1) Have you ever ignored someone not returned a call or email from a friend in a timely way, even though you wanted to?
2) Have you ever snapped at someone in irritability when you were really frustrated about something else?
3) Have you ever posted a picture of you and a couple friends on facebook?
4) Have you ever had your feelings hurt because someone didn't return your call, invite you to do something, or otherwise maintain a connection with you, even when you felt it was 'their turn' to do so?
5) Have you ever been convinced that your boss, your spouse, or your friend was being mad at you, but you just couldn't figure out why?
6) Have you ever gotten your nose out of joint because you saw pictures of friends together on facebook and their social gathering didn't include you?
I bet 99% of people would answer yes to any of the above questions. Many of us feel left out, injured, or hurt because we take other people's actions personally. This, despite the fact that we have been on the other end of things - been the ones to disappoint people ourselves.
One of the greatest errors in thinking we make is assuming that others are thinking of us. One of the greatest freedoms we can give ourselves is to realize that most people aren't thinking about us - their thinking about themselves and their own lives.
Very few people want to hurt our feelings on purpose. Hurting our feelings is a by-product of our assumption that people should treat us in a certain way.
This brings to my mind some that I've read about Adam Phillip's new book, "Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life" (I haven't read it, so I guess this is in praise of the Unread Book). He is a British psychoanalytic writer and the book was reviewed in last week's New Yorker. Phillips says that we always assume that the life we could've had would have been better - if our parent's would have been better, if we would have married our first love, if we would have chosen to be a pilot instead of a banker - that somehow our imagined lives always seem like they'd be better to us. He says this is a false assumption - how do we KNOW that it would have been better? Maybe we should accept and love the life we got.
Here's an excerpt from Joan Acocella's New Yorker piece, "Phillips was lured into psychoanalysis by the writings of D.W. Winnitcott [whose] main contribution to psychoanalytic thought is the idea of the good-enough mother, the mother who sometimes responded promptly to our needs and sometimes didn't. The beauty of this concept was that is was so widely applicable - most people had that kind of mother...I think that Phillips regards Winnicott's good-enough mother as not just good enough, but the best, because she tells us the truth: on occasion we'll get satisfaction and on occasion we won't...if we insist on getting it all the time, he asks, 'how could we ever be anything other than permanently enraged?'"
The Good-Enough Mother or Father or Friend or Co-Worker isn't trying to be mean, he or she just has other things going on (other children to take care of, a mother in the hospital, a wife who just lost her job, a birthday party to plan, etc. etc.)
And sometimes one of our friends or someone in our family goes through a particularly hard time and they're not there for us at all. And it does hurt our feelings. I know I have been on both ends of this scenario as well and it seems to me that this is a more serious thing, and probably a topic for a different post.
So in the day to day, I imagine what our lives would be like if we assumed that people like us and love us. What if we believed that the people in our life genuinely like us and care about us - how would we interact with the world differently? How much less anxiety or anger would we harbor? All those people in our life are not perfect in their attentiveness to us, but what if that were good enough?
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
New Year's parenting resolutions - a February update
This past year, late December. My husband and I are driving the kids to one of the myriad of holiday activities the week of Christmas. Usually the kids beg to listen to one of the pop stations and we relent, despite the fact that I always hear about accomplished musicians and artists who fondly recall their parents who made them listen to GOOD music when they were kids and the kids love it and turn out to be bohemian and interesting and creative and make beautiful contributions to the world but now my kids are listening to Taylor Swift and they'll probably never do beautiful things and it's all my fault...oh, am I rambling? Ok, that's another blog.
Anyway, on this occasion the parents (my husband and I) are 'winning' and we are all listening to NPR. The story http://www.npr.org/2012/12/24/167977418/the-power-to-trade-naughty-habits-for-nice-ones is about Changing Habits and is mostly an interview with Charles Duhigg, who's book The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business, was published last year. We're all pretty into the interview and the call-in portion of the show, when we are particularly riveted by a man who calls in and says, "I was addicted to anger. I didn't realize it until a therapist suggested I take a 30 day challenge to not react in anger. I took that challenge and it changed my life."
I'm going to do that, I say to my family. As a mom, I have a very long fuse. When I get to the end of my fuse, I am at the end. I am a yeller. I never like when I yell. I don't like it because I don't feel good about my parenting in those moments, even if the yelling is merited. I've written about this before a little here - I think it's confusing for my kids because I'm nurturing nurturing nurturing and then all of a sudden, it's like, "Where did this crazy lady with the veins popping out of her neck come from?!?!" I am not addicted to anger, but I certainly think yelling is a habit of mine.
So, I tell the kids. I'm not going to react in anger with you guys for 30 days. The reason for this is that it is HABIT CHANGING. According to the book, which I am now reading, most of our behaviors are not decisions, but are habits. Habits are often created because there is a perceived reward, i.e. I yell and my kids (supposedly) settle down and behave. I put the keys in the ignition of my car and shift into drive because the reward is that my car will go. For some people it's chocolate, for some people it's a cigarettes, for some people it's calling their ex-girlfriend when they know they shouldn't - it's a habit with a perceived reward - the perceived reward is that I feel temporarily better, even if in the long run I feel worse.
Ok, so how did I do? I did it! I did not yell at my kids for 30 days. One day, my youngest walked in on me, hands clasped at my chest and eyes to the heavens. "What are you doing, Mom?" she asked. "I am praying for patience." I said. I had to pray for patience many times. Since my 30 days, I have yelled twice. So, this month, I am averaging a one yell a week. I am still working on this change of habit, but I will tell you a couple things I noticed. My kids were into it! One was doubtful of my ability to follow through and one was encouraging the whole way, but they were into it. I also think they took it seriously when they misbehaved and I was redirecting them. They took it more seriously than when I yell. Kids are so attuned to what is fair and just, I sometimes wonder if when we yell, we lose the justice upper hand. In general, I think my reward is that when I don't yell, I live a life that has more integrity - I am practicing what I preach, not just out there in the world as a therapist, but practicing it in the nitty gritty of my everyday life. I say I believe in and want to help make a more peaceful world. This is where it starts.
So, maybe you have a 30 day challenge you'd like to give yourself. Tell someone else about it so they can help you be accountable. Check out the book The Power of Habit if you want - it's good and science-y, if you like that kind of thing. And then take the challenge. It's just 30 days. Who knows what might happen?
Anyway, on this occasion the parents (my husband and I) are 'winning' and we are all listening to NPR. The story http://www.npr.org/2012/12/24/167977418/the-power-to-trade-naughty-habits-for-nice-ones is about Changing Habits and is mostly an interview with Charles Duhigg, who's book The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business, was published last year. We're all pretty into the interview and the call-in portion of the show, when we are particularly riveted by a man who calls in and says, "I was addicted to anger. I didn't realize it until a therapist suggested I take a 30 day challenge to not react in anger. I took that challenge and it changed my life."
I'm going to do that, I say to my family. As a mom, I have a very long fuse. When I get to the end of my fuse, I am at the end. I am a yeller. I never like when I yell. I don't like it because I don't feel good about my parenting in those moments, even if the yelling is merited. I've written about this before a little here - I think it's confusing for my kids because I'm nurturing nurturing nurturing and then all of a sudden, it's like, "Where did this crazy lady with the veins popping out of her neck come from?!?!" I am not addicted to anger, but I certainly think yelling is a habit of mine.
So, I tell the kids. I'm not going to react in anger with you guys for 30 days. The reason for this is that it is HABIT CHANGING. According to the book, which I am now reading, most of our behaviors are not decisions, but are habits. Habits are often created because there is a perceived reward, i.e. I yell and my kids (supposedly) settle down and behave. I put the keys in the ignition of my car and shift into drive because the reward is that my car will go. For some people it's chocolate, for some people it's a cigarettes, for some people it's calling their ex-girlfriend when they know they shouldn't - it's a habit with a perceived reward - the perceived reward is that I feel temporarily better, even if in the long run I feel worse.
Ok, so how did I do? I did it! I did not yell at my kids for 30 days. One day, my youngest walked in on me, hands clasped at my chest and eyes to the heavens. "What are you doing, Mom?" she asked. "I am praying for patience." I said. I had to pray for patience many times. Since my 30 days, I have yelled twice. So, this month, I am averaging a one yell a week. I am still working on this change of habit, but I will tell you a couple things I noticed. My kids were into it! One was doubtful of my ability to follow through and one was encouraging the whole way, but they were into it. I also think they took it seriously when they misbehaved and I was redirecting them. They took it more seriously than when I yell. Kids are so attuned to what is fair and just, I sometimes wonder if when we yell, we lose the justice upper hand. In general, I think my reward is that when I don't yell, I live a life that has more integrity - I am practicing what I preach, not just out there in the world as a therapist, but practicing it in the nitty gritty of my everyday life. I say I believe in and want to help make a more peaceful world. This is where it starts.
So, maybe you have a 30 day challenge you'd like to give yourself. Tell someone else about it so they can help you be accountable. Check out the book The Power of Habit if you want - it's good and science-y, if you like that kind of thing. And then take the challenge. It's just 30 days. Who knows what might happen?
Sunday, February 3, 2013
can we prove heaven and why do we want to?
It is 2004 and I am relatively early in my work as a hospice social worker. I have one young child - about a year old. One of my patients is also a mother. She is 43 and a Bosnian Muslim refugee. She is dying of cancer and being taken care of by her two teenage kids and whatever neighbors from the Bosnian community could help out. She is divorced. In Bosnia, she'd been a teacher, but in the U.S., she's not been able to get a job above minimum wage. The family is poor. Though her English is spotty, her oldest daughter helps translate.
Despite the language barrier, my patient and I connect over being mothers. She asks to see a picture of my son (which, I happen to carry with me - this is before iphones). She holds the picture, gazes at it and much to my surprise, she kisses my son's face in the picture! It's such a sweet and tender gesture. The kind of thing mothers everywhere can understand, as if every little child were your little child and you could love every single one of them with your whole self.
On another occasion, she asks her daughter to fetch her her orange sweatshirt. She hands it to me and speaks, but not in English. Her daughter translates: "She wants you to have it. She thinks the color will look pretty on you." "No, I can't take that," I say. She insists. I see that it will be an insult to her if I don't accept, so I do, and I thank her. As the daughter walks me to the door that day, I hand the sweatshirt back to her - "I am so honored, but I just can't take this." They have so little in the way of possessions. I feel I could never be worthy enough of this gift she has given me.
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I recently finished Proof of Heaven, by Dr. Even Alexander, a neurosurgeon who writes of his transformation from agnostic scientist into an advocate and educator about life after death because of his personal 'death' and resurrection after a massive brain infection. It's a very popular book right now, probably because it is not the 'typical' near death experience that focuses specifically on Jesus or Christianity, but represents an afterlife that is characterized by spirits and Loving Presence that don't represent one religion in particular.
As a grief therapist, I listen daily to the stories of the mysteries of life and death. Do I think that many of our human anxieties and ills are rooted in grief and/or anxiety about our fears of our own death or not being able to touch and hold people we love who have died? Absolutely.
The more time goes on, the more I am convinced that we are asking ourselves the wrong question. I don't think the helpful question is, "Is there life after death?" Or even, "is there proof of a loving God?"
The lady I described above gave me little glimpses of what I would call 'Holy'. There is Goodness, Generosity, Abundance, and Love even in the midst of sorrow and tragedy. It is yours not only to receive, but to give to others. When you look for ways to give and receive these gifts, you may find, as I have found, that while there is a lot of the universe I don't understand, I can name this giving and receiving Heaven or God or Love or Beauty or not. It's not the naming, but the experiencing and that's all the proof of anything that I need.
Despite the language barrier, my patient and I connect over being mothers. She asks to see a picture of my son (which, I happen to carry with me - this is before iphones). She holds the picture, gazes at it and much to my surprise, she kisses my son's face in the picture! It's such a sweet and tender gesture. The kind of thing mothers everywhere can understand, as if every little child were your little child and you could love every single one of them with your whole self.
On another occasion, she asks her daughter to fetch her her orange sweatshirt. She hands it to me and speaks, but not in English. Her daughter translates: "She wants you to have it. She thinks the color will look pretty on you." "No, I can't take that," I say. She insists. I see that it will be an insult to her if I don't accept, so I do, and I thank her. As the daughter walks me to the door that day, I hand the sweatshirt back to her - "I am so honored, but I just can't take this." They have so little in the way of possessions. I feel I could never be worthy enough of this gift she has given me.
#####
I recently finished Proof of Heaven, by Dr. Even Alexander, a neurosurgeon who writes of his transformation from agnostic scientist into an advocate and educator about life after death because of his personal 'death' and resurrection after a massive brain infection. It's a very popular book right now, probably because it is not the 'typical' near death experience that focuses specifically on Jesus or Christianity, but represents an afterlife that is characterized by spirits and Loving Presence that don't represent one religion in particular.
As a grief therapist, I listen daily to the stories of the mysteries of life and death. Do I think that many of our human anxieties and ills are rooted in grief and/or anxiety about our fears of our own death or not being able to touch and hold people we love who have died? Absolutely.
The more time goes on, the more I am convinced that we are asking ourselves the wrong question. I don't think the helpful question is, "Is there life after death?" Or even, "is there proof of a loving God?"
The lady I described above gave me little glimpses of what I would call 'Holy'. There is Goodness, Generosity, Abundance, and Love even in the midst of sorrow and tragedy. It is yours not only to receive, but to give to others. When you look for ways to give and receive these gifts, you may find, as I have found, that while there is a lot of the universe I don't understand, I can name this giving and receiving Heaven or God or Love or Beauty or not. It's not the naming, but the experiencing and that's all the proof of anything that I need.
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