Freedom to choose by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

 

March 2025

 “So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

I like this quote very much. It sings to me, especially after last year’s brush with serious illness and near death. Live abundantly, drink deeply of the springs of existence, don’t waste your time. Live and choose wisely.

 We may or may not live again, who actually knows. Whether or not consciousness manifests in other bodies after our physical death, this is finally unknowable. Right now, this life we live is it.

 Too much time in most lives are lived as though what is happening in this instance is just a preparation, a practice run, for a better life. But in this way, the experiences of now are somehow set aside, until we die – meaning lives are spent in anticipation: a dream for perfection, or heaven, or whatever.

 Frankl’s observation about living now is living in all its messiness. This doesn’t mean just going along mindlessly with whatever crops up; what it does mean is living life with purpose. We are, after all, given free will and a sense of determination for living meaningfully, for us individually and as a community. Enough research has found that when we give up  a sense of a meaningful life we fall into despair and deep depression.

 Frankl (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997), neurologist, psychologist, philosopher was a holocaust survivor, spending four years in three concentration camps. He lost his family and his wife and, effectively, was forced into the realization that the search for meaning matters to psychological health. Afterall, what was the point of all the suffering?

 Several years ago when my brother and I travelled to Estonia to catch up with our relatives there, I asked my Estonian aunt what it was like under Russian rule during USSR times (the Soviet Union only recognized the independence of Estonia in 1991) and said, “Remember you are always free in your mind.” She was Estonia’s first paediatric surgeon, trained in St Petersburg. She knew really tough times, but difficulties didn’t constrict her. Freedom to think, yes, but Frankl goes further, freedom to choose what you respond to. 

It is hard not being reactive to everything, and this requires conscious effort.  I was put to the test repeatedly while sick in bed in hospital.  I had to practice equanimity (evenness of mind) on a minute to minute basis and sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes, I really didn’t. My temper flared in the face of what I perceived as the stupidity of others. It flared when things didn’t go smoothly and without fuss. It flared when my breakfast wasn’t the one I’d ordered. It flared when the nurse couldn’t come and elevate my legs to relieve the pressure sores that were forming on my heels. When I was cold and someone had taken away the extra blanket. When…. this and that happened. Suffering is no different a time for practicing self awareness and choosing one’s responses than when everything is going well.

 How can we achieve equanimity and responding to things that affect us with conscious awareness?

 “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom,” so said Frankl.  This space is not somewhere where the mind is filled with conditioned responses, nor platitudes, but a short interlude in which a fairer response is possible. In Buddhism, this space between in where a compassion arises.  This is what I see the meaning of my life is: to know compassion and express it not just in times of comfort, but stress and awkwardness. We humans are beings of great potential. We can choose cruelty and greed and can choose fairness and love.

Whatever  we choose arises from our decisions, not the conditions in which we find ourselves.  

 

 

Keeping the Balance by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

November 2022

I’ve been trying to practice samatva, the via media, the middle way, equanimity… call it what you will for several decades now. It is the equal consideration towards all sentient beings, the conscious awareness of the transience of reality, the not believing in and getting caught up in extremes. I came to this not from the teachings of the various religions, even though the idea of keeping the balance is implicit in all of them, but from my own life’s experiences.

 Until my thirties, I was very much thrown around by the winds of extremes and I realized one day that, unless I found a middle path, the torment of extreme feelings would destroy me and so I began a daily practice of discernment and careful listening for what matters and what doesn’t, as well as choosing not to believe in the highs and lows of my emotions (neither elation nor depression). They, after all, are endlessly subject to change and are not a measure of reality itself. This practice of equanimity, I believe, contributes well to my skills as a psychotherapist. My interest is thus less on technique, more on my capacity for staying present with whatever arises interiorily and thus allowing me to be present with whatever the other person brings into the therapeutic relationship.

 Being, and staying present with the other person necessitates being mindful of them as much as myself, with awareness that they have chosen to come because they are suffering in some way. My mindful presence creates a sense of safety for the client, giving them courage to address the issues that surround their feelings of anxiety, depression, or whatever.  Successful therapy changes the client’s relationship to his/her particular form of suffering freeing them to pursue a happier life.

 So, what is mindfulness and how can we achieve equanimity? It’s interesting that despite the term ‘mindfulness’ being so integral to much modern psychotherapy, including the very popular cognitive behavioural therapy, and it is being taught in workshops and in counselling sessions all over the world, it is only now being effectively defined.

 Mindfulness is being in the moment. It is a way of relating to all experience – positive, negative and neutral – such that our suffering is reduced and our sense of well-being increases. To be mindful is to wake up, to recognize what is happening in the present moment, and not coloured by old memories, traumatic reactions, dreams, etc.

 When we are mindless, we rush from activity to activity, we drop things, break them, hurt ourselves; we fail to observe the subtle changes in our feelings, we eat and drink without awareness, and we are preoccupied with the past or the future and are not aware of what’s happening right now.

 Being mindful is being aware of the present moment; it’s paying attention to the circumstances and issues of right now and it enables us to attend to what is required now. It allows us to step out of our conditioning and see things in a fresh vibrant way. All this mindful presence allows us to develop equanimity and thus to weather the storms of unconscious conditioned behaviour with a deep calm and clarity of mind. 

 The process of the development of mindfulness enables us  to reduce vulnerability to stress and emotional distress and allows  us to keep a steady course throughout life.

 Working towards mindfulness and thus achieving a balance is, as I’ve observed before, the aim of all religions. The via media, is a Christian idea; the samatva is Hindu; equanimity is implicit in Taoism and Buddhism; and it is central also to Islam, Bahai, and the Greek philosophies, but as a life long strategy for equitable living it makes a lot of sense. We are less inclined to enter arguments and wars and, very positively, we are more able to achieve a greater simplicity of being open and loving towards the world.

 The Sufi twirling dervish achieves a simplicity and direct experience of the here and now at the core of their being despite turning round and round and round. This is my aim: a wonderful interior harmony.

 

 

 

Projections, Dispassion and Equanimity by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

 August 2021

     Imagine you are watching a rather intense movie with a group of people and one of them sneezes. Immediately your attention is drawn away from the screen and you return to the present moment with someone saying, “ssshhh, or bless you”. In that moment you are aware of your surroundings: the darkness of the room, the layout of chairs, the faces of the crowd and then your attention is back with the movie. The interruption is nothing more than a brief thing that soon passes, like the upwelling of wind in the trees outside.

     Then you are with a very angry member of your household accusing you of things you know you didn’t do, but they did. You listen to them rage at you, but you take a breath and recognize that their raised temper is their issue, not yours. You recognize that they are attempting to use you as a screen for their own projections, but you feel calm and composed and let them carry on until they lose interest or you simply walk away.

     Then there is a child not doing what you want them to, but instead of screaming at them, you watch your breath and a passing surge of anger, breathe out and – creating space – become mindful of yourself and the situation and calmly choose a different strategy in being with the little one. You might decide to talk with him about what was going on when both of you are happy and calm, or not.

     When we are caught up in the drama of it all and we react with anger we risk losing friendships, burning bridges, damaging our relations with children and partners, and fuelling the fires of our own discomfort and when they get too hot, we often project our antagonisms onto other people, thus repeating the reactive process.

     In an equanimical space of calm, we can learn new ways of being. In that space, the projections of others feel like nothing more than pictures on a screen that we can respond to, or not, without automatic reaction. Here we are able to see what’s happening and why, and we can care about the other dispassionately (caring and not caring at the same time), and we become more resilient.

     Caring, but not caring is to be dispassionate. It isn’t detachment; on the contrary, it is a deep engagement, a loving that isn’t arrogant nor aloof, nor self indulgent. It is a state of being mindful, without discriminating thoughts. From a dispassionate place we can choose right actions, right words as needed by the person and the situation.

     We have choices. We can react in irritation, return anger with anger, or we can let that all pass. This doesn’t mean that we become passive and let things just happen to us, nor allow others to continue to abuse us. We can choose to speak up, and do whatever is actually required of us, or not. Our words and actions then come from a place of deeper understanding than mere reactivity.

     Reactivity often comes from a place of feeling out of control, but sometimes it is habitual and a habit that developed within our family system: all the members of the family operated this way. We can choose to continue to behave like this, or break the cycle and do and be something different, something kinder to our own and others mental health.  Rage doesn’t do us any good if that’s all we do.

     We can learn to maintain mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in difficult situations. This is what equanimity is.  Equanimity brings us the pause to recognize we are wanting things to go a certain way and highlights our resistance to feeling out of control.  Knowing when and what to let go of gives us peace as well as a better capacity to speak with other gently, firmly and caringly.

     Mindfulness is key to all this. When we learn to monitor our reactions, slow them down through watching the breath, we have a means to the gift of equanimity.