The Regrets of the Dying

I was impressed by a recent article in the Guardian, 'The Five regrets of the Dying'. Palliative care nurse, Bronnie Ware, has written about the regrets of the dying. She lists five 'top' regrets [ I paraphrase them, Google her name to get the full version]:

• I wish I'd been true to myself.
• I wish I'd not worked so hard.
• I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
• I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.
• I wish I'd let myself be happier.

They offer an agenda of issues that we should be address long before we die. A couple of these regrets are counter intuitive [at least in our culture]: 'I wish I'd not worked so hard' and 'I wish I'd let myself be happier' and deserve a closer look.

'I wish I'd not worked so hard'

What does work do that is so bad for you? The answer would seem to be that work, particularly for men,  takes up so much of their time that they miss out on their kids growing up, spending time with their partner, cultivating friendships, pursuing interests and so on. Obvious really. If you work too hard, the life you should have lived remans unlived.

It is interesting to see this in the current political climate. The political messages that are sent down to us from above  imply that we Britons don't work hard enough. A propos this I noted  a news item about the Centre for Economic and Business Research which suggests that banning Bank Holidays would save the country billions of pounds. I translate that as suggesting work and money should take precedence over happiness. So when we arrive at our deathbeds we can reflect on the fact that we missed even more of our lives by working on Bank Holidays as well as all the other days. That does not sound healthy to me.

Of course much depends on the kind of work you do. Working long hours in a factory or in a office is a different kettle of fish to work that involves meeting varied and interesting people. The latter is life enhancing unlike the former. I haven't read Bronnie's book yet but I presume that it will make this important distinction.

I wish I'd let myself be happier.

This is an interesting point. We usually regard happiness  as something we are constantly trying to maximise but this suggests that happiness is actually something we suppress. The Guardian article indicates that this has got much to do with staying within the comfort zones of familiar habits and not allowing yourself to explore new experiences and have fun. This is fascinating. Something I don't really understand fully. I'm going to go away and think about it.

By the way if you do go to the Guardian website to read the article don't spend too much time on the readers' comments section. Many of the contributions are fatuous, asinine or flippant and avoid the issues that the article presents which suggests to me an underlying anxiety about death on the part of the writers.

The article is a modern memento mori, a  reminder that we all die. Religious and philisophical writings have always presented the same message and suggested it should inspire us to put our lives in order. There are many quotes that I could put offer. Here's just one that gets to the point vividly:

'Death is a wise adviser that we have...one has to ask death's advice and drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to men [sic]that live their lives as if death will never tap them. If you do not think of death all your life will be personal chaos.'

Carlos Castenada.

I like the phrase 'cursed pettiness'.  'Cursed pettiness ' is the bane of our lives is it not?

Therapies that work with thoughts.

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy,  REBT, is similar to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT in that it looks at the thinking processes behind our emotions. In particular it explores at the beliefs that underlie our thinking; the premises from which we start. The founder of this school of therapy, Albert Ellis, suggested that three beliefs form the basis of emotional disturbance [I paraphrase here, Ellis was inclined to be verbose]:

• I must be perfect. If I am not, I'm a failure and deserve to suffer.
• People must be nice to me and if they are not they ought to be punished.
• My life must be enjoyable at all times. If not it's not worth living.

Holding these beliefs can lead to depression, anxiety, vindictive behaviour and all sorts of other kinds of human misery. We need to examine* these beliefs carefully and replace them with these more realistic beliefs:

• Human beings aren't perfect. Being imperfect does not mean failing.
• People aren't always nice to each other. I can't expect everyone to be nice to me all the time.
• Suffering and discomfort need to be accepted as part of life.

Beliefs affect the way we reason about what happens. So if we believe in the necessity of perfection, every time we slip up we regard this as a disaster. We awfulize it, to use Ellis's expression.Thus we might lose our car keys, catch a cold, have an argument with our partner and tell friends we have had the most dreadful day and rant on about it to such an extent that we start to feel seriously depressed. You wouldn't believe what an absolutely terrible day I've had. I deserve better than this! And so on and so forth. You can write your own script here if you like. It's a useful exercise.

Ellis refers to this desire to have perfection  as an example of  musturbation. The musts in our lives are what is explored in REBT sessions: there are all sorts of 'musts' as well as the 'must be perfect' such as, 'must be good', 'must be clever', 'must be witty', 'must be good at sport'. Some of these may be very specific such as 'must eat  everything on my plate'. Beliefs such as these can underlie eating problems and are worth exploring if you have this kind of difficulty. We pick lots of 'musts' when we are children. Not all of them are bad ' must not kill people ' is one worth keeping, for example. What we must do, though, is look at them rationally.

As with all cognitive therapies much of what REBT offers is powerful ideas that have been around for centuries presented in a new format. It is one that I, personally don't like. I can't stand the way Ellis mangles the English language with his ugly neologisms like 'awfulization' and 'musturbation'. But I must emphasise that REBT can be a very useful toolkit examining what is happening  your life, one that you can use on your own -there are lots of self help resources that can be Googled- or one that can be used within the context of a counselling session.

If you prefer you can find the same philosophical approach  that underpins REBT in M. Scott Peck's book  The Road less Traveled  which starts with the sentence 'Life is difficult'.  Or in Buddhism: the Buddha's First Noble Truth, is Dukkha,  The Truth of Suffering  which observes that discomfort, suffering are part and parcel of life and should be accepted.

*I nearly used the expression 'challenged our beliefs' but managed to avoid it. It is on my list of phrases that have become meaningless cliches through bureaucratic abuse. One of my constant concerns is the way language can be drained of meaning by the way it is used by institutions.The counselling process requires words to do their work well by conveying strong unequivocal meanings, so it is important that the words we use, when discussing the subject of counselling, are carefully chosen.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, CBT for short, is an effective method of dealing with certain kinds of problems.The idea behind CBT is simple: how we think affects how we feel and how we behave.

This is not a new idea. The Dhammapada - an ancient Buddhist text- emphasizes how important it is to look at the nature of our thinking if we want  to be happy. 'All that we are is a result of what we have thought.' The Stoics of the Classical world advised a similar approach. CBT dresses up this attitude to life  in the language of modern psychotherapy.

CBT can be done with a therapist or with the help of  books, for example, Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine A. Padesky. This book summarises it's content on the front cover where it states: Change how you feel by changing the way you think. It contains useful tables that can help you explore how you think about what happens in your life.[Google 'Thought Record Sheet' if you want to see what one looks like.] You start with looking at a situation that upsets you and then proceed to identify the automatic thoughts that arise in connection with it. For example, you may feel nervous when talking to your boss, and notice that your automatic thoughts in this situation are 'I'm useless', 'I'm afraid he'll tell me off' or 'I'm not important enough for him to spend time with.'

Having identified the thoughts the next step is to look at the evidence for and against them rationally. Having done this you proceed to establish a more accurate view of your situation. This may be, in the above example,  that in fact you are demonstrably useful, and that you are valued and liked by your boss.

In practice it can be quite difficult to identify thoughts and feelings. In real life situations events happen fast and you end up feeling a bit puzzled how you got to feel the way you do. A mindful attention can help but that is something easy to recommend but difficult to put into practice. A therapist can help [not necessarily an 'official' CBT practitioner] by facilitating the reasoning process and by keeping you focused on the task in hand. It is very easy, when you are on your own, to meander away from  the problems you are trying to tackle and  for the obvious reason that they are distressing. A counsellor can provide a reassuring presence that can help you stay on track.

All therapies involve the reasoning processes  that are formalised in CBT. There are some close cousins to CBT such as Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, REBT for short. This works by looking at dysfunctional beliefs and thinking styles. More of this another time. I'm trying to keep my entries to a digestible size.

What is Counselling?

Today I spent the morning writing  my entry for the Counselling Directory.

I was trying to say what I consider the process of counselling to consist of without using too much jargon or convoluted syntax. This was difficult and I found myself frozen in a condition of indecision for minutes at a time. I like to use words to pin things down but that is not always possible.

Firstly some words have been ruined by bureaucratic abuse, for example, the word 'empowerment'. Because it has been used by so many agencies in a glib and meaningless way it has become a pale and insubstantial term that signals dreary disempowering interventions by tired and uninspired employees of local government departments who themselves have been disempowered by bullying bosses, micromanagement and government initiatives.

Yet it should be a good word. It is important that we are empowered to make decisions and take control of our lives. David Smail in his book, The Nature of Unhappiness, points out that mental distress can be understood in terms of lack of personal power in the areas of action, thought and feeling.  Not having control in each or any of these areas almost inevitably leads to anxiety, frustration and depression.

Secondly, words, much as I love them, are limited. They don't comprehensively cover all the kinds of things that happen when two people communicate in the context of a counselling session. There are lots of non verbal communications occurring which are subtle and have the unique quality of the moment and which impart  a distinct flavour to the session. This is why transcripts of what is said during counselling seem rather banal. You can't determine what was occurring just by reading the words, just as you can't judge the performance of a play by reading its script.

But whatever is happening, the counsellor is helping the client regain his or her power over action, thought, feeling and I would like to add, meaning. One of the worst forms of disempowerment is the loss of the personal meaning we give to the events and the patterns of our lives. That is devastating. The counsellor helps* the client uncover meanings. Art, literature, music, science all deal with meanings as do family relationships, work, sport and love. We say 'It means a lot to me', when we want to indicate an event or situation that is of essential importance to us. When you find meaning...what happens? I'm trying not to sound as though I'm preaching a sermon, but that's difficult. When you find meaning you find life. That's the expression that came to mind but I hesitated to put it down for fear of sounding like Echart Tolle when I wanted to sound like R.D. Laing.

*'Helps'  a word now discredited because it has an undeserved reputaion of indicating a patronising situation. It needs to be reinstated as it is a very helpful word.

Explanations & Riots Part 1

The Riots have troubled me. They've got into my dreams. They've dominated my conscious thinking. They've given me Apocalyptic shivers. They've made me fear that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society.

I have been equally troubled by the explanations people have found for them. They have frequently shown a viciousness and misanthropy that has matched that shown by the rioters themselves. Calls for violent measures seem, to me at least, to spring from the same core of frustration, discontent and unhappiness that is behind the rioters' behaviour.

Sorry to get a bit psychodynamic here but it's unavoidable: there appears to be a projection occuring; that is, we are seeing in the perpetrators of the crimes we are witnessing something of the rotteneness in our own hearts. Hence we call them 'evil'. We want to see them not as confused, morally muddled people like ourselves acting badly, but as entities who are totally evil. Once we establish that we can explores the joys of vengeance. Enter Arnie, Clint, or whoever to 'take them out' while we drool with delight. That'll teach 'em! Such a sentiment is probably the same as that of many of the rioters: We'll f.....g show you! or words to that effect probably went through their minds.


In Christian terms what I'm saying is 'He who is without sin cast the first stone'. I'm not a Christian but I greatly admire this saying by the great Rabbi, Yeshua, who is exhorting us to look into our own hearts before we mete out punishment. This approach, of course, has been comprehensively ignored throughout the history of Christendom.

I'm not [and I'm sick of labouring this kind of point] advocating 'being soft on crime'. What I'm saying is that before we proffer explanations, and explanations lead on to remedies including punishments, we need to look long and hard at ourselves.

I'm horrified by the rioting but I  can't say I'm surprised at it. Trouble has been simmering away in the background for years.

Before I go any further I apologise for adding my opinion to the 100 million opinions on this topic that have already been expressed in print, on blogs, in pubs, amongst friends and so on. 

I would also like to remind anyone who reads this that explanations are not justifications. Just because I try to understand why people riot does not mean that  I condone their actions. In fact I'd definitely fight back if my community was threatened.

What I am curious about is the mindset of the rioters. What is going on in their heads? How do they justify their actions? They no doubt do; they might not be educated but they are not stupid. How do they see the world they find themselves in?

These are uncomfortable questions for us all because we love to demonise others. It is one of the great dirty pleasures of being human. I do it myself. Three or four pints of beer and  I 'm saying all chavs/NOW reporters/social workers/traffic wardens/public school boys/fruit and veg traders/ local council officials/Daily Mail readers/Co-op Bank staff/psychiatrists/Jeremy Clarksons or whoever else has happened to upset me during the day should be shot, tortured, castrated, sent to live in Coalville, and worse. Ranting is such fun! No doubt a scientist will tell us 'research shows it activates the pleasure centres of the brain'. But scientists are just a bunch of f...g geeks aren't they?

Demonising is a process that is opposed to empathising. Empathising is what I'm talking about. What would be interesting would be to hear what rioters say about themselves and their actions. Of course this would not be popular, but it might help us to diagnose the sickness that afflicts our society.

Another note: empathy is not sympathy.

In the course of adult life I've talked to quite a lot of bad and mad people and have found it illuminating to discover their paranoid views of the universe, that is the real or imaginary entities that are their demons. These include Galactic conspirators, the Mekon, Muslims, anyone from Africa, Social Services, the Illuminati, the Marcone, Communists, Capitalists, Zionists, the Insect People, Irishmen...It's hard to distinguish the insane from the political and the religious.

Likewise with the rioting tribes: they will have a shared view of the world , they will have their demons. Knowing what these are will be help solve the problems we face collectively. We can guess what some of these are: the police, immigrants, the middle classes and so on. The rioters are part of the great stinking, sticky mass of discontent, anger, frustration, depression, envy, greed, that sits in the middle of our society, that we all contribute to. It needs to be dealt with before - and this is my great fear- it is exploited by political extremists. Check out history and be frightened.

Apologies if I sound like a vicar or an opinion column in the Independent.

Words of Wisdom

There's bucket loads of words of wisdom sloshing about. Just think of all the good advice given by traditional English proverbs with their silver clouds, sow's ears, long roads, cups, lips, cooks, pigs, cows, foxes, kings.. there's enough there to keep you going for the rest of your life. Then there's the religious texts: the Book of Proverbs, the Sayings of the Prophet, the Analects of Confucius, the Koans of Zen and so on. More recently there have been the modern mystics like Eckhart Tolle and Paul Coelho, Californian gurus, Shamans, neurologists, agony aunts, TV pundits, Jeremy Clarkson [sorry], management consultants, psychologists, NLP practitioners, complimentary therapists all deluging us with words of wisdom.

And there's me in my kitchen after  glass or two of wine pontificating. Fortunately what I say in such circumstances is not recorded by eager pupils of my wisdom. [ A nice little volume lost there: 'Harry Ashcroft's Table Talk'.] I'm no exception, of course, we all have this desire to pass on what we think of as wisdom. It's some kind innate urge: the oracular urge that adds yet more words to The Ocean of Wisdom.

What are we to do with all this stuff? How do we use it in real life?

If  I am in my hospital bed after an accident do I mutter to myself  through broken teeth, Every cloud has a silver lining? Do I put my trust in the Lord? Do I reflect on the 'lesson' that my suffering has granted? Do I say to myself Ah! The Buddha's First Nobel Truth! Suffering. Dukkha.  What do I do? How do I use this vast body of wisdom that's out there?

It seems to me that wisdom is cheap but life is hard.

And wisdom is much abused. It is used as a weapon by devious politicians, religious bigots, bogus gurus, oppressive parents, bullying bosses, sadistic teachers and such like.

Yet, undoubtably,  there is much that is good and true amongst all this material. How do we distinguish the sound from the spurious?

Incidentally I would like to point out that I am not asking these questions rhetorically. I am asking them in an open ended way hoping for some illumination. Hopefully not more words of wisdom but some real answers.

One issue is that words of wisdom are offered as self evident truths and are backed by authority, usually in the form of powerful partriarchs, or 'tradition'. This makes their examination problematic. Questioning them can thus stir up anxieties and make us feel vulnerable as we might enter unknown territory and, at most places and times, stir up accusations of heresy, political incorrectness, antisocial attitudes with all the consequences that  a real struggle to find some real wisdom might bring.

And are the words I've written themselves 'words of wisdom' just adding more confusion to the difficult business of being human?

There's the question of how things are said here. Are they said in a way that is pompous and pious or human and generous?

If I'm lying on my hospital bed and the Priest, or other important religious person, sits at my bedside and talks to me about  the need for patience how does that make me feel?  Patience is certainly something I'm going to be in need of but how is he [it's almost certainly a 'he'], the religious figure going to make me feel when he exhorts me to be patient?

So lots of questions. Any answers would be welcome. I'll be parking some of my own speculations on this blog over the next few weeks.