Seven or eight people, all young artists, were at the party; Mr. Singer's secretary, Dvorah, an American Jew and aspiring writer, and her Israeli husband, Avram, a photographer and New York City cabdriver; one of Mr. Singer's editors, several dancers and a male model/actor, the boyfriend of one of the dancers.
"Surely," I thought, "Mr. Singer and I are the only ones here over 30." (I wondered at the arrogance of youth as the others, none of whom had children, talked authoritatively about child-rearing.)
The other guests worked in and around the kitchen. Avram stirred an aromatic vegetable soup, two dancers gracefully tossed a gigantic salad and I helped Dvorah with the latkes.
Isaac, as everyone called Mr. Singer, was the proud host. His compact form looked scrubbed and his blue eyes twinkly, as he, handsome in his vested gray suit, popped into, and was shooed out of, his own kitchen.
The communal supper was appreciated with "mmm's" and "ahhh's" and the sharing of secret ingredients. There was wine. We ate and drank.
And Isaac Singer told stories: Of the past (his father's world), of how he couldn't say 'No' to a shoe salesman and so owned a closetful of ill-fitting shoes and of vignettes from the Nobel Prize ceremonies. (Mr. Singer's napkin, it seems, kept slipping from his lap, and so he asked Princess Christina of Sweden, who was sitting next to him, how she managed to keep hers in place. She answered in perfect clipped tones and a mischievous look, "'I sit on it,'" he said.)
Most often, the master storyteller listened to or asked questions of his guests. After he understood exactly what the male model/actor did, Mr. Singer said that the model had been supporting him for all these years.
When all around the table looked at him incredulously, he explained that since the model displayed, and thus, sold, the products that sold the magazines, editors could afford to buy stories from writers like himself.
After supper, we lit the hand-carved menorah--a homemade Hanukkah gift from Avram---and played the 'dreidel' * game, using dates, raisins and nuts as our winnings. When the game was over, we told jokes and ate our booty.
I have never seen Mr. Singer again, although I have thought about him often in the six years since.
When I sent off my urgent message to him, I had followed an instinct in search of some intangible thing, and I came away from my meeting with him satisfied.
I had no material thing to take away me that Hanukkah, only the tale and the experience itself. I think what I learned was something about miracles; that a suburban housewife, without connection or fame, could send a letter to a Nobel Laureate and have it answered--a perfect lesson about the Festival of Lights. That, even in modern times, it is possible for an ordinary person to manifest a miracle.
Just as he had promised when I first appeared at his door, expectant, with my plate of latkes, Mr. Singer had indeed "made light."
*dreidel-a top, the sides of which have Hebrew letters, which together form the acronym for "a great miracle happened there." The letters also form a mnemonic for the rules of a gambling game played with a dreidel. One letter stands for the Yiddish word for "nothing"; another for "half"; another for "all" and another for "put in."
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
I Believe in Miracles, Part II: I Get a Telephone Call! Really!
I've always loved it when Christians and Jews celebrate our holidays together. Everybody feels festive.
On this first night of Hanukkah, which was also Christmas eve, our house smelled of cinnamon and peanut oil. I was making applesauce for the potato latkes* that my husband and sister were working on for the family party that was to begin in a few hours. Between applesauce stirrings, my sons and I danced around the table to some Russian balalaika music .
The telephone rang.
A ploy to buy a newspaper that I already subscribed to?
A free estimate from a carpet-cleaning company?
"Linda Benjamin Kline? said the unidentifiable, yet vaguely familiar voice. (A Polish-Yiddish accent. Perhaps a long lost relative, a Holocaust survivor who had somehow traced the family from Grydyk to Chicago to Skokie, Illinois to me.)
"Yes?" I responded quizzically, motioning for someone to turn down the music.
And then, "This is Isaac Singer."
(A joke? No--the letter. He got my letter!)
"Mr. Singer, Mr. Singer, you got my letter!"
"How else shall I be calling you?"
I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but the gist of it was that, if I wanted to meet him, I could come to his home. Now.
Strange how you wait for something you've dreamed about to happen, and when it does you wish you had more time to get ready.
Maybe I should prepare some questions? Look over his books? Lose some weight?
What to wear? And what to bring for Hanukkah? It was Christmas Eve and all the stores were probably closed.
Hadn't I told her, my sister said, that Mr. Singer was a vegetarian, and so why not bring him a plate of homemade latkes and applesauce? the bag was warm in my hands as I left my own family party to drive to Mr. Singer's home in New York City.
I climbed the four flights to his door, then knocked. He answered himself. Staring at him nonplussed and needing time to collect my thoughts, I stammered my first words:
"M-m-may I use your bathroom?"
He smiled kindly and gestured for me to follow him.
"Come," he said, "I'll make light."
In the high-ceilinged, unpretentious Old/New World living room, I sat, wordless, on the sofa. I had seen this very room in The New York Times Magazine, and now here I was in the picture. I couldn't manage a coherent sentence.
"Oftentimes," he said sympathetically, when I told him how nervous and disbelieving I felt (and I am paraphrasing here), "when I was a younger man, I would fancy a woman, desiring her from afar.
"I would dream about meeting her, and perhaps sometime later we might actually meet. If she fancied me too, we might keep company. Then a time might come when we would make love.
"At that moment, I would ask myself, 'Am I really here? Is this a dream? Afterwards, perhaps on the way home, it would hit me."--he slapped his cheek, "'I did that? That happened to me?'" The truth-teller of Eastern European Jewry had caught at that moment just how I was feeling.
Mr. Singer spoke very little that evening. He listened, really listened to what I, finally relaxed now, had to say, and asked many questions.
And he told me it was a good thing that I had written down my telephone number because he found it difficult answering all his mail. Also, he asked me to come (if it would be all right with my husband, of course) to a Hanukkah party that he was giving the following week for a few friends.
Then, with a paternal peck on the cheek, Mr. Singer led me to the door.
I felt refreshed, lifted out of my ennui, as I glided home on heightened spirits and the powdered-sugar snow that covered the New Jersey Turnpike.
Next: Part Three: A Hanukkah Party With Isaac Bashevis Singer.
On this first night of Hanukkah, which was also Christmas eve, our house smelled of cinnamon and peanut oil. I was making applesauce for the potato latkes* that my husband and sister were working on for the family party that was to begin in a few hours. Between applesauce stirrings, my sons and I danced around the table to some Russian balalaika music .
The telephone rang.
A ploy to buy a newspaper that I already subscribed to?
A free estimate from a carpet-cleaning company?
"Linda Benjamin Kline? said the unidentifiable, yet vaguely familiar voice. (A Polish-Yiddish accent. Perhaps a long lost relative, a Holocaust survivor who had somehow traced the family from Grydyk to Chicago to Skokie, Illinois to me.)
"Yes?" I responded quizzically, motioning for someone to turn down the music.
And then, "This is Isaac Singer."
(A joke? No--the letter. He got my letter!)
"Mr. Singer, Mr. Singer, you got my letter!"
"How else shall I be calling you?"
I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but the gist of it was that, if I wanted to meet him, I could come to his home. Now.
Strange how you wait for something you've dreamed about to happen, and when it does you wish you had more time to get ready.
Maybe I should prepare some questions? Look over his books? Lose some weight?
What to wear? And what to bring for Hanukkah? It was Christmas Eve and all the stores were probably closed.
Hadn't I told her, my sister said, that Mr. Singer was a vegetarian, and so why not bring him a plate of homemade latkes and applesauce? the bag was warm in my hands as I left my own family party to drive to Mr. Singer's home in New York City.
I climbed the four flights to his door, then knocked. He answered himself. Staring at him nonplussed and needing time to collect my thoughts, I stammered my first words:
"M-m-may I use your bathroom?"
He smiled kindly and gestured for me to follow him.
"Come," he said, "I'll make light."
In the high-ceilinged, unpretentious Old/New World living room, I sat, wordless, on the sofa. I had seen this very room in The New York Times Magazine, and now here I was in the picture. I couldn't manage a coherent sentence.
"Oftentimes," he said sympathetically, when I told him how nervous and disbelieving I felt (and I am paraphrasing here), "when I was a younger man, I would fancy a woman, desiring her from afar.
"I would dream about meeting her, and perhaps sometime later we might actually meet. If she fancied me too, we might keep company. Then a time might come when we would make love.
"At that moment, I would ask myself, 'Am I really here? Is this a dream? Afterwards, perhaps on the way home, it would hit me."--he slapped his cheek, "'I did that? That happened to me?'" The truth-teller of Eastern European Jewry had caught at that moment just how I was feeling.
Mr. Singer spoke very little that evening. He listened, really listened to what I, finally relaxed now, had to say, and asked many questions.
And he told me it was a good thing that I had written down my telephone number because he found it difficult answering all his mail. Also, he asked me to come (if it would be all right with my husband, of course) to a Hanukkah party that he was giving the following week for a few friends.
Then, with a paternal peck on the cheek, Mr. Singer led me to the door.
I felt refreshed, lifted out of my ennui, as I glided home on heightened spirits and the powdered-sugar snow that covered the New Jersey Turnpike.
Next: Part Three: A Hanukkah Party With Isaac Bashevis Singer.
I Believe in Miracles/Part One: I Meet My Hero
I had just passed my 32nd birthday, and it had occurred to me that some of my adolescent dreams of what life was going to be were not likely to come true.
I comforted myself with chocolate and by gazing blankly out my Levitt-development, Jamestown-model kitchen window. What I knew for sure was that, although I loved my husband and our two young sons, as well as most of the responsibilities and festivities of being part of a family, the course of New Jersey suburban housewifery--however noble--was just not for me.
Reading voraciously in trying to get a handle on some of my dreams, I was attracted to the short stories and novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer. This, because of our common ancestry: a long line of religious Polish Jews.
I threw my ennui into "Gimpel the Fool" and Yentl and all the Singer characters torn between themselves and others, love and lust, worldliness and asceticism, art and tradition.
With the gift of his years and his historical perspective, Mr. Singer seemed to understand human ambivalence. I read him in the hope that he would cast some reflected light on mine.
When he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, I followed the publicity, read all the articles and saw him on television.
Mr. Singer had suggested that an author could be less interesting than his work. To me, in reading about him in the Arts Section of the New York Times and seeing him on television, he became more interesting:
Dick Cavett: "Mr. Singer, you once said that your wouldn't go out of your way to meet Tolstoy."
Mr. Singer: "I might go across the street, but I wouldn't go to Queens."
Cavett: "I understand that you are a vegetarian. Is this for reasons of health?"
Singer: "It is for the health of the chicken."
Cavett: "Mr. Singer, many of your characters are religious Jews. Are you religious? How do you
feel about the ten commandments?"
Singer: I think that with nine of God's commandments, I would still agree."
His haemischer* wisdom was obviously not confined to his writing. And that accent--that self effacing sweet Yiddish lilt, the self-conscious legacy of the Polish Jew--was just like my grandmother's.
As crazy as it may seem, I felt a connection with this man, a mysterious and irresistable feeling that either I had known him somehow or that he had an important message for me. Either way, I had to contact him. So, I sat down at my kitchen table, and typed the following letter on my Sears Manual typewriter:
DEAR MR. SINGER:
I am not at all sure I believe in this, but I feel, from seeing you on television and from reading your stories, that I've known you before.
My grandparents were from Grydyk, a little town outside of Warsaw. Their family names were Pomerantz and Lieberman, and they were (and still are) very observant Jews. But I am 32 years old and have never been to Europe, or any place where we could have met.
I really am not a nut. Nor am I seeking contributions, interviews, photographs--anything, other than to explore this feeling and my accompanying compulsion to write to you.
Please write if it would be at all possible for me to meet with you.
Most sincerely yours,
Linda Benjamin Kline
I considered the futility of sending a message to a famous author, and I made a final impulisve gesture, scribbling my telephone number as a postscript. Not knowing his address, I sent my note to his publisher.
Then I forgot the letter and resumed my Hebrew school-to-soccer field suburban car-pool route and the preparations for Hanukkah.
*Haemischer: Homey, warm and familial
(Part Two: I get a telephone call. Really!)
I comforted myself with chocolate and by gazing blankly out my Levitt-development, Jamestown-model kitchen window. What I knew for sure was that, although I loved my husband and our two young sons, as well as most of the responsibilities and festivities of being part of a family, the course of New Jersey suburban housewifery--however noble--was just not for me.
Reading voraciously in trying to get a handle on some of my dreams, I was attracted to the short stories and novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer. This, because of our common ancestry: a long line of religious Polish Jews.
I threw my ennui into "Gimpel the Fool" and Yentl and all the Singer characters torn between themselves and others, love and lust, worldliness and asceticism, art and tradition.
With the gift of his years and his historical perspective, Mr. Singer seemed to understand human ambivalence. I read him in the hope that he would cast some reflected light on mine.
When he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, I followed the publicity, read all the articles and saw him on television.
Mr. Singer had suggested that an author could be less interesting than his work. To me, in reading about him in the Arts Section of the New York Times and seeing him on television, he became more interesting:
Dick Cavett: "Mr. Singer, you once said that your wouldn't go out of your way to meet Tolstoy."
Mr. Singer: "I might go across the street, but I wouldn't go to Queens."
Cavett: "I understand that you are a vegetarian. Is this for reasons of health?"
Singer: "It is for the health of the chicken."
Cavett: "Mr. Singer, many of your characters are religious Jews. Are you religious? How do you
feel about the ten commandments?"
Singer: I think that with nine of God's commandments, I would still agree."
His haemischer* wisdom was obviously not confined to his writing. And that accent--that self effacing sweet Yiddish lilt, the self-conscious legacy of the Polish Jew--was just like my grandmother's.
As crazy as it may seem, I felt a connection with this man, a mysterious and irresistable feeling that either I had known him somehow or that he had an important message for me. Either way, I had to contact him. So, I sat down at my kitchen table, and typed the following letter on my Sears Manual typewriter:
DEAR MR. SINGER:
I am not at all sure I believe in this, but I feel, from seeing you on television and from reading your stories, that I've known you before.
My grandparents were from Grydyk, a little town outside of Warsaw. Their family names were Pomerantz and Lieberman, and they were (and still are) very observant Jews. But I am 32 years old and have never been to Europe, or any place where we could have met.
I really am not a nut. Nor am I seeking contributions, interviews, photographs--anything, other than to explore this feeling and my accompanying compulsion to write to you.
Please write if it would be at all possible for me to meet with you.
Most sincerely yours,
Linda Benjamin Kline
I considered the futility of sending a message to a famous author, and I made a final impulisve gesture, scribbling my telephone number as a postscript. Not knowing his address, I sent my note to his publisher.
Then I forgot the letter and resumed my Hebrew school-to-soccer field suburban car-pool route and the preparations for Hanukkah.
*Haemischer: Homey, warm and familial
(Part Two: I get a telephone call. Really!)
Monday, January 7, 2013
"Plan B is the Real Plan A" Shimona Tzukernik
Here's an answer to the "Why is this happening to me? This is not the life I'd planned!!!" that many of us feel from time to time. I heard it from Shimona Tzukernik, Kabbalah (ancient mystical teaching on spiritual transformation) teacher extraordinaire: "Plan B is the Real Plan A." Pretty profound. Our challenges in life as paths to our spirituality. Oh sure, we'd be comfortable in the lives we imagined in our heads, the ones we'd planned. But, we would never have been challenged by them--those make-believe lives.
If we've lived long enough to have disappointments in our lives, we tend to get
stuck. That is, we believe that life should have turned out the way we planned: Maybe finish school, find a job, find our practically-perfect soul-mates, have some practically-perfect kids, launch those kids, have some practically-perfect grandkids, and end up as Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones (with Steve Carrell's help) in the comedy "Hope Springs." Yes, the couple--Kay and Arnold--have some stuck-points; but, ultimately everybody grows and ends up laughing together and saying uncharacteristic things at the end of the movie.
But, outside of the realm of motion pictures, all of us ordinary humans have troubles of one kind or another that challenge our coping skills and continue to aggravate us until death do us part.
As a divorced woman in my sixties, with two grown sons who live (as grown-children often do) far away from where I do and having moved around a lot, myself-- I sometimes wonder: "Was my life supposed to turn out this way?" I mean, I expected to have my sons grow up and leave home. What I didn't expect was that I would not have a partner with me or a community of family and kin living nearby who held my history; people who knew who I was before I qualified for movie discounts and Social Security.
When I think back to what I came to expect in my childhood, it was a life, not unlike my parents' lives. People married in their twenties and lived a long life together, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins and old friends. I guess that was my Plan A. However, as Shimona says, Plan B is the real Plan A.
I find that being without a partner or without close family nearby, I have learned to rely on myself. And when I do stretch my comfort zone and find new ways to solve problems, I find I feel pretty darned good about myself. When I have to find a way to deal with a flat tire or take myself to the airport and take myself home--I may have an inner-tantrum about it, but I always end up solving the problem and feeling proud of my independence.
Lately, there are those nights when I come home after work and find the phone isn't constantly ringing. In these times, my i-phone texting, my e-mails, and you--who I talk to through my internet connection--have become my best friends. There are times I love this quiet creatively-conducive life. There are also times where I wonder: "Why? Why hasn't my life turned out the way I thought it would?" That is, why aren't I with a loving mate who has known and loved me forever, surrounded by family and friends who hold my history in their memories along with their own.
The answer to that "Why?" is simple. Nobody's life entirely turns out according to their plan. My old friends and family (who live in Jersey, New York, Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and France), even those who do have family/friends-with-history all around them have other challenges: their children; their grandchildren; their health....They, too, are looking over at someone else's life (perhaps mine, at times) and wondering why their lives haven't turned out the way they assumed they would. My guess is that when they wonder about that particular why, they are only looking at the part/s of their lives they find challenging.
That's why 12-Step Programs, whether focused on compulsive overeating or compulsive drinking or gambling or sexing or what-all--all of these programs look at the particular challenge--once considered a block--in one's life, as a path to spiritual connection. If our lives were storybook-perfect, would any of us have looked beyond ourselves or our perfect lives for help? Would any of us had looked for a deeper connection to our Soul's journey? For meaning in our pain?
"Plan-B-as-the-Real-Plan-A" is a really Feels-True way of finding purpose in what hurts us the most. Rather than seeing that substance-abusing partner or acting out child or those painful physical symptoms as "Poor me, this never should have happened"; we can see these difficulties as a path we needed to trod in order to uncover our connection to Spirit, whatever form that takes for us. That doesn't mean we don't have to do some limit-setting in the now; but, it does mean there's a lesson in the difficulty. We can learn it or we possibly (and, stay with me, here, this is important!) have to repeat it.
Okay, now it's time for a story--and you may have heard this one before--but it's worth telling again. A man dies and is taken to the afterlife by an Angel. When they arrive, the newly-crossed-over man sees a table of delicious-smelling soup. The table is surrounded by people with spoons, but their arms don't bend, so they can't get the spoons in their mouths. "Is this heaven?" says the man to the angel. "No," says the angel, "This is hell." Then the angel takes the man to another room and says, "This is heaven." And the newly-passed man sees another table and another delicious smelling soup. Like the last room, everybody has a spoon but their arms don't bend enough to reach their mouths. The man is confused and he says to the Angel, "I don't get it. This is just like the last room. There's a wonderful smelling soup, and everybody has a spoon, but the people around the table can't bend their arms either." The angel tells him, "Look more closely..." And, as the man does, he sees that, here, the people are feeding one another. Now, tha's what I'm talking 'bout: Plan B as the real Plan A!
If we've lived long enough to have disappointments in our lives, we tend to get
stuck. That is, we believe that life should have turned out the way we planned: Maybe finish school, find a job, find our practically-perfect soul-mates, have some practically-perfect kids, launch those kids, have some practically-perfect grandkids, and end up as Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones (with Steve Carrell's help) in the comedy "Hope Springs." Yes, the couple--Kay and Arnold--have some stuck-points; but, ultimately everybody grows and ends up laughing together and saying uncharacteristic things at the end of the movie.
But, outside of the realm of motion pictures, all of us ordinary humans have troubles of one kind or another that challenge our coping skills and continue to aggravate us until death do us part.
As a divorced woman in my sixties, with two grown sons who live (as grown-children often do) far away from where I do and having moved around a lot, myself-- I sometimes wonder: "Was my life supposed to turn out this way?" I mean, I expected to have my sons grow up and leave home. What I didn't expect was that I would not have a partner with me or a community of family and kin living nearby who held my history; people who knew who I was before I qualified for movie discounts and Social Security.
When I think back to what I came to expect in my childhood, it was a life, not unlike my parents' lives. People married in their twenties and lived a long life together, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins and old friends. I guess that was my Plan A. However, as Shimona says, Plan B is the real Plan A.
I find that being without a partner or without close family nearby, I have learned to rely on myself. And when I do stretch my comfort zone and find new ways to solve problems, I find I feel pretty darned good about myself. When I have to find a way to deal with a flat tire or take myself to the airport and take myself home--I may have an inner-tantrum about it, but I always end up solving the problem and feeling proud of my independence.
Lately, there are those nights when I come home after work and find the phone isn't constantly ringing. In these times, my i-phone texting, my e-mails, and you--who I talk to through my internet connection--have become my best friends. There are times I love this quiet creatively-conducive life. There are also times where I wonder: "Why? Why hasn't my life turned out the way I thought it would?" That is, why aren't I with a loving mate who has known and loved me forever, surrounded by family and friends who hold my history in their memories along with their own.
The answer to that "Why?" is simple. Nobody's life entirely turns out according to their plan. My old friends and family (who live in Jersey, New York, Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and France), even those who do have family/friends-with-history all around them have other challenges: their children; their grandchildren; their health....They, too, are looking over at someone else's life (perhaps mine, at times) and wondering why their lives haven't turned out the way they assumed they would. My guess is that when they wonder about that particular why, they are only looking at the part/s of their lives they find challenging.
That's why 12-Step Programs, whether focused on compulsive overeating or compulsive drinking or gambling or sexing or what-all--all of these programs look at the particular challenge--once considered a block--in one's life, as a path to spiritual connection. If our lives were storybook-perfect, would any of us have looked beyond ourselves or our perfect lives for help? Would any of us had looked for a deeper connection to our Soul's journey? For meaning in our pain?
"Plan-B-as-the-Real-Plan-A" is a really Feels-True way of finding purpose in what hurts us the most. Rather than seeing that substance-abusing partner or acting out child or those painful physical symptoms as "Poor me, this never should have happened"; we can see these difficulties as a path we needed to trod in order to uncover our connection to Spirit, whatever form that takes for us. That doesn't mean we don't have to do some limit-setting in the now; but, it does mean there's a lesson in the difficulty. We can learn it or we possibly (and, stay with me, here, this is important!) have to repeat it.
Okay, now it's time for a story--and you may have heard this one before--but it's worth telling again. A man dies and is taken to the afterlife by an Angel. When they arrive, the newly-crossed-over man sees a table of delicious-smelling soup. The table is surrounded by people with spoons, but their arms don't bend, so they can't get the spoons in their mouths. "Is this heaven?" says the man to the angel. "No," says the angel, "This is hell." Then the angel takes the man to another room and says, "This is heaven." And the newly-passed man sees another table and another delicious smelling soup. Like the last room, everybody has a spoon but their arms don't bend enough to reach their mouths. The man is confused and he says to the Angel, "I don't get it. This is just like the last room. There's a wonderful smelling soup, and everybody has a spoon, but the people around the table can't bend their arms either." The angel tells him, "Look more closely..." And, as the man does, he sees that, here, the people are feeding one another. Now, tha's what I'm talking 'bout: Plan B as the real Plan A!
Friday, December 28, 2012
How Do You Get a Philosopher Off Your Porch?: A Riddle
I think one of the challenges all of us humans deal with is the challenge of listening to other people. Some people--teachers, counselors, pastors--gurus of one kind or another--are very convincing and charismatic. I would, at times, like to think there is someone in the world who has all the answers; the right answers for me.
For me, I find that having wise counselors in my life is essential. I mean the kind of people who tell me the truth. Example: "You look as if you have gained weight. Are you overeating lately?" or "Have another child at fifty-two? Are you insane!!" Some of the people I consult to find answers are: my sister; my sons (depending on the situation); a couple of my dear friends; my therapist (and every therapist should have a therapist!); and my dreams (because they can be looked at as wake-up calls from the unconscious mind).
Ultimately, as I tell people who seek my help as a therapist, you are the one who will experience the ramifications of your decisions. Thus, you will want to be sure to listen to your own "Inner Knowing." This kind of knowing is different than our "shoulds" or our rash impulses (addictions?). What I'm referring to is more like your instinct.
Okay, I promised you a riddle and here it is:
"How do you get a philosopher off your porch?"....(Wait for it.)
"Pay for the pizza."
No offense to worthy pizza-deliverers everywhere. But few of us, as children, or high school graduates said to ourselves: "I believe my calling in life is to deliver pizzas for Domino's." The philosopher riddle is another way of saying: "How's that working for him/her?" or "If he/she's so smart, how come he/she's not rich?"
If someone isn't living an authentic, and relatively happy life--perhaps he/she isn't someone we want to consult about our lives. Actually, no one else should have total power over us. Advise? Yes. But, make our decisions for us? No. A wise man once told me that Buddha and Gandhi (though certainly I quote both frequently) were both "bad dads." They are reported to have abandoned their families to follow their respective callings. And, though their callings were important, in the area of parenthood, we might not want to quote either. Hey, who's perfect? Although, I sometimes wonder about how their children fared.
In the end, like it or not, we are the ones who have to bear responsibility for our own decisions and our own mistakes--and we all make them. So, my rule of thumb is this: I consult my wise advisors. It's a kind of brainstorming technique I use to find my own answers. Other people's ideas (people I respect) ultimately stimulate my own creative problem-solving process. The end result is that I think about the situation in several different ways. Then, I make the best decision I can.
I find when I listen to my own "Inner-Knowing," I tend to come up with the best answer/s for me. (And waiting 24-72 hours, if possible, isn't a bad idea, either!) Ultimately, if I make a decision and my solution doesn't work, I really can't blame anyone else. After all, I was the one who chose to do it this way or that. However, if I don't make any decision at all: I let things be decided by default--or I let someone else make a decision for me--That is a decision, too. "When faced with two equally tough choices, most people choose the third choice; to not choose." Jarod Kintz
I know in some relationships, an ex-partner will consider him/herself a victim: "I am devastated--he/she left me." I am always curious about possible passive decision-making on the part of the ex. Was he/she present in the partnership? Was there, perhaps, a non-verbal message from the "identified victim" that might have--even without consciously realizing it--said: "This is not working for me." Certainly, this is not always the case, but it is worth considering.
I think, most often, the hard part is that the person who may have unconsciously made his/her own passive-decision has little insight about his/her part in the outcome. Sadly, that person may continue to speak "victim" in other choices in his/her life---resulting in a pattern of repeating situations --from relationships to people we attract into our lives (or push out of our lives) to the work we find ourselves doing. See Bill Murray in the film "Groundhog Day" for a better idea of what I'm talking about here--living the life of an automaton--in which we play the crucial part, but we are entirely unaware of this--and we fail to own our own power. We aren't making the decisions in a conscious way.
I know this sounds like a plug for my profession; but, therein lies the value of therapy. (Sorry, guys, but particularly hypnotherapy). Looking at the "Victim Trance," as Wellness' Diane Zimberoff has written about, and waking-up from it's seductive power may be the single most important realization in one's life.
For me, I find that having wise counselors in my life is essential. I mean the kind of people who tell me the truth. Example: "You look as if you have gained weight. Are you overeating lately?" or "Have another child at fifty-two? Are you insane!!" Some of the people I consult to find answers are: my sister; my sons (depending on the situation); a couple of my dear friends; my therapist (and every therapist should have a therapist!); and my dreams (because they can be looked at as wake-up calls from the unconscious mind).
Ultimately, as I tell people who seek my help as a therapist, you are the one who will experience the ramifications of your decisions. Thus, you will want to be sure to listen to your own "Inner Knowing." This kind of knowing is different than our "shoulds" or our rash impulses (addictions?). What I'm referring to is more like your instinct.
Okay, I promised you a riddle and here it is:
"How do you get a philosopher off your porch?"....(Wait for it.)
"Pay for the pizza."
No offense to worthy pizza-deliverers everywhere. But few of us, as children, or high school graduates said to ourselves: "I believe my calling in life is to deliver pizzas for Domino's." The philosopher riddle is another way of saying: "How's that working for him/her?" or "If he/she's so smart, how come he/she's not rich?"
If someone isn't living an authentic, and relatively happy life--perhaps he/she isn't someone we want to consult about our lives. Actually, no one else should have total power over us. Advise? Yes. But, make our decisions for us? No. A wise man once told me that Buddha and Gandhi (though certainly I quote both frequently) were both "bad dads." They are reported to have abandoned their families to follow their respective callings. And, though their callings were important, in the area of parenthood, we might not want to quote either. Hey, who's perfect? Although, I sometimes wonder about how their children fared.
In the end, like it or not, we are the ones who have to bear responsibility for our own decisions and our own mistakes--and we all make them. So, my rule of thumb is this: I consult my wise advisors. It's a kind of brainstorming technique I use to find my own answers. Other people's ideas (people I respect) ultimately stimulate my own creative problem-solving process. The end result is that I think about the situation in several different ways. Then, I make the best decision I can.
I find when I listen to my own "Inner-Knowing," I tend to come up with the best answer/s for me. (And waiting 24-72 hours, if possible, isn't a bad idea, either!) Ultimately, if I make a decision and my solution doesn't work, I really can't blame anyone else. After all, I was the one who chose to do it this way or that. However, if I don't make any decision at all: I let things be decided by default--or I let someone else make a decision for me--That is a decision, too. "When faced with two equally tough choices, most people choose the third choice; to not choose." Jarod Kintz
I know in some relationships, an ex-partner will consider him/herself a victim: "I am devastated--he/she left me." I am always curious about possible passive decision-making on the part of the ex. Was he/she present in the partnership? Was there, perhaps, a non-verbal message from the "identified victim" that might have--even without consciously realizing it--said: "This is not working for me." Certainly, this is not always the case, but it is worth considering.
I think, most often, the hard part is that the person who may have unconsciously made his/her own passive-decision has little insight about his/her part in the outcome. Sadly, that person may continue to speak "victim" in other choices in his/her life---resulting in a pattern of repeating situations --from relationships to people we attract into our lives (or push out of our lives) to the work we find ourselves doing. See Bill Murray in the film "Groundhog Day" for a better idea of what I'm talking about here--living the life of an automaton--in which we play the crucial part, but we are entirely unaware of this--and we fail to own our own power. We aren't making the decisions in a conscious way.
I know this sounds like a plug for my profession; but, therein lies the value of therapy. (Sorry, guys, but particularly hypnotherapy). Looking at the "Victim Trance," as Wellness' Diane Zimberoff has written about, and waking-up from it's seductive power may be the single most important realization in one's life.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
The Saying that Says it All: "Life is....
...what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John Lennon, from "Beautiful Boy.")
At times, I find I get nostalgic for another time in my life. It could be a time when my kids were small or a time when I was in college; when this or that was happening in my life. I am thinking of inventing a computer chip that could be attached to my wrist. Actually, a rubber band on my wrist that I could snap whenever I needed "snapping out of it" would do. In these fits of nostalgia, if I am realistic about them, I am selectively editing out certain segments of the times of my life that I'm currently missing. I'm just remembering the time in my life that allows me to think that another time of my life was better than the time I am in at that moment. Perhaps I am being too unclear, here--let me explain.
What I mean is this. In fact. I didn't love every moment of the times I embellish in my mind. Example: I loved parts of the time when my kids were small. Why? Because they were cute and cuddly and lived in the room next to mine. What I am forgetting is that there was a lot I didn't love about that time. Maybe it was that they had ear infections a lot and we were holed up in our rather isolated house in the 'burbs or I worried about their progress in school and I was living in the country-like suburbs without much of a support system nearby....Or forgetting that, in these same years, from about twenty-four to about forty-something I was still (as we used to hear a lot in those days): "trying to find myself." (As in: "What will I be when ((and if)) I grow up?")
It's pretty much the same with college. Yes, it was a time when I could wear a two-piece bathing suit and a time when I had a lot of friends and family living nearby. But, it was also a time when I thought every decision I made (or was made for me) was the-end-of-the-world: from "What should I major in, in college?" to "Is this guy I'm dating going to be the father of my children?"; From "Should I stay in the Midwest or move to New York?" (I'm from the Midwest) to "Should I continue my education?"
I forget about how I worried about boyfriends, whether I had one or not. If I had a boyfriend, I would worry: "Does he care for me enough?" or "Do I care for him enough?" or "How will I break up with him?" or "He's breaking up with me!" If I didn't have a boyfriend, I'd worry: "Maybe I will never have a boyfriend" or "Maybe everyone good is already taken."
Frequently, when I was in school, I'd worry about school-work: "I don't think I can finish this paper--and I'm going to fail the class if I don't!" Or: "I'm not understanding this statistics class; how will I ever get through it?" Sometimes, I'd be studying way into the night in an effort to do well on a test or complete a paper. Following this kind of "cramming" I'd end up being too tired in the morning to concentrate well on the test or I might oversleep and miss the class altogether--thus, I wouldn't turn in my paper at all, even though I had finished it.
I think of another quote, which is the result of the kind of thinking that we humans do--always concerning ourselves with the past or the future--and never really being present for our life as it is happening. Colette, the Turn-of-the-Century French novelist, is reported to have said, on her deathbed: "What a wonderful life I've had. I only wish I'd realized it sooner."
Computer chip? Rubber band? How does one continue to remain present for the only thing there really is (outside of our imaginations, however we are editing at the moment): As Ekhart Tolle has reminded us in his writings: all we really ever have, is The Now. Whether it's a difficult time or a terrific one (and usually there are components of both in every time)....Do we want to miss it, while obsessing over the past or the future?
Next (and my final post in this, my life-lessons series): a riddle.
At times, I find I get nostalgic for another time in my life. It could be a time when my kids were small or a time when I was in college; when this or that was happening in my life. I am thinking of inventing a computer chip that could be attached to my wrist. Actually, a rubber band on my wrist that I could snap whenever I needed "snapping out of it" would do. In these fits of nostalgia, if I am realistic about them, I am selectively editing out certain segments of the times of my life that I'm currently missing. I'm just remembering the time in my life that allows me to think that another time of my life was better than the time I am in at that moment. Perhaps I am being too unclear, here--let me explain.
What I mean is this. In fact. I didn't love every moment of the times I embellish in my mind. Example: I loved parts of the time when my kids were small. Why? Because they were cute and cuddly and lived in the room next to mine. What I am forgetting is that there was a lot I didn't love about that time. Maybe it was that they had ear infections a lot and we were holed up in our rather isolated house in the 'burbs or I worried about their progress in school and I was living in the country-like suburbs without much of a support system nearby....Or forgetting that, in these same years, from about twenty-four to about forty-something I was still (as we used to hear a lot in those days): "trying to find myself." (As in: "What will I be when ((and if)) I grow up?")
It's pretty much the same with college. Yes, it was a time when I could wear a two-piece bathing suit and a time when I had a lot of friends and family living nearby. But, it was also a time when I thought every decision I made (or was made for me) was the-end-of-the-world: from "What should I major in, in college?" to "Is this guy I'm dating going to be the father of my children?"; From "Should I stay in the Midwest or move to New York?" (I'm from the Midwest) to "Should I continue my education?"
I forget about how I worried about boyfriends, whether I had one or not. If I had a boyfriend, I would worry: "Does he care for me enough?" or "Do I care for him enough?" or "How will I break up with him?" or "He's breaking up with me!" If I didn't have a boyfriend, I'd worry: "Maybe I will never have a boyfriend" or "Maybe everyone good is already taken."
Frequently, when I was in school, I'd worry about school-work: "I don't think I can finish this paper--and I'm going to fail the class if I don't!" Or: "I'm not understanding this statistics class; how will I ever get through it?" Sometimes, I'd be studying way into the night in an effort to do well on a test or complete a paper. Following this kind of "cramming" I'd end up being too tired in the morning to concentrate well on the test or I might oversleep and miss the class altogether--thus, I wouldn't turn in my paper at all, even though I had finished it.
I think of another quote, which is the result of the kind of thinking that we humans do--always concerning ourselves with the past or the future--and never really being present for our life as it is happening. Colette, the Turn-of-the-Century French novelist, is reported to have said, on her deathbed: "What a wonderful life I've had. I only wish I'd realized it sooner."
Computer chip? Rubber band? How does one continue to remain present for the only thing there really is (outside of our imaginations, however we are editing at the moment): As Ekhart Tolle has reminded us in his writings: all we really ever have, is The Now. Whether it's a difficult time or a terrific one (and usually there are components of both in every time)....Do we want to miss it, while obsessing over the past or the future?
Next (and my final post in this, my life-lessons series): a riddle.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Joke Number Four: Keep Your F***ing Jack!
Here's the joke:
This guy Jim's car had a flat about a mile from his home. He looked in his trunk and saw that he didn't have a jack. But, he remembered that his next-door neighbor, Joe, was a car-mechanic and he would certainly own a jack: "I'll borrow his jack," Jim thought.
So, Jim left his car on the side of the road and started walking toward his neighbor's house. As he was walking, he said to himself: "If anybody has a jack, Joe does."
And, as he continued to walk, he began to think, "Hmm, Joe borrowed my lawn mower at the end of the summer--and I don't think he ever returned it." And walking on: "I'm almost positive it was Joe's dog who messed up my flower bed that time!"....And "That Joe never returned my lawn mower, I mean, that's pretty rude!"....Before long, Jim was mumbling under his breath as he walked toward's Joe's house. Finally he got to the door, rang the bell. In a moment Joe answered the door, with a big friendly smile.
Jim looked him in the eye and yelled: "And you can just keep your f***ing jack!"
Well, of course, don't most of us do this, at times? We tell ourselves a story or interpret something that we experience without considering that there may be another explanation or way to look at it. One example, for me, is the time a friend of mine seemed to see me; and, then, she walked right past me in our local coffeeshop. I began to think: "Have I offended her in some way?" "Is she not talking to me for some reason?"
A day or so later, I saw her at the local post office. So, I stopped her and said, "You know, I saw you at Starbucks a day or two go and you didn't even say hello." She explained, "I think I may have had my headset on and I was listening to a song I wanted to remember the words to. I'm sure I didn't see you or I would've said hello. Are you busy now? Let's grab a bite and have a chat."
I realize that, at times I can--and maybe you can, too-- be like the guy who went to borrow the jack. At times, I can tell myself a story, not so much based on what is happening at the moment, but on fears or insecurities I may have from the past. Before long, I may believe my own story so much, it seems as if there could be no other explanation for what it was I was telling myself.
The reason I mention this is that I think a lot of people may unwittingly use their energy in this way: telling themselves a story that isn't even true, as Jim in my jack-joke did and as I did with my friend at Starbucks. To learn this and not repeat the mistake, it is important to see our own tendency to assume (I think Oscar Wilde said it, "When you ass-u-me, you make an ass out of u and me.")For myself, I would rather avoid getting upset for no good reason. It's a bad, even if only occasional, habit, that interferes with my enjoyment of life. Now, I find if I can widen the lens of my memory and see that I have almost always been incorrect, when I've done this negative self-story-telling. And, well, it's pretty humbling (and, maybe, just a tad embarrassing, too?) to realize that not everything is about us!
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