Mindsight

Mindsight, a term coined by Dr. Daniel Siegel (no relation, unfortunately), is the brain's capacity to experience both insight and empathy.  This, Siegel claims, "is the potent skill that is the basis for both emotional and social intelligence."  He says that "self-awareness and empathy are the domains of the human ability for success in life".  Wow, pretty powerful stuff!

More simply, mindsight is our ability to know our minds.  This ability, along with the ability to sense the inner world of others, Siegel claims, is the key to nurturing healthy minds and hearts.

Bring it, fellow Siegel!

Someone's Child

It recently dawned on me that I am no longer someone's child.  That realization hit me pretty hard mainly because it occurred to me so close to my first Thanksgiving without my Dad, without parents.

I am a daughter-in-law (for which I'm extremely grateful) but I am no longer someone's daughter.

I have been grappling with the fact that I no longer have parents since my Dad died in February. But, this is the first time I thought of my status in this new way. This is a pretty big one to wrap my head around and it's feeling quite daunting....

I used to be someone's child and now I'm not.  Perplexing.  Haunting......

Love

In the Bible it says, ".....and you should love Hashem (G-d), your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul....."  This is a basic tenet in Judaism, something we say multiple times in our daily prayers.  But,  something about it has always perplexed me.

Thirteen years ago, in the speech I gave at my older son's bar mitzvah, I verbalized what that something was (and continues to be) for me.  In my speech I asked, "How can we be commanded to have an emotion?  How can we be commanded to love?"

I understand being commanded to do or not do something like "Honor your father and mother" or "Don't steal", etc, but to be commanded to have an emotion, that really perplexed me.  The research I did for my speech left me pretty dry, nothing completely satisfied me.  All these years later, with this issue still being on my mind, I think I got my answer.

This past Shabbos, (Sabbath) Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman, the scholar-in-residence at the Davar Institute in Teaneck,  said we can find the true definition for ahava (love in hebrew) by looking at ancient Near East political treaties.  Ahava played a very important role in these treaties. To love, in the political term of the ancient Near East, is to demonstrate loyalty or faithfulness.

Love as loyalty.  WOW, pretty different than how we define love in our star struck American culture where we seem to trip all over it, falling in and out of it all the time!

This definition resonates with me and it makes it easier for me to understand how we can be commanded to love.  We are being commanded to be loyal, to be faithful, to fulfill an action, not to feel an emotion.

That I get.  So we are to be loyal to G-d with all our heart and all our soul.  So with this understanding comes the hard part, being loyal to G-d .......

Compassion Fatigue

I just came across the term "compassion fatigue" in the book Social Intelligence, written by Daniel Goleman, the father of the current theory on emotional intelligence. Goleman says compassion fatigue is when "a helper herself becomes overwhelmed by the anguish of those she tries to help."  He says that in a hospital, for example, "people like nurses who operate in the front line of pain and despair need help to metabolize that inevitable suffering, rendering them more emotionally resilient.  Institutions must make sure that nurses and other staff have enough support themselves to be empathic without burning out."

We all know that it is a condition that anyone can experience when giving too much, not just health care providers.  

As a woman, this entire concept really resonates with me.  Women by nature are nurturers.  Giving and nurturing is what we are hard wired to do.  But, it is when we "over-nurture" that we experience both a physical and emotional depletion. We don't always link that kind of depletion and fatigue to being too compassionate since being compassionate is something that comes so naturally to us.  

Often times we don't know what to do to restore and refuel ourselves when we have given too much.

What do you do to combat compassion fatigue?

Silence

Silence has special relevance to me.   At the age of nine I had a bicycle accident and suffered many injuries, the worst being a broken jaw.   The doctors explained that for my jaw to heal it would have to be “wired shut”.   That was all they said.  Then they silenced me, for six weeks.   Being made mute was haunting and traumatic beyond words.  (couldn’t resist.) 

Imposed silence, or being silenced as I was, to anyone is a trauma but all the more so for a young child.  Over the years I have tried to make sense of that trauma, reaching and searching and hoping to find ways to integrate and process it and learn how being silenced affected me.    As an educator, I turned to Jung, Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg and Gilligan and a few others to try to help me understand the probable psychological, cognitive, social, moral and relational effects that the accident had on me at that stage of my development.   As a yogini, I turned to the system of yogic breath work called pranayama, to help me deal with and undo the physical effect of not being able to open my mouth for six weeks.   And finally, and most intriguing to me as a spiritual seeker, I looked at silence through the lens of much self-reflection and soul searching.

After all my searching, I have learned that the imposed silence that I suffered is the shadow side of a very beautiful and rich silence, a positive place that has the potential to create something from nothingness.  Choosing silence versus being silenced or stumbling upon it, can be healing, expansive, and instructive.  Being silenced, on the other hand, is crippling, belittling, constricting, and disempowering. (LeClaire, 2009, 84, 88.)

As an adult in mid-life and no longer a scared, traumatized nine-year-old, silence is a very much welcomed part of my life.  As an educator and mother of four, I have embraced silence as a wonderful place, a beautiful space offering a meaningful and nurturing opportunity.  Silence has become my friend and I look at it with awe and admiration.  I see it as a vehicle of richness, a place of depth and value.  An incubator where creativity can be nourished and birthed.  It is a perfect and optimal environment for nurturing and fostering creative expression.  


It is in the emptiness of silence that I have come to see vastness.......

Just Feeling Good

Yesterday we celebrated the unveiling of my Dad's tombstone, a ceremony that Orthodox Jews do to bring together friends and loved ones to see the tombstone for the first time.   I found the unveiling to be very meaningful.   It was an informal and short service.  After the Hazzan, who lead the service, was finished with the Tehillim (Psalms) he invited people to share a few words.  We heard such sweet, tender and beautiful sentiments along with wonderful memories.

The common theme that I heard, and what I have always felt was Dad's most memorable quality, is that when you were with him you just felt good.  He made you smile.  He didn't have to do or say much, you just felt good being near him.  He touched lives in such a deep way.  It was as if he set an emotional tone, like he calibrated your energy with his, creating just the right amount of positive.

I walked away from the cemetery just feeling good.

The Gut brain: Intuition

Check this out,  scientists have discovered our intuition.  It's in our gut, they say. They are even going so far as to say it is a second brain referring to it as our gut brain.  Neurons in our intestines.  Cool.
 
Due to the fact that current brain research is delving into the area of intuition, people who need a scientific frame of reference to understand what they feel in their gut, now have it.   So this means that now everyone, not just contemplatives like me, can understand intuition.   We can all now better understand what that gut feeling is.  It is neurons firing, thinking (if you will), offering guidance. 

The Nestle food scientist, Heribert Watzke, says that this second brain in our gut is a full-fledged brain and that it is connected to our limbic system.  The two brains can even speak to each other, he says, and make decisions together. Cool.

So according to science we have two brains.  Cool.

Some scientists are even saying we have three brains.  The third one is in the heart.  Cool.

Steve Jobs, one of our information age guru's, said in his commencement speech at Stanford University in June 2005, "Your time is limited...Don't waste it living someone else's life....Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Cool stuff.....

Flowers

I love flowers.   I especially love the hydrangeas that grow in my backyard.  I love looking at all their different hues, I love their beautiful palette. It never ceases to amaze me how one bunch, or even one head, can have varied colors.

I learn so much from flowers.  I learn about beauty.  I learn about being present long enough to enjoy their beauty.  I also learn to be present long enough to watch them fade.  And I learn to be present and live with their death and absence.

My hydrangeas are almost gone.  Their colors are less vibrant, less alive.  Both the leaves and dried flowers are fading away day by day as the colder weather stays with us.

Watching them fade makes me sad and yet at the same time their fading is what teaches me the most. They teach me about the life/death cycle.  They teach me that life is rich and offers a beautiful palette, but inevitably that palette changes becoming less vibrant until it completely fades away.


May Sarton says it so well, "When I'm alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them.  They are felt as presences.  Without them I would die.  Why do I say that?  Partly because they change before my eyes.  They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with process, with growth, and also with dying.  I am floated on their moments."

I am embracing this concept of process, growth and dying.  My flowers are fading.  I am present with this and I look forward to when they will bloom again.

A Little Lost

I just celebrated my 53rd birthday, my first birthday without parents.  It was tough.  And yet, I made it through.  There were lots of tears and pain and lots of reminiscing and giggles.  It was just the birthday I needed.  I was showered with lots of love from my immediate family and thanks to Facebook and email, from lots of extended family and lots and lots of friends.  I feel blessed and so loved.

Someone said, "You're an orphan" and I thought "No I'm not".  That's not my status.  I just don't have parents.  I did;  I just don't anymore.  Period.  Orphan? What's that about?

I have a dear friend who celebrates her birthday with a week long celebration before her special day.  I chose to follow her lead.  I met up with a friend a day each day before my birthday.  We shared tea, sushi, Indian food, dreams, secrets and hopes.  I also shared a Japanese Macrobiotic meal with a dear friend who's birthday is a day earlier (and about 7 years after) mine.  She said something so profound, as she is oft meant to do.  She said that without parents you must be "a little lost".   Bingo!  That's what it is.  That's what it feels like, like being just a little lost.  And I know I probably will be for some time, if not for the rest of my life.

A little lost.  Lost in terms of a base framework.  Lost in terms of who I now am without parents.  Just a little lost.  Such a perfect way to refer to my new status.  Not completely lost because I feel blessed that I do know my way on this side of life (and death).  Just a little lost.  Not enough to stop me from using my voice, not enough to silence me, just enough to make me pause......

My Backyard

My childhood hometown is a very small town set in the most beautiful valley.  It wasn't until I came to the NY area did I fully appreciate how beautiful it truly is there.

About 15 years ago in my first yoga class, I remember listening to the little water fountain that was in the room.  My first thought was, "I have a proverbial backyard, this is the sound in my childhood backyard!"  There was a small creek (or as they say there "crick")  behind my childhood home in my backyard, and it took big city life, or at least, suburban city life, to take me back to that sound and remind me of that cliche.     What we look for can sometimes be in our own backyards, we just have to get out of the way to see, and hear, it.

What I was looking for was quiet and serenity and Tyrone, Pa. is filled with that.  Whenever I visit, I try to bring some of that back with me.  It is when it runs out that I refuel and go back for more.   I have come to appreciate the sweet,  simpler, slower rhythm that you find in a small town.  It is more my rhythm and I sync with it each and every visit back to my proverbial backyard.

What is in your backyard?

A Mother’s Heart

There are many times in a mother’s life

when her heart is so full of emotion that it feels like it may burst. 

When she walks her son down the aisle,  

When she sees the way her son and new daughter look lovingly

into one another’s eyes and hearts,

When she looks at all 4 of her children as they giggle and hug and

share their hearts’ secrets.

A mother’s heart is full to the point of almost bursting

when she looks back over two decades, her child rearing years,

and sees the way 3 of her children have grown into fine adults

as the caboose of the family continues to grow into a sweet and tender

young man that he is meant to be.

A mother’s heart feels like it will burst when she looks around her

Shabbat/Yom Tov table and feels the love and caring that fills her home. 

There are many times in a daughter’s life

when her heart is so full of emotion that it feels like it may burst.

When she thinks of her father as the upstanding pillar

of his community that he was for many decades. 

When she remembers the man who never left his house

without beautifully shined shoes.

When she remembers their dance at the prom when he was the chaperone.

A daughter’s heart is full to the point of almost bursting

as she watches her father’s journey

Now he can’t dance or shine his shoes

His existence is different.

His existence is about clinging to whatever ounce of dignity he can still find

A daughter’s heart feels like it will burst with sadness

when she enters his room seeing him in bed wearing just a diaper and shirt.

This is an image that a daughter would never expect to see

yet the diaper image all too familiar to a mother.

There are many times when that mother and daughter

as the same person experiences it all at the same time

Memories come gushing and rushing back

Emotions so huge at times they feel paralyzing. 

It is in those moments that the heart does finally burst

and overflows with gratitude, joy, pain and resolve

(written in September 30, 2009)

Aging

Last night we watched Jennifer Grey, on Dancing with the Stars, say something like, "I'm frustrated.  My body won't do what I want it to."  I appreciated her honesty (well, at least it felt honest and I'm going with that, despite the fact she is an actress and who knows....)   But, anyway, she was met with a hug from her partner, Derek, 25 years her junior, along with messages like:  "You can do this!" and "Stay with it, you're not old!" and "Keep pushing, because you really want this!".  (I don't know the exact words that we heard, but those are the messages I felt the show was conveying.)  

I found this troubling and I was saddened by this missed opportunity.   I'm all for being tenacious and  sticking with something you commit to, but it's a shame that we didn't hear things like:  "Yes, at 50 we can't do what we did at 25!" and "Listen to your body, and your doctor, you are the age your body is telling you!" and "Don't push your body so much, because its messages are loud and clear.  Listen to them."   Granted, as a viewer, I would be sad if I didn't get to see Jennifer's elegant body and dancing for a few more weeks, but I'd forgo that if we could walk away with these positive messages about our bodies and the aging process.

I grapple with this aging stuff, each and every day.  I am thankful to G-d every morning, grateful that I wake up and have another day.  And as a result of this gratitude, I have chosen to take a different approach to aging.  I am trying to look at each new wrinkle as a badge of honor that I earned.  I also subscribe to Mark Twain's theory that, "Wrinkles are merely indications of where smiles have been."  Yet, our culture is telling me to fight this positive, self-nurturing approach, to "fight the signs of aging".  I have chosen to not join the bandwagon of fighting the signs of aging.  Sure, I do wear make-up to try to bring the sparkle back into my face, but the only fight that I am willing to have is with the cultural message to fight aging.  Aging is what we do, if we are lucky, so why fight it?

I'm not willing to turn the clock back.  What I am willing to do is take all the rich lessons that I have learned from my past into this present moment as I look in the mirror right now and smile and earn more wrinkles.  I invite you to join me.

Thoughts about Death

At the end of January, it will be the yartzheit (year anniversary) of my Dad's death. It is hard to believe that this year of mourning is coming to an end. Time has flown by, and at the same time, stood still. At times, it has felt like an eternity almost as if time has been suspended. Maybe this sensation of the suspension of time is a glimpse into death, where there is no sense of time at all....

In her sweet and tender, yet heart wrenching memoir about friendship, Let's Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell says that there exists that moment that none of us wants to remember, probably, central to survival: WHAT IF DYING WEREN'T A BAD THING? She says, death leaves us with a great and terrible gift: how to live in a world where loss, some of it unbearable, is as common as dust or moonlight. And then, finally, unwittingly, acceptance wraps itself around your heart.

Caldwell quotes the poet Pablo Neruda who says loss invites us to think in spatial, articulated terms, entreating mourners to inhabit death as though it were a dwelling:

Absence is a house so vast

that inside you will pass through its walls

and hang pictures on the air.

And then Caldwell poignantly says the real hell is that you're going to get through it. Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation. And yet, we never get over great losses, she says; we absorb them and they carve us into often kinder creatures.

I feel that in our culture we don't deal with death until we are doing it, or more likely, watching someone else do it. That is such a self-defeating approach to something that we all will do. In our "age-defying" culture, I am saddened by this. In our culture, we deny, defy, and "fight the signs of aging".

As my 53rd birthday approaches on November 6, I feel I am now on a different side of death, (hopefully having many more years to do and accomplish) yet I acknowledge that I journey in that direction now, towards that inevitable place.....

My father approached his death with such dignity and integrity, the way he lived his life. His example propels me and nourishes my journey. My faith in his process gives me strength, when sadness and fear rear their (ugly) heads.

Caldwell's courage to share her experiences and musings over the loss of her best friend, Caroline Knapp, along with my Dad's valiant and courageous journey towards his own death, have given me the courage to launch this blog of my own experiences and musings.

I say to those of you, who have found your way into my musings, that I welcome your thoughts and your own musings. Thank you.