In grad school I took a class on addictions. The professor, Matt Howard (very cute and easy to pay attention to) taught us that the severity of the hangover you tend to get is a form of behavioral conditioning,a la B.F. Skinner. The worse your hangover the better predictor that the behavior of getting drunk will desist. I am a good example of this. I get hangovers, which to me seem terrible, and as a result, I am not a tee-totaler by any means, but I have good reason to think before I have 'just one more.'
It's difficult to advocate for less alcohol consumption without sounding like a smug pain in the ass. But that's what I'm about to do. I guess the bit in the paragraph above is just to say that I realize it's relatively easy for me to not get drunk, and I know that it's very hard for some other people.
Here are a couple things I like about not getting drunk. I think when I used to get drunk with relative frequency, like in my 20s or in college, I would set out to get drunk. I'd think, I've worked hard/studied hard/ or whatever, and I deserve to cut loose. I think this was also a way to connect with other people. At the beginning of drinking most people probably do feel connected with other people. But at some point (I think I am not the only one to feel this way) I felt disconnected from other people. Or just the fact of being 'out of it' really disconnected me. I was technically present with other people but I either felt some kind of sadness inside or else I didn't feel anything.
As we head into New Year's Eve, I'd like to advocate for not numbing out and for trying to loosen up on our expectations for what 'New Year's Eve' is supposed to be. Maybe we'll feel connected to the people we are with. Maybe we won't. Maybe we'll be by ourselves. Maybe we'll be with other people. If we're relatively sober, we're more likely to make decisions that won't endanger us or someone else. Even if we're lonely for one night, really, it'll all be okay.
In this way, I've pretty much had to get comfortable with doing my own thing. Sometimes I feel like a boring nerd because I say no to one more drink or I go home early from parties. Also, I really feel okay about it. It's taken practice. It's taken remembering how my hangovers feel. It's also taken thinking about how it feels to wake up feeling good, healthy, and clear on the first day of a new year.
Happy New Year - Be safe and good to you.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
updates from 2011: parenting, mindfulness and The Dude
I like to be accountable.
I have the audacity to offer thoughts and ideas about life, emotional health, and spiritual growth, so I think I better be accountable. I decided to take a few ideas I pondered in the past year and see how I'm doing with them.
Today I want to look at Mindful Parenting.
In Feb. 2011 I wrote about me having a conniption fit ignited by getting my kids ready for school and trying to get out the door in the morning, on top of hundreds of repeat plays of Les Miz on the CD player. At that time, the song Bad Moon Rising happened to come up on 103.3 and it was like getting a bucket of groovy water thrown over my head and I was able to put life in perspective and realize that with a little mindful planning and less rushing for me and the kids, we could all have a happier morning.
In essence, I suggested that we could all be more mindful parents. So how did I do with this? Better! I think I made vast improvements, and here's what I did different, and I think I can summarize it in three words: I gave up.
Yes, I think I gave up a little this year. I admitted defeat in some aspects of parenting.
It's not as bad as it sounds...let me explain. I grew up with a pretty traditional parenting style - authoritarian. Not like beat your butt authoritarian, but "I'm the adult and you do it because I say you will do it" authoritarian. Without setting out to have an existential battle, I ended out this way because of my not really realizing that my own parenting style is, essentially not that. I wanted it to be that. It worked for me as a kid! But, I am too goofy a person and too much of a touchy-feely social worker to truly make that work. I've spanked my kids a total of 3 times and I tried for a 4th, but I started giggling, looking at my son's tushy trying to run away from me.
I also realized that the tension between these two parts of me - the voice that said, 'Katy, you should discipline like your mom and dad, this is what they expect or because you see so and so parenting that way" and the voice that said, "Katy, you can do it a different way and it's still legitimate"- that tension was making me kind of unhappy, not to mention confusing my kids. It made me think of that old comedy video, Bill Cosby, Himself. As a parent, I think of the clip, where he says, "My wife was a beautiful woman until we had children and now her face is permanently like this" and he makes this totally strained face with veins popping out of the neck. I am pretty sure I looked like that a lot of the time and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I didn't have to be like that.
So I gave up. Even my mom noticed. Our whole extended family went on vacation this year and my kids were acting up and I was talking to them very calmly away from the dinner table. I returned to the dinner table, looked over at my mom and said, "I've given up." She said, "Yes, you have."
But, it's actually working better. Our household is more humorous, less angry, and I think my kids are 'getting it" better. Maybe because they are not getting mixed messages from me about expectations and what will happen when they are in trouble. Maybe because they are getting older, too.
I still get mad, of course. But now, I think about it more...I slow down. I even yelled, "Dammit - I'm tired of this!" the other day, but ( this is true!) I thought, 'hmmm...saying dammit will really get the little buggers attention'. My kids think rough words and cussing are like cardinal sins, so it's totally eye-popping for them for me to cuss. Also, it gave me a little humor too, dammit.
So, that's an update on mindful parenting from my end...somebody said that nothing dies harder than a bad idea, and I feel like we have some ideas about our parenting or what parents are supposed to be and it's okay to let them go.
I have the audacity to offer thoughts and ideas about life, emotional health, and spiritual growth, so I think I better be accountable. I decided to take a few ideas I pondered in the past year and see how I'm doing with them.
Today I want to look at Mindful Parenting.
In Feb. 2011 I wrote about me having a conniption fit ignited by getting my kids ready for school and trying to get out the door in the morning, on top of hundreds of repeat plays of Les Miz on the CD player. At that time, the song Bad Moon Rising happened to come up on 103.3 and it was like getting a bucket of groovy water thrown over my head and I was able to put life in perspective and realize that with a little mindful planning and less rushing for me and the kids, we could all have a happier morning.
In essence, I suggested that we could all be more mindful parents. So how did I do with this? Better! I think I made vast improvements, and here's what I did different, and I think I can summarize it in three words: I gave up.
Yes, I think I gave up a little this year. I admitted defeat in some aspects of parenting.
It's not as bad as it sounds...let me explain. I grew up with a pretty traditional parenting style - authoritarian. Not like beat your butt authoritarian, but "I'm the adult and you do it because I say you will do it" authoritarian. Without setting out to have an existential battle, I ended out this way because of my not really realizing that my own parenting style is, essentially not that. I wanted it to be that. It worked for me as a kid! But, I am too goofy a person and too much of a touchy-feely social worker to truly make that work. I've spanked my kids a total of 3 times and I tried for a 4th, but I started giggling, looking at my son's tushy trying to run away from me.
I also realized that the tension between these two parts of me - the voice that said, 'Katy, you should discipline like your mom and dad, this is what they expect or because you see so and so parenting that way" and the voice that said, "Katy, you can do it a different way and it's still legitimate"- that tension was making me kind of unhappy, not to mention confusing my kids. It made me think of that old comedy video, Bill Cosby, Himself. As a parent, I think of the clip, where he says, "My wife was a beautiful woman until we had children and now her face is permanently like this" and he makes this totally strained face with veins popping out of the neck. I am pretty sure I looked like that a lot of the time and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I didn't have to be like that.
So I gave up. Even my mom noticed. Our whole extended family went on vacation this year and my kids were acting up and I was talking to them very calmly away from the dinner table. I returned to the dinner table, looked over at my mom and said, "I've given up." She said, "Yes, you have."
But, it's actually working better. Our household is more humorous, less angry, and I think my kids are 'getting it" better. Maybe because they are not getting mixed messages from me about expectations and what will happen when they are in trouble. Maybe because they are getting older, too.
I still get mad, of course. But now, I think about it more...I slow down. I even yelled, "Dammit - I'm tired of this!" the other day, but ( this is true!) I thought, 'hmmm...saying dammit will really get the little buggers attention'. My kids think rough words and cussing are like cardinal sins, so it's totally eye-popping for them for me to cuss. Also, it gave me a little humor too, dammit.
So, that's an update on mindful parenting from my end...somebody said that nothing dies harder than a bad idea, and I feel like we have some ideas about our parenting or what parents are supposed to be and it's okay to let them go.
Monday, December 26, 2011
new year's prep - the resolution to work on the blog
Hi everybody - As a social worker, I've really meandered slowly into the 'world of technology.' I pretty much entered a technology black hole from 1999 to 2010. I'm working on it. Anyway, I'll be doing a little re-vamping of the blog in the next month or so, so this in not a real, 'real' post. Just a test. More to come...
Friday, December 23, 2011
ode to becoming: yes, virginia, that is all there is
On Thursday, I received my weekly email update/letter from my church minister. In the hopes of encouraging congregants to attend a service on Christmas Day, he wrote,
Now, I think it's interesting to compare that sentiment to some lyrics from Peggy Lee's song, Is That All There Is:
Actually, all the lyrics are pretty interesting. http://www.lyricstime.com/peggy-lee-is-that-all-there-is-lyrics.html
The thing is, I think a lot of people, whether they are traditionally religious or not, have this feeling (not necessarily about breaking out the booze and having a ball). There's a lot of build up for something to happen - maybe Christmas, maybe a vacation, maybe a new job, maybe just a night out with friends. There's preparation, planning, hoping for and anticipating the best...and then when it happens, it's kind of like one of those "dud" fireworks on the Fourth of July.
One idea, a way of approaching the Moments of life (with a capital M) links, for me, with a theology that I learned about from another minister; it's called Process Theology. Here's the gross oversimplification (so please forgive me if you know more about this than I do): the idea is that God is Becoming, that God is a process. If you don't believe in God, I think it still works...we hear it all the time, even at the Hallmark store: the journey is the destination.
I'll give this Christmas season as an example - like many of us, I've had a ridiculously long 'to do' list. Ever since Thanksgiving, there's been this momentum. Also, irritations - for example, I yelled at my son this afternoon for hitting his sister with a kebab skewer.
But, I'd like to propose that the momentum, the build up, is just as much Christmas as what I'll celebrate with my family on December 24/25. I am not building up for some moment to happen, the moment is happening. So rather than feel harried and resent my obligations and think, "I can't wait for Christmas to get here, then I'll know this effort is all worth it," it's much more content and enjoyable for me to soak in what I'm actually doing at the moment as part of what I hope for when I think of what I love about a holiday: traditions, family time, good food and music, appreciating one another, feeling connecting to and honoring something bigger than ourselves.
We can even draw this out to our sense of self. If we think, one day I'll be the person I want to be, we're missing out. We are becoming who we are and/or who we want to be! It's happening right now. It's not always comfortable, but I think that is so cool.
I am trying to keep in mind that every moment is "all there is.". I've enjoyed myself this month, including all the running around. But maybe I better go just now, I think I heard the kitchen drawer open. The one where we keep the kebab skewers.
Happy Holidays and Love to Everybody!
I confess that I sometimes have a feeling of emptiness and incompletion on Christmas Day. The presents are opened, and now what? Do I turn to football or a nostalgic movie? This is Christmas Day, yet the magic of the season seems already gone. How I wish for a brief time of real meaning, contemplation, for the spirit of the season in company with those who will be glad to see me.
Now, I think it's interesting to compare that sentiment to some lyrics from Peggy Lee's song, Is That All There Is:
And when I was 12 years old, my father took me to the circus, the greatest show on earth.
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.
And as I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle
I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don't know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a circus?"
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.
And as I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle
I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don't know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a circus?"
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
Actually, all the lyrics are pretty interesting. http://www.lyricstime.com/peggy-lee-is-that-all-there-is-lyrics.html
The thing is, I think a lot of people, whether they are traditionally religious or not, have this feeling (not necessarily about breaking out the booze and having a ball). There's a lot of build up for something to happen - maybe Christmas, maybe a vacation, maybe a new job, maybe just a night out with friends. There's preparation, planning, hoping for and anticipating the best...and then when it happens, it's kind of like one of those "dud" fireworks on the Fourth of July.
It's notable to me that probably a half dozen to a dozen of my patients when I worked in hospice talked about the song, Is That All There Is? as they faced their own deaths. We feel that let down about individual events in life, but as Peggy Lee points out at the end of her song, we don't want it to end either.
One idea, a way of approaching the Moments of life (with a capital M) links, for me, with a theology that I learned about from another minister; it's called Process Theology. Here's the gross oversimplification (so please forgive me if you know more about this than I do): the idea is that God is Becoming, that God is a process. If you don't believe in God, I think it still works...we hear it all the time, even at the Hallmark store: the journey is the destination.
I'll give this Christmas season as an example - like many of us, I've had a ridiculously long 'to do' list. Ever since Thanksgiving, there's been this momentum. Also, irritations - for example, I yelled at my son this afternoon for hitting his sister with a kebab skewer.
But, I'd like to propose that the momentum, the build up, is just as much Christmas as what I'll celebrate with my family on December 24/25. I am not building up for some moment to happen, the moment is happening. So rather than feel harried and resent my obligations and think, "I can't wait for Christmas to get here, then I'll know this effort is all worth it," it's much more content and enjoyable for me to soak in what I'm actually doing at the moment as part of what I hope for when I think of what I love about a holiday: traditions, family time, good food and music, appreciating one another, feeling connecting to and honoring something bigger than ourselves.
We can even draw this out to our sense of self. If we think, one day I'll be the person I want to be, we're missing out. We are becoming who we are and/or who we want to be! It's happening right now. It's not always comfortable, but I think that is so cool.
I am trying to keep in mind that every moment is "all there is.". I've enjoyed myself this month, including all the running around. But maybe I better go just now, I think I heard the kitchen drawer open. The one where we keep the kebab skewers.
Happy Holidays and Love to Everybody!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
the flipside of the corrections: our legacy as children
When I wrote the other week about 'the Corrections' and raising kids, I knew I'd get a good amount of feedback from readers and friends, because I think we are all fairly comfortable talking and thinking about what parts of parenting challenge us.
As I've thought more about the parents-eye view, I've become reflective on another aspect of family life. Maybe it's the end of the year, a feeling of wrapping things up, of looking back and looking ahead. It definitely has something to do with writing this blog, which challenges me to use my own experience to connect with other people - many of whom I know, and some I don't.
So, in this spirit, I'd like to talk about what I guess is the flipside, or even just another side of what we get from our parents. 'Corrections' parenting is a way we, as adults, might define ourselves AGAINST something. It's a way some of us might like to show, 'I'm doing it different.' But it's hard to know ourselves fully when we only are certain of what we are not (or what we don't want to be).
Writing this blog has brought into relief for me a way of knowing who I am in relation to where and who I came from. My parents. I am a parent now, but I am also somebodies' kid. In my writing about emotional and mental health, I find myself often thinking not just about what I might do differently than my parents (both in child-rearing and otherwise) I also think about where I might be similar to them.
These parallels and connections with my parents, in some ways, surprise me. My parents separated within 6 months of my graduating from college and moving halfway across the country. Within another 18 months, they'd divorced. This was a tough thing for all my family, but I'd say one part that made it tough for me was that, in many ways, I'd defined myself by my family. To my mind, my family was strong, stable, loving, sturdy. My friends all loved to hang out at my house when we were teenagers. My parents were firm, but kind. The doors to our home were open and there was always a hot meal and a laugh. We did things together, we were affectionate, we didn't often scream and yell. So, the turmoil was sudden and surprising to my brain, which was barely out of adolescence. My folks' divorce, for a time, negated much of the good stuff I thought I'd grown up with. Suddenly, I questioned my own history. Was it a lie? If my memory and experience wasn't true, what in the world was?
I've spent some serious emotional and mental energy working that out over the years.
Here's what I've come to: I like the person I am and... I came from somewhere. I came from my parents, who for a time came together and taught me some good stuff - be responsible for your community, freedom is worth fighting for, be of service when and where you can, listen to music (who doesn't feel better when they listen to "Oldies"?!) From my mom in particular, I inherited values of tradition, being humble, a sense of family history, a sense of and love of the Divine. From my dad I inherited intellectual curiousity, the desire to challenge and be challenged, a sense of rebellion and adventure.
I appreciate this legacy. I love my folks. And though I try really hard not to curse in this blog, one of my mental health mantras is (and I mean this with no irony or angry undertone) "shit happens." In fact, that might be a whole other blog.
The point is, we are made of many parts, influences, and life experience. Some stuff I probably came up with on my own (isn't that very American - to be self-created in many ways?). But, I hope, as we all get ready to probably spend some time with our parents, if they are living, over the holidays, I hope it might be helpful to think about the legacy of their influence. To extend graciousness and love - for them, and by extension for ourselves.
I heard a piece on NPR just after Thanksgiving about decorating the White House for the holidays. Apparently, you can nominate yourself or someone else to have the opportunity to help with this tradition. This year, along with many others, an elderly immigrant man was nominated by his son and they were both chosen for this honor. The older man spoke of his son in his radio interview - "I just pray that he has a good life."
Who could say it better than that - whether you're a parent or a kid?
As I've thought more about the parents-eye view, I've become reflective on another aspect of family life. Maybe it's the end of the year, a feeling of wrapping things up, of looking back and looking ahead. It definitely has something to do with writing this blog, which challenges me to use my own experience to connect with other people - many of whom I know, and some I don't.
So, in this spirit, I'd like to talk about what I guess is the flipside, or even just another side of what we get from our parents. 'Corrections' parenting is a way we, as adults, might define ourselves AGAINST something. It's a way some of us might like to show, 'I'm doing it different.' But it's hard to know ourselves fully when we only are certain of what we are not (or what we don't want to be).
Writing this blog has brought into relief for me a way of knowing who I am in relation to where and who I came from. My parents. I am a parent now, but I am also somebodies' kid. In my writing about emotional and mental health, I find myself often thinking not just about what I might do differently than my parents (both in child-rearing and otherwise) I also think about where I might be similar to them.
These parallels and connections with my parents, in some ways, surprise me. My parents separated within 6 months of my graduating from college and moving halfway across the country. Within another 18 months, they'd divorced. This was a tough thing for all my family, but I'd say one part that made it tough for me was that, in many ways, I'd defined myself by my family. To my mind, my family was strong, stable, loving, sturdy. My friends all loved to hang out at my house when we were teenagers. My parents were firm, but kind. The doors to our home were open and there was always a hot meal and a laugh. We did things together, we were affectionate, we didn't often scream and yell. So, the turmoil was sudden and surprising to my brain, which was barely out of adolescence. My folks' divorce, for a time, negated much of the good stuff I thought I'd grown up with. Suddenly, I questioned my own history. Was it a lie? If my memory and experience wasn't true, what in the world was?
I've spent some serious emotional and mental energy working that out over the years.
Here's what I've come to: I like the person I am and... I came from somewhere. I came from my parents, who for a time came together and taught me some good stuff - be responsible for your community, freedom is worth fighting for, be of service when and where you can, listen to music (who doesn't feel better when they listen to "Oldies"?!) From my mom in particular, I inherited values of tradition, being humble, a sense of family history, a sense of and love of the Divine. From my dad I inherited intellectual curiousity, the desire to challenge and be challenged, a sense of rebellion and adventure.
I appreciate this legacy. I love my folks. And though I try really hard not to curse in this blog, one of my mental health mantras is (and I mean this with no irony or angry undertone) "shit happens." In fact, that might be a whole other blog.
The point is, we are made of many parts, influences, and life experience. Some stuff I probably came up with on my own (isn't that very American - to be self-created in many ways?). But, I hope, as we all get ready to probably spend some time with our parents, if they are living, over the holidays, I hope it might be helpful to think about the legacy of their influence. To extend graciousness and love - for them, and by extension for ourselves.
I heard a piece on NPR just after Thanksgiving about decorating the White House for the holidays. Apparently, you can nominate yourself or someone else to have the opportunity to help with this tradition. This year, along with many others, an elderly immigrant man was nominated by his son and they were both chosen for this honor. The older man spoke of his son in his radio interview - "I just pray that he has a good life."
Who could say it better than that - whether you're a parent or a kid?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
the corrections, or LESS extreme parenting
I just watched about 3/4 of Lisa Ling's Our America - Extreme Parenting. It reminded me a little of my take away from Jonathon Franzen's book, The Corrections: as parents we often try to 'correct' for how we perceive our folks messed up with us. At some point along our developmental path, we become determined not to make the same mistakes they made.
In fact, this is the premise of a new TV show, called I Hate My Teenage Daughter on Fox. It's about two moms who had been bullied as young teens, but who 'parented' their own girls into becoming just the types of girls who tortured them when they were younger. Ugh. Sounds awful.
Anyway - for better or for worse, much of the reputation of psychotherapy is that it will lead clients to eventually blame their parents for something. For example, if your parents were very lax about education and expectations regarding grades, you might grow up to think, "they didn't push me hard enough. I wasn't challenged enough. I'm not going to make that mistake with my kids. My kids will be challenged to meet high expectation set by me. They will be successful. They will reach their potential." Or maybe you had a parent who really favored one of your siblings. You might think, "I will be totally fair with my kids. Each will be offered the same opportunities as the other. They will get the same number of hugs. They will have equal chores. No one will feel slighted."
Maybe it sounds crazy, but I've made a connection between this approach to raising children and some of what I learned working in hospice: we have less control than we think. Case in point - I remember the sisters in my neighborhood growing up who weren't allowed to watch TV and always had to eat the crusts of their bread. They didn't turn out much different than the rest of us as far as I know. Conversely, I know another good friend of mine who was raised in a pretty lax household compared to mine (Beatles poster on the dining room wall - Gasp!) and he went to undergraduate and grad school in the Ivy League.
I'm not saying there is a direct correlation. I am saying there is NOT a direct correlation. Our kids are born with many innate traits, which we can support and love and nurture. I've also read and wrote a little about the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a book that was published about a year ago. The author, a mom/professor, advocates the "Chinese Way" of raising children. Very structured and disciplined. She goes on to say one daughter was able to bend to this discipline and another rebelled against it.
What I'd like to propose is that if we have some aspect of raising our kids that we are really digging in our heels on, like anything, it's good to look at it a little closer to make sure we're really doing what we want to do. It's worth looking at whether we are seeing the child in front of us, or seeing our own selves as a kid. If we're seeing only ourselves and the hurt we felt, it might be that we are trying to get our own needs met through our kids. Talk about needing therapy later.
In raising our children, I am in no way advocating an all laissez-faire approach all the time. I'm just saying that in raising children, like in all things, we usually have more choices than we think and less control than we imagine.
In fact, this is the premise of a new TV show, called I Hate My Teenage Daughter on Fox. It's about two moms who had been bullied as young teens, but who 'parented' their own girls into becoming just the types of girls who tortured them when they were younger. Ugh. Sounds awful.
Anyway - for better or for worse, much of the reputation of psychotherapy is that it will lead clients to eventually blame their parents for something. For example, if your parents were very lax about education and expectations regarding grades, you might grow up to think, "they didn't push me hard enough. I wasn't challenged enough. I'm not going to make that mistake with my kids. My kids will be challenged to meet high expectation set by me. They will be successful. They will reach their potential." Or maybe you had a parent who really favored one of your siblings. You might think, "I will be totally fair with my kids. Each will be offered the same opportunities as the other. They will get the same number of hugs. They will have equal chores. No one will feel slighted."
Maybe it sounds crazy, but I've made a connection between this approach to raising children and some of what I learned working in hospice: we have less control than we think. Case in point - I remember the sisters in my neighborhood growing up who weren't allowed to watch TV and always had to eat the crusts of their bread. They didn't turn out much different than the rest of us as far as I know. Conversely, I know another good friend of mine who was raised in a pretty lax household compared to mine (Beatles poster on the dining room wall - Gasp!) and he went to undergraduate and grad school in the Ivy League.
I'm not saying there is a direct correlation. I am saying there is NOT a direct correlation. Our kids are born with many innate traits, which we can support and love and nurture. I've also read and wrote a little about the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a book that was published about a year ago. The author, a mom/professor, advocates the "Chinese Way" of raising children. Very structured and disciplined. She goes on to say one daughter was able to bend to this discipline and another rebelled against it.
What I'd like to propose is that if we have some aspect of raising our kids that we are really digging in our heels on, like anything, it's good to look at it a little closer to make sure we're really doing what we want to do. It's worth looking at whether we are seeing the child in front of us, or seeing our own selves as a kid. If we're seeing only ourselves and the hurt we felt, it might be that we are trying to get our own needs met through our kids. Talk about needing therapy later.
In raising our children, I am in no way advocating an all laissez-faire approach all the time. I'm just saying that in raising children, like in all things, we usually have more choices than we think and less control than we imagine.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
what's your code?
I saw a PBS special this week on TV Crusaders. The creators and actors of characters like Hawkeye Pierce, House, and even Xena, Warrior Princess were interviewed. It was fun and interesting. On my 'to watch' list for life is the HBO series, The Wire. This Crusaders special showed some bits of a character named Omar Little. He was a gangster and he killed a lot of people, I guess, but he never killed anyone who wasn't in 'the game' (drugs). He was talking with a cop in one clip they showed and the cop says, 'Everybody's got to have a code.'
I was thinking about that and I like it. It made me wonder what my code is and who influenced it. One thing in particular has come to mind this week - maybe because of Thanksgiving, which I find to be the most patriotic holiday. I was thinking about my dad and some influence he had on me - his code, I guess. My dad was shaped by the military - he went to military school, was in college ROTC, the Army Reserves. He'd tell you today that a guiding principle of his life is Duty, Honor, Country.
Duty and honor are concepts that interest me a lot - I find that there are many ways to be a warrior, and not all of them are literally military. Through my work in hospice, and of course, as a therapist, many of the warriors I witness look like caregivers. They get up every single day to battle fatigue, grief, someone else's disease process or despair. They commit themselves to the well-being and health of others -whether it's their kids or their aging parents, their patients, or community members. They find honor in living this way and they are steadfast in their duties.
When my kids were really little, I remember kind of thinking the word duty was funny because it was resonant to me of 'doo - doo.' Always, highbrow humor at our house! Some days, I felt like all I was doo-doo doing was duty. I had to doo-doo the never-ending laundry, doo-doo the never-ending dishes, doo-doo the baths and diaper changes, doo-doo my paperwork for work, doo-doo taking care of the animals, doo-doo church commitments, etc., etc.. Why did I doo-doo all this, I asked myself? Because I LOVED these people- my kids, my husband, my patients, my church friends. Or I was supposed to. Or I think I thought I did. Oh, no!
See, somehow in all the duty, the responsibility, I truly had lost touch with the love that was supposed to be motivating me toward all this action.
Sometimes I get disgusted with gooey self-help words like self-care. But here's what I think it means. To be a grown up in the real sense of the world, I think we have to have an understanding of our own freedom. The literal truth is that we have a lot of freedom. When we take care of ourselves it gives us room, it gives us a sense of space, time, and freedom. When we have this space, time and sense of freedom, we can get back to our 'duties', but we can do it with love and not resentment or rote operations. My husband would tell you, 'I'm a simple man.' (That might be his Code). So this is what he says about my topic today: 'if you do something because you want to do it, it's just easier.'
Out of the mouths of babes. You know, I don't know if I have a one-sentence code, but I know that I value being honorable and dutiful. I also value being loving and having fun. In fact I recommend the following: honor, duty, loving and fun. And at least for today, that is my code.
Happy Thanksgiving and much LOVE to you and your families!
I was thinking about that and I like it. It made me wonder what my code is and who influenced it. One thing in particular has come to mind this week - maybe because of Thanksgiving, which I find to be the most patriotic holiday. I was thinking about my dad and some influence he had on me - his code, I guess. My dad was shaped by the military - he went to military school, was in college ROTC, the Army Reserves. He'd tell you today that a guiding principle of his life is Duty, Honor, Country.
Duty and honor are concepts that interest me a lot - I find that there are many ways to be a warrior, and not all of them are literally military. Through my work in hospice, and of course, as a therapist, many of the warriors I witness look like caregivers. They get up every single day to battle fatigue, grief, someone else's disease process or despair. They commit themselves to the well-being and health of others -whether it's their kids or their aging parents, their patients, or community members. They find honor in living this way and they are steadfast in their duties.
When my kids were really little, I remember kind of thinking the word duty was funny because it was resonant to me of 'doo - doo.' Always, highbrow humor at our house! Some days, I felt like all I was doo-doo doing was duty. I had to doo-doo the never-ending laundry, doo-doo the never-ending dishes, doo-doo the baths and diaper changes, doo-doo my paperwork for work, doo-doo taking care of the animals, doo-doo church commitments, etc., etc.. Why did I doo-doo all this, I asked myself? Because I LOVED these people- my kids, my husband, my patients, my church friends. Or I was supposed to. Or I think I thought I did. Oh, no!
See, somehow in all the duty, the responsibility, I truly had lost touch with the love that was supposed to be motivating me toward all this action.
Sometimes I get disgusted with gooey self-help words like self-care. But here's what I think it means. To be a grown up in the real sense of the world, I think we have to have an understanding of our own freedom. The literal truth is that we have a lot of freedom. When we take care of ourselves it gives us room, it gives us a sense of space, time, and freedom. When we have this space, time and sense of freedom, we can get back to our 'duties', but we can do it with love and not resentment or rote operations. My husband would tell you, 'I'm a simple man.' (That might be his Code). So this is what he says about my topic today: 'if you do something because you want to do it, it's just easier.'
Out of the mouths of babes. You know, I don't know if I have a one-sentence code, but I know that I value being honorable and dutiful. I also value being loving and having fun. In fact I recommend the following: honor, duty, loving and fun. And at least for today, that is my code.
Happy Thanksgiving and much LOVE to you and your families!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
advice from a mentor
It's been a very busy month and I have really just been keeping up with my 'tasks' without much time to think, make connections between one thought and another, and then write about it. Some times are just like that, but I feel like I am moving out of it now.
In the thinking I have been doing, some advice I received recently is popping up frequently as I go about my days...but maybe the advice isn't the right place to start..I'll start here: in the last blog I wrote about the Marsha Linehan Mindfulness, Willingness and Radical Acceptance workshop I attended. She began her seminar with a slide, which read something like this:
Avoidance of suffering leads to more suffering.
I am a skeptic of authority, for the most part, so the first thing I thought, was "Do I agree with that?"
Here is my answer: mostly I agree with it. In my experience, if we avoid the internal experience of our own hurts, anger, grief, rejection, loneliness, this can be a decent immediate means of coping, but if we think we've managed to escape without dealing with the feelings we are wrong - they come back later, and sometimes nastier.
So, it's from that point of view that I will share some advice I was given. A couple weeks ago, I had lunch with a professional mentor of mine. I shared with him some feelings of discomfort I have and questions about how to do my job as a psychotherapist. "Therapy" is a big umbrella and people approach it with diverse points of view. When my point of view bumps up against someone else's point of view, it is uncomfortable. Just like in 'real' life - when you're talking with somebody about Occupy Wall Street, or how to raise children, or God, or what changes might improve your marriage, or whatever - and your essential viewpoint differs from someone else, it's uncomfortable. For me, I never go to a place of digging in my heels on my opinion, it's just not my nature - I go to a place of questions - whose authority do I accept? should I try to change the other person's opinion? what does it mean about them that they think X? what does it mean about me that I think Y? It feels sticky, irritating, and like something I might like to avoid.
But here is what my mentor said, something I know and that typically I do, but sometimes it's good to get a reminder or even a directive: When you are uncomfortable with something, lean into it. (isn't that great, therapist-y advice!)
That means examine it like a discovery, look at all sides, make notes on it, ask it questions. Feeling and leaning into discomfort doesn't necessary lead to answers (though sometimes it does), but it will lead to a deeper knowing of yourself and others. Rather than more suffering, it will lead to less.
Sometimes we don't even realize we are avoiding something. I think the first place to start is to acknowledge what and when we feel uncomfortable with a person we know and love, a person we don't know well but feel we don't like, an event in our past, a thought about the future. Do I feel uncomfortable when I think of it? If the answer is yes, it might be worth taking some time to 'lean into it' and see what we find out.
In the thinking I have been doing, some advice I received recently is popping up frequently as I go about my days...but maybe the advice isn't the right place to start..I'll start here: in the last blog I wrote about the Marsha Linehan Mindfulness, Willingness and Radical Acceptance workshop I attended. She began her seminar with a slide, which read something like this:
Avoidance of suffering leads to more suffering.
I am a skeptic of authority, for the most part, so the first thing I thought, was "Do I agree with that?"
Here is my answer: mostly I agree with it. In my experience, if we avoid the internal experience of our own hurts, anger, grief, rejection, loneliness, this can be a decent immediate means of coping, but if we think we've managed to escape without dealing with the feelings we are wrong - they come back later, and sometimes nastier.
So, it's from that point of view that I will share some advice I was given. A couple weeks ago, I had lunch with a professional mentor of mine. I shared with him some feelings of discomfort I have and questions about how to do my job as a psychotherapist. "Therapy" is a big umbrella and people approach it with diverse points of view. When my point of view bumps up against someone else's point of view, it is uncomfortable. Just like in 'real' life - when you're talking with somebody about Occupy Wall Street, or how to raise children, or God, or what changes might improve your marriage, or whatever - and your essential viewpoint differs from someone else, it's uncomfortable. For me, I never go to a place of digging in my heels on my opinion, it's just not my nature - I go to a place of questions - whose authority do I accept? should I try to change the other person's opinion? what does it mean about them that they think X? what does it mean about me that I think Y? It feels sticky, irritating, and like something I might like to avoid.
But here is what my mentor said, something I know and that typically I do, but sometimes it's good to get a reminder or even a directive: When you are uncomfortable with something, lean into it. (isn't that great, therapist-y advice!)
That means examine it like a discovery, look at all sides, make notes on it, ask it questions. Feeling and leaning into discomfort doesn't necessary lead to answers (though sometimes it does), but it will lead to a deeper knowing of yourself and others. Rather than more suffering, it will lead to less.
Sometimes we don't even realize we are avoiding something. I think the first place to start is to acknowledge what and when we feel uncomfortable with a person we know and love, a person we don't know well but feel we don't like, an event in our past, a thought about the future. Do I feel uncomfortable when I think of it? If the answer is yes, it might be worth taking some time to 'lean into it' and see what we find out.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
the outsiders
The elementary school I went to from Kindgergarten through half of 5th grade was Pierremont Elementary school in Manchester, Missouri. I loved that school. I remember our gym teacher, Mr. Lowry, pulling kids' teeth when they were loose. We all dreaded it, but longed to have a tooth pulled at the same time. I remember he'd send us through 'the spanking machine' on our birthdays...this entailed the entire class lining up to spank you as you crawled through their legs. I loved the gymnastics team, I loved music class with Mrs. Lippi and how we always saw a film called "Dans Macabre" by Camille Saint Saene around Halloween. I loved the librarian Mrs. Kirkpatrick and the books she picked out for me. I loved that a stuffed Santa Claus came alive and walked around in Mrs. Smith's Kindergarten class. I loved that I was Mrs. Birmingham's teacher's pet.
But in a lot of ways, I was a weird kid, I think. I remember kids inviting me to their birthday parties and not wanting to go. I remember them inviting me over to play and my mom saying, 'just give so and so a chance.' I hated the game 'girls chase boys.' At the sophisticated age of 8, I found it undignified. At least one school year I chose to take recess in the library to read, rather than have to put up with girls chase boys or boys chase girls or whatever. I guess I was a nerd. I guess I was an outsider, in some ways. I felt like an outsider, but not in a way I experienced as hurtful.
I went to a great training last week given my Dr. Marsha Linehan on "Mindfulness, Willingness, and Radical Acceptance," and though many concepts were helpful to me, one idea that she talked about that I want to write about is the experience that many people have of being an 'outsider.'
At Pierremont, I was given a great gift. I was an outsider, but I don't remember ever being treated like that - by students or teachers. I remember kind of being accepted for being an outsider. Celebrated even. I don't know what combination of character traits in the students, in the teachers and in me came together to make this happen, but it was a huge gift. I felt the freedom to make the choices I wanted to make, like stay in the library at recess, and no one said, 'you're weird, you're bad, you need to be more like some one else.'
I moved to a different elementary school January of my 5th grade year. One of my gym teachers, Miss Furlong, at Pierremont pulled me aside before my family moved, "you are going to do just fine at your new school. Just be yourself. Everything will be okay." I remember it so well - where we stood by the doors to the gym, the way the light fell on the gym floor from the windows. I felt like she was really talking to me like a grown up. I am getting verklempt even now!
Some 'outside-ness' is based on how a person looks on the outside or an outward expression that is other; but many people who would appear to be 'insiders' also feel outside. And, if you feel other in a way that feels bad to you, it is no small thing to work through. Conversely, sometimes, I think we get a strange comfort in feeling we are outside and use it as a way to judge others or feel superior to them.
The question is, what might we do about it or with it? The sad or negative feelings about being 'outside?' I think a place to start is looking for the similarities between ourselves and other people. Maybe especially people we don't like or don't think we like. I saw Lisa Ling's Our America, about plural marriages in Morman Utah. Some of the Mormon women have allied with the GLBT community regarding marriage rights. You'd think they wouldn't have a lot in common, but one of the Mormon women said, "when we got to know one another, we really did." I thought this was interesting.
I also think it's worth taking the time to wonder what made us feel other in the first place - I've seen so many sensitive, compassionate, intelligent people feel separate and in pain - I think it's worth an honest look in ourselves to see the goodness and do the hard work to let go of judging messages we took on at a young age.
I think it's do-able - I think it's important or I wouldn't write about it. I feel like I had the good fortune of being celebrated for being an outsider when I was a kid. I think it's something worth celebrating in all of us.
But in a lot of ways, I was a weird kid, I think. I remember kids inviting me to their birthday parties and not wanting to go. I remember them inviting me over to play and my mom saying, 'just give so and so a chance.' I hated the game 'girls chase boys.' At the sophisticated age of 8, I found it undignified. At least one school year I chose to take recess in the library to read, rather than have to put up with girls chase boys or boys chase girls or whatever. I guess I was a nerd. I guess I was an outsider, in some ways. I felt like an outsider, but not in a way I experienced as hurtful.
I went to a great training last week given my Dr. Marsha Linehan on "Mindfulness, Willingness, and Radical Acceptance," and though many concepts were helpful to me, one idea that she talked about that I want to write about is the experience that many people have of being an 'outsider.'
At Pierremont, I was given a great gift. I was an outsider, but I don't remember ever being treated like that - by students or teachers. I remember kind of being accepted for being an outsider. Celebrated even. I don't know what combination of character traits in the students, in the teachers and in me came together to make this happen, but it was a huge gift. I felt the freedom to make the choices I wanted to make, like stay in the library at recess, and no one said, 'you're weird, you're bad, you need to be more like some one else.'
I moved to a different elementary school January of my 5th grade year. One of my gym teachers, Miss Furlong, at Pierremont pulled me aside before my family moved, "you are going to do just fine at your new school. Just be yourself. Everything will be okay." I remember it so well - where we stood by the doors to the gym, the way the light fell on the gym floor from the windows. I felt like she was really talking to me like a grown up. I am getting verklempt even now!
Some 'outside-ness' is based on how a person looks on the outside or an outward expression that is other; but many people who would appear to be 'insiders' also feel outside. And, if you feel other in a way that feels bad to you, it is no small thing to work through. Conversely, sometimes, I think we get a strange comfort in feeling we are outside and use it as a way to judge others or feel superior to them.
The question is, what might we do about it or with it? The sad or negative feelings about being 'outside?' I think a place to start is looking for the similarities between ourselves and other people. Maybe especially people we don't like or don't think we like. I saw Lisa Ling's Our America, about plural marriages in Morman Utah. Some of the Mormon women have allied with the GLBT community regarding marriage rights. You'd think they wouldn't have a lot in common, but one of the Mormon women said, "when we got to know one another, we really did." I thought this was interesting.
I also think it's worth taking the time to wonder what made us feel other in the first place - I've seen so many sensitive, compassionate, intelligent people feel separate and in pain - I think it's worth an honest look in ourselves to see the goodness and do the hard work to let go of judging messages we took on at a young age.
I think it's do-able - I think it's important or I wouldn't write about it. I feel like I had the good fortune of being celebrated for being an outsider when I was a kid. I think it's something worth celebrating in all of us.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
why conflict is so hard and why it doesn't have to be
There are a lot of different ways and reasons to feel wronged, slighted, annoyed, hurt, righteously indignant, or just plain mad. The two reasons I see and have experienced most often are these:
1) someone is not doing something we want them/expect them to do
2) someone is doing something we do not want them to do.
Growing up, my family didn't do much conflict. There are many reasons for this, but the result for me was that a lot of times as I grew into my adult life, I didn't even know when I was angry, and then when I knew I was angry, I didn't have many skills to express that anger constructively. It's taken me a while and it's still something that I work on.
I've noticed that I'm not the only one. Many people are either of afraid of conflict, and if not downright afraid, they are avoidant of it. Some of us come from families that have important stories about conflicts, fights, and cut-offs. Some of our families fight with the sole purpose of hurting one another. Some of us come from families where the only reason to fight is to 'win.' Other families pretend there are no conflicts, but lots of secret feelings simmer under the surface. Some of us feel fine complaining to a third party, but we never address the person we're angry with.
These stories and habits carry over into our adult relationships - as spouses, parents, adult children. As adults, these habits don't serve us any longer.
I have come to believe that the real purpose of constructive conflict is to actually deepen the connection between two people. I remember when a friend requested that I not talk about her dating again after her divorce in front of her children, I felt terrible! How could I be so insensitive! Yet, I took responsibility, I apologized and I actually felt grateful that this person asked me for what she needed from me, rather than carrying this grudge against me or burden. I feel that this friend and I are closer because of this 'conflict.' It was a good model for me, too.
If you feel like you have a problem with how you deal with conflict or have deep avoidance of any conflict, I've found a couple things have helped in my life. Mainly, I've found that conflict doesn't have to be terrible and sometimes what we perceive internally as conflict does not turn out to be a conflict once we are able to clearly state to another person what we want or do not want.
The next time you feel wronged, slighted, annoyed, hurt, righteously indignant, or just plain mad, ask yourself these questions:
1) can you clearly define the behavior or words that made you hurt or angry? If you can't clearly define it for yourself, try writing it down. If it is very nebulous, like, I want my boyfriend to be more romantic, that isn't specific enough. Be specific: I want my boyfriend to bring me flowers once a week.
2) consider whether your expectation/hope for behavior from the other person is realistic. Do you hope and expect that your three year old is not going to have temper tantrums at inopportune times? This isn't realistic. But, if you hope that your husband will take on the job of taking out the trash, this is probably a rational thing to request.
3) does the other person know what you want or expect of them? If you expect that someone can read your mind, even if you think they know you very well, you are wrong. Most people are not trying to be selfish, but they're just caught up in their own lives.
4) would you be able to make a request for a behavior change you'd like without bringing in your whole history of being wronged by that person. (Right way: If you could throw your dirty socks down the laundry chute, that would really help me keep the house looking nice. Wrong way: You never help around the house and if you really loved me you'd remember to throw your socks down the chute - this is just so emblematic of our whole relationship!
Addressing a conflict and asking someone to make a change of any kind makes you, the asker, very vulnerable. The truth is that every person we know and love has every right not to change, no matter how much they say they love us or how much we want them to change. If you make a request and the other person says, 'no', you will have to decide what you want to do with that information. If you make a request and the other person says yes, but their actions don't change, you will have to decide what you want to do with that information, too.
Maybe you are not ready to make changes and that is why you are avoiding conflict. That is okay, too.
It's also great if you can address a behavior closer to the event/occurence, rather than waiting until 5 to 10 examples of the behavior accumulate. It's much easier to say, "hey, do you mind not humming Don't Stop Believing while you're making copies next to my desk?" than to say, "hey I know you've been humming Don't Stop Believing for the last three years when you make copies by my desk, but I'm hoping you'd stop that now."
Start small, start low-risk. Start assuming that most upsetting behaviors are not directed at you and there's no intrinsic meaning about the behavior.
If conflict has been difficult for us, I think it just takes practice to overcome that. We must try thinking about conflict as a constructive way to improve the quality and integrity of our relationships. It will feel more comfortable and natural as we go.
.
1) someone is not doing something we want them/expect them to do
2) someone is doing something we do not want them to do.
Growing up, my family didn't do much conflict. There are many reasons for this, but the result for me was that a lot of times as I grew into my adult life, I didn't even know when I was angry, and then when I knew I was angry, I didn't have many skills to express that anger constructively. It's taken me a while and it's still something that I work on.
I've noticed that I'm not the only one. Many people are either of afraid of conflict, and if not downright afraid, they are avoidant of it. Some of us come from families that have important stories about conflicts, fights, and cut-offs. Some of our families fight with the sole purpose of hurting one another. Some of us come from families where the only reason to fight is to 'win.' Other families pretend there are no conflicts, but lots of secret feelings simmer under the surface. Some of us feel fine complaining to a third party, but we never address the person we're angry with.
These stories and habits carry over into our adult relationships - as spouses, parents, adult children. As adults, these habits don't serve us any longer.
I have come to believe that the real purpose of constructive conflict is to actually deepen the connection between two people. I remember when a friend requested that I not talk about her dating again after her divorce in front of her children, I felt terrible! How could I be so insensitive! Yet, I took responsibility, I apologized and I actually felt grateful that this person asked me for what she needed from me, rather than carrying this grudge against me or burden. I feel that this friend and I are closer because of this 'conflict.' It was a good model for me, too.
If you feel like you have a problem with how you deal with conflict or have deep avoidance of any conflict, I've found a couple things have helped in my life. Mainly, I've found that conflict doesn't have to be terrible and sometimes what we perceive internally as conflict does not turn out to be a conflict once we are able to clearly state to another person what we want or do not want.
The next time you feel wronged, slighted, annoyed, hurt, righteously indignant, or just plain mad, ask yourself these questions:
1) can you clearly define the behavior or words that made you hurt or angry? If you can't clearly define it for yourself, try writing it down. If it is very nebulous, like, I want my boyfriend to be more romantic, that isn't specific enough. Be specific: I want my boyfriend to bring me flowers once a week.
2) consider whether your expectation/hope for behavior from the other person is realistic. Do you hope and expect that your three year old is not going to have temper tantrums at inopportune times? This isn't realistic. But, if you hope that your husband will take on the job of taking out the trash, this is probably a rational thing to request.
3) does the other person know what you want or expect of them? If you expect that someone can read your mind, even if you think they know you very well, you are wrong. Most people are not trying to be selfish, but they're just caught up in their own lives.
4) would you be able to make a request for a behavior change you'd like without bringing in your whole history of being wronged by that person. (Right way: If you could throw your dirty socks down the laundry chute, that would really help me keep the house looking nice. Wrong way: You never help around the house and if you really loved me you'd remember to throw your socks down the chute - this is just so emblematic of our whole relationship!
Addressing a conflict and asking someone to make a change of any kind makes you, the asker, very vulnerable. The truth is that every person we know and love has every right not to change, no matter how much they say they love us or how much we want them to change. If you make a request and the other person says, 'no', you will have to decide what you want to do with that information. If you make a request and the other person says yes, but their actions don't change, you will have to decide what you want to do with that information, too.
Maybe you are not ready to make changes and that is why you are avoiding conflict. That is okay, too.
It's also great if you can address a behavior closer to the event/occurence, rather than waiting until 5 to 10 examples of the behavior accumulate. It's much easier to say, "hey, do you mind not humming Don't Stop Believing while you're making copies next to my desk?" than to say, "hey I know you've been humming Don't Stop Believing for the last three years when you make copies by my desk, but I'm hoping you'd stop that now."
Start small, start low-risk. Start assuming that most upsetting behaviors are not directed at you and there's no intrinsic meaning about the behavior.
If conflict has been difficult for us, I think it just takes practice to overcome that. We must try thinking about conflict as a constructive way to improve the quality and integrity of our relationships. It will feel more comfortable and natural as we go.
.
Friday, October 7, 2011
astrophysics and how we spend our time
I am delighted, this semester, to be the 'lab assistant' (read, T.A.) for Dr. Mary Pat Henehan's Spirituality and Social Work class at Wash U. Krista Tippett's book, Einstein's God, is one of the suggested readings and I recently finished the first chapter, an interview with Freeman Dyson, a theoretical astrophysicist and Paul Davies and astrophysicist. Dyson is talking about black holes and says, "The black hole is the only place where space and time are really so mixed up that they behave in totally different ways. I mean, you fall into a black hole and your space is converted into time and your time is converted into space." Woah. I don't know how much I get that, but I think it's really cool.
Believe it or not, I also think there is a practical application for life. Jump with me now. This is a strange jump: Steve Jobs. I would first like to say with no silliness or flippancy that I am sorry about his death and the grief of his family and friends. I think he was inspiritational to many, many people.
In reading about him the past couple of days, a feature of his leadership and personality that stands out to me is how very discerning and maybe even stingy he was with his time. An article from today's NYT addresses this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/technology/with-time-running-short-steve-jobs-managed-his-farewells.html?_r=1&hp
Here is what a friend said, "Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ”
“But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.”
The meaning of everyone's life is different, and our experiences of time may be slightly different - but the truth is we all have many demands on our time, pleas for our time, and distractions from ways we want to spend our time. Sometimes we say yes to social occasions we don't really want to be part of, sometimes we let the computer or tv suck away unintended hours of our day, sometimes we put work first when we don't have to, sometimes we commit ourselves to 'causes' because we think we should but we really don't have the time in the first place.
A couple years ago I told my friends and family I was going to have the Year of No: that I would say "no" to anything and everything I was asked to do outside family and work. I didn't totally succeed, but I made improvements in discerning how I wanted to spend my time. I prioritized. I think Steve Jobs must have done that to the nth degree - he had a vision and ambition and a sense that time was fleeting.
I can in no way speak to what kind of person Steve Jobs was, whether he was kind, compassionate, emotionally and mentally healthy...but I do like the idea of prioritizing one's time. I think it leads to greater life satisfaction and feeling of being purposeful, rather than blown about by the needs and wants of organizations or people who don't necessarily have your best interest at heart.
I also wonder, if we were clearer in choosing to spend our time on the things we say we value - what would that do to our sense of time? Would time feel more expansive if our pace was slower or our attention more honed.
This is where I can kind of sort of get physics on a gut level - time is relative - that makes sense to me. So, here's to more deeply considering how we spend our time, learning to say no or yes (as the case may be), and accepting without fear that all these little moments will add up to what we call our life.
Believe it or not, I also think there is a practical application for life. Jump with me now. This is a strange jump: Steve Jobs. I would first like to say with no silliness or flippancy that I am sorry about his death and the grief of his family and friends. I think he was inspiritational to many, many people.
In reading about him the past couple of days, a feature of his leadership and personality that stands out to me is how very discerning and maybe even stingy he was with his time. An article from today's NYT addresses this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/technology/with-time-running-short-steve-jobs-managed-his-farewells.html?_r=1&hp
Here is what a friend said, "Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ”
“But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.”
The meaning of everyone's life is different, and our experiences of time may be slightly different - but the truth is we all have many demands on our time, pleas for our time, and distractions from ways we want to spend our time. Sometimes we say yes to social occasions we don't really want to be part of, sometimes we let the computer or tv suck away unintended hours of our day, sometimes we put work first when we don't have to, sometimes we commit ourselves to 'causes' because we think we should but we really don't have the time in the first place.
A couple years ago I told my friends and family I was going to have the Year of No: that I would say "no" to anything and everything I was asked to do outside family and work. I didn't totally succeed, but I made improvements in discerning how I wanted to spend my time. I prioritized. I think Steve Jobs must have done that to the nth degree - he had a vision and ambition and a sense that time was fleeting.
I can in no way speak to what kind of person Steve Jobs was, whether he was kind, compassionate, emotionally and mentally healthy...but I do like the idea of prioritizing one's time. I think it leads to greater life satisfaction and feeling of being purposeful, rather than blown about by the needs and wants of organizations or people who don't necessarily have your best interest at heart.
I also wonder, if we were clearer in choosing to spend our time on the things we say we value - what would that do to our sense of time? Would time feel more expansive if our pace was slower or our attention more honed.
This is where I can kind of sort of get physics on a gut level - time is relative - that makes sense to me. So, here's to more deeply considering how we spend our time, learning to say no or yes (as the case may be), and accepting without fear that all these little moments will add up to what we call our life.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
breaking bad habits, letting go of shame
As a younger woman, one of the idiosyncratic things I carried some shame about for a long time, was being a 'secret smoker.' During college and for several years after that, a lot of my friends smoked cigarettes when they went out to the bars, socialized, etc. Because it was socially sanctioned, I joined in and had no shame about it. But, I also snuck off and smoked cigarettes at other times. I felt terrible about that type of smoking and put a lot of rules on myself. And being Miss Moderation, I largely followed the main rule: no more than 4 cigarettes a day. Okay five.
Why did I smoke,when besides being bad for me, it was such an aggravation to go through the elaborate rituals of trying to hide it (perfume, breath mints, hiding in alleys away from my bosses at work?) Why did I smoke, when I got mad at myself about it? There were a lot of reasons, but the one I want to talk about is how we tend to want to hold onto shame. How we sometimes cling to habits that give us an excuse to beat up on oursleves.
The theme of regrets and shame, how we are hard on ourselves, I've been really trying to examine this lately. Why do we judge ourselves so harshly? Do we judge others harshly? Sometimes. So if we judge others harshly, I guess it would make 'sense' to judge ourselves that way.
Yet for me personally, this has not been a problem. I'm just not judgmental. But I am a perfectionist with myself. I observe that many of us are very hard on ourselves and very forgiving of others. Why don't we turn that same compassion inward? What does our shame and regret serve? What does it not serve?
Being a parent has helped me with this, but it doesn't take a parent to get it. As a parent, there is nothing your kid could do that would make you not love them. There's a great scene with Lily Tomlin in a movie called "Flirting With Disaster", where she very dramatically clutches her chest and yells at her son "Even if you were Jeffrey Dahmer, we would still love you!" The whole movie is bizarrely hysterical.
And absurdly, it does make me think of my experience of love as a parent. One small example that comes to mind is when my then four year old daughter told a lie and got caught - I said, "Always tell me the truth and you will not get in as much trouble as if you lie and I find out." She bawled with shame, "I don't know why I have this mischief in me!" she said.
As a parent, as a human being, I felt compassion for her - I remembered feeling the way she felt when I was a kid - the feeling of being disappointed in yourself. I think there's a healthy aspect to it, because it can be a motivator to behavior change, but no part of me would ever want her to carry that disappointment with her forever. The parent in me says to the child in her, "Yes, you made a mistake. We all do that. We are human. Let's go on to the next set of choices and make better ones. I love you and always will, with all my heart, with all my self."
When we feel this unconditional love, we have some foundation from which to forgive our selves. We can let go more easily. We can say to ourselves, "Self, that sucks. But it's not the end of the world. Make your apologies if you need to and don't do it again." The shame is not something that we let define us.
If you are a parent, you know your child is inherently good and is most likely trying her best. Sometimes she doesn't do as well - when she is tired, when she's had many recent changes (school, teachers, schedules), when she is hungry, or sometimes she just has a bad day. How are you or I any different from this?
So here's what I propose. If you are struggling with the same habit, whether it's smoking, eating, a soured relationship, a bad temper, whatever- I propose talking to yourself like you are the most loving, fair parent in the world (I like to think of Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird). What might you say to yourself? Then, take the time to say it.
And if you don't take the time to say it, for goodness sakes, don't get mad at yourself about that. One of my favorite, flawed heroines, Scarlett O'Hara said it, and I agree - "Tomorrow is another day."
Why did I smoke,when besides being bad for me, it was such an aggravation to go through the elaborate rituals of trying to hide it (perfume, breath mints, hiding in alleys away from my bosses at work?) Why did I smoke, when I got mad at myself about it? There were a lot of reasons, but the one I want to talk about is how we tend to want to hold onto shame. How we sometimes cling to habits that give us an excuse to beat up on oursleves.
The theme of regrets and shame, how we are hard on ourselves, I've been really trying to examine this lately. Why do we judge ourselves so harshly? Do we judge others harshly? Sometimes. So if we judge others harshly, I guess it would make 'sense' to judge ourselves that way.
Yet for me personally, this has not been a problem. I'm just not judgmental. But I am a perfectionist with myself. I observe that many of us are very hard on ourselves and very forgiving of others. Why don't we turn that same compassion inward? What does our shame and regret serve? What does it not serve?
Being a parent has helped me with this, but it doesn't take a parent to get it. As a parent, there is nothing your kid could do that would make you not love them. There's a great scene with Lily Tomlin in a movie called "Flirting With Disaster", where she very dramatically clutches her chest and yells at her son "Even if you were Jeffrey Dahmer, we would still love you!" The whole movie is bizarrely hysterical.
And absurdly, it does make me think of my experience of love as a parent. One small example that comes to mind is when my then four year old daughter told a lie and got caught - I said, "Always tell me the truth and you will not get in as much trouble as if you lie and I find out." She bawled with shame, "I don't know why I have this mischief in me!" she said.
As a parent, as a human being, I felt compassion for her - I remembered feeling the way she felt when I was a kid - the feeling of being disappointed in yourself. I think there's a healthy aspect to it, because it can be a motivator to behavior change, but no part of me would ever want her to carry that disappointment with her forever. The parent in me says to the child in her, "Yes, you made a mistake. We all do that. We are human. Let's go on to the next set of choices and make better ones. I love you and always will, with all my heart, with all my self."
When we feel this unconditional love, we have some foundation from which to forgive our selves. We can let go more easily. We can say to ourselves, "Self, that sucks. But it's not the end of the world. Make your apologies if you need to and don't do it again." The shame is not something that we let define us.
If you are a parent, you know your child is inherently good and is most likely trying her best. Sometimes she doesn't do as well - when she is tired, when she's had many recent changes (school, teachers, schedules), when she is hungry, or sometimes she just has a bad day. How are you or I any different from this?
So here's what I propose. If you are struggling with the same habit, whether it's smoking, eating, a soured relationship, a bad temper, whatever- I propose talking to yourself like you are the most loving, fair parent in the world (I like to think of Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird). What might you say to yourself? Then, take the time to say it.
And if you don't take the time to say it, for goodness sakes, don't get mad at yourself about that. One of my favorite, flawed heroines, Scarlett O'Hara said it, and I agree - "Tomorrow is another day."
Sunday, September 11, 2011
September 11, 2011
I grew up in a patriotic family. My dad, during my childhood, was conservative and my mom was liberal. My dad was in the Army reserves and my mom listened to Peter, Paul and Mary. I was rocked to sleep by my dad to soothing lullabies, like "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag." It brings a smile to my face, to tell you the truth. And, as a ten/eleven year old kid, I remember on many occasions. sitting at the dinner table, debating with my dad about nuclear capability. He was pro, I was con. When we visited Williamsburg on a family vacation, my sister recalls him provding a dramatic recitation of the Patrick Henry speech, "give me liberty, or give me death!" at one of the historic buildings.
Like many of us today, I remember the deep grief, dismay and fear I felt on September 11, 2001. I remember both my disappointment in aspects of mankind and my awe at the courage of our firefighters and other first responders.
So today, with our country, I remember and honor those who died on September 11 and those who lost loved ones.
I also honor what I believe is the hope of our country; the imagining, the vision of the Founding Fathers that says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Because I grew up with this sense of history and duty to country, I've thought about the idea of "Give me liberty or give me death!" over the years - about the assumption and belief that certain things are worth dying for. It's not something to be said lightly. It's a mentality that can go awfully wrong. After September 11, 2001, we heard a lot about our 'enemies' who wanted to take away our freedom and destroy our American way of life. But, as we all have, I've witnessed some freedoms taken away by our own government, and I've seen our government act in some ways that our incongruent with the values that I thought we were supposed to stand for.
Still, when I really think about it, I am patriotic, even today. I am patriotic today, and it is in large part because of the ideas that our country was built on. I appreciate and celebrate and I do not for one second take for granted the freedom to write this very blog and express both my love of my country and also my ambivalance about some of our policies and leaders. I am patriotic today, and it is because I can utilize my freedom to imagine and speak of alternatives. So much has been made about threats to our American way of life. Yet, I wonder, what would our American way of life look like if the trillions of dollars we'd spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been spent, yes, on homeland security, but also on jobs, improving infrastructure, scientific research, education, improving conditions and opportunities in our poorer neighborhoods?
As I've been writing this blog, I've been thinking in particular about two words: liberty and mercy. Both imply choice in important ways, and both imply privilege. Liberty implies the power to choose among alternatives. Mercy is defined by "compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm." (The New Oxford American Dictionary).
When we feel downtrodden or unlucky or discouraged, we must admit to ourselves the truth. We are still from a nation of great privilege. This should not be damning, but it is a great responsibility. It is a responsibility to envision a future and articulate it. By the way we live our lives, conduct our business, govern our people, and wield what power we have, may the people of the United States and its leaders promote liberty and act with mercy for and toward all people and every nation.
Like many of us today, I remember the deep grief, dismay and fear I felt on September 11, 2001. I remember both my disappointment in aspects of mankind and my awe at the courage of our firefighters and other first responders.
So today, with our country, I remember and honor those who died on September 11 and those who lost loved ones.
I also honor what I believe is the hope of our country; the imagining, the vision of the Founding Fathers that says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Because I grew up with this sense of history and duty to country, I've thought about the idea of "Give me liberty or give me death!" over the years - about the assumption and belief that certain things are worth dying for. It's not something to be said lightly. It's a mentality that can go awfully wrong. After September 11, 2001, we heard a lot about our 'enemies' who wanted to take away our freedom and destroy our American way of life. But, as we all have, I've witnessed some freedoms taken away by our own government, and I've seen our government act in some ways that our incongruent with the values that I thought we were supposed to stand for.
Still, when I really think about it, I am patriotic, even today. I am patriotic today, and it is in large part because of the ideas that our country was built on. I appreciate and celebrate and I do not for one second take for granted the freedom to write this very blog and express both my love of my country and also my ambivalance about some of our policies and leaders. I am patriotic today, and it is because I can utilize my freedom to imagine and speak of alternatives. So much has been made about threats to our American way of life. Yet, I wonder, what would our American way of life look like if the trillions of dollars we'd spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been spent, yes, on homeland security, but also on jobs, improving infrastructure, scientific research, education, improving conditions and opportunities in our poorer neighborhoods?
As I've been writing this blog, I've been thinking in particular about two words: liberty and mercy. Both imply choice in important ways, and both imply privilege. Liberty implies the power to choose among alternatives. Mercy is defined by "compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm." (The New Oxford American Dictionary).
When we feel downtrodden or unlucky or discouraged, we must admit to ourselves the truth. We are still from a nation of great privilege. This should not be damning, but it is a great responsibility. It is a responsibility to envision a future and articulate it. By the way we live our lives, conduct our business, govern our people, and wield what power we have, may the people of the United States and its leaders promote liberty and act with mercy for and toward all people and every nation.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Changing your strategy
I'm going to share a little bit about my eight year old boy. First, I'll tell a couple things I enjoy immensely about him, then I'll tell a story that is specific to him, but also universal to all of us at one time or another.
The boy is funny, but he doesn't share that with everyone. He's not like a comedian. He's also rather shy. So you have to know him pretty well to be privy to his sense of humor. The other day at dinner he looks over at me and says, "Mom. Have you ever thought about your job?
"What do you mean?" I say.
"You're a psycho. Therapist. Psycho. Therapist. You are a cuckoo therapist!" Well, I am glad we all know were we stand in my family and yes, I had actually thought about what a funny word "psychotherapist" is.
Another funny thing recently...I'm in the basement doing laundry and I hear him shouting "Mom, come up here - you're going to think this is hilarious!"
I come up and he's lying on the bed with his Calivin and Hobbes Book (It's a Magical World, I think). "Look at this one," he says.
It's one-frame and shows Calvin and Hobbes looking at a snowman that has a hot water bottle on its head. Hobbes says, "Why does that snowman have a hot water bottle on its head?" Calvin answers, "He's committing suicide."
Okay, so it's a little dark. Actually, I like that we can share Calvin and Hobbes, which I've always loved, as well as a general sense of humor.
So, now I'll tell you that my son picked up chess in the past eight months. He taught himself to play by reading The Dangerous Book for Boys, and dug up a chess board that was packed away in the basement. My husband and I were kind of delighted - chess is fun for adults (unlike, some other board games) and an adult and child can be equally skilled.
The boy entered his first amateur chess tournament the other weekend. As we drove over to the St. Louis Chess Club, he says, "Mom. I know my strategy. I'm going to play Hyper-Aggressive. Not a lot of people know how to handle Hyper-Aggressive."
I think to myself, "Here we go." But, I say something profound like "Oh."
God love my son, but he did not deviate from that Hyper-Aggressive strategy (and though I've never been an 8 year old boy, I can really feel that Hyper-Aggressive would feel like THE right strategy to an 8 year old boy). So, in four rounds he lost three and had a stalemate in one.
I love that my kid remains optimistic throughout the process. After each game, he'd look at me and say, "I still have another chance to win!"
We even left the chess club with a participation medal and got into the car, where he indeed, got upset about the losses.
I am not just saying this to be politically correct: I really don't really care if he wins or loses as long as he has fun. I am pretty emotionally detached from the win/lose process in any sport or game as far as my kids go. Yet I won't say this wasn't a stressful moment for both of us. I tried simply acknowledging how I could understand he was disappointed, but this didn't seem to be that helpful and maybe even escalated him.
Finally, what I said (okay, yelled), was "Honey, you had one strategy and you never changed it, even though you had evidence that it wasn't working. There are so many strategies in chess - why don't you pick another one and just try that and see what happens. If that doesn't work, find another strategy and see what happens. One of them will be a winning strategy."
I'm not sure if it took, but it occurred to me as the words were coming out of my mouth that the "stick with the strategy" mindset is a hinderance to many of us in many areas of our life. How many times do we keep trying the same strategy with a boss, a spouse, a parent, a career, a course of study, a life's ambition, a house project? Even when all the evidence says it's not working, we don't want to stop.
When I was telling the story of my son and the chess tournament to my friend, Jen, she said something like, "yeah, I think sometimes we blame our execution of the strategy and think if we just do more of the strategy that will change to outcome."
Sometimes, we don't give up our strategy as a matter of pride. Sometimes we don't give up our strategy because we don't know other strategies.
If we're stuck in life or not getting the results we want in a certain area, I recommend letting up a little, making room a little, trying something different. Why not? If we're not getting the result we want anyway, what do we have to lose?
The boy is funny, but he doesn't share that with everyone. He's not like a comedian. He's also rather shy. So you have to know him pretty well to be privy to his sense of humor. The other day at dinner he looks over at me and says, "Mom. Have you ever thought about your job?
"What do you mean?" I say.
"You're a psycho. Therapist. Psycho. Therapist. You are a cuckoo therapist!" Well, I am glad we all know were we stand in my family and yes, I had actually thought about what a funny word "psychotherapist" is.
Another funny thing recently...I'm in the basement doing laundry and I hear him shouting "Mom, come up here - you're going to think this is hilarious!"
I come up and he's lying on the bed with his Calivin and Hobbes Book (It's a Magical World, I think). "Look at this one," he says.
It's one-frame and shows Calvin and Hobbes looking at a snowman that has a hot water bottle on its head. Hobbes says, "Why does that snowman have a hot water bottle on its head?" Calvin answers, "He's committing suicide."
Okay, so it's a little dark. Actually, I like that we can share Calvin and Hobbes, which I've always loved, as well as a general sense of humor.
So, now I'll tell you that my son picked up chess in the past eight months. He taught himself to play by reading The Dangerous Book for Boys, and dug up a chess board that was packed away in the basement. My husband and I were kind of delighted - chess is fun for adults (unlike, some other board games) and an adult and child can be equally skilled.
The boy entered his first amateur chess tournament the other weekend. As we drove over to the St. Louis Chess Club, he says, "Mom. I know my strategy. I'm going to play Hyper-Aggressive. Not a lot of people know how to handle Hyper-Aggressive."
I think to myself, "Here we go." But, I say something profound like "Oh."
God love my son, but he did not deviate from that Hyper-Aggressive strategy (and though I've never been an 8 year old boy, I can really feel that Hyper-Aggressive would feel like THE right strategy to an 8 year old boy). So, in four rounds he lost three and had a stalemate in one.
I love that my kid remains optimistic throughout the process. After each game, he'd look at me and say, "I still have another chance to win!"
We even left the chess club with a participation medal and got into the car, where he indeed, got upset about the losses.
I am not just saying this to be politically correct: I really don't really care if he wins or loses as long as he has fun. I am pretty emotionally detached from the win/lose process in any sport or game as far as my kids go. Yet I won't say this wasn't a stressful moment for both of us. I tried simply acknowledging how I could understand he was disappointed, but this didn't seem to be that helpful and maybe even escalated him.
Finally, what I said (okay, yelled), was "Honey, you had one strategy and you never changed it, even though you had evidence that it wasn't working. There are so many strategies in chess - why don't you pick another one and just try that and see what happens. If that doesn't work, find another strategy and see what happens. One of them will be a winning strategy."
I'm not sure if it took, but it occurred to me as the words were coming out of my mouth that the "stick with the strategy" mindset is a hinderance to many of us in many areas of our life. How many times do we keep trying the same strategy with a boss, a spouse, a parent, a career, a course of study, a life's ambition, a house project? Even when all the evidence says it's not working, we don't want to stop.
When I was telling the story of my son and the chess tournament to my friend, Jen, she said something like, "yeah, I think sometimes we blame our execution of the strategy and think if we just do more of the strategy that will change to outcome."
Sometimes, we don't give up our strategy as a matter of pride. Sometimes we don't give up our strategy because we don't know other strategies.
If we're stuck in life or not getting the results we want in a certain area, I recommend letting up a little, making room a little, trying something different. Why not? If we're not getting the result we want anyway, what do we have to lose?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
the lovers, the dreamers, and me
As we were making her bed this morning, my daughter told me that she believes her three stuffed animals are real - Barky (a dog), Simba (the baby lion from Lion King) and Aslan (passed down after more than 30 years from me to her). The evidence: Simba seems to have outgrown his palm leaf/diaper.
A few weeks ago, I lent out a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit to a client. It's a great childrens' book about a stuffed rabbit who longs to be 'real.' And it's also about love and magic.
And, count me among the fans who saw Harry Potter #7 part 2 at the theater. The scene that really resonated with me emotionally was where Harry has 'died.' He finds himself in an in-between, foggy-ish, surreal-ish place reminiscent to him of King's Cross Station. He asks Dumbledore, who is also there with him - 'is this real? Or is it all in my mind?'
Dumbledore replies, 'Of course, it's all in your mind. That doesn't mean it's not real.'
And here comes The Green Album, a tribute to the music of The Muppets - artists like Weezer, My Morning Jacket, etc. cover. If anyone walks the uncomfortable line between real and not real, it's Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, and the gang. Wasn't it (and isn't it) amazing to watch the human actors interact with the muppets, whether you watch on Sesame Street or the Muppet Show? When we were talking about this album, my sister even said, 'who isn't a little in love with Kermit?'
Why is it that a kid's world is so easily magical and the adults world is so fraught with the question, the need to have absolute knowledge that anything worthy is real as measured by an objective standard?
What about the lyrics to The Rainbow Connection?
have you been half asleep and
have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailor?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it;
it's something that I'm s'pposed to be.
Someday we'll find it. The rainbow connection -
the lovers, the dreamers, and me.
If we just listen, don't we know it's true? Maybe there's a difference between true and real. Maybe things aren't as complicated as we make them.
I believe that if we try to stop the chatter in our brains, we can listen to something essential to ourselves. We inherently posses in us a deep peace that knows beyond inadequate words like real or unreal. And when we let ourselves stop that distracting chatter, we can also let go and have a little fun.
Let's take some time to listen http://www.npr.org/2011/08/14/138984517/first-listen-muppets-the-green-album
In keeping with the theme, may I particularly recommend I'm Going to Go Back There Someday. The last song on the album.
A few weeks ago, I lent out a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit to a client. It's a great childrens' book about a stuffed rabbit who longs to be 'real.' And it's also about love and magic.
And, count me among the fans who saw Harry Potter #7 part 2 at the theater. The scene that really resonated with me emotionally was where Harry has 'died.' He finds himself in an in-between, foggy-ish, surreal-ish place reminiscent to him of King's Cross Station. He asks Dumbledore, who is also there with him - 'is this real? Or is it all in my mind?'
Dumbledore replies, 'Of course, it's all in your mind. That doesn't mean it's not real.'
And here comes The Green Album, a tribute to the music of The Muppets - artists like Weezer, My Morning Jacket, etc. cover. If anyone walks the uncomfortable line between real and not real, it's Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, and the gang. Wasn't it (and isn't it) amazing to watch the human actors interact with the muppets, whether you watch on Sesame Street or the Muppet Show? When we were talking about this album, my sister even said, 'who isn't a little in love with Kermit?'
Why is it that a kid's world is so easily magical and the adults world is so fraught with the question, the need to have absolute knowledge that anything worthy is real as measured by an objective standard?
What about the lyrics to The Rainbow Connection?
have you been half asleep and
have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailor?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it;
it's something that I'm s'pposed to be.
Someday we'll find it. The rainbow connection -
the lovers, the dreamers, and me.
If we just listen, don't we know it's true? Maybe there's a difference between true and real. Maybe things aren't as complicated as we make them.
I believe that if we try to stop the chatter in our brains, we can listen to something essential to ourselves. We inherently posses in us a deep peace that knows beyond inadequate words like real or unreal. And when we let ourselves stop that distracting chatter, we can also let go and have a little fun.
Let's take some time to listen http://www.npr.org/2011/08/14/138984517/first-listen-muppets-the-green-album
In keeping with the theme, may I particularly recommend I'm Going to Go Back There Someday. The last song on the album.
Monday, August 8, 2011
my friend, Sandy, and I save the world in 1994
I met my friend Sandy when I moved to Georgetown, Washington, DC just after I graduated from college in 1994. Sandy and I are kindred spirit - we both enjoy a strange, sometimes ridiculous, and sometimes dark sense of humor. And in our own ways, we are both brooders. I'm sure we both brood less in 2011, being 17 years older. He and I often jogged together along the C & O Canal. I remember some beautiful Fall days along the river.
One particular conversation we had, probably while running...it was a brooding one. About the state of the world and how was anything ever going to get better? Luckily, we knew the answer. Even if it was an answer that may doom the world to eventual catastrophe because of its utter unlikelihood:
How are things ever going to get better? we asked ourselves in righteous, youthful cynicism.
"I THINK IT'S GOING TO TAKE A GENERATION OF MARTYRS." we decided.
"YES, THAT'S EXACTLY IT. IT'S GOING TO TAKE A GENERATION OF PEOPLE WHO ARE WILLING TO GIVE UP THINGS THEY WANT IN THE SHORT TERM TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR GENERATIONS TO COME IN THE LONG TERM." Probably, we then had to go listen to some Dave Matthews.
Yet, as I listened this past week, to the news about the debt ceiling, about the U.S. credit rating, the 'double dip' recession, I thought about two things: 1) this conversation with Sandy and 2) stories about my Gran.
My Gran lived to be 95 years old. She was born in 1908. When she was pregnant with my mom she went into labor in a rations line. During World War II, there was an enemy and it was clear what had to be done - everyone had to 'sacrifice' some short-term comforts like sugar, gasoline, etc in order to contribute toward the cause of victory.
The economy, politics, and looking at history really does intersect with our emotional health, both as a country and as individuals. Looking at the long term, big picture and foregoing immediate gratification takes emotional maturity.
Thomas Friedman wrote in the NYT last week about the need for prompt and 'collective action' to correct our economic situation http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/Friedman-win-together-or-lose-together.html?ref=thomaslfriedman .
I wonder if we can again be a nation of emotional maturity? Can we consider collective action without being reactionary and getting caught up in speech that automatically equates collective action with communism and threats to freedom? I think we can.
I also think it's a mark of mental health and maturity to take a realistic look and try to imagine all your options when you feel you're in a jam. Sometimes our options seem so far down the road, or so difficult for one person to try to achieve anything that we tend to throw our hands up and say, "I'll just deal with my own little piece of the world." That's okay. But I believe we all have one immediate option, should we choose to use it: let's talk about and bring into the public dialogue the fact that many of us feel and know that it is not a sacrifice to help make our earth, our country a more sustainable place in every way.
One particular conversation we had, probably while running...it was a brooding one. About the state of the world and how was anything ever going to get better? Luckily, we knew the answer. Even if it was an answer that may doom the world to eventual catastrophe because of its utter unlikelihood:
How are things ever going to get better? we asked ourselves in righteous, youthful cynicism.
"I THINK IT'S GOING TO TAKE A GENERATION OF MARTYRS." we decided.
"YES, THAT'S EXACTLY IT. IT'S GOING TO TAKE A GENERATION OF PEOPLE WHO ARE WILLING TO GIVE UP THINGS THEY WANT IN THE SHORT TERM TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR GENERATIONS TO COME IN THE LONG TERM." Probably, we then had to go listen to some Dave Matthews.
Yet, as I listened this past week, to the news about the debt ceiling, about the U.S. credit rating, the 'double dip' recession, I thought about two things: 1) this conversation with Sandy and 2) stories about my Gran.
My Gran lived to be 95 years old. She was born in 1908. When she was pregnant with my mom she went into labor in a rations line. During World War II, there was an enemy and it was clear what had to be done - everyone had to 'sacrifice' some short-term comforts like sugar, gasoline, etc in order to contribute toward the cause of victory.
The economy, politics, and looking at history really does intersect with our emotional health, both as a country and as individuals. Looking at the long term, big picture and foregoing immediate gratification takes emotional maturity.
Thomas Friedman wrote in the NYT last week about the need for prompt and 'collective action' to correct our economic situation http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/Friedman-win-together-or-lose-together.html?ref=thomaslfriedman .
I wonder if we can again be a nation of emotional maturity? Can we consider collective action without being reactionary and getting caught up in speech that automatically equates collective action with communism and threats to freedom? I think we can.
I also think it's a mark of mental health and maturity to take a realistic look and try to imagine all your options when you feel you're in a jam. Sometimes our options seem so far down the road, or so difficult for one person to try to achieve anything that we tend to throw our hands up and say, "I'll just deal with my own little piece of the world." That's okay. But I believe we all have one immediate option, should we choose to use it: let's talk about and bring into the public dialogue the fact that many of us feel and know that it is not a sacrifice to help make our earth, our country a more sustainable place in every way.
Friday, July 29, 2011
little things make a difference
I'm trying to eat better.
What do I mean by better? Well, lots of things. In the past few years some new information has slowly been seeping into my brain and consciousness. It began when my daughter was born and people asked me if I was going to let her have regular milk or 'organic.' "You know," these people told me, '"all the hormones they give cows is what's making girls develop younger.'" Well, come to think of it, it did seem to me like teenage girls were much more 'developed' than when I was a teenager. (This is making me think of Judy Blume!) And as a parent, suddenly it seemed important to prolong childhood as long as possible. Despite my husband protesting about the expense of it, we began buying organic milk.
This is only to say that I am no saint. My motives aren't always, initially anyway, for world betterment. I'm just saying this is how my plan to eat better began. And as you read on, I guess I am going to grossly oversimplify a lot of what some really smart people have said.
In the past couple years, I also skimmed through The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Among other things, he suggests that a lot of what we eat, our grandparents wouldn't even recognize as food. He also talks about farming and environmental impacts of the way we farm and concerns about sustainability. Here's an article I just looked at in the past week. http://www.good.is/post/hold-the-lamb-eat-more-lentils-new-guide-ranks-proteins-by-carbon-footprint/
This past spring , I watched Food, Inc. and saw some of the conditions that some of our livestock are raised in and the copious amounts of corn fed to our cows, for example. I was amazed to learn about corn and its ubiquity in food and other products available in our grocery stores. I started reading labels. Wow. Corn.
Simultaneously, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I began facilitating a young women's breast cancer support group for the Cancer Support Community. I researched links between diet and breast cancer. New insights are gained all the time, but here is a reliable, balanced link: http://www.livestrong.com/article/377091-is-there-a-link-between-breast-cancer-diet/s
What does this have to do with mental health/emotional well being?
I'm about to make a weird leap, but I hope you'll stick with me: many people have heard of the Butterfly Effect, which is really a demonstration of 'chaos theory.' (A butterfly flutters its wings in Peru and it causes a wind effect that eventually leads to a hurricane in Australia). The idea is that seemingly chaotic, random events may be caused by a precise set of circumstances at the start - if we can isolate all the beginning variables, then we can understand how the so-called chaotic event happened.
Really, it's just that I believe everything is interconnected. How I care about myself, how I care about the planet, how I care about all living creatures makes a difference. How you care about yourself, the planet, others, makes a difference. We might make little differences - at least that's what we see, but it's possible, in the end, we make a big difference (just like the butterfly).
So, I'm eating more consciously. Not perfectly. It's just one little thing.
What do I mean by better? Well, lots of things. In the past few years some new information has slowly been seeping into my brain and consciousness. It began when my daughter was born and people asked me if I was going to let her have regular milk or 'organic.' "You know," these people told me, '"all the hormones they give cows is what's making girls develop younger.'" Well, come to think of it, it did seem to me like teenage girls were much more 'developed' than when I was a teenager. (This is making me think of Judy Blume!) And as a parent, suddenly it seemed important to prolong childhood as long as possible. Despite my husband protesting about the expense of it, we began buying organic milk.
This is only to say that I am no saint. My motives aren't always, initially anyway, for world betterment. I'm just saying this is how my plan to eat better began. And as you read on, I guess I am going to grossly oversimplify a lot of what some really smart people have said.
In the past couple years, I also skimmed through The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Among other things, he suggests that a lot of what we eat, our grandparents wouldn't even recognize as food. He also talks about farming and environmental impacts of the way we farm and concerns about sustainability. Here's an article I just looked at in the past week. http://www.good.is/post/hold-the-lamb-eat-more-lentils-new-guide-ranks-proteins-by-carbon-footprint/
This past spring , I watched Food, Inc. and saw some of the conditions that some of our livestock are raised in and the copious amounts of corn fed to our cows, for example. I was amazed to learn about corn and its ubiquity in food and other products available in our grocery stores. I started reading labels. Wow. Corn.
Simultaneously, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I began facilitating a young women's breast cancer support group for the Cancer Support Community. I researched links between diet and breast cancer. New insights are gained all the time, but here is a reliable, balanced link: http://www.livestrong.com/article/377091-is-there-a-link-between-breast-cancer-diet/s
What does this have to do with mental health/emotional well being?
I'm about to make a weird leap, but I hope you'll stick with me: many people have heard of the Butterfly Effect, which is really a demonstration of 'chaos theory.' (A butterfly flutters its wings in Peru and it causes a wind effect that eventually leads to a hurricane in Australia). The idea is that seemingly chaotic, random events may be caused by a precise set of circumstances at the start - if we can isolate all the beginning variables, then we can understand how the so-called chaotic event happened.
Really, it's just that I believe everything is interconnected. How I care about myself, how I care about the planet, how I care about all living creatures makes a difference. How you care about yourself, the planet, others, makes a difference. We might make little differences - at least that's what we see, but it's possible, in the end, we make a big difference (just like the butterfly).
So, I'm eating more consciously. Not perfectly. It's just one little thing.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
it's good to...hope
In the past few months, we got rid of cable and now filter our tv viewing through Netflix/Hulu. I do miss The Real Housewives. I really, really do. BUT. I am in the middle of the first season of Glee and I am loving it. I think it's kind of a summer thing - some kind of nostalgia for youth, but not like "Glory Days" nostalgia, more like an appreciation of youthfulness. I especially like Glee because the youth portrayed seems more believable to me than, say Gossip Girls (I've never watched it, but they seem way more sophisticated than my suburban St. Louis high school.) Glee's youth, at least in the first season, is actually kind of innocent and full of music. This youth is full of un-coolness, and a lack of irony. This was my kind of youth.
There's a lot that is painful and embarassing about it, but this is the thing I like about youth and I'm being reminded in a number of places - from the pool, to Glee, to the "bios" for my kids' zoo camp counselors: youth hopes. It might be frivolous, missplaced, or unrealistic, but it is hope! It hasn't been beaten out them. Remember the melodramatic scene in The Breakfast Club (as if there's only one melodramatic scene!), where Allly Sheedy's character says, "when you grow up (dramatic pause) your heart dies.' Well, it can be kind of true. Being grown up often runs the gamut from kind of hard to very hard.
For my mental health, it's nice to occasionally indulge in some of that innocent pleasure called hope and exuberance. Sometimes I have to seek it out because it's not finding me - I watch Glee or I listen to a song that conveys something awesome to me. No matter how cool or grown up I think I am, I get chills and feel like falling in love every time I hear "Don't Stop Believing" (Journey, circa 1981).
I think I've written before here that the Dalai Lama cautions against hope, because it reflects an attachment to an outcome. I am here to say, in this instance (and probably only this instance) I disagree with the Dalai Lama. I think there's something awesome about hoping - not for any specific thing, but allowing yourself, for a few moments to just hope. Who knows what the future will be, but for a little while, let yourself imagine nothing in particular, but that it's a really good one.
One last thought - I found a fun website that makes me feel good and interested, and I sometimes hopeful: http://www.good.is/
There's a lot that is painful and embarassing about it, but this is the thing I like about youth and I'm being reminded in a number of places - from the pool, to Glee, to the "bios" for my kids' zoo camp counselors: youth hopes. It might be frivolous, missplaced, or unrealistic, but it is hope! It hasn't been beaten out them. Remember the melodramatic scene in The Breakfast Club (as if there's only one melodramatic scene!), where Allly Sheedy's character says, "when you grow up (dramatic pause) your heart dies.' Well, it can be kind of true. Being grown up often runs the gamut from kind of hard to very hard.
For my mental health, it's nice to occasionally indulge in some of that innocent pleasure called hope and exuberance. Sometimes I have to seek it out because it's not finding me - I watch Glee or I listen to a song that conveys something awesome to me. No matter how cool or grown up I think I am, I get chills and feel like falling in love every time I hear "Don't Stop Believing" (Journey, circa 1981).
I think I've written before here that the Dalai Lama cautions against hope, because it reflects an attachment to an outcome. I am here to say, in this instance (and probably only this instance) I disagree with the Dalai Lama. I think there's something awesome about hoping - not for any specific thing, but allowing yourself, for a few moments to just hope. Who knows what the future will be, but for a little while, let yourself imagine nothing in particular, but that it's a really good one.
One last thought - I found a fun website that makes me feel good and interested, and I sometimes hopeful: http://www.good.is/
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Asking for help
In the past year or so a couple events arose in my life that gave me cause to ask for help. 1) My job was downsized and 2) my mom got breast cancer. To be blunt, those two life events sucked. But, my life hasn't sucked. There are many, many reasons my life not only hasn't sucked, but I would say has been overall, good. But, the one reason I want to talk about is how I learned to ask for help, what I am still learning about asking for help, and what I hope might be helpful to others from my experience.
For a long time I didn't know I ever needed help for anything. I come from a stubborn, proud Scotch heritage on my mom's side. My grandmother was often one to say, "Keep your pride." Asking for help, where I come from, is fine for other people, but not for us. One time I told my mom (when my kids were very small and my husband was travelling and I was working, etc.) that I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. "We don't have those," she replied. Nervous breakdowns, apparently, are not allowed in our genetic makeup. No one in my family was mean or cruel, but the idea was keep on keeping on. There's good to that, of course, but like all things, in moderation.
So, at some point, I realized that there were moments in life that I might need help - I might need someone to drive me to the airport, I might like someone to keep me company after a crime was committed in my apartment building, I might want someone to just listen.
Asking for help takes practice. It takes practice to identify when you might need it. It might take practice to overcome what you think of as your pride. It might be that the people you ask for help are not available physically or emotionally. That can be discouraging. Like everything, I've learned to keep practicing and cast a wide net.
When the tough stuff has come up for me recently, I've cast a wide net by using email. I emailed my personal, trusted extended group of friends. I pretty much said, 'keep me and my family in your thoughts.' The support, kindness, commiseration, and love I felt...well, I can't thank those people enough. Help came in many, many forms - from encouraging emails, to job leads, to articles about breast cancer.
In having some trouble asking for help, I know I am not alone. But, I think I'm doing a little better. Like most of what has worked for my mental health is - try giving it a try. Then, keep trying - if you ask the wrong people, try other people. If you don't get the help you want or need this time, tweak it the next time. Be specific. Acknowledge your losses, but be grateful for what you have.
On a slight tangent, I'd like to acknowledge my friend and fellow poet, Kelli Allen who is doing some awesome work with poetry and vets. If you love poetry and/or music lyrics, you may be especially interested and especially hopeful that this Missouri Warrior Writers Project might be the right help for some people at the right time. Here's a link to her blog: http://mowarriorwriters.wordpress.com/blog/
Take care!
For a long time I didn't know I ever needed help for anything. I come from a stubborn, proud Scotch heritage on my mom's side. My grandmother was often one to say, "Keep your pride." Asking for help, where I come from, is fine for other people, but not for us. One time I told my mom (when my kids were very small and my husband was travelling and I was working, etc.) that I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. "We don't have those," she replied. Nervous breakdowns, apparently, are not allowed in our genetic makeup. No one in my family was mean or cruel, but the idea was keep on keeping on. There's good to that, of course, but like all things, in moderation.
So, at some point, I realized that there were moments in life that I might need help - I might need someone to drive me to the airport, I might like someone to keep me company after a crime was committed in my apartment building, I might want someone to just listen.
Asking for help takes practice. It takes practice to identify when you might need it. It might take practice to overcome what you think of as your pride. It might be that the people you ask for help are not available physically or emotionally. That can be discouraging. Like everything, I've learned to keep practicing and cast a wide net.
When the tough stuff has come up for me recently, I've cast a wide net by using email. I emailed my personal, trusted extended group of friends. I pretty much said, 'keep me and my family in your thoughts.' The support, kindness, commiseration, and love I felt...well, I can't thank those people enough. Help came in many, many forms - from encouraging emails, to job leads, to articles about breast cancer.
In having some trouble asking for help, I know I am not alone. But, I think I'm doing a little better. Like most of what has worked for my mental health is - try giving it a try. Then, keep trying - if you ask the wrong people, try other people. If you don't get the help you want or need this time, tweak it the next time. Be specific. Acknowledge your losses, but be grateful for what you have.
On a slight tangent, I'd like to acknowledge my friend and fellow poet, Kelli Allen who is doing some awesome work with poetry and vets. If you love poetry and/or music lyrics, you may be especially interested and especially hopeful that this Missouri Warrior Writers Project might be the right help for some people at the right time. Here's a link to her blog: http://mowarriorwriters.wordpress.com/blog/
Take care!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
radical acceptance
Here's an article that I found interesting...information about the different types of therapeutic approaches make us all better consumers of counseling/psychotherapy. I think this approach has a lot of merit.
This is from the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html .
I don't have a lot of time to write this week, but I hope you find this thought-provoking.
This is from the NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html .
I don't have a lot of time to write this week, but I hope you find this thought-provoking.
Monday, June 13, 2011
save the ta tas!
In February this year my mom was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. It's a huge relief for me to write that for two reasons: 1) though prose probably isn't my strongest suit, I am a writer; 2) one of the pillars of my own mental health is telling the truth.
My mom, rightly, asked me not to blog about her diagnosis, treatment, etc, until she felt she had a good handle on the situation herself. She gave me permission to write about this over the weekend, and I am grateful to her to allow me to share a little of her story and also my story as her daughter.
First the news: my mom's prognosis is very good - Stage 1 is early and one of her docs said, "your mammogram saved your life." So, ladies, don't avoid it - go get your mammogram! The type of cancer my mom had was an aggressive type, though, so her treatment team is being aggressive - she has had radiation and chemotherapy (she's still undergoing chemo) and a lumpectomy. In the end, all signs point to long term health for my mom.
So, I could blog a lot about what I've learned this Spring, the medical system pros and cons, the emotional impact this has had on me, but I think I'll revisit that another time - what I'd like to write about is my family's participation in Race for the Cure in St. Louis this past Saturday and what that looked like and meant to me.
My husband and kids and I drove downtown on Saturday morning at 7:30 to join the almost 70,000 people to 'race' for the cure (as you can imagine, with that many people within the 3 mile route in downtown St. Louis, there's little 'racing.') You know, in life it's easy to become cynical about and disappointed in human nature. I often think of the movie, The "Princess Bride", when Wesley says to Buttercup, "Life is not fair, Highness, and anyone who tells you differently is selling you something." It's for sure that cancer is not fair. But, to see nearly 70,000 women, men, children, black people, while people, survivors, every type of person, really, getting together and essentially celebrating women they love (some they have loved and lost), peacably, amicably, and with great good humor - oh my gosh - it was amazing! It touched me and made me hopeful not just about curing cancer, but about fighting the cancer of cynicism, prejudice, ignorance, and hate.
I'd blogged previously about some of the ways it concerns me that women's bodies are not as valued as they should be. This was the absolute counter to that. There couldn't be a more wholesome, sweet celebration of boobs! Again, I feel hopeful.
I think it is the Dalai Lama who suggests that hope is not very useful because it indicates that we are attached to an outcome. I try to learn all I can from every smart and holy person who is available to me, so I try to really feel what he says. But, for better or worse, I still attach to some outcomes; I am attached to my hope right now! Hoping for good health for my mom, and all people. Hoping for our doctors and researchers to find good treatments and cures for cancers. Hoping for more opportunities to celebrate in my community. Less fear, more love! I hope for that.
My mom, rightly, asked me not to blog about her diagnosis, treatment, etc, until she felt she had a good handle on the situation herself. She gave me permission to write about this over the weekend, and I am grateful to her to allow me to share a little of her story and also my story as her daughter.
First the news: my mom's prognosis is very good - Stage 1 is early and one of her docs said, "your mammogram saved your life." So, ladies, don't avoid it - go get your mammogram! The type of cancer my mom had was an aggressive type, though, so her treatment team is being aggressive - she has had radiation and chemotherapy (she's still undergoing chemo) and a lumpectomy. In the end, all signs point to long term health for my mom.
So, I could blog a lot about what I've learned this Spring, the medical system pros and cons, the emotional impact this has had on me, but I think I'll revisit that another time - what I'd like to write about is my family's participation in Race for the Cure in St. Louis this past Saturday and what that looked like and meant to me.
My husband and kids and I drove downtown on Saturday morning at 7:30 to join the almost 70,000 people to 'race' for the cure (as you can imagine, with that many people within the 3 mile route in downtown St. Louis, there's little 'racing.') You know, in life it's easy to become cynical about and disappointed in human nature. I often think of the movie, The "Princess Bride", when Wesley says to Buttercup, "Life is not fair, Highness, and anyone who tells you differently is selling you something." It's for sure that cancer is not fair. But, to see nearly 70,000 women, men, children, black people, while people, survivors, every type of person, really, getting together and essentially celebrating women they love (some they have loved and lost), peacably, amicably, and with great good humor - oh my gosh - it was amazing! It touched me and made me hopeful not just about curing cancer, but about fighting the cancer of cynicism, prejudice, ignorance, and hate.
I'd blogged previously about some of the ways it concerns me that women's bodies are not as valued as they should be. This was the absolute counter to that. There couldn't be a more wholesome, sweet celebration of boobs! Again, I feel hopeful.
I think it is the Dalai Lama who suggests that hope is not very useful because it indicates that we are attached to an outcome. I try to learn all I can from every smart and holy person who is available to me, so I try to really feel what he says. But, for better or worse, I still attach to some outcomes; I am attached to my hope right now! Hoping for good health for my mom, and all people. Hoping for our doctors and researchers to find good treatments and cures for cancers. Hoping for more opportunities to celebrate in my community. Less fear, more love! I hope for that.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thelma & Louise: a couple of good women
The first message: It's good to be good. Now, I'm not talking about being morally/ethically/spiritually 'good' when I say this. I'm talking more about good appearances. So, it goes on from there: Good girls are polite. Good girls don't cause problems. Good girls aren't cynical about people. Good girls maintain an outward naivete about sex and gender relations.
I read on Yahoo last week that it's the 20th anniversary of the movie, Thelma & Louise. Hurray, Thelma & Louise! Seeing that movie was formative for me, because it expanded some questions and ideas I was beginning to explore about the merits of being a "good girl."
First, what does it mean for any of us to be 'good' - whether you're a woman or a man? Whose definition of good is it?
To me, being good, even in outward appearance, is being a three-dimensional person and being insistent that you treat yourself this way and are treated by those around you this way. It's about valuing yourself and others for their complexity. An easy example of this (and one demonstrated in Thelma & Louise) is the harm to all women when some women are seen as body parts. ("He called us beavers on his CB radio!") Objectification isn't just strippers and porn stars - it can also be the 'object' of a 'good girl' who isn't allowed or doesn't allow herself to express anything and everything from dislike to anger to sexuality. This can cross gender lines the opposite way too - women who see men as a means to financial gain/lifestyle/status. It does not serve a deeper version of goodness when we see and treat one another this way.
Being 'good', in a deeper version of goodness is also, to me, not being afraid of your own power. We are all stronger than we know and are worthy of interacting with the world in a confident way.
Being 'good' in a three-dimensional way does not exclude courtesy, but values truth as much as courtesy. I believe we can say anything, but we have a responsibility in how we say it.
I love Thelma & Louise because, through the art of movies, I got to see a different way of being a woman. I'm not talking about the end - I'm talking about the way a character in a book or movie, or even the 'voice' of a song or poem, can free you. If we want, we can throw our pantyhose away! We don't have to like everyone we meet. We can know certain things are unfair and speak up about it.
We can define being good in our own way - in fact, we have the responsibility to do so.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
some things I've learned
Now, for something a little different. Some things I've learned about life and people so far (and subject to change, I might add...):
1) Don't make decisions out of fear. I've never made a good decision primarily motivated by fear and I haven't observed this to work for others, either.
2) No matter what people say, they usually DO what they want. If you're confused by someone, pay attention to their actions, not their words.
3) You can't make someone else change. You can change your reaction to that person.
4) Most people are doing their best most of the time.
5) It's not about me. In both good and bad, we tend to take overly much credit or overly much guilt/shame. We benefit from putting ourselves in a more realistic perspective.
6) It is important to be careful with our words. We probably heard this from someone when we were kids - think before you speak.
7) Try to find a vocation you like. We spend a lot of time working, so it's better to like what you do. Encourage your kids to study what they enjoy and find a way to make a vocation of it.
8) Shame and secrets are destructive forces. Keep pushing for honesty with yourself and judicious honesty with others. When we are open, we find that much of what we were ashamed of isn't nearly as powerful as we thought.
9) Listen and pay attention to older people. In our culture, which so values youth, we are missing out on much more interesting people.
10) In the scope of creation, we are little and there is much that is mysterious. There is almost always a choice- choose love and compassion.
That's it for the week. I hope you have a good one.
1) Don't make decisions out of fear. I've never made a good decision primarily motivated by fear and I haven't observed this to work for others, either.
2) No matter what people say, they usually DO what they want. If you're confused by someone, pay attention to their actions, not their words.
3) You can't make someone else change. You can change your reaction to that person.
4) Most people are doing their best most of the time.
5) It's not about me. In both good and bad, we tend to take overly much credit or overly much guilt/shame. We benefit from putting ourselves in a more realistic perspective.
6) It is important to be careful with our words. We probably heard this from someone when we were kids - think before you speak.
7) Try to find a vocation you like. We spend a lot of time working, so it's better to like what you do. Encourage your kids to study what they enjoy and find a way to make a vocation of it.
8) Shame and secrets are destructive forces. Keep pushing for honesty with yourself and judicious honesty with others. When we are open, we find that much of what we were ashamed of isn't nearly as powerful as we thought.
9) Listen and pay attention to older people. In our culture, which so values youth, we are missing out on much more interesting people.
10) In the scope of creation, we are little and there is much that is mysterious. There is almost always a choice- choose love and compassion.
That's it for the week. I hope you have a good one.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
can justice ever look like forgiveness?
Last month was National Poetry Month, and my mind was preoccupied with a talk I gave on April 30 for the Greater St. Louis Hospice Organization's Volunteer Symposium on the Poetry of Hospice. I tried to blog about the process of putting this talk together, but instead of focusing me on what I wanted to say, I felt overwhelmed. So, that's one of the main reasons I wasn't keeping up with the blog. If you'd like more information on volunteering with any hospice, you could check out http://www.gslho.org/ or any local hospice group.
Now. Thinking about Osama bin Laden's death. I wrote the beginning of what I think is a poem last night: I stumbled on forgiveness like a gift I didn't want. Here is what confuses me: is it important to delineate between small scale hate, like bullying and large scale hate, like what has been perpetrated by Osama bin Laden? I can forgive on the small scale. In fact, in my own life, I have forgiven a number of transgressions. Sometimes I've talked to the person who I felt wronged me, sometimes, the forgiveness was something internal. Sometimes, I didn't even want to forgive - I even enjoyed holding onto my anger like a little souvenir from being wronged and it gave me a 'superiority' to know that I had been wronged. But. Over time, holding onto that anger was a waste of my energy. The anger dissipated. I realized that most people in our own little lives are not trying to, are not purposefully hurting us. They are just living their lives. Most people hurt us in ignorance, or out of the inability to get out of their own point of view, but they are not usually hurting us out of maliciousness. What's the point in holding onto that anger or rage?
But hate, evil, transgressions on a large scale...can that be forgiven? Should it be forgiven? If it is forgiven where is the justice? I had several hospice patients who were Holocaust survivors. Certainly, all their lives were shaped by that unimaginable experience. But they each had a unique attitude toward it: one man told me he "didn't go in for all this forgiveness business." One woman said there was nothing special about her survival, only pure luck. One woman espoused New Age philosphy/spirituality. I think about Elie Wiesel and the great good he brings to the world through his memory and testament to the Jewish people, persecuted people everywhere and any person in despair. Reading him, I am struck not by his damning of those who caused his suffering, but his commitment to and love of his fellow man.
I don't know the answers here. I am challenged. I know that forgiveness has been a good, freeing part of my own little life. I think I am able to see more objectively how others interact w/ me and my influence on others. I feel a greater compassion and my own world is a less threatening place.
On the global scale, it seems clear that some do have malicious intent toward us. What is the ethically/morally correct response to this? It is my gut feeling that more death and killing is not the best response, but if not that, then what?
It's very unsatisfying, but I don't have a way to wrap this up. I would just like to raise the question(s) and continue to be a voice that is not afraid of not knowing. A voice, that I hope without naivete or ignorance, can ponder words, ideas and feelings like Love and Forgiveness.
Now. Thinking about Osama bin Laden's death. I wrote the beginning of what I think is a poem last night: I stumbled on forgiveness like a gift I didn't want. Here is what confuses me: is it important to delineate between small scale hate, like bullying and large scale hate, like what has been perpetrated by Osama bin Laden? I can forgive on the small scale. In fact, in my own life, I have forgiven a number of transgressions. Sometimes I've talked to the person who I felt wronged me, sometimes, the forgiveness was something internal. Sometimes, I didn't even want to forgive - I even enjoyed holding onto my anger like a little souvenir from being wronged and it gave me a 'superiority' to know that I had been wronged. But. Over time, holding onto that anger was a waste of my energy. The anger dissipated. I realized that most people in our own little lives are not trying to, are not purposefully hurting us. They are just living their lives. Most people hurt us in ignorance, or out of the inability to get out of their own point of view, but they are not usually hurting us out of maliciousness. What's the point in holding onto that anger or rage?
But hate, evil, transgressions on a large scale...can that be forgiven? Should it be forgiven? If it is forgiven where is the justice? I had several hospice patients who were Holocaust survivors. Certainly, all their lives were shaped by that unimaginable experience. But they each had a unique attitude toward it: one man told me he "didn't go in for all this forgiveness business." One woman said there was nothing special about her survival, only pure luck. One woman espoused New Age philosphy/spirituality. I think about Elie Wiesel and the great good he brings to the world through his memory and testament to the Jewish people, persecuted people everywhere and any person in despair. Reading him, I am struck not by his damning of those who caused his suffering, but his commitment to and love of his fellow man.
I don't know the answers here. I am challenged. I know that forgiveness has been a good, freeing part of my own little life. I think I am able to see more objectively how others interact w/ me and my influence on others. I feel a greater compassion and my own world is a less threatening place.
On the global scale, it seems clear that some do have malicious intent toward us. What is the ethically/morally correct response to this? It is my gut feeling that more death and killing is not the best response, but if not that, then what?
It's very unsatisfying, but I don't have a way to wrap this up. I would just like to raise the question(s) and continue to be a voice that is not afraid of not knowing. A voice, that I hope without naivete or ignorance, can ponder words, ideas and feelings like Love and Forgiveness.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
where am I/Happy Easter
Hi everyone - as you may have noticed, I'm taking a few weeks off. Little time to write right now, but I'll be back in May.
Thanks for hanging in there with me. Happy Easter!
Thanks for hanging in there with me. Happy Easter!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
finding a therapist, doctor, etc. - the je nais sais quoi factor
I recently heard a story on NPR about the admissions process for elite colleges like Amherst. I have to admit that the process of sitting around a table and picking apart the resumes of stellar students sounded excruciating and, in the end the folks on the admissions panel seemed to indicate that it all comes down to the "je nais sais quoi" factor. Not to dumb down the blog, but I am the same woman who thought "Voila!" was pronounce "Viola" until age 30. So, for anyone who might not know, "je nais sais quoi" is roughly translated to: "I don't know". The implication being that there is some intangible quality to the person - in the case of getting in to Amherst, a positive, intangible quality.
There have been a couple other instances that have come up in my life recently, which have made me think about the influence of the je nais sais quoi factor. I just had the privilege of being with someone I care about during an important doctor's appointment. In many research hospitals, resident doctors often precede the 'real' doctor in consulting with the patient, and this was the case that I witnessed. The resident and the presiding doctor had very different bedside manners. One was high energy, fast-talking, and used some humor. The other was quiet, slow-speaking and rather introspective. The person I was with and I walked away with totally different impressions on which doctor we preferred. For each of us, there was the je nais sais quoi factor, but what informed that was as unique as we are from one another.
I've also been asked recently to assist several folks with connecting with therapists (other than myself). People ask me - what should I look for? how will I know if it's a good therapist? Yikes!!! So, for whatever it's worth, I'll mention a couple ideas and resources: in this information age, it's pretty easy to find out some preliminary information about therapists in your area. I belong to an organization called Psychotherapy St. Louis (http://www.psychotherapystlouis.com/) You can search that website for many different characteristics of a therapist, gender, location, office hours, specialties. You can see the therapists' picture even, or link to their own website if they have one. There's also http://www.find-a-therapist.com/ Again, you can search for area of town, degree held, etc. There are many more resources like these. So, that covers the tangible qualities. If you have been to a therapist, or been on a search for the 'right' therapist, you will also know that it also comes down to the je nais sais quoi factor.
When my folks got divorced when I was in my early 20s, I found it helpful to go to a therapist myself. I actually went to two therapists. Both very nice ladies. The second one was a better fit for me. If I had to define it, I would say that she used more humor and that she was a little more challenging of me. Even 15 years later, I'd say there was also an intangible quality to what made my second therapist feel more helpful and I realize that (just like the doctor's appt I mentioned earlier) a different person might not have found my therapist nearly as supportive and helpful as I did.
So, whether you're looking for a therapist, a doctor or whatever - I think it's okay to think like a consumer. You're paying for it - whether with money or time and it's human nature to be more invested in the process of working on physical and mental health, when you have a feeling of trust and acceptance - a general liking of the person you are looking to to provide some direction.
There have been a couple other instances that have come up in my life recently, which have made me think about the influence of the je nais sais quoi factor. I just had the privilege of being with someone I care about during an important doctor's appointment. In many research hospitals, resident doctors often precede the 'real' doctor in consulting with the patient, and this was the case that I witnessed. The resident and the presiding doctor had very different bedside manners. One was high energy, fast-talking, and used some humor. The other was quiet, slow-speaking and rather introspective. The person I was with and I walked away with totally different impressions on which doctor we preferred. For each of us, there was the je nais sais quoi factor, but what informed that was as unique as we are from one another.
I've also been asked recently to assist several folks with connecting with therapists (other than myself). People ask me - what should I look for? how will I know if it's a good therapist? Yikes!!! So, for whatever it's worth, I'll mention a couple ideas and resources: in this information age, it's pretty easy to find out some preliminary information about therapists in your area. I belong to an organization called Psychotherapy St. Louis (http://www.psychotherapystlouis.com/) You can search that website for many different characteristics of a therapist, gender, location, office hours, specialties. You can see the therapists' picture even, or link to their own website if they have one. There's also http://www.find-a-therapist.com/ Again, you can search for area of town, degree held, etc. There are many more resources like these. So, that covers the tangible qualities. If you have been to a therapist, or been on a search for the 'right' therapist, you will also know that it also comes down to the je nais sais quoi factor.
When my folks got divorced when I was in my early 20s, I found it helpful to go to a therapist myself. I actually went to two therapists. Both very nice ladies. The second one was a better fit for me. If I had to define it, I would say that she used more humor and that she was a little more challenging of me. Even 15 years later, I'd say there was also an intangible quality to what made my second therapist feel more helpful and I realize that (just like the doctor's appt I mentioned earlier) a different person might not have found my therapist nearly as supportive and helpful as I did.
So, whether you're looking for a therapist, a doctor or whatever - I think it's okay to think like a consumer. You're paying for it - whether with money or time and it's human nature to be more invested in the process of working on physical and mental health, when you have a feeling of trust and acceptance - a general liking of the person you are looking to to provide some direction.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
some ideas about our inner adolescent
I've been handing out an article from last month's Shambhala Sun, by Thic Nhat Hanh, How to Heal the Wounded Child Within Us. It's a great article and I hope you don't think I'm too weird when I say - I love that Thic Nhat Hanh and wish I could give him a hug every time I read something he's written.
Though sometimes the words "inner child" make me giggle in a sophomoric, sitting in the back of the class way, I have come to believe there is really something important for many adults in trying to be kind and gentle with themselves in a way that a good parent would be kind and gentle with a child.
But this blogpost isn't about the Inner Child. It's about the sophomoric, sitting in the back of the class voice that I (so originally) call the Inner Adolescent. If the primary developmental task of adolescence is to create a stable identity, the Inner Adolescent is the part of us that gets triggered out of our adult identity. It is a poseur identity that looks strong on the outside, but the inside is insecure. When we act or talk from our Inner Adolescent we act and talk in ways that aren't necessarily congruent with what we say we believe and how we want to act in the world.
Though I have been known to indulge in watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a great part of the 'pleasure' in it is seeing grown women behave like catty, backstabbing teens. The part of us that gossips about others (even if we justify to ourselves that we're not gossiping), the part of us that makes quick judgments on the behavior of others, the part of us that is righteously indignant for reasons that can be as personal as someone not inviting our child to a birthday party or as impersonal as an editorial in the New York Times - this is our Inner Adolescent. Even watching the stinking Real Housewives is a way of 'taking care' of my own Inner Adolescent.
I'm going to posit that, like the Inner Child, we need to take care of our Inner Adolescent and not just try to squash her down without paying attention to what she (or he) is trying to tell us. (This doesn't mean we should consistently act from her/his gut instinct.)
Why do we have an impulse to gossip, to judge, to rage?
The answer may be different for everyone, but I think it's worth looking at places in us where our identity feels unstable, people we may spend time with who trigger old feelings of wanting to be liked or at least measure up.
When I think about my teen years, I remember worrying so much about my hair. It needed to be big, very big. Having a "bad hair" day could effect my mood (I'm even laughing as I write it). I remember finally realizing that all the other girls were so worried about their own hair that they really weren't paying attention to mine.
So, I go forth today, feeling good about my hair (grays and all) and grateful for the things I continue to learn from my Inner Adolescent, that wide-eyed good girl with the secret urge to do something rebellious, like be a poet.
Though sometimes the words "inner child" make me giggle in a sophomoric, sitting in the back of the class way, I have come to believe there is really something important for many adults in trying to be kind and gentle with themselves in a way that a good parent would be kind and gentle with a child.
But this blogpost isn't about the Inner Child. It's about the sophomoric, sitting in the back of the class voice that I (so originally) call the Inner Adolescent. If the primary developmental task of adolescence is to create a stable identity, the Inner Adolescent is the part of us that gets triggered out of our adult identity. It is a poseur identity that looks strong on the outside, but the inside is insecure. When we act or talk from our Inner Adolescent we act and talk in ways that aren't necessarily congruent with what we say we believe and how we want to act in the world.
Though I have been known to indulge in watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a great part of the 'pleasure' in it is seeing grown women behave like catty, backstabbing teens. The part of us that gossips about others (even if we justify to ourselves that we're not gossiping), the part of us that makes quick judgments on the behavior of others, the part of us that is righteously indignant for reasons that can be as personal as someone not inviting our child to a birthday party or as impersonal as an editorial in the New York Times - this is our Inner Adolescent. Even watching the stinking Real Housewives is a way of 'taking care' of my own Inner Adolescent.
I'm going to posit that, like the Inner Child, we need to take care of our Inner Adolescent and not just try to squash her down without paying attention to what she (or he) is trying to tell us. (This doesn't mean we should consistently act from her/his gut instinct.)
Why do we have an impulse to gossip, to judge, to rage?
The answer may be different for everyone, but I think it's worth looking at places in us where our identity feels unstable, people we may spend time with who trigger old feelings of wanting to be liked or at least measure up.
When I think about my teen years, I remember worrying so much about my hair. It needed to be big, very big. Having a "bad hair" day could effect my mood (I'm even laughing as I write it). I remember finally realizing that all the other girls were so worried about their own hair that they really weren't paying attention to mine.
So, I go forth today, feeling good about my hair (grays and all) and grateful for the things I continue to learn from my Inner Adolescent, that wide-eyed good girl with the secret urge to do something rebellious, like be a poet.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
anxious? what to do/not do
In the past month or so, my son taught himself to play chess, which I thought was really cool since I've said for about 20 years, 'I should really learn how to play chess,' but I've never done it. So, he dug up a chess board from the basement, read some directions from the Dangerous Book for Boys and now we have a new pasttime in the family (I've since learned how to play, too). We found out about a great place in St. Louis, The St. Louis Chess Club, http://www.stlouischessclub.org/ and told him we'd take him. On the afternoon we were supposed to visit for the first time, he threw his dessert from lunch in the trash - unheard of! 'What's the matter?' I asked. 'I'm too anxious to eat it.' he said. 'Anxious?' I asked - his seven year old self using the word anxious made me anxious. 'Mom, there are three types of anxious - nervous, excited and worried. I'm excited.' Yeah, of course.
It's true what he said. I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. As I observe it, the older we get, the less anxiety we have that feels 'excited.' We tend to lump it in with worried and nervous and it can grow to low level panic.
So, here are some thoughts about anxiety and coping: In my life and in my work I observe there are a couple ways people tend to cope with anxiety - 1) overfunction, 2) underfunction. I am a classic overfunctioner. Just at the moment I am feeling overwhelmed by things like raising small children, running my own business, taking care of a sick relative, and serving in some kind of church leadership role (you can tell this is just a made up scenario, right?!), that's when I decide is the best moment to finally put a poetry manuscript together. That's so sensible. I have admiration for people who are underfunctioners, though this gets them in trouble too (I hear) - when life places too many demands, they get caught up in a CSI marathon or realize that they really NEED 10 hours of sleep a night. Obviously, many people are some combination - overfunction in their home life, for example ('the entire house must be clean RIGHT NOW!!!) and underfunction in their work life, etc.
I've become a big advocate of trying something different or even the opposite of what you'd normally do. No matter how 'anxious' it makes you. If you are feeling anxious and have the urge to sign up for a new spinning class, maybe make a deal with yourself to hold off on that urge for a week. Try sitting down and reading a book. If you are overwhelmed and feel like you just need to come home and take a nap after work, call a friend to go on a walk instead. It will feel very weird at first to do or not do something different than usual, but I think it's worth it.
On a note not totally unrelated to anxiety, but also I more founded in reality and compassion, I want to acknowledge that many of us are thinking of the people of Japan and, whether we are consider ourselves religious/spiritual or not, we are holding them in our thoughts, hoping for the courage and wisdom of our leaders to help guide the efforts to alleviate suffering there.
It's true what he said. I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. As I observe it, the older we get, the less anxiety we have that feels 'excited.' We tend to lump it in with worried and nervous and it can grow to low level panic.
So, here are some thoughts about anxiety and coping: In my life and in my work I observe there are a couple ways people tend to cope with anxiety - 1) overfunction, 2) underfunction. I am a classic overfunctioner. Just at the moment I am feeling overwhelmed by things like raising small children, running my own business, taking care of a sick relative, and serving in some kind of church leadership role (you can tell this is just a made up scenario, right?!), that's when I decide is the best moment to finally put a poetry manuscript together. That's so sensible. I have admiration for people who are underfunctioners, though this gets them in trouble too (I hear) - when life places too many demands, they get caught up in a CSI marathon or realize that they really NEED 10 hours of sleep a night. Obviously, many people are some combination - overfunction in their home life, for example ('the entire house must be clean RIGHT NOW!!!) and underfunction in their work life, etc.
I've become a big advocate of trying something different or even the opposite of what you'd normally do. No matter how 'anxious' it makes you. If you are feeling anxious and have the urge to sign up for a new spinning class, maybe make a deal with yourself to hold off on that urge for a week. Try sitting down and reading a book. If you are overwhelmed and feel like you just need to come home and take a nap after work, call a friend to go on a walk instead. It will feel very weird at first to do or not do something different than usual, but I think it's worth it.
On a note not totally unrelated to anxiety, but also I more founded in reality and compassion, I want to acknowledge that many of us are thinking of the people of Japan and, whether we are consider ourselves religious/spiritual or not, we are holding them in our thoughts, hoping for the courage and wisdom of our leaders to help guide the efforts to alleviate suffering there.
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