The pursuit of harmony...

I got a magazine “Amos” yesterday, as member of the Swedish church I think (a typically secularized Swede!). In it it was an article “Jakten på harmoni” (my free translation: “The Pursuit of Harmony”). There it stood that the soul is our latest project. It stood about the duty feeling well (!!! Can be used as oppression). In the article it was pictures of people training yoga...

I have meditated, trained Feldenkreis, taken massage etc. It isn't wrong in itself?? But if happiness becomes like a prescription then there is something wrong?? And can this lie in the power's interest? People smiling, happy, satisfied?

One of the last years a book by Thomas Johansson, a Swedish professor of social psychology, in (my amateur translation) “Makeover mania – about Dr Phil, plastic-surgery and the illusion of the perfect self” came. I have it and started to read it, but thought he was a little too Freud-influenced somewhere so I haven’t finished it.

But now when I am skimming it I read at page 226 (my fantastic translation again):

“The self-help industry is hardly a strong force for radical societal change or for drastic transformations in the sphere of intimacy. The outlook and perceptions which are presented rather have as goal to stabilise, preserve and defend the prevailing order. Possibly one could see the self help industry as an institution whose aim is to uphold the societal norms, defending and making clear a certain moralistic order. The advices and instructions we get are often about keeping the family together, strengthening the marriage, maintaining inequal relations, achieving/performing [be clever!! Which also can be forbidden, at least for some! You shall but you shall not, double-bind. The extremely trouble-making perfectionism!?], praising success [and the less successful can draw something over them, if they have little or maybe even no success when it comes to recovery too!?? Are treated with contempt for weakness even by so called enlightened, even if they don' harm any other person!? What is that? Bullying?] and caring about our health.”

Confusing? You shall, but you shall not!?

Johansson is VERY critical to Dr Phil…

In the end of the article in Amos a psycho therapist (CBT) was interviewed. She says that all emotions/feelings are needed for us to be/feel safe/secure. Many are trying to change their person with the help of coaches and therapists, but noone can make oneself a new soul. This therapist is warning people for all traps those who are seeking a more harmonic life can meet.

-Now there are coaches for everything,

she says. And that's really true!

And she thinks (which is true), when you are in psychic imbalance you are even more easily fooled…

Harmony isn’t about permanent luck (but this can be misused too by the environment). But it’s a big difference to being permanently unhappy.

What I thought was interesting was the last paragraph in the whole article saying something in the style:

-Is it our duty to be happy?

-No. But self help books tell people that it is dangerous feeling bad. But we need ALL our feelings. The negative too, as shame [do we need shame??], guilt and fear to be able to protect ourselves.

A healed, recovered person won’t be happy all the time, because life isn’t like that? But a healed, recovered (or not hurt) person handle difficulties life always will contain better, more constructively, not hurting neither herself NOR others?

A good helper/therapist helps her/his client finding her/his own way? Without prescriptions or following a hand-book? And a good helper need to be very self-aware for not projecting her/his own things on the other person?

And once again, I think Miller is right (my translation):

If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility (and she includes regressive techniques here AND primal therapy) and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.

Addition: see this blog about the book mentioned above (both in Swedish and English).

Five cute girls (in our grade three, thus they are 9, or turning 10?) had concert for me today!! Yesterday evening one of my pupils phoned and said:

-When can you come? -???

At first I didn't know what she meant and probably looked like a question-mark!! :-) I was watching TV, about a problematic dog, and I was rather interested in seeing how they handled the cocker spaniel, so I was really in another world answering the phone at the TV.

When I had the last lesson with her on Monday she said she was going to play with four classmates who plays clarinet, a piece that is in her book too, in C major, on Thursday (which means today). She should thus learn this accompaniment in three days only.

-Hmmm,

I said,

then I have to learn you two variants of this piece! For sure.

Because I wasn't sure in what key they played, and tried (hard) to remember how I should transpose it. "Was it up or was it down??" My pupil was quite sure they had said that they played "c, c, c..." in the beginning.

Today they should play it for their class she said. I wondered at what time, and said to her mother that she could maybe send a text-message on my mobile to inform me. But my pupil phoned instead, radically.

When I had time going and listening to them they had already played for their class, so they had a private, extra concert for ME!!! Wow!! Not bad! :-) (And I had transposed the piece right! And x played the bass-notes in the chords, in b-flat, in both hands). Watch their hats!!

And watch some really hungry music-teachers in this slide-show too!! Ice-cream eating on the photos, after a LATE Easter-lunch, with inlagd sill (herring - again, but not fermented this time!! :-) Thank god!??) in four forms/shapes, cooked potatoes, meat-balls and knäckebröd with butter and hard cheese. But no vegetables!! I would have liked AT LEAST tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce (??), but also carrots to the herring!! :-)