a new year, and new opportunities

Here we are, another year. What can be said about the ‘new year’ that has not already been said, many times over? Well, perhaps that is the point. It is a ‘new year’, and with it, new opportunities. For millennia, people around the world have looked to the passage of time - and in particular, the transition from one year to the next - as an opportunity for renewal. Joseph Campbell, the leading scholar of the 20th century on all things mythological, referred to it as the the ‘eternal return’, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth that cultures have honored in one way or another for thousands of years.

In keeping with my last blog entry, what can this mean in our post-postmodern age? Conceivably many different things, and yet, perhaps there is a shared or collective meaning that is not altogether postmodern, possibly quite pre-modern. Perhaps it is simply that opportunities await, like the potential energy stored in a ball sitting on a shelf, waiting to drop, or a match, ready to light. Perhaps it is the opportunity to embrace the fact of change. Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic philosopher, captured the nature of reality with his observation that you cannot step into the same river twice, because the river is constantly changing, just as time always passing. The fact that the date changes from 2015 to 2016 merely reminds us of this a little more poignantly than, say, the change from yesterday to today. So, whether we are looking at the daily, the weekly, the monthly or the yearly calendar, each day- indeed each moment - affords new possibilities, new opportunities. What we choose to do, or say, or notice is up to us. But the newness of each moment, or day, or year is there, if we are prepared to take notice.

So, perhaps the meaning of the new year is really the meaning of each day, or each moment (provided we slow down to notice), which is that if we pay attention, and think about what lies before us, we can approach each day with greater wisdom than the one before, a wisdom that is based on recognizing the potentiality of what can be, provided we ourselves are open, rather than closed or asleep to it.

on meaning-making in a post-postmodern age

Let me start by saying that the efforts of Canadians to reach out and help the Syrian refugees is nothing short of inspirational. Not since the Vietnam ‘boat people’ crisis have Canadians rallied to come to the aid of another group of refugees. At all levels - government, NGO’s, school and multi-faith communities, people are coming together to help, for no other reason that because we can and we should. Its an awe inspiring gesture of compassion in action.

    But let me take this one step further, and suggest that I think it represents something even more important, or at least fundamental to our psyches: the need to have meaningful work, or as the Buddha famously put it: right action. When we look around, at least in the western world, we have (for the most part) moved past ideology, mythology, traditional religion, political affiliations, and yet we are starving for meaning. Articles keep appearing in the media about how we all want to simplify our lives,  especially around the holiday season, yet are somehow caught up in the wheel like gerbils, running faster and faster. Which begs the question: for what? In the past, beyond mere survival (and I will come back to that) people were inspired, or at least motivated by issues bigger than themselves - religious, political, ideological, whatever. What motivates us now? Yes, one could argue survival, but not in the usual sense. While the cost to just live is getting higher and higher (especially in the GTA), it is not Survival, with a capital ‘S’. Is it consumerism? I certainly hope not.

    This brings me back to the Syrian refugee crisis. Images we have all seen of the millions of displaced people and perhaps most poignantly, the terrible image of the drowned toddler on a beach in Turkey, have galvanized our collective attention and compassion to recognize that it is their survival - and I would suggest in some ways our spiritual survival -  that has drawn us out of our own little, private lives, to help. They need our help, and we need something real, something human, and certainly something meaningful to inspire us to act in ways that truly matter.

    And yet, when this crisis subsides - as it hopefully will - we will continue to need to attend, and act responsibly and compassionately to one another and to our planet. The efforts being made in Paris at the International Climate Change Summit are very encouraging, and I would suggest, represent another dimension in our quest for meaning. But that is for another blog, another day.  Stay tuned...

 

a few thoughts about change...

Often times clients ask me how long the process of therapy takes. I must admit that when I was a younger, less experienced social worker, I used to try and suggest that it may only take 4 or 5 sessions, sensing that was all they were prepared to do.

But as I’ve gotten older, and have seen many, many more people, I can honestly say ‘I don’t know just yet’. The reasons are many: it depends on the client and their needs, strengths and difficulties, who else is in the client’s life that may help or hinder their efforts, how longstanding the problems are, and of course my own abilities to understand and help facilitate change, assuming its an issue I am competent to address.

But this leads to a more essential issue, which is that change is hard. Think about the last time you intended to do something different in the way you live your life. Even something seemingly straightforward like remembering to floss every day, which, if you’re like me, you get scared into doing every six months when you go to the dentist and are asked, under the intense light: ‘are we keeping up with our flossing?’ And then out comes the tool for measuring gum recession, and the lecture about how you want to be able to chew your own food when you’re eighty and so on. So off you go, with your new mint-flavoured floss kit, and get to it. A week or two later and its back to your old ways. Sound familiar? Let’s face it, we all intend to floss, or eat healthily, or exercise, or call our aging parents more often, or walk the dog more. So changing how we live is anything but easy. And these are the more straightforward changes. Trying to change how we think, or reflect, or communicate, or address childhood issues of abuse or neglect, let alone more fully understand ourselves (and those around us)  - these are the really challenging issues that lead people into therapy.

I remember a teen I was once seeing said, after what obviously felt to her like twenty long minutes into the session, ‘I’m bored- can I leave now?’ Therapy is not fun, or easy, or distracting, or quick. I’m reminded of this when reading a recent newsletter from the David Suzuki Foundation that pointed out that we have known about climate change for almost as long as David Suzuki has been an environmental advocate, and yet, only recently at the UN Climate Change Summit in Paris was there some common ground among nations that we have to do something about how we are living on the planet, now - not in 20 years - but now. This is a good example - albeit a very complex one, of how difficult change is, and how long it takes to move from pre-contemplation to action (Prochaska, 1983).

If this all sounds very discouraging, its not intended to be. Rather, it is to acknowledge that change is difficult, and sometimes takes a long time, but it is possible and it is worth it. We just have to be realistic with ourselves and one another to know that it takes time, and patience and determination, and to approach the process one small, manageable step at a time.  And remember: we don’t have to do it alone. All we have to do is ask for help, and be prepared to do our part.