My guess being miserable is not the answer to that question!
Years ago, I was talking with a friend and the conversation got somewhat heated as I exploded with: “I just want to be happy!” I remember at the time, feeling this was somehow unique. Other people had lofty goals and mine was humble and meager – All I want is to be happy. It’s such a small thing. Surely the universe can grant this one tiny wish …
Now, two decades later, I blush somewhat at my naiveté because the ‘one small little wish’ is all ANYONE and EVERYONE wants! If I could provide the solution to this connundrum, I would be a gazillionaire.
We are all pursuing happiness in some form, at least until we become wise enough to know that what we seek is rather elusive and difficult, perhaps even impossible to capture and hold.
However, recently I ran across someone who reminded me of the relationship between gratitude and happiness. David Steindl-Rast, in his TED talk speaks of the gentle power of gratefulness.
He advocates that each moment has a potential in it. And those who can see the possibility and act on it become thankful, which then, over time, brings happiness. Not every moment can engender appreciation. Violence, war, slavery, inequality, disease – these do not and should not be forced bedfellows with gratitude. But within those very negative things, there still are opportunities. And therein lies the capacity for thankfulness.
Steindl-Rast has a remarkably simple formula – Stop. Look. Go.
Find a way to hesitate long enough to actually see. Then do something about it.
While waiting at a stop light, look at the cars around you. How many have a single person in them? In many countries – most people ride public transportation, all jammed in together, none on their own time table, each having to hear the other’s conversations and smell the body odor of the other. In poorer countries, people walk everywhere. We can be upset that we are stuck at a long light or in traffic, or we can be grateful for the privilege of driving our own car. You can have the same internal conversation regarding car repairs. Or any other minor issue.
How about when you have a terrible cold and are inconvenienced (and are now going to become behind in everything). You can fret about it and gripe, or you can look at how this gives you an opportunity to rest and to clear your mind. You live in a country that has excellent medical care. You have good food to nourish you. Think about people in prisoner-of-war camps who have to keep working even when they are deathly ill or those who will lose their jobs if they don’t come in. Look at what your situation actually is. And then act on your reality. Since you are able to rest, do it, with grace.
Notice that you have clean running water and indoor plumbing that works. Not everyone does, you know.
Be aware that your dog doesn’t carry diseases and parasites and can share in your home with you. This is certainly not the case in every country.
Have you considered the miracle of electricity? That your water is warm when you take a shower? Or your lights allow you to continue your activity well after dark? Again, not all of the world shares in this luxury.
Some of you are bristling, because this sounds excessively positive, like a Pollyanna attitude. But I have to argue back – being grateful is a CHOICE. You choose to see and then choose to act based on what you become aware of.
I am so very appreciative for my computer and the internet. Some of you remember the days before e-mail and personal computers … I had to type college papers on a word processor. I used white-out to fix mistakes. No spell check – I looked up words in the dictionary (and I misspelled lots of them that I didn’t look up). I love that my little lap top can hold my writing tools, my banking information, my communications with hundreds of people, a doorway to the world via Twitter and Facebook, a movie theater and encyclopedia and more. It is the minimalist’s dream – all those things in one thing. : )
When I focus on the things I am thankful for my whole attitude changes: vacuums that do a good job getting up the voluminous dog hair that escapes from my beautiful German shepherd, daffodils that are just starting to bloom two months early because of an extremely warm February, a gas fireplace that lights instantly and does not create ash for me to cart out to the trash can – oh my, the trash guys. Can you imagine if we didn’t have trash pick-up? Ugh! It would be horrible. The stench alone makes me cringe. How about Amazon? I can find ANYTHING there and have it delivered to my door in two days. That is the coolest.
Our lives are good. I’m feeling happier already.
What are you grateful for? We will all join with you and say, “Oh yea! Me too!”
Recently, I flew to another city. Right before I landed, I looked out the window and was spell-bound by the thousand-foot vantage of the neighborhoods below. This is something I do on every flight – but this time, I had a different experience.
Usually, when I see all the houses and cars and streets, I become overwhelmed with the population. I think, “Every car down there has someone in it and they each have a story.” Each house has a family, complete with their own drama. I am up here enclosed in this flying tube of metal and they are down there, laughing, fighting, living, dying. Then my brain explodes as I extrapolate this to city after city across the country, the continent and then the world. I think, “How can this possibly work? How do all of us continue to exist? What kind of infrastructure does this require?” About this time I shut down emotionally (which is ok, because by then we have landed and my inner rhetoric is usurped by deplaning).
This time, however, my brain had a new thought:
If I could get a message to each and every person down there, what would that message be? What would I want each of them to know?
(Now each of us has a spiritual background, even if that background is to believe nothing – complete with its own set of messages. But this is not actually what this post is about. What I am really talking about is what is YOUR message? in addition to the ideological one?)
I have been pondering this for quite some time – a couple of years, actually – and the last 8 weeks intensely.
Ever trying to narrow my focus and hear my Voice, I believe my message (at least at this writing) is this: You have a choice. You can engage in ways that matter – or not.
With each encounter, you can choose to treat people like objects or like a means to an end (think: check-out person at the grocery store) or like a goal-blocking hindrance (sometimes bosses, children, aging parents) or a paycheck (any client, patient, customer), OR you can see them as HUMAN BEINGS – with feelings, needs, issues, talents, etc.
We each get to choose, multiple times a day how we will interact with this God-breathed creature in front of us.
I regularly fail and succeed at this throughout the day. When I am self-absorbed, stressed, trying to keep my ducks in a row, I treat those around me with less Grace than I wish. I am basically a nice person, so I’m rarely overtly rude, but on those days when I am into my own agenda, I am not always warm. In those moments, I don’t extend a molecule of energy beyond me that I don’t have to. This is part of the introvert curse. But really, the issue is that I don’t SEE the other person – not really. I only see their shell – what they present to me in their particular role.
On the other hand, if I access the part of me that wants to value people, a different ‘me’ shows up. I smile more. I actually make small talk with the person cutting my hair or the teller at the bank. If I acknowledge that every interaction is a chance to bring something to the other person – even if that is summed up by actually looking in their eyes and valuing them for those few seconds, then I have somehow become more human myself.
On my first flight, I did something I’ve never done before – I gave up the coveted isle seat and moved to the dreaded middle one on the other side of the plane, offering my place to a mom who was separated from her 5-year-old son. She assured me that he would be good on the flight, assuming that I didn’t want to sit by the boy; but that isn’t why I offered to switch.
I remember my own little people. They would have been so uncomfortable and sad to be separated from me – even if they could see me across the row. They would have wanted to be with me.
The mother grudgingly accepted my offer, feeling bad for putting me out. But really, it was fine. As the plane was landing, the boy had issues with the change in air pressure and I saw him snuggled up against his mommy, his head in her lap, and she was stroking his hair and telling him to yawn and chew his gum. I was SO glad I had switched; not for me – for them. In that moment of offering my seat, I feel I had an interaction that mattered. (Which felt great.)
We get these opportunities to value those around us dozens of times each day, sadly, missing most of them. Unfortunately, it is so easy to not see people at all. Unless you get deliberate about it. One choice, one engagement at a time.
I was listening to a podcast the other day with my son. He was somewhat interested, but mostly tired, so his focus was less than intense. In the context of the show, the narrator read a line from a C.S.Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy. My son sat up and said, “YES!” even before the sentence had been completed. He recognized the quote from the first few words. “I love that book!, he said, now animated and engaged.
The podcaster’s whole point was that we (or rather he) could relate to this character – someone who was lost, confused, and living out of a lesser self. He was destined to be a king, but had been living as a servant. His point was that we relate to stories, because our LIVES are stories.
The other day, I was re-watching The Horse Whisperer I had seen years ago, where the main character is wrestling with overwhelming grief. Her friend was telling her a story about a boy who broke his neck while diving; he became so depressed that he just went away. She said, “I know where he goes.” At the time I initially saw the film, the line haunted me, because I felt like that was me. I felt that deep sadness that tempted me to ‘go away.’ Though the reasons for my sadness were completely different from either of these characters, I fully identified with them. Even now, when I struggle with feeling depressed, I hear that line in my thoughts. The story was about fighting to not surrender, to push through those dark feelings, fighting them, and coming out on the other side.
There are other famous lines that spur me on toward greater character or courage:
“When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” (Eric Liddell, Chariots of Fire). I, personally am not a runner, but when I write or paint, I feel this. When I have a good conversation with someone, where they feel seen and supported, I identify with Liddell’s experience.
“Carpe Diem. (Whispered) Caarrppe Diiiiem.” Who can forget Robin William’s fantastic, inspiring plea to his students in Dead Poet’s Society? There are many times where I am tempted to take the easy route or the less daring; I hear his words in my head, and I change my course of action. In this way, he has become a part of me. Because I would like to be that person who ‘lives life to the fullest’ – ‘who sucks out all the marrow of life.’ When I see myself in Dr. Keating, I live out the better version of me.
Elrond to Strider in Return of the King: “Put aside the ranger. Become who you were born to be.”
What a wonderful way to say, “It is time to grow into who you were destined to become.” – I hear it like this, “Miriam, step INTO your giftedness. Don’t hide. Don’t play the lesser role. Fulfill your destiny.” (Can you hear the music swelling?) On a good day, believe me, it doesn’t sound cheesy. It draws me up into something Larger. And yes, there are plenty of bad days, where I push the thought aside and stick a mundane “to do” list in front of me.
This business about being both intentional and more sensitive to the callings of your soul … it’s what I am about and wanting to challenge you to as well. Here are three ideas to nurture this space in you:
First, pay attention to lines in movies and songs that grab you. There is a reason that they pull on you. What is the latest phrase that has snagged your attention? My guess is that this will give you some pretty good insight into where you are struggling. Sometimes your heart knows before your brain does.
Second, busyness ASSAULTS insight into how you actually are doing. It reduces our emotional states to very primitive words like angry and sad. You are so much more nuanced than this. Try to carve out some little space where you can check in with yourself and ask, “How am I actually doing right now?”
Third, make a conscious effort to pay attention to the hearts of the people around you. We are so quick to judge, quick to anger, quick to dismiss someone because we are stressed or in a hurry. When you deliberately try to hear your child’s perspective, your spouse’s feelings, your friend’s view point … this will hone your skills and you will get better not only at hearing their hearts, but hearing your own.
Why bother, you ask? Because out of the heart flows the well-springs of our life. That’s why.
(If this post has been encouraging to you, please pass it on to someone else whom you think might benefit from it. Share it on Facebook or on Twitter.)
We would like to believe the best of ourselves; that we are straightforward and 100% honest. Yet, the reality is we have variations of opacity. Parts of us we hold back or magnify; perhaps we fear that the what-you-see-is-what-you-get version will somehow be found wanting.
If you have ever worked with a drawing program, one of the choices you get to make is the the level of transparency for the item being worked with. How solid? How much do I want to let show through? And of which layers? It is an apt metaphor for people.
In my coaching and counseling practice (and in my friends), I see people err on either side of this question. There are individuals who spill 100% of their information, regardless of the other individual’s trustworthiness. As a result, these poor souls often become bruised. They feel betrayed by their friends, family members, co-workers and even bosses. This is especially seen with people they are dating.
The other side of the spectrum are those who reveal little, holding their cards tightly. When you have relationship with someone like this, you can know them for years, sometimes decades and not actually know anything about them. When these people die, their co-workers struggle to say anything personal about them – ‘“They were always on time.” “They worked hard.” Neighbors say things like, “Their yard was always well kept.”
Each of us leans one direction or the other – I, myself, am a tight-card-holder; but sometimes I wish I didn’t hold them quite so closely to the vest. I believe, as humans, we all desire to be known. Sometimes that yearning is cloaked by shame, afraid to be seen, for fear that others won’t like or accept what they see. Yet if you dig below the fear, there still is the deep inner pull to be seen and valued. It is a reaction to this desire that creates the extremes of what is shared or not revealed.
When I am contemplating how much of myself to give to others and with whom, I utilize a couple of questions to help me determine my transparency:
How emotionally safe is this person? We all know people who take what you tell them and use it against you later in a fight or in a business situation. Generally, if an astute person is burned once, they don’t continue to share themselves with untrustworthy people. However, I am repeatedly surprised at how often people continue to share with unsafe people even after they have realized that it usually doesn’t turn out well for them. My guideline: if I don’t know how safe someone is, I choose to see how they do with a little bit of information before I give them more. I let them earn the right to hear my story, rather than assume that they will treat it with the respect that it deserves.
I recommend people experiment with this and actually practice giving someone 15% of their information for a while. For some, it is a struggle to stop once they have started giving of themselves. For others, it is difficult to actually start the sharing. Give people something that is unique to you, but not a problem if the other person mishandles it. That top 15% of me is like the information I wouldn’t mind sharing on Facebook. Before I give someone my deep heart, I’m going to see how they do with some general things.
How close do I want the relationship with this person and myself? Information connects you. If you tell a date your whole life story during the first outing together (assuming that they are wanting to hear the saga) this can be quite bonding. I see this with young people all the time – the first time they go out, they stay up until 4 in the morning sharing back and forth – the problem with this is that you now feel very integrated with the other individual, though in reality, you’ve known them less that 24 hours. It is the emotional equivalent of having sex on your first date. The converse of this is true as well – if you share nothing of any depth, you have no connection and they have no real reason to come back to you. I often ask myself, “How attached to I want to become to this person?” And this helps me decide how much of myself I give at any given time.
What is appropriate for the context of the relationship? There are many situations where equal disclosure is unwarranted and obvious – the doctor / patient relationships, the therapist / client relationship – really, most professional relationships are generally unequal in terms of the transparency. I see these boundaries struggle in places where it is not clearly defined how we are to engage, such as work relationships and sometimes in faith-based situations, like church or small groups or book clubs. In these contexts, people push toward disclosure of 5% or 95% when what is healthier a 30-50% sharing, until you know how trustworthy and genuine the other party is. Often men struggle with this. They tend toward the 5% too much of the time. Generally, we want to be known at work and in our extracurricular groups. But if you aren’t intentional about how you go about this, you will err either too much or too little.
In an age where people are so worried about the use of their personal information (account numbers, social security numbers, etc.), it is intriguing to me how sloppy they are with their true heart information. Under- and over-sharing leaves you feeling either too known and therefore vulnerable, or completely unknown – consequently isolated and lonely. Neither leaves you feeling satisfied and happy. And really, who doesn’t want to be happy?
Do you have a story of where you either over- or under- shared? What was your indicator that it was the wrong amount? How did this impact your current level of sharing?
“The root word for courage is cor – the latin word for heart … Courage originally meant, ‘to speak one’s mind, by telling all one’s heart.’ …I think we have lost touch with the idea that speaking openly and honestly about who we are, about what we’re feeling and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage. Heroics is often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that is pretty extraordinary.” – Brene’ Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection.
Last weekend, I had the unfortunate experience of NOT speaking my mind.
I was at an advanced professional therapy conference – one where there were only 30 attendees, all peers of sorts. We were given the dreaded “group project” – the sort of thing you do with team building; however this was done straight out of the gates – we had done introductions, but you know how it is – very few remembered nor cared what the other person’s name or position was.
In the context of this “experience” the 12 of us were told to develop a treatment plan. However, we were not told whom we were treating, nor how much time we had to develop this plan. We didn’t know ages, issues, number of clients. In short, we were sent out with a bunch of props and told to create something.
It was chaos.
One thing I failed to mention – involved in this “treatment plan” were 6 horses loose in an arena. And now our job was to integrate them with the 12 of us and some bits of string.
It was pandemonium. The animals were nervous. The people were upset and all yelling different ideas toward one another. Few were listening. At one point, I said to no one in particular, “This is so stupid.” A person next to me agreed.
When “time” was called, we were pulled back into the larger group and asked to debrief. Many people were angry; a few, downright hostile. Accusations were flying. I was dumbfounded at these “professionals” who had basically lost it out there. Granted several were quite young, not finished with their training, but still.
We were told that the next day we would do it again and to come up with our own goal. Within seconds, people said, “communication and cohesiveness.” It was the only thing our group agreed on – that we needed some form of communication and a way to get on the same page.
The following day, we were told we had 25 minutes to develop an intervention to work toward communication and cohesion. Feeling somewhat hopeless, I asked the group if they felt like it would be useful to have a facilitator – could they appoint one person to moderate the discussion? That fell on deaf ears and the non-verbal vibe was SHUT UP.
A person in the group pointed out that people weren’t listening to one another and interrupting. Someone else suggested a “talking stick” – that whoever held the object could talk and everyone else would listen. A person offered up their coffee spoon as the “stick.” Someone else took it and began to talk.
Okay. I’m fine with this. Whatever works. Sometimes people need a structure to help.
As people took the spoon and shared their ideas, I realized that three individuals across the circle had not spoken. I asked for the spoon, and said that I would like to pass the spoon to them and hear what they had to say.
At that point, one of the silent three exploded and GLARED at me with intense anger. She said loudly, “I AM NOT A DAMN CHILD THAT I NEED TO BE TOLD WHEN I CAN SPEAK AND WHEN I CAN’T. I WILL NOT BE SILENCED AND I DON’T NEED YOU TO TELL ME WHEN I CAN TALK AND WHEN I CAN’T.” Her eye contact never left mine – it was like she was holding me personally responsible for the spoon thing.
Silence hung in the air as the whole group stared at us. I put the spoon in my back pocket.
Generally, I am not at a loss for words, but I felt like anything from me would be gasoline on a fire. However, my mind had plenty to say, such as, “Wow. She’s got issues.” And, “Really? You’re going to haul off and attack me for this spoon thing? I’m not the one who suggested it. Where do you get off being so RUDE?” And then there was the self-righteous thought: this little snot is not going to rattle me … I’ll just stand here, unflappable and NICE. That’ll show her!” (You’re brain does weird things when it is under fire).
After an eternal pause one of the other participants, a woman with tightly curled hair said, “Do you have a suggestion that would make this better?”
Aggressive girl kept yelling. “I DON’T KNOW, BUT I WON’T BE SILENCED. AND NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL ME WHEN I CAN TALK AND WHEN I CAN’T”
Curly engaging woman: “I have to say that right now, I feel I could do something and you could get really, really angry, but I don’t know what that thing is. It’s like there are unspoken rules that we don’t know about. I don’t like that feeling. Is there something that you can say that would help me understand?”
I knew exactly how she was feeling. Like if I say anything, this is going to disintegrate. I thought it took remarkable courage for her to speak so openly.
Aggressive girl softened and began to share her feelings in a more rational manner. Others began to speak.
People began talking, and shortly thereafter, the facilitators interrupted and said the time was up.
Later, I had lunch with Jill and we debriefed the situation.
I asked her what made her willing to risk speaking up. She said that she had just finished treatment for breast cancer and that she was no longer willing to not speak her truth.
“When you know your own truth and you chose to not say it, it damages you. I need to take care of myself and I am not willing to stay silent any longer. And if it makes others uncomfortable, so be it.”
Wow.
Jill is right … staying silent is toxic to your soul. It damages you. It damages me.
