Mind Matters: Ripples and regrets

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on March 2, 2011

Death
is not a topic that people like to address. Even though we know we are all mortal, we live in a culture
that avoids its contemplation.
Despite the fact that the baby boomers are in their 60s now, we remain a
youth culture. And youth, too, unfortunately are not immune to a too soon face
off with mortality.

When
I was 14, and believed in the immortality of the young, my 13-year-old cousin
was hit by a car and died. That was the first crash of my assumptive world. Coming
to a “new normal” world with mortality in its landscape didn’t come easy then
nor does it come easy now. So what
might help us in our anxiety regarding the inevitable?

Psychiatrist,
Irvin Yalom, is a highly respected writer on issues of the human condition. In
Staring at the Sun: overcoming the terror of death, he helps us confront our
fears. He notes that in all his years of working with an individual’s death
anxiety, he has found the idea of “rippling” the most powerful. Yalom said,
“Rippling refers to the fact that each of us creates—often without our
conscious intent or knowledge—concentric circles of influence that may affect
others for years, even for generations.”

The
most anonymous among us can lay claim to rippling. This is not about monuments and edifices. “Sic transit
Gloria mundi:” is the refrain said to every pope as he takes the throne. “So
goes the glory of the world”—power, fame, and fortune are all transient. “The
Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, they're only made of clay, our love is here to stay” goes the song.

So,
yes, love is, indeed, one of the ripples that carry on beyond us. Rippling
includes acts of kindness, wisdom, comfort.

Yalom
illustrates the profundity of rippling’s effects with a client’s story. This woman had been overwhelmed at
times with death anxiety. Then two incidents occurred which changed her life’s
fear of death. At a school reunion, she discovered how she had affected an old
childhood friend with her early wisdom. Even the friend’s teenager sang her praises
about how important she had been to her mother. On the trip home from that encounter, she considered that
death was not the annihilation she feared. She considered, Yalom wrote,
“Perhaps it was not so essential that her person or even memories of her person
survived. Perhaps the important thing was that her ripples persist, ripples of
some act or idea that would help others attain joy and virtue in life, ripples
that would fill her with pride and act to counter the immortality, horror, and
violence monopolizing the mass media and the outside world.”

Soon
after this epiphany, her mother died, and along came a corollary
revelation. One of her mother’s
favorite phrases struck her: “Look for her among her friends.” At the funeral, she observed aspects of
her mother rippling through the assembly.
She intuited these ripples of her mother’s caring and love of life
rippling on to their children and onward into the stream of life.

So
perhaps we need to ask ourselves, no matter our age, what kind of ripples would
we like to make? It all counts. Rather than stacking up more regrets for what
we’ve done or failed to do, why not consider the ripples we now can make?

Ripples
of care, and generosity that the future will feel and rejoice in. Let the
refrain ripple on: “The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, our love is
here to stay.”

* Kayta
Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private
practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.