Tag Archives: Mental Health

Life-Changing Hacks

Confession: I really dislike the term “hack.” It sounds awful, like a data breach somewhere, drenching the dark web with the personal info of thousands of people. It also used to mean someone whose work was poorly done and usually rushed, or the work itself. Somehow it became slang for “something you can do to make things easier/simpler/better.”

So be it, then.  In the spirit of openness (in which I score extremely high in personality tests), here are seven “hacks” for a happier life:

  1. Spend at least 15 minutes a day sitting in silence. For me, it is prayer time. This is a powerful early-day practice. If you are religious, this is a good time to sit with Scripture, a devotional book if you use one, and a small notebook in which to write a brief response as part of your prayer. For some people of faith, opening with a short Scripture reading and sitting silently in a contemplative mode of prayer is better.

If you are not religious, use it as quiet meditation time, focusing on breathing in a way that feeds relaxation and focus.

Why it works:  The research on the benefits of such a meditative practice is robust: brain health, heart health, reduced depression and anxiety symptoms. For people of faith, it becomes an opportunity to listen and reflect on God’s presence in their lives and how they are called to live. Taking a few moments to formulate your thoughts and write to God can help anchor you into the experience. The act of writing – words of gratitude, questions, fears – helps with focus and invites you to be in dialogue.

  • Go on a news fast.  If something horrible that actually requires your attention happens or is imminent, like a hurricane or other disaster, you’ll find out about it. Otherwise, just skip the news for a week, or two, or more. Then titrate your dosage:  15 minutes a day, checking into two or three varied sources.

Why it works:  repeated exposure to what are often the same events, or people discussing those events, has the neurological effect of repeated distressing experiences and amplifies your stress level. By quickly reading, rather than watching and listening, you will be better able to glean information without being overly stimulated emotionally.

  • Once a week, avoid all electronics except:
    • Live interaction with loved ones at a distance
    • Shared experiences with family or friends such as watching a movie together, which you can then discuss over a meal.

Why it works:  you will necessarily be spending more time in the real world, either resting, being creative, or otherwise having your life rather than passively observing others’ lives.

  • Go outdoors every day, preferably in the morning.

Why it works:  Morning daylight helps with brain chemistry; it contributes to a better mood and improved sleep by getting your melatonin system set properly.  It is also a good time of day to get your beneficial Vitamin D exposure (check with your physician) and to take in the benefits of exposure to nature: the sky, the sights, sounds and smells of plants, the sight and sounds of animals.

  • Clean up your diet.  Experiment with giving up highly processed junk foods. If you are a “one toe in the water” type, pick one change at a time and stick with it. Add a small change a week. If you are a “cannonball into the pool” type, go all in: get rid of the chips, the fast foods, the super-sweetened snacks.  See how you feel after a couple of weeks, after the worst of the withdrawal has passed and your tastebuds start to recover.

Why it works:  junk food is addictive, hijacking your dopamine system; it leads to erratic moods both because of the direct up and down of dopamine and the very complex relationship between the gut and the brain. The research here is abundant and easy to find; simply put, you’ll feel better. Your energy level should be more stable, helping you feel more energetic and, without that brain/body overstimulation from processed snacks in the evening, you may even sleep better, which leads to number 6:

  • Be religious about sleep.  If you are a 7-hour-a-night person, get those 7 hours; if you are a 9-hour person, get the 9.  Since you will be consuming less electronic media you should be able to squeeze out the time.

Why it works:  Sleep is essential. It is when your brain, and the rest of your body, does a lot of its clean-up and repair work. Your brain uses sleep to sort out information, store memories, and do important work such as using your new, improved, healthier diet to rebuild your stress-and-junk-damaged hippocampi, amygdala, etc.  Try to go to bed and get up at around the same time every day. If you are skeptical, then be scientific about it: do this as a four-week experiment and then assess the outcome.

  • Be committed to a daily exercise routine appropriate to your health requirements.  Your physician can give you info on recommended guidelines and any limitations or considerations you need to bear in mind.  There is no one routine for everyone, but unless you are on doctor’s orders to remain resting and sedentary, there is something you could do in this area. You may have to start slow; you may have to scale back because you are burning out; you may need to add variety so you are addressing cardiovascular health, strength, flexibility and balance.

Why it works:  Well, look at the data!  We are engineered to move, not to sit for hours.  Regular exercise is good for physical and mental health, can help with social well-being for those who exercise with or around others, afford time in nature, and help with sleep and digestion. 

So, there you go.  Seven simple hacks for a happier life.  Most of them cost nothing; even healthier eating could start with a money-saving switch of water in lieu of sugar- or artificially-sweetened prepared beverages. So – all simple, all potentially free. Since it doesn’t cost anything – what’s the harm in giving it a one-month trial run?  If one month of free, simple changes could mean more well-being in multiple areas of life, that seems like a great bargain – cheaper than coming to therapy and paying me, or someone else, to tell you the same thing.

Cutting off Mom and Dad, Part 3



…and now we come to the final installment (so far) in my
wonderings about this strange phenomenon of parent rejection by adult children.
So far, I have tried to spread the responsibility around: the infantilization
of young adults by many institutions, the culture at large, and parents.  Now it is the young people’s turn.


It is my observation (granted, limited to some review of the
literature, professional trainings and clinical experience – over a quarter
century) that it is not usually the abused children who grow up and cut off
their parents. This seems odd, doesn’t it? If a child who was tortured decided
to cut off contact, we could understand, even support the healthy distancing.



It is much more typical for the young person who simply does
not want to be bothered to cut off the parent or parents. Quite often it seems
to be one parent; a widowed mother, typically, which makes me suspicious that
the possibility of some sort of responsibility drives the distancing.  I am sorry to be that cynical, but so it
sometimes seems.  Other themes seem to be
that the parent doesn’t just pat the child on the head for every decision, or
the parent has different political opinions, or religious beliefs.



If you are an adult, then surely you have developed the
capacity to tolerate the presence of people different than you; it appears to
be a matter of pride to young adults, especially, to be open-minded about
people’s differences, to refuse to allow even stunningly foundational
differences in values to be barriers to mutual respect. If that is the case, if
you think of yourself as tolerant, then surely you can tolerate the fact that
your parents, or grandparents, or aunts or uncles or other relatives, no doubt
have different ideas than you (and from one another). It may come as a surprise
to you that your parents, whom you may see as some monolith of monotony,
actually disagree with one another. A lot. The research indicates married
couples disagree on about two thirds of the stuff of life, or more; they just
have figured out, I hope, how to live and let live on these disagreements and
how to work with the few that are pretty significant areas. 



Are you afraid? Afraid that you cannot properly defend your
own positions, operationalizing your terms and pointing to data, rather than
feelings, and that interacting with your parent(s) will be an exercise in
losing an argument and feeling like a fool? 



Are you afraid to simply listen to try to understand more of
their opinion, meaning the information and experiences that support that
stance?



Are you afraid that staying close to aging parents will mean
being stuck with them, having to take care of them, when you are carefully
curating your life to minimize responsibility?



Are you afraid you will die of boredom if you have to listen
one more time to their ramblings about the events of their lives, which may
actually not be any more ennui-producing than your own (have you wasted a chunk
of your life bingeing a fictional series lately or playing video games?).



Are you afraid that they will keep trying to get you to
change and you are tired of explaining to them that your
job/partner/reproduction plans are not up for discussion?



Are you afraid to set boundaries, including the boundaries
of discretion? Surely you do not talk about everything with every friend; in
the same way, it can be very wise to discern what topics to discuss with whom.
If your definition of family means “people who have to accept and agree with
everything about me,” then even something as simple as dietary differences (the
omnivore and vegan siblings, for example) will necessitate cutting off a family
member when all you had to do was not rave on and on about the great steak you
grilled last weekend or stop talking about murder when you are sharing a meal.



Cutting off family without very strong grounds to do so is a
red flag. If your friends have done so, consider their reasons; if this is how
they treat the people who sacrificed for them in ways they may not yet
understand, exactly how solid is the rock you stand on with these friends? Can
you really count on them to be there, helping to clean up after you have
vomited, for the zillionth time, during chemo? To show up for you when there is
a death, or a birth, and in the long months of change and bewilderment
afterwards? To take a day off and drive you to and from having your wisdom
teeth out, or a colonoscopy, or whatever else has to happen – and the medical
office will not release you to a ride share service?



The family cut-off is a tragedy, under the best and most
reasonable of circumstances. The dangerous parents might need to be cut off,
for the sake of their children and grandchildren. It is heartbreaking that life
had to come to this, but it may be necessary. That is not something to be done
lightly, indifferently, or without serious reflection of how this decision will
play out in the decades to come.



Thanks for reading –



For Those Mourning a suicide

If you have lost someone to suicide, my sincere condolences:  peace be upon you in these incredibly difficult times.

I have been involved in grief counseling for a long time. I began volunteering as a grief support group facilitator about 20 years ago. Grief is always painful – the Irish language word clumsily translated into English as “Troubles” actually means tearing apart.  Losing someone to suicide is definitely a tearing apart, and one that carries particular burdens.

  • They are even more likely than other mourners to look backwards and try to reinterpret events to make sense of what happened. We humans like for things to “make sense,” even things that can’t be understood. Looking back can lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering – self-blame, recrimination, guilt.  Our culture pretends we can control just about everything, but we cannot. Through the lens of grief looking backwards, even a passing sad day years before can seem like a sign that was “missed,” and the perfectly normal little disagreement turns into the possible cause. Every memory is scoured for warning signs. The lists of warning sides of suicidality are helpful, but not all people have them. In reality, about 70% of suicides are impulsive acts – there are no real warning signs or markers, beyond the events of life that many people experience without becoming suicidal:  relationship struggles, financial struggles, legal struggles, job loss.  Some people will show some of the warning signs but are not be suicidal at all, such as someone who is enthusiastically minimizing their possessions in order to downsize. Please try to refocus on something else, even a small physical task, when you find yourself looking back to try to see what you “should have” seen: you are at risk of burdening yourself with unnecessary guilt.
  • Those whose loved one committed suicide are likely to hear even more of the hurtful things people can say to those grieving. Granted, most people’s hurtful remarks to mourners are well-intentioned, and yet incredibly unhelpful, such as the dreadful, “You’re still young…you’ll have other children,” or, “You should be glad they’re not suffering any longer.”  There are some people, though, who say truly, intentionally horrible things about those who commit or attempt suicide, and this leads mourners to lie about the cause of death and/or isolate from others.  Avoid these people; seek the company of those who are compassionate.
  • Those who have lost someone to suicide are especially likely to avoid going to grief support groups, or will only go to those about suicide.  I encourage going to a general grief support group, too; it can be a place to learn a lot of skills and strategies that are helpful to all mourners, and can be that first, safe place to talk about what really happened and get support as you manage the tangle of terrible emotions. You will find strategies and support for how to take one step at a time into a world that seems to no longer make sense. Please do not isolate out of pain, unnecessary shame or unnecessary guilt.
  • See your primary care doctor, avoid any mind-altering substances, and try your best to follow medical guidance – even though you will often not feel like eating right or exercising.
  • Seek individual or family counseling to help with the grief process as needed.

And, of course, as this is not psychological guidance or advice – just information and encouragement – reach out for help if you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or fear for someone else. Besides your health care provider, the local emergency room, or 911, you might call the National Suicide Hotline at 988 or the 1-800-273-TALK (8255) National Mental Health Hotline.

If you are reading this and thinking of someone you know who has lost someone to suicide, please reach out with compassion. Be present; keep reaching out. Invite for simple things; offer specific help (with chores, for companionship, to go with them to a grief support group because going is, at first, absolutely terrifying). Please do not ask a lot of questions about the death; if the person is open, instead ask about the person: the happy memories of the past. Ask if you can help and don’t be surprised if you hear, “I’m fine,” or, “You can’t bring them back,” or, “I don’t need anything.”  In that case, come back another time with specific offers (“Can I come by sometime and help with the lawn?” “Are you up for a cup of coffee at the park?” etc.).  Be gentle with people who have been torn apart.

Thanks for reading.

Cutting off Mom and Dad, Part 2

As previously explored, the culture undermines parent-child relationships. One way is the manipulation of expectations of normalcy. Young adults are frequently told to believe that anything less than absolute, craven praise and approval, of anything, is some sort of miserable toxicity and not to be borne. The relationship must be severed, even with parents.

On the flip side, many parents feel that their position as parent gives them license to offer criticism, advice, and endless commentary on their adult child’s habits, clothes, parenting, etc.  If you are financing an adult child, then I would suggest you tell your child what you will do – not what the adult child will do. You can’t make them do anything, but you can control yourself.  A self-sufficient adult who lives on their own, paying their own way, and raising a healthy, well-adjusted child does not need unsolicited advice or undermining, either.

If you’re thinking, reading this, that you jolly well can make them do something – well, actually, no, not without force.  We parents specialize in saying things that can’t be enforced, silly things like yelling at a toddler, “You’re going to get in there and go to sleep right now!” The average three-year-old has figured out you can’t make her go to sleep; and if you do anything that forces sleep, and I find out, I will report you to Child Protective Services. A three-year-old is portable:  you can pick them up and transport them to their bed, over and over, but the command to sleep is just a waste of syllables.

Sometimes, fellow parents, you may be grieving. You had your child, and you had dreams. You imagined a long future, that child’s adulthood, and the ideal fantasy of whatever your engagement with that child’s future life would be.  I was hoping for a shared private practice (we had discussed this, to be fair!) and lots of hands-on times with grandchildren and spent a couple of decades amassing cookie cutters and art supplies that seldom needed, and given away with much grief, grief not for the things but for the unfulfilled dreams. Instead, I have an adult child of whom I am immensely proud who lives many hours away, and that means her husband and their lovely child are far away, too.  I don’t get to impose my dream, or a guilt trip about my unfulfilled dream, on them. Doing so would be foolish and unfair, and reduce the likelihood I can enjoy what I have, which is far more than many people have, and a situation that those who are involuntarily childless would envy.

So…this set of posts on family cut-offs doesn’t solve anything. I don’t have any big, smart solutions or a therapy intervention that will take away the pain of alienation from the very people for whom you would willingly die. Perhaps it can open up some ideas for reflection, or conversation. If you are an adult who has cut off a parent, please reconsider, seriously and prayerfully, on whether their behavior warrants that wall of silence. If you are a parent, wondering what you have done, perhaps there is room to change the ways in which you try to influence or even make demands on someone who does not belong to you.  Perhaps there is nothing to be done except wait and pray, which comprise tremendous power in the long run.  What to pray? I do not know. I can tell you how I pray, across all relationships: family, friends, clients, students, our leaders, our enemies…that both the other party, and I, be open to becoming who God wants us to be. Amen.

Cutting off Mom and Dad, Part 1

We were talking about families, generally, over breakfast.

“I don’t know why family therapy isn’t held in greater esteem,” my husband commented. “Look at what things are like for families…people are really struggling.”

I agreed with the struggling. And, yes, it would be nice if family therapy were more respected. It is rich with the integration of lifespan development, evolutionary psychology, personality, temperament, and culture. Family psychology and family therapy seem to be the neglected child in the world of mental health. Yet every theory of development, and most personality theories, see the family and early life experiences as foundational to the development of the adult person.  How we attach to others, the ease of trust, our expectations of the world, are all rooted in life experiences, particularly those early life experiences most often lived in the context of family.

Well, of course, if we emphasize family then we are saying family is important, pivotal, vital. And that, it seems, flies in the face of much of the mainline culture.

I will take one small slice for now: the bizarre movement to cut off parents who were not, and are not, abusive, neglectful, cruel, or so otherwise dysfunctional that remaining in active relationship with them would be endangering to one’s safety and/or sanity. There seems to have been, over the past few years, a growing movement in this regard. I have spoken with people, and read books by professionals, on both sides of these issues: the grieving parent and the disgruntled adult child; the professionals who attempt to help parents bridge the gap or, if that is impossible, to heal from the grief, and the therapists whose main lens is the toxic relationship that will only hurt you until you extricate yourself.

Are there cruel, abusive and destructively manipulative parents? Yup. And, likewise, selfish, cold and manipulative adult children, too.  And my somewhat limited professional experience (I’ve been in this field about 30 years) is that sometimes children who cut off parents did not have abusive, cruel parents. Sometimes, people cut off parents who did not do what the child wished, did not read their minds, did not feel obliged to agree and praise everything their child did.

And here we come to a piece of the culture guaranteed to undermine the family: the demand that people validate and accept whatever one thinks, feels, and does as indisputably “okay” because it is how we “feel,” etc. Well, now we have a problem that any family therapist could easily explain.

Mommies, generally, give children the majority of early care.  They provide unconditional love and approval because, as Dr. Jordan Peterson often points out, infants are “always right.” If the baby is crying, the baby is right: something needs attention, swiftly, lovingly and gently! That loving care must come even if baby is colicky, pukey, poopy, or otherwise quite disagreeable.  The baby is, after all, always right. However, this stage of life passes, and then Daddy’s influence increases: Daddies specialize in unconditional love with conditional approval. “I love you, and the room is a mess. Get going on it, kid. Here, I’ll give you a hand.”

This coordinated approach works great: it prepares children for the real world, where people have expectations and you can’t just do “whatever” and then complain it’s how you feel, and have everyone act shame-faced, shrug and say, Oh, OK. If that’s how you feel. Whatever.  Children benefit from the solid backing of both parents’ love, and the experience that disapproval of how I behave does not mean I am not loved. It means my behavior probably needs improvement.

The world, or the part of it to which children and young adults are often exposed, plays another tune. The modern message is that the relentlessly approving gaze of a nursing mother ought to be the perspective of parents forever, across all circumstances. That is a set-up to disrupt and undermine the family.

And it appears to be working terrifically.

A child goes off to college and is enlightened about…it matters not.  Politics, nutrition, whatever. They realize their parents are abject idiots. Worse, their parents may be bad and ill-intentioned because, look! A younger sibling is being raised in a religious/liberal/conservative/omnivore/vegetarian/whatever home. Big sibling becomes disrespectful towards the parents, dismissive, and undercuts them in an attempt to rescue little sibling from the fate of growing up in the same family.

Or, a young adult who is apparently sliding along, perhaps in perpetual adolescence, shifting from goal to goal, engaged with street pharmacology or alcohol, resents the parent who dares express concern and perhaps even the intent to turn off the money tap. Anger, resentment, and accusations flare; the young person demands parental fealty, blames the parents, and the parents, afraid of losing the relationship, are tempted to cave and pretend that a ten-year cycle of major changes in undergraduate school is just okay. It wouldn’t be okay even if the young person was the one financing it with their series of so-not-serious jobs; it would still be a waste of talent and youth.

In short, the mainstream culture offers the illusion that new-mommy bottomless approval is what is normal for adults. Do parents contribute to the problem of parent/child alienation? Absolutely; and that will be a story for another day.

Christmas all year ’round

‘Tis the season.  My Christmas tree is still up – it is, after all, still Christmas time. This is not a diatribe about people who tear down Christmas before the turkey or ham is cold; I understand that for many people, this holiday season was terrible, a time when loss was rubbed into their face. For them, simply going through the motions of the holiday was an act of profound and sustained moral courage.

No, I am reflecting on the reminders of Christmas that will be up in my home all year.  This is not new, and not unique. It reflects the profound Incarnation, and the love and hope that flow from that.  The little clay Holy Family we bought in San Antonio sits on a shelf beside the front door: it is more than a souvenir and more than the gratification of seeing Jesus, Mary and Joseph with skin closer to Semitic tan than impossibly pale, northwestern European.  It is, most of all, a reminder that the Eternal Word who “When He fixed the foundations of the earth, I was beside Him as artisan; I was His delight day by day, playing before Him all the while, playing over the whole of His earth, and having delight with human beings,” (Proverbs 8:29-31) came among us in, reminding of us the dignity of life even in that humility and weakness.

And as the year rolls on, and the oppressiveness of world events bears down on us, we need a star. Without remembering, deliberately and meditatively, the implications of the inexplicable event we celebrate at Christmas, the darkness can seem to be winning, and yet, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John, 1:5). Looking at the news, it seems unlikely that things are apt to improve out there anytime soon. And so, as always, I am prepared for the annual summer revival, stirring afresh the wonder of the Incarnation. Sometime in July, when the heat of summer seems to have made the world even angrier, a hidden bag of peppermint bark will emerge, and Christmas music will be played, loudly, in defiance of what seems to be ever-growing darkness.

It is particular Christmas music: starting, necessarily, with Mannheim Steamroller’s “Deck the Halls.” If you know the performance, you understand. If not, it bears some explanation. This is no “ho, ho, ho” or “jingle those bells” type of “Deck the Halls.” It is the tune as it is meant to be played: the triumphant preparation for the arrival of the King, a blast of victorious celebration. It could be the sound of the creatures of Narnia preparing for Aslan’s conquering return. It is a song that, when Steamroller opens with it, has the crowd standing and cheering – to the apparent amazement of the musicians.

If it sounds as if it could be helpful, this summer, when the city streets are on fire and the news cycle is bleak, have a bit of Incarnational reawakening. Leave a reminder of Christmas out all year.  Play some music to stir your soul, and remember that, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” (John 1:14).

What’s up with that?

Why do you do what you do?

No, seriously. Why do you do what you do, whatever it is that you do?

Could you get a bit obsessive about this question? I suppose so. But it is worth asking, over and over again.

You got out of bed at whatever time it was. Why? For what purpose?

Why did you eat and drink what you ate and drank? Or, why did you choose not to eat?

What did you put on your body to wear out into the world, to tell other people about you, your tastes, and your intentions?  Why those messages, and not some other messages? Why are those the messages you choose to give to the world?

Why did you go to work? Why did you choose that work?

Why did you behave that way, and not some other way, towards whatever persons you encountered along the way?

Why, why, why, why.  Sometimes it is important to take a step back and ask that defense-raising question of yourself, repeatedly, digging in.

Well, why, you might ask, and it is a worthwhile question.  Asking ourselves “why” is very important, because, if we drill down far enough, we come down to whether or not we have decided upon a central principle, a guiding ethic, a core belief that allows us to direct our behavior with cohesion and authenticity towards our purpose.  If you don’t have a “why,” you are less focused than the average toddler. A toddler can be remarkably determined in pursuing her goals, despite an inability to clearly articulate the “why” for coloring on the walls or giving Teddy Bear a bath in the toilet. 

For religious people, the central “why” comes down to a covenantal relationship with the Lord and, for Christians, a relationship with Jesus, the Christ.  That is the “why.”

Why get out of bed on time? Because an orderly life (ordered to what is best) requires self-discipline and routine, and honoring one’s legitimate commitments to others.

Why be kind to the barista, the cashier, the slowly shambling person in front of you on the sidewalk? Because they, like you, are a child of God and your rooted relationship with Him requires you to treat others as His children, too.

Why be honest with someone when you know it will be ill-received – the student whose work is apparently plagiarized, the employer asking you to do the unethical, the adult family member who is drinking in excess? Because it is important to be truthful, to not allow dishonesty to muddy the waters of relationships and to let yourself slip into that mud out of fear of conflict. Because your relationship with the Lord requires you to act honestly, justly, and with love.

Wishing you a new year full of the joy of discovering beautiful “why’s” in your life!

The Problem of Re-Emerging Shame

Perhaps you have had this experience, too.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, some stupid, thoughtless, awkward, or embarrassing thing you said or did, years or even decades ago, pops up and invades your brain like lyrics from a an old song you didn’t particularly like, only instead of a pesky earworm you are troubled by the bubbling up of shame.

There are a lot of ways to look at this, and I would like to offer one that, perhaps, you haven’t tried. With the earworm, we try singing it out loud, singing something else out loud, and complaining.  With the shameful episode, consider this.

The episode has come to mind for some reason. What could it be?  The accusing spirit (the word is Satan) would have you believe that you are the sum of this event, you are always “like this,” and encourage the shame. Shame frequently leads to angry behavior, withdrawing from the good, even giving up.  It’s a great trick to encourage bad choices.

But the accusing spirit is not the only spirit. It is not the most powerful Spirit; the most powerful Spirit in on your side, working in mysterious and subtle ways. Perhaps the purpose of this re-emerging memory is not to humiliate you but to help you. If that sounds perplexing, stay with me.

If you believe that you have grown at least a little since that time, been forgiven by God, if not by yourself, then the thought has some purpose besides seeking forgiveness. I wonder if it emerges to remind you that, perhaps, you need to remember to forgive yourself, grow, and be grateful for forgiveness.  Further, this notion that you have grown, changed, realized how wrong or silly or selfish you were, may have direct utility because, no doubt, there is someone who needs that generosity of spirit from you at this very moment.

I suspect you can easily come up with a list of people who have stymied or offended you recently with their version of your suddenly recollected episode. Perhaps it is a family member who was having a bad day. Maybe it is the coworker whose discomfort with death led to awkward and profoundly unhelpful remarks after you lost a loved one. It may be a friend. Whoever it is, maybe the thing to do is recall the forgiveness you’ve received and allow that to temper your response.  Your words could be gentle when you offer correction, quiet and calm when you express disappointment within affection. Perhaps, on reflection, you decide it isn’t even worth bringing up – just an off remark on a tough day. Then dismiss the temptation to wallow in your shame and give thanks to have grown some, at least, since those days.

Try taking those seemingly random eruptions from memory and turning them into grace and gratitude, and see what happens. Odds are, it will definitely be better and healthier than shame.

It looks good from the school bus window

In 1976, I was in 8th grade. 

It was the year the entire country had bicentennial fever.

It was the year the assistant principal’s son, usually diffident and polite, in my grade, slugged my friend “Tara,” who had spent the first half of the school year exploiting female privilege by kicking him and whacking him with a large hairbrush on a several-times daily basis. He said the suspension was worth it.

It was also the year that the Tara’s younger brother, “Tommy,” announced that he wanted to grow up to be a…cow.

Not a cowboy.  Not a farmer. A cow.  Tommy was abundantly clear, and he was impervious to reason, science or bribery with a combination of ice cream and more typical ideas about things he could be when he grew up, as any five-year-old would be.  The ice cream bribe having failed, the family shrugged and figured he would outgrow it. They didn’t play along; they kept calling him Tommy and sending him away from the dinner table if he pretended his salad was cud. Eventually, of course, Tommy moved on to the next thing, probably driving race cars like Speed Racer – something plausible enough to make his mother pine for the sweet, innocent cow days.

I’m sure that for Tommy, choosing the life of a cow made perfect sense.  Imagine how it looks from the window of a school bus, especially for a small boy.  The heavy humidity of a New Jersey summer has passed. It’s finally perfect weather to play outside all day. Nature’s colors are sharp and bright, the air is clean and crisp, and the cows are out there reveling in it, with the bunnies, turtles, birds and white-tailed deer.  Then winter comes – the dour, endlessly gray winters of the Raritan River valley, and after shivering in soggy boots at the bus stop, and climbing slippery steps into the bus, the cows can be glimpsed, in their shelter, occasionally outside into the snow, but ambling back into the warmth at their pleasure.  Yes, to a five-year-old trapped on the cold, rattly school bus, whose eyes are barely window-high, the life of a cow probably looked pretty sweet.  Perhaps if they’d lived along the water, Tommy would have aspired to be a fisherman, a pirate or a dolphin, but we were in landlocked rural New Jersey. He wanted the life of a cow.

Tommy has been a reminder for me to always explore the vision people have of what life when they reach a goal.  For example, if a young person announces they want to get a degree in (whatever), I think it’s important to explore the pieces of the dream around that. What do they see life being like with that degree? What do they imagine will be better for them?  What will they have to give up to reach that goal? What will they have to surrender for that career, realizing that every door opened means many others will close? What texture of life goes with that career, and will that work for them?  What about that career appeals to them? How will they handle the particular negative aspects of that goal?  What draws them to that work? How many people who do that work have they met? In what ways do they see themselves as similar to those people?

Similarly, if someone wants to make any major life change (say, moving from their parents’ home in coastal Florida to live off the land in Alaska), it makes sense to ask questions that make the expectations, underlying assumptions, and perhaps misperceptions, clear. It’s not that I want to be a fun killer; I am obligated to accompany clients on an exploration of their suppositions, knowledge base, and emotional reasoning.  If the Alaska-dreaming young person has innocent delusions about being free, about being “my own boss” in the wilderness, well…actually, Mother Nature will be your boss, and she is far harsher than the weary assistant manager where you bus tables and more relentlessly demanding than your high school physics teacher. The adult’s job is asking questions to elicit thought and inspire more research. An idea may feel “fun” but the reality may not be so jolly.

People may disclose all sorts of ideas and aspirations, wishes and whims. Ask questions about the expectations, beliefs, assumptions, sacrifices. Be curious, be compassionate, but be realistic. Be honest, because ultimately honesty is kind. Iceberg lettuce salads and fish sticks are not cud; major life choices should not be made on a whim, or when under the influence of mind-altering substances, or when distraught.

Because Tommy was never going to grow up to be a cow. But I hope that, whatever he grew up to become, he has plenty of time to enjoy nature on those clear, beautiful days.

**Tara and Tommy are not their real names.

Taking it to the mats

What ever happened to giving someone some grace?  Or being tolerant?

As regular readers, I occasionally page through popular magazines just to see what sort of toxins are floating around in the public sphere.  It’s less time-consuming and annoying than hours of screen time. Between what I read, and what I hear from those on the receiving end of what is often cruelty, there is a whole lot less tolerance in these self-referentially oh-so-tolerant times than in the past. Often supposedly tolerant people demand that any disagreement be taken to the mats, verbally if not physically.

To be clear, I am talking about disagreements between people where there is no violence or threat of violence. I am not talking about adopting a “live and let live” attitude about child abuse or elder exploitation or criminal acts. I wonder where tolerance and grace went when it comes to the people we encounter in nonviolent settings in our daily lives.

A simple little example was an advice columnist’s suggestion that dealing with an annoying “friend” who calls during work hours and drains your energy and time with daily drama should comprise a formal sit-down in which you express how their thoughtless behavior impacts your feelings and your work, and expect some sort of mature, measured apology.  I am practical. My guidance would be along these lines: this is your “friend.” Surely you noticed before this that she seemingly has the thoughtlessness and flimsy self-control of a spoiled tween.  You accepted the friendship under those terms; she hasn’t changed. You have. Stop taking calls or looking at texts from her during work. What kind of job allows you to chat with friends on the employer’s dime?  Call her back when it’s convenient. And, if you choose to be friends with her, accept that she is as she is. She will be immature and you will have to set boundaries. Sure, tell her you can’t be interrupted at work. But you and I both know that having a nice little sit-down with her isn’t worth the aggravation. Imagine the flood of drama, spilling and splashing all over the table at the coffee shop.

In families, people disagree. At Thanksgiving, if you are fortunate enough to have family and friends with whom you can gather, people will have differing opinions. At least one of them may have misplaced their tolerance or drowned it in some substance of abuse. What to do? You might have fun arguing. My late cousin George, who had Soviet bullet fragments in his leg from his teenage adventures helping people escape from East Berlin, would take a perspective he didn’t necessarily agree with, for the entertainment of developing and defending a position, and do it with a twinkle in his eye. You might find that stressful; your plan may be to discreetly go do some dishes because “here s/he goes again.”  You might enlist at least one ally in a plan to divert and change topics if the intolerant person who expects everyone else to be tolerant starts pontificating. You might decide to politely express your perspective. Depending on the people present, any of those may be prudent.

Some people implode relationships foolishly. I know people who were cut off on the flimsiest of rationale; because they are “too negative,” or “worry too much.”  People cut off parents because their parents do not “support” (as in overtly cheer and brag about) their adult child’s career choice, tattoos, or other decisions.  And, conversely, parents cut off adult children.  In cases where people are dangerous, or truly disruptive (the addicted adult child who breaks in and steals from the parents; the abusive parent; the family member who is aggressive and belligerent about their cause-du-jour, as examples) then yes, safety and sanity require appropriate distance-setting. This is sad, even when necessary.

I’m not an appeaser or a door mat. When it comes to disagreements, I think that freedom requires that we live and let live in peace (that’s what tolerance used to mean) until the circumstances are such that it is necessary. Necessary means that an expectation for compliance is placed upon me, a demand that I change my mind or pretend to agree with something I find false.  It is necessary when harm is being done, is threatened, or is imminent. That is when it is important to speak up, calmly and rationally, to base my position in fact and refuse to play silly word games. Speak calmly, peacefully, firmly and succinctly, refusing to pretend. That would be a way to “take it to the mats.”

Paraphrasing St. Francis of Assisi – Peace and every good to you.