Lessons from Soul

Lessons from the Soul
Carlsbad therapist to write book
on the transforming power of grief
By Leah Masterson | leah.masterson@tlnews.net (Article appeared in San Diego Union Tribune and Today’s Local News)
Saturday, February 2, 2008

“What do you do with tragedy and pain? Either you become bitter, hardened and despondent, or you go forward and try to bring beauty and joy to the world,” Sherri Mandell wrote in an article published in Hadassah Magazine in September 2001.
Mandell, who lives in Israel, lost her 13-year-old son, Koby, on May 8, 2001. It was a day that forever changed members of the Mandell family and the circle of friends who have joined them on their long journey of healing.
Koby and his friend skipped school to go hiking in a dry riverbed close to their home in Tekoa, Israel. They never returned.
Their bodies were found in a nearby cave, beaten beyond recognition.
The period Mandell experienced after Koby’s death is what Carlsbad marriage and family therapist Patricia Ariadne calls a “dark night of soul,” a long, dark period of emotional suffering and psychological re-evaluation brought on by a traumatic experience, such as the loss of a child or the terminal illness of a loved one.
A dark night of soul, said Ariadne, can also be triggered by debilitating depression, a profound sense of disappointment or a feeling that something meaningful is missing from life.
Mandell’s story is one of many Ariadne plans to include in her upcoming book, “Drinking the Dragon: Stories of the Dark Night of Soul,” a collection of stories from personal interviews, books and her own life that illustrate the transforming power of such events.
The dragon is an ancient symbol of transformation, and to “drink the dragon,” said Ariadne, means to experience and assimilate change on the deepest level of the psyche.
She believes the dark night of soul creates a time to heal old psychological wounds and connect more deeply with the body and soul.
Ariadne is looking for people who have had traumatic experiences and faced the emotional turmoil that followed to share their stories for her book.
Contributors may use pseudonyms if they wish.
“There is a thread through this culture that says, ‘If you just don’t think about it, it will go away,’ ” she said. “This isn’t the kind of process that you can walk away from like that. It’s an invitation. There’s a part of you that has the ability to grow and be more than it is.”
Ariadne’s first book, “Women Dreaming-Into-Art,” was published in 2006. It follows seven female artists who translate their dreams into literature, art, dance, music and other forms of expression.
Ariadne frequently uses discussion of dreams and related topics in her counseling practice, and she has taught dream-interpretation workshops.
Both dreams and transformation intrigue her.
“I’ve always been really fascinated by how people change,” she said.
In her new book, she hopes to capture how tragedy often can be the catalyst for life-changing transformation.
Ariadne plans to include the story of Eugene O’Kelly, a 53-year-old chairman and CEO of KPMG, one of the largest accounting firms in the United States, who learned he had inoperable brain cancer and about 100 days to live.
A high-powered, controlling and successful businessman, O’Kelly had a schedule that was often booked for months in advance. Upon hearing his diagnosis, he retreated to his home and laid out his final mission: to write a how-to book on how to die.
He made plans to meet with friends and family members individually to spend time with them and say goodbye. He learned to appreciate nature, spontaneity and the joy of not knowing what tomorrow held.
In his book, “Chasing Daylight,” he chronicled his last days and contemplated what it takes to make people slow down and live every day as if it’s their last.
Isabel Allende’s story will also be included in Ariadne’s book.
Allende wrote a book called “Paula,” which follows her journey after her daughter was diagnosed with porphyria, a genetic disease. In the book, Allende described how she slipped across a “mysterious threshold and entered a zone of inky darkness.”
Throughout the long months of her daughter’s illness, Allende said she was “peeling away like an onion.”
“In the end,” Allende wrote, “all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation.”
Ariadne believes that life crises are opportunities for spiritual growth and personal transformation. She would like people who have gone through, or are going through, such crises to share their stories with her.
“You don’t have to have lost a child or have a terminal illness, but it should be a significant story of the dark night,” she said. “I’m looking for people who have let it take its course, regardless of what the initiating crisis was, and then learned about themselves.
“Maybe they went into therapy to do that, or started writing poetry or journaling. Somehow they connected to some spiritual meaning, and they want to come back to their daily life and give back somehow to others.
“People who have gone to the edge and come back from it always bring some bit of beauty out of it.”
After Koby’s death, Sherri Mandell felt it was important to be mentally present and allow herself to grieve.
“The first morning a friend came over with a Valium,” Mandell said. “I said I gave birth to Koby without drugs and I’m going to mourn him without drugs.
“The pain was real, but it was my connection to Koby. I had a very strong intuitive sense that if I didn’t face it I would be damaged even more. I had to cope with the truth, even though it felt like it was going to destroy me.”
Mandell and her husband, Seth, a rabbi, used what they learned from the tragedy to help others.
In 2003 she published “The Blessing of a Broken Heart,” an account of how she was able to cope with the trauma.
She and her husband created the Koby Mandell Foundation. The foundation offers several programs to help families in grief. The most notable perhaps is Camp Koby, a retreat that offers a home away from home for children and adults who have lost loved ones to terrorism.
“Writing the book helped me, but it was a long process, and it continues,” said Mandell.
“The real message is that you can create from pain, if you’re given enough love, but it’s a choice.”