HEALTH
Hope springs eternal
By Laura Tutor
Assistant Features Editor
03-31-2002
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Spring Break meant fun in the sun for Jacksonville High School students Brittni Wyatt, Clay Beckett and Vivian Downs. Photo: Bill Wilson.
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If spring could laugh, it would sound like a boy giggling as he clutches his big brother in a headlock. Its whisper would be like that of teen-agers clustered under a gazebo to gossip the morning away at the woodland’s edge. Its touch, that of a great-grandmother brushing a child’s hand across a rosemary plant to release the scent of herbs and life. “It sure is a beautiful day, just a perfect spring day,” Wilene Bishop said as her great-grandson Tyler breathed in the scent of rosemary on his hand. “And, I tell you, yes, I am ready for it to be here.” Around her in the courtyard of the Anniston Museum of Natural History, green shoots of plants peeked out from their winter blankets of mulch and leaves. Children of all sizes and shapes and colors darted among the paths only to freeze suddenly as they noticed their reflections in the glassy waters of the fountain pool. Occasionally, a hand flapped in the water to stir the reflections just so the gazers could wait for the water to calm and the images to renew themselves. Adults, many of them like Mrs. Bishop helping with school trips, relaxed on sun-warmed benches to observe the youngsters’ symptoms of spring fever. “Makes you wish you still had that much energy,” one grandmother quipped from the other side of the fountain. “It’s a shame you can’t just sit here and suck some of it in.” Dr. Ernest Mastria says you can. Vitality – like sunlight to skin and water to a sponge – can be absorbed as easily as happiness. This spring, the New Jersey-based counselor who’s helped many patients cope with the aftermath of Sept. 11 hopes people will find a way to renew their spirits and find the hope that too often is ingrained only in the young. Just when and how that grain of contentment gets stripped from a soul is a mystery. Etching it back into one’s life, however, can be the ultimate springtime resolution, Mastria said. The symbols of renewal are everywhere: in nature, in children’s faces, in the opening of a house’s windows. “The message is live your life as well as you can in the moment,” said Mastria, whose latest book is The Habit of Living: To Calm Your Symptoms and to Feel Happy. “After all of the things that have happened in the past year, there is a lot of anxiety, a lot of negative anticipation. You have to find a way to get rid of that.” To dump anxiety, people need to find the most powerful medicine around: hope. That can come in planning a flower garden or doing simple things, such as setting goals for the next few weeks, said Lucile Bodenheimer, an Anniston clinical psychologist. “That’s where you need a lot of positive self-talk,” she said. “You remind yourself that the cup is half-full – not half empty.” Most people Mrs. Bishop has talked to in her Georgia hometown say they’re ready for spring. There’s been too much glumness in the air for too long. Easter has a way of wiping that feeling out. “It sure has been rough,” said Mrs. Bishop, who drove the school children over from Chatooga County, Ga., Thursday. “It’s been in and out for most people, I guess. I guess a lot of people are ready for it to be better.”
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Left: Right: Bryce Tarr was playing a game of tag with his little brother in the courtyard of the Anniston Museum of Natural History. Sunshine and little boys’ energy are a powerful combination. Right: Megan Ford of Ragland was one of the younger set exploring the Anniston Museum of Natural History recently. A beautiful spring day brings the young folks out to frolic. Photos: Bill Wilson.
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‘Better’ is a state of mind, Mastria said. Most people who have anxiety or this prolonged feeling of the blues talk themselves into being sad, he said. They don’t take walks for fear of running into someone they want to avoid. They don’t attend an event for fear of having a bad time.“All of that is negative anticipation,” said Mastria, adding that so many people make life harder than it has to be. For example, say someone is invited to a dinner on Friday night. Starting Tuesday or Wednesday, they begin fretting about how they’ll be perceived, what sort of time they’ll have. All of that time they’re wasting on worry is causing them to ignore what’s happening in the present, he said. “It’s Wednesday, and they’ve worried all week about Friday night,” he said. “You’re not living in the moment.” The result of worrying all the time about others’ perceptions of you is that you’re afraid to do anything that might be seen as different, he said. Difference, however, can be liberating. If you suppress too many things you want to do for fear of not conforming, the next thing you know, he said, you’re spirit is seriously out of whack. That leads to depression, worry, unhappiness and hang-ups about everything. Life – complicated enough – becomes more so. “We feel trapped and controlled,” he explained further. “We hold it in, hold it in. Then it blows up over something stupid.” The road to happiness starts by deliberately taking note of the good things in life, Mastria said. If you don’t know how to do that – and many people don’t – talk to someone who does. One way to start would be to take a few notes from the younger set. It takes years for children to learn to suppress opinions so they can fit in, Mastria said. They learn early, from adults, how to anticipate what others want them to say and do. Before that happens, though, they are more free in their expressions. As they are when they wrestle or run around in the sunshine. Or sit and rehash what a great Spring Break it’s been, as a few teens were doing late last week. “We’re definitely getting ready for summer,” said Clay Beckett, who was with two other Jacksonville High School students at the museum Thursday. “You can just do … stuff.” Yeah, he’d say most teen-agers are pretty happy right now. If school’s not too bad, and you’ve got good friends, things are OK. It’s that simple? It is, Mastria said. It’s only as more elements of anxiety are added that it becomes too muddled. Spring is when you can unclutter your emotions and find out what’s really important to you, he said. It’s time to get out and enjoy the trees and the garden and the yard, said Stacey Tarr, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., but her husband works in Anniston right now. She and their two boys, 8-year-old Bryce and 6-year-old Brady, came down to spend the week with Dad. The boys are ready for warm weather as much as Mom is. They were some of the main chasers at the museum this week. They dodged the plant beds, skirted the fountain and streaked a path under the trees where Brady caught Bryce in a bear hug. “I know those guys are ready,” Mrs. Tarr said. “We just want to get out and enjoy and go.” And the bear hug moved toward the parking lot.
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About Laura Tutor
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Laura Tutor is the features editor for The Star.
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Contact Laura Tutor
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