this summer for the first time since i was a child i did not want to return to ny from the hamptons. there was something mystical about the water flowing beneath my feet as i sat perched upon the dock with the head of my ten year old resting upon my shoulder. something magical about the feeling of lightness that filled my heart as i rode my bike to our spot wondering what it had in store for us today. when i returned to the city that i loved so much, i found myself retreating, hiding from the noise, the people and the pace. a long weekend in october did not cure my longing for the smell of the sea and then i found myself ill.
shingles, on my face and pain, that was beyond my comprehension. pain that made me think things i have never thought and hope never to think again. there was relief in the form of pills that ultimately made me more sick. post pain, more drugs, a broken toe and a visit to my doctor of 25 years. as i was exiting my doctor's office what to my wondering eyes should appear? it wasn't a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. it was my ex and his girlfriend sitting in the waiting room on the day that i felt and looked like i had been run over by a truck. did i mention that the kitten we adopted had to be hospitalized the morning of this very same day.
i had a choice. i could have felt any one of a million things ie why me, how dare they, i must have done something wrong etc etc etc i decided to laugh and say hello because i chose to be happy. as i rode home in the taxi, i remembered that the magic comes from me, that the wonders of the beach are there because i see them, that my choice determines my experience. happy holidays!!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
People spend a great deal of their time in search of “LOVE”. Upon its discovery there is a fraction of time spent enjoying this “LOVE”. Unfortunately many spend the remainder of their lives testing "LOVE" to make sure it is real. Almost anything can be tested beyond its limit & often much to our chagrin, we test love until it fails us …
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
sex & the city
Upon the insistence or rather encouragement of a friend my current post will deviate from the previous format. For the most part this post is directed and written in the service of helping women understand men. If it helps you, please forward it to all of your female friends and male friends who are in need of some compassion from the women they love.
Sometime ago, Oprah interviewed the first pregnant "man." He was previously a she, who became a he. This was not all that interesting or surprising to me however when she (I will continue to refer to this individual as a she) explained that her male physiological characteristics were the result of male hormone intake, the conversation became more interesting. Oprah in her Oprahesque way asked the obvious question i.e. what was the state of her genitalia. This ex-woman explained that she still had a vagina but as a result of male hormone therapy her clitoris had become a small but functional penis. That is when the light bulb went on over my head.
In the absence of mental or manual stimulation women are generally unaware of their clitoris however if a clitoris was a penis and was touching one's leg, one's pants, one's underwear, being stimulated when one walked, crossed legs, took a tissue out of thy pocket how would one think about much else. I finally understood why men are far more preoccupied with sex than women.
Try, for a moment, to imagine your clitoris as large and as external as a penis, hanging there touching your leg, getting further stimulated when you cough, sneeze or cross your legs. Can you imagine what walking would be like? I hope this will change your viewpoint as much as it has changed mine.
Sometime ago, Oprah interviewed the first pregnant "man." He was previously a she, who became a he. This was not all that interesting or surprising to me however when she (I will continue to refer to this individual as a she) explained that her male physiological characteristics were the result of male hormone intake, the conversation became more interesting. Oprah in her Oprahesque way asked the obvious question i.e. what was the state of her genitalia. This ex-woman explained that she still had a vagina but as a result of male hormone therapy her clitoris had become a small but functional penis. That is when the light bulb went on over my head.
In the absence of mental or manual stimulation women are generally unaware of their clitoris however if a clitoris was a penis and was touching one's leg, one's pants, one's underwear, being stimulated when one walked, crossed legs, took a tissue out of thy pocket how would one think about much else. I finally understood why men are far more preoccupied with sex than women.
Try, for a moment, to imagine your clitoris as large and as external as a penis, hanging there touching your leg, getting further stimulated when you cough, sneeze or cross your legs. Can you imagine what walking would be like? I hope this will change your viewpoint as much as it has changed mine.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
4day
Thank you for your private and public comments. Please feel free to share more of your reflections, experiences and questions as I continue to add entries to this Blog. If it strikes you, send it to your friends, your coworkers, your family, your boss your significant other now. You never know when the entry that describes them will appear. On a more serious note this Blog is a gift to myself. I write in the hope that others will derive a benefit from it. Thank you BB (a nickname) for being the inspiration for yesterday’s entry.
4day
Often people assume that their initial reaction to a person, place or thing is the real or the only relevant reaction that they need to have. I disagree.
Perception is a greatly studied phenomenon that I will be discussing and referring to in other Blog entries, so I think it is important to have a “working” definition of this concept. For the sake of brevity and simplicity I include the following from Wikipedia:
("Perception," 2006) states “there are two basic theories of perception: Passive Perception (PP) and Active Perception (PA).
(PP) surrounding → input (senses) → processing (brain) → output (re-action).
(PA)
dynamic relationship between “description” (in the brain) ↔ senses ↔ surrounding.
Please keep in mind that the operative word in the above paragraph is THEORY. A word that could be applied to most of what we label as fact. Personally, I find the idea that we use instruments like math (another theory) to validate other theories hilarious but I digress. In the above the “description” (in the brain), in part, refers to the past experience of said person, place or thing. To get a better idea read the paragraph below.
Accordrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are in; the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a ttoal mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
Your brain, unless you are dyslexic, fills in the blanks. There are numerous theories for why the brain processes information in this way including the instinct to survive.
In the days of old lions and tigers and bears were a real threat. Contemplating a course of action each and every time one encountered a threat could severely shorten one’s life span. At the instant of encountering a bear it is vitally important that one has previous experience that dictates a course of action ie run! Research in this area is now being conducted. Before I go on I would like to add a caveat. In most instances, researchers or the companies that pay for research studies, have an agenda. Research tends to attain expected results that is of course with the exception of the undergraduate research project you had to do and didn’t plan, implement or write up until the night before it was due. How does this make me respond to most research studies? With a significant amount of skepticism. That said, some recent research findings seem to indicate that the brain often recalls the worst-case scenario as a means to ensure survival.
NOTE: In the case of the propagation of the human race all bets are off. Standard operating procedure during this period (love) seems to be…make babies, don’t think. (I hope you are laughing). We literally become salmon swimming upstream, at times, to our metaphoric death (another Blog entry). Again I digress, back to the moment of perception and why this is of any interest at all.
According to the above, the moment of perception and response is informed or shaped by the worst-case scenario. Why do you care?
If the moment that you are having a feeling response to a person, place or thing is in any way, shape or form related to an experience that was deemed threatening, there is a good chance that your emotional response in the current instant will be negative or protective regardless of whether any real threat exists. Your response is being shaped by what I label false interpretations, fantasies or past experiences that may at some point have helped you to survive. In the extreme, where this pattern is consistently reinforced and becomes your modus operandi (those who have endured trauma, abuse or other extreme difficulty in childhood), the world may start to appear as a dark, threatening and lonely place regardless of tangible evidence to the contrary. In the case where the difficulty and reward has been more balanced, we see a similar but less striking outcome. Perhaps a person who spends an inordinate amount of time making things up that are frequently punishing, anger producing or just generally negative. For example, someone asks how you are and instead of experiencing this moment and person as a caring you perceive them as intrusive and interrogating. The even milder version of this can be seen in the instance when there is no real tangible way to determine the intention of another person however you have written, produced, filmed and determined the outcome of a situation with out asking one real question.
In order to counteract this phenomenon, practice ignoring your initial reaction and apply the following rule:
If your brain is going to make up a story and you are not in immanent danger, make up a story that lifts you up instead of dragging you down.
Then perhaps you will be able to give yourself the opportunity to exercise the gift of choice that I spoke about in my 2day Blog entry. More to come tomorrow….
4day
Often people assume that their initial reaction to a person, place or thing is the real or the only relevant reaction that they need to have. I disagree.
Perception is a greatly studied phenomenon that I will be discussing and referring to in other Blog entries, so I think it is important to have a “working” definition of this concept. For the sake of brevity and simplicity I include the following from Wikipedia:
("Perception," 2006) states “there are two basic theories of perception: Passive Perception (PP) and Active Perception (PA).
(PP) surrounding → input (senses) → processing (brain) → output (re-action).
(PA)
dynamic relationship between “description” (in the brain) ↔ senses ↔ surrounding.
Please keep in mind that the operative word in the above paragraph is THEORY. A word that could be applied to most of what we label as fact. Personally, I find the idea that we use instruments like math (another theory) to validate other theories hilarious but I digress. In the above the “description” (in the brain), in part, refers to the past experience of said person, place or thing. To get a better idea read the paragraph below.
Accordrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are in; the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a ttoal mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
Your brain, unless you are dyslexic, fills in the blanks. There are numerous theories for why the brain processes information in this way including the instinct to survive.
In the days of old lions and tigers and bears were a real threat. Contemplating a course of action each and every time one encountered a threat could severely shorten one’s life span. At the instant of encountering a bear it is vitally important that one has previous experience that dictates a course of action ie run! Research in this area is now being conducted. Before I go on I would like to add a caveat. In most instances, researchers or the companies that pay for research studies, have an agenda. Research tends to attain expected results that is of course with the exception of the undergraduate research project you had to do and didn’t plan, implement or write up until the night before it was due. How does this make me respond to most research studies? With a significant amount of skepticism. That said, some recent research findings seem to indicate that the brain often recalls the worst-case scenario as a means to ensure survival.
NOTE: In the case of the propagation of the human race all bets are off. Standard operating procedure during this period (love) seems to be…make babies, don’t think. (I hope you are laughing). We literally become salmon swimming upstream, at times, to our metaphoric death (another Blog entry). Again I digress, back to the moment of perception and why this is of any interest at all.
According to the above, the moment of perception and response is informed or shaped by the worst-case scenario. Why do you care?
If the moment that you are having a feeling response to a person, place or thing is in any way, shape or form related to an experience that was deemed threatening, there is a good chance that your emotional response in the current instant will be negative or protective regardless of whether any real threat exists. Your response is being shaped by what I label false interpretations, fantasies or past experiences that may at some point have helped you to survive. In the extreme, where this pattern is consistently reinforced and becomes your modus operandi (those who have endured trauma, abuse or other extreme difficulty in childhood), the world may start to appear as a dark, threatening and lonely place regardless of tangible evidence to the contrary. In the case where the difficulty and reward has been more balanced, we see a similar but less striking outcome. Perhaps a person who spends an inordinate amount of time making things up that are frequently punishing, anger producing or just generally negative. For example, someone asks how you are and instead of experiencing this moment and person as a caring you perceive them as intrusive and interrogating. The even milder version of this can be seen in the instance when there is no real tangible way to determine the intention of another person however you have written, produced, filmed and determined the outcome of a situation with out asking one real question.
In order to counteract this phenomenon, practice ignoring your initial reaction and apply the following rule:
If your brain is going to make up a story and you are not in immanent danger, make up a story that lifts you up instead of dragging you down.
Then perhaps you will be able to give yourself the opportunity to exercise the gift of choice that I spoke about in my 2day Blog entry. More to come tomorrow….
Monday, March 24, 2008
2day
i believe that all feelings, states of emotion and perceptions etc. are choices that are made independent of others. ie in any given situation each of us has the ability to choose how we respond (freewill). i also acknowledge and respect that we are creatures of habit, biology and imperfection and therefore have an experience of an initial reaction/feeling relating to people, places or things. i am not referring to this initial reaction, i am rather referring to the instant that follows that initial moment. the next moment where one either continues on the path of the initial reaction (passive choice) or an alternative path (active choice). if one accepts this viewpoint then one can also realize/accept/acknowledge one's responsibility for one's choices/actions independent of others. when responsibility for one's choices is understood in these terms the door to introspection opens and one can experience a level of freedom and/or detachment that comes from experiencing the only control any of us ever really has, control over ourselves. the need to seek validation, approval and satisfaction of our needs from others dissipates and we start to see others as they are, people like us who are struggling with their humanness.
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