Reflections

Metanoia is a transformative change of heart.  The term suggests repudiation, change of mind, repentance, conversion and atonement. ~ Wikipedia There's an AA riddle that asks: If there are three frogs on a log and two decide to jump, how many are left on the log?  The answer of course is three, because they only  decided . (They never jumped). A lot of people I know, including myself, get trapped in self-destructive habits. They know what to do but don't do it.  They don't even  feel like doing it, let alone take that leap of faith. In order to break the cycle of passivity, action is clearly required. But where do you get the courage?  How do you go from head to heart?  They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I think it's  through his feet . In Seligman's experiments on learned helplessness , a group of dogs was yoked to another group learning how to avoid electrical shocks.  The yoked group received sho...

Pray you now; forgive and forget ~ William Shakespeare (King Lear) When a person has been betrayed, it is common to seek transparency and disclosure of the truth.  This appeals to our anxious brain hoping to stabilize disturbing emotions in knowledge and facts. What often happens, however, is that every detail teases out the desire to know more, and the quest for truth becomes a twisted and torturous rabbit hole of unanswered questions.  Rather than putting the pain of transgression behind, it gets fleshed out and remembered even more. The truth can sometimes be liberating. So can telling the story of our pain.  But, in some cases, like when you have been betrayed by a loved one, repeating the story of betrayal over and over is not going to set you free. Only forgiveness can do that.  And true forgiveness entails forgetting.  Not forgetting what is right and just, or abandoning the expectation of amends in your relationship going forward, but ceasing...

There was no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace ~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha Don’t just do something, sit there! ~ Sylvia Boorstein, in her book by the same name Many people come into my office feeling despondent for reasons they do not immediately recognize.  Then they uncover a connection to having been bullied by parents, partners or employers, at work, in the school yard, at home or, nowadays, online. Their reaction is usually some combination of feelings of shame, helplessness, anger and despair.  They feel intense frustration and often become rage-filled when recalling how they were stuck in a situation in which they felt hopelessly tormented, diminished and abused. One young man expressed it like this: No matter what I did, the bullying would continue.  Day after day after fucking day, they would pick on me.  They would stop for a while, and that would be a blessed reprieve, but then they would start up again....