I have not protested the war enough

have not loved my neighbours enough

Jesus set a clear bar

sheep - in you go; goats - out you go

a clean separation

but is it clean?

my salt, my sweat, my fading ideals — just hooves and horns?

after a long day I settle in my chair, smile at family, thankful for a safe home

on my days off I pay the bills, do the laundry

and in the margins, if there is time, I try to hear it

people say I’m kind, but most of the time the best I can do is clarity

some mornings I get up early, watch the sun rise, try to hear it

every so often I touch the vast silent space between atoms and solar systems

did God succumb to the corruption of power?

all that’s left is an almighty echo

codes buried in the beta layer

truth pushed into metaphors

the God of righteousness is a mask on the faceless

the God of violence a mirror for the hero

Elijah moved past those

alone in a cave

heard

a still small voice

I try to hear

Spirituality

In the fall of 2025 Doctor Richard Schwartz provided training with Sounds True about the journey to your sacred self. [1] Reddit group-chatter was that in this course and elsewhere, Dr. Schwartz describes all parts as spirits, with support given to conversations with ancestors. The training is being offered again in 2026.

With my lifelong quest to find a spirituality that can coexist with my natural skepticism, I was intrigued. I find the creator of Internal Family Systems Theory to be a reliable and rational man. His theory is rooted in his clinical practice. So I’m willing to consider what he has to say. Also, I start my course in Jungian Coaching in a little under a month and I’m thinking, “maybe I need clarity on the idea of the self, especially the Jungian and Schwartzian views.”

A Basic Definition

We use the term “self” and its various versions - yourself, myself, itself, ourselves - without much need for a formal definition. We have a felt sense of what it is to be a self. Respecting this felt sense is an important starting place in the discussion.

We frequently use the compound words too -- self-image, self-worth, self-criticism, and self-worth. Self seems, self-evident. But there are similar words that muddy the water a bit. These include soul, ego, mind, consciousness, intellect, intelligence, personality, and of course psyche.

I will need to know what distinctions are important and useful in order to form an adequate theory of self, or at least a working theory that I can use in my coaching practice.

Self as Memory

Dr. John Vervaeke describes self as a kind of memory. He calls it a, “set of roles and identities that you have stored,” and “You know your self is real, by participating in yourself, by being yourself.”[2]

In a slightly more technical way Vervaeke describes the 4 E’s of the self: embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended cognition. From his perspective the brain and body function as an integrated, self-organizing, system. The system is the self. Most of us have this sense of ourselves as a whole, more that the sum of personality, behaviour patterns, and beliefs. Self, importantly, includes our body, our thinking, our feelings, and the way we organize it all.

Schwartz’ Definition

Dr. Schwartz says that “Your self can not be damaged. Your self has the compassion needed to heal the parts in your inner system. Parts can overwhelm you and run the show until they learn to trust the self.”[3] From this description it sounds like Dr. Schwartz is referring to something a little different from what is generally thought of as the self.

Jung’s Conception of the Inner Solar System

Part of my attraction to the Jungian model is the popular interpretation of his idea that, “The self is one of several archetypes. It signifies the coherent whole, unifying both the consciousness and unconscious mind of a person.”[4] The self is not just the conscious part.

Dr. Vervaeke summarizes the Jungian view well when he says that the ego is the archetype for consciousness, the self is the archetype for the whole of the psyche, and that healing is to establish a proper functioning relationship between the ego and the self. This lines up with Akke-Jeanne Klerk’s explanation in the course I will be taking. She says that the ego/self axis is the focus of Jungian coaching.

“The Self, according to Jung, is the end-product of individuation, which is defined as the process of integrating one’s personality. For Jung, the Self could be symbolized by either the circle (especially when divided into four quadrants), the square, or the mandala. He also believed that the Self could be symbolically personified in the archetypes of the Wise Old Woman and Wise Old Man.”[5]

Anderson Todd speaking with John Vervaeke about the topic explained that Jung’s model might best be described as an inner solar system. Jung was important to Todd because, “he took seriously the realities of the soul.” Soul, then, must be defined as well, in order to understand what Jung meant by that term. Todd and Vervaeke in a Voices with Vervaeke episode clarify that Jung took a lot from Kant, and in turn, Plato. They suggest that the Jungian Archetypes might be analogous to the Platonic forms. We might say that categories structure our experience of knowing, and Jung was seeking an adequate set of categories to understand the unconscious.

The psyche, Vervaeke emphasises, was conceived by Jung differently from Freud’s hydraulic analogy of urges and repression. Rather than visualizing Jung’s conception as a cold mechanistic solar system, it should be seen as a warm living solar system. Jung emphasized the organic nature of it and said it was self-organizing and able to adapt to changing circumstances. Todd emphasizes that it is also intentional and has its own ideas about things. The psychodynamic model of Jung’s is a rejection of both the hydraulic mechanistic model, as well as a rejection of some pre-existing unity. The unity of individuation is a unity of work over a lifetime. While soul or atman are generally thought of as a unitive whole, describing an individual who is indivisible, Jung didn’t see it that way. He leaned instead towards a more dynamic sense of organic parts holding together under the systemic forces of the psyche like a solar system forms around a star.

Individuation, Todd explains, is the process of becoming more fully who you are over time. In the Jungian system you have multiple loci of agency in this process, different forces driving towards that end result. Different places in the psyche where work is going on. This includes the complexes, the ego, the shadow, the self, the persona and of course the soul.

Individuation

Individuation is a set of processes that change the relationship between the ego and the self. The shift from early life to mid life involves a shock or awakening. This startling insight is that the Ego does not run the show, and is not the centre of the psyche. Instead, the Self is the centre and the outcome. The Psyche is the entire solar system with all it’s parts, and the Self is like the sun at the centre of the system drawing it all together.

Like a Copernican revolution we all have on a personal level, this shift to see the centre as not the conscious ego, but something else, is both wonderfully freeing, but also deeply unsettling. The ego thought it was the centre of the show, and losing this status causes a crisis that can be “soul shattering” according to Todd.

A second shock comes when the ego realizes that not only is the Self at the centre and it is in orbit around the self, but that all the psychic elements, including itself, serve the self. The Ego is just one of these elements -- albeit an important one. Once this is realized and accepted, then the ego seems naturally to want to understand and have an encounter with the self, but that is usually not possible right away. Instead, Jung discovered, there was a process that was needed to get there. Typically you do shadow work first, considered the apprentice piece, then work with the anima/animus, what Todd calls the contra sexual soul image, then the archetypal forces, and then finally an encounter with the self. To stay with the solar system analogy, the self is the center star but also in an important way the organizer of the system, and it organizes through a spiritual or mystical process (phenomenology) that by its nature, can not be egoic or driven by consciousness alone. The ego must learn to trust the process.

The archetypes assist and function like those Kantian categories, or maybe like principles that guide the inner solar system. Jung’s late life work included an attempt to explain that there is an absolute epistemological limit to the arguments for or against God, but that nevertheless there are these god-like forces within us and treating them as god-like is the easiest way to progress. It doesn’t matter if there is a God or not, you still must have an encounter with the meaning-making part of yourself that is the locus of the sacred – that bright star the Self. That locus (the Self) communicates in symbolism and ritual, however, so to encounter the Self, you must explore the archetypes, the soul, and the complexes, as non-conscious parts of the self, and in combination all these elements are bigger and more powerful than the conscious sense of self the ego has.

The Role of Jungian Parts

The Persona, the Anima/Animus, and the Soul

The persona is the outward facing interface with the world (i.e. I’m a man and I show up this way), and the anima/animus is the inward facing interface (often as traits not selected for the persona). The anima/animus is the contra-sexual image of the soul, so for a man, the soul is like a goddess and for a woman the soul is like a god. The sexual part is because of the intimate nature of the connection the ego seeks with the self. The soul is the guide that helps the ego and self make that connection. And it is the interface, bridging rational thought with symbolic communication. It can be imagined as a psychopomp. Psychopomp literally means the ‘guide of souls’ and a psychopomp is often a creature, spirit, angel, demon, or deity. Here we get intriguing echoes of Schwartz’s comment about parts as spirits. The Psychopomp’s responsibility in our traditions is to escort newly deceased souls from earth to the afterlife. For Jung, the soul as psychopomp escorts newly awakened egos to the inner relationships, guiding the ego through the realm of the psyche. Jung also seemed to suggest that the soul (anima/animus) had the power to connect the ego to all the other parts, not just the Self.

Summary

So, according to Todd and Vervaeke’s understanding of Jung, the psyche is a living solar system that is self-organizing towards a greater sense of an integrated whole. It does this naturally, and a big part of middle and later life is situating the ego in a healthy relationship with all the other components of the self, where it is important (as the structure of consciousness), but not destabilized by hubris or inflation. And importantly, all the elements of the inner solar system are seen as organic, rather than simply material or spiritual. Jung was focused on developing an I/thou relationship between the ego and the self, rather than an I/it relationship.

Todd and Vervaeke agree that we are a dividual, not individuals. You can be, and are, divided, with dual aspects across the psyche, but the goal is to balance the system. Two important dualities are the shadow and the ego, and the persona and the anima-animus.

Additionally, many of the aspects of dreams and active imagination are trans-jective, meaning they point both to inner realities in the psyche and to outer events and conditions around the individual.

Brains Matter

Having been influenced more by neuroscience than philosophy over my life and having had my foundational training in psychology during the heyday of behaviourism, I have had to work hard to understand these models of the self outside of a materialistic view. In fact my influential professor, Dr. Paine, at the University of Victoria repeatedly said of Jung and Freud, “of course they just made this stuff up.” And for years I took that dismissal seriously.

Now I take a more pragmatic view of the brain as a highly interrelated organ that “has something to do with all our mental activity.” Genetics, is also a significant factor in someone’s identity, influencing many preferences from how spicy we like our food, to our sexual preferences, to our taste for conflict and stimulation.

Therefore, for me, self is a useful if imprecise term for a person’s overall identity as shaped by a particular brain, riding withing a particular set of genetic programs, shaped by a particular set of environmental factors, with some autonomous control over the body, but less that we might think. This whole solar system that Jung described is an emergent quality of the brain, ultimately dependent on it, but not necessarily equivalent to it.

Brain science has tremendous value, but at this pivotal time in my life finding a functional and useful model of personal growth is more important that finding the seat of the self with an MRI machine.

The Discoveries of Dick Schwartz

Larger Self or Sacred Self

In an article on the IFS institute website[6] Dr. Schwartz describes his discovery of a calm compassionate Self behind the parts of several of his clients. He writes, “When they were in that calm, compassionate state, I’d ask these clients what voice or part was present. They each gave a variation of the following reply: “that’s not a part like those other voices are. That’s more of who I really am. That’s my Self.” He goes on to describe working with another client and how his own inner parts raised fears and concerns until there was a breakthrough in which the client’s own compassionate self was revealed. It is a deeply warming and encouraging account of Dr. Schwartz’ persistence and how his own centering in “Self” with a capital S creates a therapeutic trust. Dr. Schwartz writes that over the years he has, “come to trust the healing power of what I’ll call the Self in clients and in myself. When there’s a critical mass of Self in a therapy office, healing just happens.”

In an interview with Tami Simmon for Sounds True, Dr. Schwartz explained, “… that’s the way I’ve come to see Self, that it isn’t individualized; it’s not this little particle inside of us; but that actually, it is a field or a wave; and that when you enter that (and mystics have entered that for years; people can enter that these days through psychedelics often or meditating) you lose the boundaries around your individual body actually a lot of the time, and enter that field, you do feel this enormous connectedness and sense that we aren’t really different, we aren’t disconnected in the way we have been. And that then if you can bring that awareness, that C word, connectedness, back into your individual, body-bound Self (which is a lot of the impact I think of psychedelics now) it really changes many things in people’s lives, just that knowledge that we’re not these isolated little units.”

In the original article mentioned above, Dr. Schwartz says it another way, “Though they used different words, all the esoteric traditions within the major religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam – emphasized their same core belief: we are sparks of the eternal flame, manifestations of the absolute ground of being. It turns out that the divine within – what the Christians call the soul or Christ Consciousness, Buddhists call Buddha Nature, the Hindus Atman, the Taoists Tao, the Sufis the Beloved, the Quakers the Inner Light – often doesn’t take years of meditative practice to access because it exists in all of us, just below the surface of our extreme parts. Once they agree to separate from us, we suddenly have access to who we really are.”

When Dr. Schwartz goes on to explain the distractions and provocations that keep us from meeting people with the right mindset so that we are not drawn into competition, defensiveness, -- well, I feel a deep relating. I often want to be able to cut through the provocative things people are saying to see their true intention, pain, heart, self. But I get stuck in my own reactions and triggers. I agree with Dr. Schwartz that I need a way to stay grounded and openhearted. He says we can tap into something at the very core of our being that provides a “deep keel for our sailboat in the storm,” This core, when we are grounded in it, keeps us centered in what he calls the Self with a capital S. He describes it as, “… the deep ground of our being…” a term popularized by Tillich, and that language evokes the idea of, well, God.

Is Schwartz saying that the self at the core of our being is God? Perhaps not as a theist might conceive it, but I think he is suggesting something along those lines. For Schwartz (and perhaps Jung too) the Self with a capital S is a field in which we all participate and that connects all of us. Less an individual being, and more a universal presence manifesting or embodying the 8 Cs of the theory.

The Contribution of Dynamic Systems Theory

Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) presented “self” as a continuity of consciousness, distinct from the more theological term, soul. Locke’s essential idea has been reinvigorated by Evan Thompson and others who work in an area of psychology and philosophy becoming known as “Dynamic Systems Theory.”

Thompson theorizes that the self is a changing process, not a static thing, and this idea resonates with Jung’s idea of the self as an organic set of relationships that change over our life. When we are awake, we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander, much as Descartes did in his famous “I think therefore I am” experiment, we sense ourselves as somehow separate from the body. This separate self, in the world of Dynamic Systems Theory, can be projected into the remembered past (sometimes leading to depression) or anticipated future (sometimes triggering our background alarm [7], or anxiety). This sense of self can also escape the boundedness of the body when we dream. The self in dreams can have experiences with a bodily sense, even when the body is asleep. In meditation we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them, “these are my thoughts,” -- the “my” being the sense of self. The self really does seem separate from the thoughts or the body.

Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die, we can witness the self’s dissolution with equanimity. After the above exploration I would say that maybe these traditions see the self as more similar to the ego. The traditions argue that there is a reality that is different from this self (the ego) that is somehow connected to something higher or deeper, or they teach that the self (ego) is an illusion that forms the vehicle for suffering. In this sense, a self (ego) is required for suffering to occur.

Neuroscience generally rejects the idea of a single, unified “self” residing in some fixed set of structures within the brain. Instead, research suggests that the sense of self is an emergent property of multiple interacting brain networks. This nicely lines up with the basic tenants of Dynamic Systems Theory once self is seen as the “ego-self.”

What Dynamic Systems Theory tied together for me is this idea that suffering resides in the sense of self the ego has. And if Jung and Schwartz are right, that sense of self is only part of the picture. There is a much bigger self beyond that ego-self and that bigger sense has been known by mystics for millennium. That bigger sense of self may simply be a connection to the divine as religions have concluded, or it may be an internal experience of something more personal, a field that every human has access to, that exists beyond the suffering and trauma experienced by the ego.

Using the IFST model, the ego can be seen as a major part in the inner family. And like all parts, the ego has a sense of self, is in fact, a self-contained entity within us. In this sense each part participates in the field of self.

Scientific, Buddhist and Christian Views

I have held a generally emergentist view of mind since my studies in basic psychology at UVIC, over 30 years ago. The most compelling argument for me of the malleability of the mind came from people with brain damage. I was impressed with accounts of personality changes resulting from lobotomies, strokes, and other injuries. I had witnessed profound changes in emotional stability and social acuity during my time working in senior’s care homes as a young man. People changed when their brain was damaged, diseased, or influenced by medications or drugs.

Recent research has identified three networks in the brain that may be responsible for giving rise to a sense of self or mind. These are the Default Mode Network[8], the Salience Network[9], and the Executive Control Network.[10]

These networks don’t correspond neatly to a “a sense of self” but they do show that the brain operates in modular, context-dependent ways, which could align with the idea of a self as an emergent entity as Dynamic Systems Theory posits.

The idea that the ego sense of self is what suffers, especially regarding emotional or psychological suffering, can now be conceptualized beyond a specific religious context. Contemporary self-help practitioners often recommend meditation and other ego flattening practices in which the practitioner seeks to become aware of the sense of self, and the self’s role in illness and suffering. What I am suggesting is that this be clarified in light of Jung and Schwartz as not so much THE self, but merely the ego’s sense of self. And by extension, the job is not to flatten or anesthetize the ego, but rather to bring it into a relationship with the larger self. Each part’s sense of self is a real sense.

Buddhism, broadly speaking, roots suffering in ignorance about the true nature of existence, suggesting that the feeling we have of independence and individuality is the source of suffering. Christianity takes an almost opposite view, that we do not believe enough in the reality of “the other,” including the ultimate other, God. The “I Am” of both Jewish and Christian conceptions of God, exalts this sense of being an “I” to the highest level.

Buddhism sees the ego as an error or misperception, and Christianity sees the ego as a source of sin. Augustine, for example, said the root of all sin was turning away from God, the I Am. We might say this is a turning away from the ultimate consciousness in favour of clinging to our limited consciousness. Connection both to other selves, and to what is (Reality-God) has emerged in recent years as solution to the dis-ease we feel. Buddhism sees freedom in ceasing to believe in a separate self. Many traditions in Christianity see freedom in submitting our small self to a higher self of God. In both cases, excessive attachment to one’s own desires, identity, preferences, and perspective, is the mechanism of concern.

Christianity’s Conception of the True and False Self

Dr. Ilia Delio, Catholic scholar of science and religion, tells the story of discovering Thomas Merton while “standing in the middle of the lab one day, procrastinating.” She was working as a doctoral student in pharmacology at New Jersey Medical School, and saw a book review about Merton’s biography. She continued with her studies in neuropharmacology and neuromuscular disease, but shortly after receiving her doctorate, entered a monastery in search of what Merton described. What followed was a 40-year project of understanding and teaching the intersection between science and religion, including recently the evolutionary significance of Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Delio wrote in January of 2017, “To pray, in the monastic sense, is to enter into dialogue with God, heart to heart. [beyond words] Prayer is that deep silent encounter in which the innermost center of our being continuously stretches toward that which is not yet seen or fully known; yet, it is a type of deep knowing that we belong to God. Merton drew on the integral relationship between God and the human person, as if defining the double helix of divinity and humanity: our lives are intertwined with God’s life. “God utters me like a partial thought of Himself,” he wrote. Hence the only path to true happiness is prayer, and prayer begins with self-discovery.”

Our lives are intertwined with God’s life like a double helix. This image helps make sense of Merton’s idea of the true self. For me, it gives an image of the true self not as a fixed established entity living in the hidden depths of our being, but as an emerging and correcting strand, mirroring the divine around which it continually twists. In a metaphorical and metaphysical sense, as the two strands are brought together, each moving forward as the spiral progresses, a life is defined. The true self is that self which both shows us God and shows us what is not true self. The code is a reference point for both personal growth and maturation, for “coming out right” as the old shaker song put it, while also pointing to the evolutionary reality of existence.

Delio quotes Merton, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be, but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. … My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love — outside of reality and outside of life. And such a life cannot help but be an illusion. … The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. … Therefore I cannot hope to find myself anywhere except in him. … Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him, I will find myself, and if I find my true self I will find him (pp. 34-36).”[11]

I had read that passage in New Seeds of Contemplation but had been distracted by the “God talk” which I found imprecise and often simply too broad to be helpful. But reading it as abbreviated by Delio I heard a new insight. The false self is a construction we work on based on what we think will fit the demands of the world around us – could this be the ego attempting to be perfect by excluding shadow elements? From the IFST perspective, it is the development of parts, often unconscious to the ego. They serve a purpose – survival, and can include roles, social skills, protective parts and other psychological defense mechanisms.

The true self, on the other hand, is the self that unfolds beside the god strand, not separate from it, and containing important corrective codes. It is not God, per se, but rather a mirror of divine presence, acting like a sun for our internal solar system. It creates the gravity and structure the other elements of the psyche need to function.

I accept the proposition of Jung and others that there are in this inner solar system things like archetypes, similar to Kantian categories or platonic forms, that give structure to the unfolding and help shape the mature psyche system. Delio’s idea of the guiding structure in us, part divine and part human, gets very close to the Schwartz’ idea of the Self.

Therefore I am comfortable saying that the Self with a capital S of IFST lines up nicely with the Self of Jungian conception, and the “True Self” of Delio/Merton. It is a field more than a material. Like a field it is less solid and fixed and more dynamic than what many of us think of as self, but it is also evolving and alive, which gives hope to the idea of self-development. The human project, then, whether we like it or not, is to survive through the development of parts that then can be harmonized into an internal solar system around this unifying field.

Interestingly, the True Self is not emergent from the other elements, but instead is the organizing system itself, responsive to the environment, and our own inner growth. The places we get stuck are the places that the emergent true self catches, as the creation of a part, the repression of a shadow element, or some other dead end. Like a potter or sculptor, or even engineer, we can learn to make ourselves, from making these versions of ourselves. The person I make today is more artistic or more structurally sound that the person I made when I was 10 years old. When we “reinvent” ourselves it is because the self we made was not keeping up with the curve of the divine DNA. We had stalled or deviated from a healthy emergence.

The work of the Coach

“I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false. I want to stay clear in your sight.” - The Book of Hours, Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy) I, 59:

In another conversation[12], John Vervaeke touched on Jung’s theory of healing saying that “the self is the most basic archetype, the archetype of archetypes. It’s a movement essentially toward unity and wholeness and Jung called that movement individuation. The ego is the archetype for consciousness, and the self is the archetype for the whole of the psyche.

In such a complicated and largely unconscious system, the role of the Jungian Coach is to help the ego come to see it’s place in the larger system, and trust the Self to heal the parts and evolve into a greater unified whole. The ego is very important in that it is the archetype of consciousness, and becoming conscious of the unconscious aspects of the psyche is an important part of individuation.

The contribution of IFST

The important contribution of IFST that resonates deeply with me is the technique of dialogue with parts. This treatment of inner entities as persons in their own right, feels respectful and relational. How these parts map to the parts Jung identified (anima/animus, persona’s, archetypes, complexes, constellations, etc) is not readily clear. My suspicion is that they can be seen as equivalent to complexes, personas, and the anima/animus.

As I move through this process, I will take the “C focused” field of Self and meet all the parts as selves, participating in that field of evolving order.

[1] The Spirituality of Internal Family Systems, A Practice-Based Journey to Your Sacred Self with IFS Founder Richard Schwartz, PhD was promoted to run in October 2025, at the time of this writing (Dec 2025) the program is no longer listed on the Sounds True website. AI explains, “The course The Spirituality of Internal Family Systems included a live Q&A session with Dr. Richard Schwartz on October 21, 2025, indicating that the course was active in October 2025. The program was structured over ten weeks, with on-demand video sessions and the live event serving as a key component.”

[2] 37:42 of After Socrates Episode 3 – Dialectic into Dia-logos.

[3] Pg 22 of The Internal Family Systems Workbook, a guide to discover your self and heal your parts. By Richard C. Schwartz, 2024, Center for Self Leadership PC, Sounds True.

[4] https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_(Boundless)/04:_The_Role_of_Socialization/4.02:_The_Self_and_Socialization/4.2C:_Psychological_Approaches_to_the_Self

[5] IBID

[6] https://ifs-institute.com/resources/articles/larger-self

[7] Dr. Russell Kennedy uses the term “alarm” instead of anxiety to emphasis the sense we have in the body, not just the thoughts we have about things.

[8] Associated with self-referential thinking, autobiographical memory, and mind-wandering. Some researchers link this to the “narrative self” (the story we tell about ourselves).

[9] Helps determine what internal or external stimuli are most relevant to us at any given moment, possibly influencing which “self” or mode is dominant.

[10] Involved in decision-making, impulse control, and future planning—often associated with the “wise” or rational self.

[11] https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/discovering-true-self-god-mertons-guidance

[12] 17:10

Background

1996, I was managing a Christian Bookstore. A friend invited me to joined the Board of a little non-profit. A working Board. Long meetings, crazy stuff happening. The “storming” phase of an organization.

5 years later I stepped down and took an admin position. Not a lot of pay, but it felt right. “Be the change you want to see in the world,” and all that.

Over time, more clients with more serious challenges. Complex diagnoses, greater needs. New ideas, new programs. Eventually more funded beds. Whole new buildings. No question, the heroes are the front-line workers. No question. Vicarious trauma though, and lots of stress. The terrible things that people live through. One day I realized every single client had experiences a major trauma. A life altering trauma.

Over time the leadership changed, board members left, new ones joined. Executive Director’s left, new ones stepped in. I pivoted and carried on. New priorities, different approaches.

Over time community support fluctuated as the homelessness crisis escalated. There were secondary things, behind the scene things. Years of fiscal restraint. Learning to do more with less. New people hired. New enthusiasm. Thank God for them. Amazing hearts. We learned more, improved services. Clients got better, lives were changed. It was what I had wanted to be part of.

But over time, I eroded. Crumbled at the edges like a river bank, one chunk at a time. The flow separated me. That unrelenting flow of challenges, problems, and people. Human drama taking it’s toll. We all want to feel important, we all want credit. The welcoming prayer became my constant practice.

2025, I began weekly therapy with a clinical counselor and an occupational therapist. Quality time with my depression. The black dog. Made some progress, had insights, then low energy, then integrating what I learned, then weariness, back and forth. Black dog-tired, but sparks of hope. Through it all, a sense of gratitude. I was surrounded by support. Family, friends, professionals. “You do the work,” I was told. A rare thing, apparently. The last step was tapering off the medication that had kept me going. Then, within a few weeks off the medication, almost miraculously, I felt a connection click in, an acceptance. I was myself again.

Leave a comment

The 10 Things I Learned

1. Social Risk Hypothesis - The root cause of my depression is best explained by the Social Risk Hypothesis. Supporting this conclusion is new research that suggests highly sensitive people (HSP) are more vulnerable to social exclusion and social pain.

2. Defectiveness schemas start in childhood - When I am with people who have controlling or aggressive behavior, I tend to regress to a passive style of interaction. This goes back to my childhood experience with two female teachers who didn’t know how to teach a sensitive boy. They didn’t understand what I required to do well in school, and instead used shame-based strategies that kind of crushed me. This is because of differential susceptibility, the idea that sensitive children do better than other children in supportive environments, and worse in threatening ones.1 The negative environment contributed to my defectiveness schema. I’ve known about the schema since it was diagnosed in 2012, but thanks to my counselor I now reframe it as a feeling of shame when I believe I’m “not enough.”

3. Go slow with childhood wounds - The experience of “not enough” is a core wound for me. A lifetime of shame related to this wound takes time to fully uncover and heal. I needed to give myself that time without feeling rushed. Still struggle to resist pressure to be more extroverted, more productive, and less sensitive - all criticism I received because of my genetic predispositions. My gift to the world is deep processing, deep relationships, and sharing a meaningful life. I’ve decided to focus on refining those gifts.

4. CBT is seldom enough - Cognitive Behavior Therapy is great for managing thoughts, and I use CBT strategies daily. After practicing CBT techniques for over 13 years, I concluded that they are not the whole solution for me. CBT doesn’t adequately address unconscious drivers or the shadow elements that continue to influence us. This is where depth psychology comes in. In addition, I found that Meta Cognitive Therapy was better for reducing ruminations.

5. We are made of parts and shadow elements - This idea was popularized by Internal Family System’s Theory and various schools of Dynamic Psychology. My parts include a critical part (manager), a protector part (manager), and a child part (exile), among others. I have also identified a number of shadow elements in myself. These are behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and wounds that are repressed, suppressed, or otherwise hidden and ignored. My focus is now on loving and including all my parts, and letting my true self guide me.

6. There is a flip-side - The flip-side of believing I’m not enough is that I learned to enjoy the process of examining my thinking, beliefs, and choices in order to improve them. Getting better at things is good. Feels good. This lifelong habit of self assessment and improvement can be self-centered at times, but has resulted in more understanding of others, more compassion, more kindness, and a stronger capacity for accepting reality as it is.

7. I’m a lot like my mother - The interpretation of two recent dreams helped me better understand the behavior of “females” in my life including my mother, female colleagues, my wife, and my own anima. I have come to accept that I’m a lot like my mother, and many of my judgements of her are judgments of myself. I now see the criticism, judgements, and rejection I’ve received from other women in a larger context. For the most part such women have not wanted to hurt me, but were driven by wounds, systemic pressures, their own ambitions, beliefs about men, their history with other men, and fears and defense mechanisms. Also, of course, by my own shortcomings and failings as a man.

8. Avoiding conflict is ok sometimes - Working in conditions of high conflict or stress is generally not a good environment for someone with sensory processing sensitivity2. This doesn’t mean I’m weak or too passive, it just means I’m wired to take in lots of information and process it deeply, so I have to manage the information and stimulation I receive and remain cognizant of my differential susceptibility.

9. Assertiveness looks different for introverts -According to the Big 5 theory of personality, assertiveness is a key facet of extroversion, and so doesn’t come easily to most introverts. My assertiveness is more diplomatic, compassion-based, and gentle than it might be for extroverts. I’m learning to use humor to set or reinforce boundaries. I frame assertiveness as a way to love others by giving them information and helping them gain clarity about what a healthy relationship looks like. My intuition that assertiveness often blurs over into aggressiveness and is often insensitive of others, is accurate. It is what kept me suspicious of the strategy for so long. I’m learning to be more assertive with people who are manipulative or bullies, and sometimes that means walking away when confrontation doesn’t feel possible or doesn’t work. Walking away is ok.

10. I need to embrace my child-like curiosity and enthusiasm - My inner child became part of my shadow because I deemed his open, curious, and inquisitive nature to be the cause of teasing and embarrassment. Re-discovering and accentuating those qualities is an important part in being more authentic and genuine.

Subscribe now

Jungian Coaching

I want to help people. This desire is rooted in both a genuine empathy and a desire to relieve suffering and contribute to people’s flourishing, and also in my desire to be appreciated and respected. consequentially I have had an ongoing interest in some form of therapeutic career.

For years I resisted the idea of working one-on-one with people because of my “not enough” belief. But when my wife, and then my counselor, suggested I would be good at it, I started to look for a modality that resonated deeply with me and that I could see myself actually practicing. With an awareness of the hard road that such a calling entails, I signed up for Jungian Coach training and will begin study in a few months.

What I like about the Jungian modality is it’s focus on psychodynamic principles, the role of the unconscious and the emotions, and early life experiences that shape self-image and beliefs. In this course the focus is on the ego/self axis. The goal of such coaching is to help people integrate their core self with their actions and beliefs.

The Meaning Crisis

John Vervaeke’s video and podcast series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis struck a strong cord with me. Dr. Verveake writes in his preface to the book of the same name, “We no longer trust in our public institutions. We have completely lost faith in our political and judicial systems. Religious affiliation is declining consistently, and participation in community organizations is in decline.” This loss of faith in foundational social supports echoes my own feelings. See my post, The sinking Raft Path for more on this.

Having wrestled with my own doubts and grief these last few years, I’m now more interested than ever in finding ways to bring meaning and purpose back into my life and to help others do the same.

I will continue to post updates here on what I’m learning over the next year. I welcome recommendations for how I might best prepare myself to serve in this important role. In a world growing more and more distant from true connection, meaning, and contentment, I want to be an agent of reconnection, meaning making, and a sense of being enough.

Share

Faith. A word that can divide or unite. It goes back to the Latin root fidere “to trust.” Fidere in turn goes further back to a Proto-Indo-European root that also means “to trust, confide, or persuade.”

When I was a young man hiking into the mountains in the Kootenay range with my dad, I had an experience that is my touchstone for understanding faith. Dad and I used to hike up to Fletcher Lake each summer. In those days people built crude rafts to allow them to float out to deeper water and catch bigger fish. On one of these trips I discovered a raft that became my favorite. It had a roughly constructed wooden box nailed to it you could sit on. The raft itself rode fairly low in the water, but it had lots of logs holding it up, and lots of boards holding it together. The next summer I found the same raft again, drifting out among some logs. I was able to eventually get to it but the winter or other humans had not been kind to it. The box was weathered and and creaky, and the raft now barely floated above the water. If I went too near an edge the water would rush over the boards and I would slide around, flailing my arms. It was no longer reliable for fishing, so I abandoned it. The next summer I saw it again, still floating but the box was gone and some of the boards were rotting and broken. I didn’t even give it a second look. I didn’t have any faith that it would hold me up and I didn’t feel overly sad or upset, I had come to accept that it was no longer useful or reliable.

Recently, when I expressed doubts about a Christian doctrine, a friend asked, “have you lost your faith?”

Faith with a capital F

Curiously, the answer was a little yes and a little no. Because “Your Faith” is different from the more generic use of the word. Both involve trusting, but the “Faith with a capital F” is not just about relying on something or someone, it is about identity and belonging.

When Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well,” he was referring to faith (lower case) but when we belong to “A Faith” (upper case) we are referring to a whole set of practices and beliefs that form a guiding light in our life. Someone might say their Faith is very important to them, or that they are a person of Faith, or that their Faith is Christianity, or Islam or Buddhism. Usually this kind of faith is religious, but “keeping the faith” can also refer to the act of staying true to and continuing to remain hopeful and committed to a goal, such as civil rights, when faced with challenges, doubts, and so on.

For me, to say that I am having doubts about my Faith, is to say I am having trouble keeping the faith. Because when we truly start to doubt key parts of a belief system, we recognize that it could all fall apart, dropping us like a waterlogged and rotten raft. So we start to look for a more trust-worthy place to stand.

As I have lost one belief after another, I have started to do that. I’ve started looking for a firmer place to stand. I won’t stand for something I don’t believe in. And this has it’s own problems.

If you can overlook aspects of “A Faith” because “The Faith” provides a sense of belonging, comfort, and meaning, then you have not experiences the grief that comes from realizing you can’t.

To continue the analogy, I at first thought that one or two of the waterlogged logs in my raft of Faith was dragging the whole raft down, so I pried out the nails and kicked the dead weight away. Sure enough, the log sank to the bottom of the lake and the raft floated higher and felt more trustworthy than ever. Next season, a few more logs had to go. Eventually, only a few logs remained, and it wasn’t enough to instill faith in the raft anymore.

Brian McLaren coined the phrase Conflicted Religious Identity Syndrome to describe an experience that, for many, marks the first stages of loss of faith. He himself has moved out of Evangelical Christianity into a more contemplative form of Christianity as Dean of Core Faculty, at the Centre for Action and Contemplation. Rob Bell is another prominent Christian Leader who has traveled the “sinking raft path.” Raised and educated within Evangelical Christianity, Rob has been steadily kicking off the logs of his own raft.

Both McLaren and Bell have found or founded new rafts, unabashedly floating their belief system with ideas outside the confines of orthodox circles, and both focus more on love and acceptance than ingroup loyalty.

The raft of traditional or orthodox Christianity continues to have some buoyant logs holding it up, but I no longer find it enough to instill my trust. I’ve gone further than McLaren or Bell, jettisoning central doctrines like heaven and hell, immortality of the soul, lordship, inerrancy of the Bible, and the omnipotence of God; while at the same time accepting evidence from science that undermines Christianity such as the evidence for evolution, the billion year old age of the earth and universe, and lack of evidence for angels, demons, and a spirit realm. I now default to a mainly materialistic view of reality, with room for emergence and a large expanse of possibilities we can’t imagine due to the fact that we evolved in an area of space with specific conditions that helped form our nervous system.

For example, I have found tremendous insight and help from Stoicism, Buddhism, and the mystical traditions within Judaism and Islam. Not to mention the academics, poets, novelists, and artists who have blessed religious and secular communities across the globe and across time.

Mine is a cafeteria spirituality now, with therapeutic traditions, neuroscience, and nature-based spiritual practices all jostling side by side on my meal tray. I see Jesus as my touchstone, but as John Vervaeke puts it, Jesus is the pre-emanate sage among many for me now. Other luminaries I respect and model include Lao Tsu, Confucius, Socrates, the Buddha, Epictetus, and Jung. All of them reveal something of the sacred or divine.

As I kicked away rotting logs from the raft of my religion I added new ones from elsewhere, and for the most part my new raft holds me up pretty well. Of course the logs themselves are less like beliefs and more like ideas now. I embrace the idea of an “ecology of practices” and this is the focus of my efforts now.

An ecology of practices, refers to a living system of complementary activities and ideas that when adequately interconnected, cultivate wisdom and give the practitioner a sense of meaning and resiliency in the face of cultural and historic changes that have caused so many to question their “Faith” and their faith in things like science and ethics.

An Integrated Raft

Rather than relying on one teacher or technique, “an ecology of practices” emphasizes a diverse set of strategies and practices that work synergistically together. The individual ideas, theories, activities, and rituals are not random logs picked up from wherever, but are curated from existing wisdom traditions, science, historic religions, and cultural sources that have fallen out of fashion or simply been forgotten.

Part of the wisdom comes in the curation, putting together insights or developing specific cognitive, emotional, and existential capacities to address various areas of life impacted by a crisis of meaning or relevance. The goal is not to make oneself feel content or at peace, but instead to create a self-correcting, evolving system that includes attention to our shortcomings such as self-deception and greed, while also fostering ethical maturity, a deep sense of attachment and connectedness, and skills for managing stress, loss, and disillusionment.

So looked at more closely, an ecology of practices is like a living ecosystem in which ideas shape perspective and goals, which lead to actions and behaviors, while other practices impact cognitive resiliency, enabling the individual to persevere at research, investigation, and testing of new ideas and practices.

The goal for me is to develop, through a process of individuation and growth, a self that is able to hold space with people, be aware of my judgements and triggers, and see others with love, despite the surface behaviour they use for protection. Central to it all is my work to strengthen “calm aliveness” and related states, so that it becomes a steady resting state within which I can nurture, develop, and integrate my ecology of practice.

My little trauma, a shard so small, not even my ego can talk about it.

Humans. Only remaining member in tribe hominin. Dogged by our past, addicted to hope, we scramble about, hurting each other. Apologize and make up. Try to do better. Not all of us, but enough.

You may want to fix the universe. Cosmic surgeon or therapist. But try and you stagger at the size. Swagged needles wont even point in the right direction.

This wound is almost all womb, placenta of strange things. Plants eat light, animals eat plants, parasites eat animals, and predators grin at the top. It’s killing all the way down.

Sometimes I eat the chaos, sometimes capture blood splatter with my camera. Others gaze on this caldera, and out spill similes, analogies, metaphors and baby names. A groper trying to swallow a planet.

But really we are just tourists; made of the places we visit. Always wondering, “Am I home?”

Chat GTP recommended Meta Cognitive Therapy, and to my surprise, it was enough to carry me past my stuck place. I’m a person who benefits from therapy, and I have gathered many techniques over the years that have helped me cope with anxiety and depression. See my post “Effective Anxiety and Depression Management Techniques” for details of what has worked for me:

I’ve been off work on a stress leave for 5 months due to a deep depression unlike anything I’ve experienced before. The first two months off were like a fever dream; a combination of anxiety and depression that saw me swing wildly between crushing lows and jittery highs. Because of the loving support of my wife, the patient efforts of my counselor and Occupational Therapist, I am starting to recovery. In this post I outline my understanding of my core wound, where it came from, and what I’m doing about it.

Is it just The Lack?

After several years of interest I finally understand the idea of “Object a.” See the link below for a deeper dive into that subject:

“The Lack” is something that most people feel. It is the sense that something is missing, and it is the source of motivation for much of what we do. It drives us to buy things we want, enter relationships we desire, and work hard on projects we think are important. But there is another side to “the lack.”

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, "We all have a God-shaped hole in the center of our hearts that can only be filled by [God]". Jacques Lacan alluded to this hole when he described “Object a.”

“Object a” is a stand-in for whatever you currently think will solve your problem, bring you meaning or happiness, or make sense of life. We set our mind on obtaining “object a”, thinking that when we have it, life will be much better. The trouble is if we do get it, it quickly looses it magnetic quality and solidifies into a mere artifact of our striving. The sense of lack returns.

Lewis thought God was, in essence, the solution for the problem of “object a.” For many people, however, this does not turn out to be the case. They give their heart to Jesus, or sit in meditation for years, or take ayahuasca, or make a pilgrimage, or go on a 10 day silent retreat, or develop a sincere and long lasting devotional life, only to discover after some time passes, that they still feel a lack. In each case, the bloom fades from the rose, the ecstasy passes, or the sense of fulfillment ebbs away. Each in turn has been, "Object a” and “object a” always becomes a fossil after we obtain it. We are left singing along with Bono that we “still haven’t found what we’re looking for.”

“Ah, but those people didn’t really experience GOD!” some will say. Others, “they didn’t have enough faith!” and still others, “it was only satori. Enlightenment is still in the future.”

Perhaps this is true, some saints and gurus do seem to reach a state of union with the divine or with reality or the universe. Some stream-enterers do seem to find enlightenment. Other people do seem to transcend to a more or less perpetual state of peace and contentment. But, unfortunately, these are few and far between. I know many devout and faithful disciples of Jesus or Buddha, many sincere practitioners, and many who commit themselves to a lifetime of service to God or some higher purpose, but I have not yet to meet an enlightened or transformed soul, free from suffering, desire, and striving. Most person are marred by trauma, encumbered by sin, or feel some level of emptiness, no matter how rich and full their life is.

The hole remains.

For myself, I have had moments of bliss, periods of calm aliveness, and times when I felt that all was right with the world. I’ve had bursts of courage, experiences of oneness with the Universe, times of deep contentment, and stretches where I had an abiding feeling of being blessed and having a strong sense of purpose. Yet here I am, making my way out of a deep hole of depression feeling that something is lacking.

The hole is real.

So what do we do when we feel the lack creep back?

Lacan’s solution is perhaps unique in the world of psychology and religion. Instead of proposing a way to fill the hole, he suggested accepting it as a part of life and using it to channel our desires.

"The hole," he said, "is a desire to be whole."

Ah, but is wholeness ever really possible? Isn’t it just another object a? Like matter accelerated towards the speed of light, wholeness seems to require more and more energy the closer we get.

We can do the personal work on ourselves and become more whole over time, more integrated, more awake, but never find ourselves completely awake or whole. This is in part because life involves a series of wounds that ultimately lead to our death. We experience loss, grief, heart break, injury, and suffering. All these things deplete us, and rob us of energy and vitality. As we work with our inner life, we uncover aspects and parts of ourselves that are deeply rooted in our subconscious or unconscious mind. The effort to reveal, face, heal or repurpose these parts requires more and more determination and energy, something metaphorically similar to the energy of accelerating that particle of matter to speeds approaching that of light.

In somewhat of a paradox it seems that we may gain a greater degree of wholeness from discovering our inner divisions. While this does require work, we may learn some life changing things, heal old wounds, master challenges that have defeated us for years. We may deepen our empathy, broaden our perspective, and widen our pool of inner resources so that meaning increases several fold. We may become more mature, more integrated, and more kind, enhancing our relationships. We may stabilize our highs and lows and find greater balance and the ability to see and resolve our triggers and desires. We may even elongate our patience and forbearance, be better lovers and friends, and truly make a difference in the lives of others. All from doing “the work” of inner integration and individuation.

This is what I want for myself; so according to Jacques Lacan the quest for “object a” can become a channel realizing those higher desires. But depression, for me, was not primarily about a sense of lack of something outside of me, or a sense that I just needed more of something, it was all about Social Risk. I sensed that my value to the group did not outweigh my burden on the group. I interpreted this through my old defectiveness schema which caused a cascade of doubt and self judgement that resulted in a severe depression.

See my post Social Risk Hypothesis of Depressed Mood for more details on this theory of depression.

And if we believe writers like Parker Palmer, the wholeness we seek must be uncovered; and it extends beyond our personal boundaries to include a community. Toiling alone on our developmental or spiritual work is not enough to feel whole. Real development as a person means our wholeness spills over into our community of family, friends, and colleagues, and visa versa.

The Core Wound of “Not Enough”

If you are like me and find much of your trouble comes down to a sense of not being enough, of being an imposter, or a fraud, you know it is a gut punch of a feeling. But you likely also know that this does not necessarily mean you think you don’t have any good qualities. Only that for much of life, you are not thriving because of an inability, disability, character flaw, lack of skill or lack of knowledge, or intelligence, or some virtue like courage or grit.

You can do some things and you don’t worry about those because you have mastered them. Walking, talking, reading, and writing, are essentially effortless for me, at least in spontaneous day to day activity. I learned how to do these things long ago, and so when I need to walk or talk, or even walk and talk, I just do it. Sure I might stumble on a root or a word from time to time, but I don’t say to myself, I’m not enough of a walker or I’m not enough of a talker.

The “not enough” feeling tends to apply to more demanding challenges at which I don’t just make mistakes, I have outright failures. These are things I shy away from, not wanting to embarrass myself over and over again. My core wound is a belief and feeling that I am not “enough” in these situations. For me, these are situations that involve competition, conflict, intelligence, memory, or courage.

Where did this wound come from?

The “not enough” belief was shaped over a life of signals from my teachers, peers, and colleagues. Signals of rejection, judgement, and dislike. The younger version of me took these signals to heart, and eventually I concluded that I was not good at some things and was lacking certain qualities. The things I was good at didn’t seem to matter as much - things like kindness, empathy, and an interest in ideas and meaning. For instance in grade school I was not adept at math, spelling, and memory tasks, and still am not great at any of those. I knew I would not be an engineer, lawyer, or doctor because those professions rely on math or memory, in particular. Additionally I small for my age as a child, and then tall and gangly as a teenager, and throughout my life I have lacked coordination, with a tendency to fall in holes. Consequently I was picked last for sports and to help with strenuous physical tasks.

On the other hand I discovered I was good at managing people, having managed staff at a bookstore for 12 years. Other staff over the years praised me for my leadership. But my superiors have, on occasion, taken leadership away from me, seeing my anxiety as something that incapacitates me, or seeing my gentle style as weakness.

Never-the-less, and despite my self-depreciating tendency, I think I have been a good leader at all stages of life. I’m not competitive, however, and I’m not highly assertive. Both of these qualities have been highly criticized, and these are probably the biggest areas of self-doubt and self-criticism that keep open the wound of “not enough.” Teachers, colleagues, therapists, and romantic partners have all described me as a people-pleaser, a wallflower, timid, shy, passive, and weak. Ouch!

But even as they have told me these things, I have known that there is another side to the coin. The flip side of people pleasing is people-respecting. I consider people’s needs as valid and it can be a real pleasure to make someone’s life a little better. Being a wallflower, timid, shy, and passive are all terms that speak to my introverted and reactive nature. Introversion and reactivity are strongly related to genetic predisposition, not choices I made. While introversion has gained greater acceptance because of Susan Cain’s books, the reactive trait is not as well known or respected. See my post from a few years ago about this:

Turning it Around

Extroverts often show distaste or disdain for highly introverted people, as if introversion is a character flaw or weakness. In the same way the reactive tendencies are generally criticized by proactive people. “Timid,” “shy,” and “passive,” are terms used to criticize people and incentivize them to change.

Like liberalism to the MAGA crowd, the reactive personality trait is vilified by strongly extroverted and proactive people. Yet like attachment styles these traits are apparent in babies and toddlers, suggesting that we come out of the womb with certain predispositions. Some infants move towards novelty and stimulation while others move away or watch and listen to gather more information before approaching.1

The Environmental Sensitivity Framework developed by Pluess, Lionetti, & colleagues suggests that people differ in their responsiveness to environmental influences. Some individuals are more sensitive and show stronger reactions not just to stress and adversity, but also to support, enrichment, and positive experiences. This has lead to the analogy of “Orchid” and “Dandelion” children.

Orchid children wilt in environments not conducive to their growth but thrive spectacularly in environments right for them. Dandelion children grow steadily almost anywhere. Dandelion parents tend to favor the “grow anywhere” personality type, and may criticize orchid children who are struggling in the wrong environment. We orchids, tend to believe this criticism from dandelion people, causing us to think there is something fundamentally wrong with us and this is the “not enough” wound.

When I start to feel that I’m not enough because of my inherent traits, I remind myself that despite what others may choose to believe, my personality is only moderately mailable to change and part of the normal distribution in humans. I understand that I can be more outgoing, assertive, competitive, and son on, but only to some degree and in some circumstances.

What to do?

Research suggests that if you are my kind of orchid (highly sensitive) then crafting a supportive, structured, and creative environment or seeking out such an environment could yield outsized positive growth. This is especially true if you are currently in a critical, hostile, or ambivalent environment.

To restructure your environment you need to do two things. Become convinced by the research, and put it into action.

The Research.

Here is a list of research that supports the idea that orchid people are different than dandelion people and can thrive in the right environments or conditions:

• Belsky, J., & Pluess, M. (2009). Beyond diathesis stress: Differential susceptibility to environmental influences. Psychological Bulletin, 135(6), 885–908.
  Found that “orchid” children (highly sensitive) thrive more than “dandelions” in supportive settings, but suffer more in adverse ones.

• Boyce, W. T., & Ellis, B. J. (2005). Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary–developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity. Development and Psychopathology, 17(2), 271–301.
  Proposes that heightened physiological stress reactivity increases adaptation to both nurturing and harsh environments.

• Kagan, J. (1994). Galen’s Prophecy: Temperament in Human Nature. New York: Basic Books.
  Landmark longitudinal work on high-reactive infants suggesting they have increased anxiety risk but also heightened social awareness.

• Fox, N. A., Henderson, H. A., Marshall, P. J., Nichols, K. E., & Ghera, M. M. (2005). Behavioral inhibition: Linking biology and behavior within a developmental framework. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 235–262.
  Shows continuity of high-reactivity into social caution, but with evidence for modification in supportive settings.

• Lionetti, F., Aron, E. N., Aron, A., Burns, G. L., Jagiellowicz, J., & Pluess, M. (2018). Dandelions, tulips and orchids: Evidence for sensitivity groups in children. Developmental Psychology, 54(1), 51–70.
  Empirical support for three sensitivity groups: high, medium, low. High-sensitivity group are most influenced by parenting quality.

• Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2010). Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51(4), 419–426.
  Shows high-reactive children benefit disproportionately from warm, structured parenting and enriched care environments.

• Slagt, M., Dubas, J. S., van Aken, M. A., Ellis, B. J., & Deković, M. (2018). Sensory Processing Sensitivity as a marker of differential susceptibility to parenting. Developmental Psychology, 54(3), 543–558.
  Demonstrates that children high in SPS flourish under structured, supportive parenting.

• Nocentini, A., Menesini, E., & Pluess, M. (2018). The personality trait of environmental sensitivity predicts children’s positive response to school-based anti-bullying intervention. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(6), 848–859.
  Sensitive children showed greater benefit from school interventions.

• Aron, E. N., & Aron, A. (1997). Sensory-processing sensitivity and its relation to introversion and emotionality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(2), 345–368.
  Defines SPS and its implications for self-care and structured environments.

• Hommel, B., & Colzato, L. S. (2017). Meditation and personality. Current Opinion in Psychology, 28, 112–117.
  Shows that mindfulness and structured contemplative practice are especially effective for sensitive/reactive individuals.

• Pachucki, M. A., Ozer, E. J., Barrat, A., & Cattuto, C. (2015). Mental health and social networks in early adolescence: A dynamic study of objectively-measured social interaction behaviors. Social Science & Medicine, 125, 40–50.
  Sensitive individuals thrive in supportive, cohesive networks; but social stressors have amplified negative impact.

A real turn around for me came when I realized that people’s criticism said as much about their lack of understanding about the diversity and development of humans as it did about me. As well, judgmental people sometimes make judgements in order to feel better about themselves. This means that they may not feel good about themselves, even if they think they are “better” than others.

Jesus said, “Judge not lest you be judged2,” and the meaning of that statement seems self evident, but there is a deeper truth beneath it — self-judgement. When we judge others without a full understanding of human diversity, we inadvertently hurt ourselves by creating a false view of the world, one that can also include projection or denial of our own nature. Some of the worst critics of reactive and sensitive people are themselves reactive and sensitive, but in denial about it.

Conclusion

The core wound of “not enough” is, for me, a result of a being a sensitive person with other traits deemed equally undesirable (reactive, withdrawal, introversion, non-assertive, etc.). I had the misfortune to take seriously, or perhaps too seriously, the criticisms and judgements of the social environment I grew up in, without at the same time owning and celebrating the strengths that go along with my unique genetic and experiential makeup.

Reactive personalities are good at detecting risk and deeply examining environments to find or uncover connections, larger patterns, and relationships of meaning. This provides these individuals with a survival advantage for long-term planning and acquisition of resources within known territory. See my post on Reactive and Proactive personalities for a more academic treatment of the topic.

Introversion is a trait that gives a natural advantage in the development of empathy, listening skills, and thoughtful decision-making.

In order for reactive and sensitive people to heal a wound of “not enough” we need to name the power centers that have unfairly judged us, be they extroverts or proactives. We also have to own any legitimate mistakes, failures or wrong-doings we have done, and re-direct our efforts at developing the tendencies and abilities we find come naturally, rather than justifying our unique perspectives and skills to others.

Given that the culture of the West tends to emphasize the values and advantages of the extroverts and proactives, it makes sense that we should develop some of these skills in order to be well rounded, but most of our effort should go in to becoming better at being our unique selves. Changing our immediate environment can often be the best thing we can do if it is not supportive of our needs and personalities.

My list of actions for restructuring my environment is below:

• Create Healthy Structure: build and craft routines that provide predictability to balance the unpredictable nature of life. Create scaffolds and protective strategies to buffer stress and reduce overwhelm. (Slagt et al., 2018).

• Sincere Warmth and Support: Seek out and create warm, validating environments. (Pluess & Belsky, 2010).

• Creativity as regulation: Aesthetic expression (arts, writing, photography) engages meaning-making and lowers stress arousal. It should be a focus of my attention for balance and restoration. (Aron & Aron, 1997).

• Attend therapy and training: High-sensitivity individuals show larger therapeutic gains from interventions, so therapy and training work for me. (Nocentini et al., 2018; Hommel & Colzato, 2017).

Bottom Line

For someone like me with high withdrawal tendencies, high aesthetics and high compassion elements to my personality the research strongly supports creating a stable, structured, supportive, and creative ecosystem. It’s not just comforting—it statistically yields bigger benefits for people like me than it would for the average person.

Questions for Readers

Do extroverts and proactives also feel they are not enough? I think they probably do, especially in societies where reactive and introverted tendencies are emphasized. If you are one such person, I would appreciate hearing your experiences in the comments.

I’m familiar with at least one way in which the “not enough” schema can arise as outlined above, but curious to know if there are other ways it can come about. Please share your story in the comments.

My Gurus

Over my life I have looked to certain luminaries for answers. Maybe a real person, like a pastor or professor, maybe an imagined person like the character in a book. They offered something enticing. An explanation, a sense of order in the apparent chaos. They seemed to have grasped “it,” or achieved enlightenment, or made peace with themselves. They were elders, guides, truth tellers.

I confess to a certain adoration of them. They were the kinder than kindness, warmer than sunshine, humans. This author or that professor was very man of very man, very woman of very woman, unbound and self made. They represented the triumph of the individual over their circumstances, the excellent ones, scalers of mountains, graspers of complex ideas. The ones who rise, triumph, overcome.

I remember someone writing that everywhere they journeyed they found C.S. Lewis coming back. C.S. Lewis, the man I wanted to be, the intellectual who wrote children’s books, common sense scholar, rooted in relationships, reveling in walking tours with his brother, the very essence of tweedy British clarity.

Then I found Thomas Merton. Deeply poetic, a visionary for engagement with the world from the beauty of the monastery, I longed to be as deep as he was. His openness to beauty, to Buddhism, the universal nature of contemplation across religions and traditions.

Moving on to one after another, I collected heroic writers like hockey cards. The mesmerizing writer Frederick Buechner convinced me that the writing life was the ideal life for me, later hearing Anne Lamott say the same thing, these meaning makers making a life out of literary endeavors. I loved the Shipping News more than any other book, the way the language wove characters into life, the way the story focused on an anti-hero. In Quoyle I found a kindred spirit. The ache of finding a man who encapsulated what I knew as the truth of humility, the beauty of deprecation.

I moved on. New thinkers like Ken Wilber, new feelers like Elizabeth Gilbert, but also new technology, new software, new schools of thought and new interests too. I started investing, started trying to understand politics and economics.

Then one day I heard about object A.

Object A

There is a lack that is fundamental to the human experience. We have a sense that something is missing, that there is an emptiness inside us. C.S. Lewis called it a hole that only God can fill. Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst and philosopher who reinterpreted Freud’s work through the lens of structuralist linguistics called it "objet petit a" or “object little a” in English, or just “object a.”

Lacan said, "What we desire is not what we think we desire." We think we desire things, experiences, states, status, power, relationships, understanding, or wisdom. We go on a quest to get these objects of our desire, either by working hard, thinking hard, exposing ourselves to different experiences, or studying under experts and masters to hone our skills so that we can possess what we desire. The elite athlete, the talented surgeon, the master artist, the successful business person, all are following an inner motivation, a drive to achieve something significant. But while there can be much satisfaction in working towards a goal like this, the achievement or mastery of a skill brings a variety of feelings. There is satisfaction to some degree, there is pleasure in “being good at it,” but almost always, there is a disappointment too because the satisfaction we expected was not something that was reasonable to expect from such accomplishments. Why do we do this?

Lacan believed that as children, we experience a sense of unity with our mother (or primary caregiver), but as we grow and enter the world of language and social structures we lose that wholeness. This loss is one of the hard realities of life. Yet without recognizing this we can easily project that feeling of loss or lack onto certain people, ideas, or objects. We think that if we can have these things, or achieve certain things we can experience that wholeness again.

For Lacan we construct our identity in relation to this lack, especially after the “Mirror Stage,” of child development where we first form a coherent image of ourselves from outside, and begin a lifetime of chasing an imaginary sense of unity we never truly possessed.

So object a is not something we can ever integrate into our life, it forever remains ungraspable, and it causes all our striving. Lacan would say: “Don’t try to eliminate the lack — learn to desire through it.”

While Lacan didn’t offer a method for healing or personal integration, he did offer a way to recognize and live with our fractures. It was to realize the fantasy of wholeness.

"There is no such thing as a complete [person.] We are split, divided, lacking — and it is precisely in this lack that desire lives."

Pete Rollins in conversation with Rob Bell talk about how this plays out in our lives. You set your desire on something, “…and when then you finally get the thing that you want, you're left with a fossil, and the fossil makes you think, oh my goodness, that almost got it… but you're always just left with a fossil, never with the thing, because object a doesn't kind of exist.”

This is because object a, that goal you had your sight set on, the thing you thought would make you happy or fix the problem you had, doesn’t actually exist because the one you imagine, the goal you plan to achieve is in your imagination and is a stand-in for the wholeness you really want.

When you get the car or relationship or job or attention, there is an inevitable deflation. The grass is always greener before you have to cut it to keep it looking good. This imagined reality which never quite manifests in the actual world, is object a. It is the thing we imagine will bring us what we want. The trouble is we were motivated by the absence of the thing we imagine. The absence is that hole, something missing, a gap between what we are and what we long to be - which is to be whole.

Rollins takes this concept and maps it to our modern spiritual yearning, showing how our chase for gurus, systems, or solutions is related to the mechanism of object a.

"It is not that we desire something, but that desire itself is the object. We are animated by lack." – Paraphrasing Lacan

There is something deeply attractive about desire itself, our own desires and the desires of others. In a strange way we desire desire as much as we desire objects, relationships, experience, and so on.

Rollins proposes that what we need is a Guru who understands this, who steps in to represent object a, but then shows us his or her imperfection, limitations, true self. Such a guru very gradually exposes that they don't have the secret. They are not a savior, or some deep reflection of wisdom or love or belonging. They are just a human being, driven by the same lack we too feel.

The “Last Guru” as Rollins calls this person resists the appeal to an ultimate truth, or an organic whole, or a mystery that can be revealed. The Last Guru is the one who understands that our quest for answers can in fact be a source of suffering, and that the quest is important none the less. As contradictory as this sounds, it is our lot in life. We lose a sense of wholeness that drives us to fill the hole left by that loss. This lack we feel drives us to seek satisfaction that we never full can feel, because we never fully can be whole. The truth of this is hard to grasp, hence the last Guru must understand that accepting the lack, the hole, and realizing that it can not be filled, is integral to human existence and flourishing.

The Scapegoat Mechanism

Rollins says that when you scapegoat a person or group as wrong or evil or ‘the problem’, “you haven't reconciled yourself to contradiction, you're still reducing it to opposition and you're still trying to then cut it out like like a cancer.”

What is the contradiction? Simply that another human can see things differently than us, hold different values, act on different beliefs while living in the same world we live in. We can not be one with them.

Or maybe we operate on the idea that people are doing the best they can, which is a popular way of making sense of other’s shortcomings. But then we encounter a psychopath who has no desire to do good or be kind. It is a shock to realize this. Or a political leader tells us what we want to hear in order to get elected, then acts very differently once in office. We feel betrayed.

Our discomfort with such realizations tells us something about ourselves. Our discomfort with differentness, with two contradictory things being true at the same time, or with a nonsense situation that we can’t tolerate, shows that we lack something, a better understanding, or a better explanation, or an adequate perspective. We are far from whole or enlightened. It is another reminder that wholeness is not only missing, but impossible.

Light is a particle and a wave at the same time. When this doesn’t make sense it is evidence that our thinking is not enough, we have not done the work to see how this is possible. The person who doesn’t care that much, who isn’t that interested in the contradiction yawns and moves on, content in his ignorance. But the curious one, the philosopher or scientist or poet sits with that contradiction, asks questions of the physicists, comes to realize that light is both, depending on the observer, depending on how light is observed. This new insight causes a tingle all down the nervous system and that tingle is realization, what we call an ‘aha moment.’

And that aha feeling tells us something, it tells us that the lack is a good motivator, the lack drives us towards aha. But that is not enough either, because there is not always an aha. This is dukkha, the un-satisfactoriness of existence. Life if full of intractability and quandaries.

Rollins again says, “…there's some truth to the the popular view, which is the idea that the very contradictions that are happening right now in your life, actually open up to express wider contradictions that you're only dimly aware of, and then those are going to widen out even deeper.”

Rollins talks about how therapists identify contradictions in a person’s life. The client wants intimacy but then run from relationships when they get too intimate, for example.

“They [the therapist] talks about the problems that are in your history and your life, the traumas that have happened to you, but those connect with the universal trauma that is life and how we live in the world.” - Pete Rollins

I was struck by that phrase, “the universal trauma that is life…”

If there is something to shy away from it is the contradiction that life is trauma, and life is never the less worth living. By sitting with this contradiction, we come to see that, in a certain sense it is contradictions all the way down. Or up, depending how you are tracing the logic.

In Rilke’s Duino Elegies, the cry is not for resolution (aha) but for presence within the lack, for awareness as tribute to existence:

"Perhaps we are here in order to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window… to say them, you must understand, to say them more intensely than the Things themselves ever dreamed of existing."
(The Ninth Elegy, tr. Edward Snow)

And in The Book of Hours:

“I live my life in widening circles / that reach out across the world. / I may not complete this last one / but I give myself to it.” (Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, tr. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy)

These words echo the idea that the self is an ever becoming, not a being already formed.

“The Journey itself is home,” - Basho

The discussion between Rob and Pete moves towards the idea that each of us has access to what we need to make sense of the contradictions we can make sense of, and allow the contradictions we can’t make sense of to deepen our sense of peace.

They talk about God as the one who lacks the lack. They end by discussing a religion-less religion in which we can stop looking to priests or gurus or teachers or pastors or leaders, and instead sit in grace with the great contradictions we face.

Sitting with contradiction in grace makes the contradiction a good, or at least a necessity. The job for those of us at this level of relationship to the trauma of the universe, is not to resolve all the issues we face in life, but to create a container that almost makes the contradictions sacred. Because sitting with contradictions and accepting them, rather than trying to change them, brings peace.

They refer to this as, “the move from the lack of the secret to the secret of the lack.”

I believe what they are doing is taking this idea of the lack and expanding it to refer to more than the lack of wholeness. The lack drives us to see our separateness, we are not one with our mother. That wound, creates a desire for “oneness” or “at oneness.” This is the desire for atonement, for being united with God, the reality beyond lack.

Acknowledging the lack is in some ways the big deal, the big aha, because acknowledging the lack of wholeness, answers, solutions, explanations, etc. both motivates us to examine the contradictions, and also gives us a sense of peace when contradictions can not be resolved. We are contradictions, we move through contradictions, we live with contradictions. Contradiction are part of life and part of us. We are fractured, but that is the way it is.

It is like a hole in a shoe that lets in water. We want the hole to cease to exist, we want the lack to cease, but we can’t get rid of a lack. “That's what creates all of the violence, all of the destructive power, the scapegoating. It's our inability to embrace the lack,” say’s Rollins.

How do I embrace the lack?

To embrace the lack is to move away from oppositional thinking and into contradictory thinking. This involves seeing contradictions and treating them like opportunities for learning and growth. We embrace the contradictions in our own lives, and sit with others as they face their contradictions.

Rollins often frames this process as a kind of healing, not by integration or resolution in the conventional sense, but by liberation from the fantasy of integration and resolution.

The desire for unity, harmony, and belonging can create an image or idol that holds out hope for something that is fleeting at best. We can experience these things, and we can advocate for them, but we should not expect that they will ultimately replace division and isolation.

An important corollary of this is that we can let go of the illusion that wholeness is even possible and learn to live fully in our separate parts. Wholeness may not be possible, but we may become more whole.

There is a phrase that, “Suffering is wanting things to be other than they are.” We want our wounds to be healed, we want tensions to be eased, mysteries to be revealed, and problems solved. We want not to suffer. But this is very unlikely, so Instead of blaming others for our wounds and problems (scapegoating), or blaming God or the Universe, or blaming ourselves, we can simply re-focus on what is real and what is within our control.

For instance, how do we reconcile the contradiction that God exists but does not end suffering. If we sit long enough with this contradiction unresolved, we come to see that we want an end to suffering, for ourselves and others, and that is a good thing, to want that. We can begin to see that while suffering is part of life (not optional as some suggest) so is the learning that comes from it. Does this mean that the learning justifies the suffering? No. Both exist, and to deny that both exist is to cause ourselves further suffering.

Here is a mantra from Kristen Neff we can say in times of suffering:

"This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I need."

I try to say the following to myself when I experience pain or suffering:

“I let go of my desire for things to be different. I open my mind to learn what this suffering has to teach me. I let go of the desire to blame myself or others and I let go of my desire for resolutions, solutions, or distractions. May I take the actions that I can to reduce suffering, may I ask for and accept help from others, and may I experience the peace that comes from acknowledging the contradictions and losses of life.”

Final Thoughts

This topic was challenging for me, coming as I do at the world from both a Christian and Buddhist perspective. In Christianity there is the idea of being part of the body of Christ, being purified and made in the likeness of Christ. And in Buddhism there is the idea of letting go of the ego enough to realize that the self is not as important or permanent as we think. The cliche of becoming one with everything may not necessarily be help by all Buddhists, but it is certainly a popular view of what Buddhists believe.

These hopes of transcending into some greater reality are, most likely, something like the desire for wholeness that Lacan identified. What this exercise in sitting with contradiction and suffering brings us is something a little different, the acceptance of a path towards wholeness/unity/atonement without the belief of every arriving.

For me it is deeply satisfying to know that others are thinking about this, and that awareness or enlightenment may very well include the realization that lack is integral to the spiritual path.

Rumi Kobayashi in her post, What is Wabi Sabi really? says, “Objects made by the aesthetic principles of Wabi Sabi is a craftsperson’s relentless inward seeking (the wretched -Wabi) and the aloneness (Sabi) that this requires so that they bring them themselves closer to something that is bigger than themselves.” She explains that it is not just an object’s imperfection that makes it wabi sabi, it is the state of the artisan’s mind and their inner discipline that, when in the right state, creates something that reflect the perfect patterns of nature. She explains that the ego can hinder the creation of a beautiful object.

This short video is extremely well done, packing a lot into a short format. I found it inspiring, because I don’t think I have found anyone expressing this aspect of wabi sabi before, at least not this specifically.

I see wabi sabi in much the same way, and have written extensively about the role of sabi in changing our perspective, see the following three links:

I endorse the idea of moving the ego out of the way of sensitive creation and expression, and am attempting in my own life to do this. I believe it is a lifelong process and echoes Basho’s idea of the journey itself being home. on this journey we are always seeking to let go of our intentions so that we can let the arrow shoot itself, or let the poem write itself, but these are secondary aspects of any work, they are when the mind seeks to touch those natural patterns that Rumi references and reflect them through the body and mind into the work of art.

I notice this most often as a photographer because in photography the goal is to see better and then capture what is seen in an artful way. In writing it is a bit different. There is of course the whole process of learning to read, learning to write, learning to type, etc. and then there is the work to uncover what it is that wants to be written. As you write, you notice competing voices in your mind, the flow of ideas and the critic, the creation of poetic statements and the editorial recommendations.

Keeping in mind the idea of connecting to a higher or bigger reality or patterning is a very good discipline and will, I firmly believe, contribute to a more authentic end product.

First it names a rare and seemingly paradoxical mood -- a pleasurable sadness. Rare in that it does not happen often for most people, but common enough that most people can think of a time or two in their life when it has happened.

Second, when you embrace sabi there is a shift in the way you see beauty. Once you know that sadness can be positive, you start to consider what other things that you previously thought of as negative or ugly might not be. This is especially true of loss and hardship. You notice your own subjective criticism of "what is" and your desire for "what ought to be."

Lastly, sabi helps you move into or stay in non-dual thinking.

Is it ugly or beautiful? Or Both?

Positive Sadness?

The word Sabi has changes over the years. Originally it was a slightly longer word in Japanese, the word sabishi. In the simplest terms, that old word meant solitary or lonely. In Wabi Sabi for Writers I traced the development of the word over time and it's enduring association with wabi. In particular I focused on Basho who I believe coined the shortened word sabi to identify more than just an aesthetic quality. I thought then and still think that Basho used sabi to describe a way to appreciate the pathos of life without descending into despair. I go into how this works in a little more detail here. Essentially it boils down to using a poetic sensibility to see how some (not all) sad situations are actually quite beautiful.

Writers and other creative people who are "sensitive to things" seem particularly vulnerable to despair. Much of literature, especially in the 19th, 20th, and early 21st century, seems to be about the loss of faith and the descent into nihilism. Sabi may be useful for those of us struggling to make sense of our life in this post-modern world.

“Sabishisa in Basho’s poems is often not a landscape infused with the sentiment of loneliness but the fundamental tranquility found in the harmonious fusion of the external world and the poetic mind.” -- Peipei Qiu, Basho and the Dao

Secondary Benefits?

If you can see a lonely place as beautiful you might also see other places and experiences as beautiful that you previously would have seen as sad or uncomfortable. It is a sort of slippery slope into poetic vision and once you find the pleasure of appreciating the sabi in things, it opens the door to an examination of how our thinking can either enhance or taint the actual events and settings around us. To be able to say, "this moment is filled with sabi" and to then value the moment instead of pushing it away, means that you can accept more and more of life without seeking diversions, distractions, and concoctions to take away the pain. Sabi is not the miracle mindset to take away pain, instead it is a single step in a longer journey to accepting all that is. Why this is important is discussed on this page.

Non Dual Thinking?

Like Basho did with the word sabi, I'm exploring ways to engage sabi at a deeper (or maybe higher?) level, to move it to a larger application, to develop a "sabi paradigm" that can allow me or anyone else to move from loneliness to oneliness.

Or to use more academic language -- from a dualistic materialist mind set to a non-dual anatheistic mind set. This is not a simplistic "everything is one" mindset, but instead part of a larger shift from one developmental meme to another. It IS about seeing that everything is one, or connected, or interrelated, but it is also about seeing that dualistic thinking can occur within non-dual thinking, but not the other way around. This assumes a particular type of non-dual thinking that is also dialectic.

The "sabi paradigm" I am suggesting is one in which the pain that comes from classifying some emotions as good and others as bad breaks down. As we embrace positive sadness, we let go of the distinctions and categories that may have some use for group cohesion or understanding complex topics, but also can hold us back from seeing bigger more expansive views that may be the most effective in cultivating lasting contentment. I hope to also explore this theme in greater depth here.

In Quiet, Susan Cain explores the strengths and challenges of introverts in a society that elevates extroversion over introversion and puts the goals of the right hemisphere of our brain above those of the left (see Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.) She argues that introverts, who are often overlooked in favor of their more outgoing counterparts, possess unique qualities such as deep thinking, creativity, and the ability to focus intensely on tasks. Introverts generally thrive in environments that allow them to work independently and at their own pace, and often the pace is slow and deliberate, a pace out of step with the “Cult of Productivity.” I first heard this term from Sukie Baxter in an interview with Julie Bjelland. Sukie’s admonition to rest for no secondary motive, not to recharge so that you can be more productive, is one I’m taking to heart these days. The quiet life is worth it, in and of itself. It can be the goal, rather than a benefit of a productive life.

Cain outlines in Quiet 4 themes for those with an introverted preference:

• The Extrovert Ideal: Society’s bias toward extroversion and how it impacts workplaces, schools, and social norms.

• The Power of Introversion: The strengths introverts bring, such as empathy, listening skills, and thoughtful decision-making.

• Finding Balance: How introverts and extroverts can collaborate effectively and create environments that honor both personality types.

• Self-Acceptance: Encouraging introverts to embrace their natural tendencies rather than feeling pressured to conform to extroverted standards.

In her audio book A Quiet Life in 7 Steps, Cain provides a framework for actually living the quiet life, one that quietly takes to task the cultural bias towards extroversion by challenging things like leadership styles (introverts are often more effective leaders) and what is “normal.” - hint, it’s not high levels of productivity. The seven steps are:

1. How Should I spend My Time?

2. Do I need to be a Leader?

3. How can I live a Truly Creative Life?

4. What do I do With Emotional Pain I can’t Get Rid Of?

5. How do I move Through My Grief?

6. How Can I feel Less Alone - and Experience Oneness?

7. How Can I Access Deeper States of Love for Myself, and Others?

Cain has also created a community on Substack (and beyond?):

The Quiet Life with Susan Cain

The Quiet Life is for people who love quiet, depth, and beauty, and is read in all 193 countries and all 50 U.S. states. Join us for art, ideas, consolations, and candlelight chats. You'll never be forced to do anything groupy.

The audio book provided reassurance that my priorities, preferences, and interests were not wrong or solipsistic. I’m seriously considering if the quiet life if possible for me, or if it is a bit too retiring and anonymous. As a writer, I want others to read my work, but I don’t want to do book tours, speaking engagements, or TV appearances. Cain overcame her own fear of speaking in public, and says others can too. I have spoken often in public, but have never enjoyed it. Part of the take away for me of this audio book is that I can construct a life I want, without feeling pressured to do things I really don’t want to do.

So for now, I will continue taking photos, making videos, and writing about topics that are of interest to me. I will continue working through my personal challenges towards a thriving life.

I realize one of the hard realities of life is that we are trapped in an economic system that creates indentured servants. The work ethic is a cleverly disguised tool to allow the rich to continue to exploit the labor of others. I have not been able to break out of this system and so I know that we must struggle both to make money, and to fight a system designed to keep us down and feeling powerless.

But part of our effort should be to follow our bliss. This term, coined by Joseph Campbell, is really about enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is derived from en- "in" and theos "god," and ism is the practice of doing something. So enthusiasm is practicing being in god or infused by god. In this sense what makes us excited or enthused are those activities we sometimes refer to as our calling. And interestingly, right near the end of his life Campbell said, “I should have said follow your blis-ters!” He explained that you can tell what you are meant to do, by what you are happy to work hard at.

The quiet life is one ideal, in fact it can be a calling. I agree with Sukie Baxter that as likely as not, a life of being is is important as a life of doing. Productivity will never bring lasting contentment, it will more likely keep us on a hamster wheel scrambling for more and more of what we already have. To live “off the wheel” does not mean a lazy life of sloth and meaninglessness, it means a life of bliss and blisters, and I can’t think of anything better for me at my station on the pilgrimage of life.

Summary of the Hypothesis

Allen and Badcock hypothesize1 that depressed states evolved to minimize risk in social interactions in which individuals perceive that the ratio of their social value to others, and their social burden on others, is at a critically low level. When …

Read more

As a long time Flickr user, I often puzzle over the photographers who are ever in search of a new platform for their work. I’ve tried a few, but go back to Flickr and Instagram. Flickr because of the type of photographers there, and Instagram because of the interface and versatility. Besides public recognition, photographers are often looking for community. We are, after all, a different breed, and within the breed, we are diverse. Big categories like “street photography,” “wildlife photography,” and “portrait photography,” have been created as sub-categories, and often a photographer is dedicated to only one or two of these. Then, like any slightly geeky passion, photography has internal debates about things like gear and “look” and colour science. All this makes the craft of photography pretty boring for most people.

The category of photographer I fit into is a more general term like, “nature photographer” with a particular leaning towards the abstract, minimalistic, and emotional. If obscure and quirky were recognized categories, I’d definitely be those too.

While popularity is lower on my list than some other photographers, it is still nice to be appreciated, and this happened to me a few month ago when a Flickr user l z e e ~ created a gallery of my images.

Check out the nice layout in Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/192849451@N02/galleries/72157722649975618/

I appreciate I z e e ~’ work as well, we share a love for branches, cats, bokeh, and water drops. Some people call this type of work, “intimate landscapes” and certainly that fits a lot of what we do, but for me it is more about the eye or vision or perspective. It is seeing the ordinary, natural, transient, or ephemeral in the right light.

As a highly sensitive person, I often feel overwhelmed by the intensity of most media and adventure activities. The flip side of this vulnerability, is the ability to see beauty more astutely. Sensitive people tend to look for things that will calm the nervous system, or fuel curiosity and wonder. This is what underlies my motivation as a photographer and outdoor explorer. Nature is the greatest source of environments and stimulation that can reliably elevate my sense of being calm, engaged, and curious, the definition of “still in the stream.”

It feels really nice to be recognized for communicating this through photography. Thanks I z e e ~ for your attention, effort, and honouring of a fellow sensitive.

Trees, like saints, have petitioners. I was one of them. A word thumper. I praised the huckleberry. Prattled the forest empty of birds. I dragged my own storm behind me, breaking limbs. Cornea-skinned and blister thin, I humped my sinew and bone over rocks and logs, trying to be wild. I had a head full of words and too many hands. A chattering cephalopod.

Every pilgrim starts eager. Longing to find something, but also to get away from something. Each step a practice in balance.  Pitch and yaw, to and frow. Part refugee, part immigrant. Powered my quest with questions. Found a rhythm. Close your mouth, open your eyes, walk till you find your feet, till you find your path. Tethered to a job, my Camino was a weekly mooch for green. I would sidle up to a needled shore of fir, at first dowsing out a forest gate, but eventually finding the way by memory. Passcode to the green vault. I still go, my travels more liturgy now than glossolalia. Either way, I chant out my breath, chords of that old logos, reticulating language around a sacred path. The journey itself, becoming home.

As patient as a grandparent, the forest accepts my wandering. Absorbs my questions. Like an old snag weathered long, I’ve lost my bark and thorns. The smooth wood shows swirls of exposed memory. Sometimes, eyes resting finally on nothing, that old hunger for productivity gone, I collapse on the moss, a failed heretic kneeling prayers into the humus, spilling out the worn gears of vigilance. In the wash of cedar-sounds, I shrug off pretense, like peeling off a wet coat. There is something dangerously calm there, a blanking anonymity. I move on a tide of scent. Earthy bite of fungus, tang of wild ginger, lingering wood resins. The sound of wings carries a feathered blur up from the floor to the canopy. Draws my eyes to the sky, great field of blue under which the trees stand, green as genesis, unfolding their steadfast rings, a leafy language filled with infinity.

I read Trauma the Invisible Epidemic and Feeling Great looking for a solution to the problem of my distorted thinking. The first is about how widespread trauma is and what it does to us, and the second is about the formula of success that Dr. Burns developed over years of clinical practice. I read them with the conviction that finding a way to control my thinking would control my anxiety as well. This confidence was partially right. I did need to address both my trauma and my distorted thinking.

Recently a woman told me about a situation she experienced in which someone she was close to was severely traumatized by an event they both experienced, but she was not. She did not really know why she was not effected. The psychiatrist involved in assisting after the event explained that some people are more resilient because of temperament or life experience, and that trauma tends to occur around threats that a person is sensitized to, usually from previous trauma or pain.

Trauma Sensitization

In "Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror" Judith Lewis Herman discusses the psychological impact of trauma, including the concept of trauma sensitization. She explains how traumatic experiences can shape an individual's psychological responses over time.

Trauma sensitization is when a person becomes more susceptible to experiencing traumatic reactions or distress due to their history of past traumatic experiences. People who previously encountered trauma may find themselves more affected by subsequent traumatic events or even events that might not be traumatic for others.

Are some people more susceptible to sensitization like some people are easier to hypnotize that others? Yes, the evidence suggest this is true.

A 2018 study found that, "...Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) is distinct from ASD, SZ and PTSD in that in response to social and emotional stimuli, SPS differentially engages brain regions involved in reward processing, memory, physiological homeostasis, self-other processing, empathy and awareness." The authors concluded that, " this serves species survival via deep integration and memory for environmental and social information that may subserve well-being and cooperation." That deep integration and memory can lead to a heightened and persistent sensitivity to the differential engagement. (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2017.0161)

There is also preliminary work on the connection between Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) and trauma sensitivity. Here are just two recent articles:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921006577

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-021-03532-4

This research suggests that people with SPS may reinforce a response to traumatic events over time, leading to a psychological disorder in adulthood. While this may not explain the high level of resistance I experienced with CBT, (see this blog post) it seems to be a big part of it. Many years of reinforced responses shaped the way I think about some social and emotional stimuli, AND that thinking is deeply integrated. Perhaps, just perhaps, my life of differentially engaged brain regions for self-other processing, empathy, and awareness is not something I should dismiss?

Distorted Thinking

My Psychiatrist and therapist both told me the source of my suffering was distorted thinking. Not surprisingly I chose to trust this diagnosis over friends and family who said I had a lack of willpower or grit, or that I needed to develop thicker skin. Thick skin has been the dominant prescription my whole life. As if a leathery emotional barrier could be developed by anyone who set their mind to it. Obviously some people think it can. I am not sure that thick skin is something I want, or if protective clothing, metaphorically speaking, is more like what I'm seeking.

As far as I can tell what people mean by thick skin is the ability to ignore or be unaffected by insults, put downs, and other social aggression. Or the ability to face situations that would be emotionally upsetting by turning down the intensity of the feelings. A colleague I worked with called it professional detachment. I can see the value of that for surgeons cutting into someone, or soldiers shooting at other humans. But does it make sense outside of these extreme situations?

Schema therapy was very effective for me in 2013. But attempting to use it 8 years later to address a new bout of anxiety was not effective. My therapist persisted in his conviction, stating that it was a long road to change distorted thinking, especially if you didn't believe it is distorted. Our worked ended with him reminding me to remember that I slipped into my schema under stress. I needed to constantly remind myself that my narratives and perspectives were often distorted and unhelpful, or at the very least, constraining.

As noted in a post in January, I took a break from cognitive therapy because of the frustration I was feeling with not making progress. I didn't seem able to work my way out of that deeply integrated understanding of things. Instead I chose to practice Metacognitive Therapy. MCT combined with Dr. Burn's insights about resistance, and the drug Trintellix, have allowed me to "stay calm and carry on." This does not mean I am healed, have developed a thick skin, or have re-formed my thoughts.

Resistance

Dr. Burns talks about resistance on one of his podcasts. When I started listening to Feeling Great I was delighted to discover that the first thing he talks about is the difference between his first book and this one. It is what he has learned about resistance. In a curious synchronicity, I arrived at the book exactly when I had accepted my own resistance. I believed that my anxiety served a purpose, and was reasonable. I knew that just changing my thoughts was not enough.

The story of Maria in the first section of the book demonstrates the power of reducing resistance not by convincing us we are wrong, nor by showing how our thinking is flawed, but instead by acknowledging that anxiety and depression, while painful, come from beautiful, positive, awesome aspects of the who we are.

Because of this, I committed to working through the book and I figured if I dedicate 2 hours per weekend I could complete it is 8 or 10 weeks. During that time I would keep a daily journal and spend another 20 minutes or so a day completing the exercise of recording my negative thoughts, identifying the accompanying feelings, and reframing them. All together something like 40 hours of work per week. Not too bad a commitment if it works.

Too Hard

After the first two weeks of work, I began to dread the exercises. Not that they were not working, but deconstructing the thoughts of the day was contributing to my sense of futility and just how hard it was to change my way of reacting and thinking. The more I did the work, the more it showed me how much work I had to do. Changing patterns of thinking reinforced over 60 years is, well, really hard.

Too Easy

Trintellex on the other hand, stopped my ruminations within weeks. Not entirely or permanently, but subtly and profoundly. I started taking 10 mg and within two weeks was sleeping better, and my anxiety levels began to drop. Wanda noticed within a few weeks and told me I was no longer under a cloud. At first I didn't notice any downsides. I was coping with life better, and I just seemed more able to shrug things off. "She is having a bad day," I would say or, "That is outside of my control," and so on. I had been telling myself these things for a long time, but now, the emotional catch was gone, the disbelief was gone. Practicing the strategies I had learned over the years came so much easier now and were so much more effective.

So I gave up on the Feeling Great work and coasted on Trintellix. I told myself that, "perhaps I am now functioning as most people do," and it felt good to not be triggered by events and people. If people had a different opinion from me, I didn't see it as a threat, I just thought, "hunh, we sure see things differently."

After a few months of this, however, I noticed other differences. I didn't really care about what people thought, or even what they thought of me. I would initially be upset by an insult or judgement about me, a subtle put down or advice about what I should or shouldn't do. But then I would think, "oh well, it's their opinion. They can think what they think and it doesn't effect me." I congratulated myself on finally doing what I had tried to do for so long. But then I found myself noticing that I genuinely didn't care much about well, anything! I had become very blasé about everything. I had lost interest in doing the things I loved. I waded through my days like I was leaving a flooded house. An unruffled retreat. Don't step in a hole, don't lose your footing. Steady as she goes. I didn't get upset as much as I used to, though I did still get triggered by things. I thought about dying, but not with fear or sadness, it wasn't that I wanted to die, but I didn't seem to care much if I did. I just didn't seem to have much going on in my head. I felt anxiety and anger and other emotions, but they were muted in a cottony resignation.

Worst of all, where previously I had been very sensitive to the spiritual aspects of life, now I just felt spiritually in a coma. Meaning had gone out of things, I saw the goodness in people and also the selfish manipulative ways of people, but neither the goodness nor the selfishness seemed of much significance. It was what it was. Oh well, whatever.

As this awareness has grown, I was faced with a decision,

• Go off of Trintellix and return to old anxious me, but with deep satisfaction and joy in nature and creative activities.

• Stay on Trintellix, dull and uninterested, but functioning well in work, and handling the challenges of life.

• Stay on Trintellix and try to rekindle my passions, flow, and creativity.

What I learned

That was in September, and I decided to try the last one. Three months later and I have learned a few things:

1. I didn't realize how deeply I saw things till it was taken away from me. I used to spend hours looking at bugs and flowers and trees. I used to take great pleasure in simple things like walking in a summer breeze or listening to Vivaldi. When I read a description about being on Mescalin, I had a revelation. Here is the quote from Huxley from the Doors of Perception. "This was something I had seen before - seen that very morning, between the flowers and the furniture, when I looked down by chance, and went on passionately staring by choice, at my own crossed legs. Those folds in the trousers - what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! And the texture of the gray flannel - how rich, how deeply, mysteriously sumptuous!"  It is perhaps a stretch to say that my life was like that before Trintellix, but not much of a stretch. As a person with SPS I took in a lot of information about the world around me, and felt both the wonder and horror of it. Huxley talked about seeing reality as it is. There is indeed great pleasure and joy in that, but also the flip-side.

2. The Effects of Trintellix have faded or I have been able to compensate. During my weeks off of work in the last three months I have had some of my old feelings of awe and tranquility. But the thought of returning to work has ignited a sense of taking on the difficult challenges that my work contains. I have that cottony feeling about it. I'm neither excited nor dreading it. I have instead a fragile resolve to bring my talents and best self to the challenges.

3. It might be tempting to say that work is the problem, but in fact that is not so. My work provides a lot of challenge and meaning for my life and without it I could easily slip into avoidance and isolation. I will have to face this problem eventually as I consider retirement in the next few years. Susan Cain's Quiet Life in 7 Steps was very liberating for me. One of the steps in about having projects. I will be planning projects to provide challenge and meaning both at work and afterwards.

4. Working with your thoughts is important, but only a piece of the story. This post by Dr. Kennedy points to a new idea for me, anxiety is not well treated by CBT.

After seeing this post I bought Dr. Kennedy's book. One of the most insightful contributions of Kennedy is a expansion on a quote from Gordon Neufeld, "All anxiety is separation anxiety." Kennedy suggests that anxiety is a pain from the past projected onto an imagined event in the future, and that the pain in the past is the pain of separation.

He also explains how children who are rewarded for not getting angry, or who are punished or shamed for getting angry never learn how to use the energy of anger to defend themselves and set boundaries.

"When you take a child's ability to be angry away from them" Kennedy says, "they feel helpless, move into victim mode, and progressively loose the ability to defend themselves. " This struck a cord with me. I remember that feeling of helplessness, from both being a victim, and from having my anger invalidated.

This confirms my long standing intuition that I needed to uncover and treat the source of my anxiety (childhood trauma and victim mentality), not just the result (flawed thinking). In my case the source was low level neglect from parents, harsh and insensitive teachers, and a general sense of being in a dangerous world communicated from parents who were themselves anxiety sufferers.

I believe now that a defining moment in my childhood was when my mother dragged me to school in grade 1, me crying and resisting for reasons I could not explain. Embarrassed by my fear and sensitivity, my mother lacked the knowledge or ability to offer comfort and support. I suspect she saw her own weakness and fear in me. I felt abandoned and began to believe that my survival was up to me alone. This belief was confirmed during years of schooling in which "skin-thickening" was prescribed. For grades 3 and 4 I had a teacher who left an indelible impression on me. She and her substitute teacher both showed remarkable distaste and intolerance of a sensitive boy like me, relegating me to the category of dunce and inattentive dreamer. Fortunately, I found teachers in high school and university who understood the value of a "sensitive soul."

Dr. Kennedy believes that a state of alarm often occurs when we face situations similar to the one's we initially found traumatic. For me, the school environment became associated with shame, especially the shame of failure. It has left me with a nuanced understanding of education. Parents and teachers of sensitive children must support and encourage them enough to create a sense of "not being alone" and being empowered, while at the same time not coddling them or enabling retreat and immobility.

If you are a sensitive person like me, and you had your own feeling separation from a parent, a sense of safety, or from yourself, then you will understand how important it is to identify that dynamic and begin the process of supporting and empowering your inner child, who still remains in you, traumatized and alone.

This will be part of my work in 2025. Caring for my inner child, and using techniques like those offered in the Anxiety Rx, to heal and move forward. One more crucial piece in my healing journey.

In this Post: I explain why I don't attend church, with answers to common questions on this topic, followed by a summary of my spiritual journey and an in-depth section on my current beliefs.

Are you a Christian?

I am. I was baptized and confirmed in the Anglican Church and born again at a Terry Winters Crusade a few years later, I attended Bible School and worked for over 15 years in Christian Bookstores. For the last 23 years I have worked for Island Crisis Care Society, an organization governed by and lead by Christians with a strong Christian culture.  In addition I have attended or visited many different denominations over the years including Anglican and Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Charismatic, Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and United. I attended church regularly on Sundays for many years but I stopped attending 5 years ago, except on special occasions.

Why don’t you attend Church Anymore?

I’m an introvert in a stage of life where I choose to do other things on a Sunday morning. On most Sunday mornings I’m up at 5:30 to see sunrise, take photos in the early morning light, and de-stress on a beach or in a forest. Then I return home to enjoy an unhurried time with my wife making brunch together while we listen to our favorite songs, and then eating while we listen to an audio book. These activities meet my need for solitude, contentment, connection, and a quiet life.

Common Questions

What about Hebrews 10:25 that says to not forsake meeting together?

I have 7 close friends who I spend time with. All have been church goers at one time in their life and 3 of them attend regularly still. 1 has renounced his faith, and the other 3 attend church occasionally. When we get together we talk about ideas, what we believe, world events, and our personal lives. The second half of that verse says to instead encourage one another. Do you find that I encourage or discourage you? Most people I ask say they find me to be an encourager. So, I would say I don't forsake meeting with those who encourage me, and I in return, encourage them.

What about, "Together we stand, divided we fall?"

Throughout my life I have considered and examined one challenge to my faith after another. I’ve looked at most of the fundamental doctrines about God and the human condition, and without fail I find, as the philosophers say, that “truth is in the nuance.”

Christians often deflect my deep questions with comments like, "you think too much" or "we may never know," or "the Bible says x, y, and z." Finding these answers insufficient, I am left to read and think through the challenges on my own. This has not been a bad thing, because it helped me experience how thesis and antithesis can lead to synthesist, and how many apparent contradictions are actually paradoxes, if they are considered thoughtfully enough. As a result of this, what I now believe is different from what is taught and preached in most churches I have attended. When I tell people what I believe they look concerned, or angry, or shocked. I've been told that I rely too much on reason and not enough on faith. I have been told that I have been deceived by secular forces and science. This is very sad, because integrating the truths of science with the truths of religion has been deeply meaningful to me, and I believe I have grown to have a deeper understanding of life, despite the trauma involved.

You can't learn about spiritual things with intellect alone!

I have had many hours of listening to sermons and sharing in conversations at Bible studies. I have also practiced a variety of spiritual practices to have spiritual experiences in a non-intellectual way. Practices like group singing and group prayer do not have significant effects on my mental health, charitable work, or sense of community. I also have not found labyrinth walking or tai chi to effect me like they do others. I affirm the idea that rituals and rites can "get through" intellectual barriers and have an impact, but the only rituals I continue to practice are the Welcoming Prayer, meditation, and prayer with beads.

What about worship?

I worship best in silence and solitude. I often go to a forest and sit is silence opening my mind and heart to God. I have had experiences similar to "the still small voice" while doing this. As mentioned above, "meeting for worship" does not appeal to my introverted soul and most churches do not focus on quietude, contemplation, or group meditation. In my experience evangelical church worship involves a "worship leader" who guides a chant-like session of singing and prayer. In mainline, Anglican, and Catholic churches liturgical readings, hymns, and prayers serve a similar role. In both traditions there is a sermon, homily or similar time for a message or presentation. Churches also like to get people together for large group social events and activities. I am not at all critical of any of these practices and have had moments of insight, impact, and being moved at such events. If you find these practices to be meaningful or to give you a sense of community, or if they make you feel closer to God, that is great. Even if you don't experience that but feel you are being obedient and attempting to give praise and express gratitude to God, then that is all very positive and good. For me, silence and solitude are the best.

In terms of the importance of worship in the grand scheme of things, a touchstone for me is Micah 6:8, “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

What about loving and serving others?

Learning to love others is a lifelong effort for me, because I am easily hurt and triggered by people's harsh words, selfish behavior, psychological manipulation, and judgement. I accept the argument that community is a good place to practice loving kindness, and can see that church could fill this role. I think I get plenty of practice managing my reactions and maintaining positive regard to people in my work, family, and neighborhood. Church or other groups might become an option if I were becoming too retiring or reclusive. That is not the case, however, I remain very engaged with work, my strata, friends, and family.

What about rights of passage, marriage, funerals, etc.?

These are important cultural practices that were the cement of community for thousands of years. This is no longer the case for most people. When I married Wanda, we hired an officiant who crafted a deeply meaningful ceremony to which we invited close family and friends. The people who attended were from a variety of backgrounds, faiths, and non-faith perspectives. The ceremony was not very traditional but tailored to our relationship and values. If you prefer your local pastor and church, great, I fully support and affirm that.

What about the United Church, the last place you attended regularly?

I shared a time with the authentic, warm, and thoughtful people there, doing good things together. Nothing to criticize or complain about. However, ultimately, I’m not a United Church person, and am focusing my spiritual life more around quiet practices that sustain and support my goals and priorities.

Isn’t it arrogant to suggest you don’t need to attend church?

Church feels a little threatening to me. I don’t feel at home. I don’t want to be there, and I haven’t for years. It taxes my sensitive nervous system and I generally feel stressed after attending. For years I went out of a sense of duty and a belief that it was “the right thing to do.”

Instead of celebrating my quiet open curiosity, my sensitivity and intelligence, I more often hear at church that I need to do more, think less, and be different. Be-ing is what I’m all about now, and that starts with being myself - spectacularly introverted and authentic me.

With regard to arrogance, most Christians believe they have THE truth, as in “the way, the truth, and the life.” That is one of the foundational assumptions I examined and let go of, so I really can’t affirm that in the way most people mean it.

Wait, you don’t think Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life?

I wrestled with that one for years. The way I see it Jesus was identifying himself with the way the truth and the life. He was saying, “no one comes to the Father except by the way the truth and the life, and you can understand what that is by looking at me.” So, I follow Jesus to the best of my ability. The Jesus way is a profoundly good way to live and serve the world.

Is there any kind of Church that would make you reconsider?

For many years I thought an Integral church would work for me. See Reverent Irreverence by Tom Thresher, or Integral Christianity by Paul R. Smith. But there are no churches like this nearby for me to visit. Even if there were, I have enjoyed the freedom to study and grow on my own and the thought of attending services again, no matter how similar to my belief system, just isn’t very enticing.

The introverted aspect of my personality is very prominent. I have found real healing and insight in Stoicism, Buddhism, and Quakerism. These traditions are full of practices that resonate for an introvert. Things like philosophical inquiry, meditation, contemplation, sitting in silence, silent retreats, time in nature, peaceful resistance of evil, and quiet care of others. If a group focused on these things, I might consider joining in.

My Journey

To understand my journey through life as a Christian I created a summary of my church involvements, biggest challenges, and biggest experiences from birth to age 63. Below that is a detailed explanation of what I believe as of this writing. 

What I believe now

I affirm my Anglican heritage and my decision to be confirmed into the faith, and I equally affirm my decision to accept Jesus into my heart as my personal savior. These two experiences were formative in my growth as a Christian. My subsequent education at Bible School and leading Bible studies gave me a good understanding of the Bible and Christian theology. I was class president at Bible School and have taken a variety of leaderships roles in Christian groups over the years.

Challenges

Challenges to my faith helped me develop different ways of looking at the spiritual life. These challenges included:

Biblical Criticism – internal inconsistencies and extraordinary claims made by the Bible led me to conclude that the collection of documents we call the Bible is the product of human experience and thought, as well as revelation. A simplistic “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” approach is disrespectful of the Bible itself which contains many levels of meaning for an open-minded reader.

The Soul – My bachelor’s degree in psychology exposed me to the biology of the brain, and the dilemma that has dogged generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, and psychiatrists attempting to understand the “certain something” that sets humans apart from other animals. Dualism (spirit and body are different in essence) and Physicalism (the physical world is all there is) were both insufficient explanations for me. The elements we call spirit, soul, mind, consciousness and so on have been the concern of our ancestors, going back at least 4 thousand years. How the brain functions is still not fully understood and an emergent view of consciousness is still my go-to explanation, while I also acknowledge the possibility that consciousness is primary, as proposed in Panpsychism and other theories of mind such as Integrated Information Theory. See Science is shattering our intuition about consciousness.

Evolution - The evidence for evolution is deep and extensive yet most evangelical and conservative Christians doubt or deny evolution. I spent years reading Christian attempts to counter the different kinds of evidence for evolution and in the end concluded that not only is it impossible to explain away or ignore evolution, it is vitally important to incorporate it as a part of our understanding of the meaning and purpose of human being. The fact that we have evolved suggests that we can evolve further.

My view is that during their development as a species humans succeeded at survival through a high degree of intelligence, social interdependence, dexterity, and emotional regulation. They achieved this because of high protein and high fat food sources and body structures that allowed for a large brain and the making of tools, technology, and culture. Religion is one of the mechanisms that helped create ingroup cohesion and make sense of the loss of loved ones and the general suffering and strife of life.

Nature - Anyone who looks at the many dangers present in nature, from parasitic worms to predator dominance, to the variety of procreation strategies that include wasps who lay eggs in living caterpillars to have their magots eat the caterpillars alive, can not easily dismiss what this says about the universe. God does not seem to see this as an issue. Life eats life and pain and suffering are everywhere, and this state has existed for millions of years.

Descartes Midlife Project – The philosopher best know for seeking certainty using doubt has been an inspiration for me as I consider all the truth claims made by so many.  In an attempt to avoid deception, including self deception, I have thoughtfully examined my beliefs one by one. This is hard work, as anyone who has attempted it can attest, because it leads to further questions and pretty soon you are in the world of complexity and nuance. Most Christians, believing they have The Truth, don’t attempt this. In this regard church is, I’m sad to say, an echo chamber for a certain spiritual perspective.  Polarized media ecosystems have amplified the echo chamber to the level of tribalism, creating feedback loops that reinforce ideological divisions. People are drawn to groups where their beliefs are validated, often rejecting information that challenges their worldview. I understand that this is a human tendency, and that it reinforces a group’s identity, but I try as much as possible to embrace “idea labs” instead. These are where people can discuss ideas and claims to truth that seem contrary to what we know as true. Many idea labs, however, are crass, rough, or competitive, so again I find myself pursuing the project on my own.

A Quiet Life

My focus now is on avoiding self-deception, achieving better alignment with reality, enjoying being present for beauty and truth, and crafting a quiet life as described by Susan Cain in her audio book “A Quiet Life in 7 Steps.” I regularly listen for errors in my own thinking and join with others on the pat to "learned ignorance," in the tradition of Nicolas of Cusa.

I see myself as having more or less reached the yellow stage of Spiral Dynamics, able to shift from perspective to perspective and am eager to gain new perspectives to broaden my range of “seeing”.

The Bible

I accept Jordan Peterson’s affirmation that the Bible is a significant and fundamental core document in the “western canon.” He sees it as a profound repository of archetypal stories that can guide human thought, morality, and societal structure and views the Bible as a "meta-story" by which he means a sequence of interconnected narratives that articulate the deepest principles guiding human optimization and meaning.

I share this general view but also recognize that the misinterpretation of the Bible has led to various forms of fundamentalism, extremism, and legalism that are dangerous to human thriving. It is these elements in Evangelical theology that caused me the most grief and suffering throughout my life.

Jesus

I follow Jesus to the best of my ability. I have not found anyone else historically or alive today with as profound a challenge to, or solution for, human evil. I believe, as René Girard outlined, that memetic desire is the main aspect of human disfunction that Jesus addressed. The parables and beatitudes reveal a way to counteract this tendency through a process of dying to self, practiced humility, and radical love for others. Jesus's death and resurrection show that the scapegoat mechanism and sacrificial redemption are not long term solutions to the problem of human sin. I believe people do, as Jesus said, need to be reborn and take on the Mind of Christ. That birth is into a new moral framework in which the spirit of the law takes priority over the letter of the law and the temptations of power and control are resisted. The mind of Christ is one illuminated by a radical submission to God, daily "letting go of desires and expectations" and aligning with one's unique calling. As Carl Jung outlined and as I have paraphrased, the spiritual life happens in two parts - the first half of life is about becoming a someone, and the second half of life is about becoming no-one. Jesus remains a role model for this process, and the Holy Spirit is that which inspires and sustains us in that journey, first to self, and then to selflessness. Two great books on how to live this way are, "Love Your Enemies" by Arthur C. Brooks, and Jesus' Alternative Plan by Richard Rohr.

The Buddha

I am not as familiar with the Buddha as I am with Jesus, but have a rudimentary understanding of his life and teachings. His assessment of the source of our suffering is a compliment to Christian teaching. The concept of dukkha, the four noble truths, and the eightfold path, are practical and helpful for spiritual growth. The idea that suffering can be eliminated by overcoming craving and attachment is challenging and thought provoking and I am working to integrate it into my thinking and practice.

More on Consciousness

Our large and technology-adapted brains give rise to, or allows expression of, consciousness which is like a meta level of software running o alongside lower brain functions. With this “highly developed awareness” we are able to consider our actions and act with some degree of free will, despite much that is determined by genetics, bodily drives and functions, and other sub-conscious motivators. I consider terms like soul, spirit, and mind, as essentially describing one phenomenon, namely that a human’s cognitive and emotional presence is larger, different, or more important than her biology alone would suggest.

I affirm the possibility that this “larger than biology” sense of a person and each person’s genetic and developmental uniqueness could be “remembered” by God after we die and that there could be some future state in which we are “resurrected” into some form of community.

I don’t, however, believe in heaven and hell as popularly understood and don’t believe a coherent narrative about the afterlife can be pieced together from scripture. See my extensive research here. I hold open the possibility that there are layers of existence we are not aware of, and that these may occasionally interact with the layers of existence we do perceive. We evolved in a specific set of circumstances that gave rise to sensory organs adapted to those circumstances, but this doesn’t mean that there are not realities beyond our ability to detect.

For example, most stories of angels, life after death, aliens, and so on, are real experiences filtered through our cultural narratives. What the actual reality is behind them, I do not yet know, but of course I am very curious about them. They could be mere cultural framing, or they could be experiences outside of our descriptive ability.

I share Nicholas of Cusa’s interest in the unity of being and how it relates to God. Today we might describe this unity as a “theory of everything,” but not just everything in the known physical universe, but everything both material, emergent, and “hidden” from our regular senses. I share the Cardinal’s conception of docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"). Learned ignorance results in a kind of awe or reverence, what he called worship, which can only come once we acknowledge our limitations and work to see beyond the explanations we grew up with. He explored this in his Dialogus de deo abscondito (English Translation: A dialogue about a God who is hidden). If we are to grasp something of God and the unity of being, we must use something better than our current doctrines, types of reasoning, and ancient intuitions and we must have a deep humility about the process.

Instead of embracing ignorance and pursuing a better understanding of things, I see many Christians retreating into tribalism. This phenomenon is clearly outlined in a recent Lex Fridman interview with Tim Urban.

I resist the retreat response and am trying to move to a better “acceptance of what is.”  This is, for sure, a difficult and painful task and I know that I will fail in my attempt to maintain a true view of what is.

Trauma

John Vervaeke and Jordan Peterson in the podcast episode called, “The Rebirth of the Sacred,”  talk about the deep trauma that can occur when we examine a core belief and find it untenable. Jordan quotes Ronnie Janoff-Bulman as saying that trauma is the result of shattered assumptions.

According to Janoff-Bulman, trauma occurs when individuals’ fundamental assumptions about the world and themselves are shattered. These “inherent assumptions,” provide a sense of safety and security, allowing people to navigate their daily lives. Janoff-Bulman, says there are three primary assumptions that can be shattered:

1. Overall Benevolence of the World - The assumption that the world is a benevolent and just place.

2. Meaningfulness of the World - The assumption that the world has inherent meaning and purpose.

3. Self-Worth - The assumption that one is worthy and valuable as a person.

When these assumptions are disrupted or shattered, we experience a profound sense of vulnerability, leading to feelings of terror, anxiety, and disorientation. Janoff-Bulman’s theory suggests that trauma symptoms like those as I have experienced much of my life, are a result of this disruption and the subsequent struggle to rebuild a more accurate world view.

In this view trauma is not just a response to a specific event, but rather a consequence of the catastrophic failure of one’s fundamental assumptions about reality. This perspective highlights the importance of understanding the psychological and emotional impact of traumatic events on individuals, rather than solely focusing on the event itself.

Having been raised in a Christian culture where God was in charge and gave meaning to our lives through following Jesus, and where the affirmation that we are made in God’s image and forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus provided a sense of safety and security, the challenges I have outlined above reveal that as I failed to find adequate defense of these beliefs, and therefore the vulnerability of existence caused deep anxiety and confusion.

Once your assumptions are disrupted, it is very difficult to attend a gathering of people who affirm those assumptions. In fact, the assumptions that Janoff-Bulman highlights can be reframed as: "The world in not safe, meaning isn't guaranteed, and an individual's worth is a measure within human culture. Pondering these framings provides great insight, like koans or parables do. How many Christians are able to even consider them?

For me, the world is dangerous and unjust, but safety and justice can be created. There is no meaning or purpose in our static existence, but we can find meaning and purpose as we engage with reality and develop as individuals. Worth allows us to measure and judge others and therefore must be resisted as a concept. Think of phrases like, "His net worth is sufficient, that criminal is not worth rescuing, she has worth because she is a mother." They are judgements about value to someone else or a group of people. We all want to be respected, but the concept of worth is imbedded in respect. Am I worthy of respect? Respectability is payment. We pay someone respect. We have do some work to get paid. The commerce of shame and honor support systems of culture and commerce. I am still wrestling with this because shame and guilt are key elements of society, motivating people to behave well. Taboos, traditions, rituals, narratives, ideals, ideas, memes, and many other mechanism do the same.

Jesus listed a strange set of qualities that result in blessings: poverty, hunger, meekness, mourning and weeping, mercy, a pure heart, peacemaking, receiving insults, being hated, being excluded, being rejected. Why these qualities? Generally they are the opposite of what culture says is good. They are vulnerable and lowly states. Not at all like what is touted as good now, strength, power, toughness, and so on. Most people think they want freedom from these states. They want to be rich, satisfied, confident, happy, righteous, bad asses who are looked up to and part of the "in group."

In contrast to this, followers of Jesus should be finding ways to love their enemies, bless the people who bad mouth them, do good to those who hate them, and pray for those who despise and persecute them. Nothing I know of is more challenging to do than these things. I'm definitely not there yet but see how counter-cultural it is to try to do these things. It is radical peacemaking, a topic seldom touched on at church.

With the limited time I have left in my life, I will spend it trusting the beauty, looking for the truth, and trying to love and live as Jesus said to.

Last Updated: 07 May 2024

Background

I've had anxiety and depression for over 50 years. For around 30 of those years it was debilitating. I found this frustrating and puzzling and at time I experienced strong feelings of anger and despair.

In my 20s and 30s I followed medical advice that centered around exercise and medication and I also followed the advice of my spiritual teachers and friends. I found beta blockers helped with my heart palpitations, but did not find Atavan (a benzodiazepine) to have much effect at all. Likewise I did not receive much help from traditional healing practices such as petitionary prayer, anointing with oil, laying on of hands, the rosary, breathwork, or therapeutic touch. I tried them all.

Beginning in 2007 I started on a new path. When my father died that year, I went to see a psychiatrist for the first time. He was an older man who was seeing me on his last day before retiring and he seemed particularly thoughtful and present. He gave me advice that turned out to be the most helpful I received. He told me that for my particular presentation, he would recommend something he didn't recommend often, depth psychology. I had studied Freud, Jung and Adler and while interesting, I didn't think there was much scientific evidence that their therapies worked any better than talking over the fence to a neighbor. So I did not take his advice. Instead I avoided my anxiety by immersing myself in a large project. I launched my 100 lakes project, and began to follow my intuition about what was healing and what was not. While the project was important for my grieving process, and gave me a creative outlet, I eventually return to my search for a solution. My new psychiatrist recommended schema therapy, which in 2013 proved to be very helpful.

The success of schema therapy was, unfortunately, limited, because it did not address the basic core of my anxiety, which for me is a fear of the loss of meaning and purpose. That was what the 100 lakes project had provided.

My goal since 2014 has been to integrate the practices that work best to support a resilient mind; one that remains in a state of low agitation even as the turbulent flow of life surrounds me. This stronghold home-base, this calm aliveness, is a place to return to and rest in as needed. The idea is to practice the state I most want to be in most of the time, so that I can engage in the difficult and challenging things of life, which also tend to be the most meaningful.

Below is my ongoing list. I've tried to arrange these from most effective to least effective.

Technique: Welcoming Prayer
Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: One of the clever paradoxical disciplines that confronts the subconscious with my deepest fears and releases some of the power those fears have over me. It more reliably and consistently calms my nervous system than mindfulness or meditation. 1st blog post about my experience with it

Comments: This almost unheard of gem of a practice is my number 1 recommendation for helping bring wants, needs and desires into consciousness. It is at core a technique for letting go of desires by welcoming them. I use it most at night when I am ruminating about the day and can't sleep. It works particularly well for that.

Technique: Heaven and Hell Lists, and the Reverse Bucket List
Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: This is a practice I started a couple of years ago that lines up with the welcoming prayer. The idea is to imagine the worst case future you want to avoid, and the best case future you want to reach. Then you create two lists. The heaven list is the future you want, and the hell list is the future you want to avoid. The twist is that the heaven list is not just a list of things or experiences like a traditional bucket list, but instead is a list of the things that will give a sense of purpose and meaning, and that align with your values.

Comments: This practice is based in Jordan Peterson's Self Authoring program, and Arthur Brooks' idea of a reverse bucket list. Brooks asks "Would those things I crave actually bring me closer to my vision of the good life?" Brooks says the future state you imagine should be one that lines up with your values and gives you a sense of psychological peace. Lastly, he talks about the importance of simplifying and taking away things from your life, rather than adding things or experiences. This is paradoxical, and is a good complement to the Welcoming Prayer, which helps clarify what your desires are to assist with letting go of them. Once you are not run by your desires, you can focus on what will truly give a sense of satisfaction for a life well lived.

Technique: The 4 Ways of Being
Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: Clearly shows that living with the "victim voice" keeps you trapped below "the line" and shows that perceived threat is driving thinking and behavior. The transition to a "by me" and "through me" perspective is a move towards that state of tranquility in which threats and the judgements of others are seen as those people's own states, and not necessarily anything true about you.

Comments: When I catch myself in the "to me" mindset I remind myself that it is a limiting perspective robbing me of agency and freedom. I look for what is going on in the other person that is making them defensive or aggressive, believing that most people are aggressive or defensive when they feel threatened. The exception to this is people on the narcissistic-sociopath-psychopath spectrum. With them I shift my persona and raise my boundaries.

Technique: Forest Bathing
Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: A combination of exercise, escape, quiet, fresh air, natural cannabinoids, and visually calming patterns works to create a strong reduction in anxiety. A very well known and overused term, it nevertheless is effective.

Comments: Part of my regular health routine, time in forests has a noticeable calming effect for me. This is one of the longest forms of therapy I have used, stretching back to my childhood when I would spend many hours alone in nature. While it can be a form of avoidance, it can also be the treat or reward you give yourself for getting through the week. It is a restorative part of my recovery model.

Technique: Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) Exercises
Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: According to TMS theory, the primary cause of chronic pain is not structural abnormalities in the body (such as herniated discs or degenerated joints) but rather repressed emotions (particularly rage) and psychological stress. Dr. Sarno proposed that the brain creates pain either as a distraction mechanism to divert attention away from unconscious, overwhelming emotions, or as a strategy to get our attention that something is really bothering us, but that we are not aware of it.

Comments: By practicing TMS exercises I was able to end back pain for many years. It has re-occurred many times, most recently last week! By returning to the exercises, I am able to relieve most of the pain. The exercises involve self-talk and journaling. The self-talk is to remind ourselves that the pain is in the brain, rather than the body (assuming physical damage or illness has been ruled out). The journaling is a process of uncovering what we are repressing. What I like about this practice is that it is a way to become aware of the inner responses that are causing pain, rather than outer impacts. Our pain, both mental and physical, is a response from our body (see Van der Kolk and Mate) and not some weakness in our thinking or lack of courage.

Technique: Medication

Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: Beta blockers helped my racing and irregular heart beats, which in turn calmed my anxieties about the symptoms. Trintellix has significantly reduced ruminations and sensing threats in social situations.

Comments: Some medication was ineffective for me, including Lorazepam (Ativan) which seemed to have no noticeable effect. Trintellix, while effective, also seems to dull my ability to experience wonder, fascination, and joy. While effective, medication has lots of problems and many people (Pearson – Anxiety) recommend avoiding it.

Technique: Internal Family Systems Theory
Effectiveness (1-5): 5
Why or why not: IFS has not been significantly effective at reducing immediate experiences of anxiety, but it has been an important addition to my practices because it lines up very well with TMS. In TMS the source of the pain is seen to be repressed anger or rage. In IFS the source of the pain is a variety of emotions and experiences carried by different parts of our overall person. These parts can be communicated with and long-standing impasses can be overcome through a friendly and confident building of the internal family.

Comments: In a recent bout of pain brought on by medication, I realized I had not been doing any TMS or IFS work, so turned inward to uncover what the cause of the current pain was. I discovered first a protector named avoidance, and then a protector named anxiety, before uncovering an exile named Roar. Roar emerged from a dark hole like a strange hulk figure, knocking several smaller parts over that were watching it down the hole. It had a large head with several smaller heads and I immediately knew this was the repressed rage. I knew it was an exile because it said "roar" instead of making a roar. My job now is to work with Avoidance and Anxiety to get to know Roar and see how to befriend and integrate it better into the internal family.

Technique: Flow States (writing, paddling, photography)
Effectiveness (1-5): 4
Why or why not: The flow state itself seems to balance the nervous system by taking me out of rumination and threat response. The most reliable generator of a sense of integration and clarity of mind.

Comments: Another effective strategy that crosses over into nature therapy for me. Creative writing and listening for inspiration can be a form of medication.

Technique: Meta Cognitive Therapy
Effectiveness (1-5): 4
Why or why not: By developing metacognitive awareness, that is, awareness of the patterns of your thinking, you can learn to disengage from unproductive rumination and shift towards more adaptive cognitive strategies. In particular it is helpful to see that rumination is only helpful for short periods. Continuing to think about an event or perception without seeking more information only leads to story making and reinforces the threat response. It is better to limit rumination to set times.

Comments: One of the most dramatic therapies I have tried. It brought about a significant reduction in symptoms within days. Many people find this therapy to be sufficient and consider it to be a "cure" for anxiety and depression. Unfortunately, I was not able to maintain the practice without the help of medication. With both medication and MCT I can live almost anxiety and depression free.

Technique: Hawthorn Supplements
Effectiveness (1-5): 4
Why or why not: Remarkably, this simple remedy of three capsules of hawthorn per day has powerfully regulated my heart and strengthened it.

Comments: At times I have stopped taking the supplements, but generally have found that I experience more arrhythmia over a period of several weeks.

Technique: Mind Body Code

Effectiveness (1-5): 4
Why or why not: Mario Martinez's work on the connection between our mind and body, and how they influence each other. According to Martinez, emotions and cultural factors can affect the body's cellular structure and function, contributing to both health and illness. The Mind-Body Code encourages individuals to explore and transform limiting cultural and personal beliefs that may be impacting their well-being.

Comments: Different than positive thinking, the Mind Body Code is more about using psychological knowledge to resist the messages that culture, family, and advertisers are giving us that are not helpful. I found Dr. Martinez's teachings to remind me to notice and reject messages that are either not true or are harmful. The challenge is to create healthy beliefs based in facts.

Technique: Walking
Effectiveness (1-5): 4
Why or why not: The number one exercise for losing belly fat.

Comments: Walking has always been an effective way to reduce anxiety. It has something to do with the rhythm of the walking as well as the gentle increase in heart rate. It seems to be less triggering of heart arrhythmia than running or other exercises.

Technique: Deconstructing Anxiety
Effectiveness (1-5): 4
Why or why not: Fear distorts our perception of reality and truth. Deconstructing Anxiety is a procedure to discover our core fear and chief defense. Then we can do the opposite of our chief defense and become better aligned with reality and our true self. Most of the time we push away what we don't want or don't like. But instead of freeing ourselves from fear, this pushing away leads to a life of defense and avoidance.

Comments: The key message is that identifying resistance as the source of suffering unlocks a series of responses that can change your perception of reality and how you respond to it. The goal is to let go of both our core fear and our chief defense and instead accept what is, and navigate accordingly.

Technique: Sleep
Effectiveness (1-5): 3
Why or why not: Getting sufficient sleep is vital to coping with anxiety and stress, and unfortunately is often reduced when anxious.

Comments: Sleep can be an avoidance strategy, especially in depression.

Technique: Schema Therapy
Effectiveness (1-5): 3
Why or why not: Maps out the common schemas and how to counteract their hold on the mind through challenging their reality and looking at facts. For me, the defectiveness schema responded to this approach. This was a powerful lesson in the value of questioning my internal narrative, informed as it usually is by the negativity bias. Unfortunately this method tends to address errors in thinking with more thinking, or with attempts to change thinking by thinking differently. It reinforces the very behaviour that is causing us problems.

Comments: I practiced this therapy intensively twice, once with success and once without success. It does not easily allow for honest negative appraisals, which can be healthy and valid. The strength of the therapy is to show that once established, we use the confirmation bias to continually reinforce a limiting, inaccurate, or unbalanced belief.

Technique: Vision and Purpose Statements
Effectiveness (1-5): 3
Why or why not: A weekend retreat helped me understand how the vision and purpose statements were best constructed to provide real motivation. I memorized them to recite to myself whenever I'm tempted to try to be something that is not true to who I am.

Comments: I first did this workshop in 2004 and found it helped immediately with anxiety. The effect is small but consistent. The woman who pioneered the process has retired and now the only similar program available is for women, but I believe the strategy is helpful for everyone.

Technique: Mindfulness
Effectiveness (1-5): 2
Why or why not: Various techniques for placing attention on the body or environment. The idea is to move attention away from the content of our thoughts onto simple sensations, and to help us "be" more in our body. While hugely popular after Jon Kabat-Zinn translated the practice for western consumers, I have never found it to provide much relief.

Comments: I took 12 weeks of training in various mindfulness meditation techniques and found yoga and Qigong to be most helpful, but compared to other techniques, they did not appeal to me.

Technique: Labyrinths
Effectiveness (1-5): 2
Why or why not: A form of mindfulness in which a pattern on the floor or ground is followed with something similar to walking meditation. Paying attention to the feelings as we move through the labyrinth. Helpful as a spiritual discipline to shift our way of seeing things as a series of choices, to seeing a larger path, it nevertheless was not very effective at reduction of anxiety or depression, for me.

Comments: Labyrinths, unlike mazes, do not have wrong turns, but they do have unexpected turns. Part of the effect is that they show that events have a beginning and an end, and our experience of any sequence of events is often that of not having a lot of choice, so we might as well enjoy the process.

Technique: Therapeutic Touch
Effectiveness (1-5): 2
Why or why not: Therapeutic Touch (TT) is a complementary therapy that involves practitioners using their hands to supposedly influence, direct, or manipulate the energy field around a person's body. Practitioners typically move their hands in sweeping motions above the body without direct physical contact. TT is used in various healthcare settings for relaxation and stress reduction, and for physical healing.

Comments: I have had some positive experiences with TT but overall find it to be problematic because I don't find a lot of scientific support for it. It is likely that the placebo effect is a significant part of its effectiveness.

Technique: Eating and Diet
Effectiveness (1-5): 2
Why or why not: Reducing caffeine had a big effect early in my recovery journey. I found that the caffeine in tea did not affect me in the same way as coffee and I drink a lot of tea now without noticeable effect. Meals that fit the Zone diet, the Keto diet, and the Carnivore diet reduce anxiety and improve cognitive functioning.

Comments: Eating as self-soothing has short-term but generally unhelpful effects. Ketogenic diets have been used to treat mental health disorders with great success.

Technique: Exercise
Effectiveness (1-5): 2
Why or why not: Burning off adrenaline and producing a feeling of calm can both be beneficial results. Self-esteem can be given a boost as well, due to the development of resiliency and a stronger physique. Strength has a known association with general health and is a predictor of longevity.

Comments: Exercise can become a form of dependency, and can be a symptom of "running away from our problems." I found strenuous exercise exacerbated my heart palpitations and so I focused on walking and similar activities instead. Slow and steady walking without heavy breathing has a rhythm that stabilizes heart rates and increases an overall state of calm.

Technique: Inter-muscular stimulation
Effectiveness (1-5): 1
Why or why not: Intramuscular stimulation (IMS) is a technique that physiotherapists use to release or lengthen muscles that may be causing chronic musculoskeletal or neuropathic pain. Very fine needles (similar ones to those used in acupuncture) are inserted directly into the affected muscle, in order to stimulate healing. This is also often referred to as “dry needling.”

Comments: I received a series of these treatments over several months and obtained relief that lasted from days to weeks. The underlying cause of the pain, in my case, was neurological in nature. All pain is a response in the brain and other neural tissue to signals received from parts of the body that have been injured, and the signals can get confused with other signals. The solution for me was treatment for TMS (see above).

Technique: Watch the Breath Meditation
Effectiveness (1-5): 1
Why or why not: "Pranayama" involves conscious regulation of breath and is mentioned in texts like the Upanishads, which date back over 2,000 years. Similarly, early Buddhist teachings, particularly in the Theravada tradition, emphasize mindfulness of breath as a foundational meditation practice. The "Anapanasati Sutta," a discourse attributed to the Buddha, provides detailed instructions on mindfulness of breath. Ancient Daoist traditions also incorporated breath awareness in their meditation practices. The Daoist concept of "Daoist breathing" or "Daoist breath control" involves mindful attention to the breath to cultivate vital energy (qi).

Comments: I found breath meditation to be of limited help and initially I found that it increased my physiological symptoms, especially heart palpitations. I eventually was able to incorporate it into my practice after someone encouraged me to watch a baby breathe when they are sleeping. I noticed that the breathers were relatively shallow, but from the belly. It turned out I was breathing in too deeply and that was triggering my palpitations. This may be particularly ineffective because of my lung disease. As a meditation tool, however, this practice is useful, just not for the reduction of anxiety and depression.

Technique: Breathwork
Effectiveness (1-5): 1
Why or why not: Controlling the breath through a variety of techniques including "box breathing" and the 4-7-8 technique taught by Dr. Weil.

Comments: While this is an effective anti-anxiety technique, it does not work when you are highly anxious and instead can make the feeling of being light-headed worse.

Technique: Distraction
Effectiveness (1-5): 1
Why or why not: Entertainment, activity, social interaction, eating, and a host of other activities that are pleasurable and take our mind off our troubles for a period of time. Easy to practice and relatively effective for minor bouts of rumination and anxiety, but it does not address underlying issues and does not work very well for those who like to process deeply.

Comments: Despite this being seen by some as an un-healthy response, I instead see it as a technique that has its place, as long as it is not overused. In the long run, it is more of a coping technique than a treatment option for introverts. On the other hand, I know some people who use distraction as their number 1 strategy with great success. These tend to be extroverts and proactive people who like to be constantly stimulated and busy.

Technique: Traditional Prayer
Effectiveness (1-5): 1
Why or why not: This large category of practices includes supplication, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, mantras, prayer beads and rosaries.

Comments: I find prayer to be slightly effective in reducing anxiety in group settings, especially when the process has a ritualistic or chanting style. I like using beads, and know that many find bead prayers to be healing, they just have not been for me.

The function of the Welcoming Prayer is to bring situations, thoughts, and feelings into awareness and welcome them so that we can see the desires, needs, and fears underneath them. It is a welcoming of all reality, but especially the circumstances that are causing us the most troubles.

Background

Mary Mrozowski created the welcoming prayer as a companion to the Centering Prayer while she was one of Contemplative Outreach’s master teachers. Contemplative Outreach is a network of groups and people who carry forward the work of Father Thomas Keating and his vision for recovering the contemplative tradition in Christianity.

The contemplative tradition extends back to the meditation practices of the Carmelites and shows the contribution of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. The Carmelite tradition itself stretches back to 1220 when Latin hermits were know to reside on Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel itself has been considered a sacred place by Christians and Jews back at least to the time when Elisha served the kings of Judah from 892 until 832 BC, as an advisor. Prior to this Elisha had spent time on Mount Carmel, likely as part of a spiritual tradition. Some Egyptologists believe that Carmel was on a list of Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III as a holy headland in the Canaanite territories, indicating that it was considered a sacred site since at least the 15th century BCE. Indeed Neanderthalic evidence reveals that Carmel has been continuously inhabited for 350,000 years.

As one of the “high places” where people sought God, Carmel symbolizes a tradition of monastic and pre-monastic spirituality that is deeply embedded in the human story.

While Fr. Keating was one of the principal architects and teachers of the Christian contemplative prayer movement, and while Contemplative Outreach is a manifestation of his work to restore the contemplative tradition, his inspiration was not the only one for Mary Mrozowski. She acknowledged the influence of the eighteenth-century work Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade on her creation of the Welcoming Prayer, with it’s core theme of letting go and opening to the action of God within one’s life.

De Caussade emphasized the idea of surrendering to the divine will and accepting whatever happens as an opportunity to find our place in God’s plan. To De Caussade, finding our place involves trusting that God’s plan is unfolding in every moment, even if it may not align with our personal desires or expectations. If we want to live fully in the present moment aligned to God’s purpose, we must accept what is and let go of our desires in surrender to this higher plan.

It seems likely that this emphasis on acceptance and surrender was the catalysts to Mrozowski’s inspiration for the prayer. While much of De Caussade’s book presents fairly standard Christian spiritual guidance, this emphasis on letting go of our own plans is slightly different, both for De Caussade and for Mrozowski. Rather than focusing on some future paradise, the return of Jesus, or a reward after death, this spirituality involves a deliberate self-talk to relinquish control and let go of desires. This bears some resemblance to the idea in Christian spirituality of detachment from worldly objects and concerns, often referred to by the Greek term apatheia. But even this connection seems less coherent. Instead I suspect that Mrozowski and Keating were influenced to some degree by the monastic traditions of other religions in which non-attachment, or detachment are more specifically recommended. Non-attachment is a state in which a person overcomes their emotional attachment to or desire for things, people, or worldly concerns and thus attains a heightened perspective. It is considered a virtue and is promoted in Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, and Buddhism. If Keating and Mrozowski were not influenced by these other traditions, then it provides evidence for a continuity of knowledge derived from contemplative traditions.

The idea of welcoming unpleasant feelings, thoughts, people, circumstances, and conditions and letting go of our desires for basic things like survival seems almost dangerous. Initially I wondered if this was a hold over of the flagellations and abuse of the body practiced as a part of the mediaeval theology that the body must be denied because it was part of the fallen state, it was the source or temptation and vice. Or perhaps a less severe practice of following Jesus’s ethic of giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and considering the lilies of the field instead.

It is likely that both of these influences are present, but reinterpreted through a psychological lens.

The True and False Self

We know from Cynthia Bourgeault (in an interview with Tami Simon for Insights at the Edge) that Mary Mrozowski said to use “everything that came on her plate as an opportunity to send the false self a strong message, that these needs, which lead us around in our life like a chain in our nose, are not really compatible with human freedom.”

Thomas Keating said the welcoming prayer names the energy centers’ that run the false self-system, the desires for power, control, affection, esteem, approval, pleasure, survival, security.

So what is this false self and true self dichotomy?

False Self

The false self typically refers to the constructed identity formed by external influences, societal expectations, and personal experiences. It involves the ego’s development to meet perceived needs for survival, acceptance, and success. It includes the schemas or belief systems that protected us or that made things clear at some point in our life.

• Characteristics: The false self is often characterized by attachment to material concerns, desires for approval, societal validation, and the pursuit of external goals. It is driven by fears, insecurities, and the need for control in the face of a seemingly chaotic and threatening environment.

True Self

The true self is considered the authentic core of an individual, transcending the ego and societal conditioning. It’s often associated with a deeper, more universal aspect of consciousness or divine connection. In some ways the true self is the un-masked authentic self, but in others it is the self beyond the individual, the collective self of the species or planet or universe.

Characteristics: The true self is said to be the source of inner peace, compassion, authenticity, and a sense of interconnectedness with others and the universe.

I think the true self, false self dualism is a simplified form of more complex theories, all lacking tangible connection to physiological correlates. The Wikipedia page outlines some of these theories.

Of particular interest to me is the intuitive grasp of important truths in this dualism. Mary Mrozowski recognized some truth in the paradox of welcoming reality through a contemplative mechanism. The prayer she created contains it’s own validation in the experience of practicing it. The more I say the prayer, the more I ponder it, the more effective it becomes at giving me relief and comfort.

A 2024 Perspective

If you believe in God, this ancient idea of surrendering to a better or higher plan is not a difficult concept to accept. If you don’t believe in God, does the prayer still have value? Students of history, evolution, and nature, often arrive at a conviction that the Universe, or at least our corner of it, is not governed by any master plan. We see a world of competition for resources, predation, treachery, and the grasping for power by narcissistic or psychopathic humans. These people seem to lack compassion, care, or concern for the suffering of others, and seem to give little thought to ethics or morality. For many Christians, this is the dark side, the evil fallen world, the world that Jesus came to save us from. But for many non-Christians, it is just reality. Can someone who doesn’t believe in God, still surrender? Is letting go of our desires and welcoming everything as it is, a healthy approach?

The simple answer is yes.

This idea of accepting what is, is supported in three prominent therapeutic practices.

1. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy encourages awareness without judgement of our thoughts and feelings;

2. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as the name implies, encourages individuals to accept their thoughts and feelings rather than attempting to eliminate or control them, and

3. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) uses the concept of radical acceptance to help clients fully accept reality and their emotions without judgment. It is a key component of dialectical thinking.

Perhaps the most helpful framework for understanding the value of something like the Welcoming Prayer, is Dr. Todd Pressman’s Deconstructing Anxiety method.

Welcoming What we Fear

In Pressman’s book, “Deconstructing Anxiety” he outlines the method which involves discovering the core fear behind any problem, and discovering the chief defense we use to cope with that fear.

The core fear is our most basic interpretation of danger, our sense of how the world can hurt us, deprive us of what we need, or keep us from the love and safety we desire.

Here is a brief example of how the Welcoming Prayer can be combined with the 5 core fears.

Fear # 1 Loss of Love

Pressman calls this abandonment. We all know this fear. It is a driving fear of all social animals. Being on the outside of the group, being left vulnerable and alone. The fear reflects the reality that we need others for protection, co-regulation of emotions, and a sense of belonging. We need others to help make sense of the world and give us a sense of our place in it all. We need others to live and thrive and accomplish important achievements. Left on our own, we tend to become unhinged and unwell.

Welcoming Prayer: When we internally welcome people who have betrayed or abandoned us, when we welcome loneliness and our thoughts about relationships and our feelings of loss and despair, we are doing what Pressman recommends. He recommends doing the opposite of what we have always done. So instead of grasping for love, fighting for attention, or demanding recognition, we open our hands and stop defending and blaming. Instead of defending ourselves and fighting for a place in the group, we let go of our desire for inclusion and let go of our desire for love. This paradoxical approach frees us of both a sense of failure to get love (we are not trying to get it) and the story we have created about our own lovability. The courage to look at our dependency on others, allows us to also see that others also need us.

Fear # 2 Loss of Identity

The second core fear is the loss of the ability to be authentic. The persona we create (the false self or selves) to protect us is often effective, reflecting our intelligence about what is expected from the group, what traits and characteristics are attractive, and what skills and talents will help us survive. We construct a self that is presentable, that helps us survive. We hide those aspects of ourself we think will result in judgment and criticism. In Jungian terms, the aspects of us we are ashamed of, or think can not be seen, become our shadow.

But at some point in our development we begin to identify the set of characteristics that feel the most authentic to us, the aspects of our being that we are proud of, or value, or just seem true. These are the things we identify with the most, they are our true identity. We fear what threatens both senses of identity, the public, and the personal.

Welcoming Prayer: When we welcome aspects of ourselves like our jealousy, our unhelpful belief’s, and our preferences, not to mention our mistakes, wounds, and failures, we robe those things of their power to work in our subconscious. In addition we have the opportunity to welcome exiled parts of our self. Internal Family System’s theory suggests that we have many parts and these parts drive us in different ways based on what they perceive about the world. Protector parts guard exile parts and this defensiveness is often holding us back, despite the best intentions of those parts. By welcoming all parts, we have the opportunity to re-assign tasks to our parts, giving them honorable and helpful jobs in the clear light of awareness.

Fear # 3 Loss of Meaning

Pressman says that meaning is what gives value and worth to our experience of ourselves in the world around us. I like the idea that meaning is about making sense of things. We need a reason to do something or we need to understand why what we are doing is worth doing. We have a deep desire to understand, “the meaning of life” and if we can not find it, or if we sense our life is not meaningful, or all of life is meaningless, it can be threatening and unsettling.

Welcoming Prayer: Interestingly, the Welcoming Prayer does not include, “I let go of my desire to make sense of things and find meaning in life.” I have, however, said these words when sitting with the prayer. This is because if we fear the loss of meaning we might desperately grasp the things in life that give us a sense of meaning, when in fact the time may have come to let them go. I also find that when I let go of the desire for meaning, it can be easier to accept what is, and come to terms with how we might make meaning in the middle of where we are, rather than in some future or absent activity, person, or experience.

Fear # 4 Loss of Purpose

Purpose is hard to separate from meaning, and often the two are used together as in, “we need a sense of meaning and purpose in our life.” Pressman says that the main distinction is that purpose is the movement to actualize meaning. In my case, for example, my purpose is “to notice what is important, appreciate what is beautiful and relax in the flow of God as I write and work for a better world.” By noticing, appreciating, relaxing, writing, and working for a better world, my life will be meaningful. The meaning is in the work of finding and fulfilling your purpose. Improving things is often the purpose people set for themselves. Without purpose we have no motivation, and asking the question, “what is the purpose of doing this?” often helps people see that it is important. I’m doing all this paperwork because it helps this organization run which provides essential services for my community, etc.

Welcoming Prayer: By letting go of the desire for purpose we discover just how attached we are to having a purpose. We feel that without a purpose there is nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for. Yet once we really do let go of the desire for purpose, we begin to see that purpose is not rare, and that all our different drives to improve things can work together. A gear’s purpose is to transmit torque to another engaged member with minimum noise and wear and maximum efficiency. Our purpose may be to transmit our ideas to other engaged member with minimum noise and confusion. Or we might find it is more dramatic or less essential. Never the less, our purpose seems to emerge if we pay attention to where we are in life.

Fear # 5 Loss of Life

The fear of annihilation, often manifesting as concerns about death, loss, or nonexistence. Includes the fear of pain or sickness that might lead to death.

Welcoming Prayer: In the Welcoming prayer we might say, “Welcome death, welcome pain, welcome sickness.” Our initial reaction might be to never say such things, that saying such things might make them actually happen. And this may be true, we may invoke the nocebo effect if we truly believe that welcoming illness will bring illness. The subtle distinction is that we are not asking to be sick or to die, we are simple welcoming sickness and death as the companions we know are on this journey with us. Rather than push them away, ignore or deny them, we make peace with them the more we acknowledge them. Likewise, life is more vibrant and valuable when we keep in mind how bad or short it could be.

Opening

The last part of the prayer is opening to the love and presence of God and God’s action within.

Many people who have a resistance to the possibility of God, are resisting the misuse of the idea of God by people who claim to know God, but in fact only know the power of God. They want that power, but often don’t want God.

When, however, something like the “reality is an elaborate video game” idea comes along, the popular belief that we are actually living in a simulation, then people have no problem thinking of an alien programmer setting the whole thing up. If such a programmer exists, then that entity is so much more developed or advanced than us, that chances are, we would do well to reach out to that entity.

For myself, I live in an ever shifting process of decerning what is and is not real. My experiences in nature, my highly sensitive intuitions on things bigger than myself, and my study of religion, science, and the insights of thoughtful people leads me to conclude that there is a great chain of being and my location in that chain is uncertain. It seems reasonable to imagine that there are entities greater than me and that those entities may be kind or cruel.

It is important to open to the kind entities and discerning the one from the other may actually be beyond human capacity. But still, i think the act of opening to someone or something wiser and more kind than I am, is a good exercise.

If it turns out that God does exist, then humility is an appropriate posture. Notice that we do not open to the hate and manipulation of God, no, we are addressing our opening to the one with the most love. This is, so far, the best we can do.

Off Road capable EVs are expensive and thin on the ground.

My son recently took me for a ride in his Forester. He purchased it for $500 because it was having some difficult-to-diagnose issues. Working in his spare time and with the help of some experts, he restored it to health.

Subaru's have always had a good reputation around here. Reliable, off-road capable, pretty rugged, and comfortable on the highway. Before Covid I was looking seriously at the Crosstrek. Currently it is MSR after taxes, $35,515.20. about $3k cheaper than the Forester (MSR after taxes, $38,875.20) with a little less power but better turning radius. Little less cargo space too and very slightly better gas milage.

The Solterra, Suberu's only electric vehicle is over $20K more expensive than the Forrester ($58,621.60 after taxes). Yikes. And here in lies a tale of, well, of sadness. Japanese automobiles, incredibly capable and reliable as they are, are loosing the electrification game.

Are there other electric off road capable alternatives? Not really. My brother just bought the Toyota Rav 4 Prime. A hybrid with a fairly good round-town batter life. Depending on the features the Rav 4 runs in the mid $40K range, again pushing it $10K or higher over the Crosstrek.

The only other alternatives, currently in Canada, are trucks. The Rivian, Ford Lightening, and soon Cybertruck. All over $60K and most over $70.

Ah, how I miss my little Tracker.

Will my dream of owning an electric vehicle succumb to practicality? It might.

The Cybertruck will come down in price for sure, but into my price range? Not any time soon.

The Canoo truck is supposed to release this year. We shall see.

Toyota Stout or EPU? Looks cool.

Toyota FJ Cruisier, if it ever materializes will be expensive. https://topelectricsuv.com/news/toyota/toyota-fj-cruiser-style-ev/

As likely will the VW Scout offerings: https://topelectricsuv.com/category/news/scout/

Maverick EV? It is seeming less likely.

Geely Radar. No news since announced in 2022.

Model Y with Lift Kit Strangely attractive, and with the Y coming down in price, maybe someday this will make sense.

Nothing to compete with the Crosstrek yet.

The title of this post picks up on something that Flavio Volpe, President of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturing Association, said in an interview about Project Arrow, the collaborative prototype of an all-Canadian electric vehicle. "There's no greenwashing this, if you are going to go in whole hog, then you've got to be much more thoughtful and we are not going to create that critical mineral supply chain in North America, if we force it over the next 3 or 4 years." Canada has the minerals necessary to make batteries, and we have most of the other materials to make cars. What is needed is the infrastructure, know-how, and a scalable plan.

The Project Arrow is in stage 4 of development. The prototype (above) looks really good. I like the maple floors. Touches like that are what make something memorable. Check it out:

A competitive North American product that is better than the Chinese products, will not come to market quickly. Volpe's comment that 3 or 4 years is not nearly enough time to create some kind of vertical integration in North America means that cars built to clean standards (i.e. not highly polluting and damaging mining, extracting, and manufacturing), are many years away. I would estimate 5 to 10 years away.

In the meantime, consumers like me who are looking at 3 or 4 year or reliable performance from our existing cars before they pack it in, need to look carefully at both our pocket book and our ethical parameters. Are all Chinese vehicles dirty cars as many have suggested? To one degree or another, yes. China's own environmental standards are evolving, but to date, they have not focused on clean mining, manufacturing, or energy production. But are all current EV's dirtier than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles? Well, that depends.

ICE or EV, which is the most polluting overall?

Of the various pros and cons listed below, the energy efficiency and local air quality advantages to electric cars stand out. But what about all those horrible mining impacts I've heard about, doesn't that make EVs awful? Horror stories around cobalt and lithium mining abound. These focus on the negative effect on local people where the mining occurs, the pollution of ground water, and on the long term environmental impacts from processing and manufacturing these materials. Electric vehicles production is not clean from this perspective.

The following video clip addresses some of the key questions around this topic:

All the same arguments for dirty EVs apply to ICE vehicles. ICE vehicles use many of the same materials, like iron, aluminum, and son on, and they have their own batteries and non-recyclable electronic components that go into landfills. Petroleum extraction, refining, and transportation leave a big impact on the planet each year, and the impacts are getting greater because easy-to-get oil has already been extracted.

After spending a day researching online I could not find an academic or balanced estimate of these two manufacturing technologies and which one is worse. Both have negative impacts on the environment. The final judgement on which is dirtier depends not on the facts (so many facts it is almost impossible to look at them all), but on other social factors. These include your political alliance, whether you are open to progress or prefer the tried and true, and who is the most successful as spinning the story.

My conclusion is that EVs are not green, in the sense that there is a lot of impact on the planet and people's lives from making them, but they are greener than ICE vehicles. This comes down to the lifespan of EVs, Their amazing efficiency, and the variety of sources for electricity now and in the future.

While much electricity is still generated by coal and other polluting processes, the creation of electricity from coal can be clean and efficient, but I admit that most of it isn't. All electricity can be transported via power lines, without the cost and threat of spills. In addition solar panels are becoming more efficient and less expensive than fossil fuels.

Bottom Line

The logic for me is simple, electricity is like the universal currency of energy. It can be used in multiple devices, and can be obtained from multiple sources. 

Which type of car is better for me as a consumer?

Fires

"Researchers from insurance deal site Auto Insurance EZ compiled sales and accident data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the National Transportation Safety Board. The site found that hybrid vehicles had the most fires per 100,000 sales at 3474.5. There were 1529.9 fires per 100k for gas vehicles and just 25.1 fires per 100k sales for electric vehicles." - Auto Week News Lithium fire's however, when they occur, are almost impossible to put out.

Availability

The best source of information about what electric vehicles are available in Canada is still the EV Buyers Guide from CAA:

https://evbuyersguide.caa.ca/available-in-canada

Also helpful is the Canadian EV Tracker: https://electricautonomy.ca/ev-tracker/

6 months ago, my list of cars available and of interest to me was:

1. Tesla Model 3 RWD (MSRP $61,980)

2. Volvo XC40 (and C40) Recharge Twin Pure Electric (MSRP $59,950)

3. Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor (MSRP $53,950)

4. Hyundai Ioniq 5 Long Range (MSRP $51,999)

5. Hyundai Ioniq 5 Standard Range RWD (MSRP $44,999)

6. Hyundai Kona (MSRP $43,699)

New possibilities:

1. 2025 Volvo EX30 Core (MSRP $57,445.00) Made of many Chinese parts, this vehicle is very similar to the Zeekr X produced by the same parent company Geely. Why so expensive???

2. 2024 BYD Dolphin (MSRP $65,000) Available now in Mexico, it may release in Canada next year. Touted as one of the cheapest vehicles in Australia right now, the estimated North American Price makes it a bit of a yawner.

3. 2025 Zeekr X (US/CAN MSRP TBD) The Zeekr X is said to be on the slate for release in China in April of 2023. Strong rumors suggest that Zeekr's will be for sale in North American in the future. But when???

4. 2025 or 2026 Tesla 2 (Estimated CAD MSRP $35,000) A small hatchback or similar. Likely to first release in China, then in North America. Could be the only really reliable and inexpensive EV in North America if it can be made in Mexico and sooner than later. If Chinese cars make it to North America, the Tesla 2 will be one of many affordable options.

5. 2025 VW ID.2 (Estimated CAD MSRP $37,000) The new Golf, essentially. Again, price, really?

6. 2024 or 2025 in BC, 2026 in Prairies and Atlantic Canada Honda Prologue (Estimated CAD $55,000 to $60,000). First of the Japanese cars to really look at in my estimation. Wish it had been more of an SUV. Oh well, it's Honda. I've never owned one. They are usually too low slung for me.

7. 2025 to 2027 Fisker Pear (E CAD $38,000) If Fisker survives, this is could be a stylish and affordable car for the North American Market. Big if.

8. 2026 or later Kia EV 3 and EV 4 (Estimated MSRP CAD $40,000 to $55,000) still in the concept stage. Price would be the main attraction here, but not cheap enough to get excited about. If made in China, maybe the 3 will come in cheaper?

9. 2024 or 2025 Kia EV 5 (CAD $60,000) Taking on the Model Y directly, a blocky scaled down EV9 already in production in China. Looks like fairly good ground clearance and good range, but not the best looks in my opinion.

10. 2026 or later in Canada Canoo Pickup (Lord only knows what it will cost) Sigh. I dream of owning one. love the bulldog ad. But like Fisker, this startup has had many fits and starts. If it survives, and if the price is under $70,000, I would seriously consider it. Again, big ifs.

Of the above list, I am holding out hope for the Zeekr. A similar car to the EX30 but hopefully cheaper. Everything else is either too small, too expensive, too uncertain, or too ugly.

Affordability

This is my current pet peeve. It is related to the North American overcompensation with big vehicles. I've always loved small vehicles, starting with the original VW Bug and Van, my dad's Datsun pickup, my brother's Minis and Civics, and my own 510, GLC, Yaris, and Tracker. They were fun, cute, cool, affordable vehicles. I posted last time about some of my favorite little Chinese vehicles, especially the Yep and Cats. Also love the Xbus. None of these or anything like them is hitting North American any time soon. Tears and sadness.

A beautiful examples of what can be done with small electric in a country like Canada, is the Adventure 1 built by Potential Motors. Love everything about this vehicle, including the size.

Based in New Brunswick, the vehicle is built to drive in the challenging conditions that Canadians often face. It demonstrates what can be done. Cost, however, is a matter of scalability and economy of scale. Price estimate currently is $140K. Not within the budget of anyone I know.

For me, and I would say a large segment of the Canadian Population, the main factor holding us back from going all in on EVs is price. One thing that the Chinese industry has shown us is that EVs can cost about the same to build as ICE vehicles. This has been achieved largely because of the steep decline in the cost of and increase in the efficiency of batteries.

Of particular interest in the above video is the revelation of the superior cold weather performance that this new technology gives.

The slate of new batteries and technology is staggering. Carbon, salt, sulfer, there is too much to say about all of these. I'm confident that in a few years we will see amazing vehicles incorporating these revolutionary tech. But, it is a way off. So, I wait.

What do electric cars have to do with the resilient and calm state of mind I have centered this website on? The answer is contentment and integrity. Contentment because well built electric cars like Tesla have now traveled over 600,000 KM proving their value and reliability. Overall electric vehicles are now rivaling the best Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars for reliability. Plus, no oil changes, no timing belts, etc. that go along with an ICE vehicle. Integrity for much the same reasons. Longer lived cars, less waste, less consumeristic drive to upgrade and spend more, over and over. This lines up with my values and personality.

This series of posts will explore the advantages and disadvantages of electric cars for a middle class individual living in Western Canada, as well as the realities and trends with the current cars available here. Cars make life efficient, convenient and fun. For me, a big factor in “the good life” is the freedom to come and go easily to the places I need to go.

A Word about Gas

I believe that fossil fuels are a valuable and convenient source of energy. I’m a big fan of gas powered cars. They are perfected technology that I can rely on.

But fossil fuels are a dwindling resource. We still have a lot of some fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, but others such as oil, will run out eventually. “In 1999, the American Petroleum Institute estimated that we’d run out of oil between 2062 and 2094; however, in 2006, the Cambridge Energy Research Associates estimated that we actually had three times the amount of oil on Earth than was believed in 1999, according to ZME science. Not to mention, the current theory, according to EME, is that there is more oil to be gotten than was previously thought.” ¹

So, even as extraction becomes more challenging, it is likely that we will not run out of gas in my lifetime, and not in my children’s lifetime, but perhaps in my grandchildren’s lifetime.

The problems with gas are pretty clear. It is getting more expensive, and regardless of catalytic converters and similar efforts to reduce emissions, internal combustion vehicles produce lots of pollutants.

So why the rush to electric cars?

For me, electricity has three main advantages over gas:

1. Electricity can be generated from multiple sources (including fossil fuels). The list includes Geo-thermal plants, solar panels, wind turbines, mirror solar farms, wave generators, and nuclear generators.

2. Electricity is easier to transport. Pipelines, Freight ships, and tanker trucks are expensive to build, maintain, and run, not to mention the cost of refineries.

3. Battery technology is developing in leaps and bounds, and battery manufacturing is getting cleaner and cheaper.

The disadvantages of Electric are also three:

1. Less extensive supper-charging network compared to gas stations.

2. Less density of energy in batteries compared to gas.

3. Longer “re-fueling” times than gas.

These three disadvantages lead to range anxiety.

Battery Costs

I have a lot to learn about batteries, but I believe the key to adoption of electric cars lies in the development of cheap and efficient batteries. This development is underway.

So when will I buy an Electric Vehicle?

This question comes down to availability and cost.

Wait, how many?

According to Wikipedia, there are 284 models of electric cars currently for sale and of those 166 are made in China, leaving 118 made elsewhere.

How many are available in Canada? According to the CAA buyers guide there are around 50 cars available in 2023 or 2024 and with all the versions and options it works out to a total of 98 total choices.

How many in my price range? Well, for a new car I am prepared to pay between 30K and maybe 70K, counting on a 7 to 9K rebate. To estimate your rebate, BC Hydro has a handy page that list all the cars in BC that qualify. https://electricvehicles.bchydro.com/buying/EV-models-in-BC

Of the cars currently available in BC the following are of some interest to me:

1. Tesla Model 3 RWD (MSRP $61,980)

2. Volvo XC40 (and C40) Recharge Twin Pure Electric (MSRP $59,950)

3. Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor (MSRP $53,950)

4. Hyundai Ioniq 5 Long Range (MSRP $51,999)

5. Hyundai Ioniq 5 Standard Range RWD (MSRP $44,999)

6. Hyundai Kona (MSRP $43,699)

Even with the rebates these are not compelling. While I do like the Ioniq 5, it’s very complex battery heating and cooling system gives me pause. So much to go wrong.

Everything else is either too expensive, or lacking in some way. For example, Volkswagen’s reputation for fixing their EVs gives me pause. I believe they will sort it out but until they do, I will wait on that company. In addition, our last few encounters with the KIA dealer were so bad we will not buy KIA again even though we own 2 currently. The Ford Lightning, at the top end of my budget has a long waiting list and wait time, so not worth considering. Lastly, the issue of dealer sales is for another post, but it is becoming very clear to me that dealers do not provide enough value for the cut they take. I had a particularly painful purchase at a Toyota dealer when I wanted to pay cash for a car. Hours being shuffled from the sale rep to the lease specialist to the manager was exhausting and I felt manipulated.

Chinese Cars

But what about those 166 vehicles made in China? Many of these are very attractive both in their price and performance. Several Chinese-made cars would be of interest if they were available in Canada. These include the:

The SGMW Yep

Manufactured by SAIC-GM-Wuling. While SGMW says it is having a hard time just meeting demand in China, it has built the YEP on the “SGMW Global Small Electric Vehicle” platform. The term Global in that name suggests they plan to ramp up production world wide at some point.

The BYD Atto 3

BYD has electric taxis and busses in Canada already but has made no hint of consumer cars coming any time soon. Likely because of USA antipathy towards all Chinese cars.

https://www.byd.com/au/car/atto3

The Geely Zeekr X

Geely is the parent company for Volvo and Lotus among others, and given that Volvo is already selling in Canada, can the Zeekr be far behind?

https://www.zeekrlife.com/home

The SAIC MG 4

Selling on the MG brand recognition in Europe, early reviews have been good and this is one of the best value for dollar vehicles out there.

Availability

There are no announced plans to introduce the MG to Canada that I can find.

The Great Wall Motors Company Ora Funky Cat

By some estimates the largest producer of SUVs in China, the GWMC claims it is going global. I particularly like the look of the Funky Cat

https://www.greenmatters.com/p/when-will-world-run-out-of-oil