Mental Yoga Thathaasthu

by Nina

So she came down from the tree.... by Marc Chagall*

I’m stressed out this morning because early this morning a whole bunch of people from the city were outside my house arguing about our street tree. It’s a huge, beautiful old camphor tree with enormous roots that have for the third time ruined the sidewalk, wrecked our sewers, and are destroying our walkway as they inch their way toward the foundation of our house. The city took out the sidewalk on Monday, so now everyone was looking at the tree roots trying to figure out what to do. The city department and the contractor repairing the sidewalk think the tree is very dangerous and should be taken down—that’s a bit scary. The city’s arborists think the tree is worth preserving at any cost—I get that—but this means shaving down the trees roots and removing some of them in order to put a level sidewalk on top of them, and they claim there are no risks to be concerned about (though shaving the roots will result in some dead branches). And unfortunately we ourselves have no say whatsoever in the matter, even though the city is charging us to repair the damage that the tree did to the sidewalk—yes, really. My long time next-door neighbors are having the same problems with their street tree, and in their case the roots are destroying their water line, which needs to be replaced before the sidewalk can be repaired. 

It looks like what is going to happen is they are going to try shaving the roots of our tree and then re-evaluate after that. Weirdly the thing that really upset me is something that didn’t happen. The contractor told me that one plan the arborists had was to move the sidewalk onto our property to make more room for the street tree, while destroying part of our beautiful front garden. Are they even allowed to do that?  Whoa, even though they decided not to go for that plan, it’s making me angry that they were even thinking about it and talking about it behind my back! 

After that great start to my day, I came back to sit at my desk and work on the blog, not having any idea of what I was going to write about. Meanwhile, they’re now attacking my neighbor’s tree and making a lot of noise—and, oh, now the doorbell is ringing again! You know what it is time for? A little mental yoga. So—hahaha—I actually started reading some of my old posts to remind myself of how just pausing to notice your own thoughts can be helpful in quieting your mind.

I’ve written about samskaras, or patterns of reactivity, several times, including Meditation and Brain Strength, A Pathway in the Mind, and Changing the Brain’s Stressful Habits.  So first, I’ll take a moment to notice how upset I am at not having control over a decision that affects my life and my pocketbook as well as my confusion about being told completely contradictory things by various experts. I’ve registered my concerns, the decision has been made by the powers that be, and there is nothing more I can do. Yoga teacher and therapist Stephen Cope believes that with tapas, which he defines as “the energy of restraint,” we can start to avoid some of our harmful patterns of reactivity or samskaras. So for now, I’m going to try to just let it all go. Furthermore, can I just laugh about how upset I got over something that DIDN’T EVEN HAPPEN? 

But now the noise! It’s especially irritating hearing it when I’m already stressed out and I’m supposed to be writing a post this morning and don’t even have a topic yet! But I am quickly reminded of Ram’s post Achieving Stillness in Turbulent Times, in which he wrote about how his grandfather taught him to meditate in a train station. He concluded by saying:

"The goal of meditation is to be at ease, relaxed and at peace with our surroundings. It is important to not resist the disturbing/distracting influence that comes in the way of your meditation practice (in your case traffic or the cold environment). So do not try to ignore the influence or to block it out, for if you try, you will only meet with stiffer resistance, ending in frustration. Instead, simply let it be (“thathaasthu” in Sanskrit) and continue with your meditation. Everything is a part of meditation, all the influences including the noise, the thoughts, the emotions, and the resistance from the mind. Treat everything that arises in meditation the same way—let it be and just be there!"

Well, if Ram can meditate in train station, I can write a blog post with people arguing outside and making the kind of invasive noise that only large machines are capable of (thank you, Ram, for teaching me so much). And since my neighbors have no water, I’ll bring them a pitcher of drinking water and offer them the use of my bathroom for the day. 

Thathaasthu.

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Conducting Occupational Therapy In Mental Health

By Edna Booker

Mental health management is a journey. It requires input from various team members who include the patient, the therapist, social workers, care givers, counselors, support providers, nurses, doctors, aides and teachers. Every member in that team has a role to play and the goals each one has culminates to improvement of a patient life quality and degree of enjoyment. These they achieve by pinpointing and meeting the skills and behavior change required to get to this. Below is an outline of the significance of occupational therapy in mental health.

Occupational therapy is usually misunderstood in this journey. The occupational therapy American association outlines its primary aim as to offer support and facilitate each person health and input in life by engaging in occupations. By engaging in a meaningful activity, the patient achieves a sense of accomplishment, their self-esteem goes up and overall well-being which is usually affected following the illness or injury.

By occupation, do not imagine only work. This could mean making a painting, taking a course in the community during your free time, socializing with members in the community, preparation of a meal, working on your hygiene and even managing your own finances. They empower people to lead purposeful lives which bring them satisfaction.

The purpose of this kind of therapy can be described as helping people live life to the fullest. These professionals help a client to take into consideration their needs, abilities, strengths and interests too. Their social, cultural and physical environment is to be taken into account too. This enables the therapist gain understanding about the various factors relating to the occupation the patient is engaged in. Also the environment they live in which influences their mental status and their functioning ability too.

The psychotherapists believe in taking into account every factor of a person during treatment regardless of whether the problem is mental or physical in nature. The settings they can be found include hospitals, nursing facilities, intermediary care facilities, home health, outpatient clinics, neonatal ICUs, the workplace and community. Those who have specialized in handling mental health patients are based in residential hospitals, the community or private hospital outpatient department.

Various type of assessments are done to collect data to be used in creation of a patient personal profile concerning the occupations they are engaged in. This is what is used to set treatment goals and plan how to proceed. Commonly assessed areas are leisure, work, play, education, social participation, activity demands and communicating and skills used in interactions. Motor skills, client factors and cognitive and mental dispensation skills are assessment areas too.

The interventions which can be implemented in treatment process include cognitive rehabilitation, training on life skills, supported education, supported employment and interventions on life balancing. Modalities like biofeedback and training on interpersonal and social skill are intervention too.

While the work of this therapist may overlay that of other members in the team, they provide unique clinical and theoretical contribution towards treatment and recovery team. For this reason, they are to be taken as a dynamic part of the integrated and comprehensive treatment program.

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