· · · · · · · · · · · · ·

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com

Posted on:

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com

Over the last several years, I have been given a wonderful opportunity: I’ve been repeatedly attacked by someone in my life, through litigation, character assassination, poison emails, contemptuous letters, and screaming episodes that occur both in public and on the phone.
It has been unpleasant. Often sad. Certain therapists, who are infected with the false notion that “It takes two to tango,” eg, two parties necessarily participate equally in high conflict situations, refuse to see that it is happening. This is one of the problems with current psychotherapy. Fortunately, a few therapists are starting to see beyond those kinds of cheap, untrue platitudes.
So I know for a fact that, in a conflict, if one person wants to fight, the other person’s best efforts at conciliation may fail. Because despite years of my returning kindness for blame and excoriation, the persons involved in this situation are not amenable to any kind of peace. Some people are committed to their own malice, hate, and vengefulness.
The opportunity here, despite the profound discomfort, is to reaffirm my self-worth internally. It’s for me to see myself as worthy of love and connection in the face of someone desperately wanting me to feel unworthy. To do this, I have had to come to some awakenings. One is that other people’s feelings and actions have absolutely nothing to do with me. They do what they do because that’s who they are. Someone who acts with constant nastiness and negativity has that internally with which to act. It’s no reflection of me.
Another awakening is something beautifully articulated in the video above: “Blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort.” I never articulated it to myself this way, but I had a sense of it. I came to this understanding, which correlates with the first one, by way of realizing that if even five percent of what these people say about me were true, I would be Adolph Hitler or Genghis Khan. I simply am not.
But they really, really want me to feel bad.
And that is about them, not about me.
So it has been a gift. And it is a gift that has led me deeper into my heart. Because it makes me feel vulnerable, to be so constantly attacked. And in that vulnerability, I have come to recommit to my own courage, to offer myself compassion, and to tell my story with my whole heart. I affirm my imperfections. I love with all that I am despite the lack of guarantees–though, to be sure, this is for me a daily practice, not a fixed endpoint. Another practice I cultivate is one of gratitude.
So I recommend the TED.com video posted above: it’s a shortcut to the learning that I came to via unpleasantness. And it’s great fun! May all who read this blog know their own self-worth, and find in their hearts both their frailty and their lovableness.
Hereafter: Compelling, heartwarming
· · · ·

Hereafter: Compelling, heartwarming

Posted on:

At some point, during the birth of my last child, I passed.

My now 5 year old munchkin’s head was too big for my pelvis, something my doctor and I only reluctantly concluded after a long span of fruitless pushing. I’d delivered two babies properly, after all. We were confident I’d be able to do it again.

It was supposed to be a 1 hour c-section. It turned into a whole night affair. After my daughter was pulled out, the doctors brusquely hustled her and my husband out of the operating room. I don’t remember much after that. I woke up once when I wasn’t supposed to, asked a question, and watched a group of doctors jump, startled. In retrospect, that was funny.

I was told that there was a lot of bleeding that couldn’t be stopped. A surgical team was called in, not once, but twice. I was given a transfusion. Later, a few times, I asked my doctor what really happened. All she would say is, “There was more blood than I’d ever seen before.”
How do you know when a medical procedure has gone terribly wrong? When doctors clam up with a sick expression on their faces. They don’t want to say a word because they fear litigation. I wouldn’t have sued. I had a healthy baby. I like and trust this doctor, she delivered my older girls, too.
On some level, I know what happened, and not because a team of surgeons showed up the next morning, demanding to operate because they’d never found the bleeder. I refused. I intended to nurse my infant. Another operation jeopardized that. They got pushy and I pushed back, and we called in my OBS, who brokered a deal: if my blood pressure didn’t drop over the next several hours, there’d be no operation.
My blood pressure remained stable, as I’d known it would. During the worst part of the previous night, when the doctors wouldn’t tell my husband what was going on and then he suddenly felt my absence, he phoned my healer friend Thomas. “I need your help,” Sabin said. “I don’t want to raise this baby by myself.” Thomas called Gerda, she called someone, and a healing circle was set up. And not just any healing circle: my friends are powerful, long time healers–healers of healers. And I was lucky they were.
Before the circle worked its magic–and the surgeons and transfusion worked theirs–I experienced something. I haven’t spoken of it much because it wasn’t the classic tunnel-and-white-light experience that gets a lot of airtime. Also because I didn’t know what to say about it. Even I, who have spent serious time and effort researching the far bounds of mysticism and consciousness, I didn’t know what to say about it. Also because it was a deep thing. It’s hard to discuss.
But my experience is clearly alluded to in Clint Eastwood’s new movie HEREAFTER. I listened with shock and relief as the Swiss doctor described exactly what I experienced. It was an electrifying and humbling moment.
But I wouldn’t have needed the personal validation to enjoy the movie. HEREAFTER is poignant, sweet, intense. Three people deal with death and the afterlife in ways that are somber, human, and deeply affecting. There are some funny moments; the boy Marcus’ journey to make contact with his dead twin has some painful comedy to it. There’s a rumor about Matt Damon and an Oscar run. I think he deserves it. His reluctant psychic is pitch perfect. The French journalist Marie is extremely appealing, and the French language scenes work exactly right.
I liked the brief mention that researchers into the afterlife face pressure and even censorship by religious groups. That rings true to me. What I experienced the night my daughter was born–and what I’ve experienced in altered states during meditation–has nothing to do with any religion. I mean, I don’t mind religion, mostly, except when one religion is persecuting another. I just think that Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. have almost nothing to do with the life and existence of the soul. They’re just taxonomy seeking expression.
The screenplay feels classically screenplay-ish, by which I mean that it’s well structured, follows all the rules, and will be analyzed to death by screenwriting classes. But that’s not a bad thing. I like structure. When it works, it gives a story its power. The interweaving of these three arcs, and the redemption that the three protagonists experience because they come together, is cathartic, transformative. I was deeply moved. Everyone in the audience seemed to be, also. Perhaps my husband Sabin said it best, when we walked out: “At last, a Hollywood movie that’s not for retards.”
WALL STREET: Money never sleeps
· · · ·

WALL STREET: Money never sleeps

Posted on:

I liked this movie. Michael Douglas is at the top of his game: creepy, smart, likable, predictably unpredictable as slithery, unrepentant Gordon Gekko. I even like Shia LeBeouf. This current generation of 20 year olds adores him, and I sort of understand it–way more than I understand their fascination with Michael Cera.

The movie didn’t break any new ground. But it did portray the interesting tensions between the need to make money, the desire to make lots of money, the honor in work that pays enough but not lavishly, and the seduction of astronomical amounts of money, of MORE money, without end or purpose except in itself. These tensions are much in the collective consciousness right now.
One friend claims that derivatives trading is the root of the current economic wobbling. She’s a smart lady, so I tend to think carefully about what she says. “Nothing is created,” she says.
But I’m not sure it’s as simple as what is or isn’t created. Take pharmaceutical companies. They create things. They create drugs. And then they lie about their test results, test illegally on unwitting people in 3rd world countries, and go to extreme and slimy lengths to get their drugs approved by the FDA and to knock out the competition. Take the CODEX initiatives, sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.
Those initiatives are strangling Europe’s rights to buy vitamins, minerals, and supplements, initiatives which will surely sweep over the US because so many Americans are unthinking sheep who think that as long as we have a president of color, we will be okay. In fact, Obama is in bed with Monsanto–check out the way Secretary Tom Vilsack jetted around in Monsanto’s private jets. The point is: big pharma talks a good game, but what they really want is to prevent people from healing and treating themselves with vitamins. That might cut into big pharma’s profit$.
Is there any business more corrupt than big pharma? Other than big government? Americans have bought the line that “the business of America is business,” and, in so doing, they have set themselves up to be screwed. Because the government is big business, big pharma is big business, and they care more about their own agenda$ than about the welfare of human beings. The FDA, often staffed by scientists on temporary leave from their employers the pharmaceutical companies, is nothing but a shill for the chemical, pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical establishment companies.
But I digress. Back to the movie. Which is about the corruption rampant within business, even within ‘good people.’ It was a sweet notion that cold fusion might be possible and the evil empire shut it down because of that very real possibility.
I keep thinking about Martin Seligman’s work with positive psychology, and his notes on living a life of meaningful purpose, based on doing something we’re good at. But does that really mean that Susan Sarandon’s character has to give up her dream of affluence and return to nursing? Even though it’s an absolutely crucial field of work, and her character is obviously a wonderfully people-oriented soul.
Why have we as a culture given more monetary value to things like stockbroking and real estate than to nursing?
I know, I know, we can’t live without water, and diamonds cost more.
So is it human nature to devalue what we need, and to obscenely over-value what is essentially frivolous?
All questions provoked by the movie.
Eat, Pray, Love: the movie; Pray, Stay, Love: the life
· · · · · · ·

Eat, Pray, Love: the movie; Pray, Stay, Love: the life

Posted on:

My rascally and delightful middle daughter wanted some daughter-mom time, so we went together to see EAT, PRAY, LOVE. I haven’t read the book. The movie was charming, often poignant, touching enough to forgive the places where it was too facile. Julia Roberts was wonderful in the lead role. What could be more delectable than staring at creamy warm spaghetti carbonara, or more uplifting than watching a seeker wrestle honestly with the Guru Gita, or more heart-warming than watching love come to a supplicant studying with a Balinese priest?

It left me with a feeling of longing, for the quests I can not take. When Liz/Julia rented her apartment in Rome, I leaned over and whispered to my daughter, “That’s what women who aren’t mothers get to do.” Her big eyes widened: she hadn’t considered such a thing, hadn’t anticipated that I would articulate it.
So I had some envy, too. I had my oldest daughter twenty years ago, and my littlest is only 5. I will be almost 60 when she goes off to college! Here I am, with wanderlust in my soul and my passport always in my purse, just in case today I get to fly to Paris or Sydney…
Yet I have remained faithful to my commitment to be a present and caring mother. Not a perfect mother. That was never my goal. But present, loving, supportive, caring, involved: that was my goal as a mother. To be someone whom my children know they can depend on. When they’ve had mono and Swine flu and bad grades and drug issues, I’ve been there. When they need to hear a lecture about the importance of writing thank you notes or of following through on promises or of doing the right thing when their peers are operating otherwise, when they need to hear a pep-talk because the latest poor choice in guys has dumped them, when they need to hear that they are loved and valuable no matter what–I’m there. If they ever get Ebola or a divorce or need a kidney, I’ll be there, to nurse them or give them my kidney. I never had that kind of support so I made damn sure my children did. From me.
Of course, it matters little to them right now. The older ones are entangled in teenage stuff of great importance: separating, provoking, blaming, individuating. They want to assume adult prerogative without taking on the responsibility that goes along with it. They don’t want to think about the impact of their actions on the people around them. The little one is in that blissful “mommy is wonderful” stage, but she has a cussed independent streak ten kilometers wide. I’ve been around the block. I know where that will lead. They have charmed lives and don’t know it. I haven’t done everything right as a mother–why should I have to?–but I’ve been true to this commitment: to be there for them.
Which often means that I haven’t been able to be there for myself. There’s a kind of …noxious myth… toxic fantasy… of post-liberation feminism that women can have it all: sexy loving marriage, children, dynamic career, fulfilling friendships, self awareness, a full night’s sleep. How awful to scourge ourselves with this chicanery. Was this what our mothers and grandmothers intended, when they battled for us to have equal pay for equal work, and the right to choose which work we want to do?
I have made choices. Other things came second because my children come first. I have a friend who made zillions of dollars and is raising two kids; she is scornful when I say that I would have written more books if I hadn’t had children. But there are things in her life I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Let her turn her nose up.
So I’ve done what questing I can, internally. I’ve made the trips I can, abbreviated though they are. I’ve explored every possible avenue I can, under the constraints that I’ve taken on. Love is not merely a big oceanic feeling. It’s not just the deep erotic merging with a romantic soul-mate–though I enjoy both of those facets of love. Love is also the dignity of steadfastness. It’s waking up every morning to a daily grind of commitment and responsibility, and still finding something to laugh about and enjoy.
I couldn’t love a man that way, but I do love my children that way. And what I’ve learned is that I must love them that way without any expectation of gratitude or acknowledgment. Because chances are, no matter what a mother does for her children, they will not appreciate it. At least at certain stages of their lives. This is why I’ve come to revere the Bhagavad Gita: “Do the best you can and release the outcome.”
An old friend of mine periodically sends me emails… Meet me in Maine, meet me in Budapest. As if I weren’t married. As if I weren’t tempted. As if I didn’t enjoy my time with him enough to consider it rather wistfully. But it’s not even about him. If I ran off to Bali by my lonesome, would I find a hot young guy to get naked with in the water, or a soul-stirring companion like gorgeous Javier Bardem?!?
But this week, as my husband and my littlest daughter and the dog and I drove to Cape Cod, and the dog freaked out and my husband had to remove him from behind the car seat and doing so, ripped his (husband’s) fingernail completely off his finger, and so I had to drive, which became 8 hours in traffic with my daughter barfing and my husband bleeding profusely and criticizing my driving, I thought to myself, Good times. Would I trade this life for Eat, Pray, Love?
The answer was, Maybe. And then, later on, when my husband’s finger finally stopped oozing crimson goo and he kissed me and thanked me for my patience, and my sweet little one wove her arms around me and told me I was the bestest in the whole world, and we ran along the Cape Cod Bay laughing as the dog chased seagulls, and then when the aforesaid husband and daughter got into an indignant argument that tickled my appreciation for the absurd so I couldn’t stop laughing–the answer was: Maybe not.
The Power by Rhonda Byrne
· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

The Power by Rhonda Byrne

Posted on:

The Power by Rhonda Byrne

Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret and now The Power, is close to people who are close to my husband, so I had the good fortune to meet her. She was lovely, with the contained grace that I associate with people who live from a strong sense of purpose.

Byrne advised me to read The Kybalion by the Three Initiates and The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Hall. With my insatiable reading lust, I acquired the books immediately. I devoured them promptly. I’m glad I did; the old Hermetic teachings have a lot to offer. The sense of paired, complementary qualities reminded me of the Kabbalistic Sephiroth winding along the Tree of Life. I love these ancient, eternal paradigms of thought!

So, being favorably impressed with Byrne, and wanting to support her because she’s friendly with some of my husband’s favorite people, I ran out and purchased two copies of The Power. One for me, and one for my husband, who refuses to share both food and books. The first bit of territorial prerogative always surprises me. I had my oldest daughter twenty years ago and I haven’t eaten an entire plate of food by myself since 1990. Someone is always sticking a fork in and grabbing a bite. Lunch is my happy time, when I’m alone in the apartment. I can eat standing up and walking around, which I prefer, and enjoy my tuna and peanut butter sandwich in peace, with no grimy fingers trying to steal some.
But I understand why Sabin won’t share a book with me. I use them up. I ravish them. Books are comestibles and I scribble in the margins, apply post-its, and turn down corners. Once I’m done with a book, it wants to take a shower and a nap.
The Power is no exception. It’s juicy and interesting, ripe for plundering. There’s a lot here, most of it good stuff. Opening the mind and heart to love can only benefit people. Thinking in positive ways about what you want is wholesome. When you ride a horse, you have to look where you want to go, and that is subtly communicated to the animal, who then goes there. It’s the same way with your mind and your life. Your mind has to focus on what you want and love, and then the great beast of your life can trot in that direction.
In general, I like this “New Age” the Secret and positive vibrational stuff. It’s got flaws, like everything else in this marvelous, imperfect, blissful, agonizing world. Gossip claims that one of the guys from the original movie of The Secret is in jail. And there’s sometimes a lack of groundedness in these teachings; elements of fantasy creep in. “Blame the victim” arises.
My most serious qualm with this school of thought has to do with karma. As I currently understand it, Karma is a complex law with a long, long arc. I’m not so certain that it works so simply as “Do good and think nice, and because you’re sending good and nice vibrations out into the universe, good and nice will come back to you.” I think that sometimes what you did twenty-five years ago, or twenty-five centuries ago as a temple dancer in Egypt, can come back to bite you in the tushie. Sometimes we reap the fruit of a seed we planted eons ago.
Then there’s the relational dynamic. We have karma not just as individuals, but as members of our family, our generation, our country, our religion. We also have dyad karma. I am stretching the meaning of karma here to apply to the invisible field of thought and feeling, emotion and expectation and communication within which two members of a couple live. Eg, if you’re married to someone who thinks badly of you, or who is convinced that you embody a certain negative trait (which is probably their shadow anyway), it’s hard to overcome the stickiness of that. It’s easy to get trapped like a butterfly in a spider web. It can be just as toxic within a family or any other community, like a school. Structures of thought and connection arise, and they can be cages.
Still, The Power is full of truth and light. It is passionate in its desire to give to the reader and to improve the reader’s lot. I’m writing my personal reservations in the margins, but it’s worth reading. It’s always helpful to return to the fundamental touchstone of life: am I acting out of love or out of fear? That’s the choice. Love or fear. I like to read these kinds of books at night, so I’m uplifted in the hypnogogic state. I like to think that the positive impact on me will be more profound, if words about love and joy and peaceful abundance are sailing through my dreams.
I also recommend Mary T. Browne’s The Five Rules of Thought and Geshe Michael Roach’s The Diamond Cutter. Like Byrne’s book, they give to the reader. What all three books share, though The Diamond Cutter approaches it differently, is the need to discipline the thoughts. We spend decades learning how to read, write, and cipher, but we have to seek out the knowledge of how to use our own minds constructively. The Power can help with that.
AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS by Martin Seligman
· · · · · · · · · · ·

AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS by Martin Seligman

Posted on:

Recently a wonderful opportunity came my way: I was able to tell a well-respected, practicing psychologist my objections to psychotherapy as it is currently practiced, and he listened carefully, and he responded with both clarity and respect. I have a chance to rethink my position with new insight.
Fine critical analysis is not always a gift. For those who follow Vedic astrology, I have Mars in Virgo rising. Astrology is descriptive, not causative. In my case it rather beautifully describes my forward movement (Mars) with critical discernment (Virgo) and how it pisses off people (energetic, non-diplomatic Mars, in the first house).
And to those who scoff at astrology: “I use astrology for the same reason I use the multiplication table, because it works.” This is a quote from Grant Lewi (1902-1951), an English professor at Dartmouth.
Astrology is a multi-faceted art and my chart yields a further description. Jupiter the great benefic sits in the 7th house, facing my rising sign. In Vedic astrology, Jupiter is in Pisces, its own sign, which creates a Hamsa Yoga, the swan yoga, for good luck and evolutionary progress. Jupiter aspects that rasty Mars of mine. It is surprising how often something good comes out of my forward movement.
In this case, the gift was twofold: one, the psychologist received and validated my careful observations (ever notice how few therapists can listen to anyone, or hear criticism?) and two, this thoughtful man responded with ideas that hadn’t occurred to me. His willingness to engage me intellectually gave me a new insights, new awareness. I enjoy that. I am grateful.
My beautiful step-daughter at Johns Hopkins is aware of my on-going debate about psychotherapy, and told me about a class she took at Hopkins called “Positive Psychology.” She sent her professor’s book to her dad for his birthday. Naturally, I pounced on the book.
And the book is fascinating. Dr. Martin Seligman makes the point that most current psychology is negative psychology: the study of despair, depression, organic illness, failure, self-sabotage, e.g., “discovering deficits and repairing damage.” What about the study of positive mental and emotional traits, like peace, joy, hope, faith, and optimism? Don’t we all want more of those in our lives? But those don’t get funded by grants so they tend not to be studied.
In my opinion, ‘positive psychology’ has largely been left in the hands of New Age self-help gurus and “The Secret” purveyors, which is mixed. Some of those people are selling snake oil, some of them are on to something. (No, there is no irony in a follower of astrology stating this truth.)
Seligman points out, rightly, I think, that people stand to benefit from studying “positive institutions that promote strengths and virtues,” that lead to “lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose.”
Seligman admits to being agnostic and I am always surprised at the lengths to which ethical humanists go to avoid acknowledging a divine presence. What is the big deal about accepting the infinite field of all-consciousness in which we live and have our beings? Still, his well-written book builds toward an explanation of how to achieve meaning and purpose, and true happiness, in life. I recommend the book. It’s good reading. It’s a rich feast for thought.