WHY STICKS AND STONES GET A BAD RAP

Do you remember “sticks and stones might break my bones but names will never hurt me?”

Is that still a thing?  Or did it go the way of “retard”* and “that’s so gay!”* (we can only hope)?

I would like to take this opportunity to speak out on the behalf of sticks and stones everywhere:  that is to say, words are much worse.  Much, much worse.  Like, see above (*) worse.  Like “you were seriously concerned about her e-mails” worse.

The older I get (and the more I put my own words out there as a writer), the more I realize that the pen is ACTUALLY mightier than the sword.  Our words are our weapons, and social media has made it all too convenient to levy them against people we don’t even know.  Words are the epitome of the cliché—they can be your BEST friend or your WORST enemy.

As your unofficial best friend, I would like to encourage you to use your words wisely.

It feels like my country has plunged into a war of words that shows no signs of abating; we have a “so-called” leader who uses words (the BEST words) so indiscriminately it is entirely clear that he has no idea what he’s talking about most of the time.  The worst part of it is, the person who is supposed to be the voice of our nation is instead the voice of division, fear, pettiness, ego and tyranny.  The worst part is, the man who should be our voice of reason is instead the voice of destructive deceit.

This puts us all into a uniquely awkward position:  how to disavow this man without using words destructively ourselves?

It is interesting to note as you go through your day how powerfully the words you speak and hear impact you.  How quickly can a “bad” day be turned around by kind and uplifting words from a friend or stranger?  How wonderful do you feel when you pay someone a compliment and they light up?  How encouraging is it when you hear something you needed to hear at the exact right moment, sometimes even just as lyric on the radio?

It is amazing how careless we are with our words, considering how they can literally make or break any experience or relationship.  When cruel or spiteful words are directed at us, they can take our breath away more than even a physical punch to the stomach; but we recover from hurt muscles so much more quickly than hurt feelings.  The broken bones from sticks and stones will inevitably mend; the devastation viciousness levies on our hearts and psyches can become an eternal feature of our consciousness.

Yet it is so tempting to meet meanness with meanness, intolerance with contempt!  Language is our medium and we fling it about all day long with so little care.  Even inside our own heads, what are the words we play for ourselves on that endless loop?

“The Power of Positive Thinking” gets brushed off as New Age nonsense in an unusual show of solidarity between intellectuals and the undereducated alike; yet it is the thoughts we are thinking that have the greatest impact on our lives of all.  Not just the self-critical thoughts, either.  It is crucial during this challenging time to remember that as important as it is to stand up for our morals and beliefs, it is equally important not to spend our days and nights stewing about injustice, either.

In the Harry Potter series, the arch villain Voldemort is more often referred to as He-who- must-not-be-named because of the belief that speaking the word increases its power.  Many people have adopted this approach regarding our current government leader because to refer to the man by his job title seems to legitimize his destructive words and behaviors.  I think this is a much more effective strategy than name-calling and insult hurling (although I will admit to being the first person to laugh at a particularly clever insult under these trying circumstances) because it takes away his power.

How does it take away his power if he still has the job, you ask?  Here’s how:  if you are anything like me, trying to put the word “President” in front of that name not only feels wrong, it actually causes an anxiety response.  Calling him “45” or He-who-must-not-be-named does not.  Anxiety can have a crippling effect on our cognitive ability (here, I googled so you don’t have to).   So I have taken away his power to have a crippling effect on my cognitive ability.  That’s a good thing, right?

But this is true of all the different kinds of thoughts we think.  When we focus our attention on words (President) and things that make us anxious, we are actually debilitating ourselves.  Now, if you are a person who suffers from an actual anxiety disorder, there is help available to cope with that.  But if you are like me and are simply using your own words and thoughts against yourself, now would be a particularly good time to cut that sh*t out.

In addition to all the aforementioned anxiety provoking stimuli, I have a lot of major stressors happening in my personal life all at once right now.  I have to be vigilant with my words and thoughts in order not to get swept away into overwhelm.  This is an every minute of every day endeavor, and some days I am more successful than others.

On a recent day when I was trying very hard but being not-so-successful, I made a run to the grocery store.  As I was mentally trying to “talk myself away from the ledge”, I parked my car and when I got out right there was a truck with a quote from the Philippians stenciled on the back:  “Be anxious for nothing”.  And of course I went from fretting to laughing in a heartbeat.  Those were the exact words I needed to see at just the exact right moment, and I wish I had left a note on that vehicle telling the people who owned it as much.

Another great truth put forth in the Book of Matthew is this:  “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”  Our words and thoughts are the most potent means available to us to be effective and impactful, not only in our own lives but in the lives of others.  In every exchange we have we are choosing to serve fear or faith, oppression and exclusion or openness and oneness. 

Sticks and stones might break your bones (but usually not, bones are pretty sturdy things) but now more than ever we see words have nuclear capability.  To the cliché “is it kind, true or necessary” I would add “helpful” and “productive” to the litmus test for the words we are using.  By first changing our words and thoughts, we are well on the way to changing the world.

 

WHY TODAY IS YOUR LUCKY DAY!

Growing up, I often heard my Grandmother say about my Dad, “If he fell into a bucket of scheisse, he’d find a diamond ring.”  I also heard my Father tell anyone who would listen, “All of my life I’ve had good luck.”  Now, in a chicken and egg scenario, I cannot tell you which actually came first:  Dad having extraordinary good fortune, or Dad being told that he had good fortune, but the end result was the same.  He always got the big half of the wishbone, and he counted that blessing daily.

I, on the other hand, never considered myself to be particularly lucky.  I wasn’t athletic or naturally competitive, so “winning” was not really part of my skill set.  I was the most physically delicate and emotionally fragile of my siblings, so I suffered both injury and insult at their hands.  I never had difficulty making new friends, but I was also never what you would describe as “popular”.  Unlike my Dad, I didn’t have an intrinsic sense of being fortunate; I believed hard work, academic achievement and living according to my morals would be the road to a successful and happy life.

However, in spite of graduating from an excellent college and continuing to conduct myself in business and relationships in a way I felt proud of, my streak of not-such-great-luck continued into adulthood.  Mountains of effort produced very little achievement (or so it felt to me) and things that seemed to come so easily for most presented virtually insurmountable obstacles.  In spite of this, I would never have described myself as an unhappy person.  I genuinely liked being me (still true) and I had a lot of wonderful relationships that reflected the idea of my value and lovability back to me. 

One thing that I did occasionally experience was what I call grace, but for the sake of this discussion I will call supernatural level-luck.  That is to say, although my day-to-day existence often felt bumpy and filled with disappointments, I had moments in my life that could only be described as “divine intervention”.  Like when I left my Filofax (remember those?) containing my driver’s license, bank card, money and all of my personal contacts in a phone booth (remember those?) on my way to work, and when I got home that night found it waiting for me because a stranger had driven an HOUR to return it.  I have a whole series of stories like that, and they never fail to amaze my listeners.  And although my professional life failed to yield any breakthroughs, I did finally have my dreamed of (and worked for) child.

Life was good.  But I still didn’t consider myself lucky.  And then, the scheisse hit the fan.

I have written before about how heart-wrenching and continuously challenging the four years following the birth of my son were; they sort of epitomized the adage, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all”.  There was personal loss, job loss, upheaval and a little person depending on me who needed more care, attention and intervention than most children.  I spent four years putting out fires in my super hero cape, and a lot of the hopes and dreams I had for myself simply fell by the wayside. 

Surviving, not thriving was the order of the day.

When the dust finally settled and I looked around, I saw that not only had I survived, but I was raising a happy, healthy kid who had inherited my Dad’s “lucky” gene; the butterflies always landed on him.  And crawling out of my self-imposed emotional bomb shelter, I started forming friendships and connections that felt healthy and supportive.  In this new reality, I started to revisit some of my own hopes and dreams.

In this new reality, I started to realize that “All of my life, I’ve had good luck.”

In viewing my life story as a retrospective, I began to marvel at how the pieces of this intricate puzzle all fit together irrevocably…you can’t pull even one of them out without distorting the picture.  During those difficult years, I started saying, “Today’s bad experience is tomorrow’s funny story”, a somewhat diminishing way of voicing this essential truth.  Every loss, every disappointment, every challenge somehow became a building block to a more authentic existence.

Recently a young Pastor at my church gave a beautiful sermon about his early days in ministry; he was assigned to a parish in a very economically depressed community.  During his first visit to the church, he noticed what he thought was an unusual stockpile of communion bread.  When he asked about it, he was informed that many of the families in the congregation were so poor they counted on that food for their Sunday meal.

Shortly after his arrival, he was called upon to write a sermon about how “The Lord Provides”; in looking at the poverty of his parishioners, he felt uncomfortable preaching such a lesson.  He struggled with the message all week, and entered church that Sunday uninspired.  It was the habit at that particular parish to start each service with petitions, so before he spoke, he let his congregants offer their prayers for intercession and give thanks for blessings.

Aristotle wrote, “He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.” A woman stood up, a woman the Pastor knew to have very little financially, and gave praise to God for her tremendous good fortune.  She was thankful for the air she breathes; she was thankful for her community; she was thankful for the knees she got down on to pray.  Her litany of gratitude was so extensive that the young man realized on that day that he was her follower.  She had taught him that “The Lord Provides”, not the other way around.

In thinking on this, I have decided that this thing we call “luck” is actually just our normal day-to-day experience.  Most of the time we have air to breathe, community to engage with and knees.  We have a beating heart and a thinking brain.  We have the capacity to learn and grow and most importantly, love.  Most of the time, we are not engaged in the tragic, the earth shattering, the soul rendering. 

Most of the time, we are lucky.

I believe now that my Dad understood this to his very core, and that was the message he was trying to teach.  Misfortune is the anomaly, but even misfortune is often simply a stepping stone to greater success or enlightenment.  Another thing my father was fond of saying was “Every day is a good day”; so I will now pass his wisdom on to you in this form:  “Every day is your lucky day”.

Every day you have a beating heart, a thinking brain, more to learn and love to give is your lucky day!  You decide what comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Will you decide you are lucky and then gather the evidence to support this truth, or will you have the experience and then bless it as lucky? 

Because the end result is the same:  Today is your lucky day!

WHY A CHANGE'LL DO YOU GOOD

I like to think I am fairly normal in that the very idea of change has always exhausted me.  Seriously, I don’t even like to change into my pajamas at the end of a long day and have been known to sleep wearing the same sweater and scarf I was sporting earlier at the Stop and Shop.  I enjoy my personal routines and get ruffled when they are interfered with in any way.  I hate surprises.

No, really.  Don’t test that.  It won’t go well.

That all having been said with emphatic self-awareness, I also realize, with the pristine 20/20 vision of hindsight, that my resistance to change has more often than not meant it has to be thrust upon me in a chaotic, uncontrolled manner.  Because I don’t frequently CHOOSE change and because change is inevitable, I have unfortunately found myself in a sh*tstorm that was not of my own making on too many occasions for it to be a coincidence. 

My takeaway on all of this is:  if you don’t embrace change, change will try its damndest to CRUSH you like an Acme anvil.

So here I am, gently (HA!) rolling down the other side of the hill and finally starting to learn that change is really a GOOD thing.  Because my resistance in the past has frequently caused change to be an unpleasant experience, what I had rolling down that hill was a virtual snowball of fear…the more I resisted change, the bigger that snowball got and the faster it moved.  So my indecision (fear of doing what I want to do rather than what I “should” do or what I have been doing) had me so off kilter that all of the systems in my life started crashing all at once. 

Recently, circumstances have pushed me over so many virtual cliffs that I have lost count, and in my free fall I am realizing that I had been teetering on the brink for so long I no longer even understood what “solid ground” felt like.  I have been living with one foot in the way things are and one foot poised over the way I want things to be.  I have been having an understandably difficult time finding balance in such a posture.

Okay, sidebar:  a friend and I were recently laughing about how growing up in the era we did and watching films and TV, you might have thought that being swallowed by quicksand was a top ten cause of death.  An epidemic of mythic proportions.  An imminent threat.

I don’t know when exactly the “quicksand” era ended in filmmaking, but it occurs to me that quicksand IS actually a top ten cause of death…meaning psychic quicksand and psychic death.

The older I get, the more I recognize we do have a tendency to get ourselves stuck into situations that suck the life and hope out of us; and like those old heroes of film, we believe that struggling against it will only make it worse.  Best to bear up and face our impending doom bravely.  As we nobly, slowly sink into the morass we have created; the proverbial captain going down with his ship.

But I’ll tell you the truth:  I have always thought nobility might be a little overrated.  I remember being scandalized by the fact that Cordelia put her personal aspirations to noble martyrdom over the well-being of her kingdom in King Lear.  And it turns out it’s a good thing I didn’t put much stock in it, because it’s damned hard to be noble when life has become Roadrunner to your Wile E. Coyote and all of your plans have backfired in your face.

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans” said a really smart guy whose classic wisdom would henceforth be misattributed to John Lennon because that’s just how it goes sometimes, ironically.  Change is what happens to us whether we make plans or not.  So I guess the bottom line here is that we may do better for ourselves if we plan to change.

My life has been forcing me to make all kinds of changes at gun(cannon)point recently, and while I wish I had been brave enough to take action before I was threatened, now that I am making the moves they feel pretty good.  Instead of feeling scared or overwhelmed, I feel invigorated and free.  Oh, and maybe a little overwhelmed, who am I kidding?

And as I am starting to embrace change, I am also totally starting to embody that old, totally un-P.C. expression “Ain’t nothing worse than a reformed drunk”.  Because I see people I care about who think they are stuck in situations that aren’t serving them and I feel a little giddily drunk myself, wanting to remind them they are free to make another choice.   And how much better would it be to make that choice rather than be forced into it?

The dust has not yet settled on my personal journey and more changes are currently in the works.  But I no longer fear the piano dropping out of the sky on my head because I am on the move.  The literal and the virtual are starting to work in tandem as I am clearing space in both my physical world and my mental one.

"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change," said Stephen Hawking, a fellow who knew a thing or two about adapting to change.  A change’ll do you good.  Without change, there is no growth; even if you have to take the proverbial two steps back, the person who makes the one step forward is more evolved and equipped than ever before.  That is what change always teaches us, ultimately:  we are capable of so much more than we imagine, if only we give ourselves a chance to try.

 

WHY I'M NOT AFRAID ANYMORE

In the delightful holiday comedy Home Alone, 8 year old Kevin McAllister is quite mistakenly left behind by his large and boisterous family as they embark on a trip to Paris during the Christmas holidays.  While this unexpected bit of freedom is initially invigorating to the child, he is also forced to confront, without the protection of his buffering brood, his fear of the basement.  And his creepy loner neighbor.  And eventually, the idiotic but destructive cat burglars who menace his home.

Not unlike Kevin, I have recently been going through some life changes where structures I thought I could count on are suddenly not there anymore.  And like him, I have found myself both invigorated and forced to face some fears that were long overdue for a showdown.  But in this month of miracles, I have turned a corner that made me think of this film for the first time ever in relation to my own life.

As the days pass, Kevin becomes more and more confident in his ability to handle himself under the extreme circumstances.  He is able to overcome his fear of the basement (to do laundry) and his neighbor (to make a new friend and ally) essentially by walking up to the lion.  But it is his fear of the unknown (the cat burglars) that presents his greatest test.

His initial reaction (understandably) is to run and hide.  How often do we, even as adults have this same impulse?  But then the moment comes (for him and us) where understanding dawns:  this is our life and our domain and if we don’t take care of it, no one else will.

It is at that point in the film that Kevin utters these immortal words:  “Hey, I’m not afraid anymore!”  It is at this point in my life that I find myself essentially on the same trajectory as an 8-year old in a comedy film from the early 90’s:  I’m not afraid anymore.

It is important to note that nothing in my external circumstances has changed to prompt this epiphany.  In fact, by all objective measures, things have gotten progressively worse over the last several months of my life.  But the huge and discernable difference I have been feeling is that I am not the subject of my circumstances; they are merely the subject of my attention or lack thereof.

In the movie, Kevin decides to fight back against what would most likely appear to be insurmountable odds to the majority of children his age (and perhaps even some adults!)  His methods of resistance are both devious and ingenious.  His response to the threat to his security and well-being might be the very definition of “thinking outside the box”.

Now I would like to, as an aside, confirm the fact that Christmas films, generally speaking, have the most plainspoken wisdom about the human condition available.  A Christmas Carol?  “Mankind is my business” and it is never too late to repent.  It’s a Wonderful Life?  “No man is a failure who has friends.”  While You Were Sleeping?  “Life is a pain in the ass.”  All profound truths, right?

But I had never quite seen the mythic quality of Home Alone until this year.

Kevin takes a three-pronged approach to the assault on his security; first and foremost, ACTION.  He booby-traps his house in a manner that would stymie even the most determined crook.  Secondly, he SEEKS ASSISTANCE.  He reaches out to the big man in the red suit to restore what he has lost.  Third is PRAYER.  He requests divine protection on his quest.  We would all do well to follow his guidelines for a happy and thriving life.

The beauty of Home Alone, however, is that there is no Deus ex Machina involved in his salvation.  He wins the day through his own directed behavior, the compassionate alliance he has made with his neighbor and his faith that all with be well.  He defeats the men who were threatening his home, but still makes time to prepare for the return of his family, as he has both prayed (to God) and asked (Santa) for; the stockings hanging on the hearth are a symbol of his active faith.

How often in life do we act without faith?  Or pray without acting?  Or seek assistance without being clear what we really want?  Or fail to seek assistance when we do? 

Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I don’t know what the kingdom of heaven means to you, but to me it is perfect faith and self-assurance, no matter what is going on around me.  Faith that all will be well (no matter what) and self-assurance (that I can handle it, no matter what). 

I’m not afraid anymore.  Life is a pain in the ass, but there is nothing life can throw at me that I am not equal to.  I’m not afraid anymore.  Mankind is my business; there is nothing worth doing or having or being that isn’t worth fighting for, and I am both worthy and to my very core a fighter.  I’m not afraid anymore.  No one is a failure who has friends, and I have faith that there are people who will support me and love me (no matter what). 

I’m not afraid anymore. 

Sometimes, when we face our fears, we discover they are silly (the basement).  Sometimes, when we face our fears, we realize we have been missing out (the “creepy” neighbor who turns out to be a savior and friend).  Sometimes, when we face our fears, we realize there is a fight ahead of us (the cat burglars).  But always, when we face our fears, we realize we are equal to them.  We realize it is a fair fight.

And then, we are not afraid anymore.

WHY I BELIEVE (IN SANTA)

Last week my 11 year old son boldly stated his intention to write a letter to Santa this year; the reason he felt the need to clarify is because last year I prepped him for the eventuality that one day he will no longer choose to do this.  I explained that as we outgrow toys, we outgrow the need for a visit from Santa and step aside to leave room on the sleigh for the requests of smaller children.  He accepted this notion without question, but was firm in his resolve to make his heartfelt wishes known to the man in the red suit yet again.  I told him it was fine by me, at which point he said with incredulity, “I really don’t understand how people can NOT believe in Santa.  Could ANYTHING be more obvious?”

He makes an excellent point.

For a guy who only shows up once a year, Santa has some kind of mad PR machine working for him.  Has there ever been anyone in the history of the world who has had more books, movies, songs and TV shows written about him?  Has any character appeared in more artwork, advertisements or on more street corners?  I’m not even going to attempt to research this, but in terms of public awareness, I’d say there is no one and nothing that ranks above St. Nick, with the possible exception of GOD.

See what I just did there?

My son’s canny observation prompted me to engage him in a conversation about the importance of our beliefs.  I explained to him that beliefs shape our perception of what we experience, so it is crucial to establish a strong and positive belief system about everything, most especially ourselves.  Our internal dialogue about whom and how we are is the number one factor in our effectiveness in engaging with others and the world at large.

He seemed to easily grasp the idea that his beliefs about himself would impact his life, but had a harder time understanding how denial of the obvious—Santa’s existence and climate change were the examples he used—could change or influence anything.  I told him that it all comes back to personal responsibility; what we believe drives our behavior and our behavior is the stone that causes the ripples in the pond.  We are powerful and influential beyond our wildest imaginings, so it is critically important to be a force for good.

This conversation caused me, naturally, to re-evaluate how my belief system has been working for me recently.  I have always been one of those everything-happens-for-a-reason people (with my apologies to the many wise and rational folk this understandably offends) because it is a belief that is helpful to me in looking at my experiences, most especially the frightening and damaging ones.  This belief has helped me to reframe some harshly negative incidents into something more empowering and useful.

However, I have also come to realize that I am a person who values clarity and certainty perhaps above all other things; this means whenever I am facing a challenging situation with no clear course to resolve, I have a tendency to panic.  My need to impose a positive meaning on all that is happening to me undermines my ability to let go, go with the flow and TRUST.  In other words, I have a constant urgent yearning to skip to the end of the book (they lived happily ever after!) instead of living in the uncertain and messy present.

I want the wisdom and reward without the journey.  Is it just me?

There is a great deal of uncertainty in my life right now, and therefore my son’s as well; it is not surprising that he would want to dig into his belief in the positive (Santa) during this challenging time.  I had a dream recently that I was in the woods alone at night on a snow covered trail; the only light was the moon and walking in the deep drifts was arduous work.  I was overcome with fear and doubt—should I turn around or keep going?  Except I couldn’t remember where I was coming from or how far I’d already walked; also, I wasn’t sure where I was going or how long it would be until I got there.

In the dark, cold woods, alone at night with no idea whether I am coming or going sounds about right these days.  But in my dream I heard the voice of a beloved friend urging me on:  “Just stay on the path.”  I cannot tell you how many times I have repeated this line to myself since I had that dream.   Keep going, keep moving and stay on the path.

In this place I have become interested in the fact that the words “belief” and “faith” are often used interchangeably.  Living with uncertainty and strife, I have come to realize that while my belief system is undeniably strong, my faith could actually use some work.  My tendency to apply positive meaning in retrospect, while helpful, is nowhere near as powerful as an ability to find value in the present.

The holiday season is called “the season of faith” because it is a time of hopeful expectancy.  As Christians await the birth of a savior, children await the visit from St. Nick and we all await the New Year, our gratitude goes before us—there is absolutely no doubt these things will come.  And it occurs to me this is the very definition of faith:  gratitude in advance.

A child who has misbehaved still waits with an optimistic view that Santa will deliver; as adults we trip and fall but go forward with the idea that our missteps are still leading us somewhere we want to be.   My belief in myself and my capabilities and in the essential goodness and healthy symbiosis of mankind is fertile ground for inevitable growth and mutually beneficial shared experiences.   However, it is actually my gratitude for all that is yet to be that helps me stay on the path.

This Christmas, I think I will be writing a letter to “Santa”.  Like my son, I will share all of my heartfelt wishes knowing that whether or not I have been “good” or “bad” I can still be grateful for all that has been, all that is and all that will be.  As with Scrooge’s ghosts, I can take stock in the past, present and future knowing that every moment has the potential for a new beginning.

And when we are grateful for each and every moment we have knowing without a doubt that good is coming, we are living in faith.  That is what Christmas and Santa remind us to believe every year.

Could anything be more obvious?

WHY RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN

As a kid, I was a stickler for “the rules”.  I was that stock character, familiar to anyone who has as ever watched a film centered around children, who would be labelled “the killjoy”.  My constant refrain was “Guys, we’re going to get in trouble!”  Yes, I said it whiny, too.

My parents were incredibly supportive of us and our various differences—we were not compared to each other and as the family book worm there was no pressure on me to perform well at sports.  Likewise, my more athletic siblings were not expected to bring home straight A’s.  The only thing my parents insisted on uniformly was that we be compassionate, moral people.  That we treat each other well and be generally polite and respectful.  My Mom tells a story of attending a luncheon where the ladies she was with were voicing their dreams for their sons; while the others stated material goals like a doctor, lawyer success story, my Mother simply said, “I want my son to be a kind man”.

She got her wish on that one.  What she didn’t get was another invitation to lunch from those particular women.

Kindness being our only mandate meant some of us were a bit rebellious when it came to following the rules-of-law.  There may have been beer hidden, cigarettes smoked and curfews broken.  There may have been some escapades taken that would have been missed out on if everyone had been shackled down by “the rules”.  But that was only me.

I found the rules very comforting.  Partly because I love structure and knowing what is expected of me—I will never be one to “fly by the seat of my pants”.  But also partly because I got a lot of my self-esteem from being a “good girl”.  I mistakenly believed this would make me more lovable, more acceptable.  If I never broke the rules, no one could ever have a problem with me.  Yeah, I was young and naïve.

By the time I went away to college I was the quintessential goody-two-shoes.  Good grades, no boyfriends or experimenting with drugs; I did drink once at a party but immediately confessed to my parents when I was dropped off at home.  They seemed more amused than angry.  Possibly even a little relieved that I was normal-ish.

I was blessed in my freshman year with a roommate who had been raised with values similar to mine who also happened to be, as luck would have it, a bit of a goody-two-shoes.  She and I were birds of a feather and spent our first semester away from home not going to parties and acting out, but instead embarking on what we called “adventures”.  These consisted mainly of driving around the area looking for new restaurants to try and going to the movies.  We were having quite a marvelous time, honestly.

But at the end of that first term, during our exam study period, we took a leap I will never forget.  It was nearly ten o’clock at night and we were bleary eyed from pouring over materials when she looked at me and asked, “Do you want to drive down to Rockefeller Center to see the tree?”  Crazy talk!  Who does such a thing at ten o’clock at night when there are exams to be studied for and sleep to be had?

We did!  Recruited a carload, actually.  And as we drove for 2 hours down the Taconic Parkway my predominant thought was this—for the very first time in my life, my parents have no idea where I am or what I am doing.  It was exhilarating!  I was certain that if I had asked permission for this particular lark, I would have been turned down cold.  As tame as it all seems in retrospect, I felt a little mad with power.

This story of my first grand taste of freedom ends rather anti-climatically.  We must have pulled up the curb to look at the tree at 11:59 precisely.  Because after about 60 seconds of blissful observation, the tree lights went dark.  Two hours for 60 seconds of splendor.  Of course, a bunch of sleep-deprived 18 year old girls couldn’t help but find this hilarious.  We turned around and got right back on the road to school, btw.  Good girls to the core.

But I have always thought of that night as a seminal moment in my life.  It was the first time I had really considered that my happiness, my authentic self might exist somewhere outside of the rules, outside of those neat lines.  The experience changed me.  I was still a good student, still didn’t do drugs, still essentially followed the “straight and narrow”.  But I became a braver human in general; braver about using my voice, braver about pursuing the things that truly interested and mattered to me, braver about being myself. 

Now I am a mother and I’m raising my son much in the way my parents raised my siblings and I; less emphasis on “achievements” and more on core values.  Learning from example I figure if I too bring up a kind man, I will have done the world the greatest parenting service possible.  Especially in these times, when my son is unfortunately exposed to unkind men in positions of great power, I tell him not to be impressed by status but instead by conduct towards others.  I am teaching my child that a man is never heroic by virtue of title, fortune or power; heroism can only be defined as willingness to help those in need.

When I look back on my life so far, I see that some of my greatest learning experiences and most indelible memories are those times when I took a chance "the rules" would have advised against.  The guidelines they provide, while not without merit, are just a starting point in life.  There is no great accomplishment without some risk;  it is impossible to fully realize who you are without making some mistakes. 

I am teaching my son not to live for anyone's approval, but instead to take action and speak words that he is comfortable with and proud of...there will be times in his life when "the rules" are at odds with his core values but to be fully alive is never to be contained by the mandates of others.   I will tell him that there really is only one rule that must always be followed: treat others as you wish to be treated yourself.  I read that somewhere, and it seems solid to me. 

Golden, actually.

WHY WE FALL

When I was a child, I loved wearing dresses.  Naturally my mother indulged me in this and being handy with a sewing machine even made several for me.  We were recently laughing about my propensity for sporting the floor length variety (this was the 70’s) to elementary school and the year I insisted she make a matching Holly Hobbie bonnet for my school pictures (this was the 70’s!). 

Years later I had a neighbor tell me that my nickname on the block was “the little girl in the dress”.

Of course growing up in the Northeast necessitated matching tights for a good portion of the year, an accessory I also loved.  One day Mom bought me a brand new pair and I was so excited I insisted on trying them on immediately.  Before I had a chance to adequately admire how they looked, I was sent on an errand up the road; I quickly accomplished this and was happily skipping my way home when it happened:  I fell.  Flat on my face.  In the middle of the street.

I lay there, stunned and confused—bloody and in pain, my new tights in tatters, I felt like I couldn’t move.  Fortunately, a neighbor saw me and before someone came along and ran me over, he quickly scooped me up and carried me home.  There was no recrimination for having destroyed the new purchase (except from myself); Mom picked the stones out of my knees and carefully cleaned and bandaged them.  One wound was so deep I have a scar to this day.

Falling while human is an inevitability.  This is something we are forced to learn over and over again; as we grow, more often the fall is not a physical one, but emotional or spiritual.  We fall in love, we stumble in faith, we trip on doubt. 

Life has a way of bringing us to our knees, literally and figuratively, and often at the absolute worst time.  Sometimes we lose support structures we counted on—jobs, relationships, health—and then we can tumble into a free fall.  No net, no lifeline, just the sense of an absolute vacuum with no solid ground in sight.  

Often when we fall in life, it is a physical manifestation of the fact that we have been trudging, or dragging our heels.  Bad jobs, imbalanced relationships and unwise health decisions are all things we know intellectually should be changed or removed, but if this were some easy task, the expression “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” would never have caught on.  The extreme example, familiar to psychologists and people who work in child protective services, is children who do not want to be removed from abusive homes.  Although to all with an outside perspective on the situation, this would obviously be the best course of action.

Even as adults with productive lives, we can fall into a fear based pattern of clinging to people and situations and behaviors that are harmful to us simply because they are what we know.  But growing while human is also an inevitability if you are even a little bit awake; so when we try to hang on to structures that hinder our growth, sometimes life gives us a little push.  And seemingly without warning, we are flat on our faces in the middle of the street.

Yet of course there were warnings. 

There was escalating unhappiness, fighting or symptoms; there was an over reliance on coping mechanisms or numbing techniques.  All of this fairly SHOUTING “Things have got to change!!!”  The more we try to ignore this voice, the louder and more insistent it becomes, and we ignore it at our own peril.  Because if you can hear that voice, there will be a reckoning; either heed the signs and take action or you will be pushed. 

You will fall.

The bad news is that if we ignore our inner guidance long enough to precipitate a fall, there may be collateral damage we will never fully recoup.  The good news is that necessary change, even by a forced hand, is always a positive thing.  Yes, as a society we have certainly at the very least embraced the meme that “Change is good”, but internally our acceptance of that has a lot of “buts” attached, as in “but you go first.” 

So blood pressure and blood sugar rise without us taking action to stop it—until a crisis is reached.  We do the same in jobs and relationships; the same old same old until the consequences of our complacency explodes right in our faces.  This is what we commonly refer to as “a wake-up call”.

We get our wake-up call and find ourselves in the middle of the street, flat on our faces.  Every now and then a kindly soul will see us laying there and carry us out of harm’s way.  More often than not we somehow manage to drag ourselves to our feet and persevere.  Occasionally we just lie there until we get run over, too.  In these moments we understand that as powerful as the human spirit can be, our resistance to becoming can be even greater. 

But this is why we fall:  we are here for becoming.  We are here for growth.  We are here for change.

The “fall” is actually a push past your own resistance, your own hang-ups, your own self-doubt.  The fall is actually the universe sending you the message that you are ready for more, you are ready to become more.  We understand this intrinsically when we are falling in love; yes, there is a risk in that vulnerability but if we are willing to take the leap, the risk will always pay off in a more evolved relationship to the self, if not to the other.

This is why we fall.  Like the trees now shedding their leaves, we fall and experience the winter of our soul; a barren and seemingly dormant stretch where we retreat to that inner guidance we ignored and finally give it our full attention.  And without the distractions of the “devil we know” getting in the way, we at last hear the message it has been shouting at us for so long.

Winston Churchill said, “To improve is to change; to perfect is to change often.”  When we resist change, we are resisting becoming our best selves.  This is why we fall; because our best self is always fervently hoping to swoop in and save us from our fear.