Holistic Therapy, Holistic Worlds
Practising Compassion for Ourselves and the World Around Us
Interview by Punil Pattani
After having children, Greg Donaldson shifted his acting career to becoming a Transpersonal Therapist. His work practices a holistic approach to therapy that focuses on the mind, the wellness of the spirit, its connection to ourselves and our purpose.
It could not have been more timely to speak to Greg, especially after a turbulent 2020, a year like none other we have experienced before. Whilst mental health is gaining more recognition and publicity, there are further steps we need to take to normalise the support and treatment of mental health in our everyday lives. Transpersonal therapy is one of many approaches to do this and in this interview, Greg shows us how it can encourage us to practice compassion - a compassion that if we can successfully practice it in ourselves, has the potential to transform the compassion we have for the world around us and its well being.
What brought you into the world of therapy? And what drove your decision to become a therapist?
When I had my children, I needed more stability and consistency but I didn’t know what I was going to do. So from the ages of 35 to 40, I was letting go of my acting career and trying to feel into what the next stage of life looked like. I had a few iterations: I became a chocolatier for a while. At one point I even decided I was going to be an upholsterer. Basically, I went into an existential crisis or what you might call a midlife crisis - a stage of life where my meaning was being questioned.
During that time, I started therapy and tried out a few therapists, and after a while of being in therapy I thought “oh wow, I really like this.” I really like what it means to go to therapy and uncover the unconscious. I didn’t think too much more about it.
Something resonated with me and I decided to go on a long weekend introductory course in 2012. I just had one of those life moments where I knew this is what I wanted to do. And you know, I haven’t really looked back.
What is the focus of transpersonal psychotherapy?
I explain this to clients by getting them to imagine a house. Now imagine you’re looking around the basement which is sort of like looking into your past and history. It’s building a picture of who you are because of your history.
Now if we incorporate the ground floor in this as well. It’s moving the focus to where are you in your life right now? This fits more with humanistic types of therapies.
Now imagine we’re moving upstairs into the attic. We’re starting to ask questions like: “where is your meaning and what is your connection to it? Where’s all your purpose or your potential? Where do you want to go? Where is the sense of aliveness for your life?” This is now the transpersonal model and what I do in my practice.
That’s sort of the simple way of explaining it.
Has going through lockdown changed your approach to mental health? Perhaps even how you are with clients? Has there been any impact or lessons there?
Definitely, one thing we all need is more self-acceptance. The lockdown made me realise that this is the key, for me and my clients.
Before lockdown, we were all on this hamster wheel. And even for me, it was like “more clients, more work, more money, so I can get x, y, z.” Going into lockdown, I remember having a voice saying I should be doing something. It’s like when there’s nothing happening, we start to put pressure on ourselves to keep achieving. I remember thinking “oh, that podcast you want to do! You have got loads of time to do the podcast now”. But actually, it's not really about the things I should be doing, it’s about the things that I could be doing, if I wanted to do them.
So in terms of mental health, it comes back to “how do I find some self-acceptance?” How do I develop it within myself, and help clients develop it? I call it a compassionate inner witness. That part of me that can tell myself, “you're alright, you’re OK as you are and you're good enough.” I think a lot of us have developed the opposite voice that says, “you should be doing this, you should be doing that.”
It’s a reflection of the society we’re born into. This crazy consumeristic, capitalist society that tells us, “work work; more money, more money; buy more things, buy more things.” I’m not exempt from that.
But what’s important is to step back from that and see that's the system, the system that is just eating itself. No wonder there's so much depression and anxiety. There are so many people trying to fit into a broken world. And actually, there's more compassion to say well, maybe the world is broken and I'm feeling the pain of it. And that's why I feel depressed and anxious.
Mental health has become a more mainstream topic in recent years but what could be done further to make it easier for people to engage with?
We're coming to a place where mental health has less stigma, but I think there’s more to this. You take care of your body, you take care of your finances, you take care of your environment, and yet why does mental health keep getting overlooked? We're coming to a point in society now where it just can't be overlooked.
One approach that is helpful is seeing others get help. I had a client come to me this year who was inspired by David Haye, the boxer. He had heard David Haye talk about his mental health and how he’d got help. So I ended up with this guy in therapy who’d previously never even considered it. But because David Haye had mentioned it he’d thought he’d give it a go. So I think it’s about celebrities or people with platforms showing their own vulnerability is helpful.
One person who is really good at that is the celebrity comedian Russell Brand. He's had a journey that comes from addiction and he openly exposes his own neurotic relationship with life. I think that’s really helpful, he shows that he is a human being.
Why are there such significant barriers for men getting into therapy?
The why for me comes down to male ego. You can imagine a man saying, “Oh I've got this thing. It's hurting.” You’ll ask, “why don’t you go to the doctor?” And you can imagine getting the response,“oh no, I’ll be alright.”
It’s a combination of “I don’t want to receive help”, or, “I’m not worthy”, or, “it's embarrassing”. The question facing this individual is, “can I be vulnerable enough to share? To share my shadowy, murky self with another human being, without fear of judgment?”.
What practical tools and strategies would you suggest for people to better understand and support their mental health, in light of the New Year ahead?
My biggest suggestion is around how we talk to ourselves. Going into a new year, we often put a lot of pressure on ourselves to turn over a new leaf, to become a new person and to do some new thing. When we set resolutions we use them sort of as an achievement, and they fail because the intention behind hasn't really been acknowledged.
One thing that could help is developing our own new year ritual where we review the year and think about what we intend for the next year.
So firstly, I’d look at this year and think: “what are some of the things I’d like to let go of in my life, things that don't serve me?” It’s really powerful to write these down and then burn them, or another ritual to let those things go.
Then start to bring in some intentions and think about “what would I like more of this year?”
Examples could be, “how can I develop closer friendships this year?” “How can I take care of myself in a nourishing way with food this year?” “How can I look after my body more this year?”
It's an area for me that comes back to the compassionate internal witness.
I also understand that the medical intervention in mental health is beginning to change. Can you talk to us about how this is evolving?
We’re having a bit of a psychedelic renaissance at the moment because research is now happening which was previously banned. We’re seeing psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, MDMA for people suffering with PTSD and ketamine clinics opening in the US for people with depression.
The approach with psychedelics is different to antidepressants. These substances are used alongside a therapeutic intervention, rather than taken on a daily basis. They’d support the individual to travel into the unconscious and understand themselves better. “What do I need to find out about myself in order to live the life that I want to live?”
However, I think there are also dangers to that. One of those dangers is that people could think that this is a magic bullet, when in reality, it has to be much more of a holistic approach. Rather than saying “I’m depressed, take a pill,” it’s offering an opportunity to explore and ask questions like: “oh this is interesting, how do I find myself in this position?” Maybe with the help of therapy and taking psilocybin, I'll be able to look inwards, see what's going on inside and then take whatever lessons I can from that experience and integrate them into my life.
But also saying that, it’s not just psychedelics. There are lots of great tools like breath work or meditation that offer holistic approaches when done in the right setting.
And does mental health have a role in how we connect with our own communities and planet and in turn, how we look after those things?
It’s about compassion. Compassion for ourselves allows us to have compassion for things beyond ourselves, our communities and our planet.
You know there's this Buddhist meditation metta bhavana. In the meditation you hold compassion for yourself first. Then you take that and you put it around the people in your life. So your family, your close friends. Then you go out further. You put this ring of love and compassion around the people that you are aware of but you don't really know. And then, you go out further, and hold compassion for society. Beyond that, you're even asked to invite people into that ring that are really hard to like. Kind of like inviting Trump in and having some love for Trump.
And even then, you could be in a position where you're living a life of self-compassion and you're feeling good. But, you still have hateful views about other people because perhaps they don't have the same amount of compassion as you. You’re back in the same trap you’re trying to leave. Because these people don't know that you hate them. So all you’re doing is creating a frequency of hate in yourself and, therefore, you’re still perpetuating the disease of hate.
So how do we rise above that? Take away all the personalities and see humanity as one big organism.