ACA Blog

I live in the Midwest (Missouri) and have been enduring over 100 degree weather now for too many days. Not only am I unmotivated, but all my outdoor plants have died. My yard has a few weeds and my grass lies dormant. Snow has never sounded so good. In the middle of this horribly hot summer I have had an experience that I will never forget. A mentally ill client, with legal problems herself, has become a victim of a horrendous crime. She opened the front door to her apartment in the middle of the night and was brutally beaten and raped.

Hi all! My name is Pam Ebert and I am a new blogger on the ACA web site. This all came about because I was kind of irritated about the lack of scholarly attention directed at Appalachian peoples, and my professor suggested that I try nontraditional methods of getting heard. His exact words were something like “a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse,” which I love and will probably put on my tombstone.  Thank you Dr. J.!

Because life is complicated, your mind's job is to filter out all information that’s considered irrelevant to the task at hand. Your conscious mind represses, suppresses, ignores, or forgets any irrelevant data. It protects us from change, the unfamiliar, or anything that threatens status quo. For example, some of my clients step back from coaching because they get too close to something that may take them out of their comfort zone. Change is scary. As you know, change and continuous improvement is crucial for us because nothing stays the same. If you avoid change, you will not be successful. You are either green and growing or dead and dying. And, it is impossible to improve unless we change.

Not too long ago, I received my first counseling paycheck. I couldn’t believe it. It felt pretty surreal to finally get paid for what I’d been doing for free for so long. In a strange way, it was very empowering. Someone was affirming my work by paying me. Many of us do not go into this vocation thinking we will make lots and lots of money. That’s not what this whole experience was about- it was about so much more than the monetary value of the check (which- let’s be honest- wasn’t very much in and of itself!).

“Actually, no I don’t understand. Help me to understand what you mean.”

Like many others I had a childhood that was filled with experiences and violence no child should endure. From a very early age I sat and wondered what my purpose in life was beyond the fear of what might happen next. I cannot explain it but I felt it deep within that I was meant to be for a reason greater than myself.

Going through a master’s program in mental health counseling is a little like putting your mind on a cold, steel table and dissecting it in at least eleven different ways – and then leaving the room quickly because it is going to expand. The very essence of counselor education encourages the student to look at their lives, choices, families, and roles in society from many different perspectives. Each class offers a wealth of knowledge and fresh ways to consider yourself and your place in the world. It is at once wonderful and exhausting, intriguing and infuriating. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it.

As a naturist I love the feel, the look and the sensation of being immersed in nature. I love the sounds of Lindsley Brook as it flows through the farm. I love the sound of the turkeys as they roam the fields; I also love the sound of an antique tractor chugging across the farm in search of more work. Until recently I hated the sound of chainsaws. I saw them as destruction; another wooded lot lay bare, more houses in a subdivision. Other then when I heard them after a major storm, I rarely saw a practical purpose for them.

In my last blog, I wrote about the connection between resistance and suffering, basic Buddhist tenets. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama reminds us when teaching Buddhism or Buddhist practices, the purpose is to encourage others to cultivate the the qualities of compassion, love, and wisdom within themselves (Simpkins & Simpkins, 2001, p. 79). I am not an expert in Buddhism, but these qualities resonate with me, particularly in the context of healing trauma and depression. A mindful approach to healing trauma and depression is grounded in fostering presence in the here and now, reframing negative thoughts and stories, meditation and mindful practices. As an existentialist, mindful approaches to healing make sense to me. Thus, I often introduce practices to support the cultivation of self-compassion, love and wisdom very early in the counseling process with my clients. In this blog, I will focus on techniques of fostering the qualities of self-compassion and self-love.

Zen stories nourish the soul and spirit. Whenever I slip into a threshold, I turn to the wisdom distilled in stories to find the fortitude to take my first step into the unknown. As I return to ACA web-blogs, I’ll share a Zen story that presented itself, as stories usually do for me, at precisely the right time.