compassion Archives - ��Ƶ of Theology & Psychology

Self-Contempt in Lent

Cecelia Romero Likes — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 14:00:09 +0000

During this season, we’ve been reflecting on Lent as an affirmation of humanity—in ourselves and in each other—and, therefore, a call to service. But any attempt to affirm and center humanity, even through the familiar Lenten practice of giving up certain habits, forces us to confront the voices of shame and self-contempt that can be so deeply rooted. Here, Cecelia Romero Likes (MA in Theology & Culture, ‘15) writes about the seemingly simple decision to give up looking at her phone while she’s with her daughter—and about the deep messages of contempt that grow loud in the new silence.

I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I can’t seem to make it through the night without some strange dream clawing at my psyche.

I climb out of bed and try to settle myself again with a book or an hour of scrolling through Instagram. I know that it doesn’t really help, but it comforts me.

Sometimes I can hear my daughter shifting in her room, a sleepy momma slipping from beneath her door. She can sense me, my little werewolf, I joke to myself. Her favorite book to pull from my shelf is . I haven’t read it yet; I bought it years ago because someone said it reminded them of me. Maybe she and the Universe are conspiring to get me to pick it up.

Maybe I will; I do a lot of things because she wills me to somehow.

From day to day, parenting is painfully mundane. It’s a lot of routine and repetition; the same games, the same books, the same lessons. My iPhone has become my constant companion, ready to entertain me at any moment my daughter might happen to look away. Despite reading multiple articles on the subject, I recently decided to give up checking my phone while I’m with her based on her behavior—not outbursts or tantrums, only her own growing desire to whittle away her hours in front of a screen.

It’s been a difficult sacrifice to make, putting my phone away while I’m with her, and I have yet to make it through a day successfully. My social media accounts do more than keep my boredom at bay; they help me to feel involved in the outside world, keep me from getting too lonely. They also overwhelm me, distracting me with their content long after I’ve put my phone down. And, I’ve realized, they keep me from facing the darkest parts of myself.

I don’t have very nice things to say, or rather think. I didn’t grow up in a home dripping with affection—for anyone, really. My family taught me how to protect and defend myself; my step-father would quiz me daily about what I noticed on my walk home from elementary school.

You always, always have to be aware of your surroundings, his voice echoes when I find myself getting too familiar with my environment.

My mother isn’t an unkind woman, but one for whom things, people, are rarely good or good enough. Her nature comes easily to me—my inheritance, maybe.

When I’m online, it’s easy for me to direct my hatred at unseen others: strangers who add antagonizing comments to the posts of friends, old high school classmates gleefully announcing their Go Fund Me donations toward Trump’s wall. I project my doubts onto other artists who are just starting out, and worst of all, I pour out my bitterness over the artists who are succeeding and who I deem lesser than me. I count these amongst my ugliest thoughts.

Without my digital scapegoats, my vitriol has the clearest path to its true target: me. The first thought that popped into my head the day that I started my screen-free experiment was, Boy, you’re a shitty mom. It was closely followed by its sibling thoughts about my appearance, my work ethic, my abilities, the invalidity of my dreams. There was no real reason for these thoughts, nothing in the moment to motivate them to come. They don’t really need a reason, they live with me, are a part of me. They’ve just been waiting for a quiet moment to speak.

“Without my digital scapegoats, my vitriol has the clearest path to its true target: me.”

If my time at ��Ƶ taught me anything, it’s that all of us feel this way. Some more than others, but all of us still. It’s part of what it means to be human in this world. We all have shortcomings, doubts, and fears, and they are ready to contend with us. Some have merit and some don’t, but we will never be able to distinguish what’s true from what isn’t unless we face the parts of ourselves that bring us the most shame. There’s no healing, no transformation without reflection. It can be painful and we may not be ready at any given point; it could take years, a lifetime even. But we have to be aware that our self-contempt paints an incomplete picture of who we are.

I pride myself on being a woman with a keen sense of clarity about who I am, but I’ve lived most of my life unable to see my own goodness. I’ve needed to hear about it from other people. Even then, I found a way to disseminate their words, convincing myself that their view of me was obscured. But it’s time to take off my own blinders, to seek out the goodness others have been telling me is there on my own.

Those negative thoughts are less intimidating when I’m able to see myself more clearly. When partnered with a more benevolent self-perspective, they can lead me into compassion and empathy, instead of shame and self-hatred.

This too is part of what it means to be human in this world: the amalgamation of the darkness and the light inside of us. They don’t have to be at war with one another, they can live symbiotically.

I used to think that living a good life meant following this rigid moral code that God had prescribed for us, one in which there was no place for darkness—often considered “impurity” or “sin.” But I’ve come to believe that living a good life means becoming more human, softer, more given to making mistakes. More able to learn from them, too.

This paradigm shift is right on time. I can never teach my little werewolf how to be fully human until I learn how to be one myself.

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Serving God and Neighbor

��Ƶ — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 17:38:11 +0000

“When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, he summarized in these gestures his own life. […] When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words ‘This is the Body of Christ,’ we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.”
–Henri Nouwen

During this season of Lent, as we follow the story of Jesus in the wilderness, we’ve been exploring the call to affirm humanity in ourselves and each other—even in all of our hunger and wounding and brokenness. And we believe that affirming the dignity in humanity is, ultimately, an invitation to service; it’s a call to direct our lives and our work toward worshipping God through the healing and empowerment of individuals and communities, and through the dismantling of systems that seek to deny humanity in some.

That is the arc of pilgrimage: to journey into the wilderness, to be transformed, and to return to service. It’s also at the heart of our mission at ��Ƶ. Through transforming relationship and the competent study of text, soul, and culture, we train people to serve God and neighbor in the unique context of their identity and calling.

“That is the arc of pilgrimage: to journey into the wilderness, to be transformed, and to return to service. It’s also at the heart of our mission at ��Ƶ.”

These two movements—inward change and outward service—are inseparable. Our own transformation will be stifled if it is not directed toward service, just like our work in the world will burn out or fall flat if it is not grounded in the journey of transformation. So as we move through Lent and into the rest of April, we’ll continue wrestling with the themes of pilgrimage and wilderness, turning the conversation more specifically to service and the call to serve God and neighbor.

We’ll hear from alumni, faculty, staff, and students about their work in the world, and about how their ability to love God is inextricably tied up with their willingness to love others. We also hope to explore the deep need for imagination in how we approach calling and service. Because—no surprises here—the world is changing, and the problems we face today are not the same as they were before; our service should not look the same, either.

May the change and healing that we have found propel us to the change and healing of our world. May we continue to enter places of both deep brokenness and deep beauty. May we never stop innovating, dreaming, and scheming. And may the Spirit be with us as we commit to hard conversations and dare to confront the wicked problems that deface the image of God in humanity.

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Mary Oliver and the Poetry of Love

Beau Denton — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 15:00:11 +0000

Artists often occupy a prophetic role in culture, speaking truth, beauty, and goodness into a world desperately in need of them. They help guide us to those thin places where the gap between what is and what could be is not quite so daunting. The poet Mary Oliver lived into this call with a grace and generosity that endeared her to readers for more than 50 years. Here, Beau Denton (MA in Counseling Psychology, ‘17), Content Curator, reflects on the gifts Mary left us with, and on why she might have resonated so deeply with many in our community.

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
–Mary Oliver

On January 17, for just a few hours, part of our collective online life seemed to take on a different tone. The usual frenzy was jarred by news of Mary Oliver’s death, and as word spread it set the Internet afire with grief and gratitude and poetry. Given the storms underway around us and the anxious pace of our discourse, Mary’s quiet prevalence that day reflects something of how unique she was, how holy the gifts she left us.

In my corner of the Internet, this phenomenon was especially noticeable among my ��Ƶ friends and colleagues—because few voices have seeped into the pulse of this community so thoroughly and so generously. Of course, certain writers shape a pivotal moment in particular classes: first-year students often develop a begrudging affection for Martin Buber and his fondness for talking to trees; Harry Middleton’s gorgeous memoir The Earth Is Enough prompts an assignment with which Dan Allender’s students are on a first-name basis; in theology classes, many students bond in common conviction and inspiration under the work of James Cone; and Annie Rogers’s A Shining Affliction is a beloved rite of passage in the Counseling Psychology program.

Fewer writers, though, manage to impact the rhythms and tones of life in our red brick building even when they are not officially assigned in class. And perhaps none have done so with as much resonance as Mary Oliver—a matriarch of ��Ƶ whose words stir somewhere deep in the heart of this place.

With the authority of a voice at home with itself, Mary called us to listen and pay attention. Sometimes her call came as a gentle whisper, and other times it felt more like a slap in the face: look up, at the gray sky you take for granted; look down, at the wet soil knotted with roots; look in, at the self you have forgotten. In a way, she was echoing that other Mary, who teaches us that even the bravado of wise men and the chaos of exile might evoke in us a moment of attentive pondering.

“In a way, she was echoing that other Mary, who teaches us that even the bravado of wise men and the chaos of exile might evoke in us a moment of attentive pondering.”

But attention itself is not the goal, learning from her long-time partner Molly: “Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report. An openness—an empathy—was necessary if the attention was to matter.” It’s why her famous “instructions for living a life” don’t end at “pay attention,” though that is the crucial point from which everything else follows. Instead, attention leads to astonishment, and astonishment turns us toward others. It seems that the work of paying attention and opening ourselves to wonder is not complete until it also deepens our capacity for love.

Love, then, is where Mary leads us, and it’s why the Internet, for just a moment, felt like such a kind place on that sad day. Because so many of us, in one way or another, learned something from Mary about what it means to love. In the profound simplicity of her work, she assured us that love is not resounding gongs and clanging cymbals. In her long, inquisitive walks she proclaimed that presence and attunement are the elements of love, and that those are grown through the repetition and discipline of ritual. And in not shying from grief after her partner’s death, she reminded us that love can be excruciating and raw—that it sometimes comes as a gift in

Mary taught us again and again that love is most fully itself when it is omnidirectional: outward, inward, up, down, around—each avenue nourished by and dependent upon the others. If you treat the with impatience and contempt, she seemed to be asking us, how can you hope to love others any differently? If you stop listening to the earth and all that breathes and pulses around you, how can you maintain the intrigue that gives love wings? And if you are not at home in your own self, will you ever be home anywhere else?

Somehow, when Mary’s work asked big questions or spoke a truth that shot like lightning through our bones, it never felt as if she was lecturing or preaching at us. She offered a small thing well said, a bit like walking on the beach with a friend who stoops to collect a seashell. “Here,” she says, dropping it into our palm, “look what I found.” Then she’s off, continuing her walk and letting us decide what to do with her gift.

That is why she could reach refrigerator-magnet-level prevalence and still feel as if she was speaking directly to you, her reader. When she said, it was both a universal proclamation and the close comfort of a dear friend, offering a cup of tea to bring our anxious frenzy back to the earth. She was both wise teacher and gentle companion.

There are some who were skeptical of this, who believed that Mary’s presence on Pinterest and postcards must mean her work was somehow less beautiful or important. Her critics often championed the suspicious belief that popularity betrays a work as shallow or false, like the easy pleasure and empty insight you might find on Top 40 radio. But I would argue that Mary’s widespread resonance was deeper than that. She saw something true of our world and ourselves, and she offered it to us as a free gift—simply wrapped, shyly given, no strings attached. And we loved her for it.

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The Trash Run

Danielle Castillejo — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 14:00:16 +0000

The month of January has been designated Human Trafficking Awareness Month, culminating in National Freedom Day on February 1. Here, Danielle Castillejo, a second-year MA in Counseling Psychology student, writes about a recent shift working the “trash run” at a local shelter—and about the crisis of care that exists when complex trauma, mental illness, and sexual exploitation intersect. This post originally appeared on .

My surprised skin bumped into the chills of the new fall morning air. Inhaling deeply from its fresh coolness, I steadied my beating heart’s morning aches that were left over from last night’s racing internal discussion about a life and a death. A young 19-year-old woman hung suspended before my mind, with her long, coarse, strawberry blond hair pulled tightly into a knot behind her head. She’s an average height, not skin and bones, but there’s not much extra. Her eyes don’t mask the dark terror of the voices. This body holds at least 16 years of consuming trauma. Trauma has mapped itself well, topographically: old scars and new ones mark her dips in and out of reality. She paces nightly, in pj shorts and tank top, racing through her own internal dialogue with accusing voices, imprisoning her body in my plain sight.

The darkness of winter seems to have arrived too early. I am unprepared for its tepid response to my request for a bit more light. Average gray clouds hold in sadness, lust, anger, desire, joy, and anguish, engulfing Seattle in the inevitability of pending violence. It’s the edge of a knife. The sharp edge presses my skin to see if I am real. Wincing, I look at the complications of loving, caring, justice, and reality. Her body remains unmoved from my mind.

With limited shelters and limited resources available to commercially sexually exploited persons, the short list of helpful and innovative options grows shorter when mental illness haunts bodies infected by complex traumas. This young woman will make frequent visits to the hospital in hope for relief and, yet, return to her life with little protection from the realities of her invasive trauma. Mental health hospitals diagnose these persons with schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder, suicidal ideation, and more. The self-harming behaviors of cutting and the dreams of suicide are identified and categorized, and the diagnosis procured.

“The short list of helpful and innovative options grows shorter when mental illness haunts bodies infected by complex traumas.”

Her shadow catches my eye. She walks down the street to wait for an Uber. The hospital door slams shut. She needs help and calls a friend.

The hospital releases her soul into a world of harsh expectations with little understanding of how in the hell she will come back from her severe mental illnesses.

I suppose, given the diagnosis, the hospital hopes that a plan of medication, therapy, and support will lead to healing. But without a buffer of time between the perpetual trauma and everyday life, hospitalizations, and a community that offers unconditional support, the commercially sexually exploited persons swim alone. They swim in dark, cold waters, gasping for air in systems unable to hold them compassionately.

Cutting edge therapeutic techniques are available to treat complex trauma; however, the skilled therapists are often financially bound to pay back student loans, bills, and to support a family. It’s difficult or nearly impossible to find social networks, churches, or systems that support the healing process of the lowest in society. And, most commercial sex workers are not white. They are Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latino/a, and bi-racial persons. When commercial sex workers walk into clinics, already stereotyped, reeking of addictions and death, only able to pay through state health insurance, there is not much hope to be held in those spaces.

These are the least of these. This is the trash run.

She sits, legs pulled to her chest, in the small shelter’s office, asking for grounding; she wants to get back to reality. Her phone buzzes just like mine, and her articulate analysis of her own internal reality questions my limited understanding. I mutter frustrations directed at a God who sees both of us. I resign to listen again to the accusing voices she narrates so clearly. We sit for less than 15 minutes because I am waiting on an Uber to take me home to a warm bed, husband, and four children. It is no consolation that I have spent precious hours away from my family to work here and get paid to chill with this woman and others. I don’t feel morally superior. I look at my watch one last time and excuse myself, telling her I am praying and hoping she stays safe. And with that, I remind myself that some would say I have completed my shift on “The Trash Run.”

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Grief, Compassion, and Connection

Jeffrey Batstone — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 15:00:41 +0000

The season of Advent draws us into the mystery of what it means to be fully present in the midst of the heartache, turmoil, beauty, and hope of our world. But so many of us shy away from fully welcoming that mystery into our lives. In an effort to escape pain and prevent further loss, we close ourselves to grief and, in turn, wall ourselves off to the in-breaking of unexpected moments of beauty.

In this video from our 2018 Symposia: An Intersection of Conversation & Innovation, therapist Jeffrey Batstone (MA in Counseling Psychology, ‘10) presents “Opening to Grief Through Self-Compassion”—a rallying cry to reexamine our relationship with grief through a posture of self-compassion. Jeffrey argues that self-compassion is a key factor in the difference between the stagnance of depression and the dynamic movement of grief. If our fundamental posture is toward an avoidance of grief, then it will be harder to be compassionate toward ourselves in the midst of it; we may instead embody those cultural messages that say we need to “get over it” and “move on.”

“When we avoid grief, we close down vital experiences necessary for a rooted life.”

“In self-kindness, we have a willingness to move towards pain in connection, mindfulness, and common humanity. Compassion literally means to suffer. When we allow ourselves to suffer the pain of loss in relationship, we move away from depression. This is what my research is showing,” says Jeffrey. “Allowing grief to move through us, allowing ourselves to experience the pain of loss, that requires we posture ourselves in relationship mindfully, offering ourselves kindness rather than judgement, opening ourselves to relationship rather than isolation, and mindfully acknowledging the pain we are in without exaggeration or minimization. These are the factors that allow grief to flow through us.”

This work has grown out of Jeffrey’s doctoral research and dissertation, years of therapeutic experience, and his own personal experience. The essential, healing movement of grief comes up again and again in the categories we explore at ��Ƶ, and we are so grateful to keep learning from alumni like Jeffrey, who are sharing creative, relational, embodied approaches to grief that our world so desperately needs.

“Grief will come to us, welcome or not. When we posture ourselves against it, we close off to life-giving arteries. When we allow grief to have its way with us, it will open us to the core of who we are, and our cries will be those of love for who and what we’ve lost.”