Page 6 Module 7- Health

MELLOWING

With grateful thanks to Darold A.Treffert,M.D.

I am a psychiatrist and most people are a little suspicious of psychiatrists. The other day a friend
of mine introduced me to an audience as a psychiatrist and went on to define psychiatry as the “care of the

Id by the Odd.” My medical career has been running psychiatric hospitals. Being the superintendent of

a mental hospital is a very interesting occupation. One of the more interesting things happened some

time ago when I was running hospital some 35 miles from where I live. That meant a 70-mile round-trip

each day. I got home one day after a hard day of superintending and the phone rang. There was a situation

at the hospital for which I had to go back. That meant a second 7-mile round-trip that day.

I had already changed from my business suit into the jeans and sweatshirt that I wear around the house.

I dutifully got into my car and I drove back to the hospital. It must have shown on my face, when I got out

of my car at the hospital and was walking from one building to another, that I was either deoressed, upset,

or even a little paranoid about the situation, because a patient at the hospital came up to me and not recognising

who I was, yet sensing my distress, “Say,” he said, “I haven’t seen you here before. Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Treffert,” I replied. “I run the hospital.” The patient gave me a very knowing and very
reassuring look. “Well,” he said, “You’ll get over that. I thought I was the governor when I came in
here.”

You cannot sit in that superintendent’s chair as I have these nearly 30 years now without raising the
obvious question of what can one do to keep people from having to come into the hospital in the first
place? Like any physician in any specialty, after a while thoughts turn from treatment to prevention. I
am not the first superintendent to raise that question.

Dr. Walter Kempster who sat in the same superintendent’s chair 100 years before I did, raised that same question: “How to prevent this ever-widening stream of insanity?” Looking out over that steady
stream of persons “broken on the wheels of living” as he termed it, concisely characterised the persons coming for care at that time as having three basic problems: “Hopes once bright now dashed; ambitions which lure beyond strength; and affections ripened only to be blasted.”

That’s a good synopsis of the human predicament. In some ways, in 100 years we have changed a great deal; in some ways we have changed hardly at all. So I, like he, wonder about prevention instead of just treatment. I wonder what we can do to rustproof ourselves not just physically but mentally as well, not just to live longer, but to live better as well. Surely there must be something the equivalent of mental health jogging which we can do to preserve our sanity rather than wait until we have to go in search of it. Surely there must be some things we
can do to “keep it together” once we “get it together.”

With physical health we know staying at a decent weight, eating the right foods, quitting smoking and
exercising will help rustproof ourselves. What is the equivalent of those preventive measures for our
mental health? And what is positive mental health anyway? For a while I thought positive mental
health was the ability to cope. But I looked up “cope” in the dictionary and it said: “to struggle, to
do battle, to contend, usually with some success.” That sounds much too tentative to me and there
ought to be more here on this pretty, pretty planet – this miracle of time and space on which we are
privileged to be for a period of time – than just barely making it, hanging on by your fingernails.
One should be able to thrive, rather than merely survive.

So then I thought maybe positive mental health is being mature. So I looked up “mature” in the
dictionary: “fully developed, fully grown and ripe” (sounds pretty good). However, if you read on it
says mature means “ready for reaping or gathering.” (I don’t like to think of myself as ready for reaping or gathering.) And in medical terms it is even worse because it says if a boil is mature, it’s about to develop pus and I certainly don’t want to think of myself in those terms.

So I came across the term I prefer to use – “mellow” – as the one I use to describe good mental health.

What does “mellow” mean? “Fully developed, sweet, gentle; not coarse or rough; full, rich, pure; free from harshness, roughness, stridency and the rashness of youth.” In terms of people, it means (and think of what this would be like if mellowing were all around us) “having attained gentleness, softness and kindliness through aging and experience; relaxed and at ease; pleasantly convivial.”

Now that’s more like it! Relaxed, at ease and pleasantly convivial. I will never popularize the term “mellow” the way Olivia Newton-John did in the song “Have You Never Been Mellow?” It is a most insightful song, written by John Farrar:

There was a time when I was in a hurry as you are, I was like you.

There was a time when I just had to tell my point of view.

I was like you.

Now I don’t mean to make you frown. No, I just want you to slow down.

Have you never been mellow?

Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?

Have you never been content just to hear your song?

Have you never let somebody else be strong?

Running around like you do with your head up in the clouds, I was like you.

Never had time to lay back, kick your shoes off close your eyes, I was like you.

Oh, you’re not hard to understand,
You just need someone to take your hand.

Have you never been mellow?

Have you never tried to find a comfort from inside you?

Have you never been happy just to hear your song?

Have you never let someone else be strong?

Iam a doctor and doctors are supposed to write prescriptions, so let me write a prescription for the
ingredients of what I call mellowing. Some of the ingredients will come from my own trek on this pretty, pretty planet; some from the patients I have been privileged to work with; and some from my own family – one of the really neat things about this planet are the people we are privileged to live with and love. (I have four children. I’m like most parents. I started out with four theories and not kids. I now have four kids and no theories anymore.)

I write this prescription for you because there’s a myth out there. The myth is that one cannot run for the roses and smell the roses at the same time. The myth goes further, in fact, to say that if you take the time to smell the roses, the race may be over. I don’t believe that. Mellowing is the capacity to run for the roses and to smell the roses at the same time. Mellowing is not soft on success; it is success – success at weaving together the urgent things and the important things so that our work is an important part of a meaningful life
but it does not provide the only meaning to life. Mellowing keeps the functional family from becoming the dysfunctional family. It helps keep the family together.

The first ingredient in this prescription for mellowing is self-esteem. Self-esteem is what we are, not just what we do. Not that what we do is unimportant. It just isn’t all-important.The worst example of self-esteem came from a little girl by the name of Amy. She was a straight A student in grade school. She got into junior high school and got a B on her report card for the very first time. She got that B on the last day of her 14th year of life. So on the first day of her 15th year of life – her birthday – because she got a B on her report card for the first time, Amy hanged herself. But she left a note and it read simply: “Mom and Dad have never said anything about having to get good grades, in fact we rarely talk about it. But I know they do not want, nor could they tolerate a failure. And if I fail in what I do, I fail in what I am. Goodbye.”

Amy had no self-esteem beyond what she did, and one day when she didn’t do so good, she cashed in her chips at that early, early age. If Amy gave me the worst example of self-esteem, the best example came from one of my own kids – Old Number 42. I called him that in his growing-up years because he often wore a big green sweatshirt with the number 42 on it. “Old 42” was a neat little guy. He always came into my study about 9:00
o’clock each night at bedtime, and said, “Good night, Dad, see you in the morning, sweet dreams and I love you.” A neat way to end the day for him and for me. One night when he said that I reached out my arm and gave Old 42 a hug and a tug and squeeze and said: “Hey, old friend, old pal, old buddy of mine. I love you very much. You’re a neat little guy. In fact, I think you are one of the neatest people on this whole planet.” He modestly said, “I know.”

That’s self-esteem. When you say to someone close to you, that they “light up your life” and they say, “I know it,” that’s not egotistical or selfish because I’ll bet they do. And if you say, “I know it” to someone who says to you that you light up their life, that’s not egotistical or selfish either because I’ll bet you do. We just need to say that out loud to each other from time to time. It’s OK to feel it and to say it out loud.

What gets in the way of self-esteem? APATHY. Rollo May in his book Love-and-Will said it best
when he said: “The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is apathy.” Think about that. The most awful thing you can.do to someone near to you is not to get mad at them because love and anger are very close to each other, especially people we really care about. The most awful thing one can do to someone close to you is not to disagree, but to be “too busy, no time, don’t count.” The most awful thing we can do with those we work with, or the clients we deal with, is not to disagree from time to time, because that’s going to happen. The most awful thing I can do with my patients, or you with your clients is to be apathetic to them—too busy, no time and don’t count.

The second ingredient is something I call priorities. Priorities is the ability to sort out the urgent things from the important things. My life, like yours, is full of urgent things – homework has to be done, phone calls have to be returned, speeches have to be given, rounds have to be made, patients need to be seen, paperwork has to be completed and payrolls have to be met. But my life is full of important things as well. Like the people I am
privileged to live with and to love – my wife, and my kids scattered as they are now around the country making their own way on this pretty, pretty planet.

I just have to be certain I don’t get so busy with the urgent things that I overlook the important things – until it is too late. Why is it that health, like sleep, needs to be interrupted before it is truly appreciated? I see far too many people who wait until after the spot on the lung, or after the little stroke, or after the coronary before they sort out the important from the urgent. Don’t wait that long. I’ll tell you later about Jack and his wife Kathy, Jack, who waited too long to let her know how much she meant to him – and his message to us now.

Another ingredient is something I call soul – psychological soul, not theological soul. A girl named Susie taught me about the unique and differing shape of our souls when she described herself as being “an oval soul on a round planet” and all the problems that created. We are all different shaped souls and that’s OK. That’s the way it should be. I often ask patients what shape their soul is. One woman told me her soul was “like a rug because people walk all over it all the time.” Another woman gave me a really neat description of her soul though when she said it was shaped like a book. “I’m 35 years old,” she said, “And my soul is like a book
that’s half open. The first half has been written and I like what’s in it; the second half is still to be written and I’m excited about that half also.”

That’s a neat way to look at our lives – with chapters written and completed and some still to write. Some people spend the second half of their lives trying to rewrite the first half of their lives. Leave those chapters alone – they’re written. Leave them as they are and instead concentrate on writing the remaining chapters and writing them well.

The ability to make choices is a part of mellowing. It is not poor decisions that impede us; it is indecision that tears us apart. There is the story of the donkey standing between the two haystacks that starves to death because it cannot decide which one to eat from. We need to “dig in,” do some things here on the planet – to take chances, to risk it, to really invest. We need sometimes to not conform, to be different, maybe even to just say no. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy and the opposite of courage is conformity.

Relaxation is a part of mellowing. It was Thomas Jefferson who stated, “If you don’t have time early
in your life to relax and exercise, set aside a comparable amount of time later in life to be sick because
it will just about even out.” I think he’s right.

I brought along one of my favorite relaxers today – the metronome. There are some of us in this
room who run at a frenzied level – never enough time. When I get through here I’ll sandwich in a
couple of phone calls, rush through dinner so I can do some paperwork now so I can go to the cottage
this weekend, after I cut the lawn at home, so I can cut the lawn at the cottage, after I hook up the water.
We need to use the place even if it is a seven-hour drive each weekend because I got a good price and a tax deduction on the place, and the family will have fun, because that’s why I got the place and now I’ve got to pay for it so we WILL enjoy it etc etc. It makes my blood pressure go up simply knowing people do live at this kind of pace. The, thank goodness, there are people who live at a different pace. They roll with the flow. And you know what? The sun comes up over their house each day, too, just like the
people at that more frantic level. And you know what also? They get just as much done as those running around frenetically where a lot happens but not all that much gets done. And you know what the real payoff is for them? They have a better time of it here on the planet, while being successful also.


I use the metronome with patients. There is something intrinsically relaxing about rhythm and the metronome. But I tell my patients, as they listen to the metronome, to “relax and let go…relax and let go…relax and let go. “The bad news is they are uptight; the good news is they learned to be that way. If we learned to be that way, we can unlearn it. Relax and let go. Relax and let go.

I am not here to sell metronomes. But I am here to sell you on the idea that we need to have time, and places, and past-times to compete with all those endeavours that would otherwise make us be uptight and on edge. I listen to the metronome in my car to help me relax at the end of some hectic days and it does help (you’d expect a psychiatrist to listen to something like metronome rather than the radio like everyone else).

Relax and let go.

There are other ingredients in this prescription such as purpose – belonging to something larger than ourselves that is worthwhile. And communication – that ability to listen, not just speak. I will share with you what I consider to be the best book that has ever been written on human communication. A children’s book called Many Moons by James Thurber.

But basically then MELLOWING is perspective, a perspective that balances somewhat differently than before, what I am with what I do; that which is urgent with that which is important; postpones not so often; and lets us listen more and stereotype less. For me it is summed up in the phrase “That’s as good as it gets.” We jet around the planet looking for the perfect place to live, the perfect place to work, the perfect vocation to pursue, the perfect spouse, the perfect marriage, the perfect children yet all the time ignoring, often, that
which is close at hand, right nearby, right where we live. Perspective is not just counting our blessings, not just counting them, but holding, and touching and telling them. Above my chair in my office is a sign that says, “That’s as good as it gets”; a piece of needlework done by a patient of mine after the discovery that right close at hand lies, for each of us, the warm, gentle feeling of our own value and worth and the boundless security and fulfillment that comes from knowing that we count, that we can love and can appreciate, and that, in turn, we are loved and we are appreciated.

Perspective is the realization the world is not always fair and certainly not always logical. (A
patient of mine pointed out that if the world were logical it would be men who would ride sidesaddle.) Perspective is the realization that time passes quickly. When we are in the midst of childrearing, trying to give them the roots and wings that good parenthood bestows, sometimes it seems like it will never end. Then, in an instant, it is gone. We shout along the way, “Why don’t you guys grow up?” Then what seems like a flash the silence echoes back, in the big empty house, “We did.”

Let me close this way. Tom T. Hall sings a country western song entitled “Faster Horses, Younger Women, Older Whiskey, More Money.” Interesting title to that song. In it, a young man, pad and pencil in hand, goes out to discover the beauty of this planet and meet the people who live here to see what he can learn about them and about life. An old man stands there warning that what our young poet will find is what the people who live here are interested in is faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money. Some many verses later, like most country western songs, the young man has thrown his pad and pencil away, discouraged because the old man was right. The earth-dwellers he met were basically interested in
faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money.

Well, I don’t think so. From where I sit, from the patients I have been privileged to listen to, from the people I have been privileged to live with and to love, from groups like yours that I have been fortunate enough to interact with and get to know, from all that I have been able to witness and to listen to – it’s not faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money at all. It’s fonder feelings, deeper trust, more respect and love. That’s what we are in search of and, if we are open to it, what we’ll find.

The real threat to us, and the people we are privileged to live with and to love, is not the air we breathe, the water we drink, the hole in the ozone layer or the oat bran we don’t eat. The real threat to us is our indifference, our apathy, our conflicting priorities, our ungentle- ness and our unkindness to each other.

There is a book called the American Nightmare. In it a man is having a terrible nightmare and the monster in his dream is just about to devour him. Just then the man awakens, terribly frightened but also terribly relieved to be awake. But much to his chagrin, and terror, he looks up and the monster is still there in the room with him. He says to the monster, “My God, man, I’m afraid to go back to sleep. If I go back to sleep you’ll be in my dream and what are you going to do to me? What’s going to happen to me?” The monster shrugs his shoulders
and says, “Don’t ask me, it’s your nightmare.”

What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen at your house and mine or houses where your grandchildren or my grandchildren live? Who can I ask if I can’t ask us? Because the American fairy tale which killed Amy on her 15th birthday, it is not being written about us, it is not being written for us, it is being written by us. And if we write a different tale with different input it will have a different outcome and there won’t be so many Amys or Jimmys or Susies.

It’s not faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money at all. It’s fonder feelings, deeper trust, more respect and love.

To hear that, to feel that, to experience that. To love someone and to be loved

To touch someone and to be touched
To feel special and make someone else feel special

To listen to someone and to be listened to. To laugh, to cry, to touch, to sigh

To hurt and then heal; to be, to feel
Tears, laughter, trust, warmth, belief, joy,
A walk in the woods with someone you haven’t seen for a long time,

Watching someone you love very much recover from surgery when you were not sure that she would
Coming home when you’ve been away
Holding hands and warm feelings in the pit of your tummy

A little natural waterfall on your land that runs all year long

Being relaxed, at ease and pleasantly convivial
And hearing someone say, “I know it,” when you tell them that they are neat, they are special and they count.

That’s as good as it gets on this planet. And, my fellow citizens, when you stop to think about it, that’s really very, very, good.