• Personal Growth,  Speaking as a Parent

    I Thought Only Adults Did That…

    September 4, 2009

    I’m moving to Virginia, for the first time in my life I am leaving Florida.  For several years now, I pick up my granddaughter Cadence on Friday afternoon and spend 24 hours with her.  I don’t know why we started it, but she was barely two at the time.  Now she is past six years old and after September I won’t be able to pick her up after school on Friday.  Her father, who is my son Russell, has custody of her and for this reason and for many other reasons, he is not happy with my decision to move.  He called me yesterday (and we haven’t spoken all week) to tell me that I must speak with Cadence about my decision, inside I am wimpering and I ask him for time.  Russ says to me “I want you to talk to her now mom, so that we can work it all out by the time you move.”  I trust Russell’s intuition particularly as it relates to Cadence, and so I acquiesce.  I am very anxious about talking to her and so I am waiting for her @2:00, even though school does not let out until 2:15.

    Over the years Cadence and I have established many rituals.  Sometimes the rituals come and go, for example there was a time when I had to brush her hair every night.  When she was a toddler we took baths together and always on Saturday afternoon we would nap together, after all, who needed a nap more than me?  As she has gotten older the rituals change, now we snack together, now I keep small chocolates in my night stand drawer that she assiduously negotiates for.  Now we “talk” every Friday afternoon on the way home from school.

    And so I tell her, “Gramma is moving to Virginia”, she looks a little worried and I am sure that I looked a lot worried, she frowned and asked “How long will it be before I see you again?”  I bald faced lied and said “oh maybe a month.”  Now I know that I am not returning until Christmas and Christmas is almost four months away, but I lied anyway and then I rushed on with “when I come home, I have to sleep in your bed, because I won’t have a house here anymore.”  She shrugged and frowned and then proceeded to argue with me about how big her bed is (full sized).  She shrugged and said “it’s alright Gramma, I’m going to go to my mom’s more and do things with my dad.”

    All the way home I was so relieved, I really thought that I was going to cry when we talked about it. As often happens on Friday afternoon, she fell asleep in the back seat of the car, and as is our ritual, I carried her inside and put her on the couch.  Everything was fine for about an hour.  She woke up upset, insisted on taking a bath.  Then she wanted me to take a bath with her – we haven’t done that in a long time.  Then this six year old who always wants to be “thrown” on the bed in her big cuddly towel asked me to just hold her and rock her and so the afternoon went…Cadence hanging on top of me, asking me to brush her hair, pat her back and on and on.

    And I guess the thought that hit me was, she is acting like so many adults that I know.  She is holding her hurt feelings inside and communicating in a way that allows HER not to cry.  She is putting on a good front while she processes how our relationship will change.  That little shrug in the car and those words “it’s alright gramma” were all just show.  In the meantime, she is letting me know in her own inimitable way that it hurts.  I thought only adults did that…

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  • Philosophy

    The Prime Directive

    September 3, 2009

    For purposes of this discussion, the prime directive is that which is true about human behavior that sources from a primal place governed by DNA and God.  My sister and I argued about it for years.  My sister believes that the prime directive explains why we choose the mates that we choose and even why we mate.  Well the part about why we mate, I can agree with – but the part about who we choose to mate with – well that was hard to swallow.  Here’s why, I’ve always been one of those deciders, I decide about my life.  I think long and hard about who to marry, I agonize over it, choose, think and rethink and then when I am done with all of that, I will make a pro and con list.  I will write such a list that it takes pages and pages to include all of the details.  This list making, this deciding has always given me a sense of control over my life.  It’s up to me!  I am the one who decides how I shall live, I am the one who makes up my world, who makes up the universe that I reside in.

    Uh, maybe not.

    Alright, I’ll try to maintain some anonymity by saying I have three sisters and I won’t say which one I am speaking about.  If you are related to me you know who I am talking about and you are sworn to secrecy.  Here is what my sister and I argued about.  I got a divorce after 20 some odd years of marriage and she stayed in her marriage.  Now she married a big good looking guy and produced some very fine, strong and absolutely beautiful children – as did I.  She would often say that she felt compelled to be with him and that once when they were separated (for a year) the only man that she was attracted to was him.  She explained this phenomenon by saying that there was something primal about her attraction and she had no control over it.  I objected because I had “thought” my way through a divorce and had moved on to a new life.  In other words, for me, there is no attraction that can, could or should define my universe.  Being attracted to a man was not going to define my world, trust me, I was very attracted to my husband – but it couldn’t keep me married to him.

    So here we are a decade later and now she is proceeding with changing her universe and no amount of attraction to her mate is going to keep her in place.  In the meantime, I’ve gone and done what she did.  Which is to say, attached myself to a big good looking man and followed my prime directive of attraction.  There are no offspring, indeed, I am done with all of that, but there is this attraction which is reminiscent of the old days.

    Now that my sister and I are going through menopause there is a tremendous shift in our bodies which is affecting the brain.  Suddenly, I am willing to see my sister’s point BUT only because the original prime directive is now ABSENT.  I don’t care about mating and neither does she.  I could not admit to the presence of the prime directive because I was IN it.  I am now able to see it, because it clearly recedes from my presence in a physical, mental and emotional way.  I am done with breeding and nurturing, it’s just plain going away.

    So does the “prime directive” exist?  That’s my question.  Are we compelled by forces that we do not acknowledge on a “thinking” level?  If so, how does that relate to destiny.  It seems to me that destiny is something different, destiny is when the external universe lines up to push you in a certain direction.  A prime directive seems to be an internal mechanism that pushes you into a certain direction.  So, are you hard wired to go for a certain type of man or certain type of woman?  Are you hard wired to breed, or can you avoid the pitfalls of mating – with those who are incompatible with your psyche?

    Go figure, ’cause I’m just not sure…

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  • Economy of Effort,  Philosophy

    Life Energy

    August 24, 2009

    Carbon footprint my eye!  Do we not see that we are doing the same thing to our own life energy that we do to mother earth?  We are expensing it out as if it is re-imbursable:  as if we can replenish it?  Life energy is precious and is inherent in everyone.  We must use it every single day.   It is what allows us to express ourselves, take action and be who we are and the absence of it creates death and decay.

    Every single effort we make has a life energy cost.  That energy that is negative depletes the most.  This is why we over-sleep when depressed, our body yearns for the opportunity to heal itself, which is best accomplished while sleeping.  Postive energy restores our life energy, we can feel the power of a smile and we know from science that laughter is healing.

    This life energy that I speak of is more than physical, it is emotional, mental and spiritual, it embodies the soul in this physical manifestation.  When your soul hurts your life energy drains.  You can attack your life energy in any number of ways, all of these means are available to you:  You can attack your life energy through your physical self, by using drugs and alcohol or overworking and over-extending.  You can attack your life energy emotionally by being angry or chronically sad, you can attack your life energy by consistently harboring resentful thoughts that create negative emotions.  You can attack your life energy by being spiritually bereft.

    Emmett Fox wrote that anger is a punishment of self.  It does not matter if the anger is justified, it does not matter that you have good reasons for anger, it is the same as drinking arsenic.  Arsenic does not care why you have ingested it, it will kill you all the same – no matter what reason you consumed it.  Life energy operates in the same way, it does not matter why you use it or how you use it, you simply consume it.  If you waste precious life energy on strenuous angry outbursts, then you have decided to spend your life energy in this way.  Your life energy drains, no matter what the reason is that you extend it.

    If you care for your life energy you must be careful and husband it as you would a life giving garden.  There are times when we become entranced with our own forward momentum and do not check our emotional and physical self, we plunge ahead carelessly brutalizing our energy until it closes down.  The outward manifestation of this phenomena is fatigue, nervous breakdown or illness.  Your body and your soul will literally crash and burn until you have gained the rest and the regeneration necessary to return to life activities.

    The opposite of this phenomena also occurs when we do not use our energy and it implodes on us.  This will happen as a result of not using our energy enough or even productively enough, boredom will lead to destructive energy which is quenched with hard feelings.  This implosion is often indicated by dis-satisfaction, restlessness and an unwillingness to find peace.  In the Victorian era it was called ennui and it was all the rage in the wealthy set.

    You may replenish your life energy in many ways, yet it is never fully replaced.  This is called the process of aging.  It is the ongoing process of life, it does not end, nor does it begin with this physical manifestation that is your current body.  Each life is an opportunity to spend life energy in ways that give to the universe or ways that take from the universe.  To give to the universe you extend your life energy to others, you may do this by parenting, you may do this by contributing yourself to good work, you may do this by being a gentle and loving soul, you may give to the universe in many ways.  If you choose to take from the universe, it is your challenge to harm others; to take from the life energy of people and the life energy of earth.  Many people live in this way, often they are unquenched consumers who live through others’ life energy by taking from them economically, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

    I am often amazed at how life energy is utilized.  I am just as often dismayed.  Life energy is so precious, so potent, so filled with possibilities, how can it possibly be wasted and destroyed?  My wish is that life energy be realized and appreciated for all that it is.  By giving we replenish life energy and by taking we drain life energy.  In this sense, it is much like a carbon footprint, what do you leave behind when you go?

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  • Personal Growth,  Speaking as a Parent

    Traveling Down a New Road…

    August 10, 2009

    I’m stressing because life is changing and my belief system is being berated!  Anyone who has ever been around a Libra knows that making decisions is a slow and determined process.  Additionally I am especially agonizing because my upbringing was matriarchal with a strong independent streak.  This is part of that unwanted belief structure that I was practically born with.  Having a strong, matriarchal independent streak makes me less likely to listen to a man’s advice.  That’s bad, because it shuts out opportunities for insight and wisdom.  I don’t mean to do this, but I will automatically question motivations of anyone I am speaking with.  Because I have spent decades as a counselor, I tend to dismiss folks who have a personal agenda that they are using me to try to accomplish.  What I would like to experience instead is a conversation in this moment that has any number of different purposes and interesting motivations.  Why be judgmental and dismissive?  Just be aware.  It’s okay and even likely that people will have personal agendas in any conversation.  My smug satisfaction at my insightful abilities has led me a merry chase.  I am now finding difficulty with plain and clear acceptance.

    Because I am tired and because I am in transition, acceptance of others and acceptance of the universe, as it is now, seems an elusive goal.  Yet that is what I wish for with all of my heart.  I am surprised and amazed at what it is like to be 50 years old.  I find that who I am is at war with my picture of my mother.  There is DNA I want to keep and DNA that I want to discard.  My ability to choose between those two seems limited.  My mother was entranced with this concept that her children must be “happy”.  I too, travel that road.  I would be a fool to think that – that road is a healthy one.  It is okay for my children to be unhappy, indeed it is part of the fabric of our lives as humans.  I cannot and should not make an effort to protect them from what is inherently an adult life.  And here is where men’s wisdom comes in.  It is my observation that men are much better at making demands of their offspring.  It is my observation that men are much better at allowing their children to hurt.  There is even a culture of “toughening them up” which seems prevalent in a father’s point of view about child rearing.

    So here is where my mother’s DNA seems to get in the way of me making current choices: I want to coddle my children and protect them from hurt.  In the absence of their father, there is no one around to balance my requirement that my children be “happy”.  This seems to create a culture in my family of dependence on me.  I hand out twenty dollar bills and kisses when I should be kicking ass.  I have to make different choices and I have to listen to a man’s wisdom – how does that fit with being fiercely, independently matriarchal?

    Well, my experience is that it is like rowing upstream.  It is intensely difficult and I often backslide.  My old friends in the recovery profession (drug treatment providers) call what I do, “relapse”.  But now, now, much more is at stake than the daily grind.  We shift, we change, we begin something new.  We are moving on as a family.  There are new definitions out there, new possibilities for DNA, our characteristics do not have to be written in stone, or even written in history.  We can, we must, be different and that requires me to change.  That requires that I be open to a different universe, a universe that includes a man’s point of view.

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  • It is What it is...

    Suicide…

    July 29, 2009

    I had an extremely difficult time accepting my mother’s death.  She had a massive stroke and died when she was 67.  I grieved for years because she was the center of my universe.  I finally came to peace with it, and I came to peace with it by realizing that my mother had her own deal with God.  The deal with God did not include anyone else – it was between her and God.  Daughter or no daughter, she was a being with a fate and a destiny that belonged to her and no one else.  In the end aren’t we all alone?  In the end aren’t we all single beings, birth and death, we do these things alone.

    Suicide is different to me.  Suicide is about your relationship with the living.  It doesn’t seem to be about your relationship with God.  For that reason it just seems more hurtful, more personal and more painful.  I’m not sure how, if you are successful at suicide that relates to God…but it feels wrong to me.

    I want to say “How dare you evaluate yourself in relation to me.  I value you, why don’t you stay here with the living?”  I want to ask “Don’t you see how you are needed?”  There is also a part of me that wants to scream hysterically, “don’t you see that death is the end for us, for our relationship – not a change, but the end?” 

    This is just me, how I feel – that’s all.

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  • Philosophy

    Ella Mae’s China

    July 12, 2009

    I’ve always wanted china, all of my life I have wanted china.  I also wanted all of the things that go with china, I mean the events…the agonizing choosing with my fiance’, the hundreds of guests bearing gifts at my extravagant wedding – all of those things that come with the china.

    My life has not ever had that mood or demeanor.  From the time I was a teenager, even though I was late to the baby boom set, I have always thought of myself as a hippy.  I wore my hair long for decades eschewing the control that hairdressers have over normal womens’ lives.  I am practical and have many children.  The children – by their sheer number – have always forced me to be super-organized and structured.  I did not even know that a day could occur without planning until about 5 years ago…

    Ah well, back to Ella Mae’s china.  My mother-in-law was the quintessential hostess, her husband a colonel in the Air Force, an attache’ who worked in many embassies world-wide.  So Ella Mae entertained everyone and anyone, sometimes royalty and at other times beggars.  Ella Mae was an accomplished cook (we did not call anyone and everyone “chef” in those days).  Ella Mae’s home was spotless and when she entertained the china came out of the cabinet.

    At the holidays we always went to my in-laws for dinner and it was always an elegant affair.  The children always accompanied our party, luckily as that is where they learned manners.  I always felt the princess when I was there.  Her meals were lavish and she would never allow me to help her clean up.  I remember one Thanksgiving I insisted on helping scrape the plates and I banged a plate on the sink, Ella Mae gave me the “oh shoot” look and so I stopped.  I let her finish cleaning up.  We followed this tradition for years, and always I felt special because I could relax.  Ella would feed and pamper us and then send us on our way.

    Now Ella Mae is gone, but she has left her china and it is the real thing.  Now my children are grown and I am wishing one of them would take the china.  My daughters rightfully own it and the sterling silver tea set that goes with all of the lavish entertainment tools that Ella Mae owned.  But the china fits nowhere in my daughters lives.  Indeed, where does china fit today?  Miraculously the china is completely intact, a perfect set of sixteen place settings of “Platinum Renaissance”.  We have thought about selling it, it is a valuable set, and a perfect set.  I can’t bring myself to do it.  I’ve always wanted china…

    It’s one of those incredibly ironic events in life, that confirm to me the ridiculousness of chasing after possessions.  Thirty years ago, I really, really wanted china, I wanted the real thing and because I have been so busy with children, I never pursued it.  Now the children are pursuing their own lives and I am footloose and fancyfree, except now I have china.  I can’t sell it and so I have to pack it, and dust it and store it and bring it with me when I move.  Footloose and francyfree indeed!

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  • It is What it is...

    Anger & Me

    June 29, 2009

    I’m done with it, anger I mean.  It’s a complete turning point in my life.  I’m not talking about my own anger, I’m talking about other people’s anger.  I remember that a couple of decades ago, pop psychology said “Let it all hang out, express yourself, express your anger.”  I think we went to far.  Anger is an infection that can leak into an environment and turn spring air into smog.  Why are people so invested in it?

    Anger is not even an original emotion.  It is our thinking response to fear, panic and pain.  Think about it, someone cuts you off in traffic, your very first response is panic or fear, you’re about to get into an accident … will someone get hurt?  And before that millisecond is over, you recover and your judgment takes over.    ‘What’ is wrong with that person, doesn’t he know know how to drive, does he care about anyone else on the road?”  Or “I pay taxes for roads too, you a#$hole!”

    Anger is the result of our thoughts about some perceived threat that is facing us.  It is filtered through our belief systems and judgments and is often utilized as a manipulative device – for attention, to get agreement, to defend what we believe is our own.

    Here is the thing, it gets into us, it resides in our resentments and in our psyche as a permanent fixture of our anguish.  We want to spit it out onto the world and in most cases with most human beings that is exactly what goes on.  People spit their resentments and emotions onto each other without thought and without care.  They allow their anger to permeate everything in their life.  Sometimes other folks are comfortable in an environment of anger and so they tolerate it, they live with it and they try to appease it.

    Well I’m fed up!  I really don’t care if you are angry.  I don’t want that kind of vibration around my being.  I don’t want to feel it, I don’t want to hear it and I am not interested in re-hashing it.  Deal with it.  Give yourself high blood pressure, a heart attack, whatever, but keep it away from me.

    I am sick to death of hearing angry stories where the slacker is always the victim of someone, some institution, some situation that has made them bitter about life.  Do you get that YOU are bitter?  Do you get that YOU are now THAT?

    Hey, do I sound angry?

    Well, in any case.  If you want to talk about what is scaring you, haunting you, hurting you, well okay.  But if all you are going to tell me is your evaluation about the world, forget it, I already have my own evaluation.  And my new world doesn’t tolerate anger, at all.

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  • Love and Relationships

    Rules of Engagement

    June 23, 2009

    1)            Distinguish between feelings and judgments (conclusions and evaluations).

    2)            Respect each other’s feelings and thoughts.

    3)            Ask for clarification by reflecting back what you understand.

    4)           When responding, don’t accuse (refer to #1).

    5)            Take responsibility for one’s own feelings and judgments.

    6)           Take responsibility for one’s own communication.

    7)           Listen; don’t prepare your answer while the other person is talking.

    8)            Be aware of the structure you build: Is it supportive / positive?  Is it destructive / negative?

    9)            What you say and do matters, EVERYTHING matters.

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  • It is What it is...,  Womens Issues

    The Consequences of Beauty

    June 16, 2009

    There is something relieving about aging and menopause and I think I finally figured out what.  I’ve always been an attractive woman, but I began as an ugly duckling.  In a family of platinum blondes and red-heads I had dishwater straight hair and no dimples.  I was oblivious to my blossoming beauty until well after I married a very possessive man.

    I have a beautiful girlfriend who is red-headed and “double D”.  She is a bit younger than me and so retains the “sparkle”.  She is lamenting her reference from her last job.  She had a female supervisor who disdained her.  Now, my beautiful girlfriend worked for me in a prior job for five years.  I’ve known her since 1994 and I am sure of her essence, her demanor and her integrity.  So…I immediately suspect that the reason that her professional reference was not all that it should be is, because her former supervisor was an over-weight & angry young woman who could not stand some one as beautiful and kind as my friend.  I’ve seen this kind of behavior on many occasions.  Folks who are in pain over their own perceived inadequacies try hard to put their pain onto other folks.  They wish the worst towards the best.  Anyone who “sparkles” is a personal threat to them.

    As awful as women can be when faced with a beautiful woman, men can be far worse.  Men judge immediately and formulate for themselves all types of attributes that a beautiful woman must have.  Often even men that I respect will attribute “dumbness” to blondes in the absence of any evidence that the woman is dumb.  I’ve seen men get incredibly nervous when required to work with an attractive woman, to the point where the nervousness results in hostile behavior.  Far easier to target an unknowing woman than to deal with insecurities about self.  It is true that we are a dishonest and non-confrontive culture, we will often give up on a relationship just to avoid conflict of any sort.  Yet I think it reprehensible when people use their professional position to take advantage of others.  My own daugter has suffered sexual harrassment to the point of losing her income and even her reputation in her chosen field.  Five years later when her supervisor chose to apologize – it was already too late, my daughter had sought out and was safely in a new profession.

    There is something about being beautiful that is sort of like being pregnant, people believe they have a right to invade your personal space, as if your appearance is permission for judgment, comment and oh yes, ogling.  Why is it okay to stare at anyone?  Particularly when your mouth is open or you are frowning…

    That is the mysterious relief that I feel about aging and menopause.  My attractiveness is no longer a threat to other women.  A lot less men chase me and their eyes linger less on my breasts.  I get more eye contact than I have ever had in my life.  One other thing, the competition is over.  I don’t have to put make-up on to go outside.  I don’t have to wear the latest and best clothing that is the cutting edge of fashion.  No one is looking, I’m not going to get a judgmental comment about my fashion sense (except, of course, from my own daughter).  So there is an enormous sense of relief.  L.L.Bean and LandsEnd are okay for me, and I won’t ever spend the hours and my disposable income on searching through racks of clothing again.

    Please understand that beautiful, sexy women are just like anyone else.  Some of them are incredibly bright, some are not, some are insecure, some are very secure.  You cannot attribute anything to them without knowing them.  I am NOT trying to paint a picture of suffering – even though some consequences can be dire – I just want a conversation about all of what is true.  The majority of Americans pursue youth and beauty relentlessly without thought to what could be wrong or negative about their actions.  Beauty does not imply perfection and it does not lack heartbreak.  Nor does beauty imply that life is easy.  Believe me, my beautiful daughter had just as difficult a time giving birth as almost any other woman.  She was in labor for 12 hours and “pushed” hard for 3 hours.

    Next time you see a beautiful woman, look into her eyes.  Be with what is in her eyes.  Trust me, she knows if you have objectified her.  She knows if you are capable of respect for her inner self.  Be ready, because you just may end up with the prettiest friend on the block…

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