Erin Kelly, LMFT Purple Lotus Counseling

03/15/2022

When most of us hear the word enemies, we probably think immediately of all the people who have actually hurt or harmed us. But there are also tricky adversaries that we all have to contend with—our own inner enemies.

When we encounter an enemy, whether outer or inner, we tend to go around and around in the same kind of habitual thinking that has failed to resolve the situation in the past—thinking that leaves us feeling frustrated and angry and unfulfilled. It is an act of audacity to step out of these familiar but flawed ways of dealing with our enemies and seek another, better way.

It takes courage to be willing to try approaches that shift the enemy dynamic of Us-versus-Them. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt refers to the strategy of shifting our rigid, entrenched, same-old thinking as stepping outside our “moral matrix.” When we refuse to return anger with anger, when we reject the belief that revenge is our only option, we step out of our moral matrix into a limitless world of enlightened choice.

Art by Lili Wood

03/09/2022

Look for the good in yourself—not as a way to deny your difficulties or problems, but a way to broaden your outlook so it’s more truthful and balanced. Looking for the good in ourselves helps us see the good in others.

02/12/2022

Life is uncertain. Love is not.

02/10/2022

May our fierce emotions move us toward a better world…

To my mind a counterproductive response to another person’s anger would be to tell them to calm down. I would never try to make someone believe their anger is illegitimate. We feel what we feel. And the more we disparage the anger we feel, the more we try to tamp it down with shame or humiliation, the stronger it gets. I can’t imagine talking to some of the people I talk to—a teacher whose student has been killed; a worker cheated out of hard-earned wages; someone whose right to walk down the street, or shop, or worship in safety is subverted; an elder whose intelligence and longing and innate dignity are routinely denied; the parent whose child has trouble breathing in an increasingly polluted world—and suggesting that person should push away their anger. The challenge lies in honoring the message of the anger without letting it consume us. Not because it is wrong to feel anger but because it might well burn us up.

Of course, there is no simple remedy for the outrages we face and the outrage we feel. But it’s possible to forge a new relation- ship with our anger, relying on its conveyance of strength rather than its reactive quality. The strength is generated in a firm conviction about the innate dignity of all beings and the rightness of our universal wish to be happy. It’s like a dialectic—we don’t want to be lost in a fiery world that never lets us know peace, and we also don’t want to be meek and afraid to take a stand. As the poet and novelist Maya Angelou said, “A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.”

Anger and outrage. It’s in wrestling through these states that we may find the next foothold on the path to personal and global healing.

Excerpt from "Real Change"

[Image Description: Yellow background with text written out repeating the words "we feel what we feel" in white font]

10/22/2021

Adoration
Unmatched
Through
Unique
Moments
Noticed

Enjoy the beauty of this season.

10/21/2021

A beautiful explanation…

There’s no doubt that the idea of “letting go” — the advice to “let it go” — has become more popular in recent years. Especially in light of the popularization of meditation and mindfulness, it seems people are starting to see that there is a profound power in the act of surrender.

In a layman’s example, people are starting to realize that gripping tightly to stress doesn’t make you happier. But, there is a difference between surrendering and succumbing, between letting something go and hurling it away from us.

Letting go is gentle, but it is not characterized by passivity; it involves intention, patience, and a willingness to challenge habits of mind.

In other words, letting go isn’t so easy — whether it be letting go of an annoyance at work, a nagging thought during meditation, something you regret in the past. Similarly, it’s difficult to let go of good things — an amazing day with a friend, a wonderful meal, an engaging book — in order to move on to be open to the next good thing.

In this regard I’ve often thought of meditation as being like a fractal, where one small part of something is a tiny, perfect replica of the whole. Coastlines are jagged whether viewed from the immense distance of a satellite, the far distance of an airplane, or standing just above them on the overhanging bluffs. The entire leaf of a fern resembles a magnified version of one of its own smaller parts. Mountains have the same rough, irregular forms whether we see them from a great distance, or look at them close up in chunks of granite.

The moment our attention wanders away from our chosen object in meditation — a sound, a visualization, a mantra, the feeling of the breath, whatever it is — we are guided to gently let go of whatever has distracted us and begin again by returning awareness to that object.

That’s the fractal moment: practicing letting go and beginning again in that micro setting is the replica of having flubbed something at work and needing to begin again, or having strayed from our deepest aspiration or chosen course and having to begin again, or finding that we have fallen down and needing to stand up and begin again.

10/10/2021

This has been an extraordinary read. The pages move quickly; the words take time to digest. A passionate, courageous, beautiful memoir about what it means to survive, heal from, and change the conversation about sexual assault. We need Tarana Burke’s wisdom.

10/04/2021

How to hold ourselves with great compassion when we are suffering…

09/25/2021

My experience with this has been profound.

Too often we focus pretty much only on what’s wrong with us, or on negative, unpleasant experiences. We need to make a conscious effort to include the positive. This doesn’t have to be a phony effort, or one that denies real problems. We just want to pay attention to aspects of our day we usually overlook or ignore. If we stop to notice moments of pleasure—a flower poking up through the sidewalk, a puppy experiencing snow for the first time, a kind interchange between strangers—we have a resource for more joy. This capacity to notice the positive might be somewhat untrained, but that’s okay. We practice meditation for just this kind of training.

Excerpt from Real Change

Art by Harmony Willow Studio

09/06/2021

Some days are like this: upright, hopeful, and ready. Some days we just don’t feel the same. If we can remember that this struggle isn’t about our capacity to live a meaningful life, but rather about needing compassion when we are unable to rise and when we aren’t in such a brilliant bloom, we might begin to feel differently about the harder days.

05/12/2021

A lovely (albeit difficult) intention to set as we move towards increasing our capacity for self-compassion...

"Real Love for ourselves by definition includes every aspect of our lives—the good, the bad, the difficult, the challenging past, the uncertain future, as well as all the shameful, upsetting experiences and encounters we’d just as soon forget." - Sharon Salzbeg from Real Love

Photo by

04/12/2021

The task of compassion can be tricky. It can be easy to leave ourselves out of the mix. I appreciate Sharen Salzberg’s words very much.

Compassion implies boundaries (movement toward, not into); balance (compassion for all, including ourselves); stability rather than shakiness; and clarity rather than over-identification. Compassion can be cultivated, through practice, and as it develops further, it helps us avoid burnout and fatigue by teaching us how to say no when we need to, without guilt, and learning to build boundaries. You come to know that saying no is a courageous act and can be empowering. It’s also empowering for others, seeing you healthy and able to pick things up another day, rather than barreling ahead distressed and harried.