Thursday, April 30, 2015

Making Time For Love

Thursday, April 30, 2015


Another month is about to pass away into the past.  It's strange to me how the quality of time's passage can engender such a variety of feelings within me.  The time of year, the particular details of the day and the weather can all impact my perception of how time is passing.

I feel an urgency to make time for love.  I feel an urgency to make time for loving relationships as well as work I enjoy doing.  Life is too short to waste our energy and hearts on relationships and work that do not light up our hearts.  I was reminded of this today when I met with a woman who will soon be a faculty member of the University of Hawaii.  We spoke of some projects that especially excited me.  I could feel my blood quicken a bit as we spoke.

I want to make time for these things:

  • Looking up into the vivid blue sky on a warm spring day and feeling the wind on my face.
  • Listening to the sound of a water fountain
  • Walking through green grass with no shoes on
  • A man I can love and build a life with
  • Relationships with open hearted men and women
  • Visting beautiful places throughout the world
  • Watching the moon rise
  • Watching the sun set
  • Sitting in a coffee shop and laughing in the company of a good friend

I am grateful for all the good things in my life.


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Watching The World Die

Wednesday, April 29, 2015


Trauma can have the ironic effect of leading you to more deeply appreciate what is good in the world.  I think it can also render a person more sensitive to the darkness within the world.  Some days I feel there is so much of it.

This morning I met with Dr. Lee Frelich of the University of Minnesota Center for Hardwood Ecology.  I met him for the purpose of introducing myself as I had recently been exploring the possibility of doing a research project on behalf of the Friends of the Boundary Waters.

I spoke with Dr. Frelich about the impact of global warming on the forests of Minnesota.  To say that our conversation was a sobering one would be an understatement.  Even if the human species doesn't emit a singly additional molecule of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere we have already committed the world of future generations to a very changed world.  A "Business As Usual" scenario may load the atmosphere with so much more greenhouse gases that warming here in Minnesota may amount to an astounding eight degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels.  It could even be more than that!  With a climate more typical of Kansas you can bet the Minnesota of past generations could easily become nothing more than a collection of memories.

The boreal forest of Minnesota seem quite likely to essentially vanish by 2100.  Certain species of plants and animals may forever relocate to Canada.

It saddens me to think of what we are doing to our planet.  I had a very early understanding of our capacity for complacency when I was a kid.  I was a science geek as a kid.  I can still remember seeing a truck hauling drums of what appeared likely to be some sort of toxic sludge just a few days after I watched one of those television dramas that featured a plot line of environmental destruction.  Every day we wake up and unleash our daily dose of carbon is another day we are creating a profoundly changed world for future generations.  I sometimes wonder what successive generations will think of us.  "Why didn't you stop this lunacy?" they might rightly ask.  There are so many reasons why we aren't doing much about it.

To my knowledge there will not be a single place on the planet that will not change due to what we are doing.  It seems there will be no 'safe' place to flee to.  I think people are the only species that foul our collective nests to the degree that we do.

......

A person may experience nightmares as but one symptom of a range of symptoms associated with PTSD.  I am not sure if here is a particular term for the nightmares experienced by a whole collection or culture of people.  One of my waking nightmares is the prospect of a world fundamentally and irrevocably changed due to the misguided actions of our species.  I do not want to watch the world die. But I wonder if my species will have a "front row seat" to witness a massive extinction event if we do not begin to collectively think and behave in a sustainable way.

After listening to possible future scenarios that might become a reality here in Minnesota I feel a strong desire to go outside and enjoy this beautiful spring day.





Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Choosing This And Not That

Tuesday, April 28, 2015


"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."  -  George Bernard Shaw

"The opposite of play isn't work.  It is depression." - Brian Sutton-Smith



I came across some interesting quotes in the course of my day today. Both of them referenced play.  I found it interested to see play described as being the opposite of depression. If this is indeed true the 'cure' for depression would be making time for enough play in your life...and then actually playing. So much of the journey of learning to live a healthy life is creating and maintaining balance between the different spheres of our lives.

If it is true that play and depression are opposites it would seem to follow that children who do not play enough in their earliest developmental years may find themselves at greater risk of depression in their adolescence and adulthood. Some of my past life history thus far would seem to serve as an example that this is true. To fail to develop healthy skills in play is, quite possibly, a greater tragedy than many of us yet realize.  I haven't read a lot from the literature on human development and play but what I have read has convinced me that play is indeed a vital part of a healthy life.

So what happens when play, joy and light-heartedness are insufficiently frequent elements of a life for many years at a time? It seems a person who fails to play enough may unconsciously walk down a path that may feature potential crisis later on due to this imbalance. My life seems to serve as an example. I became burned out due primarily to the imbalance that long persisted in my life. I gave too much to others in comparison to what I gave to myself. Some might call such a person a 'reckless giver'. I saw that term recently somewhere. I can't recall where now. Imbalances, however, can indeed be corrected.

I don't know that I am going to mature very gracefully if I don't continue to attend to this longstanding imbalance.  I was reminded of this by what I felt inside when I found a brochure today about a retreat offered in California.  The retreat is offered by Mosaic Voices and is described as "A Mentoring Retreat for Younger and Older Men".  As I contemplated the phrase I found myself asking myself 'where do I fit in this?'  And I could not see myself in it easily.  I do not really identify as a younger or older man.  I suppose I am somewhere in the middle.  But I do not wish to identify as being middle-aged.  I don't like the connotation of that term.

I know I resist my inevitable movement in the direction of one day being an older man because I feel that I missed out on so much when I was a 'younger' man. I feel an immense sadness when I consider what I feel I missed out on. I deal with this sadness on a daily basis. And there is no easy 'cure' for it.

Because I didn't perceive the world very clearly for some thirty years it is taking a while to adjust to a new life featuring a healthy perception of the world. I am grateful for my new life. But even healthy change is sometimes quite difficult.

......

I have lived long enough and experienced so much loss and disappointment that I have become keenly aware of the implications of the choices I make. By choosing one option I am effectively not choosing a number of other possibilities. By choosing to stay in I am effectively choosing to not go out. By choosing to read I am choosing not to lay out on the beach, have coffee with a friend, paint, write or any number of other things. What we choose says a lot about who we are. So does what we do not choose.

Is it possible to do everything we can imagine doing? That isn't likely. Can we accomplish a lot with our lives? Yes. But each day we live we are choosing the ultimate course our lives are taking. So choose carefully. But have fun along the way as well. This is the challenge before me now: Choosing wisely but also making time to be completely carefree.













Monday, April 27, 2015

Leftovers

Monday, April 27, 2015



I met with my therapist this evening.  It was something of a milestone session.  It was my one-hundredth session with him.  Some might not consider this something to celebrate.  If you are going to therapy some might conclude you are seriously dysfunctional.  And in some cases that would be true.  I personally have never felt as functional as I do now.  I am now finally able to deal with what I will call leftovers.

I asked my therapist to reassess me using the DSM criteria for PTSD.  I made this request because I wanted to ensure the documentation I may use for my work search contains accurate information related to my current health as well as my health history.  I was pleased to discover that I am indeed quite healthy now.  I was first determined to be sub-clinical for PTSD in January, 2014.  At that time I still scored on a number of criteria but I did not score enough to be clinically diagnosable.  My assessment this evening showed that I have continued to improve.  I barely score on any criteria now.  The main issue that still registers is my persistent sadness.

I experience frequent sadness.  This has been true for me for many years.  The big difference between my life now and in past years is that I now can easily acknowledge my sadness.  And as I continue to do so I feel that the heavy quality of my sadness is gradually fading.  But I suspect it will take some time to do so.  I believe this is only natural considering that I was walking around perceiving the world in a somewhat distorted way for many years.  Trauma can seriously distort our perception of ourselves, others and the world outside of our skin.  I have come to a profound appreciation of how my own experience of trauma blunted my capacity to effectively and deeply perceive the world with my five senses. 

My sadness is borne of my feeling that I missed out on so much.  Because I was not perceiving the world with my senses in a very clear way I experienced the world in a very attenuated way.  What do I mean by this?  Consider this example.  Have you ever noticed how sound coming to your ears has a profoundly different quality if you are under water as compared to mere air?  The medium sound waves travel through affects its propagation speed as well as how the ‘receiving party’ will experience it.  My perception of the world was distorted in a similar way.  I had psychic walls up to buffer myself from the world around me.  These walls attenuated what I tasted, touched, smelled, heard and saw with my eyes. 

My therapist asked me to spend some time reflecting on what is underneath my sadness.  So I will need to spend some time sitting with my thoughts of what I feel I missed out on.  There was a lot.


Sunday, April 26, 2015

Once The Foundation Is Done

Sunday, April 26, 2015


I think it safe to say that Spring is officially sprung.  It's a beautiful, sunny Sunday in late April.  And I am realizing that my foundation is essentially complete now.

You cannot build a house and expect it to last unless you first create a strong foundation for that house. In a similar way you cannot create a functional, resilient and rewarding life without first having a solid foundation.  You must have a collection of healthy practices in place that serve as the necessary foundation for a good life.  Building a foundation can require an immense amount of patience.  And yet it is the most vital element of a good home, life or career.

Throughout these last twenty-two months I have been diligently working to identify, acknowledge and uproot the vestiges of the impact of the trauma that caused me so much pain early in my life.  In other words, I was strengthening the foundation of my own life by attending to the weaknesses in my foundation.  It has often been a painstaking process.  But now I am finally essentially done with this part of my new journey.  Now I can start building my new 'house'.




Saturday, April 25, 2015

Fresh Beginnings

Saturday, April 25, 2015


It has been mild enough for a long enough time that the trees, shrubs and grasses are finally beginning to green up.  We had such a dry winter that there is some concern about drought persisting or intensifying here in Minnesota throughout the coming summer.  We have been fortunate to benefit from some rain recently.  It's a consoling thing to see the world come alive with a mantle of green growing day by day.

Spring is a time of new beginnings.  It can be an auspicious time for cleansing out that which no longer serves you and cultivating new practices to enrich your life.  I continue to faithfully follow some of my longstanding daily practices.  And I am still following a more recent addition.  At the beginning of the month I began a daily practice of writing down what I am grateful for.  I stuff the sheet of paper listing my gratitude into a vase.  As the days and weeks pass I can see the power of my gratitude accumulating in the vase.  It's a nice feeling.

I was fortunate to be able to reclaim my computer earlier than I was first expecting I would. This was made possible by the generosity of the Basilica of St. Mary.


Friday, April 24, 2015

The Need For Examples

Friday, April 24, 2015


I recently found myself articulating another aspect of why I have found life to be difficult in the last few years. Sporadic employment, physical health issues and a discouraging political climate here in the United States have certainly all previously taken a toll on my ability to maintain a positive outlook. But there is still more that I was dealing with. I was dealing with entering a period of life in which I have few good examples of others who are living in a healthy way.

I think first and foremost about my biological parents. My mother's active and independent participation in society had ended long before she reached her forties. Her initial descent into schizophrenia occurred in her late twenties. A subsequent episode of the illness consumed her when she was in her mid thirties. Her life looked quite different by the time she turned forty.  Her life would never be what it was when she was a young woman.  My father was nearly murdered just one short month after turning forty. It's essentially only dumb luck that he survived the last attempt on his life.  So both of my parents had undergone a horrific ordeal by the time they reached the age I am now (which is forty-one). Is it any wonder I sometimes feel adrift and overwhelmed even now some twenty two months after I sought out treatment?

Healing can take a long time. Recognizing when loved ones are struggling with mental illness can also take a long time. I read a rather sobering article this morning that reminded me of these realities. According to the article the average duration of untreated psychosis in America is seventy weeks. Yes, you read that correctly. A case of psychosis here in the United States typically goes untreated for more than four months more than a year of time. That is a staggering amount of suffering and lost time to deal with.

Early identification of any illness is so critical to maximizing the possibility of obtaining effective and timely care. In my own case I only wish I had listened to the people closest to me years ago.  I still recall how my primary mentor in my first graduate program mentioned how stress often had the effect of undermining my ability to be present to others in the present moment. If I had paused and really allowed myself to consider her wise words I might have been more proactive nearly a decade ago.

It is, however, quite important that I not get caught up in the possibilities and different paths I could have taken earlier in my life. What is done is done. I must move forward with the skills, strength, determination and resources that I now have. Living in sandcastles in the sky is not a way to live in the long term.

I personally feel fairly good lately. I am in fact planning to titrate completely off the sertraline I have been taking for nearly twenty months now. I feel I am ready to do so. But I will continue to have a primary care doctor and therapist monitor my health after I make this transition. At this time I plan to go off sertraline (known more commonly as Zoloft) in early June. I will first thoroughly consult with both my primary care physician and my therapist about this choice.

I will continue to write my blog. What form it will take in the future I cannot easily say. But if you have become a fan of my writing take comfort in knowing that I will continue to be a voice for wholeness and joy. We need more voices like these in the world.

Enjoy your Friday.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Wondrous and Incomplete Ideas

Thursday, April 23, 2015


The experience of seeking employment can be a demanding one.  I can attest to this given my personal journey over the last several years.  I honestly did not expect I would be where I am now when I completed graduate school a few years ago.

Yesterday I noticed the headline of a cover page article on a piece of media I rarely consult.  The presentation of this source of media is one reason I rarely take the time to pause and look it over. This media is a print media designed to provide resources to local job seekers.  You can find copies of it for free in stands throughout the Twin Cities.  The headline I noticed read: "You Are What You Accomplish".  I cannot think of a succinct belief that could feel more demoralizing to ingest (and then accept as true) than this one.

So the sum of who I am is defined by what I have accomplished?  If who I am were only to be measured by what I have accomplished in recent time I wouldn't measure up much.  I haven't held a long term position that has paid me a salary commensurate to my abilities in years.  I haven't even had much success garnering interviews for such positions.  This lack of greater fortune could be attributed to any number of issues.  A person might think I am not trying enough.  You could also conclude my applications are not of the best quality.  And then there is the reality of the job market itself.  When suitable open positions are few and far between the job market effectively becomes a hyper-competitive one.  And it is the experience of living in such a market that makes reading such statements as "You are what you accomplish" all the more difficult to bear.

I personally see myself as much, much more than what I have accomplished.  People are more than what they do.  People have value and dignity that has nothing to do with what they do, what their socioeconomic status is, what their past history is, what their present circumstances are and what they believe about themselves.  I believe all human beings carry something called potential.  We all have the potential to achieve amazing things.  I believe people have the potential to overcome enormous obstacles, inspire others and bring vibrant colorful energy to a world too often filled with black and white thinking.  We are not just what we accomplish.  We are the totality of our pasts, presents and future possibilities.  In short I believe we are so much bigger than many of us imagine we are.

If I were to assess myself based exclusively on the tangible results I have accomplished in my professional life within the last fifteen months I would feel deeply disillusioned.  In fact, I would probably feel so disillusioned that I would not want to get out of bed again for a while.  I have indeed felt deeply disappointed by how regularly I show up to the world each day and how often my willingness to show up is not being met in a commensurate way.  I often find myself asking very probing and very difficult questions.  And my questions are not rhetorical in nature.  I ask questions like these:

  • Where are all the high quality men who are committed to living lives of integrity, kindness, diligence and compassion?
  • Where are women who possess and offer such qualities?
  • Where is an economy that is worthy of the wealth and skills of a nation of over three hundred million people whose history places it among the most powerful nations of the world?
  • Where is the love we have the potential to bring more fully into the world?

In the journey of healing from trauma I think it not uncommon for many of us to face the horror of what we have endured and survived and then ask ourselves who we are now and what we can be in the future.  Healing is a process that cannot be easily predicted or controlled.  Healing may also be a very vulnerable time.  We may find ourselves feeling especially vulnerable to ideas such as "you are what you accomplish".  I personally believe we are much more.

Who do you want to be?


Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Young Gay Love

Wednesday, April 22, 2015


(I originally wrote this last Friday, April 17th)

Yesterday evening I found myself contemplating an idyllic experience of what I would call "young gay love". I noticed a few especially attractive young men at the Apple store in Uptown. One man in particular caught my eye.  I found my eyes slowly and sensuously moving over his form. I especially noticed his face and his butt. Fantasies of love I never experienced when I was in my twenties floated through my mind. I imagined an equally attractive and young man as my boyfriend. I visualized myself cuddling with such a beautiful man. I imagined warmth, tenderness and kindness between us. And then the sadness was upon me. Like a figment of unrealized, imaginative fantasy my reverie fell away. And there was my sadness.

I feel sadness that I never experienced young gay love. Of course the world was a somewhat different place when I was a twenty-something. Being open about being gay was simply not easy at that time in Texas. It was one of many reasons I left the state after completing college. But then I went on to continue being an overly-responsible young adult. Instead of being a relatively carefree and uninhibited twenty-something I gave a year of my life to a volunteer program and then subsequently spent three years as a member of the Jesuit order. As I noted in a recent writing my life has often felt backwards.  I lived the life of an adult too much when I was chronologically a child. Now here I am a man in my forties and I want to experience all the joy I didn't in my twenties.

My eyesight continues to be a source of much inspiration in my written life. I never really clearly understood how my early life history had effectively veiled my eyes until I took the plunge and tried out EMDR therapy in 2013. Now I find myself wanting to caress the forms of countless beautiful men with my eyes. I feel very much like an adolescent. I still feel entranced by the idea of making up for lost time. Perhaps in some way my time wasn't lost so much as it went too often unappreciated and under-appreciated. My contemplation of the beauty of the male form is something I unintentionally do on many days now. I find myself often wondering how I missed so much beauty.

If it is indeed true that a person can live out a significant developmental period later in life (long after it would typically take place) I wonder how I can live out adolescence now. What would be a healthy way to do this? Would this manifest as me putting up countless images of attractive young men so I can feel inspired by them? Is feeling especially attracted to somewhat younger men a normal developmental response to a thwarted or under-lived adolescence of a male who becomes a gay man?

I find myself yearning for the companionship and warmth of other men who are my age peers. I thus feel drawn to men who are not just younger than me. I simply don’t know the best places to find them. I nonetheless feel an urgency to be about this search. Or perhaps I should not frame this as a search. Maybe this is more a matter of being open to what presents itself. It isn’t realistic to expect to manipulate certain results into being. I suppose it can be realistic to be strategic and discerning about my deepest needs and desires and, by doing so, set a course for a new destination.






The Life of Job

Wednesday, April 22, 2015


I was never much of a fan of reading the Bible when I was a kid.  Unlike some people I do not have any particularly harsh memories of having the Bible thrust upon me in such a way that I felt violated or overwhelmed.  I nonetheless do like to recall stories from the Bible that resonated with me as a means of telling my own stories.  Right now I am thinking of the life of Job.

I won't quote the whole Bible story here.  Here is the brief story-line on Job.  Job was blessed with many gifts including material prosperity and a large family.  Then it all fell apart.  Many human beings experience something like this at some point in their life histories.  I know I certainly have.  I feel as if I am living it again now.  And I am living it despite all my best efforts.

Today, like any day, I have a choice as to what I will focus my time and energy on.  If I want to focus on what is not going well I can obsess on this list:

  • My computer is currently not available to me.  It is currently being repaired.  I do not know how I will find the money to repair it.
  • I continue to receive the answer of 'No' in my job search efforts.
  • Some people I consider friends do not reach out to me in the ways I most prefer and need.
  • I am still going to see a therapist.
  • I haven't made a substantial payment on my student loan debt in quite a while.
  • My feet still hurt some when I walk.


If I want to focus on what is good in my life I can look at this list:

  • There is beautiful sunshine available outside that costs me no money to enjoy.
  • I have friends who have been loyal to me despite whatever circumstances I might be facing on any given day.
  • My health is probably the best it has ever been.
  • I have excellent health insurance that allows me to access quality care.
  • I am proactive about my health.  This will increase the likelihood that I will never again face what I went through in the last two years.
  • I have new orthotics for my shoes which provide me support when I walk.
  • I have healthier boundaries now than I had in the past.
  • There is still kindness in my own heart despite all the trauma, corruption and horror I experienced.
  • I am still able to trust other people.
  • I am still willing to trust my life will continue to improve.


Each day when we wake up we have a choice.  We can focus on the light or we can focus on the darkness.  Both are always going to be there.  So which do you want to make the story of your life.

Focusing on the light is not always easy.  Some days it seems I must draw upon every ounce of strength I have to keep a frown from setting up residence on my face.  But the light is always there inside my heart.

What is good about your life today?





Tuesday, April 21, 2015

False Dichotomies

Tuesday, April 21, 2015


I met with my therapist this evening.  The next time I meet with him will be my one hundredth session.  I do not anticipate I will need another one hundred sessions of therapy.  I feel fortunate in this regard.  Some people go to therapy for many, many years and still do not achieve the results that I have.  Commitment to healing is one essential ingredient to successful treatment.  A network of supportive people and resources is also vital.  Learning when to let go of old ideas about yourself and what may unfold in your future life is important as well.

Tonight I spoke with my therapist about the possibilities of my future.  I believe I sometimes create a false dichotomy in my mind.  What I mean by that is I create a story in my mind that by making a certain choice in my future it will automatically foreclose other possibilities from ever being anything more than possibilities.  I have a real whopper of a story that sometimes plays through my mind.  I imagine that moving to Hawaii will somehow permanently doom me to a life in which my need for significant intimacy goes unfulfilled.  My mind occasionally concocts a really dark future as the future I will somehow eventually experience.

Unintentionally imagining a dark future for yourself is not necessarily uncommon among those who have experienced significant trauma.  It can be easy to be pessimistic when your life has been marked by substantial loss and suffering.  Sometimes responding to such dark future story-lines with a simple statement such as "the future does not have to look like the past" can deflate the power of such heavy thinking.

I am going to look through some of the workbooks of the eight week outpatient program I completed earlier this month to inspire me as I begin to more actively visualize the future life I wish to live.




Monday, April 20, 2015

No Sober Driver

Monday, April 20, 2015


I returned from the New Warrior Training Adventure late last night.  My weekend training was held near Sioux City, Iowa.  I knew there were some very clear risks I needed to take during my weekend. And I feel that I took them...or at least some of them.  But in anything there can be unintended consequences arising from a choice we initially may think is an easy and clear choice.

One of my fears I had was that the location of the event might stir up painful memories from an earlier time in my life.  And this most certainly happened. While driving across the plains of northwest Iowa I saw a sign that reminded me of my time living on the Lakota Sioux Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.  The sign was one of those large billboards you might see along the virtually empty stretches of road common in the Great Plains.  The sign had a picture of a smiling boy.  He died in 2009.  He might have reached his tenth birthday.  I could not tell.  Next to his face were some words.  One of the phrases was "No Sober Driver".

No sober driver.  When we drive without sobriety we may very well never reach our destination.  We may crash and die on the way.  Alcoholism was certainly a part of the darkness of life living on a reservation.  This is what can happen when cultures clash rather than meet one another and share their beauty.  People die.  Children die.  Lives are permanently changed.  My life was certainly changed by my time living and working among the Lakota people.  My heart is always warmed to see Native American men who participate in healing experiences and service to others such as what I experienced in the New Warrior Training Adventure.  Being a man of Germanic heritage I am quite familiar with the power of the shadow.  There are some hearts beating around the planet today that are probably closed to German people entering the lives of the people who carry those hearts. Germany did a lot of damage in the twentieth century.  The shadow of German history can haunt successive generations.  I myself have been reminded of the shadow of German history in places as distant from Germany as Hawaii.  The legacy of our individual and collective shadows does not necessarily respect geographic boundaries.  But I believe we can learn from our pasts.  We can learn from the shadow.

Trauma can make for a lot of material to stuff into our personal shadow.  This certainly has been my experience.  I carried a lot of sadness in my shadow.  This past weekend I shared how I remembered last year that I didn't think I would live to the age of nine.  I could have benefited from more 'sober drivers' in my own life.  Somehow I made it to the age of nine.  Somehow I made it to adulthood. Somehow, despite all the anger and sadness I carried for so long, I managed to be a productive member of society.  But my anger and sadness lurked in my shadow.  Thankfully the anger is basically gone now.  I still have some.  It is connected to how I have previously treated myself. I treat myself much better now. The sadness remains.  But even it is changing.  The hard edge of my sadness is gone.  Like the earth of the Midwest after a long winter my sadness is thawing away.

Last night, as I went to bed in a soft silence, I spoke to my ancestors about the man I dream of becoming. I am on my way to meeting him.

......

When someone is driving while drunk a patrol officer may declare that person to be "driving under the influence".  When we drive our very lives under the influence of something dark we may find ourselves ultimately reaching a dark destination.  Seeing that sign about the boy who lost his life due to drunk driving was a harsh reminder that the darkness of the social ill of drunk driving can still be found under the yawning sky of Big Sky Country.  I would rather gaze in the direction of something bright and uplifting.  And that is what I did last night.  I looked and watched the sun as it reached the western horizon.

What do you wish to be the major influences in your own life?


Thursday, April 16, 2015

That Illustrious Safety Net

Thursday, April 16, 2015


Today is a good day to practice the skill of focusing on what is positive and good in my life.  If I were to use my gallows humor I could admire the pit it seems I will never escape: "My my I do really love the walls of this inescapable hole!"

I am feeling a bit frustrated today because my best efforts are not producing the results I want and need. My unemployment benefits have expired.  There is nothing more available to me through September.  My food support has also run out.  And I am not eligible for any additional support from Hennepin County.  My safety net is disintegrating underneath me.

I could sit and imagine the walls closing in on me but this will not prove helpful in any way.  I have to keep showing up for my life and continue to live according to my values.  It's important for me to keep in mind that just because living in accordance with my values is not producing the results I want does not mean my values are themselves invalid.  And yet this experience is not at all easy.

I am going away for the weekend.  I feel fortunate to be participating in the New Warrior Training Adventure.  I hope I'll find some renewed momentum after this weekend.

My computer is also beginning to break down on me.  I am not sure if I can really rely on it now.  This is another reason I could use to hide and give up.  I feel fortunate this is happening in April.







Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Creativity

Wednesday, April 15, 2015


Creativity has become an increasingly important value to me.  I have been a creative person throughout my life.  One of my hobbies in my childhood was painting.  I also enjoyed drawing and stargazing.  There is some manner of creativity necessary to group stars together in certain patterns, call them constellations and then associate stories with them.

I would like my future career to have an element of creativity in it.  What that will tangibly look like I still cannot say.  But I suppose the clarity I have regarding my future work is continuing to grow.  Some processes just take a lot of time.

One of the challenges I have faced recently is attempting to discern what realistic expectations are.  We cannot necessarily realistically expect to meet our need to infuse our life with a certain value in our professional life alone.  Sometimes hobbies can fulfill our need to realize certain values.  Relationships can also be a way we seek to live out our values.

The world outside is coming alive once again.  I am very grateful for this.


Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Courage

Tuesday, April 14, 2015



Living a life in which we follow the value of courage is not necessarily an easy life.  But I believe it is a value we must follow if we wish to have any real prospect of enjoying a rich and rewarding life.

It wasn’t until I sought out psychotherapy in 2013 that I began to really appreciate how much courage has influenced the life I have lived thus far.  It can take a lot of courage to face darkness in our interior lives.  Courage may be required of us when we choose to leave behind a situation that is not serving our most fundamental needs.  And on that note I can begin to write more deeply about this amazing quality called courage.


Sometimes it happens that we find ourselves in the position of contemplating a choice that has profound implications for our future lives.  Or at least we imagine there could be profound implications.  I currently find myself in this very position.  I believe it may ultimately be in my best interests to leave Minnesota.  I haven’t really created a career for myself here in the Midwest.  When I moved here in October, 2012 I had a very different idea in my mind regarding what I wanted to do.  But then the events of 2013 happened.  And I found it necessary to take a huge step back to reassess what I wanted in my life.  And in the process of reassessing what I wanted I found it necessary to apply a significant dosage of courage.

I have consulted the knowledge found within mythology and astrology for a number of years.  Several years ago I found a great book written by Erin Sullivan entitled Saturn In Transit: Boundaries of Mind, Body and Soul.  Sullivan writes about the influence of Saturn throughout the human life cycle.  She writes the following about the phase of life I currently find myself in (ages 37 to 44):

“This can be a rich time, rewarding and fulfilling, if one recognizes that by following a path of honesty and personal integrity one is being responsible and ultimately furthering collective issues.” (Bolded emphasis is my own)

I wish to follow my own path of honesty and personal integrity.  But sometimes such a path requires us to be courageous.  It can be necessary to draw upon our capacity for courage when we need to confront aspects of our lives that are fundamentally not working.  There are occasions when the most courageous choice is the one that features us walking away from a situation that does nothing to enhance the good in our lives.

The seven year Saturn cycle I currently find myself in will culminate when it concludes in the year 2018.  At that time Saturn will oppose my natal Saturn.  Sullivan writes the following about the first part of this new cycle:

“The first part of the cycle recalls the adolescent rebellion against authority and oppression (though at the age of forty-five one is more conscious of what the uprising is about), and there may still be unfinished business from the past that must resurface.  Old feelings of inadequacy and futility are challenged by a rise of ambition.  Life can no longer be lived for the moment but must have depth, content and meaning.

The initial stage of the Saturn opposition can also give one the courage to shrug off social expectations and pressures.  That the period has been called ‘the second adolescence’ clearly shows that childhood and adolescence can be revisited.  People who had extremely difficult childhoods, or had their adolescence cut short in some way, find that they can recapture their lost years…There are many examples of people who need to recapture a period in their life which was truncated or never lived at all.”

Recapturing that which I felt (and still feel) was lost has been a consistent theme in my personal exploration these last two years.  It thus seems the ‘crisis’ attributed to the beginning of this new cycle (around the age of forty-four) has started early for me.  But for me it seems perfectly fitting that this shift began early because I was already so burned out from being overly generous in my 20s and 30s.  I can look back over my life now and not be at all surprised that I became so burned out and demoralized.

With the inevitable change of seasons it is time for me to focus intently on my growth and renewal.

….

As for the particulars of my day today I have enjoyed a beautiful day thus far.  I had a session with my therapist.  I made a healthy lunch featuring catfish and pasta.  I had a productive conversation in the hope of continuing to expand my professional network and future career possibilities.  And it’s only 2:30 p.m.







Monday, April 13, 2015

Contemplating Men and Green Buds

Monday, April 13, 2015


While waiting for the bus in downtown Minneapolis this afternoon I took a few minutes to appreciate the coming of spring.  I found myself noticing the green buds that are now emergent on many trees and bushes.  When you gaze at deep stretches of trees in the far distance you can now discern a certain green fuzziness.  Even though the millions of buds all over the Twin Cities are still quite small they are nonetheless already large enough to cause the eye to notice a certain something.  The blossoming of new life does something quite profound for my eyes.  It excites me.

I also feel excited that I will be attending the New Warrior Training Adventure this coming weekend.  It will actually give me cause to go on a road trip!  It has been a while since I have gone on one.  I am excited by the possibility of meeting other men who are committed to their own ongoing personal growth.  It seems it is necessary for me to be more intentionally active regarding my goal of cultivating relationships with other healthy and health-minded men.  Some days I would prefer to be lazy and not bother.  But laziness rarely helps you to achieve significant goals.

I felt a wave of sadness and frustration as evening began.  I know some of it is simply my frustration with the process of working diligently on my career.  The soft blueness of the pre-dusk sky offers a soothing antidote to my feelings of dejection and weariness.

Tomorrow is another day.  Each morning when we awaken to the dawning of a new day we get another chance to make our lives what we want them to be.


Conversation

Monday, April 13, 2015


My stroll through the landscape of the Values Alphabet continues.  Today's word of the day is conversation.  Boy do I ever feel this particular value is a timely one to write about.  And yet I haven't really been looking forward to writing about it.  I suppose that is because I often feel like a lone man on the top of a mountain who has decided he would prefer to do his writing and not really engage with the world in any substantive way.  But I will keep trying.  And I plan to continue engaging with other human beings.  I am just much more thoughtful about how I spend my time and energy.

Yesterday Hilary Clinton announced her decision to compete in the 2016 presidential election.  I was not surprised by this.  There had been clues that she was seriously interested in vying for the presidency a second time.  To use a term from the comic strip Peanuts it would take a complete blockhead to not connect the dots and conclude Hilary wanted to try again.  The realm of social media lit up like an overly decorated Christmas tree once her announcement was made.  I have to admit I am not as excited about her candidacy as I would like to be.  I suspect her candidacy might galvanize the political Right in such an extraordinary way that our nation will regress even more in the coming months and years.

Conversation is such a vital phenomenon in a vibrant, functional society.  I haven't been inspired by the capacity of my fellow American citizens to engage in civil discourse in some time now.  I have no doubt there are many factors that have contributed to our slide towards an increasingly uncivil society.  Certainly our media is one major factor.  You need only turn on the television and see lies peddled as truth.  Our interpretation of the merit of free speech also seems to be a contributing factor.  Just because speech is 'free' and protected to some degree does not mean it is contributing much to our ongoing discourses regarding our deepest issues.  I honestly think what we eat is contributing to our issues as well.  And I don't just mean obesity.  Certain diets are known to increase risk of persistent inflammation in the body.  The sugar and unnatural ingredients found in many processed foods certainly don't support calm, reflective thinking.  It seems we are a society filled with reactive thinking.  And I believe reactive thinking is often deeply connected to unhealed trauma.  I will write more on this shortly.

I ceased interacting with most of the individuals within my paternal family of origin due in large part to the fact that I could not engage in a civil conversation with them about the issues of trauma that affected me as a kid.  I was quite amazed by the amount of resistance and avoidance I experienced when I would try to bring up these deep seated issues.  And any criticism I made of the avoidance and resistance I encountered would typically be misconstrued as some sort of personal attack.  I find it sad when people have this equivalency set somewhere in their minds that criticism somehow definitively equals attack. Whatever happened to constructive criticism?  Such criticism seems to have vanished as Americans became less and less able to have conversations about much of anything.

So what about conversation and trauma?  Enriching conversation made possible by practices such as meditation and reflection can, in my opinion, be a very valuable ingredient in the healing process.  Making some sort of meaning of our suffering is something some traumatized individuals will feel the need to do.  And creating meaning often requires having less than comfortable conversations.  We may feel the need to converse with our relatives and friends as well as representatives of institutions that play significant roles in our lives.

Here are my questions of the day:

If you could choose one single person to speak with regarding a trauma from your own past whom would you pick?  

What would you hope to accomplish in such a conversation?  

How would you measure a successful outcome in such a conversation?



Sunday, April 12, 2015

We Need Sensible Gun Safety Legislation In This Country: An Open Letter To Wayne Lapierre

Sunday, April 12, 2015


Dear Mr. Lapierre,


It was with a mixture of irritation, revulsion, sadness and contempt that I recently read of your speech in which you claimed the election of Hilary Clinton as President in November, 2016 would bring a 'permanent darkness' to America.  I must say I am impressed with your capacity for hyperbole.  Based on your speech it seems it would not be an unreasonable conclusion to believe you think that the four horsemen of the apocalypse will burst into the world if Hilary Clinton should become president.  It seems your capacity for exaggeration and fearmongering has not changed.

I am writing to you to express my sentiments regarding your influence on the American electorate.  I do not expect you to reply to me.  And I actually don't think it would be a good use of my time to even interact with you.  Why?  I think you have consistently demonstrated your willingness to subjugate the truth of violence in this country when it suits the purposes of the NRA.  In other words I see you as an empty suit who places greater value in money and the abuse of political power than you do safety and a nation in which all people have access to what once seemed the vibrant promise of the American dream.  I honestly do not know how people like you sleep at night.

I am very familiar with the experience of human suffering.  I have lost plenty in my life.  In fact, I have often felt I have experienced more than my fair share of loss, devastation and agony in my life.  I lost my mother to the illness of schizophrenia.  And then I nearly lost my father at the age of eight.  He was nearly murdered.  And he was nearly murdered with a gun.  And the person who used the gun was a teenager.  I probably will never know the full details of what happened on that too eventful night in June of 1982.

When I hear your exceedingly narrow language about good and bad guys with guns I want to laugh.  Other times I just want to spit.  In my opinion your overly simplistic language plays on the dualistic mindset common within Western culture.  It's similar to the language that former 'President' George W. Bush used within the realm of foreign policy.  In his worldview if you weren't with us you were automatically against us.  His worldview was an incredibly black and white one.  And it appears you are very much cut from the same cloth.

The world is much more complex than you would have people believe.  And this holds true for the particular issue of gun violence as well.  Sometimes I wonder if the men of your generation simply do not want to have to think much.  Maybe seeing the world in a different way is something you see as a 'burden' you would rather not have to bear.  Maybe thinking deeply about an issue causes you headaches you would rather not have.  Perhaps you developed in an environment so contaminated with black and white thinking that it felt only natural for you to believe such thinking was the only valid thinking to follow.  I can only speculate on your formative influences.

I doubt you will still be reading my letter as I write this paragraph.  But I am going to dream a bit and imagine you are.  Here are some fascinating statistics that contradict the meta-narrative you regularly paint as mouthpiece for the NRA.  The following statistics are all taken directly from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence website.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence:


  • Between 1955 and 1975, the Vietnam War killed over 58,000 American soldiers.  Amazingly enough this death toll is less than the number of civilians killed with guns in the United States in an average two-year period.
  • More than 75% of guns used in suicide attempts and unintentional injuries of 0-19 year-olds were stored in the residence of the victim, a relative or a friend.
  • People of all age groups are significantly more likely to die from unintentional firearm injuries when hey live in states with more guns, relative to states with fewer guns.  On average, states with the highest gun levels had nine times the rate of unintentional firearms deaths compared to states with the lowest gun levels.



Mr. Lapierre, I find that last statistic especially compelling.  You see it contradicts your narrative that more guns will make for a safer society.  My father had at least one firearm while I was growing up.  This didn't stop him from being shot and nearly murdered by a teenage boy in his own home.

I have sometimes thought there should be a special form of Hell for people like yourself who spread deceit as a way to serve the interests of the organization (the NRA) whom you speak on behalf of.  Given your penchant for misinformation I believe the following would be a fitting punishment for someone like yourself:

Imagine if, as part of being a decent, upstanding human being, you were required to personally listen to the stories of every single American citizen who lost a friend or family member due to unintentional death due to a firearm.  It would be a lot of people to listen to.  I think the most compelling stories are the ones in which children lost siblings, parents or other child friends to unintentional death due to the use of a firearm.  I fit in that category.

After my father was discharged from the hospital I felt a heightened level of fear and anxiety for the remainder of the time I was living at home.  My trust in my father was deeply damaged by his poor choices and his inability to take responsibility for his bad choices.  My anxiety became something of a backdrop in my conscious awareness.  Not until many years later did I really appreciate how much I had been harmed by what I had been involuntarily put through.  I feel grateful to live in a state whose population is relatively sensible in regards to the issue of gun access and gun violence.  I invite you to imagine what it must be like for those American citizens who live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on a daily basis whose condition is due primarily if not exclusively to their personal experience of gun violence.

I would welcome hearing news of you actually listening to the stories of all those Americans whose lives were not made safer due to easy access to a gun.  But I believe this would presume a lot regarding your character.  It would presume you are not an empty suit dedicated to money and power at the expense of safety and whole families.  Distortion and lies seem to be your primary currency.

If you would like to hear from at least one American citizen who fits in the category I wrote of above feel free to contact me.  But please don't bother if you should choose to approach such a conversation with a closed mind.  I have better things to do.

When I think of a person like yourself my primary feeling is one of contempt.  I never have understood people like yourself.  Your version of humanity is quite foreign to me.

You may feel as if I am being unduly harsh in my letter.  Perhaps you feel I am demonizing you.  I assume you are familiar with such behavior, however, as you showed yourself capable of doing his very thing in your recent remarks about the candidacy of Hilary Clinton.  Clinton is no perfect person.  None of us are.  And you certainly have no moral high ground in that regard Mr. Lapierre.


Sincerely,

BCW











Connectedness

Sunday, April 12, 2015


I am continuing the "Values Alphabet Game" with today's piece.  I have decided to skip over compassion because I have already written about it quite extensively here in my blog.  For a good piece on the significance of compassion please read this piece written last August.  I believe compassion is one of the most important qualities we need to cultivate in the world today.  The deficit of compassion is, in my opinion, more significant than the financial deficits we have been hearing about for years now.

So what of connectedness?  What type of a value is this?  I think connectedness may be experienced in a more subtle way.  Many of us might not consciously strive to cultivate a sense or 'feeling' of connectedness.  Perhaps we may not give this value such a conscious focus because the word doesn't exactly inspire clear imagery regarding what connectedness is.  Is connectedness our ability to reach almost anyone anywhere on the planet at most any time through the use of our unprecedented technology?  Does such an ability necessarily create real connectedness?  What does such a thing feel like?  If our easily portable technologies have fostered the creation of such wonderful connectedness why do so many people feel so alienated and adrift?  If we are more connected than ever before why and how can it be that American society, according to a presentation of Brene Brown, is composed of a cohort of people who are very addicted, medicated and in-debt?  What is the true quality of our connectedness?  Are we perhaps just living out what Richard Rohr would call an artificial aliveness?

Connection and disconnection is a topic very relevant to the issue of trauma.  When trauma overwhelms us we may come to cope with its impact through dis-connection.  We may learn to dissociate, distance ourselves, disregard the feelings of others and distract ourselves.  We may start living in a world of Dis.
I know for myself that I once was very skilled at the art of dissociation.  Dissociation may be defined as "a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memory and sense of identity."  Dissociation is an art I would rather not routinely practice in the future.

If we discover we have been practicing the art of dissociation how can we remedy our pattern through the restoration of connection? What, tangibly, can we do?  We can engage the world with our five senses.  We can say aloud or within our own minds what we are observing.  What are we seeing, tasting, touching, smelling and hearing?  We can also pursue activities that necessarily require us to really be present in our bodies.  Physical exercise is but a single example.  I have found great joy and release in the art of boxing.  I have developed enhanced hand-eye coordination as a result of boxing a few times a week.  Other good forms of exercise that require us to be really present in our bodies may include hiking, water-skiing, swimming and any activities where we engage with an exercise partner. By really getting into our bodies in the present moment we can establish new patterns in the neurophysiology of our bodies that will promote healing and greater wellness.

I feel connected to my sadness and grief in a way I often have not previously felt.  And yet to feel connected to something does not necessarily imply that we feel swallowed by it.  It is indeed possible to walk a middle line in regards to how we relate to our feelings.  The challenge for many a person in recovery can often be learning how to honor what we feel without finding ourselves on the extreme ends of a behavioral spectrum.  On that spectrum one far end is dissociation and avoidance.  The other end of the spectrum is such immense fusion and identification with our feelings that we many begin to feel we are our feelings.  But we are not our feelings.  We humans have feelings.  And when we are healthy we can experience our feelings without being cast away by them like being taken out with the tide.

I completed an eight week morning health program recently.  I participated in this program as a way of giving myself a gift.  I wanted to accelerate my process of healing.  I suppose the biggest win of my experience was my increased ability to cultivate a new relationship with the pervasive sadness that often felt like a tidal wave looming in the background of my life.  I had many very good reasons for feeling sad.  And sometimes I found myself on those ends of the spectrum.  Sometimes I wanted to deny my sadness and simply ignore it.  Other times I would feel caught in it and adrift at sea in an ocean of grief. I am now beginning to find myself more and more able to walk the middle path.

As a way of closing out my writing today I ask you to ask yourself this question:

What within you is asking for your attention?


Friday, April 10, 2015

Learning To Believe Again

Friday, April 10, 2015


I am finding myself beginning to believe in the beauty of the world again.  I am smiling a lot more.  My sadness no longer feels overwhelming.  My sadness is definitely still inside me but I am finding a way to live with it; I trust it will gradually decline as time passes.

I began a new daily activity at the beginning of April that I find quite helpful.  Each day, at some point in the day, I write down what I am grateful for.  I then fold up the sheet of paper and stuff it inside a small flower vase.  The vase has some significance in my personal history.  I found it in November, 2013 at a bus stop in Minneapolis.  When I found it the vase was full of beautiful white flowers.  I found it the day after I competed in the Mister Minneapolis Eagle competition.  I took my discovery of this nice surprise as an indicator that I was on the right path in my own life.

Before I began stuffing this vase with my sheets of gratitude I placed a piece of jewelry inside it.  I imagined putting all my sadness into this piece of jewelry.  Now, as I gradually fill my 'gratitude vase', I can use this activity to focus on what is good in my life rather than focus so much on my sadness.  As I noted above the sadness inside my heart may never completely disappear.  But I can live anyhow.  I can find and create joy nonetheless.  I can create a rewarding life despite whatever happened in the past.


Another recent wonderful development in my life is my growing love of cooking.  I have never thought of myself as a talented cook.  Perhaps this sense of myself was a bit incorrect.  I find myself able to unleash my creativity in food preparation in a way I don't recall finding such pleasure in previously. My fascination with the world I can perceive with my five senses is certainly stoking my interest in cooking.  I love the diverse colors, the savory scents and the textures of so many different foods.  It seems my sense of taste is also stronger now.


We had a burst of snow pass through this morning.  It lasted less than an hour.  I suppose that is what April is often like here.  Winter shows up for brief moments over the span of hours or maybe a day or two but then fades away.  Spring here often seems to creep into being in a very incremental way.  But it is coming.  Green buds are showing up everywhere. You just have to know where to look!

Joy is such a gift!