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.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
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.
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