Author Archive

>    Last week, on my way to visit my 91 year-old mother in Florida, I purchased a special edition of U.S. News magazine at the airport that is dedicated to advice for high school students on applying to college. I certainly support being prepared in advance for application to institutions of higher learning. However, I think that somewhere along the way we scrambled our priorities and, perhaps, have actually lost our way.
    I am the mother of a 14 year-old daughter who starts high school this morning…so I’m in the trenches on this one. We had to juggle her school schedule with after school lessons in piano and voice as well as math tutoring. Jazz dance lessons are out this semester because of a time conflict. The theater program, of which she is a student, will require that both she and her parents sign a contract stating that if she is in the school play, all other commitments are secondary to rehearsals (piano, voice, tutoring, doctor and dentist appointments included, just to name a few) and that missing one rehearsal automatically removes her from the play. As the performance approaches, rehearsals can last until 11 P.M. on school nights. Team sports have a similar contract so its one or the other, not both, for obvious reasons.
    Our daughter’s schedule is not nearly as “booked” as most of her friends. On the academic front, some of them took a prep course and practice SAT’s (college entrance exams) in 7th grade! Early application and early admissions are now the norm…so their really not “early” anymore, are they?
    As I said, I’m all for advance planning when it comes to college. I went to college and law school and am an advocate for higher education. But when did we stop allowing kids to be kids? When did age appropriate learning and fun become subsumed to the race for who is the smartest…with the most activities on their application…and who gets there first?
    Our next door neighbor has three children under the age of 12. I notice she is tired and stressed a lot. Yesterday we were talking about school starting and she was near an emotional break point telling me about all the required things she had to do for each child. Even her youngest about to enter kindergarten was required to have (among a list of other things) ten glue sticks. Really, 10? Almost as ridiculous as our daughter being required to purchase a $140 calculator in 8th grade. (As an aside, while my neighbor and I were having this conversation, her 9 year-old daughter was yelling that she hadn’t yet gotten the cell phone she’s due).
    The technology has accelerated our lives in so many ways we’ve lost count of them and simply try to keep up…or catch up. The pace and the pressure is hard enough for the adults. As for the children, I suspect the damage is accruing over time…like too many sunburns at the beach when you’re 15 that later turn out to be skin cancer…we are stressing out the children, perhaps beyond repair, and the children are the future.
    I hope our daughter continues to develop her academic mind and creative interests. I know we’ll support her in whatever ways are needed to continue to help her grow to becoming a contributing member of society. But I have to tell you that in the end, I won’t care if it’s Harvard, The Restaurant School, an art Institute or any state college. In the end, I’ll care if she is joyful, compassionate, respectful of all living things and able to appreciate the miracles of life that occur all around her each and every day.
    As of this writing, there is no course selection or after school activity being offered in “Life Appreciation and Right Thinking.” Until there is, my husband and I are teaching that one.

>    I am just returning from a 10 day vacation and notice that the reported news is bleak…still. Hurricanes, terrorists, a U.S. Senator lacking personal ethics and a national football player lacking common sense and respect for life. Pretty much the usual fare. How to cope with all this negativity and stress remains one of the most important questions of our time… so I’d like to share a possible method for dealing with it.
    Thousands of years ago Buddha suggested that our suffering originates from the mis-perception of who we really are and our resulting separation from all things when, in fact, separation does not exist. Judaism has an equally liberating thought passed down through its mystic tradition of Hasidism that says every word we speak creates movement in the world of matter. I think the blending of these two views of how we use our Consciousness provide an excellent pathway for “right” living in difficult times.
    According to Buddha, when we see a reflection in a mirror we forget that we are the mirror, not the reflection. Our tendency is to think we are the “stories” we repeat over and over about ourselves. “I am a lawyer”…”I am a mother”…”I can’t sleep at night”…”I’m not good at drawing”…”I gain weight easily”…”My work is boring”…”My brother and I can’t get along.”  These “stories” are how we define ourselves. Like the actress Marilyn Monroe, who lost who she really was to the character she created, we lose who we really are when we forget that all of our “stories” are just images passing in front of the mirror of our Consciousness. Who We Really Are is the Consciousness, not the images. The images are transitory. Consciousness is boundless and eternal.
    According to the Hasidic tradition, Rabbi Nachman said, “All thoughts of man are speaking movement, even when he does not know it.” So how and when we use our thoughts, and words…even the very words we choose to use, not only impacts our reality…they create it!
    Now if words create our world, and there is no separation, then what we say about ourselves and others forms the reality we personally live in but also forms the greater reality as well. 
    And if the stories we tell about ourselves and others are not who we are or who they are but simply transitory experiences passing in front of our collective Consciousness…then perhaps we need to think less, talk less and feel more.
    In both thought and speech, our ego has its greatest power. Ego is nourished by separation. It’s sustenance is derived from self-importance. When we move out of our minds and into our hearts, our feeling centers, we are able to step outside of ourselves and our ego to connect with others through identification and compassion
    The “stories” that we are fed daily about natural disasters and terrorists and Senators and football players are just transitory images passing in front of the mirror of our Consciousness. Let’s not get frozen in those images and forget who we really are.
    Who We Really Are is a fragment of the whole spectrum of possibility that exists anew each and every second of existence.
    When you sit with that thought and really feel it…all those stories we tell, and are told, get really small.

>    In yesterday’s blog, I wrote about personal responsibility. I thought that was the end of the topic, for now. I was wrong. Today’s CNN’s on-line, headline story has a photo Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy saying, “I’ll never come back to that evil mountain.”
    Mr. Murray is, of course, referring to the Utah mountain under which 6 miners have been trapped for over a week and where 3 rescue workers have been killed trying to find them. Murray has given anthropomorphic status to the mountain, as well as Free Will, and thereby exonerated…or at least assuaged his conscience and himself from any responsibility for the tragedy.
    Not that I’m looking to cast blame or guilt. Not even gross negligence (and I’m a former lawyer!). It’s just that in following this unfolding and very sad story, I read a few days ago that the method/technique used by Murray Energy to extract coal from that mountain is so dangerous that many mine companies nationwide no longer use it.  I’d like to ask Mr. Murray why his company was still using it. I think it’s a reasonable, and highly relevant, question.
    Now I know pursuit of this line of questioning will be more tedious for Mr. Murray and not nearly as compassion generating. The photo of him on CNN is that of an anguished man. This line of questioning will also likely involve a team of my former colleagues digging into business practices and safety standards. Fortunately, I no longer do that work and the job will fall to others.
    What I do now is write about the highest good for all concerned and how we, as contributors to the ever-unfolding and consciousness expanding Universe, can make contributions that positively impact our world.
    Mr. Murray’s statement about the mountain provides us a good opportunity to examine how we abdicate personal responsibility.
    What happened in Utah was not the mountain’s fault. At least not directly and consciously. If you believe that Nature takes care of itself and that it is capable of “retaliating” for damage done to it, then perhaps there is enough responsibility to go around afterall.
    More likely is the fact that we get back that which we put out. We are in wanton pursuit of extracting coal from the Earth without true respect and honor for either the Earth or the people we employ to do the job. We are using methods that are darn near antiquated and, I’d say, primitive in the scheme of things.
    With all the technological advances and all the intelligence in this country, it’s hard to believe that we have not yet developed alternative sources of energy sufficient to provide for the general good. It’s hard to believe that after thousands of years…it’s still all about the money.
    Let’s return to Mr. Murray and Murray Energy. He needs to say that he made a good financial decision and a bad human one. He needs to take responsibility for the method his company was pursuing and why. He needs to reevaluate his role as CEO at Murray Energy and how he sees it going forward…for himself and for the company. He needs to place value where it belongs…not on bottom line profits but on the sanctity of human life. He needs to step up so that all the children looking at all the people in positions of power begin to understand that we as a nation take personal responsibility for what we say and do.
    We are trapped in a pattern of ignoring our obligation to the integrity of every moment and every situation. The Bob Murray’s of this world can set an example of how to break that pattern and create a new one that better serves us all.
    Then none of us will be trapped anymore.
   

>    The American Medical Association met last month for it’s annual convention and considered, among other things, classifying “technology addiction” as a real mental disorder. I would characterize over-dependence and over-involvement with technology somewhat differently.  I’d call it “Abdication of Personal Responsibility Leading to Severe Energy Imbalance.”
    I know it’s a mouthful but it’s really quite simple.
    The internet is no different than a Big Mac…or in my case chocolate seven-layer cake. There are things in this world that we really want and, in moderation, are just fine for us. Then there are those things that we want which, outside the bounds of reasoned participation, are simply not good for us. Knowing where those boundaries are is what personal responsibility is all about. 
    I belabor the obvious but maybe the obvious needs belaboring.
    If I eat a piece of chocolate cake because it tastes good and I want it, fine! If I eat 3 pieces of chocolate cake and an hour later go back for more, well…not so fine. It’s up to me to know where the point of reason turns the corner and becomes overindulgence. It’s certainly not the responsibility of the American Medical Association to define or treat the exercise (or lack of exercise) of my will power or my Free Will, for that matter. That’s why I have Free Will to begin with.
    That’s the “Personal Responsibility” explanation of my definition of technology addiction.
    The “Severe Energy Imbalance” explanation goes like this.
    Many years ago I was on assignment in Southern California for 3 months and lived in a rented, furnished apartment. I had no television. That simple fact changed my life forever. In those three months I learned the importance of, and the freedom in, not overexposing myself  to energies that interfere with the proper functioning of my own natural, energetic patterns.
    Like the Internet, television is unnatural. By that I mean that the frequency at which they transmit is not in alignment with Circadian (earth) rhythms or our own biological rhythms. Since everything is ultimately just energy vibrating at different rates of speed, it’s important not to overexpose yourself to energies that interrupt or distort your own rhythms. Technology is out of alignment with all natural rhythms and, when overexposed to those energies, we become out of balance.  In reality, overexposure causes us to begin to resonate more in alignment with those energies, which makes it increasingly harder for us to relate to Nature not to mention other human beings.
    When I lived in California without television, I spent more time outdoors, I jogged each morning, I read more, I interacted with people more. I was inner directed and more at peace. That feeling was so profound and so enjoyable it has never left me. To this day I watch virtually no television.
    I do, however, spend more and more time on the Internet, especially now that I write to my blog each day. And I am beginning to feel the adverse effects of it all. I now need to exercise some of that personal responsibility before I find my own energies severely imbalanced.
    Personal respobsibility and balance. That’s the ticket.
    The AMA did not come to any conclusion on this issue at their annual meeting. They have tabled it for now.  I hope for all their sakes they don’t spend too much time between now and their next annual meeting on their computers going back and forth over this issue.
    Otherwise, they might find themselves with what they would call “a real mental disorder.”
   
   
   

>    So much has been going on in my life this summer (not all of it intended) that I’ve reached a point of exhaustion. It’s a good time to think about “being” as opposed to “doing.”
    We are so action and accomplishment oriented in our society that we too often drive ourselves to the proverbial “edge” before acknowledging that sometimes it’s better to “just be” than to do anything at all.  I’m reminded of a scene from the Kevin Costner movie “Bull Durham” when, at the end of movie, Costner returns to his love, Maggie (played by Susan Sarandon)and finally express his love for her. Maggie goes into a stream of consciousness monologue about how she can change and what the relationship means to her when Costner interrupts and says, “That’s all fine. And we’ll get to all of it. But right now, I just want to be.” The next scene, and the last one in the movie, is a no-dialog shot of the two of them joyously, freestyle dancing in her living room.
    That’s what we don’t give ourselves enough of.
    Not so much silence and freestyle dancing as permission to just be.
    Just being is about truly feeling our inherent self-worth whether or not we make money or win a competition or excel in school or have a mate. It’s about honoring the temple that houses our Soul and slowing down enough to see and hear and smell the beauty in everything around us no matter where we are.
    In his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, Ph.D. and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl writes that when served dirty water with a floating fish head in it as the only meal of the day in the Concentration Camp, he was able “to see beauty in the floating fish head.”  Surely his circumstances had so brought him to the present moment and the value of not only the moment but everything around him that he learned this invaluable lesson. Through his writing, he has tried to impart that lesson to us.
    I oftentimes refer to Frankl’s quote when speaking to audiences or coaching one-on-one. But today I think I need to live it. 
    I am very tired (as I started out saying in this entry) and have many things that need my attention. I could keep busy the rest of the day just tending to a fraction of them.
    Instead, I think I’ll close now, go pick up the book I’m reading, and lay down on the couch. Maybe I’ll even fall asleep.
    Regardless, I’m going to love and value myself even though I’m not going to achieve anything more than resting…honoring the temple that houses my Soul.

>    It’s the 2007 Hurricane Season and the first official hurricane is wreaking havoc on the Caribbean islands in it’s path and is, as yet, headed for the Yucatan Peninsula with winds of 155 miles per hour.  Inhabitants of those countries are being warned to find shelter in special centers set up to withstand the onslaught of extreme weather conditions.
    Once again, there is much to learn from Nature.
    While we are routinely challenged by the mundane stressors of daily life, occasionally we find ourselves challenged by extraordinarily difficult circumstances. It may be illness, death of a friend or loved one, financial reversals, separation, divorce, an accident, or a myriad of other possibilities. Such experiences impact our emotional and mental worlds as surely as these hurricanes impact our physical world.
    Which is why it’s so important to have located, in advance, your “inner center.”
    An inner center is that place within you where you have defined and hold your core values and beliefs. Then, when external events become a drain or deplete your energies, you can gain nourishment and sustenance from within.
    In our society, we are encouraged to find a career, a religion, a mate and financial security.  And while each of these can provide a certain amount of comfort and value during difficult times, none of them can provide the necessary direction in your life to help you become who you really are or can be. That direction is internally generated.
    Back to Nature… where I always go for the big answers.    
    An orchid doesn’t turn to a daisy or a nearby oak tree and ask,”What should I look like? How should I grow?”  To the contrary, it has an internal “wisdom” that guides it from seed to bud to bloom.
    We humans are no different. Each of us has the capability, the inherent wisdom, to grow to become fully who we are as unique creations. However, when we turn to others and take on their values and beliefs instead of cultivating our own, we not only deny our individuality, we set up false hope that somehow others know better than we do what is right for us…what will “save” us.
    Certainty about what you believe and value based upon your own experience, not the experience of others, is how you cultivate and maintain an internal center. Then, when the winds of life come blowing at gale force, it’s easy to go within and deeply anchor yourself to your own foundation.
    It’s the only real shelter from the storm.
   

>    The DOW Jones Industrial Average has been going up and down like a  roller coaster the past few weeks as news of the sub-prime mortgage market continues to be grim. It seems there’s daily “Breaking News” about sudden large losses followed by just as sudden rebounds.
    What’s going on, you wonder? Is this all a foreboding of things worse yet to come? Should you be withdrawing your finances from whatever investment vehicles you now have them in and converting to cash and gold, well hidden and quickly accessible in case of a collapse in the economic markets?
    Instead of pondering that intense question (bound to give you a migraine) I’ll give you one word to ponder: Hologram. That’s how I refer to all of the “news” we’re fed every day. It’s a giant web of images and, depending on where you’re standing (or how your consciousness is operating), it’s quite the different view.
    I remember in 2001, shortly after my father passed away, I had the responsibility of re-investing certain assets on behalf of my mother who survived him. After several discussions with well-informed financial analysts, I made my decision to invest some of the assets in relatively stable mutual funds. Then the bottom of the market fell out. I watched as the investment lost almost 50% of it’s worth overnight.
    We were not alone. Everyone took the hit. However, while some forcasted yet more dire future consequences and downturns, I just decided that it was a “long-term approach and, therefore, couldn’t be meaningfully evaluated in the short-term.
    This is not a bad analogy for all of Life…which is why I call the news we’re overwhelmed with a hologram.
    If you buy into all the negativity that’s being put out there every minute of every day then you’re going to see one kind of picture. But, if you’re willing to think for yourself and focus your mind and your energies on more positive aspects of existence, then you’re going to see quite another.
    Further, if you’re all about instant gratification, then what’s happening in the moment is all that really matters. Combining a negative view with instant gratification is a recipe for depression and hopelessness. To the contrary, combining a positive view with the patience to allow the longer-term picture to emerge is a recipe for joy and faith.
    Hhmmm…over here depression and hopelessness…over there joy and faith. Now what should I do?
    Well, it’s a no-brainer for me.  How about you?
    Oh, and that 2001 investment? It’s all back and even greater than itS orignal value.
    Maybe there is something to optimism and patience afterall.

>    It isn’t often that I revisit a news story I previously commented on but this whole Mattel/Fischer-Price toy recall continues to be fraught with issues we really need to address. 
    Two days ago, in my blog entry “Toys for Tots” I quoted the CEO of Mattel, Bob Eckert, as stating “Nothing is more important that the safety of our children.” In that piece, I pondered what the world would be like if that statement were universally true.
    Such was the point of my entry, although I did note in closing the irony that all of these toxic and dangerous toys are being outsourced at Mattel’s discretion to China, a country that has no child labor laws.
    On second thought, however, that point needs more than a passing glance. It deserves it’s own entry and this is it.
    If Mattel really cared about children, and not just the financial bottom line, the obvious would occur. They would not outsource to a country that 1)uses child labor and 2) so disregards and devalues female children that their orphanages (and their streets) are filled with female infants, toddlers and homeless young girls that nobody wanted.
    That’s China’s problem. Mattel’s problem is that they are hypocrites. Our problem is that we aren’t doing anything about it. What can we do, you say?
    “Don’t buy Fischer-Price or Mattel toys” comes the reply.   
    Now I know that would put added pressure on you from your child based upon their ongoing manipulation by multi-media advertisements that promote the latest and greatest toy that he or she simply has to have. And I know it makes your life a little more challenging because then you have to find alternative toys with which to engage your child.
    But here’s the thing.
    If you know that the manufacturer is deliberately and willfully choosing to do business in and with a country that devalues human rights and human life, and if you deliberately and willfully continue to purchase those toys and thereby support such policies and behavior, then you become the problem… because you see a better way and consciously choose not to choose it.
    I don’t give advice in a vacuum.
    We have a 14-year-old daughter who I often refer to in my blogs. While she’s beyond the Mattel/Fischer-Price age for the most part, we are still daily challenged to limit, or sometimes refuse, purchases and pursuits that are “in” because not to do so would violate particular beliefs or strong opinions that we espouse. My husband and I hope that in the big picture, seeing us hold fast to our principles will serve her far better than ownership of some trendy and disposable item. So we live the difficulties of choice… but we also live the rewards.
    Did I mention our daughter is from China?
    We adopted her when she was 2 years old. She survived those first two years no thanks to the non-existence of her birth country’s human rights policy…or Mattel’s business practices, for that matter.
    Perhaps that’s why this story seems to stick with me a little longer than most.
   

>    Lately we’ve been doing some renovating at our house which has required a lot of clearing out and discarding of things that are no longer needed or of service. It has me thinking about our elected officials.
    Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to go on a tirade about how corrupt and awful most of them are (on both sides of the isle) then rant and rave with no substantive idea about how to change things.
    It’s not about them, it’s about us. And I’ve got an idea about what we can do
    As I look back on my life, and also our recent renovations, I see a clear pattern and helpful indicator. Whenever I have accomplished something in my life that was important and meaningful, I did it because I knew what I wanted and placed unwavering focus on my desired outcome. It’s really simple to comprehend. However, putting it into action is another story.
    Those things that I accomplished with unwavering focus had another critical component. I felt passionate about what I wanted. As a result, there was a lot of emotional energy driving both what I was thinking as well as what I was doing about it. That’s really the key. The power of thought and action fueled by positive emotion.
    So, back to our politicians. It is our collective habit to groan and moan about how corrupt and deceitful and greedy they are and how they’re not doing the jobs they were elected to do. But all of our moaning and complaining just gets us more of what we already have because 1) we’re stuck in seeing what we have instead of what we want and, 2) all that moaning and complaining is not fueling anything other than our own frustration.
    What we need is best exemplified by those who founded this country. I’m not talking about a political debate on whether you think the Constitution is a “living” document or whether you’re a “strict constructionist” when it comes to government. Those are red herrings the political analysts and pundits like to throw out there periodically when it’s time to appoint a new Federal or Supreme Court justice.
    I’m talking about the vision, certainty and passion that Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams (and all the unnamed women of the time) had that moved this nation in a unique direction and created a truly inspired governing document. They knew what they wanted and they did what they had to do to make it happen.
    We are headed for a Presidential election in 2008. There are many contenders from multiple parties. What if we stop complaining, decide what it is we really want, generate a lot of emotion around that goal, then take action to ensure we get it?
    I’m certain that if enough of us take this approach, and settle for no less than our vision, we can change the pattern and co-create a candidate whose election defies the odds and the powers that be.
    Certainty! Focus! Passion!
    Now there’s a bumper sticker.
   

>    Mattel, parent company of Fischer-Price, has stated through it’s Chairman, Bob Eckert that “Nothing is more important than the safety of our children.”
    Imagine if that were true. What would our world be like?

1.  No guns.

2.  No violent video games.

3   No reality TV.

4.  No behavioral altering additives to food and candy.

5.  No seductive, sexually suggestive advertising aimed at teenagers.

6.  No child abuse.

7.  No sub-standard education.

8.  Mandatory life sentences for 1st time child sex offenders.

9.  No weapons manufactured as “toys.”

10. No cigarettes.

11. No culturally encouraged dating by kids under the age of sixteen.

12. No dumping of pre-school-age children in daycare with strangers.

13. No over-medicating of children for behavioral issues.

14. Parents spending time with children instead of buying them off with “things” and using unsupervised TV as a substitute babysitter.

15. No fast food restaurants.

16. No child obesity.

17. No anorexia/bulimia epidemic.

18. The “de-idolization” of youth as a cultural aspiration.

19. The end to exploitative child labor.

20  The end of trafficking in child prostitution.

    So, since “nothing is more important than the safety of our children,” for now let’s just get the lethal lead out of the paint and recall the toys with deadly parts that we’ve turned our attention from in order to manufacture them cheaper in China (using child labor).
    Surely the other 19 issues can wait. 
    I wonder.
    How long can we afford to let the children wait?