May/June 2003
Feature Articles
Holistic Health Q & A
by Julie Gatza, D.C.
To restore and maintain good health,
clean out your body's toxins first.
What is... Neurotransmitter Imbalance?
by John B. DeCosmo, D.O.
Depression, anxiety, fatigue and sleeplessness
aren't just in your mind. An imbalance of molecules in your brain could
be the cause.
UnCommon Sense!
by David Findlay
Winning the Pease.
Articles on the theme "Environmental Consciousness"
Cancel That Thought
by Dr. Audrey Craft Davis
You can stop contributing to planetary
pollution by changing your negative thoughts into positive ones.
An Inside Job
by Martin Montes
Recycling laws protect our outer environment;
good habits protect the inner.
Inside & Out
by Charles Larsen
If you're swimming behind a shark,
you'd better know where the rest of his family is.
Your Consciousness is Showing
by Nancy Buchanan
Manifesting the thoughts and things
that improve our personal and global environment.
Learning - Naturally
by Barbara Bedingfield
Helping children appreciate the environment
around them at the different stages of their lives.
Awareness of All Life
by Matt Guest
Our physical environment is a reflection
of our inner self awareness.
A Lost World?
by AnneMarie Dyer
The state of our environment is a reflection
of our overall spiritual condition.
Natural Wonders
by Suzanne Persons, Ph.D.
Connecting with nature is easy, and
often dramatic, when you live on Florida's Suncoast.
Inside & Out
by Charles Larsen
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, although my photographic skills might put that into question. Anecdotes or word pictures, however, often provide clarity that simple exposition lacks. A few such stories follow.
Coral spread out in many shapes and hues. My scuba regulator burbled in the crystal clear water. A shark swam languidly in the little gully between the brain coral over which I hovered and a line of coral formations opposite. I slipped behind him. Photographing this magnificent creature became my sole focus. It was not until later that I identified it as a bull shark. He was uninterested in the creature called Charles. Breaking off the pursuit, I saw my dive buddy signal that there had been three more sharks following me. I'd joined a parade of apex carnivores. This was an "oops" -- a time when being aware of only one part of my environment created a potential problem.
Several years ago I took up sky diving for a few months. The initial part of that experience is free falling, during which you can reach speeds of over one hundred twenty miles an hour -- going downward very rapidly. At two thousand, five hundred feet we were to pull the ripcord and gently float under the life-saving canopy most people call a parachute. My tendency was to become so involved in the free fall that I pulled it as low as fifteen hundred feet. Once again good fortune was with me. My primary canopy always opened as planned. Deploying the main canopy at twenty five hundred feet provides time, should you need it, to use your auxiliary chute. At fifteen hundred feet my chances to do so were minimal.
Aside from enjoying the above recounted memories, you'll notice that they describe a tendency many have to see only part of the picture. We sometimes have tunnel vision in terms of our physical and inner environments. The connection between body and psyche is a two-way street. When you are ill you feel down (not clinically depressed). Also, when you are anxious or feeling down your body reacts. Your immune system is depressed. You are either overly ready for action, or lethargic. The potential for innumerable other complications increases.
The issue of the inner environment is of particular interest to those of us who practice psychotherapy. People speak of dealing with crises really well, especially the death of a loved one, when they needed only three days of bereavement leave to get through it. There is little time to grieve in that span, so grief is put on hold. Then one day, after two or three more deaths or losses, the person calls me and says, "I'm falling apart." The accumulated, not-dealt-with traumatic events have burst out as one, creating the illusion of being overwhelmed by the latest one. Awareness of your inner environment is crucial to avoid these meltdowns. If they occur, please call a psychotherapist to help you through.
Many decades ago, at the University of Chicago, there were children and young adults who were scholars -- to the exclusion of all else. Although blessed with the most liberal arts curriculum in academia, these students were in the passionate pursuit of measurable academic achievement. When they did not achieve up to their expectations, depression and even self-murder were known to occur. In spite of possessing a level of intelligence which dwarfed almost all the rest of us, they missed out on the tulips pushing up through the Chicago snow, the art shows, the musical experiences, or just walking the quadrangles.
One beautiful day I was strolling through Pioneer Park in downtown St. Petersburg with Sunnie the wonder dog. Mockingbirds sang, parrots squawked, and the scents were rich and alive. A man sat in the shade reading a book. My comment to him, after we greeted each other, was that he'd found a perfect place to enjoy his book. "No," he groused, "It's just a way to pass time. I never should have retired. I'm nobody now." Here he was in an idyllic setting, and yet he was "nobody." He should have been invisible, based on his comments. His sadness and emptiness were the focus of his entire being to the exclusion of the wonders all around.
Ecological "causes" today are innumerable. Heightened awareness of the resources in our natural world is hammered home in all the media. Internal environmental awareness, which is essentially ecologic awareness of the psyche, is also critically important. The person who is depressed is seeing only that part of his being, not the totality. The person who is bereft because he no longer is a boss does not see his roles, be they official or de facto, other than that lost one. In a nursing home I once asked a woman what her field of work had been. She said, "I used to be a physician." I retorted, gently, that she remained a physician, but a physician who had retired.
To be aware of your internal environment means that sometimes you have to deal with the ugliness which can be placed there by you or by external forces. In the case of the university students or the man in the park, it may mean reexamining priorities with a brutally critical eye. Placing traumatic events or losses on hold will usually have repercussions at some unknown future date. A lack of awareness of your internal environment as it interacts with the external world is similar to pulling the ripcord later than recommended or to joining a column of sharks. Usually the result is not internal or external disaster; however a heightened consciousness of your inner environment as it interacts with the external will provide you with the chance to reduce the potential for disaster.
Charles Larsen L.S.S.W. has been practicing psychotherapy
and hypnosis for over thirty years. St. Petersburg, Florida (727) 894-3088.
harrymorgan@earthlink.net.
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