• Personal Growth

    David Cain of Raptitude writes:

    January 15, 2014

    Please look at his blog: http://www.raptitude.com/

    Here is what he writes about Acceptance:

    The reflexive internal discussion about what ought to be happening is usually an unwelcome distraction. It prevents acceptance. We should always be aiming for real-time acceptance of all developments, to the extent that it is possible.

    There will be things you will be unable to accept: harm coming to your family, serious medical prognoses, and in these cases the more automatic parts of your brain take over anyway. But that does not change the ideal — accepting everything that happens, as it happens. Whether or not you are able to do it, it always puts you in a stronger position. If there is an exception to this, it’s when there is immediate physical danger and adrenaline will refuse to let you reach real-time acceptance.

    There is liberation in this sameness, because you begin to inhabit a world in which there is only one kind of happening: the kind you will deal with in whatever way you are able. This mostly eliminates the heart-wringing cycle of need and hope, which places you at the mercy of circumstance much more than you have to be.

    David Cain, I could not have said it better myself, from Johanna Baynard and David Parker, Thank you for sharing 🙂

    Read More
  • Personal Growth,  Philosophy,  Psychology of Life

    Challenges with Acceptance

    January 14, 2014

    (12/18/13) Each time I have an awareness about something that is unfair, or about bad or uncaring behavior that is aimed at me, I get angry and it takes me awhile to get over it.  I want someone(!) to recognize how I have been wronged by people.  I want someone to see the hardship that I am going through.

    I have become aware of this need to have someone be aware and to sympathize with me over every single little hardship that I have in my life.  I want to remember so that when someone asks me for something, I can say – no, no, you did this to me!  I will not help you or sympathize, but for real, you did bad first, so now I am entitled to do bad for you.

     I want a new existence that does not require me to feel upset about perceived unfairness.

    (1/14/14) I want an equanimity that allows me to accept – in real time – what is actually occurring.  It may not be alright, it may not be fair, it may be insensitive, yet I do not wish to spend time feeling upset, angry and hurt.  These are things that challenge me.

    Read More
  • Speaking as a Parent

    Nashville 1-1-14

    January 1, 2014

    My husband is the perennial positive thinker and yet somehow he manages to maintain his cynicism, it is an odd paradox.  (I digress, he sits beside me, editing me – that is why I digress.)

    We rented a house in Nashville, TN because my daughters live impossibly far, one in Kansas City with husband and two sons and one in Norfolk, Virginia with just the two sons.  There are four boys under the age of four.  It’s somewhat like being in a very crowded room with someone yelling at you at all times.  My family has been changing, admittedly, it’s been going on for five years now, but we do not change easily.

    Our separation from each other grieves us; we did not know that the distance would be so great.  We did not know that our calendars would be so full and so demanding and that would leave us lonely for each other.

    So here it is New Year’s 2014 and we separate again today.  For just this moment I want to say thank you to Bridget and Tebey; they gave us their home for the week and for that, my large and inconvenient family could be together.  We loved, we cried, we argued and we chased small boys for five days, worth every single moment.  And for this, I thank you Bridget and Tebey for helping us to make it possible to keep our family together while the impossible distance threatens to engulf us.  You are everything we wish to be; generous, open and caring souls who feel better when helping others and when loving each other.

    Read More
  • Baby Boomers,  Speaking as a Parent

    Christmas Eve and I am Bereft…

    December 24, 2013

    For whatever reason, the universe gives to me a Christmas Eve bereft of children.  It actually makes sense to me.   There is someone at work that I have great pity for, because she sees her grown child as her life and as her retirement.  I have advised my friend at work “you must get a life for yourself.”   I told my manicurist on Saturday that “you cannot depend on your kids to live your life.”  I said “get a man”, to which she snapped back, “well, men aren’t dependable either” I then said, in a completely machiavellian manner “yes, but men can distract you from your children”.

    Your kids do not owe you their life.  It is wonderful and quite fine to have their allegiance and their attention, but, to force it because you need attention is not the thing to do.  I know this, I preach and teach this and yet here I am feeling abandoned and neglected because of all of the grandchildren that I have (and there are more than a dozen) and for all of the money I have spent on this Christmas (and it is quite a bit) there is not one kid, there is not one grandchild, there is not one family member who could grace me with their presence on Christmas Eve.

    Usually, in families of our size there is at least one ‘sacrificial lamb’ who will keep the parents entertained at the behest of all of the other siblings.  This year, in both of our families (mine and my husband’s) our sacrificial lamb (normally the youngest sibling) got busy by having their own child.  My husband’s youngest daughter had a second son in August and my youngest son had a daughter in November.  As I have avoided all of the complicated questions around aging (Are you relevant?  Will you be alone? Is there enough money?) I now find myself smack-dab in the conversation because here we are, alone on Christmas Eve.

    I think it is probably fitting that this thing has happened to us because of all of the preaching and teaching I have been doing. ‘You teach best, what you most need to learn.’

    Read More
  • Economic Equality (A Goal),  World Affairs

    Charity

    December 14, 2013

    I was listening to the radio the other day and apparently the USA is the most charitable nation in the world.  We donate more to charity than any other country.

    I think that if this is true, we do not do a very good job of it.  We are not efficient and we are not effective.  We have embarrassing health care statistics and we have embarrassing childhood poverty rates.  In every city all over the country, we have large numbers of homeless, mentally ill and even more people are marginalized and cannot live on our “minimum wage” established by a congress that makes sure that it has health care and enough of an income so that they do not have to work for the rest of their life – once a senator or member of the house of representatives.

    We live in a country where if you do not have health insurance and you get cancer, you will probably die.  We live in a country where the established minimum wage is not enough to rent a property to live in.  All around us families continue to lose their homes to foreclosure because of a ravaged bank system decimated by crooks who are now living on tropical islands.

    I am not saying that my country is a bad country; I can hear in the back of my head the old veterans saying “if you don’t like it here, get out of the country and go somewhere else.”  I am not saying that this country is inherently bad.  What I am saying is that we do not do a great job with money and its relationship to humanity.

    In our country it takes money for people to live, it takes money for humans to survive in the USA.

    The other thing I hear on the radio is a lot of advertisement for charities.  At ____ department store, you can buy perfume and 1% will be donated to your favorite charity.  When I hear this I am very frustrated – the reason being – is that I think if you want to give – you should do it person to person, to buy yourself something extravagant and to think that pennies will go to a charity somewhere, from you, is nothing more than a hedonist’s guilt assuaged by falsity.  You cannot spend $100 on yourself with a leftover profit going to a charity and actually believe you have done something good – it is just not real.

    So back to efficiency and effectiveness in the good old USA: we must do better.  We are a great country founded on independence and freedom and we must now be a great country known for its great ability to be humane.  We must go the next step, we cannot pound our chest about our accomplishments when malnutrition and childhood poverty and homelessness exist here!  We simply cannot!  We have the money, we just need to use it more effectively and efficiently, if we truly are the most generous country in the world, let’s make it count for something.

    Read More
  • Philosophy,  Spirituality

    The Wisdom that I Seek

    December 11, 2013

    Years ago when I was working on the concept of forgiveness, I had a very difficult time getting to forgiveness because I equated it with allowing the person the opportunity to commit the same crime against me.  What I mean by crime is any sort of betrayal or other wrong done to harm me.  I thought that by forgiving the person, I was allowing the person back into my life and that allowance would give the person the means to hurt me again and again.  I thought that by hanging on to my anger and grief I could ward off future attempts made to hurt me.  I realized that my hurt and anger would NOT protect me from further harm and that forgiveness was the only way that I was going to be able to live with MYSELF.  To heck with learning how to live with others, my hurt, grief and anger was keeping me from living with myself.

    I now struggle with acceptance.  Once again, I use anger with concepts and people to protect me.  I use anger as a motivator to action.  If I perceive someone has done me wrong, my anger motivates me to take action in response to the wrong doing.  My fear is that being accepting is equal to agreement with wrong-doing.  Of course, I cannot have betrayal, meanness and thievery in my life.  I cannot agree with wrongness and I cannot agree with inequality or mean behavior or any of those things.  How do I have acceptance as a state of being without my brain turning it into a perceived permission for wrong-doing towards me and others?

    I think the key to my answer is in my last question.  I can be accepting of my life, accepting of my circumstances, accepting of my present life without agreeing with the concepts that are perpetuated in the moment.  What I mean by this is that, if there is meanness towards me or someone I love, I can accept the fact that it is, in fact happening, and not agree with the act of meanness.  I must bring all of me to the moment-in-time when the meanness occurs so that I can respond appropriately in that moment.  This has been a difficulty for me, and if my reading is correct, it is difficult for all humans, as we respond to conflict through our primal self which tells us fight or flight.   I am usually one who uses flight, to fight seems beyond me.  The only reason I have ever fought was because someone innocent or young was being attacked and needed to be protected.  Although occasionally, I have felt threatened enough to come out fighting.

    This past year has been a tough one for me, as I have experienced significantly more meanness from others than I can ever remember.  I am sure that in the minds of those who strike out at me, I have earned their ire for some unknown reason.  Because I have not been in a position of power, indeed, most of my relationships have been shaky at best; I have instead harbored resentment and anger, rather than to engage in fighting.  Herein lies my desire to learn acceptance.  When you are in power, or otherwise wealthy or controlling, it is quite easy to be accepting of others behavior.  I want to be accepting of others because I do not want to have a life of resentment and anger and also; more-importantly, want genuine relationships with people that are not based on power, wealth and prestige.  By learning acceptance I can give myself a break from resentment and I can also enjoy genuine relationships.

    I do not think that it is noteworthy for humans to say they are accepting and authentic, when what is really true is that they are powerful and / or wealthy and therefore live in a false environment that lacks genuine feedback.

    I want to be accepting in a way that allows true response either in the moment or close enough, such that my relationships are clean and clear.  When I am with you, I do not feel the anger of yesterday, I feel only what we do right now, in this moment. 

    Acceptance is the path of my relationship with myself, not my relationship with others.  Being in the moment is not the same as agreeing with the moment.  Agreement is an activity of my mind and what I search for is deeper than that.  Knowing that the universe is as it is – that is the wisdom that I seek.

    Read More
  • Personal Growth,  Philosophy

    The Kind of Person I Am

    December 9, 2013

    I know that I am not everything I wish to be, but this is where I am headed…I want to live the rest of my life in the present moment.  I wish to be free from old beliefs, old thought processes which trigger feelings in me that are not a response to the present.  The present may not be fantastic, it may not be filled with pleasure, but it is my present, my experience, my life.

    I want to be capable of acceptance of all things, events and experiences.  Acceptance does not equate to condoning or agreeing or any of those things.  Being accepting still allows for all of the other emotions that are possible, accepting keeps those emotions from controlling the present.

    I want to have unconditional positive regard for everyone.  It was Carl Rogers who coined the phrase and Rogerian technique is something I have always strived for.  Even when people are treating me badly I want to be able to offer them unconditional positive regard. 

    I want to be loving.  I want to offer love and support in each moment and in each encounter.

    I want to be unflinchingly, unfailingly honest.  I don’t want to compromise my truth in order to get by, nor do I need to share my truth 100% of the time.  I want to always be able to know my own truth.

    Read More