Dying to Dreams. What then?

Dying to Dreams. What then? by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

      Death comes in many forms. We live and we die. All organics things do. We lose loved ones, human, animal and even plants. This is life. We also lose dreams, hopes and expectations. This, also, is part of life, but what do we do then, when we, still very much alive lose things we’d pinned our hopes on that  just don’t come to pass? Sometimes life can be not merely a disappointment, but a desert of despair. What then?

      Desire to die through suicide is very common these days, and much of this desire comes from this empty landscape of despair. Where do I belong, who am I, where is my place? These are some the questions asked. If I do not die, what  then? What happens afterwards?

      The old crone rides a crow in a charnel yard and then, inexplicitly, goes up in smoke. She personifies disappointment, loss, and despair, and around her is frenetic activity, anxiety, and a desire to get away as far as possible from what  is feared: a horrific implosion of nothingness.  The Hindus give her the name, the Goddess Dhumavati. She is shunned, denounced, avoided, like the widows and other outcasts of India and here in our own streets: here in the faces of the mad,  the alcoholic and drug addicted, here is the torment of those  in extreme pain. This is the face of damage; this is literally the deathscape of cosmic collapse.

     What then? Here is the extremely uncomforting call to consciousness. Here is the real reason ours is a call to conscious awareness. Dhumavati has within her transformative powers to unleash awareness that cannot be attained in gentler ways. Here is awareness that many spiritual ideas and practices do not touch.

      I am very moved by Dhumavati and her crow and sometimes evoke and explore what she means with certain clients because she illustrates so profoundly what most of us are terrified of and will avoid at all costs. I have a crow figurine that I use as a symbolic bird to explore grief, loss, and the death of dreams. Together we journey into the Shadow realm to bring consciousness to what we do not yet understand. Riding on the back of the bird we symbolically fly to the very edge of existence itself.  I sometimes do this work using the magic of clinical hypnotherapy, a modality of focussed relaxation and a bringer of profound insight. My clients are well supported by me in this journey. It is work we undertake together.

       Without attempting to go to this  silent heart centre we are too readily whipped around by the high winds of elation and despair, too ready to pin our hopes on the promises and whims of other people who are just as confused as ourselves, too willing to seek comfort from unsafe sex, obsessive hoarding, indulgence in excessive food, alcohol and drugs, and then, of course, there is the attraction of suicide, annihilation and obliteration, but what then? The call to the silent centre is a hard one to obey. It requires staring into the black eyes of this old crone who carries our dreams in bags on her back, requires noticing how these dreams dissolve into nothingness like tracing our fingers in ash, and requires staying present with despair, until that too disappears.

Knowing the delicate interflow of interconnection

Knowing the delicate interflow  of interconnection  by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Counselling, PhD

      I’ve known for decades that we are whole beings of body, mind and spirit, and I was, for a time, a member of the International Society for Integrative Psychotherapy, but, strangely, it is only now that this knowledge is dropping down deeper into my consciousness.  What I’ve said before about the interconnectedness of each part of ourselves, is feeling to me more actual.  Why should this be so, I wonder? I suspect that it is only now that I am becoming more aware of how other therapeutic modalities take such knowledge for granted and use it in a beautifully subtle way, in contrast to the heavy handed manner of those promoting self help books on the so-called “mind-body connection”. 

     The clinical hypnotherapy aspect of my work is also allowing me to see this relationship more clearly. What I write of here is more a delicate inter-flow through what we subjectively experience of ourselves in our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts, our stories, and our intentions, as well as the objective manifestations of those things. In other words, we are whole beings, even when we are feeling out of sorts.

      Every psychological state has a resonance and connectedness to how it affects the body, and every physiological state shapes our emotions and thought patterns, and all may be observed by others in some form or another.  A heart attack may be felt as gripping pain, and a sense of impending doom. The darkness of depression may be felt not only as intense undefinable sadness, but also sluggishness, a profound difficulty getting moving, vertigo and a lowered blood pressure. A nicotine addiction may be felt as a craving for more of that chemical, a pleasure in rolling the cigarette and lighting it, and as desire to avoid anxiety, and a hope to fit in with one’s peers.  Anxiety may be felt in relation to certain incidences in one’s social and environmental field, and as tightness in the chest, rapid breathing and the sensation of a racing heart. In anger, blood rushes to the face, and there is an intense surge of energy to the voice and one’s thoughts go over and over the object of one’s rage. So, there is nothing in the human, and animal condition, that isn’t expressed throughout the whole organism.

      Therapeutic modalities tackle the matter of healing in many different ways, but the most successful, in my view, of these are those for whom matters of the mind, the body and spirit are not separated. 

      Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), that subtle craft and philosophy, through its practices of acupuncture, herbs, moxabustion, an qi gong,  realizes that every disorder has a mind, body, and spiritual dimension. The spirit, I am defining as intention, will, and a sense of self in relation to others and the greater environment.

      Western Medicine, is increasingly acknowledging this interconnection in many of its branches, though much of it as practiced is still mechanistic in orientation. In some circles within medicine, indeed, the mind-body connection is seen as a fluffy mystical idea. General practitioners, though, deal with the whole person and are more interested in treating the whole person. Some of my doctor friends belong to the movement known as “integrated medicine”. Such medicine is actively interested in whole self medicine.

      In the field of cardiology, for instance, there is an emerging discipline called “neurocardiology” or “behavioural cardiology”,  in other words a recognition that what is felt and what is done by a person changes matters of the heart and impacts the whole person. 

       Why I’ve chosen cardiology as my example is because it is now well established how stress and belief changes heart function, a useful illustration of mind-body entwining.  There are numerous examples of  how a psychological state affects the heart.  This has been studied extensively since about 1942 when Walter Cannon researched what he called “Voodoo Death”. Cannon suggested that episodes of sudden death were secondary to profound fear or emotion, inspired by superstitious belief. Cannon speculated that death resulted from enhanced sympathetic nervous system and adrenal responses to intense emotional stress and a belief in a power over which the victim had no control. 

This phenomenon is also found in what is popularly called “the broken heart”.  Stress and distress are correlated with abnormalities in the autonomic nervous system.  Medicine even has a name for the broken heart syndrome: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Effectively stress and distress tighten the muscles of the heart, leading to congestive heart failure and sudden death.

      Clinical hypnotherapy is a field I work in, apart from my related practice as a psychotherapist. It is here that I notice profound healing in others at a whole self level which  is contributing to my own better understanding of what it is to be human. Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis isn’t a parlour trick in which someone waves a watch in your face and puts you into a trance so that they can control you. It is, instead, a powerful way to access the mind-body-spirit connection, as it allows one to focus on specific physical, mental, and emotional issues that you may not be able to tackle in an ordinary conscious state.

      Hypnotherapy is beneficial for  your overall health as it allows you to deal with physical, mental, and emotional problems such as stress, anxiety, depression, fear, guilt, pain, weight management, and addiction. It can also lower blood pressure and stress levels and encourage you to make positive changes for a healthier lifestyle.  It is beautiful work and it’s effective.

     We are more than merely a mind, a body, and a spirit in an interconnected state; we are whole selves in which levels of consciousness, awareness, and physiological manifestation is entwined in a delicate interflow, and we live together, work together, and hope together.  This is connectedness.