The Gumbo of Grief

Old PostsThese days, no one can shed a tear without someone mentioning the five stages of grief. I’m convinced that when people sit with the bereft, they bring up the stages just so that they can have something to say. Anything is better than the delusional denial, the bitter anger, the useless bargains, the hopeless dejection, and the maudlin acceptance that grievers come up with. Anything is better than the silence of the dead.Continue reading “The Gumbo of Grief”

The Rock Tumbler

Old Posts

Back when my son was a child, he used to dig holes in the back yard. He would adopt stones that he liked and would line the shelves of his room with them. His mother used to complain of the grime he brought into the house, until, noting a sustained interest in geology; we got him a rock tumbler.

You may have had some dealings with a rock tumbler. It’s basically a drum attached to a small motor by way of a belt that rotates incessantly all the live long day. Put a few dull, brown, craggy, soil caked rocks in the drum, add a bit of water, shut the hatch, turn on the motor, and you can keep the whole family from sleeping for a week. When your Dad yells at you to turn the damn thing off so he can get some rest, you open it, reach in, and your unremarkable stones have transformed into smooth, radiant gems.

There’s a rock tumbler for people, too; a people tumbler. We call it love.Continue reading “The Rock Tumbler”

How Big is the Brain?

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The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

For—put them side by side—

The one the other will contain

With ease—and You—beside—

 

The Brain is deeper than the sea—

For—hold them—Blue to Blue—

The one the other will absorb—

As Sponges—Buckets—do—

 

The Brain is just the weight of God—

For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—

And they will differ—if they do—

As Syllable from Sound—

 

Emily Dickenson wrote this. She had a big imagination, even though she lived a very restricted life, rarely leaving her bedroom in her parent’s house in a small town in Western Massachusetts.

To read more poems by Emily Dickenson, click here.

 

The ACE Study

shrinbks-links-photo1Bringing you the best of mental health

It makes no sense, but one of the most remarkable and important findings in recent psychological research hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves and still has not had much impact on the practice of psychotherapy. I’m talking about the ACE Study.

In the 1990’s, the CDC and the health care giant, Kaiser Permanente, teamed up to recruit more than 17,000 adult research subjects, who filled out a short questionnaire, asking about their adverse childhood experiences. That’s what ACE stands for: adverse childhood experiences. They then compared their answers to a list of common ailments. They found a very strong correlation between the degree of adverse childhood experiences and a decline in both physical and mental health for the person later in life.Continue reading “The ACE Study”

The Plant in my Office

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Continuing my series on objects in my office, let me introduce you to the plant in the window.

 

I placed this spectacular specimen of a jade plant right by the chair where I usually sit because I want to put it directly in your line of sight when you look towards me. I do it because this plant is my hero and I want it to inspire you, too.

This jade plant is my hero because it’s the best damn jade plant it can be. It’s flourishing, as I hope to be, and as I hope for you.

Of course, it’s relatively simple for a plant to flourish. All it has to do is grow up towards the sun and down for the water. Provided there’s sun and water, it will flourish. I guess it needs to have fertile soil, too. I take care of that by feeding it what’s left of my coffee when it gets cold.

Flourishing for people is a lot more complicated. We grow in many directions at once. Our bodies have to be healthy, but that’s not enough. Our lives have to possess meaning; or, at least we must think they do. We get bored if there are not enough challenges and overwhelmed if there are too many. There are spiritual, social, and ethical dimensions. Some people can’t be happy unless everyone else is. Others can’t be happy if someone, somewhere, is flourishing more than they.

I don’t know how my plant knows which direction the sun is, or how to find water; but happiness guides people to flourish. If they do what makes them happy, they flourish; most of the time. Not all the time, though. Sometimes happiness leads you astray, as happens when you marry the wrong person, eat too much of the wrong food, or party all night when you should be in bed. There’s also a lot to be said for making significant short term sacrifices to achieve meaningful long term goals. Sorry, but happiness is not a consistent guide. With all due respect for Thomas Jefferson, the pursuit of happiness is not a worthwhile goal.

Flourishing, on the other hand, is worthwhile. You might say, it’s the only thing that’s worthwhile. The trouble is in knowing what flourishing is. There are some who say you know it, you just know it, in your gut. Listen to your gut, they keep telling you. Well, I listen to my gut all the time; mostly, it’s just talking about lunch.

Many people, in attempting the pursuit of flourishing, only chase one part of it. They define flourishing as having a lot of money, for instance; so, they pursue money at the cost of everything else. For others, it’s being loved, respected, having lots of kids, or doing whatever they want whenever they want to do it. Being free of symptoms of mental illness can be mistaken for flourishing. It’s not the same. For example, an opera singer having stage fright as she prepares to perform is not free of symptoms; but, when she sings, it’s glorious.

My plant has only one window to grow towards, a single source of light. There’s only one pot where it can find water. But, people can get up and move around in ways plants can only dream about. Therefore, you have many, maybe infinite, things you can grow towards. When you’re growing towards one, you’re neglecting the others. When you work late and never come home to your family, for example, you are not being the best damn person you can be. Like I said, being a human is a lot more complicated than being a plant.

If I wrote my own dictionary, under the entry for flourishing, I would have a picture of my plant. No text, just the picture. I don’t believe in trying to define flourishing any more than that. Flourishing, for us, is a moving target, a shapeshifter. What flourishing would be for you one day may not be the next. What flourishing would be for you may not be flourishing for another. The guides towards flourishing are inconsistent, as well. Happiness can be a great guide in some cases and can get you lost in others. Still, in the same way that the plant seems to possess some instructions on how to grow, I’ve got to believe we humans have some mechanism to carry us to our fullest potential.

So, that’s why I have this plant in my office. It’s my role model. I hope it can be yours, too.

You’re 36 Questions Away from Romance

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Can falling in love be as easy as asking and answering 36 questions?

Well, no; they have to be the right questions and you also have to have at least four minutes of eye contact.

Social psychologist, Arthur Aaron, needed to create a sense of emotional closeness in subjects for an experiment to work. He devised a list of 36 questions for them to ask one another, followed by four minutes of eye contact. It worked well; so well, in fact that it was the start of a romance for several subjects. Some got married.

If you have someone you would like to share the questions with, the best way is on this website. Click here to get things started.