The Rebbe Nachman of Breslow often said, ?Always remember-Joy is
not merely incidental to your spiritual quest. It is vital.? As
the years have gone by and I?ve been in the practice of
psychology over 20 years, I have become more and more convinced
that he was so right, that joy is not an option. When we take
away joy and we take away a sense of well-being, a sense that we
are thriving, we allow ourselves or seem to find ourselves in
circumstances that seem to drain, tire and weaken us. We are no
longer the whole human being that is our birthright! THE
ENCHANTED SELF is a positive psychology approach to mental
health that works both in the treatment room and out. I teach
people the techniques they need to start to think in positive
ways about themselves and their world. Thus I teach them how to
see what is right about themselves, rather than what is wrong. I
also teach them to appreciate their own life story, its ups and
downs; the roller coaster ride that we all go on. I teach how to
value our potential even if in childhood we were put down or
criticized, as so many of us are. I have the belief and I teach
the belief that inside of each of us we know when we are on
track and we know when we are living a wholesome life that fits
with the integrity of our particular spirit. I call this sense
of well-being ?The Enchanted Self? and I teach people how to
find their "Enchanted Selves" again and again-how to recognize
and celebrate the states of well-being that signify they are in
touch with the best of themselves. I stress the positive benefit
of recalling memories about one's life in a fashion that permits
us to discover and rediscover our own talents and resources. I
also emphasize how to find in our past the kernals of pleasure,
and reservoirs of strength, that we can come home to again and
again, even if we need to reshape these facets of ourselves to
suite new circumstances Basically, this learning involves
listening to yourself, and reviewing your own past to see what
worked for you, what really gave you pleasure. What aspects of
yourself and your life can you identify as necessary to
experience a state of well-being? What do you need to feel
whole? For example, if you loved to play the piano as a child,
then you may not really enjoy watching football games as an
adult. You may much more enjoy listening to classical music.
However, in order to live a full life, you may also enjoy
football games because your son loves them or your husband loves
them. Thus there is also an accommodation to someone you care
about and a resulting interest develops. I think you can begin
to see that what is going to work for each person is so unique
to that individual! It involves a review of our history, and it
involves analyzing the circumstances currently in our lives. If
we have a handicap we may not be able to become a ballerina.
Even if we have severe arthritis, we may not be able to become a
ballerina at forty. However, the love of dance since childhood
may easily be converted into wonderful yoga stretches that help
arthritis and feel 'dancy'. So often, there is a creative turn
in the road, thinking out of the box, that the Enchanted Self
person develops. You find you have become an ENCHANTED SELF when
you havethe courage to put together using your mind, heart, body
and spirit new inventive ways of bringing pleasure and meaning
into your life. The steps I teach people are rigorous but they
are no harder then all the habits we learn that keep us in bad
moods and keep us depressed. For example, if I teach someone how
to review at the end of the day everything that has gone right
in their day, that it is no harder than listing what went wrong.
In fact it soon becomes easier than listing everything that went
wrong. The reason it becomes easier is that you don?t build up
some of the rage and some of the anger that one can build up
when we review the problems in our lives. Now we are encouraged
rather than discouraged and even may end up sleeping better and
feeling better leading to much less energy drain. I have found
the most effective way to teach people how to access their
Enchanted Self, i.e. to find and hold onto feelings of joy, and
a sense of well-being is to share the Seven Gateways To
Enchantment. It is a quick way to catch your Enchanted Self. So
let?s explore the Gateways and then try an enchanted assignment!
The first Gateway is The Gateway of Knowing Yourself In Positive
Ways. That means getting to know your own talents and
rediscovering your lost potential. This is a fun gateway and it
really builds your self-esteem. You can pursue this Gateway,
even while driving you car! For example, you can go over your
life history, reviewing your strengths and talents. Start back
in childhood-look for your strengths and talents, even if they
were disregarded by your family, and maybe even yourself. Now,
you have the maturity and wisdom to recognize these positive
parts of yourself. Even play with looking for your lost
dreams-what you thought you could do before someone or
circumstances may have dashed those dreams! After you take some
time with the First Gateway, you are ready for the Second
Gateway. This is the one where you begin to fall in love with
yourself! At the heart level you begin to feel your specialness.
This may take time, not to worry. After all our society does not
bring us up to recognize what is special and wonderful about
ourselves! Some of us get closer to this sense of positive
self-love by mentally hugging ourselves as the child that we
once were. Others practice by intentionally giving oneself a for
real quick hug, even if no one else does, or looking in the
mirror and saying to oneself, "I am special and my strengths are
unique and perfectly suited for what I want and need to do in
life! Another step in successfully passing through the Second
Gateway is acknowledging that the story of your life is a
fascinating fabric of adventures, episodes, happenings, and even
mis-haps that have come together to make a most unique person
and that is YOU! Once you can begin to see that your triumphs
are to be honored and celebrated and that your defeats have
within them the wisdom and the learning that takes you later in
life to new heights you are well along on the road to
Enchantment. The Third Gateway to Enchantment is Learning To
Meet Your Needs and Negotiate for Yourself. The worst thing is
to be so dependent on others and the whims of others that we are
not able to live out our dreams. We need the education, the
skills, the tools, and the negotiating powers that will take us
to fulfill our missions in life. So, don?t be afraid of
education, don?t be afraid to go back for a degree at sixty,
don?t be afraid to have a mentor, to look for advice, to find
out how other people have succeeded in a particular field. For
instance, I remember treating a young woman who had so much to
offer but no path! Divorced and with two young sons she was
forced back into the parent's home and not happy about it. But
once she started back to school and became a nurse all her doors
opened for her. She had financial security, a home again for her
boys and a future! It was tough but forth the struggle. The
fourth Gateway is the experience of joy. This Gateway is so
incredibly essential. It means replenishing yourself so that you
are not running on empty. It also means not straining yourself,
not accepting more assignments than you can really handle. When
I have opened this Gateway I am able to bow out when I need to.
Maybe I take that vacation I need or want or maybe I am just
strong enough to say I will do this task later or you better
find someone else to handle it and then I get a good night's
sleep. By protecting my mind, body and spirit I not only set
hontest guidelines with others, so I don't disappoint them, but
I make room for joy. Replenishment leads to feeling good and joy
fills us when we are full of life and vitality. Of course it is
necessary to find the ways to replenish ourselves that work. If
you love to travel, look for ways to travel. If you love to be
with your friends, get together, if you love to be with your
grandchildren, then sit on the floor and play games or plant a
garden?whatever works for you. The Fifth Gateway is the Gateway
of Community. We all know how important it is to feel we belong,
that others care about us and we care about others. But, what
you may not realize is that belonging is a major way to offset
depression. You see, the more we are truly connected to others
and feel a responsibility within a world beyond ourselves, the
less the tendency is for us to get blue and withdrawn.
Obviously, this is a very important Gateway. Finding the right
communities to connect are ongoing assignments for all of
us-where we live, who are friends are, what church or synagogue
we attend, what interest groups we identify with, etc. The Sixth
Gateway is the gateway of mentoring and being a mentor. Very
often, we dismiss and minimize our own wisdom. We are wise, we
have a tremendous amount we can offer others and there is always
others to offer wisdom to ourselves. I love this little story
that a friend told me. She said I am learning so much from my
neighbor. I said, "Who is that?" She mentioned the persons name.
I had never heard her mention her name before even though we
often chatted. My friend said, ?Well, I don?t really know her, I
just watch her.? I asked what do she meant. She explained, "She
lives a few houses away and I watch her. I see how she greets
her guests, how welcoming she is, how she always walks a guest
out and says good-bye. I see her stand there until the guest
leaves. I see how radiant her smile is. Although she is twenty
years younger than myself, she is a real mentor for me, I am
learning from her all the time." That is an example of how easy
it is to be mentored. Even the birds mentor us with their
wonderful song. Start to look for mentors-you will find them all
over. And don't forget that you are a mentor-perhaps even when
you don't know it. Last but not least is the Gateway of Positive
Action or Good Deeds. So essential in all the world and so
essential for good.mental health. Research shows that the more
we help others, the more generous in spirit we are, whether we
give time, money, a smile, or a helping hand, our moods lift. Of
course, if we offer to the point of exhaustion then we defeat
the purpose and we will be on empty! The idea is to balance good
mental health by using wise judgement calls of moderation and
balance. These are the Seven Gates; we go through them again and
again in life. We never close a door on any of them, we are
always back, we are always learning more, we are always having
to reflect on our lives one more time or learn some new
behaviors, make a new decision, recognize and acknowledge who we
are and what we need and, of course, find new ways to bring
pleasure and meaning into our lives. A PLAYDATE WITH ENCHANTMENT
What I would like you to do now is to play with the Seventh
Gateway-that of Positive Action. Take a peice of paper write
down 2 positive actions that you can do over the next year. The
first one is a positive action you can do for yourself. Make it
something that will be good for yourself, such as to restore
yourself or broaden your life. The second action is something
that is good for the world and of course will not harm yourself.
You have a year to do these. Put them in your pocketbook, look
at them once in awhile. Do you realize that just by actually
doing these two actions you will: 1) bring more pleasure and joy
to yourself and 2) improve the world in some small way. Wow- two
wonderful steps toward coming home to your ENCHANTED SELF!
About the author:
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein , originator of THE ENCHANTED SELF?,
a method of bringing delight, purpose and meaning into everyday
living, is a nationally known Positive Psychologist. Visit her
website at http://www.enchantedself.com<
/a> and sign up for her free e-mail newsletter and upcoming
teleclass.
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