Essential Freedom

"They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way...in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp...the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful (Frankl, 2006, p. 66-67).

Happy Valentine's Day Weekend!

What follows is a lovely passage from Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. If you are not familiar with this book, it is about a Jewish psychiatrist's first person account of his experience in a concentration camp. Here he writes about his beloved:

...But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. 

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist of enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."...

My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I only knew one thing - which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.

I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."... 

"Et lux in tenebris lucet" - and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong; she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me.

What do I do with all this rage?

People of color have a lot to be angry about. After an anti-racism talk on campus, a young Black man asked, "What do I do with all this rage?"

Tim Wise, a White guy who speaks and writes about racism and social justice, recently spoke at California State University, Northridge and I wrote all these gems down to share...

"White folks have the luxury to not know the experience of people of color. It's a systemic problem - White people are not supposed to know - they are being kept from the truth. That is White privilege - being oblivious. The problem is when we see it and refuse to learn or do something about it." 

"It's a privilege to be oblivious. People of color are taking that privilege away." 

"For anyone who asks, 'why are black folks so angry at the police?' I wonder, 'what world do you live in that you have to ask that question?' What kind of education did you get?" 

"the history of law enforcement is traced back to oppression. it was cops that pulled people of color off restaurant stools to enforce White man segregation." 

"The zoot suit riots are another example of oppression by law enforcement. If you don't know about it then google that shit." 

"Its a privilege to be blind to the consequence of the Black & Brown experience with law enforcement." 

"Half of all White people (in a Gallup Poll survey) refuse to believe that people of color are worse off than them in every category of well-being." 

"Black college grads are 2 times more likely to be out of work than White college grads - black engineers vs. white engineers, black psychology grads vs. white psychology grads. This debunks the nonsense about reverse discrimination." 

"There are 6 people who own Wal-Mart and they have the same amount of wealth as 27 million people (40% of the poorest folks)." Wealth shared by 6 vs. wealth divided between 27 million. 

"What I'm saying is not racist, just descriptive." 

"Are you on the blue pill or the red pill?" (The Matrix movie reference about taking the blue pill to close your eyes to reality or dive into the truth.) 

"Be humble enough to acknowledge that you've been misled and learn the truth to overcome White privilege." 

"White people said, "All men are created equal" and didn't mean that shit."
"When we say, 'Black lives matter," we are just trying to reclaim what has consistently been denied." 

"Your people came to the US for the same damn reason as everybody else - for reasons like food and they felt they had no choice. Nobody likes to move."

According to Gallup poll, 50% of White people don't believe that people of color are worse off in terms of employment, housing, health access, etc. Good for you if you get it. 50% of white people dont get it. So it has got to be said. If I am preaching to the choir, then just say amen, sister. If you are White today, then you are privileged. Just like men walk around privileged not to worry about rape culture. White parents don't have to statistically, realistically worry on a daily basis that their unarmed son will be shot by police. That's what Tim Wise means by White privilege. If your son gets caught with marijuana then he is far less likely to be arrested or jailed than if he was black and caught with marijuana. That's what it means to have White privilege today.

Coming Clean in "The Truth"

The same guy who wrote "The Game" (the bible about picking up women based on his research and experiences) is the same guy who just wrote "The Truth." Neil Strauss realized that after seducing many women, he didn't know how to have a relationship with the one woman he loved. It's a hella full circle story and all about family trauma and overcoming it by becoming whole. I pray that it outsells his last bestseller. Everybody would benefit from reading it. 

It appears that men in this society don't have consistent or reliable rituals, mentors or venues for learning to become grown up men.  As a consequence men may walk around not knowing how to become grown ups. My friend Iris joked, "they should google that shit." If you google, "in this society, how does a male become an adult man?" then I hope "The Truth" is the first hit.

Strauss participates in rehab for sex/love addiction and gains some insights about how his relationship to his mother gets in the way of his other relationships (especially with women) and about being love avoidant in his relationship attachment style. He also signs up for Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Somatic Experiencing (SE), Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and other modes of treatment. If men around the world adopted his techniques for seducing women because of "The Game," then I hope that men around the world adopt these techniques for treating trauma because of reading "The Truth."

Caveat: the middle part of the book may be too raw and dark for some. Strauss goes to the extreme of his darkness to come out the other side to light. I suppose that what may be considered "dark" is subjective - some may wince by his emotional honesty and others may bristle at his sexual explicitness. Regardless, it's worth the adventurous trip because the love relationship he is able to have after those lessons learned is honest and joyful.

I am fascinated by books written by journalists/non-fiction writers - Malcolm Gladwell, Jon Krakauer, Dave Cullen and now Neil Strauss. I suspect I will marry a journalist/writer and we will read/write together - telling good stories that are important. It's a happy dream.

Here are some gems from Strauss' new book:

"Functional parenting is the secret to world peace. And the only way to make functional parents is to heal psychological wounds with the same urgency that we heal physical wounds."  

"Even when we see the truth, trauma still prevents us from reaching it, like a rockslide blocking the road to our future...Do you see how strong this is? How trauma can destroy individuals and nations and generations?" 

"I'm beyond good and bad. I just am." 

"Find that voice and listen to it." 

"I'm reparenting myself." 

"Live in truth without fear or guilt." 

"In life, we are born innocent and pure, beautiful and honest, and in a state of oneness with each moment. As we develop, however, our caregivers and others load us with baggage. Some of us keep accumulating more and more baggage until we become burdened by all the weight, trapped in beliefs and behaviors that keep us stuck. But the true purpose of life is to divest yourself of that baggage and become light and pure again. You've been searching for freedom this whole time. That is true freedom." 

"Love is when hearts build a safe emotional, mental, and spiritual home that will stand strong no matter how much anyone changes on the inside or outside and expects only one thing: that each person be his or her own true self. Everything else we attach to love is just personal strategy for trying to manage our anxiety about coming so close to something so powerful and uncontrollable."

My PhD Diploma

legit since 3/20/2015 :)

My Mentor, Jolene

"Everybody has to emotionally emancipate from parents in order to be an adult. In order to be a leader, you have to be an adult." 

--Jolene Swain, director of field education at CSUN, social worker & documentary filmmaker of "No Greater Bond: a mother's influence on manhood. Letting go is loving more." Jolene has been my mentor since 1992.

Jolene Swain speaks to my macro social work class about leadership and parenting.

My mentors drop pearls of wisdom.  Here are some of Jolene's:

•  "It's the healthy person that asks for help."
• "You don't know everything. Why do you need to know everything?"
• "It's easy to follow the group. It's difficult to stand alone."
• "The mentee chooses the mentor."
• "Confrontation doesn't have to be negative. Have your say. Deal with it or it grows."
•  "Know what soothes you vs. looking for someone to take care of you."
• "Be able to contain and bind your own anxiety."
• "If you learned it then you can unlearn it and learn something new."
• Talking about her son: "in order for him to be happy, I have to let him go."
• "My ultimate joy is to see my son live his life."

Steve, I believe!

Mental Health Treatment

I'm re-reading his biography and I can't put it down. It feels like Steve Jobs is my new and annoying boyfriend. I am by turns enthralled and irritated, repulsed and charmed, inspired and disappointed. It's a rocky romance.

He was clearly a brilliant visionary (duh) but it makes me wonder what could be if brilliant people with mental illness, like him, received treatment.  Mental illness goes way, way back but even in 2015 treatment carries stigma.  People with mental illness, and the people who work with and love them, suffer needlessly when treatment is refused.

Personally, I'm a fan of traditional and Western medicine - in combo - for everything. When Steve got cancer - he didn't feel ashamed to get treatment. Part of our problem is that we artificially separate the mind and body. They are inextricably linked. Why is the body privileged for treatment but the mind is not? Especially considering that trauma is stored in the body! No artificial separation. It's all the same. Heart disease is a predictor of depression and depression is a predictor of heart disease. It's all connected.

Believe

"I was very lucky, because when I was a kid both my dad and the Heathkits [assemble-it-yourself kits for making ham radios] made me believe I could build anything (p. 16)."

Establish self-efficacy while they're young. Self-efficacy is defined as one's belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task.

"'It's kind of fun to do the impossible,' Walt Disney once said (p. 284)."

If we're not having fun, then what's the point?

"Jobs said he would provide the money. 'I believed in what John [Lasseter of Pixar] was doing,' he later said. 'It was art. He cared, and I cared. I always said yes'...By this point Jobs had poured close to $50 million of his own money into Pixar - more than half of what he had pocketed when he cashed out of Apple - and he was still losing at NeXT (p. 248)."

Jobs put his money into the people and projects that he valued. Who and what do you value?

"The quote he chose was from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.  After Alice laments that no matter how hard she tries she can't believe impossible things, the White Queen retorts, 'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' Especially from the front rows [NeXT employees and former members of the Macintosh team], there was a roar of knowing laughter (p. 235)."

That's a good morning indeed.