Greater Good Science Center – Page 10

Nuggets of Wisdom – Personal Growth Insights

I recently spent a few incredible weeks back in my hometown of Lancaster, PA, visiting family and longtime friends. The meaningful face to face conversations I had with people who have contributed to my life felt incredibly good. Our deep discussions revealed some invaluable insights about how our individual personal growth has been having positive impacts on others in our families and circles of friendship. I’m offering these inspirations in this post:

I’ve grown very close to the amazing women in my Beautiful Cheetahs Zoom Book Club over the past 18 months. Most of them are also from Lancaster. It was such a delightful treat to be with them in person.

We are amazed at how much we have evolved in the past 18 months as we took a deep dive into Untamed by Glennon Doyle and opened up our hearts and life stories to each other. We peeled quite a few layers off our onions, crying sometimes and laughing at others. We said “me too” quite often — to the stories that Glennon described in her book and to similar stories in our own lives.

Herein lies the biggest nugget of truth — so many people are entangled in the the narratives, the judgments, the unprocessed traumas and the armor of their past.

Some of our armor protected us when we were too young to be able to make sense of things. We are not forever tethered to our past and our lived experiences. We can — and should — untangle ourselves from our triggers, our insecurities and fears so that we can live unencumbered from false, limiting narratives and emotional baggage.

My friends and I notice that we are showing up differently now for our family members, especially spouses, adult children and grandchildren, because of the personal growth work we have done on ourselves. It inspires us to have deeper, more honest conversations. Our awareness about how we were bound or restricted by our past helps us shine a light onto the path of agency and self-discovery for others.

There were touching conversations that I had with two women I love and respect so much that echoed the same sentiment yet from different perspectives. It was how another can see us in a much different light — and what a gift that truly is.

My lifelong friend gazed at her daughter as she looked at herself in a floor length mirror — each reflecting on that same young woman about to be married. Through her mother’s eyes, her youngest daughter had grown into the most remarkable woman, far exceeding any dreams or expectations that her mother had for her when she cradled her all those years ago. Mom could see her daughter’s past, present and future all at once — and her heart filled with love, joy, gratitude and wonder.

We don’t know just what her daughter might have been reflecting on as she gazed at herself in her wedding dress.

What I do know is that my dear friend wished for her daughter to be able to see herself just as her loving mother did. Is there any greater gift that reflecting to another all the goodness that we see in them?

The second conversation centered on how parents and siblings can get stuck in viewing us through the lens of our childhood – or a much younger version of ourselves. Perhaps they contribute to the narrative that a past event in our lives defines who we are today. My young friend shared how her beloved husband was instrumental in helping her family see her in a new light. Her husband saw the courageous, resilient and evolving woman she truly is. All along, she had been working through her past experiences and growing in remarkable ways — but her family just hadn’t stepped back to fully take in all the positive changes in her. They were unconsciously falling back on the much younger version of her. It was her husband who opened their eyes to the incredible woman she is today.

I’ve witnessed this in my own family. My sons are 10 and 11 years older than their sister. Even though they are all adults now, I have a feeling that my sons still view their sister as 8. This often happens in families where there is a big difference in ages of siblings. That playing field gets leveled as we age and mature. We all benefit by stepping back and reflecting on who that person is today.

This nugget of wisdom is a natural followup to the last one about seeing each other from a fresh perspective. I’ve recently read Harriet Lerner’s book, The Dance of Connection, and have discussed its relevance to hard family conversations with a few of my friends. Just like all the “me too” moments that we’ve found in common for ourselves, many of my friends have shared the fractures and misunderstandings that exist in their extended families. Ignoring these conflicts and estrangements rarely solves anything. I call this the “ostrich syndrome” — sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that we can’t see it (or feel it). Sometimes we do need boundaries if there is a log jam and we cannot make forward progress in healing old wounds. Yet, I am a firm believer that being willing to hold space and listen with the intention of learning is the equivalent of extending an olive branch in familial healing.

Lately I have been discovering that these long overdue hard conversations often shed new light and information on a misunderstanding that provides relief and release from our past. Adult kids begin to see their parents through their own lenses as 40 or 50 year olds. Older parents begin to see how their emotional reactions and patterns contributed to problems for their children. Siblings begin to see each other in a more mature light.

Dr. Dan Siegel emphasizes the value of “rupture and repair” in our relationships. We grow stronger when we make repairs. We are healthier and more resilient when we possess awareness and accept accountability for our behaviors and actions. We strengthen our relationships and deepen trust when we apologize and back it up with positive changes.

Here’s the compelling hope that Dr. Dan Siegel offers — he says that it is never too late to repair a rupture. I’ve heard the stories of adult children my age who had hard conversations with their aging parents and subsequently healed decades of trauma and unprocessed emotional baggage. Those last few years of their parent’s lives turned out to be some of the richest. This should encourage all of us to be willing to have those kinds of conversations much much earlier in our lives.

One of the things I love about my closest friendships is how we help each other stay on track with our personal growth – especially when life throws us a curve ball.

Through all the personal growth work we have done individually and together, we have become good resources for each other when we need a little help to stay on the healthy end of our emotional spectrum. We often use the enneagram as a valuable tool to recognize where we might be slipping into an old pattern.

Sometimes we need a boost of encouragement, a reframing of our perspective, or a reminder to take time to journal and process what we are feeling. Occasionally we need each other to hold space for us, allowing us to pour out our hearts and simply listen, without judgment,

We talk a lot about how we want to be “showing up” as our more enlightened and empowered “best selves”. It takes a lot of practice, a boatload of awareness and a willingness to change. Since we are all at different places in our personal growth journey, we benefit from hearing other’s experiences. We have become that relational scaffolding for each other that Dr. Bruce Perry promotes. Best of all, we are helping each other find purpose and meaning in this chapter of our lives.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

If you enjoy my Nuggets of Wisdom, I hope you’ll start to follow me on Instagram at InspiredNewHorizons. I post several times a week on Instagram…..and it is often my personalized quote about what I am learning through my evolving personal growth journey. I embellish each quote with something relevant that is touching my life in the moment. Hopefully it will be relatable, inspiring an encouraging for you too.

Ian Morgan Cron’s TYPOLOGY Podcast featuring Carey Nieuwhof (Ian has a new book coming out – The Story of You which is about the enneagram. His acronym SOAR will help with self-awareness and change. His guest, Carey Nieuwhof, is inspiring and also has a new book coming out which is entitied At Your Best. This book is the strategy to help you get your time, energy and priorities working in your favor. Listen to this podcast for an engaging conversation about both books and their application to your own personal growth and happiness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQg8AFu5Kc

Huffington Post Article: “I Tracked Down the Girls Who Bullied Me as a Kid. Here’s What They Had to Say” by Simon Ellin, Feb. 19, 2021 (This article is a great example of having a hard conversation and what it can reveal, and how much relief and healing can result).

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/middle-high-school-bully-depression_n_602c0800c5b65259c4e52240

Inspiration from Imperfections

My Zoom book club has taken a summer break and I am missing the camaraderie of good friends taking deep dives into rich conversations about life. Perhaps it is why listening to Brene Brown and her twin sisters, Barrett and Ashley, discuss the ten guideposts of the Gifts of Imperfection has been such a treat. I totally marinated myself in the realness of these three sisters having those big conversations. Honestly, you would never have guessed that this was a public podcast. It just felt like being part of a no-holds barred girls getaway.

Brene and her sisters used the Summer series of Unlocking Us to talk about how they use the 10 guideposts in their own lives. Mostly they talk about how challenging it is to break old habits and integrate new ones; how helpful it is to unpack how they developed learned behaviors earlier in life that aren’t serving them so well now. They took those deep dives into two of the ten guideposts every week. There was a lot of laughter, some very serious aha moments and a warm wash of being heard and valued that felt like a cozy blanket and a hug.

They used the Wholehearted Living Inventory as a starting point for each week. Brene offers this tool on her website and encouraged her listeners to take it before they listened to the podcast. Brene’s approach is to consider using a gas tank analogy for each of the 10 guideposts — measuring how full your tank is on each of the life skills. This is so much better than viewing it through a strength and weaknesses lens. That mindset alone makes such a difference. It is also a relatable and relevant way to look at how we are showing up in life.

As the three women talked about having just a half tank in some of the areas, it opened up a lot of really good dialogue about awareness and change. It was a safe and inviting space to do that exploration and excavation.

And….the reality is that even when we have the best of intentions, it is really hard to have a full tank in all ten of these guideposts at one time. To me, it is the interweaving of these guideposts that creates a strong framework for personal growth. When we only have half a tank in one area and we might have 3/4 of a tank in another. That combines to lift us up — to a better version of ourselves. It is the natural rhythm of life, an ebb and flow of our emotions, events, energy and intentions.

Check out this awesome diagram for the 10 guideposts. The left hand side in bright green are the qualities to cultivate. The right hand side in “stop this” red are the things to work on releasing.

Brene and her sisters use a lot of the same tools that I do to help them integrate the guideposts into their own personal growth journey. The enneagram is a great resource for understanding our core motivations for some of our learned behaviors and best of all it helps us recognize our blind spots. The enneagram also uses a measurement approach similar to the gas tank analogy — it is a spectrum, from healthy to unhealthy. When we move to the healthy end of enneagram type, we are using our gifts and talents in the best ways possible. We find more joy and fulfillment in life and others enjoy being in relationship with us. When we start operating on auto-pilot and act more unconsciously, we move to the unhealthy end of the spectrum. Often this is when we begin to have relationship issues, are prone to numbing to avoid painful emotions and make poor choices.

Being a big believer in both the enneagram and Brene’s work, it was so beneficial for me to hear how using these tools in tandem were so meaningful to Brene, Barrett and Ashley.

Another area that really resonated with me was the candor with which these three siblings could talk about their childhood, the experiences that shaped them as they were growing up. Brene is the oldest and she assumed the role of protector for her younger sisters. Like so many of us, their childhood also had dysfunction weaving through it and this set them up for many of those roadblocks that are in that red column above — being a control freak, having a need for certainty, always comparing ourselves to others who seem to be doing it right, working ourselves to exhaustion to prove our worth.

As they discussed these experiences and how it shaped each of them, they also revealed how they were coming to know their parents in a whole new light — mostly as messy, flawed and big-hearted human beings doing the best they could at that time. This is one of the gifts is truly a blessing that goes both ways — adult children gaining a deeper perspective and parents being given space and grace for all they navigated, often with little support for their overall quality of life. This is where we often discover the root causes of so many of our unconscious behaviors that are listed in that red zone above. Brene research shines a light on the armor we use from one generation to another to be protect ourselves. Getting our family skeletons out of the closet is just like mom or dad shining a flashlight under our bed when we were young, confirming that the monster was mostly a figment of our imagination.

I see a lot of overlap in the discussions that Brene and her sisters had and my Zoom book club. We are taking what we are learning and applying it to our lives — past and present. Applying it to the past fosters healing. Applying it to the present frees us to live authentically. We are helping each other along the way through honesty and vulnerability.

I’m also part of several Facebooks groups that revolve around Brene’s Dare to Lead teachings and Glennon Doyle’s game changing book, Untamed. For the most part, the women and men in these online discussion groups are strangers. Yet there is a clear understanding that we are there to support each other with respect, kindness and empathy. The outpouring of stories, questions and a need for supportive help is profound. Every single day, there are a handful of stories that look and feel much like pages in the book of my life. It is incredibly uplifting to read the touching, encouraging responses. It is even more profound to see how many people have overcome tragedies and adversities and now are shining beacons of hope for others.

So there it is — Brene’s podcast, my Zoom book club and these online discussion groups — all taking that leap of faith and sharing their imperfections and vulnerabilities — and inspiring each other to keep going, keep growing and lean in to those who care.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Check out the Wholehearted Inventory Assessment in the Gifts of Imperfection Hub. Listen to the Summer Series if you’re looking for motivation and inspiration for integrating the 10 guideposts for Wholehearted Living in your life.
https://brenebrown.com

Glennon has evolved through many chapters of her life, often sharing those experiences in great detail in her books. In this one, Untamed, she really pulls the layers off the onion, offering poignant self-examination stories that many of find so relatable.

Please check out Nedra Tawwab — especially if you want some solid footing when it comes to setting healthy boundaries. I discovered Nedra through a Being Well podcast with Dr. Rick Hanson and his son, Forrest. I follow her on Instagram and absolutely love her Nedra Nuggets! https://www.nedratawwab.com

Nuggets of Wisdom – Visual Images

Visual images are some of the most beneficial aids in my mindfulness toolbox. Today’s post is chock full of my “go to” images that I depend upon to keep me present in the moment and showing up in an authentic way. Even if I’m feeling really strong emotions (mine or others), these helpful tools keep me from impulsively reacting to big feelings.

About 20 years ago, I met the most incredibly calm and benevolent young woman. She was the instructor for my 5:30 a.m. hot yoga class. She would start our practice with a visual image: planting our bare feet firmly on our mat, we were to envision small roots growing into the ground, anchoring us in our yoga practice for the next 90 minutes.

When I was gaining a little traction with my meditation practice a few years ago, I recalled that image from yoga class and thought about how I could create a similar visual to help me take my meditation “off the cushion” and into daily life.

My visual image is of dropping my anchor into my very core of calmness — that place I find when I can let thoughts go and focus my attention in the present moment. In meditation this is returning to my breath. In real life, it is staying present with the situation at hand — and most importantly, not getting attached to my own emotions or those of others. I can make better decisions when I am calm. I will be much more likely to act in alignment with my true nature when I am calm. That mental image of dropping my anchor de-escalates things for me pretty quickly.

A wise mindfulness teacher once said that most situations are benign — they are neither good nor bad. It is how we respond or react to them that makes them positive or negative. What is a big deal to one person may not even get on the radar screen of another. Staying calm and paying attention to how others are feeling, helps me get a grasp on why a situation may be a big deal or a small one for someone else. Often this is more relevant than the actual circumstances.

This may be one of my personal favorites — the visual image of holding a brightly colored spool and letting out a little extra kite string, watching that kite dance a little higher in the sky, adjusting to the currents and gaining fresh perspective.

Sometimes we are just too afraid to let go, even just a little. We chase what we think we need or want so badly. We might micromanage our lives or others. We can be prone to hover or smother, be needy or greedy. We can let fear hold us back from trying new things, or taking that leap of faith.

At this stage of my life, I use this visual image most often when it comes to relationships, especially adult children and extended family. Letting a little kite string out means that I am holding space for others, recognizing that their lives are busy and that they want to solve their own problems. I don’t need to be tugging so hard for attention or to be the one they turn to for advice. I just…..let out a little kite string.

I credit Malcolm Gladwell for this visual. If anyone can look at a situation from a ga-zillion perspectives, it is Malcolm Gladwell. And he does it with a child-like curiosity and unabashed wonderment. To me, this is how it feels to look through a kaleidoscope, twisting and turning it with pure delight, fascinated by the changes.

So often, we view things from our same old vantage point. The fact is that we are changing all the time, and oddly enough so are those chronic ongoing situations in our own lives, in our communities, country and globally.

Listen to a few episodes of Revisionist History podcast with Malcom Gladwell and you will witness a big shift in perspective when a situation is viewed from all angles, and through the experiences of everyone involved.

Remember the old adage, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure? This visual is a little like that for me. I envision myself holding a smooth cylindrical kaleidoscope that has a little weight to it, placing it in front of my eye, and watching the problem present itself in a myriad of ways. It’s a reminder to withhold judgment, get out of my box, stay curious — and make sure I am actually looking at the real problem. (Credit goes to Michael Stanier Bungay and his book The Advice Trap for this wisdom. Far too often we jump in to problem solve so fast, we “solve” the wrong problem).

When I first discovered mindfulness, I had a little cork that I placed in a small clear vase on my kitchen window sill. I would see it every morning when I poured my first cup of coffee. It was my reminder not to get bogged down in rumination, disappointment or sadness. I had read an article in Mindful Magazine that talked about how freeing it is to let go of getting caught up in the negativity bias. The image of letting one’s cork float effortlessly through the flow of life was inspirational to me.

I didn’t know at that time just how much I was actually tethered by old behavioral patterns, my life history and the disappointment of a dream disintegrating. Over time, with awareness and daily practice, I freed myself from those weights and found that I really did feel lighter in many ways. Today when I feel myself growing a little heavy in spirit, I think about that cork on my windowsill. It’s a reminder to look for the good.

The little things that unfold in our daily lives offer buoyancy to us if we are paying attention. Make eye contact with someone when you are having a conversation — you will feel your cork rising when you see it in their eyes that they know you are really listening to them. It’s magic and it’s rare….because too often today our faces are gazing at our phones and not each other. Call a friend or your sibling instead of texting — hearing each other’s voices adds the spice. Don’t be surprised if you learn so much more than you expected. Think about someone who makes your life better — and send them a card or a text expressing your appreciation. Smile more. Laugh out loud. Listen to the sounds of nature. Read a good book. Listen to your favorite music. Dance in the kitchen. Take a break.

Just holding on to those little moments of joy for ten seconds releases happy hormones and that will definitely let your cork rise and buoy your spirits.

I hope you enjoy reading about my visual images. I do love sharing them. Sometimes a simple mental image that is all we need to bring us back to the present moment.

Correlations and Connections…

My son in law gazed at the stack of books on my table and asked me if I found any correlations that ran through the various genres of my diverse interests. How curious that he would ask me this question, for I had just been making that connection. The evidence was in the plethora of brightly colored post it notes jutting from my books with scribbled observations on most of them. There are indeed common threads that weave themselves throughout my books, podcasts and conversations. Consider this a bit like an adult version of “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

I recently read Born for Love by Dr. Bruce Perry who was sounding the alarm 10 years ago for our collective empathy poverty. Dr. Perry and his co-author shared in-depth details of real life experiences from their practices and research about childhood brain development. As the case studies were presented, it was revealed just what went wrong in a young child’s brain development that impacted their capacity for empathy and lack of ability to self-regulate. As the stories unfolded, those resulting consequences led to some devastating results for the child, parents, and others to whom they caused harm — often later in life. To be honest, many of these stories were so relatable to me due to my own lived experiences, and through the experiences of family members and friends.

The correlation? All the work that Brene Brown offers on vulnerability has a direct link to empathy. Vulnerability and mindfulness work together to build empathy. When we are aware of our own feelings, when we can witness them, and process them in healthy ways, we expand our compassion for ourselves and our empathy for others. Empathy is being able to perceive what is going on for others. We have the capacity to really connect with others by a genuine relatable understanding of how it feels to experience what they are dealing with in the moment. We know how it feels in our body and how it affects our mind. We connect our own past experience and someone else’s current experience through empathy. Dr. Dan Siegel calls this Mindsight.

The connection? Learning how early childhood brain development can negatively impact emotional intelligence and the ability to self-regulate is a gateway to understanding why people may struggle with behavioral issues. This is a new lens through which to view complex relationship and social issues. Doing our own personal growth opens our eyes to our blind spots and how we might block our own emotions in unhealthy ways. Self-discovery frees us from personal roadblocks to our own vulnerability. Once we grow in self-compassion and personal emotional awareness, we can then strengthen our relationships with others in a much healthier and honest way.

Born for Love is one of those books that has an everlasting impact. It made me reflect on all the changes we could be making to educate young parents about brain development of their newborn, how extended families could be educated and encouraged to provide additional continuity and support for mothers and newborns — and mostly it made me think about all the young children borne in poverty and dire situations who have little chance of being given the opportunity for healthy brain development. Imagine the positive impact we could have for society as a whole if we could just give every child the best “head” start.

The next book I read was How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith. Although this reading order was quite by accident, I am grateful for the timing. My empathy was clearly amplified by my increased awareness of what I had just learned about childhood brain development, trauma and intergenerational impacts from Born For Love. This prepared me to absorb a much deeper understanding on all that I was about to discover. The sub-title of Clint’s book is “A reckoning with the history of slavery across America.”

Clint Smith is a gifted writer who weaves past and present together with a needle of truth and threads of shared humanity. I read his compelling book very slowly. I read it slowly because it is the type of book that makes you stop in your tracks, to reflect what you are learning and to process the wash of emotions that stir from his vivid stories. There is no doubt that the profound historical education I got from this book sinks deeper into my heart because of Dr. Perry’s insights on our persistent empathy poverty.

Clint Smith traveled across the country visiting landmarks and monuments — those that are honest about the past and those that are not — and offers the reader an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our collective history and memory. It was his conversation with John Cummings that drove home the power of empathy for me.

John Cummings is an aging white multi-millionaire who turned the Whitney Plantation in Louisianna into our country’s first slavery museum in 2014. Stop and think about that — a private citizen provided our country its very first slavery museum. A privileged, affluent older white man. What motivated him to dedicate himself to this mission of telling the tragic history of slavery?

John Cummings educated himself about the totality of the oppression that Black people have experienced through the records he acquired when he purchased the Whitney Plantation in the late 1990’s. He has read more than eleven hundred oral histories of slaves and he described the strange feeling that came over him as he took in their words. He told Clint that it felt as though someone was talking to him who never had a voice. He did not feel guilt — he had a feeling of “discovered ignorance.” “How could this have happened and I didn’t know about it?, he said.

The correlation? John Cummings was overcome with empathy for our shared humanity as he read these oral histories. Empathy opened his eyes and his heart to the tragedies and atrocities these fellow human beings endured from slave owners and the social acceptance of slavery. Empathy brings us clarity and a hunger to learn the whole truth. Dr. Perry has recently co-authored another book I’m reading – What Happened to You? I’ve listened to many of his lectures on this book and have been captivated by what a compelling question this is to ask someone. Rather than chastising by saying “What is wrong with you?” asking “what happened to you?” will help us bridge the great divide .

The connection? We cannot heal our country’s collective trauma if we gloss over or ignore the truth about our history. The analogy for me is simply this: Just as we have to be honest about personal intergenerational family trauma and history in order to break the chain and begin healing, we must do this same hard work as a country. We have an opportunity to re-write our collective story and free us all from a past that is holding us back from extraordinary healing and growth.

This brings me to a book I read last spring – A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It is a spiritual manifesto for building a better way of life and building a better world. In his recently launched podcast series, Essential Teachings, Eckhart and Oprah take a deep dive into the chapters of that book. Just a few days ago, It was the chapter 3 episode that grabbed my attention. In turn, I grabbed my post it notes and wrote “labeling and resistance” on them.

Brene Brown has been very vocal about all the harm that is caused by labeling groups of people — and calling people names. It dehumanizes people and in turn it desensitizes those who brandish the labels on others. It is this very desensitization that overrides a person’s empathy and allows them to harm others without remorse. Eckhart Tolle echoed this same message in his recent podcast — labeling desensitizes us to the aliveness, the humanity of another.

I found myself reflecting on all the ways our society uses labels — not just for individuals and groups of people, but also for the hard conversations that we legitimately need to be having. We label these hard conversations, we pick a side or a political party, and we take a strong stance. The media amplifies the label in every news stream. All too often, these labels and their ensuing conflicts distract us from the legitimate issues that need to be examined.

Eckhart also pointed out that whatever we resist, persists. What we fight, we strengthen. Conflict and negativity are not tools for problem solving. He asks “do you want peace, or do you want drama?”

The correlation? How many labels have been used throughout our country’s history to dehumanize and oppress others? How many labels have been used to address chronic, systemic issues? The innumerous examples of how we label and dehumanize on social media are heartwrenching. Are we blind to the many occasions that we witness and accept labeling?. If labeling people, groups or issues desensitizes us, is it any wonder that empathy is in great decline. The us vs. them fight that permeates almost every subject matter today is only strengthening our divide. We seem to be fighting over the very things that those who came before us fought hard to gain for us. We were their future. The connection? Awareness, acceptance and empathy intersect in these books, podcasts and in life. Eckhart Tolle referenced several times about how similar our collective struggles are to our personal struggles. We have the capacity to co-exist with awareness, acceptance and empathy. We do this automatically when a natural disaster strikes, such as a hurricane or wildfire. We did it most extraordinarily immediately after 9-11. Eckhart reminds us that negativity and defensiveness do not solve problems but keep us addicted to unhappiness and drama. Rather, he suggests, make peace with the issues, accept reality. Meaningful, humanitarian and sustainable actions come from compromise, empathy and presence.

During the pandemic, I added a new element to my self care routine — podcasts. Less news, more learning, wide variety of topics. And this is when I found Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell. I was over the moon delighted with my discovery and often binged on them the way my friends were binging on Netflix. His podcast is “a journey through the overlooked and misunderstood –something from the past –an event, a person, an idea and even a song — and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.”

What I love about Gladwell is his child-like curiosity and his brilliance at connecting the seemingly unrelated in extraordinary ways. I envision Malcolm using a kaleidoscope the way one would use binoculars — that’s how colorful, creative and unique his perspective is on a wide array of topics. It is just this sort of curiosity that we need more than ever. It is also just the kind of multiple perspective lens we need when looking back at history and asking the most relevant question – “what have we learned from this experience?”

I recommend listening to these two episodes to jumpstart this process for yourself: Miss Buchanan’s Period of Adjustment (June 28, 2017) which will shed light on school segregation and black teachers’ fate after a landmark Supreme Court Case; the second one is The Foot Soldier of Birmingham (July 5, 2017) which will reveal how a single photo impacted the country in the midst of one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s most famous marches. The plot twists reveal unforeseen consequences that underscore the importance of solving the right problem — and if we are not curious enough, if we don’t ask enough questions, we just might be spending all our time solving the wrong problem. (I’ll give a nod to yet another book The Advice Trap by Michael Stanier Bungay.)

The correlation? History has a lot to teach us, but it is necessary to have the full scope, the whole truth, if we are to derive the most meaningful lessons. Asking the questions about whether we got it right the first time, and if not, how can we do it better?

The connection? Own the problem — that does not mean ignoring it or fighting about it. Accept the reality of the problem. Leave judgment at the door and get curious. Ask questions, lots of questions — and ask the people who are most affected for their experiences and their ideas. Learn from mistakes. Did you know that “rupture and repair” is the glue for most healthy relationships? Whether it is a personal relationship or a country’s relationship there will be ruptures — misunderstandings, conflicts, issues — but it is the “repair” that not only heals, it fortifies and strengthens the relationship — the kind of resilient relationships that stand the test of time.

Food for Thought:

After reading How the Word is Passed, I scrolled through the online reviews of the Whitney Plantation on their website and was disheartened to see that many visitors treated it like a tourist stop rather than the historical education that John Cummings intended. So often, we just “skim the surface” of things in our own lives as well as humanitarian issues. If we scratch the surface and dig a little deeper for more information, more understanding we will gain insight and even compassion.

Malcolm Gladwell offers that we “think with our eyes” and we “feel with our ears”. He told Stephen Colbert in an interview that books makes us think but that podcasts can make us cry. He also believes that crying is how we get in touch with our own vulnerability. If something brings you to tears, it will stick with you. It’s so true, isn’t it? We can listen to an interview for an hour and it is the 30 seconds of vulnerability, the emotional punctuation in a heart-touching story that lingers with us long after the conversation ends. These are the seeds of connection — that remind us of our shared humanity.

I was living in Fort Lauderdale when the Parkland school shooting occurred. I recall seeing a Facebook posting of David Hogg in a photo-shopped pink crocheted hat with a tag that read “The liberals have found their snowflake.” I cried. I’d see these Parkland kids and their families in the community after that horrific experience. I saw their shock, their pain, their fears. Those raw emotions were palpable in our community — for many months. There was not a parent in our neighborhood who did not express their fears about putting their kids on the school bus shortly after that tragedy. Events like this reverberate to others all across the country and can be the cause of PTSD, emotional triggers and high anxiety. The effects of labeling also reverberate in a similar fashion. Odd isn’t it that one action of dehumanization causes desensitization in the one who labels and over-sensitization in the one it was intended to hurt.

Awareness is the key to many of our individual and collective problems. “Pay attention to what you pay attention to” is a cornerstone of mindfulness. How much of our attention goes to complaining or defending…..and how much goes to understanding and problem-solving? Another cornerstone of mindfulness is “reframing” — an invaluable reminder to shift or expand perspective. Too often we have a blind spot because we just keep looking at things the same old way. “Pass that kaleidoscope, Malcolm, it’s time for some curiosity and creativity to infuse our perspective!”

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

On the bookshelf:

Here are the links to the 2 episodes of Revisionist History that I referenced above: These episodes are so worthy of your time.

https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/miss-buchanans-period-of-adjustment/

https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-foot-soldier-of-birmingham/

For stimulating discussions, try some podcasts:

Older and Wiser Parenthood

One of my favorite things is talking with my adult children about the stuff that they are navigating in their mid-life. I don’t shy away from any aspect of these conversations even when the topics are tough. Something that I have noticed as they hit their 40’s, is that their perspectives on me are evolving as they get deeper into mid-life. They are now going back and revisiting the past through their own parenting lens. There is a depth to our discussions that I love, for it pulls back the layers of our family history and allows for healing and growth.

I’m in a better place for these meaningful talks because of all the personal growth work I have done. I no longer listen with my mind racing about how to solve a problem for them. I recognize that this is not my role now. They are grown ups and they need a confidante, a sounding board, and a judgment free space. When my focus is on listening, I find myself discovering so much more than what is on the surface. We can dig a little deeper.

As my adult children have navigated through their own life experiences with marriage, parenting, and careers over the past ten years or so, they too are discovering more about me as a whole person, and not just “mom”. It is in these nuanced conversations that we find new common ground and mutual respect for each other. The very stuff that they grapple with today, I also struggled with. My experiences provide perspective and assurance they too can get through the tough parts of life. The best gift that I can offer to them today is the insight I have gained on how I might have done it better. It is precisely why I gave them each a copy of the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. I wish I had not only known about the 10 guideposts for wholehearted living, but that I had someone I could confide in who would help me cultivate them earlier in life.

That is precisely the resource I want to be now for my adult children.

It’s hard as a parent to witness adult children going through tough struggles. I’d hoped they’d be spared some of those adversities, but that is not how life goes.

I don’t think it is all that unusual for adult children to be reluctant to discuss their challenges with their parents. There is a part of them that doesn’t want to admit to mom and dad that they are wrestling with life issues. They don’t want to disappoint, to burden or to get lectured.

And yet….the truth is….that we as parents have been exactly where they are and we not only know firsthand the worries, the second-guessing and the what-if’s — we know that we made it, that we might have done better and that we want to be the support system we either had — or wish we had.

These 10 guideposts for Whole-Hearted Living give me a great place to start when it comes to having some of these deeper conversations with my adult children.

I’ve come to realize that it is necessary for our adult children to have a healthy dose of life experiences under their belt before we can delve into some of this wisdom. After all, it only makes sense when they can actually relate to it.

My son who has gone through a divorce and is co-parenting his 8 year old daughter very well with my daughter-in-law, has a much different lens through which to view my divorce from his dad when I was his age. He can also assess the relationship that his sister had with their dad when she was only 8 through a parenting lens. My hope is that this does not impact his current relationship with his dad, but that it offers a new framework to understand prior mysteries about the complexities of his sister’s relationship with their father. My son can now understand that my parenting job for his much younger sister was made harder by the choices their father made about his relationship with his daughter. The ripple effect from his dad’s co-parenting decisions resulted in a lot of painful confusion and estrangement in our family for a very long time. That hard lesson learned has resulted in my son and daughter-in-law being very cognizant of keeping their daughter at the forefront of intentional co-parenting.

My oldest son reminds me a lot of myself at his age, burning the candle at both ends at work and at home. He is striving to be an over-achiever professionally and personally. Been there. Done that. I recall very clearly how exhausted I was from it all so it’s easy to put myself in his shoes when we chat. Where I used to quickly dole out advice, I now listen more and ask more questions. My focus now is to empower him to find his own meaningful solutions. I recently read The Advice Trap by Michael Stanier Bungay to help me get better in supporting him in this way. My stories about wrestling with similar work and parenting issues when I was his age offer some comfort and assuage some of his fears about the future. I can even get a chuckle out of him when I tell him that it has taken me many years to “ooze this much wisdom.”

My daughter is a decade younger than her brothers and has a lifestyle that is quite different. Her husband is a professional athlete has has been for 12 years. This means several moves to new locations every year, with many moving parts to each. She is home-schooling her two children to provide continuity for their education in spite of all these relocations every year. She has had to become a master of logistics to pull this all off in a seamless way for her husband, her children and her dogs. Like every other young mother, she can feel pulled in a thousand directions, feel like she’ll never get it all under control and she sets the bar high for all that she should accomplish in a day’s time. I used to give her examples of all that I juggled when I was raising her and her brothers and boy did that backfire. It was not helpful — and I know that now. She felt like I was judging her with all my comparisons. Thank you Brene for helping me to realize the error of my ways. What my daughter really needed was for me to see her, acknowledge what she was feeling and to articulate how I valued her and all that she does with so much love for her family. She did not need me to rush in and do things for her. She needed to know that I have her back and she can offload all her stresses with me in a safe, judgment free zone. It occurred to me that when I was her age, I was similarly overwhelmed. It was then that I realized that I had to overcome my lack of organization and ability to prioritize if I was going to keep my sanity. Oddly enough, it was my own chaos and overwhelm that led to me becoming an efficient planner, organizer and resourceful problem solver. The one area that I totally neglected however was my own self-care. I’m so grateful to be able to have these honest conversations with my daughter about the importance of taking time for herself and her own interests. She is now a role model for her own little girl – the best source of motivation there is.

Everyone of the 10 guideposts that Brene Brown offers in the Gifts of Imperfection permeate my conversations with my adult children these days. Through our deeper conversations we revisit the past with fresh perspectives, empathy and benevolence. Honestly, we are starting to heal some chasms that existed for far too long.

In a recent Being Well podcast on connecting with our true nature, Dr. Rick Hanson and his son Forrest, shared some of their own father/son dynamics along with childhood experiences. Dr. Hanson stressed the value of adult children being able to have conversations with their parents and even grandparents about the family’s past. When we are older, we can handle some of the relevant details that may not have been appropriate to share when we were younger. He explained that this can lead to a deeper understanding of the bigger picture and can lead to improved relationships and family healing.

Brene Brown and her twin sisters had a similar conversation during the second episode of the Unlocking Us Summer series. They reflected on their own mother and what she might have been struggling with that ultimately led to divorce from their father later in life. There was no angst or big emotions as they talked through this, but rather a keen desire to understand mom and dad a little better — and to extract the lessons.

I have a few friends who have shared with me that they had long-standing problematic relationships with one of their parents for many years. It was only when they were much older and some key circumstances had changed that they had a breakthrough. In some cases, it was a parent that stopped drinking. In others it was becoming a caregiver for an ailing, aging parent. The stories my friends share are heartwarming because they came to know their parents in a totally different light. They discovered common ground, greater understanding and a humbling realization that most of us are flawed, messy humans doing the best we can. A lot of heartache has been healed through these hard conversations. A lot of wisdom has been imparted.

As my own personal growth journey unfolded, I realized that I had a lot of childhood trauma that led me to develop some of my triggers and behavioral patterns that stuck with me for decades. Unfortunately both of my parents were deceased and I could not have these conversations that might have answered so many of my questions. My brother and I have had quite a few conversations about our family and our shared experiences. This has been enormously helpful to both of us and has truly strengthened our bond. We are all that is left of our family at this point and very grateful to have each other. We are the best of friends.

I had no idea when I started my deep dive into my own personal growth six years ago that it would prepare me so well for being able to have deep, hard conversations with my own adult children. Again, I find myself extremely grateful. Anything that I can offer to my adult children to help them understand their childhood, their own triggers and behavioral patterns is an invaluable gift to them. My adult children getting to know me as a whole person, with all my crazy dreams, my flaws, my wild stories and my unconditional love, well that is the best gift I could ever receive.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-connecting-with-your-true-nature/

https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-internal-family-systems-therapy-with-dr-richard-schwartz/

Unlocking Us Podcast – Summer Series — Part 2 on the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
https://brenebrown.com/podcast/part-2-of-6-brene-with-ashley-and-barrett-for-the-summer-sister-series-on-the-gifts-of-imperfection/

The Greater Good Science Center – Article – The Cost of Blaming Parents

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_cost_of_blaming_parents

Nuggets of Wisdom

I started collecting inspirational quotes in my teen years and to this day, I am still fascinated by them. One day, my friend told me that the little nuggets of wisdom I shared with her about mindfulness were like inspirational quotes for her. I laughed and said that my little homemade quotes were like daily gummy supplements for self-awareness. My daughter told me that she likes them because it the perfect way to squeeze a little mindfulness into her crazy busy day keeping up with two young children.

So, I am launching a new component to my blog posts — and aiming to share my Nuggets of Wisdom twice a month.

This first one came to me when I realized that all too often, we inadvertently interrupt others and pull their attention away from the present moment. Just taking a few moments to take stock of a present situation may be all that is needed to realize our comment or story can wait a bit. Don’t break the spell of a mom reading a book to her child, or your partner engrossed in meal prep, or a friend taking a moment to gather her thoughts.

Those moments when we pause and just observe another being focused in their own activity is an opportunity to witness another’s joy, fascination or vulnerability.

We’ve all got behavioral patterns that we unconsciously fall back on– things like avoiding conflict, being a control freak or being a consummate helper, not asking for help. Just like a good purge of clothes that no longer fit or are outdated, a purge of these old conditioned patterns free us up to fully embrace our current life and the person we are striving to be.

I’ve often described this processing as gaining a lot of real estate in our lives for new growth opportunities, richer experiences and more contentment.

Too often we ignore our intuition. Paying attention to our “gut instinct” will usually point us to the best choices. Our best friends and trust buddies will be honest with us, and help us see the blind spots we may be missing. They are good at holding space while we sort things out. Road blocks may be invaluable signs that something isn’t right for us, or that we aren’t quite ready. New beginnings are the springboard for learning, growth and resilience. Fresh starts are like a blank canvas ripe with opportunity.

Any habit that we wish to change does require commitment and daily practice. It’s fun to work on enhancing a personal quality that we want to let shine. I truly believe it is easier than breaking a bad habit too.

Replacing being judgmental with being curious was a quality I worked on. It really shifted my perspective and honed my empathy for what others were dealing with in their own lives.

What quality do you want to expand?

This might be my personal favorite — put a little gratitude in your attitude!

No matter what is going on in our lives, we often have so much to be grateful for, but we are so busy focusing on what’s going wrong that we overlook the obvious.

Take a moment to think about one or two things in your life that you are truly grateful for – and if it just happens to be a person in your life, tell them! A little note, a text, a hug or making them a cup of tea will be a blessing that goes both ways.

I hope you enjoy the Nuggets of Wisdom. I’d love to hear from you with comments, ideas, and your own nuggets of inspiration and wisdom.

Red Flag Insights

I’ve often shared how a relationship breakup put me on the personal growth path in my 60’s. While moving on from a broken relationship was challenging by itself, trying to understand why I ignored red flags and held on so long to an unhealthy dynamic proved to be the hardest part. It also became the most profound pivot of my life.

Today as I was listening to a Being Well podcast, I found myself feeling so “heard and understood” by Dr. Rhonda Freeman. Learning how the brain is impacted in our relationships explained a lot of the mystery that kept both me and my partner in unhealthy cycles. Repetitive patterns and the release of brain chemicals that “reward” us play significant roles.

Turns out that Dr. Rhonda Freeman also went through a similar relationship and breakup as me. She had the same experience afterward with friends and an unhelpful counselor that I did. She also had a strong desire to learn from the lessons which resulted in her turning to personal growth resources to find her healing. Dr. Freeman discovered that this foundation in her very own field of expertise — neuropsychology. While her main focus had been dementia, she now applied the science and tools to healing from a dysfunctional relationship.

While I did not have that field of expertise, I did have a keen fascination in neuroscience as well as a budding interest in mindfulness — and that led me to discovering Dr. Rick Hanson. The profound pivot for me was turning my attention inward and committing to some major changes. For most of my life, I’d always been about helping others, so this was a complete 180 for me. It was Dr. Hanson’s book, Hardwired for Happiness that jumpstarted the process.

Listening to the podcast today revealed the complex impact of an emotionally dysfunctional relationship on the brain. Suddenly a lot of pieces started to fall into place for me as I gained clarity about red flags and why my healing from that relationship took several years. I found Dr. Freeman’s honesty about her own relationship experience to be comforting and reassuring. She too had missed the red flags. She too had kept doubling down on efforts to salvage a fraying relationship. There is such a strong influential pull in romantic relationships fueled by our innate need for belonging and connection, that we can often override and overlook what should seem obvious.

Even Dr. Hanson confessed that he was once “talked into” following a cult-like group at one point in his life and in spite of his background, he too was completely affected and bamboozled by the influential power of the group. He pointed out that because we humans are by nature empathic and compassionate, we are also vulnerable to being influenced and drawn into relationships with others that are not so healthy. Sadly, emotionally dysfunctional relationships are all too common these days.

It’s not that unusual to have blind spots to the red flags. We may just dismiss them or explain them away. It can happen to anyone. We get flooded and overwhelmed by strong influences. Dr. Hanson cautions us to have a deep appreciation for the power of social conformity, acceptance and openness to being manipulated by others.

Once the conversation established how we find ourselves getting pulled into unhealthy relationships, it then turned to what is needed in the aftermath. How do we heal? What lessons do we learn and how do we develop our awareness and attunement to red flags and our own unconscious patterns?

Dr. Rhonda Freeman explained the double whammy of recovering from dysfunctional relationships. Not only do we have to heal from the pain of an emotionally dysfunctional relationship, we also have to address the shame that accompanies it. Shame we put on ourselves for allowing ourselves to be pulled into such a dynamic and shame from others. Very often well-meaning but misguided friends will also shame us. “How could you get into this relationship? Why did you accept that behavior? How did you miss those red flags and long-standing behavioral patterns? “

As I listened to Dr. Freeman’s stories about her friends who took a “tough love” stance and told her to “get over it” and “just move on”, it resonated deeply with me. The tough love approach can do more harm than good and often only causes additional heartache. Now I understood why I felt so awful back then and even avoided friends who doled out their tough love advice or thought I should dive headfirst into a new relationship.

As Dr. Hanson pointed out, you need a trusted friend to fill the emotional void that is inevitable after a breakup. This is a key element to healing — because it is the emotional void that can cause rumination, longing and extended suffering. It is much more supportive to have a trusted friend who will hold space for you and be willing to listen without judgment. You need a reliable friend who can curl up on the couch with you and watch a movie, make you laugh, offer grace to you as you take time and space to reflect, to recover.

While this was not covered in the podcast, it was only through a lot of deep introspective work that I realized some aspects of my former relationship had triggered memories and emotions buried deep in me from my childhood experiences with my mother. Oddly enough, this started to come out in my journaling. I would have missed many opportunities to go deeper with my personal growth work had I not stuck with it. The breakup actually served to be quite cathartic for me.

Once I was more aware of those old emotional layers, I committed to healing them as well. It is why I now have a daily practice for my mental health and well being. In fact, there have been many aspects about my former relationship that became gateways to learn more about how the brain functions, childhood trauma, depression, emotional intelligence, addictions, neuroscience and the enneagram.

While my partner may not have had narcissistic issues, I believe that emotional disregulation and old behavioral patterns contributed to relationship dysfunction that feels remarkably similar to what was discussed in this Being Well podcast. He often described himself as a delicate flower — and I now understand that this was how he felt about the fragility of his ego. I often felt like I was walking on eggshells around him, never knowing what passing comment would trigger him. This led to more guarded conversation than light-hearted banter.

Our approaches to life’s challenges were quite opposite –I’d head for a walk in nature to clear my head and he’d curl up in bed, in the dark, for hours and often emerge heavier and sadder. I’ve come to understand that his enneagram characteristics predisposed him to hang out with deep dark emotions, often ruminating about the past. It was his comfort zone – a soothing mechanism that did not serve him well.

I’d been traumatized as a 4 year old when my mother locked me in a dark attic as punishment for running home from pre-school after an incident with a bully. So the last place you will find me is in a darkened room if the sun is shining. Since I did not understand his innate preference for sitting at length with his heavy emotions in the dark and he did not understand my need for sunlight and energy, we were both blind as to why our responses to adversities were so different. He felt unsupported because I could not stay in the dark where I unconsciously felt scared and very uncomfortable.

At the onset of our relationship, I mistook his deep pool of emotions for vulnerability and a capacity for empathy. I have subsequently learned from enneagram educators who share his type that this is a common misconception and a frequent cause of relationship issues. HIs self-focused actions often caused me and others hurt and confusion. It was his lack of remorse and understanding about his impact on others that baffled me the most. Surely if he himself could feel emotions so deeply, he must be able to understand another’s feelings. There was a disconnect about what he needed and what he was able to reciprocate. I chose the word “able” intentionally here. I know he was “capable” but I believe that unconscious behavioral patterns created his blind spot.

I’d seen the poor coping skills early on in our relationship, but chalked it up to the aftermath of a troubled marriage that ended in divorce. Especially because it often seemed to be most apparent whenever he and his ex had a disagreement about matters relating to their children. He was a doting dad who cared deeply for his children. But over time, I witnessed his struggle with emotional regulation and poor coping skills cropping up in many areas. It seemed that he really struggled to make any distinction between what should have been a 1 or 2 on the radar screen. Everything got a response as though it were a 10. This was an exhaustive pattern for both of us. I urged him to work on it so that we would have some reserve for the bigger milestones and adversities that life would surely bring us. This conversation sent us back to couples counseling.

Recently I have learned through Dr. Bruce Perry how the bar for our emotional stress regulation gets set in childhood. While I do not know my former partner’s full family history, I have some clues that might explain why he innately struggled so much with emotional regulation. While I did implore his family members to learn more, no one seemed to really have any answers, just the observation that ” he’s always been that way. ”

The very thing that brought us together — golf — was the final blow in our relationship. Instead of us having fun and enjoying our mutual passion for the game, each round was filled with his drama, poor sportsmanship and blaming others over bad shots.

That was when I took stock of the bigger picture and recognized that the behavioral patterns I experienced were not confined to our relationship. They were prevalent in his men’s golf groups, some friendships, with a prior girlfriend and at the very end, even with a cherished family member. It was in that moment that I asked him if this is how he really wanted to live his life. A few months after we broke up, he moved a new partner in with him.

Here is why I think that it is imperative to share as much information as possible about the tools and research that support mental health, self-awareness and personal growth. During our relationship of 6 years, we saw 5 couples counselors. We never made any significant and sustainable progress. Looking back, with the knowledge I now have, I can see where there were some big clues disclosed by each of us in our sessions, but no counselor ever picked up on them or suggested that we do some solo counseling. My partner was also treated for depression but again it was limited to dispensing medication. Even his long time friend and family doctor would just shake his head and say the he was the most complex guy he ever knew. The stress overload he carried surely contributed to a string of serious health issues.

We have to find better ways to support people who have healing to do from childhood trauma, who need help to rewire their neural pathways so they can be free from rumination, chronic low-grade depression, high levels of anxiety and PTSD. Unresolved trauma or loss can be so overpowering that it affects the quality of our lives. Dr. Bruce Perry explains that unprocessed trauma and poor emotional regulation will stay with us all through adulthood and will result in a cascade of relational problems and serious health issues. I’ve witnessed this reality in my own family and this relationship.

It is the very reason that I have shifted my focus to broader outreach and awareness of mental health for both children and adults. I will continue to share resources, research and tools to support each of us in healing. As I recently heard on a podcast with Dr. Dan Siegel — “it is not our fault that trauma happened, but it is our responsibility to recognize how it impacts us and others.”

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Being Well Podcast – Recovering from a Relationship with a Narcissist

https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-recovering-from-a-relationship-with-a-narcissist/?highlight=recovering%20from%20a%20relationship%20with%20a%20narcissist

Being Well Podcast – Depression and the Brain

https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-depression-and-the-brain/?highlight=depression%20and%20the%20brain

YouTube Interview with Dr. Dan Siegel – The Power of Showing Up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFhuj0lhW7Q

Trailblazers, Teachers and Lamplighters

Have you ever experienced the Frequency Bias? You are thinking about buying a certain model of car and all of a sudden you noticed that model car everywhere — the freeway, the grocery store parking lot, ads on TV and your neighbor’s garage. The frequency bias is a way of describing what happens when something you are holding in your mind influences where your attention goes.

I’ve been experiencing the frequency bias a lot lately and it has ignited an excitement in me that has me feeling a bit like a little kid! What has me so fired up is a “growth mindset“.

When we practice growth mindset principles, we see possilbiity instead of limitation. Failure becomes a valuable opportunity for learning, and the success of others inspires us rather than discourages us. (http://www.renaissance.com)

The frequency bias that has captured my attention is a correlation between an expanding personal growth community and Joseph Campbell’s teachings of the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell, a leading mythology expert and modern day philosopher, revealed how story has been passed down through centuries and cultures to help humanity evolve.

The Hero’s Journey is a common story template that involves a hero that goes on an adventure, learns a lesson, wins a victory with that newfound knowledge and returns home transformed. The hero in the story template offers a shining example of personal growth work. We witness the transformation as heroes confront their own inner barriers, discover inner resources and test themselves. They return victorious from their adventures and conquests with a strong desire to motivate others.

Here is the magic in Joseph Campbell’s insights: It is far better for us to have a story to look through than an explanation. The story is richer – it pulls us in, makes us feel all those strong emotions, connects us to the character through those emotions, trials and discoveries. When we cheer for the hero, we are also cheering for ourselves — for possibility. A moving story inspires us, reminds us of our shared humanity and expands our empathy.

How many hero’s journeys have you personally experienced in your lifetime?

How many times have you had a sudden jolt in your world that changed the course of your life? What did you discover about yourself in those times of great trial? How did you help others when you emerged?

Those who have become Trailblazers, Teachers and Lamplighters are no different than you or I. They just recognized that their hero’s journey was only complete when they came through their personal growth experiences with a transformation so needed, so worthy that they shared the rich details to provide a scaffolding for us. We have a responsibility to those brave, courageous heroes to assist in our collective evolution. We don’t have to get it right, we simply have to do it better.

Take a moment to reflect on the things you often take for granted that might not be possible had others not fought for change. It could be collectively significant such as voting or being able to have credit in your own name. It could be singularly significant such as a parent getting you and your siblings out of a toxic environment. It could be life-saving heart surgeries or cancer treatments not available to prior generations. We are all benefactors of all those who came before us and did hard things that paved the way for something better. Nothing about life is stagnant – we are changing moment to moment. The major thing that gets in our way is when we inadvertently or unconsciously stunt our personal growth.

Every minus is half of a plus……waiting for a stroke of vertical awareness. What awareness can you add to it so that you get a far bigger picture? –Alan Cohen, Author and cast member of the movie, Finding Joe

What I have been noticing with greater awareness is that my Frequency Bias is picking up the patterns that are evident in the Hero’s Journey, the growth mindset, and the expansion of the personal growth community. The components and benefits of all sound remarkably similar:

Joseph Campbell’s lessons from the Hero’s Journey include accepting the possibilities of the present; trusting yourself and doing what makes you feel most alive (following your bliss, discovering your passion); part of the journey is exploration, facing our fears; stretch yourself (put yourself in uncomfortable situations every 7 days); we grow the most from things we stretch the most; no one holds you back but yourself.

Research links the GROWTH MINDSET with many benefits, including: greater comfort with taking personal risks and striving for more stretching goals; higher motivation; enhanced brain development across wider ranges of tasks; lower stress, anxiety and depression; better relationships and higher performance levels. (www.skillsyouneed.com)

Mindfulness tools include meditation and deep breathing; engage in activities you are passionate about; bring your attention to the present moment; sit with and truly feel all your emotions; journal for self-reflection; practice active listening; become aware of habitual but ineffective behavioral patterns; avoid numbing emotions and experiences.

I’ve written about the upward trajectory and merging of all this meaningful work in prior posts. What I have been amazed to discover is how often I’m having conversations today that reveals just how much it is beginning to seep into regular conversations.

Just in the past two weeks, I have had chats with waiters, grocery clerks and strangers at the coffee shop about personal growth, hard conversations, mental health and managing anxiety. No mindless conversation about the weather and plans for the rest of the day. I get the sense that people are hungering to find a better path forward as we emerge from the pandemic. There is a buzzing kind of energy that feels like the universe nudging us to chart a new course.

Could all of this explain the growing fascination with mediation apps like Headspace and Calm? And why Brene Brown’s work is exploding way beyond her initial Ted Talk and first book, I Thought It Was Just Me? She’s now hosting two podcast platforms on Spotify and she’s published 7 books with another one currently in the works. What incredible timing for Oprah and Prince Harry to launch their documentary on mental health; and for Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry to release their new book “What Happened to You.” Neuroscience is weaving its way into mainstream conversations and intersecting with mindfulness, meditation, mental health, anti-racism and childhood development.

It seems we are open to the invitation that humanity is extending. It is our collective Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey has 3 basic parts — Separation, Initiation and Return.

The pandemic provided that separation in more ways than we could have ever imagined. The initiation had us all dealing with unforeseen trials, isolation, and obstacles to our previously normal life, and we all got pulled into caves for self-reflection and a reality check. And now…..the return as we emerge. The big question before us is how will we show up?

Enlightenment occurs when we take time out for serious self-reflection and we face the things that scare us the most. Sometimes those scary things are the equivalent of a monster under our childhood bed. Bring them out into the light, learn more, do some perspective taking. There’s no doubt that it takes courage to recognize that we have some blind spots, some unfounded fears. Stretching out of our comfort zone a little at a time shines some light under that dark bed and informs us. We have a plethora of high quality resources to help us — books, documentaries, podcasts, conversations with people whose views are different from our own.

Many of our most invaluable resources are the rich stories of our Trailblazers, Teachers and Lamplighters. What lessons can we take from their heroic journeys? How can we honor the forward progress that they made for our benefit? We are the gardeners of the future….what seeds are we planting? What weeds are we pulling?

I’m sharing two stories I have learned over the past year from Glennon Doyle and her book Untamed. I think these are relatable examples of love in action and a willingness to open minds in whole new directions. The gateway to these shifts in perspective was through the heart. In her book, Untamed, Glennon shares the story of her parents attending a church-inspired community meeting in rural Virginia in 2015 in response to the racial issues agitating America’s consciousness after the Charleston mass shooting. There were about a hundred white folks in attendance. A woman called the meeting to order and announced the decision to send care packages to the predominately black school across town. The group embraced with relief this “outward action”, performance instead of transformation. Glennon’s father was confused and frustrated. He stood up and said “I’m not here to make packages. I’m here to talk. I was raised in a racist Southern town. I was taught a lot of things about black people that I’ve been carrying in my mind and my heart for decades. I don’t want to pass this poison down to my grandkids’ generation. I want this stuff out of me, but I don’t know how to get it out. I think I’m saying that I’ve got racism in me, and I want to unlearn it.” Glennon paints the picture of her dad as a good man, dedicated to family and community…in other words he looks and acts just like most of us. But as she so wisely states “he dared to imagine that he played a role in our sick American family. He was ready to let burn his cherished identity of “good white person”. He was ready to stay in the room and turn himself inside out.” (excerpted from Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Chapter entitled “Racists”).

The second story is about Glennon’s mother. Not surprisingly, her mother was full of fear and concerns when she learned the shocking news from her daughter that she was in love with a woman. While it was no surprise that Glennon’s marriage to Craig was broken and a divorce was imminent, it was a lot for Glennon’s mother to absorb this new revelation. What Glennon realized was that her mother was reacting as most of us moms would naturally do — a strong desire to protect her beloved daughter from the onslaught of judgment, harassment and negativity that was sure to come her way. And that protective instinct overrode her mother’s ability to separate her emotions around that from how she really felt about Glennon and ultimately Abby. Her love for Glennon was never in question. Her support for Glennon was layered under all the fears. When the dust settled and the air cleared, Glennon’s mom not only embraced the joy and love so evident between Abby and Glennon, she became a committed activist for the LGBTQ community. Glennon readily admits that her mom is now more involved in this activism than even she is. I share these two stories as examples of awareness and transformation in two people that are in their later years, facing change in unexpected ways and evolving. In fact, they are sources of inspiration to me and others who view this chapter of life as an opportunity to live on purpose, with purpose to create a better world for our children and grandchildren.

Personal growth and humanitarian growth are inextricably linked. When we know ourselves better, we tap into that deep reservoir of wisdom and understanding. We aren’t meant to get it perfect, but we are encouraged to keep working to make it better.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Finding Joe Documentary on Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8nFACrLxr0

My son and I are both reading this phenomenal book right now. It will open your eyes and your heart in unexpected ways ….hopefully it will break you open to greater understanding.

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-dr-clint-smith-on-how-the-word-is-passed/

in 2010 Dr. Bruce Perry brought to our attention the Empathy Poverty. Fast forward to 2021 and so much of what he shared, we have lived in many iterations. This book is more relevant today than ever. The root cause of so many of society’s problems lie in childhood trauma and neglect. Another book that will teach you things you never imagined impacting our daily lives.

We Can Do Hard Things Podcast – with Glennon Doyle and her sister, Amanda

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-can-do-hard-things-with-glennon-doyle/id1564530722

Untangled

The definition of mental health is simply this: a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being.

What is not so simple is the complex and intricate ways our psychological and emotional well-being get out of balance.

When I started on my personal growth journey, I wasn’t thinking about my mental health. I was thinking about my heartbreak, my derailed dreams and my utter exhaustion. After slogging through a lot of self-help books and meditation magazines, I began to understand mental health in a new light. We contribute to each other’s mental health in our daily interactions and responses. Poor emotional regulation, lack of self awareness and old habitual patterns can suck us into a complex web of familiar but dysfunctional chain reactions. I began to realize the interconnection of members of my blended family and how we were inadvertently triggering each other’s most vulnerable emotional memories.

I could see how my own unconscious behavioral patterns and resulting coping mechanisms were in fact affecting my mental health. As I overlaid how members of my family were also operating unconsciously, what came to mind was the image of intricate, delicate necklaces all twisted and knotted together. Untangling all of this was going to take a committed effort — and it had to start with me. Our mental health was at stake — and it was affecting everyone’s quality of life.

I had plenty of evidence that my anxiety level was high. Stress was running the show and running me ragged. I was now a chronic ruminator, prone to stress eating, had trouble sleeping and was becoming forgetful. I credit my long-time fascination with neuroscience for preventing me from going into denial about the connection between stress overload and old behavioral habits feeding the cycle. I stumbled onto Dr. Rick Hanson, Ph.D and his teachings on the neuroscience of happiness.

I began learning about rewiring the brain to break the anxiety cycle and create new neural pathways. I discovered that strong emotional intelligence — the conscious ability to regulate our emotions — contributes to better psychological health and lessens the risk of anxiety disorders and depression.

At the same time, I was also absorbing what Brene Brown was uncovering about shame, vulnerability and our need for true belonging. Her research revealed all the things we do to avoid revealing our imperfections — and how debilitating those things are to living a wholehearted life.

Numbing anxieties is not the solution. The point that Brene Brown makes that when you numb pain, you also numb joy was very evident in my personal life. I felt my joy draining from me like the battery on my iPhone when I was in high stress situations. We can numb pain with food, drugs, alcohol, work, suppression and avoidance. None of these choices will solve the root problem. And when we numb joy, we lose sight of the blessings in our lives, the love and support that is already present. Joy provides balance and ballast for our lives.

I have lived with family members who had very poor coping skills and tried numbing to ease their pain. It ultimately led to dysfunction in their day to day lives, illnesses and addictions. Not only did they suffer greatly both emotionally and physically, there was a lot of collateral damage to others whom they interacted with at home, work and even play.

Failure to address and manage our stress will only amplify anxieties and insecurities. It clouds our thinking, distorts reality and creates confusion. Ignoring our emotions and over-reacting to our emotions deteriorates our mental health and impacts our physical health. As Brene teaches, we armor up. In doing so, we just keep adding to our growing iceberg of our core issues. You’ve probably heard that saying “the body keeps the score.” Chronic and life-threatening health issues can develop due to stress overloads.

Here again I had personal experience — extended periods of high stress in my life were the precursors of breast cancer at age 40 and then 18 years later the sudden development of lymphedema in my right arm.

I began to clearly see the big picture and understand the direct correlation between physical health, mental health and overall quality of life. Focusing on getting to the healthy end of the mental health spectrum became a top priority for me. It was neuroscience and rewiring the brain that created the framework for my personal mental health improvement plan.

All mental activity — your thoughts and feelings, joys and sorrows –require neural activity. Neurons that fire together, wire together. Repeated patterns of mental activity require repeated patterns of brain activity. Repeated patterns of brain activity change neural structure and function. You can use your mind to change your brain to change your mind…..to benefit yourself and others. — Dr. Rick Hanson, Ph.D, Author of The Neuroscience of Lasting Happiness.

The infrastructure I built inside that neuroscience framework consisted of mindfulness to expand my awareness of my behavioral patterns; meditation practice to help me recognize and stop the patterns in their tracks; meditation practice to learn how to let go of racing thoughts, rumination loops, and attachment to strong emotions. I supported my mental health goals with a lot of reading, journaling and deep vulnerable conversations with my trust buddy, Judy.

Brene Brown calls friends that you can confide in with complete honesty and trust “marble jar friends”. You only need one or two of these deeply rooted friends to help you gain traction in personal growth work. They are life jackets and air bags for all of life’s turbulence.

Brene Brown’s grounded research reveals how we have similar behavioral patterns and how/why we developed them. Dr. Rick Hanson teaches us how to retrain our brains to let go of those old patterns and replace them with more beneficial responses. Behavioral science and neuroscience come together to help us diagnose the problems and then heal them.

I took myself out of the entanglement. I acknowledged to myself what was tripping me up. I asked my family to help support my efforts and I held myself accountable for needed change. I blogged about my experiences, the trial and error and the discoveries.

The greatest gift is being a much improved resource for my family and friends now. I was not able to do that in a meaningful way five years ago and I wasn’t even aware of it. The more I learn about myself, the more I am able to discern when others are in struggle. My empathy, acceptance and non-judgment of others has grown exponentially as a direct result of doing my own work.

I am grateful that there is a dedicated collective effort taking place to de-stigmatize mental health. It is a collective problem — we truly are impacting each other’s mental health in how we show up in life. If we continue to drag around unprocessed emotions and trauma, to numb or hide it, we will not break the cycle of impairment. Taking care of our mental health is as fundamental as taking care of our physical health.

We can become advocates of our own mental health just as we are for our physical health. We can also help advance the cause to destigmatize mental health. Mental health is not an “either or” proposition — you are either mentally healthy or you are not — is totally inaccurate. We are all on the spectrum of mental health, just as we are with our physical health. As events and circumstances in our lives change, so does our mental and physical health.

I started on my personal growth journey because I wanted to be “at my best” for whatever the future held for me. At the time, I envisioned grandchildren, milestones and health issues — the good and the bad. I naively thought that “at my best” meant being physically strong and well-rested, no drama and a positive attitude. I was blind to how my past was impacting my mental health and how I was unconsciously reacting to myself and others. I certainly was unaware of how interconnected we all are with regard to mental health. We can do a better job of taking care of each other.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Greater Good Science Center, Berkley, CA – Four Things to do Everyday for your Mental Health https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_things_to_do_every_day_for_your_mental_health

Trauma experiences leave traces on minds, emotions and biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to partners and children. — Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Dr. Martin Seligman: Check out this interview:

https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/positive-psychology

Breaking the Chain

Over this past year, I gained a deeper understanding of the impact of childhood experiences from one generation to the next.

As I read this page from Clarity &. Connection by Yung Pueblo, I paused to reflect on just how true these words are. Often when I read a page in this book, I do find that I have lived exactly what Yung expresses.

I reflected on my mother whose parenting skills were sorely lacking and how that impacted me from a very young age. If you asked me at age 5 or 10 or even 15 what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer was always the same: “A good mother”.

Most people would just smile and think how sweet. However, a guidance counselor in middle school took it as a red flag. I spent more time in 7th grade in that counselor’s office than the classroom. I drew pictures of a house with a white picket fence, a big leafy tree with a tire swing, colorful flowers lining the path to the front door, three smiling kids and two happy parents, all holding hands. The guidance counselor would give me an odd smile that felt intrusive as he asked me vague questions and and gave me the ink blot test. Looking back, I am sure he knew I was leading a double life – the fantasy image that I drew on that paper and the harsh reality of a very dysfunctional family. He could also see my mother’s reaction when she stormed into his office to yank me out of there. I often wondered if he could hear her yelling at me when we got into the car. A few days later when I found myself back in his office, I was sure he did. Truth be told I was angry at him for putting me into this endless cycle of fearing the consequences of being back in his office while surreptitiously begging for his help, leaving clues on blank sheets of paper. Neither adult seemed to truly care about me. I was Olive Oyl between Popeye and Brutus. The tug of war was between them and my fate remained unchanged. A pattern that would play out in my life for decades.

So it was clear that from very early on I thought this whole mothering business could be handled much better. My framework for this was established with a long list of “what not to do” and it even included all the awful things my mother would repeatedly say that I vowed never to say to my own future children. Imagine my confused relief when I realized that other kids from seemingly functional homes had that same list. The big glitch in building a framework on “what not to do” is that it creates a very shaky foundation.

It set in motion a very complex webbing of reactive behavioral patterns intended to keep me and my brothers safe. I had an imaginary hope chest full of ideas on how to do things better when I was a mom. All those old reactive behavioral patterns became road blocks on my life journey. I can see that so clearly now — at 69 and on the other side of six years of self-discovery work.

Here’s the blueprint for all that generational heaviness that Yung Pueblo writes about — my mother had her own story. I know very little of it except that her own mother’s early death left her reeling and it must have happened shortly after I was born. She went to seances and fortune tellers, numbed her pain with alcohol, cigarettes and bad choices. My dad was overwhelmed by her and afraid of her. He was way out of his league in how to navigate it all. I remember being so angry with him for not protecting me and my brothers, but now I realize that he was every bit as frightened and stymied as we were. Both my parents were armoring up against their own fears and unprocessed trauma.

I grew up too fast, assuming adult responsibilities around the age of 10. Like many young kids, I believed I was the problem — that if I was better, we would somehow magically change into that happy family image I drew on paper for the guidance counselor. My behavioral patterns took root and I became a helper extraordinaire, a people pleaser and abundantly compliant. I took my lived experience, extracted the parts that hurt and vowed to do it differently. I began stuffing that imaginary hope chest with my own blueprint for being a good mom, wife and having a happy family.

I left home just a few days after graduating from high school. Actually, I bolted from home — in broad daylight, while my mom was at work. Packed my few belongings and moved into a third floor apartment on a peaceful street on the other side of town near a local college. I felt so free, in charge of my own destiny for the very first time. Just one little problem, I kept looking behind me (literally and figuratively) to see if trouble was looming. Like I said, it is very hard to build a solid foundation from shaky scaffolding. My mother gave me good reason to keep looking behind. She stole my car — my 1968 Mustang, in the middle of the night. I came out of my apartment in the morning to go to work and discovered my car was missing. She did this a few times, in spite of the fact that I thought I was so clever by parking it discreetly blocks away from my apartment. Those tentacles of childhood distrust just kept reaching out and tapping me on the shoulder.

At that time, I was working as a legal secretary in a law office for $70 a week. My boss was the most kind, sensible, empathic adult I’d met in a long while. He offered me a solution to the repeated stolen car dilemma, pro bono, and sent my mother some legal notice that put an end to her nonsense. It may have been the first time that I truly felt that someone had my back. I wonder if I conveyed to him just what that really meant to me.

My hope chest blueprint was an attempt for me to be the exact opposite of my mother but because I was also looking over my shoulder, I could not really sink down deep into my own core values and fully embrace who I truly was. My learned behavioral patterns kept me tethered to a past full of uncertainty. I carried my parents armor and my own. There was no sure footing, no strong foundation.

That’s how many find ourselves moving forward into life, getting married and having kids — and bringing all our baggage into the new life we are trying to build. Even in the best of families, there are blind spots. I think my parents’ generation had a junk drawer and a skeleton closet. They hid discomfort, dysfunction and trauma. My generation was often taught to suppress our emotions –stop crying, get over it, pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Is it any wonder that generationally we struggle with emotional triggers?

When I married in my early 20’s, I naively believed that my “happily ever after” blueprint was destined to come to fruition. My first husband was the oldest of 5 in what surely looked like the TV version of family perfection. Dad dutifully off to work, while mom in a flowered apron baked and ironed, preening over her children and her gardens. It was only after we were married, and were living with his family for several months that I discovered there were serious cracks in this facade as well.

Looking back now, I can more clearly understand that many of our marital struggles were rooted in the behavioral patterns we both brought with us into a young marriage. Unfortunately, we doubled down on what once worked for us in times of stress. That in turn just entrenched the cycle of our pasts colliding creating that unwanted heaviness that Yung Pueblo describes. Naturally that meant that our three children were exposed to this newer version of the same old thing — and voila now they were developing their own reactive behavioral patterns. Three generations of armor getting heavier by the minute.

Over the past several years, I learned about the findings of Dr. Bruce Perry, a noted clinician, teacher and researcher in children’s mental health and neurosciences. His work on the impact of abuse, neglect and trauma on the developing brain has had meaningful impact around the globe. It became very evident to me that what happens to us in our early childhood years can have lifelong repercussions.

This is why I feel so strongly about the importance of caring for our mental health and emotional regulation. I wholeheartedly agree with Yung Pueblo that when people heal themselves, they heal the future.

Deep conversations with close friends has revealed that my story is not that remarkable. Many had similar experiences and have felt the effects of their learned childhood behavioral patterns throughout their adult lives. I’m hard-pressed to find a family tree that does not have entangled branches of dysfunction, depression, estrangement, insecurities and brokenness.

Take heart, however — We were also well-intentioned gardeners tending those family trees as best we could. We chose to do the opposite of what their parents did, we chose to love more deeply with an understanding it might hurt, we chose to soothe, comfort and nurture. The pendulum may have swung too far the other way. We burned ourselves out trying to do it all and keep everyone staying in the green on the happiness meter. We still lost our tempers, got resentful, exhausted and disconnected. We offered ice cream cones to our children when we should have pulled them in our laps and honored their feelings. We should have done the same for ourselves but we chose a glass of wine or a bag of chips.

My first marriage ended in divorce. We tried couples counseling before we threw in the towel, but like my guidance counselor experience I realize that we were unable to identify the root cause of our problems. So we just lobbed our resentments back and forth, paid the bill and went home to hit repeat. We did not break the cycle. I can look back now through clearer eyes and a wiser heart and see how our emotional armor and old behavioral patterns kept us entangled til we couldn’t actually live our best lives anymore. I also see how our three kids paid a dear price just as my personal counselor told me. She said that my kids might come back to me one day and ask why I did not leave sooner. When I made the decision to divorce, my sons were away at college and somewhat insulated from the months of anxious fallout, but my daughter was now Olive Oyl between Popeye and Brutus. Consider that my daughter was only 5 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and 7 when she became my motivation to divorce to free us from a cycle of insecurities and unworthiness. Those events landed hard in the heart and mind of a young child.

Again, my story is not all unusual. And we have seen this play out throughout many generations. When my son was in the throes of his own divorce, I remember telling him that the long arduous decision making process had consequences for his young daughter and encouraged him and my daughter in law to co-parent from a space of awareness and love. I am relieved that they have done this well and continue to do so. For me personally, this is what Yung Pueblo means when he writes about healing the future. Learning from my mistakes, I share openly with my son and daughter in law. I am striving to help them navigate the challenges of raising a child in a co-parenting and ever-evolving family dynamic. No choosing sides and no ostracizing a child or making her feel “less than.” Raising a child is the hardest job we will ever do.

Embracing life’s realities and the brokenness that will inevitably occur in a caring, supportive, inclusive way is far better than saddling a child with our old emotional baggage. The best gift we can give a child is teaching them to honor their feelings. Holding them in our laps and listening, holding space for them to truly feel the depth of their emotions and feeling safe to do so. Teaching emotional awareness, emotional regulation and modeling it ourselves in daily life is how we heal the future. Do the work — in the present moment.

I had no idea when I dipped my toes into mindfulness 6 years ago what I would be gaining. While I was so focused on healing myself, I was then unaware how helpful it would be to my family and friends in the years to come. I knew that I wanted to get out of a situation that was draining me physically and emotionally so that I could be at my best for whatever life had in store for me in this last chapter of my life. That desire to be stronger, healthier and of clearer mind took me on a journey I could have never imagined. So often I told myself that I wished I had learned this all much earlier in my life, recognizing that it would have not only saved me a lot of heartache, but it may have also meant I did not inadvertently hurt others. There is a quote that says that life brings to you what you need the most — and what I needed the most was to heal from old trauma, drop the baggage and embrace equally my imperfections and my gifts. My discoveries and continued learning are supporting my efforts to help others learn this invaluable lesson much sooner in life.

I am so grateful that we live in a time where the stigma around mental health is falling away. I am so encouraged that counseling and therapies are taking a more holistic approach to mental health, bringing grounded research and more tools into the fold. I do believe that we need to be an advocate for our own mental health as much as we need to be advocates for our physical health.

I have looked back on my counseling sessions and see evidence where childhood experiences were begging to be brought out into the open, but were dismissed or simply missed. Had we all recognized that the warning signs were flashing, we could have done some of this meaningful healing work so much sooner. We may have saved good relationships that were tainted by our past.

Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah recently released their book “What Happened to You?” If we each asked ourselves this question, and then took the time to go back and revisit our childhood with compassion and mature perspective, it would be an invaluable step in breaking the generational line of hurt.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES: