Archive for the ‘Behavior’ Category

>     Over the weekend I had a conversation with some friends about politics in general and the upcoming election. One of the women voiced her concern about global warming and said she was driven by that issue in deciding for whom to vote. She seemed really concerned so I asked her if she was as worried as she looked and to my surprise she answered, “I am. It really scares me.” I was shocked by her reply because this is one person who has the most positive outlook on life you could imagine. She is genuinely, and generally, happy every day just to open her eyes and breathe. Everything after that is “gravy” to her.
    I suggested to her my take on global warming and asked her to give it some thought. I’ll share what I said with you, too.
    Whether we humans caused or contributed to the current state of things or, in the alternative, it’s a natural cycle that Earth partakes of…it really doesn’t matter. That’s not to say that I am callous about the subject of deteriorating environmental conditions or vanishing species. Both concern me deeply. It simply means that “order and chaos” are the heartbeat’s rhythms of Creation. When anything is in a state chaos what occurs is “correction” so as to move it back towards order…and so forth and so on. I see global warming as a necessary correction as we transit this particular heartbeat of chaos.
    It is not possible to separate we humans from the environment in which we live, whether it be “lesser” life forms, the Earth, or the Universe Itself. All of It is an integrated, interdependent self-organizing system that will seek to move Itself toward balance when too far astray from an optimal state of equilibrium.
    That’s what we’re in the middle of right now. Whether it’s the demise of the effectiveness of systems of governing and commerce, or radical weather patterns and cataclysmic events, they all originate from One principle and seek to achieve One end: movement from chaos back to order.
    When a balance is once more obtained, do not think it will stay that way. It is the natural course of energy to move, to change. Within the order that will soon manifest will be the seeds of future chaos. This is as it should be. This is Life.
    What I told the woman who is so frightened of the thought of global warming was not to think about it…well, at least not to think about it with fear. Thoughts are things, too. And powerful energy they are. So if any of us must dwell upon global warming, let’s see it as one of many symptoms of changing times and better to think about how we can best adapt to, as well as contribute to, the emerging order.

style=”font-weight: bold;” size=”4″>P.S. Get my inspiring e-book download FREE at www.carolegold.com

I’ve been asked to publish a speech I recently gave to 500 high school students in New Jersey on the topic of attempted suicide. Although it is my habit to speak without notes, what follows is my best recollection of the substance of the presentation. Time and space do not here permit me to replicate it in its entirety.

I am a wife and mother of a 14 year old daughter. I am also a former practicing Family Law attorney. Currently, I am a writer and motivational speaker. At age 24 I tried to commit suicide. It is the story of how that came to be and what I have done with my life since that I am here to share with you.

I grew up in an affluent suburb of Philadelphia. My family was financially very well off and as far as material things went, I pretty much had whatever I wanted. To underscore the point, I was given my own car, a Mustang, at age 16 and by age 20 had owned 2 corvettes. In school I was part of the “in crowd” and had lots of friends. My grades were excellent. Outwardly, I seemed happy.

Inwardly, I was living a very different existence.

Despite all of what was seemingly “right” with my life, I was very unhappy. I felt alone in the world. I didn’t feel I really “fit” anywhere or that I understood the game of life. I felt, alternately, not understood at all or at best, misunderstood. While everyone else went about their days with some sense of purpose, or so it seemed to me, I lacked any sense of who I was, what I wanted to do with my life, and most importantly, how to stop the emotional pain.

I went off to college after graduating high school but lasted only 6 weeks. Mostly I cut class and went to the beach. I withdrew mid-first semester (I would have flunked out anyway) and returned home. I them enrolled in a local university but lasted there only one semester before dropping out again. Realizing I had to do something (all my friends were in college) I got a job as a receptionist at a hospital. What followed were a series of receptionist positions until, at age 23, I met a young man at a party whom I married one year later. Eleven months after we married, we separated. We were a bad match…probably the result of how little I knew about myself before getting married. One month after separating, I tried to kill myself by taking an overdose of anti-depressants that had been prescribed for me at the time of separation.

Without belaboring it here, I was miraculously found in my apartment and rushed to the emergency ward, where I had a near death experience. I actually witnessed the doctor and nurses tending to me, pumping out my stomach and trying to keep me from dying. I witnessed it all from some vantage point way up in the air and remember thinking, “Why are they doing all of that to her. Why don’t they just let her go?” Then I felt a sharp “punch” in the middle of my back and “heard a voice” say “You have to go back, Carole. You have work to do.” My perspective immediately shifted from above the scene to being back in my body looking up at the doctor.

I share the details with you solely to impress upon you that I had almost succeeded in dying. It was that experience that I believe changed the direction of my life.  Despite difficulties and challenges that have remained ever since that day, I came away from that experience with a determination to find out who I really was…as opposed to who I thought I should be.

I enrolled in Villanova University at age 24 and graduated at age 28. I worked for a few years, had a meaningful personal relationship, then at age 33 enrolled in law school, graduating at age 38. I began to practice law on my own immediately after passing the Bar Exam and had a successful Family Law practice for 13 years. At age 41, I bought a home and shortly thereafter, met and married my husband. At age 43, we adopted a daughter form China.

Now the important part. What I know from what I have lived.

No two snowflakes are alike. No matter how many there are, each has it’s own unique pattern. You are like a snowflake. No other human being that has ever lived or ever will has your pattern, your unique set of Life gifts and challenges. Because of that, only YOU can live the Life you’ve been given. You are an aspect of Creation. That fact, and your unique nature demands that you too be a Creator of Your Life, not a “regurgitator.” Life does not need you to parrot or mimic the ideas and values of those who came before you…or even those who are here Now. What Life seeks of you is to experience Itself thorough You in ways never before known.

What keeps us stuck, and sometimes paralyzed, is the belief that there is some “right way” to be. Some “right way” to live Life. I can assure you that there are people and organizations everywhere you turn that will tell you they know “the way.” But there is no one way, simply one action that each of us is called upon every minute to partake of and that action is called “choice.” When Life comes knocking, make choices that emanate from your highest Self. For what is right for another may not be right for you. And you can only know what IS right for you experientially. You cannot know it from a book, or movie or even from another person. So to live the Life you were created to live, you must experience it through your unique choices.

Now some of you will think, “If there is no right choice, then anything I want to do is OK. I would answer “yes” if your choices are from your heart and not your mind and if, in choosing, you harm neither yourself or another. You see, there are only two emotions, Love and Fear. Every other emotion is a derivative of one of those. Love feels good. Fear feels bad. If you allow your emotional center, your heart, to be the guiding light that illuminates your choices, then yes, any choice you ever make will be the right one for you as well as the highest good for all concerned.

We all have what I call appointments in life that only we can show up for and if we don’t, no one will. For me, today is one of those appointments. If I had died that day, not only would I never have had all of the rich experiences that followed the attempt, but I would never have been able to keep the appointment with our daughter, which is the reason I am here talking with you today. And if only one of you needs to hear any of this to help you understand how unique, important and priceless you are, then I would go through it all over again. Every moment of it.

People who try to commit suicide don’t want to die. They have simply misplaced hope. They have strayed too far from home, from their inner center, and think they will never be able to find their way back home.

I came here today, and stand before you, as an arrow pointing you in the direction of home and the best part of your life.

Remember Who You Are. Remember Why You Came. Know How Much You Matter. Keep Your Appointments.

And above all, never give up Hope.

P.S. I gave each student a little handout paraphrasing J.R.R.Tolkien:
“All that glitters is not gold. All who wander are not lost.”

>     Someone made an interesting comment about my blog yesterday. Because it’s my nature to see if there is any credence or learning for me in the truth of another, I have given the comment due consideration and come to my conclusion.
    But first, the comment. The person told me that as to the content of my blog, “it’s always the same message” and so he has stopped reading it. Now, ordinarily this might be a hurtful message to give a writer, especially one who aspires to inspire others. So, I had to look carefully at the comment and be honest with myself. After due consideration, I have decided that he is right. However, rather than it being the basis for folding my tent and moving on, so to speak, his observation re-energizes me in my mission and motivates me to continue along this chosen path.
    Why?
    Because he is right. There is only One message. Just as there is only One Source, One You, One Me, and One of Us. That is the underlying structure upon which I build every blog entry. And the reason it is both the foundation and the repetition is because like all things new, it will take time and reinforcement to become the accepted norm.
    We have lived thousands of years under an illusion of separation and the consequences of division, aggression, competition and war that separation breeds. It will take time to establish a comfort level with the new awareness of our connectedness and all that it implies.
    It will also take repeated exposure to the multifaceted and multidimensional ways in which that connectedness, the Oneness, plays out in our lives. My contribution to reinforcing the underlying principle is to show how and where, in our daily lives, the principle can be detected and applied. And so, I look at personal, local, national and international stories to extract and highlight the seed of Oneness that is inherent in everything that occurs, no matter how obscure it may seem at first glance. For what I am doing is teaching an exercise in consciousness development that is here for the taking.
    One of the things I have learned in my life thus far is best summed up in a parable about the Buddha.

One day there was a knock on the Buddha’s door. Upon opening it, a man confronted the Buddha and began to rail against the Buddha’s teachings, insulting the Buddha as well. After allowing the man to express himself fully, the Buddha looked the man in the eyes and said.”Thank you. But I cannot accept your gifts. You’ll have to take them with you when you leave.”
    The man who made the comment about “there being only one message” has obviously chosen to pass on the opportunity to reinforce the message. I can only hope that in so doing, he is choosing to find alternative resources that mirror and thereby reinforce for him, on a daily basis, the magnificence of the unfolding that we are All Now a part of.
    And I wish him well as he leaves on his journey.
   

    
    
    

>     I begin this entry thinking that it will be short. I am tired. Woke up that way this morning. In fact, didn’t think there would be an entry at all. But as the day moves on, and I sluggishly with it, it seems that fatigue and rest are subjects with as much merit as Presidential candidates or fluctuating economies. So, I am writing on commitment, responsibility, and guilt. All subject matter that directly tie in to why as tired as I am, I’m still writing.
    We are not taught to believe that some days it’s quite all right, even perfect, to NOT do what it is we do every day. Some days seem to hit us in the face the moment we open our eyes. You know the feeling. It’s like a knot in your solar plexus combined with a heaviness in your heart. Even routine morning tasks appear to be an uphill climb. Now, I’m not talking about depression or some mental or emotional deficiency that needs attention. I’m simply talking about honoring our internal message system.
    This morning mine was a blinking sign flashing “Gridlock. Proceed With Caution.”
    I’ve become pretty adept at hearing and following my internal guidance. I’ve come to trust It and know It guides me in the right direction. But even those of us who hear the inner call can stumble. And so I proceeded out into the world today to attend to what it was I had intended to tend to…and I’ve gotten some of it accomplished.
    Although not very well.
    You see, when we ignore our inner guidance we are really asserting what I would call the “will of ego” over Thy Will. Thy Will is the knowing of our Authentic Self that is directly connected to All That Is. Thy Will (which is My Highest Will) has my growth and creative expression as it’s highest intention. So when I choose to ignore it’s direction, I am more likely than not bucking traffic. Which is why setting out today with business as usual felt like gridlock. Or spinning my wheels. Or any other auto analogy one can come up with. You get the point.
    I write to the blog Monday through Friday. It’s Friday. So, I needed to write to the blog. That’s my commitment. Not having done that gave me feelings of guilt that I was not being responsible. Now, honestly, I know better than to get trapped by useless feelings of guilt. And yet, it was the guilt that propelled me to here and now so maybe it’s not so useless after all.
    I’d like to believe that this stream of consciousness blog entry will be of value to someone, somewhere. That would certainly be worth the exhaustion I’m feeling as I wrap this up. I am headed for a nap because I’m running out of what it takes not to.
    Those of you who are regular readers know I like to end with a punch and give you a “take away” as you go. So here it is.
    If you’re tired, rest. Life waits. Really.

>     The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a three page article on a local high school student who in an attempted suicide, jumped 9 stories from the bedroom window of his family’s apartment and survived the fall. With potentially fatal injuries, he endured 89 days of critical care hospitalization and has recently been moved to a rehabilitation facility. Miraculously he is on the mend. He will live, although the long-term effects of his injuries may not be known for some time.
    As a survivor of attempted suicide at age 23, I have written about the topic in prior blog entries, most recently in the entry “Appointment in Life” about my presentation on the topic to 500 high school sophomores in New Jersey. What shocked me in reading the Inquirer article was the statistic that 1 million high school age children attempt suicide each year. It is the third leading cause of death among young people between the ages 10 to 24.
    Thirty years ago a psychologist and friend, Linda Marcoccia, observed that historically, no society that “abandoned” its children has ever survived. At the time, she was remarking on the astounding number of runaway children in this country. Now that number is matched by those trying to kill themselves.
    Something is terribly wrong.
    I think the children are like the “canary in the mine” analogy. We should look at the runaways and the attempted suicides as an “early warning system” that an environment insufficient to maintain Life is unfolding.
    What has gone wrong and what do we do about it?
    I can only speak to the present day culture of the United States since that is where, and within which, I live (and am raising a teenage daughter, by the way). There are, no doubt, apparent factors gone awry both within the nuclear family and within the society-at-large.
    On the home front, too many parents have abdicated their responsibility to acculturate and educate their children to unsupervised technological creations. It started with television, the technology of choice during the latter half of the 20th century. And while television had its programming pluses and minuses back then, the minuses pale in comparison with the programming of today. To this, add PC’s, cell phones, text messaging, ipods, iphones, and whatever “advances” are on the horizon and you have the basic ingredients for the requisite alienation that is the underpinning of depression and suicide.
    I’m not saying this is the cause. Or even the root cause. After all, I tried to commit suicide during the relatively less technological period of the 1970’s. What I am saying is that as you multiply and compound the factors that create separation and alienation, you also increase the likelihood that more and more people will be unable to cope. At some point, our humanity is subsumed and obscured by the demands, and particularly the pace, of technology. 
    In the broader view, our values have been askew for sometime now. We have as a nation forsaken, if we ever fully valued at all, the stories, examples and extraordinary accomplishments of creative individuals and advanced societies that exemplified the best of what humankind is capable of creating. We teach the advanced sciences and encourage brutal levels of competition at the expense of history, culture, values, ethics, inspiration, kindness, charity, and love.
    The effects of our misguided aspirations can be seen in the 2.5 million runaways and attempted suicides annually.
    Children start out in life unencumbered and unrestrained by social constraints. As the grow, however, they take on more and more of the values and goals of their family and society-at-large. I think what the children are trying to tell us is that the quality of life we are modeling for them holds no attraction. What they are experiencing and feeling is too far removed from what the heart and Soul aspire to.
    They simply don’t see the point in staying.
    I have always been a firm believer that when the student cannot understand the teaching, it’s the teacher’s failure to communicate and inspire, not the student’s failure to learn.
    So, too, in Life.
    If the children are, in fact, our “canaries”…then they are signaling that we are failing at modeling by example a life worth living.
    Starting today, take every opportunity you have to replace expediency with genuineness, winning with allowing, and acquisition with simplicity.
    And know that as you make these changes, the children are watching.
    
    
    
    

>     Last week the petite, young wife of a Chinese TV News and Sports Reporter interrupted a televised promotional event meant to outline her husband’s TV station’s coverage of the pending Chinese Olympics. It seems the wife had, only hours prior, discovered that her husband was having an affair and took the opportunity to let the world know as well. A video of the actual event is floating around YouTube. In today’s world, there really are no secrets…at least not for long.
    Several aspects of this story grip me.
    First, we have a daughter from China. Watching several men trying to “corral” that petite young woman and move her off the stage was sad. But the aftermath is more than sad, it’s disgraceful. I have read that the young woman has been arrested, without benefit of judge or jury, and will remain incarcerated until after the Olympics. If this is true, human rights and womens’ groups around the world should be expressing their outrage. And if that’s not enough to have her released, may I suggest that no female athlete participate in the upcoming Olympics to be held in China unless she’s released. There may not be many ways to move an elephant…but there are a few.
    I take more than a little comfort in knowing that while I wish that someday my daughter enters into a loving, committed marriage, should that turn out not to be the case she will have the option to simply hire a lawyer and secure her marital rights. I’ll lose no sleep wondering if she’ll wind up in jail for making public the shameful behavior her husband tried to keep private.
    Secondly, let’s talk about that husband’s alleged behavior. If true, it’s certainly not confined to China and Now. It’s as old as recorded history, as is the unequal societal and legal responses to men who are promiscuous versus women who are. Under Sharia law, women are beheaded for that which men are admired. Even in democratic countries, there is still societal stigma and lowered opinion of women who have affairs. Yet, men wear them as some sort of accomplishment and are not subject to the same reactions. In fact, my husband has a “cute” little expression he favors about the male sex drive. He summarizes it by saying, “Basically, we’re dogs.” And while I believe he’s been true to our commitment, I think the saying is a rationale and justification for avoiding the challenges of growing past an ineffective perspective that inhibits real intimacy. Make no mistake, I condone neither male nor female infidelity. I simply condemn double standards and unequal justice.
    Thirdly, and most importantly, is the power of one, female voice. While I am certain there are those who would try and paint that young Chinese woman as mentally unstable, lacking in self-esteem, or vengeful, they would be wrong. It took a Herculean amount of courage to do what she did. To do it, she had to risk the outcry of the established thinking that she knew would follow, she had to announce to the world that her husband found her, in some petty way, “insufficient” (although his alleged behavior says infinitely more about his insufficiencies than hers), she had to face the consequences that might, and apparently have, resulted, and she had to anticipate living with the memory of her actions forever. This was a courageous act and, further, she had the inner strength to tie her comments to the lack of a human rights policy in China. What she was saying by that connection is that no nation can be a great nation without respecting equally all of its citizens. All means each...regardless of race, ethnicity, religious or political affiliation, age, and gender.
    So, a petite young woman from China has shone light upon a whole host of issues. She has done her job and done it well.
    Now the question remains, what do you and I do?
     
    
   
    
    

>     After following the Romney win in Michigan and the dialog on the Democrat side as of late, I am concerned that despite identifying the challenges we face there is still a lack of understanding and unwillingness to prioritize the “how” of how we meet these challenges. 
    In the last week or two the economy has become the number one issue…as it frequently does in election years. This fact is an indication that we continue to focus on what I would call the “quantity” of our lives rather than the “quality” of them.
    The stock market is getting shaky and so Mitt Romney, successful Governor and CEO, is rising to the top because of his record of fiscal responsibility, not to mention turning around an Olympic Committee mess. Not to take anything away from him, he also seems to be a decent and ethical man (although I still can’t get over that “tying the family dog to the top of the SUV for a fun vacation” thing). On the Democrat side, the major players are now talking about “stimulus packages” (a.k.a. more taxes)as their proffered solution to what looks like a pending recession.
    OK. The wheel turns. The days of the unbridled stock and housing markets are winding down to a slow crawl. This is life and this is how it happens. Everything changes.
    The issue is not how we address it in the short run…how we bail out the greedy banks, mortgage and insurance companies as well as the unrealistic homeowners who grabbed for the brass ring and fell flat on their faces…but how we address the deeper and extended challenge of making our future work force, the children of today, more able to be part of both a national and a global economy by being educated to contribute to both with needed and marketable skills.
    Yesterday I was listening to a special report on National Public Radio. It was an interview with a man in Massachusetts who sells typewriters. Yes, that’s right. Typewriters. Not computers. What he said was that there is a certain percentage of his business that is the 16-24 year olds who want a typewriter. What he is hearing from these young people is that while they enjoy the slowed pace, the sound of the keys striking the page and even the bell at the end of each line…it’s the absence of temptation when at the keyboard to access the internet that allows them more focused attention and less stress.
    We have to educate and prepare our children, not stress and brow-beat them into thinking that more is never enough and faster is never fast enough.
    I remember in 1992 when James Carville, political strategist for then Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, coined the phrase “Its’ the economy, stupid” to underscore then President George H. W. Bush’s lack of understanding for fiscal issues. Well, it’s not the economy. It’s the type of society we continue to create by thinking and acting as if the future doesn’t matter in pursuit of short-term satisfaction.
    Our very creative and bright 14-year-old daughter is a whiz on the computer, cell phone, and ipod. And she has a required $150 Casio calculator for 9th grade Algebra. She also has a tutor for math. It’s not her strongest subject. Recently, we realized that while she can perform some very advanced technological tasks, she doesn’t know her multiplication tables 1 through 12. Now, you may not think that’s a big thing in today’s world but I can assure you that “the building blocks of a foundation” are always important…although that’s never really apparent until things start to collapse.
    Which brings me back to the election of 2008.
    I am not interested in quick fixes, magic formulas, bailing out stupidity and greed or any other superficial panaceas that address symptoms, not root causes. I’m looking for a candidate who is schooled in the fundamental building blocks of Life and Responsibility and has the courage not only to speak to them but to apply them and ask that we apply them as well.
    Until such a candidate appears, I’ll be practicing times tables with my 14-year-old.

>     Who could not be moved, and inspired, by the news report of Ben Mathenia, age 7, who noticed his friend and classmate choking and successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver thereby saving his friend’s life? Following my amazement and glee, I got to wondering what factors came together to create that “happy ending?” I’ve come up with three.
    Knowledge. Ben was able to perform the Heimlich maneuver because someone taught it to him. Which goes to prove that we are never too young, or likely too old, to learn. Knowledge prepares us for the unexpected and, by so doing, gives us increased options when faced with unanticipated events and decisions. Even the first grade teacher who was teaching the class at the time said he would have expected Ben to call out “Mr. Miller, someone’s choking.” But Ben was equipped with the knowledge he needed to deal with what Life presented to him. And so he was able to step up.
    Presence. It turns out that Ben learned the maneuver from his father, who had used it on a co-worker. So there are two important lessons in all of this about being present. Although I do not know if Ben saw his father save a co-worker or simply listened while his father reenacted the event, but either way Ben was fully present whichever way it happened, and because he was he took in information that would later serve him and others. Secondly, because Ben is obviously fully present in his life, he was quick to notice his friend’s need and moved to do something about it. Without that presence, the story could have had a much more tragic ending.
    Compassion.  There is likely not one of us who has not walked or driven past someone who was suffering and, while perhaps expressing feelings of compassion, chose not to act on those feelings. When we pause between what we feel and what we think…thinking often turns into rationalization and justification that, in the end, inhibits us from following our innate knowing.
    Ben saw suffering, felt the struggle, had the knowledge, and cared about his friend. There was no time to lose and there was nothing to think about. Coming from a heart-centered place of caring, Ben reached out and his compassion saved a life.
    Knowledge. Presence. Compassion. These are the core ingredients of what happened in that Illinois classroom. There is much to be said about Ben Mathenia and much to be learned from him as well.
    Lee Ann Womack wrote a beautiful song that never fails to inspire me when I hear it…as has Ben’s story. I think the refrain from that song says it all…about Ben…and about what I would wish for all of us.
    “When you get the chance to sit it out or dance…I hope you dance.”
    
  

>     As we get past the “personality and message” phase of the Presidential race for 2008, we will inevitably come upon the need to decide not by stage presence and sound-bites but rather by depth of commitment to policies and vision. In this regard, the remaining contenders have some common ground over the issues…Social Security, the “War on Terror”, securing our borders, and health care…if not how to resolve them.
    I think the real loss coming out of Iowa was the withdrawal from the race by Senators Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, not because they each have decades of governmental experience at the Federal level, but because they each understand the importance of eduction and the role that teachers play in the future of our nation. We are no better than the possibilities for tomorrow, and our children are tomorrow. But allow me take this one step further.
    We are all teachers. Each of us, by how we live our lives, is an example, not only for the children but for everyone and anyone watching. Each of us arrives into this world equipped with a unique set of tools to create a world in which we want to live. It’s a great tragedy that most of us relinquish those tools early in life then try to create something brand new with the worn-out tools of others.
    The good news is that our tools are never lost…just “pawned” until the moment we realize they can be reclaimed for a price. The price is to forgo the desire to fit, to belong, to be one of the group, to conform to the way in which others have done things. Conformity breeds complacency and a complacent person is not a creative person. A creative person is one who sees possibilities and, with passion, sets out to manifest them.
    We are all teachers by how we live our lives, not by how we talk about them. I have been trying to get my teenage daughter to stop yelling. But I have been yelling for years. In the past few days, I realized the why of why I yell and have stopped it. In those same past few days, my daughter has not yelled either. Coincidence? Maybe. But I think not. I think that the greatest and most powerful teachings are present each moment we choose between what is good for us and what is not…and consciously choose the good.
    So, my regret over the loss of Biden and Dodd is that they were close to the essential issue of not only our time but all time.
    We must value the teachers of this world much more than we do. For each of us is a teacher and it comes down to valuing self. At the heart of the matter, it matters that by and through our choices we mirror the highest good for those who are watching. The goal is not to have them become like us in any sense other than to be who they truly are and thereby teach by example as well.  
    It was psychologist Carl Jung who said,”One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude
to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw
material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul
of the child.”
    Reclaim your tools, choose wisely, be passionate and teach by example. Tomorrow is watching.

>     I have a friend who has a particularly difficult time adapting to change. She has a tendency to want to keep things as they are out of fear for what the unknown will look like. She is so adept at the “Art of Holding On” that she literally retains excess fluid in her body during times when she is particularly resistant to Life’s inevitable changes. In fact, she’s so “good” at holding on, I have actually seen her body repeatedly swell as we spoke about changes she didn’t want to face. Ironically, she is in a healing profession yet cannot seem to harness her own ability to heal herself. And while she’s not alone in that regard, there’s an important lesson her example can teach us all.
    Holding on is counter-productive and not good for our bodies…as in the state of our health. Understanding how this is so goes a long way towards supporting wellness as opposed to the alternative…treating illness.
    We humans are not, by nature, skilled at change. Learning how to accept the impermanence of things throughout life is an exercise in accepting the impermanence of Life itself. Because we have such difficulty with the latter, we tend to resist, or deny, the former. This is most commonly manifested in how we try to acquire and accomplish in order to calm our fears about facing both Life and Death empty handed. And so the downside of resisting change is what my friend has come to teach.
    By holding on to where we are when Life asks that we let go and trust the ride instead, we not only impede getting where it is Life wants to take us but simultaneously overload our systems with excess energies that are better off jettisoned and left behind. Hence, my friend’s instantaneous ability to bloat rather than change. And while it looks simply like bloating on the outside, I’m pretty sure it’s doing some unseen damage on the inside as well. For every action (or inaction as it were) there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s neither me nor my friend. That’s Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
    The cure or, actually, the preventative measure, is to trust Life and be open to what comes your way…making the best choices you can at any given moment. The simple act of choosing, of setting forth preference and by so doing giving momentum to movement, is the surest way to emotional and physical health. And remember, there are no right or wrong choices, simply different paths along a common journey that each of us is making.
    Every experience you choose to have has a way in and a way out. Think of Life as a house with many rooms. Each room has two doors. A door to enter and a door to exit. If you walk through the “in” door and decide you don’t like the room, you can always exit through the “out” door and repeat the process again at the next room.
    There are an endless series of choices and opportunities to choose in Life…if only we would make them.
    So, as with everything in Life, it’s up to you and me to see the glass half-empty, half-full, or in my friend’s case, filled with some immobilizing fluid that keeps her stuck in some endless cycle of fear.
    Since that’s a really awful thought to end on…I choose to end on something lighter and more positive.