I have to confess my support of the Obama-Biden ticket. But also I have to confess that I had, until very recently, been (naughtily) expressing overly antagonistic, frightened opposition to the McCain-Palin ticket. Now, if you have read my earlier blogs, you know that I think that acting out heatedly as I have been (even if only in my own mind, or by venting my spew to sympathetic others) is a sign of really bad marksmanship and unresolved issues. Still, I was delighting in displacing my anger and worries onto McCain and Palin, and I was stuck in my ardent disability to understand why anyone would favor them. Shame on me. Then along comes the more entertainment-oriented end of media. First, in terms of what really hit my radar, there was a lovely video by prominent performers on getting out to vote, regardless of position. Second, there was coverage of the dinner at which John McCain and Barak Obama roasted each other. Watching Senator McCain’s reactions to Senator Obama’s roast was delightful. I giggle still. Although I must admit that I immediately had a lousy night’s sleep worrying that if people feel warmer toward Mr. McCain, as I did after that show, then how would they choose Senator Obama? Panick-driven, because ideally we will choose our candidates on issues and on the basis of our estimation of their ability to do the job not on them being cool or one of the guys (or gals). Next, there was a lovely spoof on several of the candidates by JibJab that helped me realize at least one aspect of Senator Obama that causes opposing viewpoint folks to feel as violently against him as I had been feeling against McCain. Finally, along comes the Saturday Night Live appearance of Governor Sarah Palin. Wow. That took guts and a sense of humor on her part! For those humanizing events, I thank our free media, and I thank all our candidates. I am still pro-Obama-McCain, but I am at last, per my prescription to ourselves, freed of a large measure of the burden of worrying against McCain-Palin. I breathe a sigh of happiness and humor thinking maybe things will, somehow, turn out alright either way.
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In an interview on Meet The Press a couple weeks ago, former President Clinton was generous in positive remarks about Senator McCain, but said nothing about Senator Obama. When asked about his relationship with Senator Obama, former President Clinton said that he didn’t “really know Senator Obama” having “only met with him on two occasions. Well, come on now, something is amiss here. At first glimpse, one might think it’s that former President Clinton is miffed that Senator Obama has not reached out more to him. That could be. Perhaps former President Clinton is that testy about lack of recognition. But more important, I suspect, is Bill’s following of the biological imperative that a man must protect his woman. Perhaps, being a devoted husband (cynics, hush) he hadn’t yet gotten his hackles down over Hillary’s defeat in the run for the Democratic nomination. Perhaps he is acting out the disgruntlement for both of them, while Hillary carries on in full support of Mr. Obama. That sort of dynamic is typical between couples everywhere. One partner is more easily upset and more likely to stay upset, the other is more unflappable and quickly adaptable. Mr. Clinton appears to be the more self-expressive partner, and hence the one likely to show his upset-ness, even if only in the relatively passive form of simply failing to make much mention of Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton appears to be the more self-controlled partner, and hence the one more able to suck it up and carry on with sports-womanly good conduct. Bill’s upset-ness, therefore, is lovely to behold, and a testament to his partnership with Hillary … despite, and even in part because of, the thick and thin they’ve gone through.
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People love to say how dishonest and unreliable politics is. Many avow that they would NEVER go into politics. But the truth is, politics is simply a reflection of daily life on earth today. The zest audiences have for “red meat” between competitors, and the willingness competitors have for stooping to throw “dirt” in order to win both have their underpinnings in daily life. Can you remember saying something distorted, untrue, accusatory, and behind-the-back of another? Do you notice either your own tendencies to get into attacking verbiage, or the tendencies of others in your personal sphere to get into attacking modes? If you don’t, you should, because everyone has these politics in them. The opportunity for improving personal—and then national—politics is for people to recognize the tricky emotions—especially pain and hostility—underlying such behavior, and to find better ways of handling them. Emotional pain (and physical pain too) drives everything. The function of pain is simply to let you know that a lack of something is significant for you. Pain, in turn automatically generates anger, so that you have the strength and purposefulness to take action to correct the painful situation. But often social pain has no easy solution. Then, whatever is causing the emotional pain keeps on causing more anger, and fear: well-justified fear of no solution, no exit from the pain. The result: hostility. Hostility is then most often “displaced” from the real problem onto some other, more distant issue. Although organizational politics can seem close to home, they are actually further from your personal truth than, say, your relationships with your family. If we are ever to reduce the madness of “red meat” and “dirt” in governmental politics, workplace politics, and personal politics, we must handle our hostilities better, and dig down to discover and take care of the real pains, and fears, underlying our hostilities. See previous post: “Upcoming book excerpt: Madness”.
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A generous reader, Michael, (see his comments, using toolbar above) took the time to put forth outlines of Chinese cultural behavior living in the home country, and being transplanted to other countries. The variability of behavior from being in new cultures speaks to wonderful possibilities for our earth, as our populace increasingly moves vast distances to new places. Michael noted that Chinese in their new countries were fairly similar to the “locals”, whether the locale was Australia, America, Vietnam, or Singapore. Perhaps in the evolution of our global village, we can hope to absorb the best of our new cultural surroundings, while also keeping the best from our roots.
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After Professor Frederic Luskin’s seminar in Feburary at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles, forgiveness seems to me to be the extreme to balance regret. One needs regret, and even bitterness, to be honest about traumas, and in order to develop true compassion for both oneself and others, and, in the end, one needs forgiveness as well. SUMMARY of [and comments on] The Art And Science Of Forgiveness”, 23 February lecture at the Skirball Center, Los Angeles, by Frederic Luskin, Ph.D.: There is a fine line between teaching forgiveness and encouraging re-victimization. To find it, tap into the part of your brain that’s always okay: the “witness” the “little tiny place where we’re all okay, where we can sit with pain (etc.)” and “hold the suffering and decide that I don’t want to give someone else that much power to ruin my life”. Resuscitation of pain, hate, rage, terror etc. are all needed for healing wounds. But also there comes a point when the resuscitation is counterproductive. That’s what your objective witness has to determine. Holding on to past experiences too long re-traumatizes rather than promotes healing. “How is it the fault of 1999 that here in 2006 one has too small a heart? Has [unremitting] slandering created feelings of being centered, peaceful, on top of the world?” Lack of forgiveness can be a way “we punish the world for not living up to our expectations”. “A Grinch heart won’t open until the world is in alignment with expectations. An open heart is less vigilant regarding things going to not work out our way.” But wounds also are never only about the victim. The perpetrator has inevitably suffered in some way as well, and the path to forgiveness involves eventually searching for that external reality in addition to one’s internal reality. [Forgiveness too soon involves becoming to absorbed too quickly in the ‘big picture” and failing to honestly experience one’s internal reality.] “Taking either extreme of tell nobody or tell everybody impedes recovery.” “All day long, we have two choices: practice condition of happiness, or practice conditions of suffering.” Practicing conditions of suffering is what psychological treatment has excelled at [given that the rest of the world prefers to ignore it]. But practicing conditions of happiness is just as important. Professor Luskin used positive psychology and Buddhist models for how to practice conditions of happiness, integrated into the model he has worked on for years while at Stanford. The transformation to forgiveness “takes place through learning to take less personal offense, attribute less blame to the offender and, by greater understanding, see the personal and interpersonal harm that occurs as the natural consequence of unresolved anger and hurt”. Several meditation exercises were led by Professor Luskin, with comments on experimental results from research on the methods. Five minutes of contemplation of a stressful situation can decrease immune response for four hours. One second is needed to trigger stress reactions, but 6-8 seconds are required for self calming…and then one needs to hold that place even longer rather than again contemplate stress. Simply writing out a list of gratitudes for five minutes once a week can improve health, or at least perceived health. Holding thoughts of someone you love improves well being. Wishing happiness, love, joy and peace to self and others out loud, then whispered, then said only mentally increases one’s sense of emotional equilibrium. And the “Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique PERT”: “(1) Bring your attention fully to your stomach as you slowly draw in and out on or two slow deep breaths. Keep breathing slowly and deeply (into your relaxed belly). (2) Then bring to your mind’s eye an image of an experience with another person when you experienced love, or a picture of a scene in nature that fills you with awe and wonder. (3) Hold the positive or loving feelings that emerge (visualizing that they cluster most strongly) in the area around your heart. (4) Ask this positive emotion voice of yours if it can suggest to you a way to remain peaceful when you think about this interpersonal hurt.” Nine key steps (detailed in Professor Luskin’s book, “Forgive For Good”) in the journey to forgiveness are: (1) Be exact about what you thought and felt, and share that with “a couple of trusted people”. (2) “Make a commitment to yourself to what you have to do to feel better. (3) Understand that your goal is internal peace, not necessarily reconciliation. (4) “Recognize that your primary distress (now) is coming from current thinking, “not what happened two minutes or ten years ago”. (5) Use PERT to soothe your fight or flight responses. (6) “Recognize the ‘unenforceable rules’ you have for your health or how other people must behave.” (7) “Instead of (continually) mentally replaying your hurt” , put your energy into honoring your commitment to yourself as stated in Step 2. (8) “Remember a life well lived is your best revenge.” [A life well lived is perhaps better thought of as “your best restitution” than “your best revenge”] (9) Think of your unforgiving stance as one story, and then create a different story for yourself that includes your heroic choice to forgive. More about Professor Luskin’s work and the Stanford Forgiveness Project at www.learningtoforgive.com .
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Your “Lower Brain” Speaks Emotion. Your “lower brain” refers to your guts and your limbs. And they only speak “touch” and “feel”: sensations and the movements that go with the sensations. Your guts and limbs have vast amounts of information to share with you, but they don’t have words to tell you what’s going on. You have to help them out by paying attention and then translating into words for them as the sensations come.What you need is not only to pay attention to the sensations and and their movements, but also to know what their meaning is. The word “emotion” is actually an affirmation of this. In the original Latin, “e” means “from”, and “motion” comes from the Latin word “movare” meaning “to move”. Emotion is “from movement”. That being the case, consider that there is a unique motion that goes with every emotion. In fact, emotions ARE movement. These movements go right down to the cellular level: even individual cells can break open (in pain), shrink (in helplessness), or startle (in surprise).DR SHARON SAYS: Every sensation has both physical and psychological meaning. EXERCISE: Think of how a bitter taste is a bitter emotional experience as well, no matter how fleeting. And how if you’re in an emotional slump, how it’s harder to maintain upright (non-slumping) posture. And how the word “pressure” for the stress of life’s events is very much also a physical term. Try to think of other words that link your emotions with physical sensations.
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Feeling Your Madness, And Other People’s. Madness feels like strong internal pressure or explosives wanting to go off inside you in several directions at once. Some perceive this sensation as tension or stress. Some don’t perceive it at all. Some act it out at the expense of those around them. Some hold it in at the expense of their own bodies. You can pick it up from others and end up holding it in your own body. None of these is optimum. To really feel your madness, I honestly believe that you MUST master safe exploding with real destructiveness that imitates real explosions. There is a big difference between hitting or pounding a pillow or BoBo doll versus actually destroying something. Just hitting or pounding imitates aggressiveness or impatience but it doesn’t imitate condescension, arrogance, contempt, hostility, rage, fury, despair, terror or any other madness. The latter require destruction for accurate expression. Children practice safe explosions regularly: knocking down blocks they’ve piled up, pulling Leggos apart, squishing up their Play-Do figures, crumpling or tearing up their pictures or written work.When you physically exert yourself to destroy something with the intention that you get your worst, maddest thoughts and feelings safely expressed and exposed right in front of you, you allow the emotion of madness to emerge into the light of day, within range of enlightenment. Respect madness. Be patient with it in the way that explosives experts are patient when dismantling bombs. EXERCISE: Teens and adults can easily incorporate madness into safe private play by thinking of what they’re mad about while: writing out your mean thoughts and shredding the paper you’ve written them on; vigorously scratching out something written so that the pen goes through the paper (magazines ready for the trash are great for this); tearing up junk mail (using a shredder may use too little energy); weeding and pruning; chewing gum; chewing food and spitting it out; mashing leftover food and throwing it away; cleaning house, throwing out trash; doing the destruction part of any kind construction (cutting, disposal), from carpentry to sewing;
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In a recent LA Times article, John Glionna reported that Chinese women living in rural areas ”are taught to refer to male spouses not as husbands but masters. They inhabit a world where the emphasis on bearing sons is so strong (due to needs for male strength in agriculture] that women bear names such as Zhaodi (“looking for a little brother”) and Aidi (“loving a little brother”).” “Three of four Chinese women—more than 450 million—still live in the countryside, where rigid social customs breed loneliness and abuse. Domestic violence rates are high. Each year 150,000 women commit suicide in rural China—the only place on Earth where more women kill themselves than men, according to the World Health Organization.” But change is being spearheaded by one brave and visionary woman, Xie Lihua, whose efforts include a paper run for rural women, a hotline for battered wives and abused female employees, and pressure upon the government to support minimum salary and basic insurance for domestic workers not covered under China’s labor laws. “Her efforts have empowered multitudes” but her “critics say she embarrasses China.” DR. SHARON SAYS: China, embrace your embarrassment. It tells the world that you are aware and that you know things shouldn’t be like they are for women. Once you make the statement of your embarrassment over the situation—not your embarrassment at the disclosure—you will be in an even better position to act on it for the better. Embarrassment is different from shame. Shame indicates that one doesn’t know or understand the rule that is being violated. Readers, here is what I think you can learn from this situation. No matter what embarrasses you, show your embarrassment socially by grinning sheepishly, shoulders shrugging upward as you smile your sheepish smile. Showing your embarrassment in this manner reassures those around you and relieves them of the need to try to control your behavior. It also relieves you of creating unnecessary tension in yourself by trying to hide your embarrassment. If you have shame, hunch your shoulders and cover your face, eyes and mouth open. That very movement will start to teach you the rule that you don’t get. It’s very strange, but true. The best explanation I have for it is that shame is deeply hard-wired into social creatures to do the work of getting us to behave adaptively in groups…which means following rules or norms. Even if you have no earthly idea what the rule is, or even if you really believe that it doesn’t apply to you, or even if it’s truly a bad norm, physically expressing shame guides you and your social group into healthier social behavior. [Special thanks to John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times for his excellent article Wednesday, January 2, 2008
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Hate Outlets: “Defenders” of Ellen DeGeneres and Paul McCartney There’s something striking that two 2007 star-centered public gossip spectacles had in common: an outpouring of hate. When Ellen deGeneres spoke of the dog Izzy being removed from the home in which she placed him, the women who gave Izzy to Ellen, and who had written into the contract that she was to return him to them if she didn’t want to keep him, received an astonishing and sickening deluge of hate-filled accusations and threats when they insisted on removing Izzy from the new home. Similarly, in the process of Paul McCartney’s messy divorce from wife Heather, Heather also received a flood of hate-filled “communication.” What’s going on here? To me, people clearly are not dealing with their own feelings of hate close to home and, instead, are displacing it onto distant targets. Now, don’t get me wrong: hating is normal. And displacing it onto “safer” targets than yourself, your mate, your mother, father or sibling is necessary. But how does one displace it? That’s the key question. First, when you hate anyone or anything, even if just for a moment, you are dangerous. If you suppress the hate, it leaks toxicity inside you. If you throw it at someone else, you spread the toxicity. So, first, recognize your “dangerousness”. Then, act dangerous in some safe, even silly, way. Let it out. When you find yourself thinking attacking and hating thoughts, attack items that are fair game for recycling—junk mail, old magazines, weeds in the garden, useless junk in storage…instead of attacking others in either thought or deed. Or write out your hateful thoughts, rip up the paper, and then write again about what similar things, closer to home, you also hate. And add the why. In addition, whenever you “vent” hatefully about anything, no matter how trivial, question yourself as to what pain and rational hate lies underneath your passion. Whenever you hate at anyone or anything, something truly is wrong in your life. That’s what the transforming emotion of hate is trying to tell you. What’s wrong can be anything that is causing you pain or any situation in which you feel helpless to make a healthy change. Discovery is the payoff. Hating on something far from your issues is good if you don’t do harm in the process. It can help you go searching for what’s really the matter, closer to home. DR SHARON SAYS: When you hate, don’t devastate. First regulate. Then excavate. Then articulate. Finally, activate. Intend to form a good plan to improve your life in win-win ways for you and those who are wronging you.
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People often think that gossiping is a bad thing. True, it can be done harmfully. But gossiping is as normal and healthy a human activity as getting together. Gossip allows people to exercise their opinions and impressions in front of one another and to gain knowledge of other people’s opinions and impressions. Good gossip allows folks to exchange valuable data and interpretations concerning their social group and about the society as a whole. Bad gossip involves folks taking their communications as hard fact and acting harmfully on their assumptions. In coming blogs I will at times comment on media-produced gossip for what it says about human needs and interests.
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