Door to the Beyond: Paganism and Mental Health

Welcome to the Door. Let's take yet another walk through...

I'm a member of an online group in which we help each other to eat better and lose weight and exercise, not necessarily in that order, which site also includes a lot of pagans (several different groups in the forums). (If you are looking for a group like this, it's called SparkPeople.com.)

Someone in one of the forums had just berated themselves for the fact that they wake up feeling great and set these high goals for themselves, but at the end of the day they have failed in meeting them.

With the concept of Dr. Low's statement, “Lower your expectations and your performance will rise,” I responded with the following:

'You need to start looking at "failure", as you just put it, as a minor success or even a group of minor successes. We all too often set our goals too high, and the striving for these goals means we did better than we would normally have done. You may have tried longer, or you may have succeeded in not eating as much fat or sugar or meat but still "failed" in your overall goal -- which, again I say, was set too high. It's called "carrot and stick" -- you ate too many carrots so you beat yourself with the stick, or something like that.

'I would suggest setting lower, shorter goals, ones that you can and will meet, and then endorse yourself for reaching ANY of those goals (whether or not you reach ALL of them). Liking yourself enough to pat yourself on the back when it's DESERVED does a great deal for self-esteem, just as knocking yourself after you've actually done well will take you back a few notches.'

Sometimes I amaze myself. Many of the statements I make sound like somebody really wise and learned said them. I keep looking around to see who it was.

I took on a new student last month. I have known her online for a number of years, and her life was not really working, and she asked me to teach her. My first assignment was to get a copy of Rob Brezsny's “Pronoia”. I rarely start out with anything other than basic Wicca, but this was a special case – or maybe I just had an inspiration. As with many of these things, I also noticed that I had not read more than about 10 pages of my copy of “Pronoia”, so it gave me an assignment as well. (I do that a lot...)

The entire concept of “Pronoia” is to show us, each and all, that the Universe is constantly conspiring for us. There are so many thousands, perhaps millions, of things that go right for us each and every day. Of course, limited beings that we are, we only notice the 2 or 3 (okay, some days it may be 4, or even 8) things that go wrong. That's like saying, “I won the scratch-off lottery 8,000 times today, but I didn't win on the other 3 cards I bought. My life is just horrible.”

And have I mentioned Gratefulness Logs? Keep a separate journal, and at the end of each day write down 5 things you are grateful for. Try to find different things every day, but if you have a lot of repetitions that's still a good thing. That's another task I have assigned several students and still don't do myself... I'm going to buy a notebook next time I go to the store, I promise!

Remember that those whom you consider to be wise, which might even include me, don't always walk their talk. In my case, I do the talking as much to remind myself of the journey as to prescribe a similar journey for others. I used to get criticism for one of my blogs (since discontinued) that it was nothing more than good fortune cookies... I replied to the complainers, 'I'm writing those because I need to hear them and not forget. If you get something out of them, I'm glad.'

So, if you enjoy what I've written, in this article or any other I've written, remember that I'm writing them for myself. Sometimes I just have to try to help people, but more often it is to help myself. Which you should remember when you try to help others, and learn the lesson if it is yours to learn. Many of my teachers have taught me that you should learn as much from the student (or the lesson) as you teach, and this has been a significant part of my teaching.

Until next issue.

author: Moss Bliss