MESSAGE OF HOPE OUT OF SUFFERING

TWELVE years ago, Mary Anne Campbell sat on a hill overlooking the
picturesque NSW, north coast town of Nimbin and made a decision that
was to turn her life around - she would stop using hard drugs.

It was a move that saw Campbell embark upon a personal journey she
began as one of the walking wounded but which has resulted in her
being transformed into something of a guru in the field of
psychological healing.

Campbell's the first to admit that the road has sometimes been rocky
but she's been buoyed all the way by the one thing she believes is the
key to a successful, happy and healthy existence - a sense of humour.

Even as a young person, Campbell recognised that her predisposition to
entertain had a magical effect on other people - they laughed, at
themselves and the world around them.

Drawing on the resourcefulness of her Queensland working-class
background, Camphell at one point relied on her gift to earn a living
and worked as a singer and a stand-up comic.

Early in her own recovery, partly as a reaction to a patriarchal
upbringing but also as a result of being a woman of her times,
Campbell became an ardent feminist.

She went to university to fly science and arts, including women's
studies.

Her real talent as counsellor and rehabilitator, however, became
obvious when she began working with recovering drug addicts at
Canberra's Drug Referral and Information Centre with inmates at the
Goulburn Jail.

Two years ago she established a successful business she runs from her
home in Lyneham, Maybone Counselling.

At a time when psychological counselling is a growth industry
attempting to deal with a spreading epidemic of mental illness and
emotional damage, Campbell is much sought after.

Her success as a counsellor, she says, lies in the fact that she
herself has experienced so much pain, and survived.

She has absolute faith in people's capacity to recover from
experiences and thrive.

She says she has all but recovered from her own, being the degradation
and dislocation of life as a drug user and it deed hard to believe
that the gorgeous, lively woman that Campbell is today - she exudes
health and well-being - could possibly be the same person as the
drawn, reed-thin waif seen in her photographs.

It was the fullness of her own recovery from drugs, which she achieved
without resorting to any conventional drug recovery treatment, that
inspired Campbell to pursue a life helping others.

"I look at those old photographs of myself and I think, 'You poor
little bugger, you didn't know what you were worth"', she says.

"Now, when I see people in dire straits, in agony, I know they can get
out of it ... the thing I'm really aware of is that most of us have
been in pain, most of us have had our agonising times and what I
really understand are the steps to pull out of it.

"I guess I understand because when I've been in pain I've done it with
so much style it's almost been an art form," she says with trademark
wit.

Kicking drugs

According to Campbell, the key to both kicking drugs and just
surviving in an increasingly frenetic world is simply learning to
"work your nervous system".

"People need to learn to sit with pain, to sit with their own fear and
terror and to observe themselves in a detached way," she says.

"What I say to people is that they need to come to know their own
truth ... unfortunately in the western world, we're not taught this
kind of stuff, instead, we're taught a dog eat dog kind of motivation
which is very unhealthy.

"There's something contradictory in human beings, as Carl Jung I think

was really clever in pointing out, and that is that we won't actually
change unless we're accepted for who we are and so part of what I do
is to try to get people to change to be more like themselves."

An increasing number of people seeking counselling suffer from
depression and Campbell attributes the extraordinary growth of this
complaint to the problems of living a "sensation-based" existence.

People are often overwhelmed by the "corporatisation of a world in
which individuals and communities don't seem to have much of a say".

"People are also scared of the new technology, although I take a more
positive view of the sorts of communities it might create in the
future," she says.

The breakdown of family structures, the strong emphasis on a youth
culture and the lack of respect for elders in modern society are
damaging to people's self esteem.

"In this respect I think there's a great deal that we could learn from
the Aboriginal culture."

Like other successful psychological healers, Campbell is an
enthusiastic exponent of the benefits of meditation, in particular the
Indian Vipassana style.

"I love meditation because it connects you with the joy you're born
with, you get to remember what it's like not to worry," she says.

From being a heavy gauge feminist just a few years ago, Campbell
recently has done an extensive amount of work with men whose problems,
she says, arise from the "harsh masculinity" of the world.

As a means of retaining her own equilibrium, Campbell spends several
hours each week conducting group- "relapse" sessions for which she
does not charge.

"My general philosophy is that you have to give back to the world and
I truly believe that if you put money out, it comes back to you."

According to Campbell, most people don't have a philosophy that
enables not to take the world personally.

"This is why it's important to be able to laugh at yourself," she
says.

"Humour is such a good balance and by humour I don't just mean
hilarity ... take a look at people like the Dalai Lama and others who
are full of wisdom; they laugh because they know they could be dead
tomorrow

"We live in a society that's so rigid, where humour is seen as
childish but that's got to shift because when you get angry it's so
damn hard to be able to see someone else's perspective but humour can
open up your heart in a way that I haven't seen much else do."

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady