A Wider Lens: How to See Your Life Differently

By Kenneth Silvestri

This book has evolved from my many years of practicing Systemic Psychotherapy and Homeopathy to help people create a wider lens through which they view their lives. I believe the integration of these two powerful disciplines, plus years of teaching, provides a large enough sample for a scientific qualitative study, the results of which inform this book. Each commentary in A Wider Lens is followed by suggestions to help you see and experience your life from a broader and deeper viewpoint. The objective is to see your life as being more than the sum of its individual parts. This book can assist you in creating a paradigm shift in perspective that will help make your life work better, by seeing it differently.
The chapters include a self-fulfillment process that I use in my practice. It consists of being in the present to better widen your lens; being in an environment that is supportive; being able to celebrate possibilities and lastly allowing yourself to be fallible by adjusting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543934151

Book preview

moment.

Introduction

"The world is poetical intrinsically and what it means is simply itself.

Its significance is the enormous mystery of its existence and of our

awareness of its existence."

Aldous Huxley

This book has evolved from my many years of practicing Systemic Psychotherapy and Homeopathy to help people create a wider lens through which they view their lives. I believe the integration of these two powerful disciplines, plus years of teaching, provides a large enough sample for a scientific qualitative study, the results of which inform this book. Each commentary in A Wider Lens is followed by suggestions to help you see and experience your life from a broader and deeper viewpoint. The objective is to see your life as being more than the sum of its individual parts. This book can assist you in creating a paradigm shift in perspective that will help make your life work better, by seeing it differently.

The chapters that follow are a self-fulfillment process that I use in my practice. It consists of being in the present to better widen your lens; being in an environment that is supportive; being able to celebrate possibilities and lastly allowing yourself to be fallible by adjusting.

Later in this book, I’ll describe how to widen your lens by identifying a core problem or grievance that you might not have articulated. To help reframe and amend the problem, I will share various tools from my experience working with Systemic Psychotherapy, Mindfulness, Homeopathy, Coherent Breathing and Aikido, a martial art based on peace and harmony. The process of identifying one’s core problem or grievance, is what Carl Jung believed to be the journey of the self constantly trying to correct and adjust. This process in no way condones or minimizes past hardships. A Wider Lens can assist you in recognizing what you need for this journey, to better navigate your path. In a very real sense, by undertaking the quest to understand who you are, you will make a profound step toward fulfilling the human desire we each have for completeness.

I will also recommend using like (in the form of emotional inductions and/or homeopathic remedies) to cure like mental and physical issues. For instance, the homeopathic remedy Arnica, a mountain daisy that in full potency will create bruises, however it will heal one’s contusions from an injury when used in a watered down homeopathic potency. Likewise, in many cases a narrative of someone else’s grief will alleviate another’s experience of similar grief. What hopefully results from this exploration is a recipe that will facilitate personal change in the lives of those looking to enhance their well-being.

My own journey began in earnest during my studies in anthropology, which expanded my world and taught me to use a systemic lens - - seeing the world in its part-to-whole connections. Over the years, my journey was enhanced through my work as a psychotherapist and the practice of Aikido, a martial art whose goal is to enable one to harmonize with the energy of life. Another major influence in my life has been Homeopathy, which exemplifies the true nature of self-healing and development. Much of A Wider Lens emanates from how I have applied these experiences to my personal and professional life. I have also referenced the wisdom of many others who have influenced my growth and philosophy.

My Children, as well as my friendships and significant relationships have taught me to put self-development issues in a wider and deeper perspective. The image on the cover of this book was created by my sweetheart and life partner, Natasha Rabin, and it carries a message of hope and healing.

The theoretical basis of many commentaries in this book is that psychology and homeopathy can work together to promote the healing process. Psychology, in its systemic essence, offers a process where one can recognize how problems and grievances are interconnected within both past and present contexts. Resolution is the understanding of these patterns and becoming empowered to change them. Homeopathy is the second-most used healing method in the world according to the World Health Organization. Homeopathy’s safe, non-toxic and FDA sanctioned remedies stimulate one’s immune system to follow its natural direction to heal the mind and body from recognized trauma. The correct remedy, be it homeopathic or through a psychological intervention, is the simillimum which is determined by its match with the gestalt of the presenting symptoms. The emotional tools in this book all have a role in the determining of a simillimum, the homeopathic goal of like curing like.

Traditional deductive psychological counseling is fraught with human resistance and maintaining business as usual. Homeopathy, although having a long history of clinical successes, has been plagued with the difficult process of determining the simillimum. A true integration of psychology and homeopathy offer complementary means to recognize the pattern of suffering and consequently strengthen and maintain the immune system’s ability to balance the body and mind.

Let’s start now to create a wider lens. Let me share with you a question I ask people who seek help in my practice. My initial question is simply:

What is it that you’re not getting in life that causes concern and stops you from making your life work the way you would like it to work?

Think about this for a minute or so. When you have defined this concern, focus on the consequence of what it is that you are not getting?

Describe how it looks and feels not to get what you want. How does this concern influence your life?

Now pause and take ten deep diaphragmatic breaths by softly inhaling through your nose, filling your stomach and then gradually bringing your breath up to your chest to the count of six seconds. Exhale through your mouth, lips slightly pursed - again to the count of six seconds -thinking of something positive and compassionate.

This is called Coherent Breathing, five breaths per minute as compared to the average 15 breaths we usually take. What Coherent Breathing does is to allow the parasympathetic, or calm part of your nervous system, and the sympathetic part (which controls fight or flight) to be in harmony (See Stephen Elliott, The New Science of Breath, 2005, and www.CoherentBreathing.org).

While practicing Coherent Breathing relax your body from head to toe, and in your mind’s eye create a peripheral view of where you are by widening your lens to see beyond the confines of your surroundings. Pause and think about what is happening in your community, nation and world.

After a few moments, bring your lens back to your original concern. Ask yourself again how your core concern or grievance affects you and is connected to all aspects of your life?

What insights, sensations and strengths arise as you consider your grievance from a wider perspective?

View these insights as unique, positive and profound. Record them or enter them in A Wider Lens Journal that you can use to answer the above questions and those that follow. Be prepared to revise and refer to them as you go through the remaining chapters of this book.

The goal of these and subsequent questions is to provide a segue to this systemic process, and the possibility of creating exciting changes to whatever perceived problems or concerns you may have. It is also the place in the present where solutions, will be found.

I haven’t got all the answers. I wish only to add my own experience to a widening collective energy that recognizes the wisdom of how nature works for us, and within us. I would like to finish this introduction with a poem that I wrote several years ago and still feel its relevance.

coming from somewhere, going somewhere, revisited, 2017

what were they doing there

waiting for a train, a ride through trees

along rivers on a bed

people in houses within a town

did they say much, near the stove burning wood

was there a man, directing them to a destination

wearing a hat

smiling at the past

when did the train arrive, traveled but not tired

coming from somewhere, going somewhere

will it ever return, taking someone thinking

loving

caring for people

how did they board, glancing at the station

holding their bags in their hands

holding their thoughts

a ticket

a seat

a window

a touch

Originally published in a slightly different version in Trains Magazine, September 1978

Part One:

Being in the Present

"Thus having prepared their buds, against a sure winter, the wise

trees, stand sleeping in the cold."

William Carlos Williams

The Ecology of