Tag Archives: travel

psychoanalysis, a village priest, blogging, pizza and tuva

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a tuva singerapparently this is meme week. i saw this on airdrie’s blog the other day and managed to resist but then i saw it on raul’s blog and, well, i just had to partake. it’s really simple – if you want to be interviewed by someone who’s participating, just let them know, and they’ll send you five questions. that’s what raul did for me. thanks, raul, those were great questions. here are the questions and answers:

1.- why did you get into counselling as a professional field?

i grew up in a house where “psychoanalysis” was as commonplace a word as “hockey” is in most canadian families. i never really liked my father’s psychoanalyst friends too much; to my young mind, they were old stick-in-the-muds totally lost in their heads. they had nothing of the earthiness that i so enjoyed in some of my parents’ other friends. maybe that’s why it never occurred to me to look at that field as a career to dream about. instead i was hoping to study anthropology and comparative religion (which i never did, but that’s a different story). the similarity between those two and psychoanalysis never dawned on me until i was five years into studying psychology. that study started in my thirties, innocently enough. i had just gotten behind me a somewhat dramatic breakup with my second husband and needed something to distract me. a night course in counselling psychology seemed to hit the spot. i never looked back. that was in 1990.

2.- how do you see blogging can help counsellors and/or clients?

there are many ways. for counsellors, it can be a resource. or an outlet. or a way to attract clients. for people who are not counsellors, again, it can be an outlet. blogging is mostly about writing, and writing is often therapeutic. but the thing i am most grateful for on this blog is that i have been able to build a little community for people with anorexia here who help and support each other.

3.- if you lived in a different time (e.g. the renaissance) – what would you be (professionally or personally)?

easy! a village priest (never mind the little details of celibacy and me being a woman). when i was an outreach counsellor in the downtown eastside, that’s how i often felt. do my little bit in soothing the souls while i trudge, eat, laugh and cry with the rest.

4.- what is the food group you dislike the most and why?

alas, there is no such thing. but there are two that i could easily do without. they are – please don’t lynch me – pizza and ice cream. i never have a hankering for them but when they’re around i often eat more than necessary. then i feel yukky and ask myself, “now what the frig did you do THAT for???” i mean, it’s one thing to overdo on something you really like – but something that’s not even on my top 10 list?

5.- if you had a free ticket for two to fly somewhere right now where would it be, who would you take with you and why?

i’d fly to tuva with tova. tuva is a little republic in southern siberia, bordering on mongolia. i had always found mongolia fascinating. always loved empty, hidden-away wide-open spaces, and as a child and teenager i was horse crazy. then when i saw the movie genghis blues i was up in flames. the dream! the music! the wide, wide, wide sky! the beautiful river! perhaps the most memorable movie i’ve seen in the last 10 years. so i’d love to go to tuva with my daughter tova and share this adventure with her.

want to get in on the fun? you can be a part of it by following a few simple steps…

  • leave a comment here on this post and ask me to interview you
  • i’ll respond within 1-5 days with 5 questions directed to you (i promise to try and be unique)
  • answer the questions on your blog and link back to this post
  • invite others to participate by re-posting these steps
  • once you’ve posted your interview, i’ll post a link to it here.

update:

roxie responded in her post my first meme. clinically clueless has posted hers, too: a hymn, fingerpaintaing, blogging and journaling.

the image of the tuvan singer is from marysia

a buddhist carnival – may 2008 edition, part 2

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so … here’s part 2 of this month’s buddhist carnival. you can find part 1 here.

buddha’s birthday
talking about carnival, here are some pictures of buddha’s birthday festival in perth put on by the buddha light international association (i know it from my husband’s family, who are japanese pure land buddhists, as hana-matsuri). here’s a picture.

a buddhist monastery in india
and while we’re traveling, let’s go with maneesh to india. he has a really nice description of namdroling monastery in kushalnagar. on the outside it looked quite ordinary, he says, but inside, one room had so much of positive energy that after standing there for ten minutes he felt completely refreshed.

inner smile
… and somehow i can just imagine leaving there with a big smile! gia combs-ramirez (what a neat name!) talks about the inner smile

this is a smile that is created by very slightly raising the corners of your lips while adopting the inner stance of a smile.try it … first smile big, lifting the corners of your mouth way up. feel the corresponding shift inside of you with this smile. now just slightly smile and put more emphasis on the shift inside of you.

one of the biggest proponents of the inner smile is thich nhat hanh. go to gia’s blog and you’ll see a picture of him – smiling.

letting go of blame
great to see a submission by matthew spears, who always contributes well thought-out (and well … in-heart?) articles, like this one, the flame of blame. he comments, “by assigning responsibility to anyone or anything for a given result, you are assigning blame. it is the need to look for a cause for an experience that is the major factor in blame. so if you want to let go of the blaming process, you must let go of a need to assign responsibility.”

i and we
finally, an interesting little reflection piece about the word “i”: “try to use the word “we” instead of “i” for one day. while saying it feel all the ancestors behind you, and all people in the future.”

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thank you, friends, for a really good buddhist carnival, thanks for the honour of hosting these great posts. let’s all come together again next month, on june 15. please, if you have an article you’d like to see featured here, use this submission form.