Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair…
(watch the whole video)
Author: Scott Williams
clinical therapist, black belt, learner and specialist in trauma, depression, anxiety, relationships and spirituality.
Fall down seven times, get up eight…
honesty brings wholeness…
So I’m sitting here, post panic attack, snacking on a big bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. This isn’t something I normally do on a Tuesday afternoon, but since I’ve spent the past couple hours frantically seeking and finding cancerous lumps to attach my run away anxiety to, I need a good comforting distraction. And nothing says comforting distraction like eating crispy, sugary nutrition-less kid’s cereal straight out of the bag, without milk.
I’ve been, I don’t quite know how to describe it, humbled I suppose, by some of the blogs I’ve been reading lately. People talking openly, insightfully, humanly, about the things that have messed them up and how they’re making their way through them. It takes a great deal of courage to stand symbolically naked, telling your story. I know that, because I don’t do it very often. But when I chance upon someone brave enough to tell theirs and who braver still, is trying to make life better in spite of…
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What Matters
As many of you may know I have just returned from a vacation, albeit a working vacation, with my father. Sitting on the beach in Mexico, snorkeling, hanging out at the pier in San Francisco, these are lasting memories. I am not much of a cruiser but will look fondly back on the ten days I spent on the Grand Princess, eating good food and swimming in its many pools. And Happy Hour.
It’s interesting, however, that the best memories I have of the trip are not the places and the activities, it’s the people. Spending time with my dad, hanging out and laughing, talking about family and memories, these are memories I will cherish even more than the beach at Cabo. I also spent a significant amount of time with two new friends, Darrin and Michael, whom I have come to care about deeply, in spite of the fact that they are Americans…
Life is about connections. In the past years I have lost some people dear to me and it is tempting to guard my heart, to keep people at a distance, and to minimize the potential heartache should things not work out. Anyone who has been hurt by others knows what I mean. Loving people is dangerous and painful.
I was a single parent for several years and when Annette came along she made me very nervous. I was afraid to be honest with her, afraid to let down my guard, because I knew that she could, if I let her, brush away my emotional defenses and take over my heart. I had spent a great deal of time not caring about other people and was convinced that I would be better-off never engaging in romantic love again. Loving her would be dangerous, and hurtful. What if she left me? What if she got to know who I really was and rejected me? What if I couldn’t make her happy? What if she wasn’t really a redhead?
After the sunburn has faded and the memories begin to wain, what stays with us are the people who have touched our lives and made it better for their being there. What made this trip memorable was the moments with my dad, being kissed goodbye at the airport, and laughing and talking about life with Darrin and Michael. At the end of the day, that’s what matters.
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself. Jim Morrison
5 Movie Romances That Won’t Last (According to Science)
On vacation. Enjoy this from cracked.com
Love stories are a lot like Doritos: there are countless variations, each dressed up differently with new names, but we all know it’s the same two goddamn flavors every time. The common threads running through all movie romances are: love conquers all (Nacho Cheese) or love is blind (Cool Ranch), and sometimes both at the same time. It works because we let it work, and keep coming back for more despite how absurd it gets.
But if we take a moment to refuse the suspension of disbelief, and explore the implausible nature of a few famous love stories, we can call shenanigans now and possibly prevent the release of X-13D: A Romantic Comedy in the near future.
#5. Original Star Wars Trilogy: Leia and Han Solo
Why it Will Never Work: Han’s Looming Unemployment and Deteriorating Self Worth.
Han and Leia overcome checkered pasts, experimentation with incest and a general distaste for one another to form a love so powerful it couldn’t all be included in the final cut of The Return of the Jedi. Also on the cutting room floor: the 4am fights, alcoholism and murder suicide that inevitably follow.
We totally understand that the “Princess and the Bad Boy” element is what was supposed to make us swoon–half of Hollywood romances are based on that. So let’s say that they can overcome the distance caused by differences in socioeconomic status ( which psychologists tell us is no small barrier). But that can’t bring Han and Leia down, they were united by the cause of the galactic rebellion! She respects him as a brave and passionate fighter for all that she believes in, and is entitled to!
Ah, about that. See, the war kind of ends when the second Death Star blew up. These two had never met before the war–literally every single activity and conversation they’ve shared has revolved around it. They don’t know each other in any other context (this sort of thing is one reason why marriages hurriedly rushed into during wartime don’t last as evidenced by divorce rates going up after ever major war since divorce was invented). Soldiers don’t always adjust well to not being soldiers.
But that actually leads to another problem. What is Han’s job when there isn’t a war on? He’s a smuggler, a guy with a shitty car who owes money on every planet and always shoots first in a fight.
Of course, he was smuggling things past the evil Empire, which no longer exists. So does he go back to that job, only now smuggling things that the new government doesn’t approve of? Space-crack and child slaves? How will the royal princess feel about that? What’s the alternative, she gets him a job as a diplomat? Yeah, we can totally see that working out.
So either Han is unemployed (and the effects of unemployment on a marriage are devastating). Or, maybe he becomes the legal version of a smuggler. That is, a highway trucker. No matter how you slice it, the skills that made him the coolest man in the galaxy don’t exactly translate to a 9-to-5 job.
Compound Han’s deteriorating self worth with Leia’s royal sense of entitlement and it’s impossible that this love connection ends in anything other than spousal abuse.
#4. The Little Mermaid: Eric and Ariel
Why it Will Never Work: Unrealistic Compromise.
Nobody takes a more blatant approach to proving love is blind than Disney. Their insistence on interspecies relationships boarders on obsessive, and The Little Mermaid was the first of these fetish-films. The basic plot revolves around Ariel giving up her life, her voice and a healthy chunk of her anatomy to be with Eric. Meanwhile, he is faced with the arguably less complex dilemma of choosing between a brunette and a redhead.
If that sounds like a bad deal, it’s more than that–in the world of relationship counseling they call that kind of compromise a “Marriage Annihilator.” Or at least they should. Bad, one-sided compromises are one of the biggest reasons for failed marriages and relationships. Ask anybody you know who gave up a job for a relationship, and you will hear the phrase, “Well I certainly didn’t move across the country for THIS!” echo back from the hallow place where their capacity to love used to be.
Sure, by the end of the film Eric and Ariel end up together, married as humans, and presumably happy. But even for a cartoon, that shoddy closure is too ludicrous to ignore. Ariel is a teenager, and, as she proves throughout the rest of the film, susceptible to the same impulsive stupid decisions as any non-Mermaid teenager.
She literally gives up everything she’s ever known to be with someone who can’t decide between her and another girl he just met. This isn’t just compromise, it’s identity annihilation–total surrender to do Whatever It Takes To Get The Guy. And one day she’ll grow up enough to realize it. This relationship is doomed to end with Ariel either feeling resentful and homesick, or physically sick when she discovers sex is more than just releasing a sack of eggs for him to crop-dust with semen.
#3. Star Trek: Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana)
Why it Will Never Work: Emotional Unavailability.
In the new Star Trek reality created by J.J. Abrams, Spock and Uhura are copulation partners (that’s the proper Vulvan term, right?) proving that Spock, like his father, has a weakness for human flesh.
As a human, Uhura experiences every situation, determines how it affects her and reacts based on the emotions it elicits. But Spock, true to his Vulcan nature, displays the classic symptoms of emotional unavailability. It’s bred into him that Vulcans pride themselves on squelching any emotional displays in favor of cold, calculating logic. Those are awesome traits for troubleshooting a starship’s warp coil, but not so much for making a female human feel loved.
We humans are pretty much programmed this way from birth, as scientists recently figured out with this terrifying experiment where they observed the effects of staring coldly at a baby:
So it’s no surprise that emotional unavailability leads to disengagement from the relationship. Uhura would only put up with Spock’s post-sex, “You continue to perform admirably” so many times before she would walk out. Unless she demands he utterly and completely change his personality, which of course brings us right back around to that compromise thing we just talked about with the mermaid. He would simply no longer be Spock.
Assuming they are together long enough to have a child, it can look forward to a distant father and a frustrated mother. The only silver lining is the kid will never be bullied in the inverted breasts of knowledge on Vulcan since the planet no longer exists.
#2. Dances With Wolves: Lieutenant Dunbar and Stands With a Fist
Why it Will Never Work: Mutual Stockholm Syndrome.
Dunbar is abandoned by his military at an outpost and then forced into constant interaction with the Native American tribe who steals his horse. Stands With a Fist is orphaned after a Native American raid on her family’s settlement and forced into a similar dependency on the tribe. The two meet as consenting captives of the Sioux and fall in love while exploring the virtues of their captors together, and frankly, this relationship is harder to watch than a scalping.
The key trigger for Stockholm syndrome is a captive’s misinterpretation of a lack of abuse as kindness. Like abused dogs under new owners, Dunbar and Stands With a Fist fall in love with the tribe, then each other, a wolf, tatonka, fucking everything.
Psychologists tell us that a love predicated on a disorder is doomed to fail, especially when the cause of that disorder is removed. At the end of the film, the two run away from the tribe together and live alone on the open plains. The only feasible way for the spark to remain between them is if they both act as perpetrator against the other. Imagine a relationship between two people where each feels tortuously confined while simultaneously completely dependent on the oth- No, no on second thought, this relationship seems pretty standard.
#1. The Breakfast Club: John Bender and Claire Standish
Why it Will Never Work: Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder.
Once more we get the Princess and the Bad Boy matchup, but the pairing in The Breakfast Club is actually far uglier than what we had in Star Wars. At least Han and Leia were adults who had been around the block, and presumably knew what they were getting into. The sad thing is, these relationships do happen in real life, but they more resemble what we get in The Breakfast Club–the naive young girl who mistakes profound antisocial tendencies for awesome badassery.
Some girls like the idea of falling in love with angry, bitter, aggressive men with rap sheets and a history of self-destruction. Claire is one. She’s established as the quintessential popular/rich girl, while Bender is the type of person destined for prison or various holes in the desert. He’s antisocial, offensive and generally kind of a dick. Bender torments Claire so much that it’s hard to tell whether he wants to stick his dick or switchblade in her.
The movie makes it clear Bender suffers from post-traumatic embitterment disorder due to a traumatizing childhood of abuse and shitty Christmas gifts. This potent combination of helplessness and rage is bound to draw in a girl like Claire who wants to help almost as much as she wants to get back at daddy.
The problem is that post-traumatic embitterment disorder isn’t as cool as it looks during a few hours of Saturday morning detention. According to the folks at All About Counseling.com, Bender will likely shut down around affection and intimacy, and when he’s incapable of expressing those feelings like a normal human being, lash out with violence. Claire is looking at a future of unrequited affection and excuses about running into the door.
This sheds a whole new light on the final shot of the movie. After sharing a kiss with Claire, Bender appears to punch the air in a jubilant gesture that always seemed more than a little bit out of character. According to the science, he was just warming up.
The Path To Unconditional Self-Acceptance
on vacation, enjoy:
The famous French expression, “Tout comprendre, c’est tout excuser” (literally, “to understand all is to pardon all”) is a dictum that we ought to apply at least as much to ourselves as to others. For the more we can grasp just why in the past we were compelled to act in a particular way, the more likely we’ll be able both to excuse ourselves for this behavior and avoid repeating it in the future.
Becoming more self-accepting necessitates that we begin to appreciate that, ultimately, we’re not really to blame for anything–whether it’s our looks, intelligence, or any of our more questionable behaviors. Our actions have all been compelled by some combination of background and biology. Going forward, we certainly can–and in most cases, should–take responsibility for ways we’ve hurt or mistreated others. But if we’re to productively work on becoming more self-accepting, we must do so with compassion and forgiveness in our hearts. We need to realize that, given our internal programming up to that point, we could hardly have behaved differently.
Why is it so hard to love oneself?
To take ourselves off the hook and gradually evolve to a state of unconditional self-acceptance, it’s crucial that we adopt an attitude of “self-pardon” for our transgressions (whether actual or perceived). In the end, we may even come to realize that there’s nothing to forgive. For regardless of what we may have concluded earlier, we were, in a sense,always innocent–doing the best we could, given (1) what was innate (or hard-wired) in us, (2) how compelling our needs (and feelings) were at the time, and (3) what, back then, we believed about ourselves.
That which, finally, determines most problematic behavior is linked to common psychological defenses. And it almost borders on the cruel for us to blame ourselves–or hold ourselves in contempt–for acting in ways that at the time we thought we had to in order to protect ourselves from anxiety, shame, or emotional distress generally.
As a kind of P.S. to the above, self-acceptance also involves our willingness to recognize and make peace with parts of the self that till now may have been denied, shunned, or repudiated. I’m referring here to our illicit or anti-social impulses–our shadow self, which may have spooked or sabotaged us in the past. Still, it represents an essential part of our nature and must be functionally integrated if we are to become whole. As long as we refuse to accept–or in some way accommodate–split-off segments of self, full and unconditional self-acceptance will remain forever out of reach.When we’re able to sympathetically understand the origin of these darker, recessive fragments in us, any self-evaluation rooted in them begins to feel not only uncharitable but unjust as well. The fact is that virtually everybody harbors forbidden (and quite possibly, outrageous) impulses and fantasies–whether they entail brutally injuring someone we find obnoxious, exercising unbridled power over others, or (indeed!) running naked in the streets. And when we’re able to recognize this, we’re also well on the way to accepting ourselves without conditions. Appreciating that, however bizarre or egregious, most of our “evilimaginings,” are probably little more than fantasized compensations for indignities, hurts, or deprivations we experienced in the past, we can now reconceive our “aberrations” as, well, rather normal.
Further, even as we come to accept our shadow side we can still maintain voluntary control over how these parts of us are expressed–that is, in ways that can ensure safety both to ourselves and others. For as long as we’ve been able to re-connect to our deepest, truest self, we’ll be coming from a place of love and caring. As such, it really isn’t in us to do anything that would violate our natural tendencies toward compassion and identification with all humanity. Owning and integrating our various facets is a transcendent experience. And when we–or really, our egos–no longer feel separate from others, any sinister motive to do them harm literally disappears.
Self-Acceptance vs. Self-Improvement
It should be apparent at this point that self-acceptance has nothing to do with self-improvement as such. For it really isn’t about “fixing” anything in ourselves.With self-acceptance we’re just–non-judgmentally–affirmingwho we are, with whatever strengths–and weaknesses–we possess in the moment.
The problem with any focus on self-improvement is that such an orientation inevitably makes self-acceptance conditional. After all, we can’t ever feel totally secure or good enough so long as our self-regard depends on constantly bettering ourselves. Self-acceptance is here-and-now oriented–not future oriented, as in: “I’ll be okay when . . .” or “As soon as I accomplish . . . I’ll be okay.” Self-acceptance is about alreadybeing okay, with no qualifications–period. It’s not that we ignore or deny our faults or frailties, just that we view them as irrelevant to our basic acceptability.
Finally, it’s we–and we alone–that set the standards for our self-acceptance. And once we decide to stop grading ourselves, or “keeping score with” ourselves, we can adopt an attitude of non-evaluative forgiveness. In fact, once we refrain from our lifelong habit of assessing, and reassessing, ourselves–striving rather to compassionatelyunderstand our past behaviors–we’ll find that there’s really nothing to forgive (remember, “Tout comprendre. . .” ). Certainly, we can vow to do better in the future, but we can nonetheless accept ourselves precisely as we are today, regardless of our shortcomings.
And here I can’t emphasize enough that it’s possible to accept and love ourselves and still be committed to a lifetime of personal growth. Accepting ourselves as we are today doesn’t mean we’ll be without themotivation to make changes or improvements that will make us more effective, or that will enrich our (and likely others’) lives. It’s simply that this self-acceptance is in no way tied to such alterations. We don’t have to actually do anything to secure our self-acceptance: we have only to change the way we look at ourselves. So changing our behaviors becomes solely a matter of personal preference–not a prerequisite for greater self-regard.
It’s really about coming from a radically different place. If self-acceptance is to be “earned,” a result of working hard on ourselves, then it’s conditional–always at risk. The ongoing “job” of accepting ourselves can never be completed. Even scoring an A+ in whatever endeavor we’re using to rate ourselves can offer us only temporary respite from our strivings. For the message we’re giving ourselves is that we’re only as worthwhile as our latest achievement. We can never finally “arrive” at a position of self-acceptance because we’ve inadvertently defined our quest for such acceptance as everlasting.
In holding ourselves to such perfectionistic standards, however, we may inadvertently be validating how our own conditionally-loving parents dealt with us. But we’re certainly not validating ourselves–or treating ourselves with the kindness and consideration our parents failed adequately to provide for us.
To conclude, only when we’re able to give ourselves unqualified approval–by developing greater self-compassion and focusing much more on our positives than negatives–can we at last forgive ourselves for our faults, as well as relinquish our need for others’ approval. No doubt we’ve made mistakes. But then, so has everybody else. And in any case our identity is hardly equal to our mistakes (for such a linkage would represent a bad case of “mistaken identity”!)Finally, there’s no reason we can’t decide right now to transform our fundamental sense of who we are. And we may need to remind ourselves that our various weaknesses are part of what makes us human. If all our faults and failings were suddenly to disappear, my pet theory is that we’d instantly turn into white light and disappear from the face of this planet. So in the pursuit of unconditional self-acceptance, we might even want to take a certain pride in our imperfections. After all, were we beyond criticism in the first place, we’d never have the opportunity to rise to this uniquely human challenge.
from Psychology Today
Sing-Songs and Wheelchairs
I admit it, I’m having a hard time getting older. In my head I’m still twenty-four, though the mirror tells me otherwise. I am noticing that I am now usually the oldest person in the room, partially because my sons are two of my best friends and I tend to hang out with them and their friends a lot. I am not complaining, few people are privileged enough to be invited to concerts and parties by their kids friends, but I do tend to stick out when every other person is in their early twenties. It is, however, awesome for flirting with the twenty-somethings because they can think of me as a creeper, and I like embarrassing my sons in public. Ok, maybe that is too much information.
This week, however, I am ridiculously young. As I write this I am careening towards Catalina Island, sitting at the Crooner Bar and watching old people with walkers. So many old people. Cruises attract the elderly, offering a relatively effortless opportunity to see the world without all the hassle of actually going anywhere.
What has surprised me, however, is the sense of entitlement among a demographic which has traditionally had to learn to live without. Many were the children of depression who now are not averse to complaining over the slightest perceived slight. This morning not one person at our table, other than my dad and I, ordered a single thing off the menu and were completely put out if their bizarre requests were not immediately available. Several people, in spite of only having to pay $80 a day, have loudly complained that the billion dollar ship is not adequate for their paltry wants. Never mind that they are living a life of luxury that most of the world cannot imagine, their damn prunes weren’t chilled enough. We are used to seeing entitlement among the young, a generation raised by overprotective and indulgent parents. It is somewhat surprising to see it among the other end of the spectrum. I cannot imagine what the staff are thinking, many of whom are from “have-not” countries, behind their painted smiles and gentle kindness.
Entitlement is a guaranteed recipe for disappointment and bitterness. If you believe life will let you down then you are almost certain to be proven correct. Everyone of us has ample ammunition to paint things in a negative light. Living a life of gratitude does not seem to come naturally to most people, especially the old. The older we get the more we seem to become a caricature of our younger selves. Bitterness seems to grow if we let it, and many of us are letting it run wild.
Life is what we make it, as the old cliché says, and I for one intend to make it a good one, no matter how old I may become. Just being born where I was and given the opportunities I have been given is better than winning the lottery and the day I forget that please put me out on the ice flow.
Cruising The Pacific With My Dad
I’m on vacation with my dad this next week or two. He’s led an amazing life and we are spending time, between pina coladas and trips to the mainland, working on his memoirs. He’s big into cruises and so we are spending time in the sun together.
As I write this it is still Thursday and the trip is still in the future. I am unsure how it will all shake out but I am fairly certain it will be an enjoyable time with my dad, laughing and talking and reliving a lifetime of memories. This in itself will probably turn into part of the story, part of the adventure.
For me, life has always been about stories. I do a great deal of public speaking and no one tends to remember the amazing insights I have trolled the internet and my library. Tell a good story, however, and people remember it forever. When I have occasion to listen to other speakers, or go to church, I am constantly surprised by how few good stories I hear. For some reason orators have a tendency to believe that I am there to glean information. While this may be true in principle, it is the stories I remember. Perhaps this is one of the reasons people tend to go to church less than they once did, the world has become about sound bytes and tweets and updates and the religious community is still convinced that forty-five minute monologues are sacred and unchangeable. And let’s be honest, most sermonizers I know are only moderately interesting or talented to begin with. There are not many Churchills, or Martin Luther Kings, or Campolos out there.
My father, however, has a lifetime of good stories. Stories too amusing or insightful to let die. In spite of appearing caucasian now, he was actually born a “poor black child”, literally. His mother had a kidney infection and he came out of the womb black as night. He grew up as an orphan, his father died soon after his birth, falling from a skyscraper a few days before he took a different job. His mother died when he was eleven and he wasn’t allowed to see her in the hospital for the six months before she passed because of some asinine policy. A nurse managed to sneak him in on one occasion only.
My dad quit high school to join the air force. After telling an officer to politely “go to hell” he was assured that he would never be promoted beyond corporal. He retired at the highest rank available, in charge of the ground forces at his european base, then the last man to turn out the lights when his last base closed. In the meantime he received the military equivalent of the Order Of Canada for a myriad of reasons. He did alright for an orphan high school drop-out. He is a hero to his grandchildren and pretty tops in my books as well.
I wonder, sometimes, what kind of legacy I will leave when I shuffle off this mortal plain. I hope they will be able to say of me, “at least he tried”.
Hurry Up And Wait
Walk, stand here, wait. Repeat.
I’m at an airport this morning, waiting to get on another plane so that I can wait some more. In a few hours I will be in LA where I can wait for 4.5 hours to get on another plane so that I can wait some more. Eventually I’ll be in San Francisco so that we can wait until tomorrow where we will wait in line again, this time to get on to a floating mall with entertainment. So much of life seems to be about waiting – waiting for vacation, waiting for Christmas, waiting for retirement, waiting on the world to change (ya I know, but I couldn’t resist).
Growing up I somehow thought that life would move… well… faster. In counseling those with addictions we often talk about how the “normie” world is boring. One of the hardest parts of sobering up for most people is the thought of normalcy, of mundane, of no buffers. Quitting the desire for self-medicating is far harder than quitting the drug itself.
As the story goes, I am finishing this post while waiting at LAX. If you haven’t been here you may not know, but this is one of the worst airports in the world. It lacks color, flavor, or continuity. We had to leave the secure area and walk a kilometer and re-enter with the whole cavity search. So more waiting, then walking, then waiting, then take off your shoes, put your shoes back on, hurry up and wait. I told my father, with whom I am holidaying, that this is the reason, at the end of the trip, that people actually want to get home.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to be away from the regular grind but the whole “getting there” piece is always more daunting than I remember. I can just hear someone saying, “Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.” It’s a truism that often applies, a little less so at LAX. Nonetheless I am reminded how fortunate I am that this is even possible. So many people I know will never get the opportunities I have had, and often forget to be thankful for. Fewer still would want to spend a couple of weeks with their dad. I am truly blessed.
I have a seven year old boxer named Frodo. Boxers are awesome family dogs; smart, friendly, goofy and for the most part, non aggressive. Frodo anyways. He’s the kind of dog who will happily welcome in a burglar for tea then invite him to dinner. But Frodo has two pet peeves, mailmen and moving vehicles – both of which he loves to hate. There’s little that has the power to distract him from the chase of either. Not obedience school, not his age, not reward, not the local animal control lady.
The local animal control lady showed up last summer after Frodo got hold of the paperboy’s pant leg. She’d visited once before with probation papers so I cringed upon seeing her official looking truck pull into the cul-de-sac again. Frodo, of course greeted her like his long-lost sister which I wasn’t sure whether aided or impeded his case. But despite her official business, the animal control lady was more of a dog defense attorney than dog prosecutor and explained to me…
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If You Are Successful You Can Do Whatever The Hell You Want
Tiger Woods is on top again. In honor of his recent success, Nike, who never dropped Tiger as a sponsor in spite of his foibles, has launched a new advertising campaign strategically called Winning Takes Care Of Everything. Apparently it doesn’t really matter if you are an adulterous letch as long as you can hit a little white ball into a hole better than anyone else in tacky pants and spiked shoes.
When you consider how young the potential audience is for such an ad, how many children idolize Tiger or want to get a new pair of Nikes, it is singularly irresponsible, even immoral, for a company that has made its billions off the backs of the general populace, to blatantly try to convince us that adultery is fine, ruining the lives of innocents is just peachy, as long as you make a comeback.
Band-aids
This morning I was watching TV when a commercial for the new Proactive Dark Spot Remover showed up. Apparently if you pay the money and use this product it will remove the “appearance” of blemishes and restore your complexion to “perfect skin”. Quite a promise… or is it.
Notice what they are not saying. They are not saying that they will improve your complexion or skin at all, only give the appearance of change. The cosmetics industry, a word that means “to make order out of chaos”, has made millions, even billions, hiding the world from the truth. No wonder many women talk of “putting their face on” in the morning or before a date.
This past week The Chive and various other online rags ran a pictorial called “The Face Of Porn: Porn Stars Before And After Makeup.” To say the pictures were revealing is an understatement. Most of the most famous goddesses are less than perfect without artificial enhancement, to say the least. Some were downright homely, not even attractive. It is a reminder of the power of fantasy, of Photoshop, and of an extreme makeover. Cosmetics sell an illusion, an illusion of beauty, of perfection. Makeup is made to cover, it’s a band-aid that does nothing for us except hide our blemishes and present a false face… literally.
Many of us treat our problems the same way. We have spent years trying to cover up our faults and our past. I often tell people when they come for counseling that they may not really want to dig that deeply into their issues. I have an irritating habit of making people very uncomfortable, of asking them to think about things they have spent years trying to bury. Counseling, when it works, is a very painful and humiliating experience. It is much easier to just throw some Proactive on the problem, apply some makeup to our ugliness and give the impression, even to ourselves, that we have taken care of the problem. This is one of the reasons I rarely do groups on Anger Management. I have this annoying habit of treating anger as a symptom, not a base problem. I keep asking clients and patients ‘why’ they are angry and tend to gloss over anger management techniques.
There is an old maxim in psychology that change usually happens much slower than we imagine and the results are less pronounced than we would like to believe. Transforming oneself from a broken, hurting, violated victim of abuse and trauma into a whole person takes years, not months. The twelve sessions that your counselor signs you up for may be an excellent start but will probably not even begin to address a complex life full of dysfunctional coping mechanisms.
Band-aids are far easier and if you play your cards right, you can even find them with pictures of Spiderman on them.
Woke up feeling kind of hung over this morning, though I didn’t even enjoy any drinks last night. Along with this new, improved internal heating system and hair that magically streaks itself, that’s another new thing about 50 – drink free hangovers. Who’d have thought 50 came with so much new and free awesome-ness?
Years ago, my then 70-year-old mother in law enthusiastically told me, ‘my 30’s and 40’s, they were okay. but let me tell you, my 50’s, 60’s and 70’s – now that’s really living’. I looked at her greying hair and softening body from my 30 something perspective and was to be honest, a little grossed out and afraid. Those years came with visions of polyester leisure suits, support hose, musty perfume, and 50 shades of bitterness.
Aging isn’t something many of us accept easily. Entire industries are built on our inability to let go of the us we were at 20. And there are few examples of how to grow older well, and god…
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Addiction Stinks
Comparing farting to smoking…. a little on the lighter side.
A Year In A Life Of Domestic Abuse
Dr. Seuss And Harsh Reality
It’s only a children’s story. Or is it?
![Cover of "Fracture [Blu-ray]"](https://i0.wp.com/ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Qgp8gpIzL._SL300_.jpg "Cover of \"Fracture [Blu-ray]\"")
I remember watching Fracture, an excellent movie with one of the greatest actors of our age, and Ryan Gosling. There is a profound place in the movie where Gosling sits beside the bed of the victim and reads to her, “Oh The Places You’ll Go” while she is in a coma. I remember thinking at the time, this is a very disturbing story. Sure it starts out innocuous enough, but soon becomes dark and foreboding.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’ t
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
Harsh reality in a child’s book. Sometimes things are not going to go as you planned. Sometimes you will have hardship and pain. Sometimes…
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
Depression. Slumps. Reality. The way is not always marked and it is easy be bogged down in the quagmire.
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Some of us are in the waiting place right now. Waiting for something to change, for a situation to resolve itself. We are caught in circumstances which we cannot control and there seems to be no end in sight. It is hard to hope in such places, hard to believe that somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue. We are in the waiting place.
I’ve been in the waiting place. I’ve spent years there. You may know what I am talking about because you are there right now or are just coming out. Days and months wondering if there is ever going to be change, railing at God, prayers unanswered, dreams dashed. Time seems to stand still.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.
In counseling we talk about the pit of depression. The longer you go through depression the deeper it can become. People usually come see me when they are at their worst, and recovery takes months, even years.
Yes I’ve sat in the waiting place and honestly believed that life would never get better. Eventually you get to a place, while waiting there, where you don’t even feel much anymore. Gone is the anger, even the tears. You have cried yourself out. You feel nothing. And that is a dangerous place.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike
and I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
Healing is about micro-change, baby steps, and almost imperceptible movement. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. As I have alluded to many times, there are no magic pills, there is no “secret”. There is only perseverance and tenacity.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
Winning is about showing up. The definition of success I ascribe to is “fall down seven times, get up eight”. That is the only way I was able to move forward. After all the crying, and the depression, the suicidal ideation and the self-medicating I realized that no one, no one at all, could fix me. I had to get up and walk.
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look ’em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’ t
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more you’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. there are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t.
Because, sometimes, they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.
And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike
and I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
back in 1929, hungarian author frigyes karinthy penned his short story ‘chain links’. chain links isn’t a story i’m very familiar with but i’m certainly familiar with the theory proposed in it, ‘6 degrees of separation’. perhaps you are also.
in a nutshell, 6 degrees of separation proposes that any two people in the world can be connected through the relationships of 6 other people. it’s basically a formula for figuring out the distance of social networks.
though it circulated as an urban myth for almost a quarter century, in the 60’s it gained credibility through research at MIT and harvard then later was popularized by psychology today. in 2007, microsoft finally provided proof of its validity in analyzing 39 billion instant messenger conversations, confirming the path distance between any two people to be 6.6 degrees.
that may or may not be entirely accurate if you’re trying to connect yourself to some unknown rainforest tribe. but if you ask me, it’s a pretty amazing discovery originally founded…
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Everything Does Not Happen For A Reason
It’s called a cognitive distortion. We all have heard it, probably most of us believe it. We aren’t sure where it came from. It’s in the bible somewhere or the Dali Lama said it. Everything does happen for a reason.
Tell that to the six million jews who died in World War Two. Or the twenty-five million Russians who perished fighting the Nazis. Tell that to the children born in Mogadishu, or in starvation conditions in Africa. Tell that to the Tutsi’s hacked to death in Rwanda, or the genocide victims in The Congo.
“Everything happens for a reason” is a western, affluent, construct. It is a convenient and heartening way to explain away pain and suffering but it is, unfortunately, not based on any legitimate philosophy and it hurts people. It reminds me of my friend who was told, after his child died, that “God must have wanted another child in heaven”. Such a god would be a masochist and a bastard. The sentiment sounds good on paper but is destructive and hurtful in reality.
I no longer believe that everything happens for a reason. What I do experience, however, is a shocking realization that life is not fair. There really is no payback for every bad deed, at least not in this life. Sometimes the rich are in fact very happy exploiting the poor and have a much better life. Sometimes that bully does not get his comeuppance. Sometimes crap happens. Sometimes life sucks. Some people do get an easy ride while others seem to constantly suffer. There is often no justice for the poor african/american who is condemned to death row because he cannot afford an affluent lawyer. When my good friends lost their baby girl recently there was no “reason” that could even remotely justify or sanctify their loss.
If you are going through a difficult time right now you may not find wonderful redemption at the end of the rainbow, and that is an unfortunate fact. Believing your sexual or physical abuse will someday be worth leaves you open to bitterness and disillusionment. Healing begins when we accept the truth of our brokenness without trying to justify or condone it. Waiting for the good witch Glinda to make everything better keeps us mired in our distortions and unwilling to let go of what is haunting us.
The second half of the Serenity Prayer, the part no one knows, has really helped me come to terms with this. You know the first part: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Here’s the profound part: Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
I think in AA they call that “life on life’s terms”.
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Being There For A Friend
Don’t Give ADHD Meds To Undiagnosed Kids
I have been preaching this for years, since reading a Reader’s Digest (of all things) survey of schools in Canada who were pushing for meds for kids who were disciplinary issues. Confirmation from WebMD.
Some people call it “brain doping” or “meducation.” Others label the problem “neuroenhancement.” Whatever the term, the American Academy of Neurology has published a position paper criticizing the practice of prescribing “study drugs” to boost memory and thinking abilities in healthy children and teens.
The authors said physicians are prescribing drugs that are typically used for children and teenagers diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for students solely to improve their ability to ace a critical exam — such as the college admission SAT — or to get better grades in school.
Dr. William Graf, lead author of the paper and a professor of pediatrics and neurology at Yale School of Medicine, emphasized that the statement doesn’t apply to the appropriate diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. Rather, he is concerned about what he calls “neuroenhancement in the classroom.”
The problem is similar to that caused by performance-boosting drugs that have been used in sports by such athletic luminaries as Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire, he explained. “One is about [enhancing] muscles and the other is about enhancing brains,” Graf said.
In children and teens, the use of drugs to improve academic performance raises issues including the potential long-term effect of medications on the developing brain, the distinction between normal and abnormal intellectual development, the question of whether it is ethical for parents to force their children to take drugs just to improve their academic performance, and the risks of overmedication and chemical dependency, Graf noted.
The rapidly rising numbers of children and teens taking ADHD drugs calls attention to the problem, Graf said. “The number of physician office visits for ADHD management and the number of prescriptions for stimulants and psychotropic medications for children and adolescents has increased 10-fold in the U.S. over the last 20 years,” he pointed out.
Recent parent surveys show about a 22 percent increase in ADHD, a 42 percent rise in the disorder among older teens and a 53 percent increase among Hispanic children, according to the paper.
While Graf acknowledged that the data about rising numbers associated with ADHD includes a number of cases that have been appropriately diagnosed as ADHD, he said the increase — especially among older adolescents — suggests a problem of overdiagnosis and overmedication.
“We should be more cautious with healthy children in treating them with drugs they don’t need,” he said. “The ethical balance tips against overuse and toward caution because children are still growing and developing and there’s a lot we don’t know.”
The position paper, published online March 13 in the journal Neurology, was also approved by the Child Neurology Society and the American Neurological Association.
Dr. Mark Wolraich, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and chairman of the subcommittee that wrote ADHD guidelines for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that his group was not consulted in the development of the position paper Graf developed. Wolraich noted that the AAP also did not recommend the use of stimulant medications for performance enhancement or pleasure.
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Why Do I Care What You Think?
We are a people who struggle with self-worth. I meet few people who are happy with who they are. We are the chronically under-valued and the terminally insecure. We have a tendency to look to other people for approval and live our lives in order to be loved. We tell our children to love themselves, but battle with self-loathing.
For years I considered myself a rebel, a person who lived outside the box, who didn’t give a damn about what others thought of him. Looking back it is easy to see how this was a coping mechanism, a way of finding acceptance, if only with myself, as a marginal personality who did not easily “play well with others”. If I couldn’t win at fitting in I would give the finger to the establishment and act as if their opinions did not matter. I gave the impression that I was vain, when in fact I was insecure.
I can see, now that I am getting older, the temptation within myself to act like a performance monkey. Seeking to fit in does not end after high school. We have been programmed since birth to base our feelings of self-worth on what others think of us and what we do. For some reason we are extremely conscious of the opinions of those around us. Those people who choose to criticize us may, in point of fact, be idiots and subjective to the highest degree but this seems to matter very little. Jumping through the hoops of people who don’t even respect is what we do.
There was a time in my life when it seemed important that people liked me. I was running a non-profit and had shareholders who were strongly opinionated and often very negative. I was always available to help salve their broken lives and marriages, and they were always available to critique my performance. I remember vividly one meeting with a couple at a local coffee shop wherein they decided that I needed to be “fixed”. It was to be the last of several meetings, all designed to help me come to grips with my glowering flaws (in their opinion). Late in the conversation it finally dawned on me, I didn’t even really like or respect this couple. I knew their dirty little secrets, their insecurities, their propensity to be condescending and arrogant. I realized that if we did not have a shared vested interest I would never want to be their friend or hang out with them… ever. I had been emotionally prostituting myself in order to appease them – something that now seemed impossible to do. My fear of their disapproval and perhaps disengagement from the non-profit had created a sick codependence.
It is one thing to seek to be kind and a person of integrity. It is another thing altogether to base your self-worth on the opinions of fallible and fickle people whose opinions should not matter. Wholeness is found in the realization that I cannot jump through enough hoops, suck up to enough people, to fill that hole in my heart that wants to be loved. Chasing that dragon is like chasing any other addiction, it just leaves us broken.
Accepting who and what I am, right now, is a daunting and difficult task. Letting go of our need to make everyone happy feels completely wrong. If people had to accept us for who we are would anyone still like us?
In counseling I admonish single clients, often fresh out of dysfunctional relationships, not to date until they don’t need to. They usually look at me funny and I find it necessary to explain – don’t bring your garbage to your next relationship. Don’t use that next person to fill that hole in your heart. Don’t depend on someone else to make you whole or happy. Don’t date… until you don’t need that person to fix anything. Become emotionally self-contained. Work on becoming whole.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
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