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Institute of Global Education Organic Psychology
Special NGO Consultant, United Nations Economic and Social Council
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ADMIRE THE WONDER AND BEAUTY OF NATURE'S PRINCIPLES FOR CONTINUAL HEART LESSONS.
An Organic Psychology Report from an Online Course Participant
I've been thinking quite a bit lately since finally finishing this book project about how Ecopsychology and Natural Systems Thinking Process have changed me and I know they have changed me in many profound ways. I realized they are like a prevention for heart failure symptoms, signs and causes. So I was thinking it might be of benefit to write them down and share them now that it has been a full year since I completed my Ph.D. Most of these changes were not fun wild things I was consciously seeking, Perhaps that means they're not instrumental ones.
Caveat: it's quite possible no one else in the program believes or has discovered these things from the program and I in no way mean to imply that they would or should apply to anyone else.
So here's a list:
1. I now feel like I understand how life works. This is a true blessing! Most of my life I felt like I came into the world without an instruction manual on life and my parents never got one either. In fact, I couldn't find anyone with one, and believe me I looked. Most of my adult life has been a quest, trying to make sense of life, find some guiding principles that create a life proven science success through pleasure and delight in uncertainty. I know many people find them in religion but I never found a religion that offered ones that made sense to me.
2. Now that I feel like I understand how life works I can escape the perpetual feeling that I am responsible for everything that happens in my life and that if I were only better or had more positive thoughts, did more affirmations, prayed harder, worked harder, knew "The Secret" - (sorry, couldn't resist), or whatever else, then I could control my destiny. I can finally rest in the peace of knowing that I am not, need not, and never will be in control of life. This is just such a huge relief. Life happens. I'm part of it. But like gestalt therapist Barry Stevens wrote about so long ago, I don't need to push the river!! In fact that phrase even sounds funny, like I could?? What a blessing.
3. Tying right in with this is understanding that we humans are not the center of the universe either. As Thoreau said, "There is a force in nature not bound to be kind to man." So no need to expect everything to be hunky dorry.
4. Most of the problems that have plagued me personally, my clients and society are manmade. This has been a really depressing lesson that I can now accept simply as how things are. We have truly made a big mess! It is quite possible we will become extinct as a species, hopefully before we send the natural order of the planet over the tipping point and turn Earth into a Mars. At 64 there probably isn't much I can do about this. In fact there is probably not much anyone, even collectively, can do about this, but I/we can do what we can and time will tell. If this sounds gloomy, for me it really isn't now. It was painful and difficult for a some time, but It's something that simply is.
5. On the really wonderful side - I follow my natural attractions as best I can. This means my life is quite different and better. Very different and much better. I have changed so many things about how I live because I was doing lots of things that were not really attractive to me, especially thoughts about myself and life, people, tasks, etc., that were unappealing and unimportant for me to continue perusing in the over scheme of things. In so doing I am also living in ways that are more supportive of nature and the environment, though I still have a ways to go on that.
6. I look for consent. I no longer want anything that doesn't want me. Boy, is this another huge relief!!! Why pound my head against an unwelcome wall? By looking for consent I have a much clearer sense of what I have to offer others and the world. No need to pretzel myself. No need to try to be anything I'm not. Whew!! I know there may still be times I will choose to pretzel but they are fewer and fewer all the time as my life restructures.
7. So I seek both attraction and consent in my choices, decisions, and actions. Most of the other things that follow below are a result of this change. I had agreed to write the book I just finished before I completed the PhD program and writing it was agony because it required me to stop following the principles I had learned. I had grown comfortable flowing through life and having to push and twist myself again was so very miserable. I feared that I would lose touch with what I gained in the program and that wouldn't be able to get it back. But that is not true now. I boomeranged right back first chance I got.I think the misery of returning to the semblance of the world of how I used to live has left the new principles and values I gained all the clearer. I went through several months of disillusion, thinking that there was and could be no fit between living in a manmade world and living in a natural world. That they were just too incompatible. But coming out the other side, sticking to these two principles again, it seems a new path is emerging. Both my husband and I have sworn we will NEVER do anything that feels like this again. That decision showed us the value of looking for and pursuing new possibilities.
8. I no longer fear death. (At least I don't think so.) When I thought I was having a heart attack not long ago, I felt no panic really. I was just thinking, well, what a shame to no longer have the people I Iove in my life. I felt a sense of sadness that I would miss them, but knew I wouldn't since I wouldn't be here.
9. I am much more connected to people than I've ever been in my life. I spend little or no time with people who are not attracted to me and visa versa. But where here is both attraction and consent I have become a 1000 times more loving, giving and receiving person. My attractions have led me to deep friendships with people I would never have imagined even knowing, let alone loving.
10. My time is spent quite differently. I think there are many others who if they knew how I spend my time would think I'm lazy and non-ambitious. Lazy, not; but un-ambitious, yes. I no longer feel driving ambition. I just enjoy living.
As for my relationship with nature. It too is different. I enjoy it as much as ever, but now it feels more like my arm or leg, as Mike once wrote, so I'm not so consumed by it, just as I'm not consumed by my arm or leg. I deeply appreciate arm, leg and nature. I admire the wonder and beauty of nature and turn to it for continual lessons. But I no longer idealize it. It's like me. I'm like it. We are.
I'm sure I haven't covered all the profound changes I've undergone but these are certainly some of the major one and I appreciate the opportunity to share them with others who while you may not agree can hopefully understand these changes and what they mean to me.
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"Human behavior is rooted most deeply in nature's intentions and desire. The rhythms of nature underlie all of human interaction: religious traditions, economic systems, cultural and political organization. When these human forms betray the natural psychic pulse, people and societies get sick, nature is exploited and entire species are threatened."
-Stephen Aizenstat
In industrial society our excessively nature-separated lives mold us to betray the natural psychic pulse. We learn to block from our thinking over 98 percent of the wise sensory callings and fulfillments we normally receive from natural systems and their eons of experience. Our subconscious hurt and frustration from the severed disconnection of these senses underlies our greatest troubles.-Michael J. Cohen
Benefit from learning to repair the natural psychic pulse within and around us. Add the sensory ecoscience of Organic Psychology to your life and livelihood.
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