I was forwarded, by one of you, an article from a British newspaper on the forthcoming publication of a book by Bronnie Ware entitled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed. While I only just have ordered the book, I thought that its themes, as described in The Guardian article, were worthy of discussion now. Ware had served as a palliative care nurse in Australia, caring for patients at the end of their lives. She had collected their end of life observations and written about them at her Inspiration and Chai blog. Much as I have observed, Ware began to see common themes and extraordinary wisdom that seems to blossom in people as their lives draw to a close. Interestingly, Ware heard about “regrets,” a topic not as common to me in my work. But she recorded the end of life epiphanies as a lesson plan for the living and moved from blogging into authoring her book. Keep Reading »
Posts Tagged ‘Fear’
So, What Do You Think Happens Next?
One question, that arises from conversations about my hospice work, never has been asked of me in a group setting. It usually is put to me in a “sidebar,” in muted tones. Strangers never ask this question. It, apparently, is reserved for friends. “So, what do you think really happens when you die?” I don’t consider it an odd question, nor a particularly intimate one. In many respects, I wish it were a more prominent subject of conversation. But, it brings with it a lot of baggage. And, even in writing about it here, I undertake no small risk. Why risk? If you think about it, many of our beliefs, judgments and social values are derivatives of an attempt to answer that simple question. Whatever I believe, no matter how carefully considered or stated, will offend someone. Keep Reading »
Serving at the End of Another’s Life, Part 2
At the outset of my work as a hospice volunteer, there were things that put me off. I don’t necessarily recall what my emotional responses were those many years ago, because I have learned to live with them. One category of offense that I have learned to live with stems from olfactory responses to conditions such as feces, stale urine, vomit and necrotic tissue. Smell triggers ancient fear responses. I have learned no way to overcome them, except to carry a small supply of Vick’s VapoRub or other ointment, which I apply to my nasal passages. This allows me time to deal with the immediate situation, which usually is cleaned up in relatively short order. I imagine that this is enough to turn many of you off. But let me put it in context. Keep Reading »
Awareness and Parenting, Part 6 – Social
Social intelligence refers to your competency to successfully engage others, leading to mutually satisfying relationships. It includes the ability to listen deeply and communicate profoundly with widely diverse individuals and groups. It involves seeing the world from others’ perspectives, the ability to collaborate on problems and co-create outcomes, as well as the ability to effectively compromise, allowing your desires to be subsumed for the benefit of the relationship, all without sacrificing your worth or dignity. Social intelligence generally is not a fixed attribute. Rather, it is an ever evolving complex of information processing skills, which can be modified to alter attitudes and behavior. Social intelligence should not be conflated with social skills, which constitute only a subset.
According to Daniel Goleman, in Social Intelligence: The Revolutionary New Science of Human Relationships, parent-child responsiveness creates the path for parents to help their children “learn the ground rules for relationships — how to attend to another person, how to pace an interaction, how to engage in conversation, how to tune in to the other person’s feelings, and how to manage your own feelings while you are engaged with someone else.” These rules form the foundation for competent social living. According to Goleman, children lacking synchronous parenting are at risk of growing up with disturbed attachment patterns. Children raised by attuned parents tend to be secure; while anxious parenting yields anxious children and aloof parenting produces avoidant children. The attachment style of a parent predicts the child’s social style with about 70% accuracy. Keep Reading »
Sounds of Silence
I thought that I would take a little break from our conversations about parenting. But, as I sit here thinking about what I’m about to write, I discover that it is not much of a break at all. The next installment in the parenting series concerns relational or social intelligence. What we are about to review here is an obscure, but very interesting little book, Listening Below the Noise: The Transformative Power of Silence, written by writer and novelist Anne D. LeClaire (2009). And, the connection is this — those qualities which arise in the socially intelligent, such as empathy, compassion, generosity, and kindness, often manifest to others through their powers of listening. And at its heart, listening rests upon a foundation of ego-less silence and focused attention on, and connection with, another.
Almost 20 years ago, Anne LeClaire found that she was mistaking a busy life for a rich one. Then beginning in January 1992, she decided to set aside the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month for silence. And, for those 24 hours she did not speak. In her words, Keep Reading »
When Good Enough Is Better Than Perfect, Part 1
Two posts back, I mentioned that three of my Daily Journal articles had been published without any preliminary “road testing” here. This is the third. Habitual Perfection Hurts: When Good Enough Is Better Than Perfect was written while traveling in Morocco. It sprung from a conversation with one of my coaching clients, who just happens to be a lawyer. It was published in the November 29, 2011, edition of the Daily Journal. As I previously may have mentioned, most of my writing is dictated by means of voice transcription software “directly to the page,” after which I do my edits. I’ve always thought that direct dictation assisted my writing by making it more “conversational” in tone and alleviating extended sentences. It was interesting to write and edit this article, in bits and snatches, on a yellow legal pad while traveling through Morocco on trains, in cars and, eventually,on an airplane, returning to Paris. Handwriting slows me down. The advantage is that it may allow me to go deeper. The problem is that I often lose my train of thought. I also find it distracting to follow my cumbersome hand across the paper, rather than to find the words miraculously appearing on my screen. But I was on a “techno-free” vacation and, if I was going to write, it had to be the yellow pad. Of course, this was all the more ironic because I was writing on the subject of perfection and how the quest for it takes you an absolutely in the wrong direction. Keep Reading »
Ekman & Emotion
Last week, in connection with our book group, I had the opportunity to be in a telephone conversation with Paul Ekman, author of Emotions Revealed, whose work on that facial recognition of emotions was prominently featured in the Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink. Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is featured in the hit TV series Lie to Me, to which Ekman is a technical advisor. I previously referenced Ekman’s work in the post, Prosopagnosia and Problems of Perception.
In Emotions Revealed, Ekman describes the limitations of our ability to control emotional responses. He cites the example of walking along the path, near a cliff, which clearly is separated from the edge by a stout defense, making the risk of fall almost impossible. Nonetheless you experience fear. Ekman explains that “This usually happens when the trigger is an evolved emotional theme or a learned trigger that is very similar to the theme.” By contrast, when the trigger is more distantly related to a theme, you can consciously interrupt the emotional experience. In other words, your narrative, consisting as it does of a myriad of themes, shapes your ability to control emotional experiences. Keep Reading »
Making Things Less Personal
As we recently have discussed, forgiveness is about releasing grievances. But how do grievances come about? One reason is that you take things too personally. Grievances have become a part of your narrative. You have made them a habit and granted them a piece of your life. They help reinforce your self-image and accompany you into the world. Bad things happen to you because you are too tall, too short, too heavy, too thin, too light skinned, too dark, too Jewish, too Christian.  You “know” why. You have come to expect them.
But, if you can get outside of your narrative, you can begin to distinguish between those aspects of an event which are personal from those which are not. What I am about to say does not mean that you have to “like” a transgression that has occurred. Nor does it mean that you should deny its impact. But if you take an insightful look, how personal was the event? Keep Reading »
Forgiveness – Beginnng With Anger
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In order to train in forgiveness, you have to begin at its source – anger. Anger arises from a perception of interference with something that you are doing, feeling or expecting. There is a frustration. Something happened that you did not intend to happen or something did not happen which you had him intended to occur. There are times when anger has its place. It is a reminder of a problem that needs attention. But the number of situations in which it is warranted are few. And, anger itself rarely resolves the problem which anger brought to your attention. Anger often leads to an inappropriate response to the triggering event. And, if anger becomes habitual, it presents not only long-term problems for your happiness, but for your physical health.
Anger covers a wide range of experiences. There is indignation, which is self-righteous. There is sulking, which is passive and withdrawn. There is exasperation, which arises when your patience has been tried to excess. There is resentment, when you have become preoccupied over a perceived offense. There is hatred, which arises from an intense preoccupation over a person perceived to have harmed you. Keep Reading »
Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Meltdowns & Mother Teresa
Recently, we discussed multiple intelligences and the Six Streams model (The Six Streams) as a perceptual window through which to observe and evaluate yourself and your circumstances. The recent tragedies in Japan, stemming from the massive earthquake, the resultant tsunami destruction, and the consequential, imperiled atomic power facilities offer a trigger for you to assess how well you are dealing in your current world.
Although I had intended to post on another subject today, events that occurred yesterday changed my mind. I had arisen at 4 a.m. to drive to Oakland Airport for a 7 a.m. flight on Southwest Airlines to Burbank. During my drive, I listened to radio news stories about the status of the volunteers who are stepping into the disabled nuclear power facilities in an attempt to prevent their complete meltdown. I was moved by the courage of the individuals involved, by their apparent self awareness that they form a part of a larger community and owe that community the potential sacrifice their lives. I wondered what the state of mind of those individuals might be, having already survived the shock of the earthquake itself , the destruction of communities they might have once called home, the loss of lives of family members and friends, and the need to rise above their own self interests. Keep Reading »
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