Waiting for the Ducks

Ever feel like you just don't quite fit in? Most of us have experienced that disconcerting sense that we are somehow just a little weird, misfit, or perhaps even incredibly, incurably The Ugly Duckling. You probably know the story: Swan egg ends up in duck nest, eggs hatch, one weird looking "duck" emerges, gets persecuted, ridiculed, and rejected from life in the ducks' inner  circle, rejected foul has serendipitous encounter with swans--his real peeps, and the mislabeled misfit discovers self to be--taa daa--way better than a duck--a beautiful swan; ha ha stupid, mean, stubby-necked ducks.
defective. Hans Christian Anderson likely had such an experience in mind when he penned the tale of

 

Creative types, often marching to beat of that proverbial "different drum" (presumably the wrong beat), sometimes find themselves in this story. Like, you're born into a family preceded by four generations of Certified Public Accountants and you hate math and have only ever wanted to play bongos, congas, and djembes since preschool. You are the dubious duckling!  After much hand-wringing and vain attempts at reprogramming, your parents, Mr. and Mrs. Numbercrunch, give up trying to understand how this recessive gene got past the censors and secret you off to Music U and hope the rellies don't ask about your "plans." Ah, but at Music U, you find your peeps--a whole gaggle of them, each just as "weird" as you. What a relief. You go on to become a world class percussionist and provide for your parents when their accounting firm goes belly-up. And of course, a similar story line can also be applied to the future president of the Young Conservatives born to no-so-ex-hippie parents. Oh, but all's well that ends well, right?

  

I love the story of The Ugly Duckling and can relate to it but there are some ways in which the tale breaks down a bit for me. I mean, what if it turns out you are a duck who hatched in a swan nest? What if you are a skunk who was adopted into a litter of kittens by a generously maternal tabby? Did Elephant Man find a colony of other elephant people? What if the ugly duckling had a red glowing bill and wanted to be a dentist? Oh, I get the point that Anderson was making, offering hope to us misfits, that we may well turn out to be not only non-weird, but indeed, extra special! How lovely. But in reality, sometimes our discovered uniqueness results in a downgraded status, so declared by some self-appointed Universal Board of Examiners. What then, Hans? Let's face it, our uniqueness is not always celebrated by others. It's a nice dream that an ugly duckling is really a swan and that a freaky red-nosed reindeer gets to save the day and become a beloved national hero and that a disgruntled elf whose motor skills are so poor that he can't make toys goes on to become the community dentist but...really?
 

Despite their shortcomings, though, stories like The Ugly Duckling and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer are still powerful metaphors. Some of us have spent years of frustration and pain trying to fit in with the wrong clan and be someone we aren't. Finding our peeps--whom we don't even know exist--gives us a shot at enjoying a sense of belonging and escaping a life of feeling like some embarrassing quirk of nature. We can quit waiting for the ducks, hoping they will give us what we need. The truth is that finding our place and our authentic selves is usually a journey and a process that  requires persistence, faith, and usually lots of muddling.
 

The point is that we all long to find a place of belonging and acceptance where we can grow and develop into the authentic individuals we were created to be, whether it's a swan, an ordinary duck, or a molar-filling elf. Hopefully, by God's grace, we can find our people, our place, and ourselves. Hopefully we can help others as they struggle to do the same. It took me quite a long time to find my peeps and become comfortable in my own feathers. I do not, however, scorn my days with the ducks (not that I ended up being a swan). I learned a lot

from them and developed some character--and compassion--during my time in the pond. No, I will never be praised for my quacking and dabbling, but that's okay...I don't really care about honing those skills any more.

Copyright 2011 John D. Deyo, M.A., LMFT

Whacking Dandelion Heads

I grew up in the Midwest. As a very small boy I remember being thrilled that in the spring so many "yellow flowers" shot up in our yard and with my dirty little hands I would gather clusters to bestow upon my mother. She would dutifully place them in a small glass or vase and pretend they were lovely, after all I was a kid and it was the thought that counted, especially to my mom. I, of course, did not realize I had given her a bouquet of, well, weeds! Nor did I realize that I would be able--indeed required--to develop an appropriate detestation of dandelions as a universally recognized lawn blight. 

This realization blossomed partially as a result of exposure to our next door neighbors, the Wilsons--Harold and Elsie. They were lawn-manicuring, rose-growing, dandelion warriors. They were older with no children or pets and they, in fact, would chase either off of their precious grounds. From our porch swing I would watch them fighting the dandelion war, digging them out by the roots with some sort of specialized dandelion rooter. What a pain. It must have irked them terribly that our yard was the dandelion sanctuary of Rose Street. (Or maybe they felt our "neglect" made their yard look especially well groomed.)

We really didn't care about our dandelion problem because we just figured they got whacked weekly by the lawn mower, anyway. Dandelions are amazingly durable. After being beheaded one day, their fuzzy yellow selves would often pop back up the next and quickly go to seed. And what fun to blow those spherical cluster of wispy seeds from the stem and watch them sail off in the breeze toward the Wilsons' yard.

Well, as I said, I eventually came to appreciate that dandelions were not a lawn enhancement. It's not so much the sunny little flowers themselves, but the low, ugly, mower-dodging leaves that take over and choke your nice green turf. Weed killer became my weapon of choice as an adult dandelion hunter. I just didn't have time to battle them by crawling through my expansive yard digging them up by the roots. Any way you slice it, though, if you want rid of the dandelions you have to get them at the roots.

So, the metaphor is not that hard to identify, is it? Our lives are the lawn, our problems the dandelions--weeds--that we sometimes have failed to even identify as such. These are tenacious because they usually have significant, unseen, deep roots. We may whack their heads off by focusing on altering our outward behaviors--over and over--but the behaviors just keep coming back and going to seed. Mowing them down may keep our friends and neighbors from seeing them briefly during a "try-really-hard" phase, but those who live with us know that we "ain't really growin' grass." This is not to say that we don't need to get serious about addressing the problem behaviors. But, if we want to beautify the landscape of our lives long-term we usually have to go for the roots of our issues. Otherwise the behaviors--outward manifestations of what's underground--will just keep popping up and frustrating us. I believe this is why Jesus focused on heart change versus rule-keeping and sin management. This is also where I believe therapy can be useful--getting at the roots. While we will always have to deal with some weeds in this life, change from the inside out--or from the underground up can allow us to produce truly beautiful growth and not just a deceptive field of yellow.

Copyright 2010 John D. Deyo, M.A. MFTI

Care to Spelunk Your Soul?

There are a number of ways to think about therapy. I shared one of them, a walk in your neighborhood, in my last blog. Another picture I have used in describing therapy is spelunking, that is, cave exploration. Maybe you've done some caving yourself. Most of us haven't. But you likely have at least seen video footage of cavers walking, dropping, or crawling down into the earth to discover a whole world that is unknown to those of us who prefer to stay on top of the dirt and rocks, not under them (like me for instance). But the idea is fascinating as a metaphor for therapies that seek to understand what is going on below the surface of our visible behaviors.

We have each been shaped and molded by our past experiences into the relational beings that we are today. While we can't actually change our past, we can modify how we think about our own histories, how we cast ourselves in our personal narratives. Such modifications frequently help us get unstuck and enable us to move on down the river of growth, maturity, and healing. Sometimes, to truly understand what propels us we need to go below ground--do some deeper exploration.

Thus, the caving metaphor. I believe therapy can be likened to spelunking in a couple of important ways. First of all, therapy involves a collaborative exploration of our own lives. Caving is always a collaborative effort where explorers are linked together by critical safety ropes. It isn't something you do alone unless you have taken leave of your senses. Crazier still would be dropping into some crevasse solo with little or no previous experience. A therapist functions as an experienced guide that will go with you and help you safely explore important and unknown parts of yourself, both positive and negative. The second part of the metaphor, then, is the likeness of hidden caverns to those parts of ourselves that exist underground, below the surface of our conscious awareness. It is often in these dark and hidden places that we are unconsciously instigating mystifying decisions that baffle us and lead us to engage in such seemingly nonsensical endeavors like self-sabotage or compulsively seeking and securing relationships with toxic people.

So, it might just be helpful to find out what metaphoric stalactites, stalagmites, and underground rivers await the shine of your flashlight down in those deep and unlit places of the mind and soul. It could change--for the better--the trajectory of the rest of the story that you call your life. I have plenty of extra batteries!

Copyright John D. Deyo, M.A., LMFT 2009

Let's Take a Walk

When I began working with clients I quickly realized that few have a clear sense of what therapy is; many have never ventured into a therapist's office before. Some have cobbled together a notion of what therapy might be like, their ideas (and apprehensions) often based on--heaven forbid--television and movies. I've been told, "I'm afraid you will think I'm like Bob Wiley" (Bill Murray's neeeedy character in the hilarious movie What About Bob). Others have conjured visions of lying on the Freudian couch describing preschool sexual fantasies. Well, sadly, Hollywood seldom portrays the modern therapist very accurately. This has always mystified me given the number of stars, producers, and screen writers who are in treatment themselves.

So, I always ask new clients what they think therapy is. The most frequent misconception is that it is primarily receiving advice or counseling. While therapy may include practical skill building, exercises, and even occasional advising, psychotherapy is not primarily a "fixing" proposition. We are not mind mechanics eager to hook you up to the scope, find the faulty whatchamadinger, swap it out for a new one, and send you speeding off down the road of life "as good as new". The mind and soul just don't seem to work that way. Therapy should, rather, involve--at least in part--slowing down, introspecting, examining who you are and how you got that way, and assuming responsibility for change. Awareness is a key to change.

Have you ever noticed how much you don't notice? Most of us haven't noticed how much we don't notice. Not noticing is actually an important ability we have to screen out the non-essential input that constantly bombards us. Much peripheral stimulus is processed outside of our conscious awareness or simply dismissed in favor of attending to more important information we need to get us through the present moment. Imagine driving down the freeway having to actually attend to each of your thoughts: " I'm going 74, my mother is 74, oh look, that cloud looks like a buzzard, I wonder what a buzzard smells like, that semi is red, that Mercedes is going way too fast, but it probably doesn't feel as fast as it would in my Corolla, Mercedes is German, I'd like to go to Germany, Hitler was awful, I'm awful hungry for a cheeseburger, I need to change lanes, on Penny Lane there is a banker with a motor car, I'm going to turn on the radio, moving my arm now, reaching for the button, feel this crappy asphalt bouncing my car around, the sun is in my eyes, I love U2, wonder what Bono is doing right now, There's a Keebler semi, wish I had an E.L. Fudge cookie..." Whoa, TMI! Thank God for a brain that can screen, right? 

However, defensively screening out useful and/or unpleasant input can also create problems like: "One six-pack a night is NOT a drinking problem, I can quit any time I choose" or, "Who's an emotionally detached, insensitive jerk? I told you I love you once and if I change my mind I'll let you know. You're the one with the problem." Change begins with awareness.

All of us live someplace--a neighborhood. We come and go from our house or apartment, whizzing in, whizzing out, going here, going there. We sort of assume we know what our neighborhood is like: the buildings, the houses, the streets, trees, bushes. But how much are we really missing. One evening my wife and I were taking a leisurely stroll--not a power walk--through our neighborhood and I began to notice things I hadn't noticed, all kinds of things: Interesting architecture, junk cleverly concealed in the neighbor's back yard, amazing rose bushes, garbage under roadside bushes, cracked sidewalks, that the annoying yapping dog that wakes me up at 6 a.m. is an ancient Chihuahua. I realized that I often whiz through life the same way, failing to notice, failing to be aware. It occurred to me, from my own experience, that therapy is a place to slow down, to stroll, and begin to notice; to notice important things we have missed and defensively screened out.

Therapy, then, can be likened to taking slow walks around your neighborhood--your life--and beginning to see what is really there and what is missing, what you want to keep, get rid of, change, improve, find healing and resolution for. A therapist, then, functions as a sort of guide--a co-explorer--who helps us slow down and see important details we've been missing or screening out, and to be with us while we try and make sense of them. Therapists are, in fact, trained to do this--we like it! So, get out of your car, put on some comfortable shoes, and let's take a walk.

Copyright John D. Deyo, M.A., LMFT 2009

Never Met-a-Phor I Didn't Like

As a mental health professional part of my mission is to help people think about their lives in fresh ways that spring them from traps that have mysteriously held them captive--sometimes for years. I would hope this blog can serve that mission as well. I realize that there is a plethora of information on the web related to mind and soul health--some of it good, some of it not-so-good. When I find really good stuff, I may post it here from time to time. Mainly, though, I believe that one of the unique things each of us bring to the world is our own perspective. It is a lens we cannot help but look through even when trying to be impartial. The lens I look through is clearly shaped--some would say bent and warped--by my half-century-plus of spinning around on this ball of dirt, peering out through my little blue eyeballs at the world and trying to make sense of life.

The "two roads" that
life often presents
to us - a metaphor.

My particular neural circuitry is wired in such a way that I seem best able to understand things in picture form. Show me, show me, show me! If you must douse me with words, give me some word-pictures to work with; analogies, parables, jokes, stories. This is how I am best able to make sense of things. I used to assume everyone thought like this. As it turns out, not so. I have been told by some that my ability to think this way is a gift. I guess it might be, because I didn't do anything special to develop this quirky way of processing. It has a downside for me: anything math related an absolute nightmare for me (yeah, even if you use oranges and trains). A confirmed math phobic, my brain whirls into a stupor as soon as numbers dance onto my mental screen. My phone, fortunately, has a calculator feature. The upside is that I think in metaphors--mental pictures using relatively simple concepts to help me understand more abstract ideas and concepts. I am beginning to realize that others find my little pictures helpful in describing and thinking about their own experiences. They are also learning to find and develop their own metaphors. Cool!

To my surprise, in the course of my professional training I learned that there are therapists who practice what is called metaphor therapy. And books have been written about the usefulness of metaphors in helping us think about our lives. What I would like to do through my blogs is to share with you some of the metaphors that have helped both myself and my clients think about life. Some are original with me and others are of unknown origin. You will most likely realize, if you don't know it already, that you probably already use metaphors to understand and describe your own world.

Copyright John D. Deyo, M.A., LMFT 2009