Land of Oz Workshops Blog: GETTING TO YES

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: GETTING TO YES: While at a conference, I heard a story about the eminent psychiatrist, Milton Erickson, who was working with a woman with anxiety and fear ...

GETTING TO YES

While at a conference, I heard a story about the eminent psychiatrist, Milton Erickson, who was working with a woman with anxiety and fear of leaving her home. The woman’s fear was so strong that the department of social services had concluded that the woman in question could not be helped beyond supportive services including helping her with house cleaning, organization and basic self-care needs.

Erickson was a very imaginative physician and when he heard about the case he decided to visit the woman in her home. Upon entering he saw that the house was a mess and she was in a disheveled state. As he looked around, he noticed a beautiful African violet plant growing in the kitchen window. He pondered, “How can a woman who lives like this take care of and grow a plant like that?”

Erickson was a master of medical hypnosis and as he worked with her, he slowly encouraged and inspired her to propagate African violet plants and to take them to hospitals and to homes of people who were confined. Many years later when she died, the local newspaper referred to her as the African Violet Queen who brought a smile to the faces of hundreds of people. Visiting social workers had decreed that she was incapable of managing her own life. In spite of their assessment she became a super star because one person noticed something about her that no one else perceived.

Your parents most likely said “no” or “don’t” much more often than an encouraging “yes!” A UCLA parenting survey reported that the average one year old hears the word “no” over 300 times a day. Any high school or college student can get 60% of the material correct whether it is algebra, biology, history or literature and fail the class. Marriage partners look for flaws. Administrators look for areas that need improvement. Therapists are trained to look for problems. Physicians search for illness and disease.

In the early 90’s I taught Health Education at Moorpark Community College in California and asked the 20 students attending to do a ‘health oriented’ project. All 20 with no exceptions presented their findings on diseases such as cancer, arthritis, and heart disease complete with pictures. No one did research on preventative medicine or nutrition or good health habits. The students saw the word ‘health’ and interpreted it as ‘disease.’ I asked them to look at the word ‘health’ in more imaginative ways and to give another class presentation focused on ‘potential’ rather than pathology.

Positive change occurs because we look at what is possible and what can work.  My approach to counseling has always been focusing on the strengths the person possesses; their hopes and dreams rather than their problems; what they want to achieve rather than what they want to let go.

In her book Wisdom of the Psyche, Ginette Paris writes, “Depression’s opposite is not happiness; it is rather a state of mind where imagination comes alive.” Imagination is always our way out of whatever is making us feel trapped.  Imagination offers us possibilities, opens doors, helps us to reach beyond the places where we may be stuck, and says an affirmative “yes” to life.

John A. Tamiazzo is the author of Returning to the Land of Oz available at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Barnesandnoble.com

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: The Doors of Perception

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: The Doors of Perception: Perception is an amazing power. Everything we see, everything we hear, everything we touch, taste, and smell is filtered through our percept...

The Doors of Perception

Perception is an amazing power. Everything we see, everything we hear, everything we touch, taste, and smell is filtered through our perception.In the field of Psychology, perception refers to our interpretation of what we take in through our senses.

Mother Teresa saw the face of Jesus in the homeless she worked with. The classical composer Bach saw notes everywhere he walked and heard their song. Picasso saw distortions of the human anatomy. Walt Whitman saw beauty everywhere and heard freedom ring in every line he wrote. Gandhi perceived every experience as an opportunity for an ever greater variety of service. Too often, some perceive what people say as criticism or as an attack, probably based upon unresolved experiences from their past. Some think the world is on the brink of disaster and others see a new consciousness coming. Perception can literally take us to the heights of heaven or the den of Hades, depending upon what we see, what we feel, what we think, and what we hear.

Syndicated cartoonist, Gary Larson, creator of The Far Sidehad a four part drawing titled The Four Personality Types. Sitting down with a glass half-way filled on the table before them they were asked to report what they saw. Personality type number onesaw a glass half full. Personality type number two saw a glass half empty. Personality type number three asked for a new glass because the glass was dirty. Personality type number four appeared disgruntled and said, “What is this? I ordered a cheeseburger!”

When you meet with a counselor, each will have a different approach to working with the issues you present to them. Each has a distinctive psychological orientation and this orientation reflects their unique childhood issues, life experiences, and education. Each perceives what you tell them differently.

Cell Biologist Bruce Lipton writes, “When patients get better by ingesting a sugar pill, medicine defines it as the placebo effect.  I refer to it as the perception effect or belief effect to stress that our perceptions, whether they are accurate or not, equally impact our behavior and our bodies.”

Psychologist Abraham Maslow writes, “The sacredness of every person and of every living thing is so easily and directly perceived in its reality by those seeking transcendent experiences. For them, peak experiences and plateau experiences become the most important things in their lives and the most precious aspect of life.”

Spiritual Teacher Sogyal Rinpoche wrote, “Everything we see around us is seen as it is because we have been repeatedly solidifying our experiences of inner and outer reality in the same way, and this has led to the mistaken assumption that what we see is objectively real.  As we go further along the spiritual path, we learn how to work directly with our fixed perceptions. All our old concepts of the world or even ourselves are purified and dissolved and an entirely new “heavenly” field of vision and perception opens up.”

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Finding Your Passion Part 2

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Finding Your Passion Part 2: Walt Disney was a very unusual student. When his elementary school teacher asked the class to sketch the flower vase she placed on her desk,...

Finding Your Passion Part 2

Walt Disney was a very unusual student. When his elementary school teacher asked the class to sketch the flower vase she placed on her desk, young Walt sketched it with added arms, legs, and a smiling flower at the top. His teacher scolded him again and again for not paying attention to her instructions to just draw the vase!  Walt courteously listened to her complaints but continued to draw what he saw in his vivid imagination.  Years later, animals, plants and objects with human voices and attributes became a Disney trademark.

By age twenty, Walt Disney was hired to draw cartoons for the Kansas City Film Ad Company. Within a short time he was drawing cartoons that moved but they still didn’t move in the way he envisioned they could. He studied and worked tirelessly towards making drawings move in more graceful and sophisticated ways so they would have greater realism. These drawings and experiments took thousands of hours to perfect.

Disney was the first person to sell the idea of having a cartoon open for a feature film. As a door to door salesman, he sold cartoons by the linear foot to local movie theatres. Most theatre owners didn’t understand why a movie-goer would want to watch this new form of entertainment. Walt was not put off. His focus, determination, and passion for animation and creating laugh-out-loud characters won over all opposition and made him a legend.

Environmentalist John Muir was a severely abused child. His father beat him daily to make certain that John kept focused on bible studies. His mother died early in his childhood and his angry and bitter father was left with the responsibility of raising two small sons.  Everyday John sought out the solace of Mother Nature to soothe his wounds and rekindle his spirit. He founded the Sierra Club, established Yosemite National Park, is responsible for the preservation of The Grand Canyon, and authored 12 books.

John Muir transcended his father’s abuse and became a dogged protector of Mother Nature. Disney’s successes, rejections, and failures fueled his passion. Nothing deterred his artistic expression.

What can we learn from these two men and from others who have a passion for life that we can employ in our own lives? We best serve the planet by the love and focus we put into our work, the kindness we express in all of our interactions and communications, the joy we share, and the creativity we express in all of our activities. As Gandhi once said, “Your life is your message.”

Find your passion in life and let it take you to new heights of self-expression and self-discovery.

John A. Tamiazzo, PhD Author of Returning to the Land of Oz at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Barnesandnoble.com in paperback, e-kindle, or nook editions.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Finding Your Passion

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Finding Your Passion: Psychology is a very fascinating field of study but has only been part of our culture for just over 100 years. Psychology traces its beginni...