Ojo (Watch Out)

Past behavior predicts future behavior.

Know your history and learn their history of behavior - unless you want more of the insane same. 

Choose wisely - let the good parent in you love, protect and choose well for the happy but sometimes vulnerable child in you. 

Transformation is possible but please remember that most people don't wanna change.  See them for who they really are and then decide - can I live with that?  can I build a relationship with that?

The best protection and magnetizer of good stuff (in relationships, interactions and experiences) is to take very good care of yourself. 

Positive vibes and energies beget positive vibes and energies so fill yourself up with the good stuff - whatever that means for you. 

Right now, for me, this means:

• Dark chocolate
• Dancing in my underwear
• A massage followed by hanging out in the sauna and then a steak dinner (sola or with a friend)
• Regularly sweating it out at the gym followed by a hot bath with Epsom salt
• Energy healers
• Burning sage and prayer
• Meditation & visualization
• Reading (self-help, fiction, journal articles, the Bible, magazines and so on)
• Painting
• Journaling
• Having fun with my daughter (Italian dinner, movies, reading at the bookstore with a chai latte)
• Lots of really good friends, mentors and family fun time

Hope and believe.  Our beliefs are more powerful than facts or whatever others claim to be true.  Beliefs are stronger than medicine.  So what do you wanna believe?

Making Progress on Dissertation Proposal

As my fourth year of the doctoral program is coming to an end, I have just confirmed the date (June 25) of my dissertation proposal defense meeting.   My committee members include:  Todd Franke, Stuart Kirk, Sheryl Kataoka, and Lene Levy-Storms.

Wow.

Please feel free to send positive vibes that morning.

The dissertation proposal consists of four of the six dissertation chapters:

1. Introduction/Statement of the Problem
2. Literature Review
3. Theoretical Framework, Conceptual Model and Research Questions/Hypotheses
4. Methods and Timeline

My committee will give helpful suggestions and decide if I am ready to proceed with my study - examining the presumed moderating role of family communication on the relationship between exposure to stressful/traumatic life events and post-traumatic resilience vs. PTSD development among low-income urban Latino youth in Los Angeles schools.

If approved, I will be officially ABD (All But Dissertation).

I have also submitted a paper to the journal, Children & Schools.  It is under review.

I will be working on two more papers in the next six months while the data for my study is being collected.

This has been so much harder than I ever anticipated.  My entire life has changed.  I am still grateful that I get to be doing this.  I have found my purpose in life.  This is what I came here to do.  

Five years ago I imagined myself with a stack of research articles - reading and writing with a smile on my face.  You can't see me but this vision has been realized.

I have been documenting the steps of the process with notes from my readings and reflections in the off chance that someone might have a similar dream and want to see what it's like.  It's an effort to break open the black box of doctoral education.  If there is an inkling, a spark inside that is telling you to move in this direction - I encourage you to take the next baby step.  The last five years have been a tying together of baby steps.  I can't believe I am here.  It is possible.  

Thank you, Yesus. Amen.

Just as we are

We all wanna be accepted just as we are.

We all wanna be loved. Just as we are.

Some of us were loved and accepted at birth.

Some of us got the message that the only way to get love and attention was to bend, reshape, modify and comply - that we had to do things for someone else (a parent) in order to get the love & attention we needed to survive (literally). 

At a teeny tiny age, we learned to sacrifice our selves, needs, wants, emotions, perceptions (like a lamb to the slaughter) for the good of others and in order to survive.

We learned to read the energy in the room - in order to stay safe or to get love & attention.  This is work. 
Some of us got attended to instead.  That is, a caregiver sought to read us - to attune to and respond to our needs. 

One experience builds our skills to know others.  The other experience builds our skills to know ourselves.  Interpersonal relationships require both sets of skills.

Sometimes we over-focus on our own needs - we become selfish and insensitive to others.
Sometimes we over-focus on the needs of others - we become co-dependent - and lose or neglect ourselves.

In any relationship - work, friendly, or romantic - it makes sense to take things a bit slowly. 

First, know who you are and where you come from.  Be solid and flexible.  See yourself with eyes wide open and full of love.  No thought, feeling or behavior is too shameful to know or accept.  Shame gets in the way and is opposite to self-love. 

Then, and only then, can you really see another person.  It takes time to discover who they are, especially in relation to who you are.  We exist in interaction.  I am more open and honest when I feel that I am talking to someone that is open and honest as well.  I tend to restrict my range of emotions and expression if I sense the other person is restricted.  When I try to be more open and honest than the person in front of me - hijinx ensues.  I sniff out the loving, open and honest ones and then nurture those relationships because they are rare and golden.  I treasure people like this because I feel at home and completely myself.

I love, forgive and accept myself.  This has had to be learned.  Always learning.

Now I can see others as they are - good, bad and horribly beautiful.

Now I can truly choose - who gets trusted, who gains entry into my holy of holies, who I enter into relationship with on a personal or professional level.  Water seeks its own level.

Take your time, slow your roll.  Observe and record.  Discover.  Conocelos.  Then you can decide who you wanna accept into your life and love - just as they are.  Because you can't change them.  And they don't wanna be changed. 

We all wanna be accepted just as we are.

We all wanna be loved.  Just as we are.

Empathy & Wisdom

"Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt."  Exodus 23:9

I acknowledge that I am one of the most judgmental people I have ever known.  Not proud of it though.  I work very hard to understand.  Sometimes the Universe helps out by sending me the exact experience that I previously judged harshly.  This leads me to exclaim, "I get it!"  Now I try to do my homework so I don't have to learn the hard way.  It is inevitable sometimes.

I envy those that are perceptive enough to understand the story behind people's behavior.  It doesn't occur to me naturally and I struggle to understand sometimes.  I try to surround myself with friends and healers who can help me decipher the mysteries of human behavior and relationships.  In the end, I have found that I gotta trust myself, my inner voice and my own intuition most.  It's part of my growing up pains.

After turning 40, I tend to see the nuances of every story.  Most people have a point - no matter how divergent their views on a single issue.  The complexity and sophistication of life awes me.  I like it when I can play with others at these borders of reality.

The less I think I know, the calmer I feel.  The more I thought I knew, the more belligerent I was.  "I know that I know nothing."  Feeling empathic and wiser.

Magnetic

"We're not truly loveable unless we're real.  Authentic people are attractive because only the most healthy - the most confident - can express shame and still love themselves...My favorite definition of emotional intimacy is being able to tolerate seeing the flaws in your loved ones and, just as important, still loving yourself knowing your intimates can see your flaws."  --Wendy Walsh, PhD

Thank Your Mentor(s)

January 17 is Thank Your Mentor Day.  If the day came and went this year without fireworks then now is as good a time as any to show your gratitude.  Martin Seligman talks about how Gratitude Visits are an evidence-based approach to happiness - for the person being grateful.  You can imagine how it feels to be the recipient too.

I wanna publicly thank the brilliant and down-to-earth men and women that I count on as mentors.  My life would not be the same without them.  They inspire and save my behind in countless ways.

Roberto Gutierrez, L.A. Latino Artist/Teacher/Mentor/Friend/Father-Figure Extraordinaire
Reevah Simon, LCSW, Expert Clinical Social Worker and Clinical Supervisor
Robert Cordova, Retired Educator, School Principal, Community Organizer, Agitator and Bada$$
Dr. Karin Elliott Brown, Social Worker, Scholar, Professor, Administrator, Role Model
Dr. Hector Myers, Scholar, Professor, Psychologist and one of the warmest and most genuine souls
Dr. Stuart Kirk, Scholar, Retired Professor, Critical Thinker, my committee co-chair and tireless supporter of my doctoral journey
Dr. Todd Franke, Scholar, Professor, Stats Bada$$ and my committee co-chair

What blows me away about really off-the-charts brilliant folks is their warm approachability.  It's like they know they got a gift from God and are grateful to get to use it in this life - so they are happy and full.  They radiate good energy - I'm grateful to bask in their glow.

My friends ask me - why do you have so many mentors?  I need some too!  Who doesn't?  What I love about wise older folk is their willingness to share their hard-earned wisdom.  They are not stingy with their lessons learned.  I feel like all I've had to do to engage them is ask them questions and listen (taking lots of notes! and sometimes I bring a video camera!).  I encourage you to start collecting your mentors today.  Do you get that when you ask them to tell you their stories, especially if they are retired, it's good for them too.  Good stuff all around.

A-Level Players

In his biography, Steve Jobs talks about his responsibility, as a CEO, to keep C-level players out of his company - even in middle management.

The thing about mediocre people is that they tend to hire people who make them feel better - that is, D-level players.  Steve Jobs was convinced that allowing this meant fast-tracking the death of your company.

Unfortunately, C-level players abound.  They may manage to make tenure.  In bureaucracies, they may rise among the ranks if they stick around long enough or cow tow to the right person(s).  Aside from an uncanny knack for spotting and hiring talent that is lesser than their own, they feel an urgency to unleash insecurity-inspired vitriol and attempt to take A-level players down.  It has always been this way.

In a system - family or workplace group - the unstated rules sometimes are: don't rock the boat, don't stand out, don't dare to excel lest you make the insecure members look or feel bad, and know your effin place.  That's how you maintain stability, order, predictability, status quo, boredom, rigidity, gradual decline, brittle ossification, and essentially guarantee that the law of entropy will lead to sure death of the system or revolt.  It has always been this way.

Remember:

• Cain killed Abel because God found Abel's offering more pleasing.
• Jacob & his mother plotted to steal his older brother Esau's birthright.
• Joseph's brothers conspired to kill him but sold him as a slave to Egyptians instead because they were envious of the richly ornamented robe their father, Jacob, gave Joseph and they were jealous of the love and attention their father directed toward Joseph.  Joseph went from slave to Pharaoh's right hand man - very rich and powerful - due to his gifts of dream interpretation and foretelling the future.  So being forced out of his home was a blessing in disguise for Joseph. 

A good friend told me - trust the Universe.  When things don't pan out, it could be you dodged a bullet. A new friend reminded me that rejection may be God's protection.

When asked if A-level players fight all the time, Jobs responded that A-level players like to work with other A-level players - it is not competition, it's more like play.  Excellent shit gets done smoothly. 

Let your light shine.  Your bright star will light the way for other stars to find you.  Then work might  become play.