We've all been squeezed into tinier mental spaces by Covid. Timothy Tate says we can find center again by letting ourselves be vulnerable to quiet re-connection
As anyone who reads my column knows, I enjoy honoring rituals that are tied to nature or, to be exact, the phenomena having to do with our spinning world, it’s revolution around the sun and what it means for us and other beings whose origins can be traced back to the same earthly stew.
The Vernal Equinox—the first day of spring—arrived replete with snow falling from an overcast sky. It was a soft day when light and darkness share twelve hours each of their allotted time. Recalling my last column’s focus on dreams, I am reminded by how seasons, location, a mountain valley in our case, and available light/darkness affect our dreams and that place where they happen, the human mind.
I was struck last week when a longtime friend called me, while I was hosting my weekly radio show, to ask if he might tell me a dream that he had had the other night. Tickled by such a request I returned his call on my walk home from the radio station. He told me this dream:
“I am walking a path along a broad and dark river. I see my ex-father-in-law on the far side of the expansive river. I come to a bridge crossing the river that has a sign in front of it, with a red background and gold Chinese or Japanese characters which I cannot read. I walk up the steps to the bridge but there is some sort of energetic force field that repels me back from my attempt to cross. Not able to cross over and meet him I continue down the path.”
He went on to tell me that later that morning his ex-wife, the daughter of the man on the other side of the river, called to tell him that her dad died in the middle of the night around the time when the dreamer was dreaming the dream he shared with me.
A coincidence? It’s possible one way or the other. It happened in the absence of scientific corroboration or rejection.
I am not in need of proving a concept nor of making anything more out of this dream other than accepting how it touches my soul, braces my wonder of the invisible world’s wisdom which in turn gives me confidence to lean into life however it presents today. I like living my life open to accepting there are many things that cannot immediately be explained—which does not mean they aren’t important.
Besides tracking my own dreams I work with clients who are interested in trying to crack the code of their own unconscious visions. Beyond the cliche “hope springs eternal’” is the sense I have of what this dream conveys. There is an indefatigable Urquell, a German word for fountainhead, that springs eternal in the human psyche spilling stories and images, refreshing the bedlam of our daily repetitive lives.
In times of trouble, like we have endured at a mass scale through the ravages of a global pandemic’s demands and individual isolation, we each have ways of coping. We might rely on our faith, we might rely on alcohol and drugs, we might polarize into strident beliefs, we might collapse into the agony of anxiety stoked depressive episodes, we might spend interminable time watching the screens of our phones, computers, or cable monitors. We might get ill.
Many of us contracted in the last year, pulling into our bubbles, our primary relationships, or shrunk down the sense of solitude people need. Psychological contraction is the opposite of expansive energy like we might experience at a warm 4th of July picnic or baseball stadium. Contraction and expansion is how our psyche—the human mind, soul or spirit— manages personal energy.
Extended periods of either contraction or expansion can have their consequences. Prolonged contraction presents, i.e. manifests, like depression whereas rapid expansion represents mania. How might we negotiate our expansion from an extended contracted state as “the world opens up again” without forfeiting our judgment function by acting on impulsive behaviors, like college students do during crowded spring break mania?
Wellness is about grooming our capacity to live a consciously intentional life in which we are aware of choices we make. For many, this means losing the emotional bonds of contraction, i.e. retreating and making our lives smaller as a response to our survival instinct.
Wellness is about grooming our capacity to live a consciously intentional life in which we are aware of choices we make. For many, this means losing the emotional bonds of contraction, i.e. retreating and making our lives smaller as a response to our survival instinct.
The last year has brought mass fear of infection that ripples at the individual level, and it has activated triggering responses to politics, and to safety measures that became compulsive, and anxiety about Covid risk twisting into obsessive thoughts. How can we now move past this?
It may be best accomplished through two methods. Firstly is creating or sustaining a self-practice of knowing how you can find and return to a centered state—meditation is one form; and secondly, engaging in vulnerable conversations with people you trust.
A psychologically-contracted mental state is easy to stay stuck in. The longer it is engaged and the more gradual its grip grabs, the harder it is to think our way out of it. That is why it is vital to make dedicated time for a contemplative meditative practice or daily ritual. Whatever it is you choose to do, let it be calming, relaxing, slow of speed.
A psychologically-contracted mental state is easy to stay stuck in. The longer it is engaged and the more gradual its grip grabs, the harder it is to think our way out of it. That is why it is vital to make dedicated time for a contemplative meditative practice or daily ritual. Whatever it is you choose to do, let it be calming, relaxing, slow of speed.
I prefer walking in the woods or into expansive open spaces that draw my attention to the elements, either to the balm of wind blowing through the pine trees’ boughs or the perspective of 40- mile vistas defined by mountain ranges. (Yes, think about that—being able to see an object 40 miles or more away!).
Getting outdoors is good for us. I would also add that calming relaxation in Covid times would often not be found at local trailheads, campgrounds or at boat launches. Ironically, heading to nature sometimes turned jarring. What I am referencing here is quietude where the body can be immersed in the natural world operating at its own pace, on its own time, and where we can hear ourselves think with a slower heartbeat; i.e. being in a position where you notice things. There are farmer and rancher friends I know who make time for themselves amid harried, seemingly never-ending chores.
What I am referencing here is quietude where the body can be immersed in the natural world operating at its own pace, on its own time, and where we can hear ourselves think with a slower heartbeat; i.e. being in a position where you notice things. There are farmer and rancher friends I know who make time for themselves amid harried, seemingly never-ending chores.
The blessing of living in the mountain West is that these kinds of option are readily available.
The second vehicle is talking to somebody, reaching out to deliberately make connections. Vulnerable conversations are the lingua of therapy in its most effective form. Therapeutic dialogue—opening up about stuff on your mind— is possible in familiar accessible forms: partners, friends, relatives, and the gift of unexpected encounters that blossom into authentic exchanges.
Vulnerability is another word for emotional risk taking, i.e. not retreating behind protective emotional armor. All this means is that we change the habit of holding personal content (stuff) hostage to our ego defenses. Easier said than done? Not really, even if you’re a stoic.
Did you know that guarded defensiveness—holding in what’s bugging us— takes much more energy than forthright direct and honest sharing that allows you to unload it and let it go.
The grace of the consulting room is that once a person walks through the Blue Door of my office and sits down across from me they have confidence in how I hold space and the words that have bound up flow out. This is what any good mental health professional offers.
This confidence is built on reputation but is also attainable by anyone of us who holds the energetic space of a quiet, centered, inviting, non-judgmental attitude. If you are mentally quiet enough, you know it when it’s there, as much as you can sense its absence.
Tate provided this snapshot from his own garden—tulips pushing out of the frost-covered ground, a metaphor, he says, of human resiliency.
After the last year, we don’t have to imagine what it’s like to lose the bonds of our personal contact and retreat inward, both physically and mentally. Are we not like tulips, emerging from our contracted dormancy venturing out, testing the conditions. Is it safe to bloom? Like the harsh weather of a Northern Rockies spring, we’re testing how hospitable the conditions are that await in the world we used to know.
None of us are re-sprouting alone. We’re all trying to find our way back into the light again. For me, I will be returning to an old ritual where my sleeping and waking dreams converge. For me it is a grounding—or rather water communion—in quiet solace: the approaching Mother’s Day hatch of caddis flies on a river that need not be mentioned.
When I step into the current, I will also be offering my gratitude to have lived through the pandemic and being able to experience once again one of the many sweet gifts of nature worth waiting for. May we realize how fortunate we are to have a healthy environment. Let us realize it by offering a double expression of thanks.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Beyond the descriptions above, are you interested in better understanding what it means to be more mindful? Many outlets exist (and you need only Google "mindfulness" to find local outlets in your community. Within Greater Yellowstone, here are three: Becoming Jackson Hole; the Montana Mindfulness Project; and Full Ecology.
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About Timothy Tate
Community Psyche columnist Timothy J. Tate, who lives in Bozeman, Montana, has been a practicing professional psychotherapist for more than 30 years. For decades, he had an office on Main Street behind The Blue Door. He still works with clients downtown.
