Full Catastrophe Living Pt. 2

[Guest guest]

"The issue of control is central to coping with problems and with stress. Thereare many forces at work in the world that are totally beyond our control andothers that we sometimes think are beyond our control but really aren't. To agreat extent, our ability to influence our circumstances depends on how we seethings. Our beliefs about ourselves and about our own capabilities as well ashow we see the world and the forces at play in it all affect what we will findpossible. How we see things affects how much energy we for doing things and ourchoices about where to channel what energy we do have.For instance, at those times when you are feeling overwhelmed by the pressuresin your life and you see your own efforts as ineffectual, in all likelihood youwill wind up feeling depressed and helpless. Nothing will seem controllable oreven worth trying to control. On the other hand, at those times when you areseeing the world as

threatening but only potentially overwhelming, then feelingsof insecurity rather than depression may predominate, causing you to worryincessantly about all the things you think threaten or might threaten your senseof control. These could be real or imagined; it hardly matters in terms of thestress you will feel and the effect it will have on your life.Feeling threatened can easily lead to feelings of anger and hostility and fromthere to outright aggressive behavior, driven by deep instincts to protect yourposition and maintain your sense of things being under control. When things dofeel "under control," we might feel content for a moment. But when they go outof control again, or even SEEM to be getting out of control, our deepestinsecurities can erupt. At such times we might even act in ways that areself-destructive and hurtful to others. And we will feel anything but content.If you have a chronic illnes or disability

that prevents you from doing what youused to be able to do, whole areas of control may go up in smoke. And if yourcondition causes you physical pain that has not responded well to medicaltreatment, the distress you might be feeling can be compounded by emotionalturmoil caused by knowing that your condition seems to be beyond even yourdoctor's control.What is more, our worries about control are hardly limited to our major lifeproblems. Some of our biggest stresses actually come from our reactions to thesmallest, most insignificant events when they threaten our sense of control inone way or another, from the car breaking down just when you have someplaceimportant to go, to your children not listening to you for the tenth time in asmany minutes, to the lines being "too long" at the supermarket checkout or atthe bank.It is not easy to find a word or phrase that really captures the broad range ofexperiences in life

that cause us distress and pain and that promote in us anunderlying sense of fear, insecurity, and loss of control. If we were to make alist, it would certainly include our own vulnerability and mortality. It mightalso include our collective capacity for cruelty and violence, as well as thecolossal levels of ignorance and greed, delusion and deception, that seem todrive us and the world much of the time. What could we possibly call the sumtotal of our vulnerabilities and inadequacies, our limitations and weaknesses aspeople, the illnesses and injuries and disabilities we may have to live with,the personal defeats and failures we have felt or fear in the future, theinjustices and exploitations we suffer or fear, the losses of people we love andof our own bodies sooner or later? It would have to be a metaphor that would notbe maudlin, something that would also convey theunderstanding that it is not a disaster to be alive just

because we feel fearand we suffer; it would have to convey the understanding that there is joy aswell as suffering, hope as well as despair, calm as well as agitation, love aswell as hatred, health as well as illness.In groping to describe that aspect of the human condition that the patients inthe stress clinic and, in fact, most of us, at one time or another, need to cometo terms with and in some way transcend, I keep coming back to one line from themovie of Nikos Kazantzakis's novel ZORBA THE GREEK. Zorba's young companionturns to him at a certain point and inquires, "Zorba, have you ever beenmarried?" to which Zorba replies (paraphrasing somewhat) "Am I not a man? Ofcourse I've been married. Wife, house, kids, everything. . . . . . . THE FULLCATASTROPHE!"It was not meant to be a lament, nor does it mean that being married or havingchildren is a catastrophe. Zorba's response embodies a supreme appreciation

forthe richness of life and the inevitability of all its dilemmas, sorrows,tragedies, and ironies. His way is to "dance" in the gale of the fullcatastrophe, to celebrate life, to laugh with it and at himself, even in theface of personal failure and defeat. In doing so, he is never weighted down forlong, never ultimately defeated either by the world or by his own considerablefolly.Anybody who knows the book can imagine that living with Zorba must in itselfhave been quite the "full catastrophe" for his wife and children. As is so oftenthe case, the public hero that others admire can leave quite a trail of privatehurt in his wake. Yet ever since I first heard it, I have felt that the phrase"the full catastrophe" captures something positive about the human spirit'sability to come to grips with what is most difficult in life and to find withinit room to grow in strength and wisdom. For me, facing the full

catastrophemeans finding and coming to terms with what is most human in ourselves. There isnot one person on the planet who does not have his or her own version of thefull catastrophe.CATASTROPHE here does not mean disaster. Rather it means the poignant enormityof our life experience. It includes crises and disaster but also all the littlethings that go wrong and that add up. The phrase reminds us that life is alwaysin flux, that everything we think is permanent is actually only temporary andconstantly changing. This includes our ideas, our opinions, our relationships,our jobs, our possessions,. our creations, our bodies, everything.In this book we will be learning and practicing the art of embracing the fullcatastrophe. We will be doing this so that rather than destroying us or robbingus of our power and our hope, the storms of life will strengthen us as theyteach us about living, growing, and healing in a world

of flux and change andsometimes great pain. This art will involve learning to see ourselves and theworld in new ways, learning to work in new ways with our bodies and our thoughtsand feelings and perceptions, and learning to laugh at things a little more,including ourselves, as we practice finding and maintaining our balance as bestas we can."This was written by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., in the excellent book called, "FullCatastrophe Living", published by Dell Publishing (A Delta Paperback), copyright1990, 1991.

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