The Season of Receiving

A young child in the store today summed up the two greatest gifts of life in three short statements. I'm not sure what Mom's frustration was in that moment, but it was etched on her face, grinding a sharp edge into her voice, and infusing her body with tension. Her little daughter, seated in the shopping cart and facing her, was maybe 4 years old. Brow furrowed in earnestness and face aglow with that perfect and innocent trust found mostly in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, she looked up and said, "It's okay, Mommy. You're okay. I'm glad you're my mommy every day."

Just like that. Forgiveness. Gratitude. Love made manifest. Life redeemed. This four-year-old child created a miracle of grace in the cold, concrete, fluorescent aisle of a big box store.

And just like that, this little girl helped Mom hit her personal brakes and change direction. Mom parted with a sigh of release and smiled down at her daughter with such tenderness that it caught at my own breath. They hugged and had a whispered conversation. I walked on by this random moment of beauty, my heart swelling with love for the whole world.

Forgiveness and gratitude. We think of them, maybe as gifts we give, rather than gifts we receive. And both are true. I forgive others for pain they cause me, and I am grateful to others, consciously and almost every minute, for their many gifts in my life. And the giving of these twin gifts feels good to me. In fact, sometimes it feels a little too good and I get to thinking I'm something special because I have forgiveness in my heart, and because in my life I lead with gratitude.

Leave it Alone

I've been thinking about tolerance and the 7 Childhood Treasures. An abundance of commentary on tolerance and its lack filled our media in the final run-up to the election and in the 13 days that followed (I am writing on 11/21/16).

So, I looked up a definition, to give myself a place to start. Tolerance is the act of allowing something to be different. Tolerating something is to "leave it alone." Tolerating someone is to leave them alone.

Clearly, tolerance is a form of the gem of Acceptance, the last of the 7 Treasures. That was the seam of mining that opened up for you between 6 and 7 years of age. That was the time of your life when the adults around you could have helped you learn that bad circumstances sometimes occur, even in the lives of people who do a lot of good. This was the age at which you could have learned to let go of past grievances, to live with your arms open to the moment, rather than hugging tight a resentment from years or decades ago. That was the developmental period when you could have learned to welcome what is happening, embrace every circumstance as a learning opportunity, rather than wrestle with and try to change what is. That was the age at which you could have learned to leave others alone, to allow something or someone to be different and know that it is not about you. I think that last part is the crux of the matter.

Oh, grow up!

Have you ever sat in a meeting of professional colleagues--people in leadership positions in your work world--confronted with what appear to be a roomful of misbehaving toddlers?

Maybe this occurrence is less regular in the corporate world but, in the nonprofit and government worlds in which I work, this image captures a frequent occurrence. I often see supposed adults act like children. In fact, I recently witnessed some of the best evidence I've ever seen that, just because the human body "grows up," doesn't mean the emotional or psychological bodies keep pace.

How do we behave when the 7 Childhood Treasures have not all been mined, polished and gathered in the treasure chest of our adult relationship assets? Here are a few samples I observed in some recent meetings:

• Eye rolling to express disagreement (not that cute in a 14-year-old, let alone at 40-something!)
• Snickering, pulling a face (e.g.,"Drop-jaw" astonishment mimed to signal well, that was stupid!), and even passing notes to mock a speaker
•  "Poking the bear" -- in adults this manifests most often in questions posed for the clear purpose of aggravating the speaker or eliciting responses that can be mocked

I will give these colleagues some credit for the fact that the persons they were reacting to were, in all cases, on the phone rather than in the room, so that person, at least, could not see all these reactions. Yet, the rest of us could. And I've seen subtler displays of these same reactions to a speaker who was present in the room. I always have to wonder...if you'll do that to this person, will you do it to me? Have you done it to me in the past?

In my heart of hearts, I know the answer must be yes. If this is the standard way your internal emotions pass into the external world...well, first, let's play poker! Seriously, if this is your standard MO, then I can rest assured that I am not exempt from it! If you witness someone regularly engaged in this kind of childish acting-out toward others, you can bet that you're not exempt from it when you're the one who's on the phone.

Resistance is NOT Futile

"You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." I've always loved that much-repeated line from Star Trek: Next Generation and the franchises beyond it. Every Borg character with a speaking part says it at some point, I think. Could the writers have dreamed up any statement more likely to kick resistance into high gear in the average human mind...? "Don't tell me what's futile, you mish-mash of mechanical...."

And yet, I and a few million like-minded others around the globe believe in and yearn for ever-higher awareness of the ultimate assimilation:  our Oneness in the Divine. Spirit within yearns and yearns for that union, as strongly as the human ego resists remembering that eternal unity. Truly, resistance is not futile, at all! It very effectively keeps us separated from and unconscious of the truth of who we are.

Until it doesn't.

Even when the little human ego mind catches glimpses of this forgotten truth and, just for a second or two, we know that we are One, "quickly we will forget to remember"  (Holly Near, Planet Called Home). We return almost instantly to the sleeping state of human consciousness...and go back to resisting!

Hey. I don't judge; it's just what we humans do...until we don't.

I had elevated resistance to a level that was part art, part evil-genius science. My life was so enmeshed with--brimming over with--resistance, that my little human mind had actually begun to struggle and wrestle in resistance to my own resistance. You gotta laugh, really. I was really, really good at resistance and it worked for all the purposes to which I put it. Until it didn't.

Essential to attaining this new, "no-resist" phase of life was my work to mine a treasure chest full of the 7 Childhood Treasures. Brimming over now with Trust, Independence, Faith, Negotiation, Vision, Compromise, and Acceptance, I have been using them as tools, slowly and surely, to crack open and pull away big chunks of my dual carapaces of defense and protection. (Thank you human ego, for the extreme protection for so long; I no longer need it.)

Suddenly, without final warning, I was ready. In what felt like one easy opening of tightly curled fingers, I surrendered the inner, thinner shell of resistance. It's just gone.

I know. I also feel tiny niggles of doubt that boldly ask, "Is this real??" and "Is this permanent or temporary?" My strategy is to ignore those little niggles, in favor of hearing the glorious music of a surrendered, unresisting Life filling me and the universe.

It's a miracle, really, that's it's suddenly gone, because resistance was killing me. Literally.

Failing forward...and being BRAVE!

I experienced utter and complete failure one recent Wednesday night at 10:59 PM. The pain was acute, piercing, intense, deep in my gut. It unhinged me for a minute; left me feeling limp and in need of support. Suddenly, I realized I had that ally in the most unlikely character as a result of Netflixing the latest season of Once Upon a Time!

I know, right? Well, bear with me for a second (no spoilers)....

This season weaves in the character of Merida from Disney/Pixar's 2012 movie Brave. Merida's story line features a witch who gave her father a magic helmet when he asked for something "to ensure the continuation of his kingdom." In the category of 'be careful what you ask for,' he thought the helm would work because its power would make all the clans follow him into battle, no matter how deadly the foe, or hopeless the cause. Suffice it to say, that's not at all the way the magic worked! It took some time to see how that helmet created the outcome of ensuring continuity in the kingdom and, for quite a while, it looked as if it had failed its purpose...and not just failed but Fuhhhh-Ayyyylllllled, on a Very. Grand. Scale.
Truly.
Epic.

Press the Bar, Two, Three, Four....

Have you ever felt sort of – or very – stuck in a behavior pattern that doesn’t really help you or improve your life? What psychologists call “maladaptive behavior” can be any form of addiction, as well as other patterns you might not think of as an addiction:  micro-managing people or isolating from them, for example. Mal, as in Spanish for “badly,” plus adaptive  = badly adaptive behavior. These maladaptations are strategies custom-built by a child to manage the stresses of childhood, then grown up to adult versions that aren't particularly effective at coping with adult stress. 

Whenever I engage in one of these patterns, I always hope to realize – ideally sooner, rather than later – that it’s a sort of IM from my body/mind/spirit that something is awry. Hello? Carol? Some Childhood Treasure clearly needs more mining or polishing!

So what are your maladaptations? Reflect for a moment on the behaviors that make you think, “Why do I keep doing this?” or “Whoa, something must really be bothering me.” What behavior provokes the thought, “You know, this is really not good for me.” Almost anything, even a typically healthy pattern, can be maladaptive when done in excess, like dieting and exercising to extremes, obsessing sexually, or sleeping 12 or more hours a day.

Past the moon and into Forever

“You are sending off energy - emitting energy - right now, from the center of your being in all directions. This energy - which is you - moves outward in wave patterns. The energy leaves you, moves through walls, over mountains, past the moon, and into Forever. It never, ever stops.”  ~~Neale Donald Walsch Facebook post, 08/03/16.

This statement is a complete, total, physical-realm, capital-T, scientific TRUTH. I mean that, really: it's physics; it's measurable. And this statement has a spiritual implication of personal responsibility that stuns me with its importance. This unstoppable energy I emit with every breath and beat of my heart: what kind of energy IS it?

Do I fill the world with anger, fear, resentment, blame, and pain? Or do I send out wave after wave of love, joy, gratitude, empathy, curiosity, and enthusiasm? 

My energy. My choice.

The Most Generous Act

"Life sucks. That's it. It just sucks."

That's what my beloved friend said to me today. She (and I hope you, dear reader) knows me well enough to know that this is not a statement that describes my point of view. Yet, it clearly and succinctly describes hers -- at least up to now.

I feel so sad, knowing that this belief lies upon her heart today. I imagine how heavy it must be, holding her bright spirit pinned relentlessly beneath its unforgiving weight. My own heart dances every day, footloose in the certainty that life is beautiful, loving, and forever bringing me gifts designed for my greatest good. I want this dancing lightness for my friend, as I want it for all who suffer from this crushing belief that "life sucks."

When your childhood leaves you with an empty treasure chest -- none of the deliciously glittering bounty of the 7 Childhood Treasures mined or polished -- this belief that life sucks is the outcome. Without Trust, I could not believe that life "has my back." Without Independence, I would be unable to separate my real life from the daily circumstances that seem to be my life. Without Faith, I could not hold onto a higher purpose to carry me beyond the rollercoaster of "stuff that happens" every day, to everyone. Without Negotiation, I will not get what I want....

See how this goes? If I seem to be struggling alone, if I seem to BE the ups and downs of the journey rather than the one navigating them, if I see no purpose for my life, if I cannot get what I want.... Those colors on my brush do paint a picture that could be titled, "Life Sucks."

Issue Queen

I have become this...The Issue Queen. Or, at least, AN issue queen.

If you're a regular reader, you may remember that I recently started working with a new healer, whose work opened my eyes wide for a deeper understanding of trigger management (read "Waking from Nightmares"). I did hear this doc say on my first visit that we'd be finding some "issues in my tissues." I thought it was a great phrase, a good brand for his work, but didn't realize the full implications. This healing is calling upon my entire chest of Childhood Treasures!

Turns out that I have signed up for a pretty intense peeling of my personal onion, requiring me to find Trust for this new healer. Some of these issues we're waking up are very familiar, yet I've kept the reality of them at a distance for so long, I stopped seeing them as problems. Yeah, sure, I thought.... I've got issues; no big deal. Yes, I have triggers; no big deal. You know...I manage my reactivity.

Well, HA! and double HA! HA! 
The good doctor's work shouts at me, "MISSY, wake UP!!! You have TRIGGERS like angry bees trapped in a hive and they are taking up WAY too much of your time. GET IT?????" Just clarifying:  the doc is not shouting at me...the impact of his treatment has the megaphone. My awareness of my boundaries, my Treasure of Independence is what keeps me from confusing the doc with his results!

LOUD, this wake up call. In my face, shaking it's fist, spittle flying off its lips onto my cheeks. The issues are coming out of my tissues with big, stomping feet, yelling at the top of their lungs, crashing about in my life. Sheesh. Kinda dramatic.

Family Union

Families.... What are they? As the place where once we found insufficient support for, or outright barriers to, our childhood mining efforts, can they help us, now as adults, to dig up and polish to a gleam the 7 Childhood Treasures that enable a successful life full of purpose and joy?

Having just returned from my biannual family reunion, I believe I can answer my own question with a resounding yes! Putting on my cherished "side" hat of Anthropology (my 2nd major, paired with Child Development and a minor in Psychology), I begin with a definition. In fact, I begin with three of the many definitions of family. According to Dictionary.com, family is all of these:

1. A basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not
2. Any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins
3. All those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor

Observation of the ethnology at our family reunion made visible the intricacies of all three.
 

Waking from Nightmares

I jerk out of sleep as if from a dream of falling. My heart is pounding faster than seems possible, an automatic machine gun inside my chest. I cross my palms over my heart and feel it pulsing against my ribcage.

Night after night, I have been waking this way, stuttering also the sleep of my cat companion, Caramel Sundae Bear. He speaks his annoyance, shifts and re-settles, grumbling, and then blesses me with the forgiveness of his steady, rhythmic purr. My heart slows….

Why? Why am I waking, in every night’s most wee hour, as if from a nightmare? The question becomes a prayer and is instantly answered. The still, small voice tells me that I know this midnight manifestation for what it is:  the physical echo of an emotional allegory that is currently stomping around my life. I am not waking from a literal nightmare each night but, metaphorically, in the light of day, I’m waking from a nightmare that I’ve been dreaming for decades.

Today I Met a Miracle

Today I met a miracle...and it was me.



When I present the 7 Childhood Treasures, I often speak about a freedom that is our birthright, the freedom that young children demonstrate in spontaneous, completely-in-the-moment expressions of who they are. Young children, in their natural state, are never inhibited by regret for the past or fear of the future. They live in the Now of their own greatness.
  
Not sure what that looks like? There's a video that circulates now and then on Facebook...maybe you've seen it? A girl of about 4 is standing on the bathroom vanity

counter, her long, blond, corkscrew curls bouncing as she half-talks, half-sings to herself in the mirror. Her little spur-of-the-moment ditty simply catalogues the many ways she likes her life. She begins:  "I can do anything good...." and continues, "I like my hair. I like my pajamas. I like my cousins. I like my brother. I like my mom. I LIKE MY WHOLE HOUSE!" She wraps it up by going back to her opener as she climbs down to the floor, "I can do anything! I can do anything good!"
 

Family Baggage...Unpacked

Wow! It's been a busy month and a half!! I've been offering a series of 7 Childhood Treasures workshops in St. Louis...and my family convened for a big celebration of Mom's 90th birthday.

Have you ever noticed that, when you're with your birth family, the adult costumes everyone walks around in most of the time seem to shift their seams and zippers in revealing ways? But it's not body parts that emerge; rather, it's our former child selves. The sibling alliances and rivalries, the pecking

orders, the secrets we keep.... All these immodest private parts begin to poke through openings we thought were sealed. Your past is no longer contained inside the carefully sewn exterior self you tend and mend, day by day, in the adult world in which you now move.

Yes, there's nothing like a family gathering to suddenly make you realize three things:

1. Your baggage is gaping wide open, with its tumbled contents on display.
2. Most of those contents have, in fact, already been pulled out and draped all over your frame by well-meaning family members who are more comfortable with this familiar version of you.
3. All that costuming conceals not one of the vulnerabilities you most want to hide.

Sigh. Ain't that just the pits?

A New Alternative to Fear

You’ve all heard, no doubt, what happens to us humans when our survival response is triggered. Yes? The most-often-repeated version is “fight or flight.” Psychologists like me, along with many others outside that field, know there is a third instinct in the face of fear:  freeze. Fight the perceived attacker, run away, or become immobile, incapable of response, shut down. (See the lizard named Beans in the movie Rango for a classic example.) Those are the three options available when, in the face of perceived threat, the most primitive, reactive part of the brain takes the steering wheel on this ride we call life. Some of us have a strong "preference" for one; others of us make use of any of the three, depending on the situation.

I’ve become convinced that there is another alternative, one that blends the 7 Childhood Treasures of Trust and Independence. But before I tell you what it is, a word about the perceived threat or attacker. Before I can climb up from the depths of my reptile brain’s forced three-way choice, first I have to adjust to accept one hard fact. That is:  whatever drives me out of my huge and hugely logical neo-cortex, and into the gut-instinct to become invisible, flee, or defend…well, it may not be an actual threat or an actual attacker at all.

I’ve written of this uncomfortable truth before…that your reality is unique to you. Your belief that some person or situation is a threat to your safety is just that—a belief. It often derives, not from an actual circumstance of danger in front of you, but from a subconscious tour taken by your experience of that circumstance. Your incoming sensory perceptions—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures—register a little snapshot of events in front of you. That multi-sensory image then takes a little stroll through a few filters in your neural network, created by early childhood experiences

The Truth about Bullying

The truth about bullying is that every child who bullies has been taught to do so, by parents or other close adult caregivers, in lessons later reinforced by other children and other adults.

There. I said it.

I recognize that this point of view is <wry smile> potentially controversial.

If you are a parent, grandparent, early childhood teacher, or other adult with significant influence on the lives of one or more children, you may not like reading these words. Does it help to know that I don’t count myself out of that group of adult caregivers who has taught children to be bullies? Does it help if I say that I am in recovery from bullying children? 

You also may not like my explanation of how we teach children to bully,
 should you choose to read on. Consider yourself forewarned! I hope you do read on, and also decide to transform some of your interactions with the children in your life, through mining your own 7 Childhood Treasures. Since I saw how I was perpetuating this generational and culturally-supported teaching of “Bullying 101” lessons, I have strived for that transformation in my own interactions—not only with children, but with adults, too. I set about the work of mining my Treasures at the age of 30, though I didn't have this language for sharing my success with others until about 12 years ago. Every day, I recover by digging and digging, collecting clunky chunks of rough stone, cutting away the matrix and breaking them in just the right way to show their crystalline structure of facets, and polishing to a sparkling gleam my 7 Childhood Treasures.

 

I’m a work in progress. Waking up to my own behavior also birthed my understanding of my life mission to change how we treat children in America.

You should know that I start from this premise:  Children are born innocent and pure. No typical child—leaving aside those born with specific neuro-chemical malfunctions—comes into this world with hate in her heart, with racism in his mind, with her core motivation a desire to hurt others. Newborns do not open their eyes and take their first look at this bright, shiny world through a lens of judgment. And yet these children sometimes—more often than we’d like—grow up to be full of hatred, judgment, racism and other isms. Too many seem to act as if hurting others is a core motivation. Why? How are innocents so transformed, within just a handful of the years allotted for their lives?

The Greater Good

A central plank in my spiritual philosophy platform is that everything is always unfolding for my greater good. I recognize that this must be so, because the Divine Being of my understanding operates solely as a positive Creator. For me, God is an evolver of potential that always offers me—and everyone—the next step to achieve a life that is positive and creative. As the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient creative power in the universe, how could it be anything else?

This morning I realized that this core belief is strengthening my Childhood Treasure of Trust. As the very first of the 7 Childhood Treasures, Trust is designed to be unearthed from our internal mine of potential before we are one year of age. Before we can talk, or walk, or understand more than a few words of our native tongue, we begin to acquire the asset of Trust…or we don’t. If we didn’t, then it behooves us to give our adult-selves a second chance to dig for, extract, and polish this gem of human understanding so crucial to healthy relationships.

The connection between belief in a supportive, positive, Universal Power that is always moving me toward my greater good, and the Treasure of Trust…well, it is so obvious, I’m surprised for a moment that I haven’t seen it until now. The infant’s first Treasure is mined and polished in a world in which her basic needs are met. Period. It’s that simple. When he expresses his hunger and nourishment arrives, this little baby miner’s pickaxe strikes the seam of Trust. Physical discomfort is met with comfort—maybe the easing of distress from a dirty diaper or a pokey-sharp label inside the neck of a sleep sack—and Trust is chipped away from the base rock. Her eye contact and gurgling coo is followed by responsive, playful interaction from a caregiver and the raw ore of Trust begins to show its facets. When he is over-stimulated and tired, he is allowed to rest in quiet and peace, and the gem of Trust begins to sparkle.