pattern of behavior that they believe often accompanies a crisis, and which they describe as, ‘the waking up syndrome.’  This process is broken down into six stages; (1) denial, (2) semi-consciousness, (3) the moment of realization, (4) a point of no return, (5) despair, guilt, hopelessness, powerlessness, and (6) acceptance, empowerment, action.

    

   While each stage that Edwards and Buzzell describes is relevant (I was firmly planted in stage 5 for a very long time,) the final stage of this process is what I want to address here.  According to the authors, it is here that we come to recognize that we no longer need to surrender to our “current and emerging reality.”  Instead, we are liberated to “pursue what James Kunstler calls ‘the intelligent response,’ seeking and taking whatever creative, constructive action will best sustain those aspects of life that are truly most important to us in the context of the changes unfolding around us.  At this point our curiosity and creativity kick in and we can begin following our natural instincts to find what is both feasible and rewarding to safeguard ourselves, our families, our communities and the planet.”

    

   On the whole, I believe that very few of us feel the kind of empowerment and commitment that will be necessary to implement the sweeping and substantial changes that will be necessary to move us toward a more rewarding and sustainable way of life, however, portents of change and small beams of hope are shining everywhere.  I witness them in the more insistent demand for alternative sources of energy, conservation, and simpler and ultimately more satisfying ways of living.  Public radio announced recently that library visits are increasing, visits to farmers markets are on the rise, and there is a renewed interest in food coops, child coops, and car pooling.  We are starting to throw away less, reuse more, and we have begun to convert city lots and back yards to gardens. 

    

   When I was writing BirthQuake in the late nineties, I was surrounded by a barrage of bad news about people, places, and even our planet in peril.  Today it seems that the threats have amplified, the warning signs have multiplied, and the ominous march of fear and uncertainty has moved even closer to home.  And yet, ten years later, while my concerns have deepened, I have also found more reasons to hope.  Is it possible that so much of the suffering that I witness here in my country are not the signs of an ultimate break down but are instead the labor pains that will ultimately herald a break through.

Watch:

Finding Your Power: Part One

Finding Your Power: Part Two

Finding Your Power: Part Three

Finding Your Power: Part Four

Finding Your Power: Part Five

Finding Your Power: Part Six

Finding Your Power: Part Seven

The Shift

Break Down or Break Through? Part One

Break Down or  Break Through?

Part one

A therapist explores how our pain can become a pathway to possibility.   

    In spite of the distractions provided by the upcoming election, the threats to our environment, our economy, and our families still trouble me deeply.  I am unsettled by the rise in groceries, fuel, heating costs, and unemployment.  I worry about the welfare of my more vulnerable brothers and sisters.  I worry about future generations.  I worry about the tremendous challenges that confront my daughter and her family.  I worry a lot these days, and I still hope.

    I read an entry on Brain Blogger recently that served to gently blow on the tired embers of my faith and my hope.  It asked the question, “Can This Economic Down Turn Lead to Better Psychosocial Health?”  The title immediately contradicted what I understood to be the mounting consequences of decreasing economic stability – increasing anxiety, depression, stress related illnesses, family and individual dysfunction and demoralization.  Then I read the article and began the sluggish process of reclaiming what I have struggled for so long to nurture firmly in my core.

    In the first chapter of the book I published in 2000, BirthQuake, I had written the following:

    “This book is about a phenomenon that is presently challenging numerous members of my generation in particular.  It’s about the ‘BirthQuakes’ that so many of us are struggling with and through.  Where everything is rocked and shifted; where foundations crack, and treasures lie buried beneath the rubble…

    Bill Moyers once observed that, ‘the largest party in America today isn’t the party of the democrats or the republicans, it’s the party of the wounded.’  I think he’s right, we’ve all been wounded.  Wounded by the barrage of bad news, political scandals, traffic jams, jobs that so often feel futile, the signs that surround us of dying cultures, dying children, dying species, and even a dying earth.  We may not think too much about it, and may even do a reasonably effective job of burying our heads in the details of our lives, but there’s really no escaping it for most of us.  We feel it.  We feel it a little bit every single day, and even though we generally manage to keep one step ahead of it, we sense sometimes that it just might be closing in.

    The good news is that we’re not alone.  Quakes are trembling everywhere.  The bad news is that this also means that there are fewer places to hide.  It’s not as simple as it was even a decade ago.  Moving to the country won’t shield us.  Believe me, I tried.

    In 1992, over 1,600 scientists from around the world released a document entitled, “Warning to Humanity”.  This warning stated, among other things, that human beings were on a collision course with nature and that we need to make significant changes now if we want to avoid profound human suffering in the future.  Other rumblings of a global quake in addition to our environmental crisis can be felt all over the world.  Felt in addictions, increasing levels of depression, crime, suicide, and so much more.  I recognize that many of the concerns that I’ve mentioned have existed for centuries, however at no time in history has the world been at such universal risk.  We’re coming closer every day to facing a crisis that every living organism on the entire planet faces.  And at some level you already know that.  Don’t you?

   We’re all in this together.  We’re each waging a battle with collective demons that threaten to become more and more personal.  They’ve made it into your neighborhood, and into mine.  Are you ready?  I’m not, but I’m working on it.  While I’m more than a little bit scared, I’m still tremendously hopeful.

    A wise man who wishes only to be identified as “a brother along the way,” shared with me that, ‘it seems that our travails are often a preparatory path, helping to make us better instruments through which we may serve, especially during times of crisis, which the world is now entering – A BirthQuake of worldwide proportion.’

    So I’m called to service, and I’m calling on you too.  Trust me, the rewards will be well worth it.”

    I wrote those words before September 11, 2001, before the war in Iraqi, before the falling American dollar, before we were charged $4.00 per gallon of gas, and the rapidly escalating costs of groceries.  I wrote them before the production of “An Inconvenient Truth,” before the renewed conflict with the former Soviet Union, and before the ravages wrought by the past eight years with Bush.  And then, eventually, I surrendered to my sense of inadequacy and helplessness.  Things only got worse.

    I am now striving to embrace once again my (albeit sometimes shaky) belief that pain is often a pathway to possibility; that what wounds us also teaches us, and that what threatens us also calls us to action.

Moving to Maine and "The Great Transition"

     I sit on my deck in Maine.  Before me lies the lake, sun glistening off the water, a blue heron down by the dock, deep green grass and blue berry bushes.  Behind me, inside the cottage, there is dust, and grime, and chaos.  I try and stay focused on what’s before me.

I have mixed feelings about moving here, it was painful leaving my practice, friends, family, and  my home.  Still, so much of Maine is absolutely stunning and I am surrounded by natural beauty here from the moment I open my eyes in the morning.  I open myself up to the healing and inspiration that I find here in this magical place even as I acknowledge once again how often we hold both promise and pain in our hearts at the same time. 

     I watched a video lecture delivered at Harvard University by Paul Raskin entitled The Great Transition Initiative.  The lecture was based on a paper collectively written by members of a global network that describes itself as committed to “elaborating visions and pathways for a future of enriched lives, human solidarity and a healthy planet. Even as environmental and social crises threaten the future of humanity and the earth, we believe a Great Transition is still possible if citizens around the world awaken and respond.”  The paper can be read online here.

     During this period of transition I am putting a great deal of thought into how I can best respond to the promise and the pain that exists within my country, my world, and within my own life.

When Religion Divides

 

    Recently I sat in the presence of two wonderful men, both devoutly religious.  They had been estranged from one another for several years. As father and son they were connected by blood and history and at the same they had sadly been divided by their religions.  Their love for one another was evident, but equally evident was their passion to convince one another of the falseness of the other's faith.  They would not (could not?) listen to one another.

      In "The Myth of Meaning" Aniela Jaffe differentiates between finite and infinite holiness, and quotes from Paul Tillich's work, "The Courage to Be."  Jaffe explains, "Finite holiness finds expression in historical religions.  The infinite source of all holiness, on the other hand is unconditioned and inexpressible.  Although it shines through the forms of finite holiness it must not be confused with this…"

    Jaffe then quotes Tillich, “…whenever anything finite, whether it be a holy doctrine, a holy institution, a holy book, a holy person, a holy sect is equated with the infinite source of all holiness, the finite holiness seeks to subordinate to itself everything else that is finite; it seeks to break all resistance to its absolute claim, and the first victim of this attempt is humanity.”       

     In witnessing the pain and anger of this father and son who were not able to find middle ground and who despaired for one another's soul, I could not help but feel that I was witnessing this victimization close up.      

      

A Culture of Addicts

The article Are You Unhappy? Is It Because of Consumer Addiction?  asks Americans a very important question, one that each and every one of us needs to pay attention to.  Are we a nation of addicts?  Read the article and then answer the question.