by Ellyn Zografi | Mar 30, 2021 | On Being Human
It all started when I was skiing with a friend. She was watching me snowplow down a steep incline when she shouted, “You know it’s okay to be a beginner.” I will be eternally grateful to her for saying that to me. Because at that moment, I realized, I didn’t know this was okay at all.
When we are children, we are experts on being a beginner.
When we are adults, we are ashamed when we don’t feel like experts when we are learning something new. We seem to lose the ability to learn effectively. It is not easy to teach an older body new skills, just like it is not easy for adults to learn a new verbal language. Children seem to pick up new skills easily; without shame when they aren’t perfected from the get-go. Their minds are aligned with it being a new experience, rather than trying to ram some preconceived idea of “how it is supposed to be” into the reality of their process. Back to me learning to ski.
It is not an argument that I am learning to ski at not a young age.
Three years ago, I found myself living in one of the most challenging ski areas in the country, surrounded by people who are expert skiers, many who have been skiing since before they could walk, or so long they don’t remember or know what “learning to ski” means (just as we don’t remember learning to talk or walk). Upon arrival, I readied myself to learn to ski. However, what I didn’t do was allow myself to “be a beginner”. I strapped myself with the right equipment, got myself up high into the mountains, challenged myself with steeper and steeper terrain, went through some motions of “skiing” from what I observed others doing, and from others’ suggestions but… I didn’t do the most important thing when we are to learn something new–something that just comes naturally to us as children.
I hadn’t started where I began. What?
In other words, I had started where I wanted to be, not where I was when I started. Recently another friend took me out on the slopes. I had been telling her that lately, I hadn’t wanted to go out skiing and how I felt badly and confused about this. After a hot chai and an appreciative glance around the mountainscape, she said, “Today we are going to learn to turn…on flat ground”. I was confused. How is this going to help me be a better skier if I am not challenging myself with steeper angles? What is the point of skiing if I am learning on flat ground?
As we started our lesson turning the skis back and forth, I suddenly realized that because I wasn’t preoccupied with hope and fear of just making it down the hill (because it was, remember, mostly flat), I had the bandwidth to engage my mind in a way that connected what I was actually doing with my body. My mind got a chance to take the reins. Before this, my mind and body were never connected in my learning process. My mind was hopelessly abandoned as I forced my body to do what it was supposed to without allowing my brain to participate with some new knowledge and then, only then, connect and be in conversation with my body. Up until this moment, as my body attempted to turn this way, lean on my edges that way, lean forward this way, plant my poles that way, my mind was off somewhere else proverbially covering its eyes, holding its breath, and with white knuckles and between clenched teeth saying hope this works this time.
From “surviving” to feeling joy
As I inched along the mostly flat ground slowly turning this way, and then slowly turning the other way I was, as my other friend so accurately described, being a beginner! I thought “Oh this is how this works!” As we left the flat ground for the top of the mountain, not only was I able to apply what I learned on flat ground to steeper terrain, engaging my brain to communicate with my body thus shifting from “surviving” down the hill to skiing effectively down the hill, I was feeling joy!
Now, what does this have to do with anything else? I often hear in my work my clients wanting to “be somewhere they are not”. I want to be more organized. I want to eat healthier. I want to communicate better with my partner. Etc. And feel frustrated with their lack of progress or reaching these goals. Just as I wanted to be shredding down the mountain instantly after deciding to learn to ski, we often want instant results when we set any goal for ourselves. Unlike children, we have a set picture in our minds of what we are aspiring to that, unfortunately, can impede rather than inspire because of how frustrated we get that we have not reached that picture.. immediately.
It may not be as an exciting slogan but “shoot for the stars” may be better off being something like:
Grab a ladder, put your foot on the first step, and start climbing.
Start where you begin.
Be a beginner.
Thanks for showing up for yourself today and taking the time to reflect.
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by Ellyn Zografi | Jan 19, 2021 | On Being Human, Suggested Read
I can see the moment clearly. I am at a weekly training with my coworkers. We work at a vocational agency that helps adults with developmental disabilities find employment and/or enrichment opportunities. Our executive director is holding up a drawing, seemingly created by a child – or more likely – one of our clients. We have seen this kind of drawing a million times (every day perhaps) part of our job handing out a plethora of paper and markers to our clients to express themselves, calm down their bodies if upset, or pass time while waiting for rides to their jobs or home for the day. These drawings pile up in their lockers only to be recycled or thrown away periodically. A client sometimes will gladly hand a drawing over a support staff, saying, “This is for you”.
Sadly, no one is hanging them on the wall or a refrigerator. They aren’t special.
Or, are they?
The executive director pulls out a beautiful, ornate frame with a glass pane. She picks up a scribbled upon piece of paper, destined for the garbage. She carefully places it in the frame. We get it. What before looked like just another piece of paper with broad strokes, tiny circles, and a trace of an image is magically transformed into artwork. It looks special. It suddenly illuminates the uniqueness of the individual who created it. We see something we didn’t see before. She framed it in a way in which it changed what it was.
Framing or Reframing is a common technique used in counseling. A client will present to the therapist an issue with a specific and rigid perspective. The therapist, of course, doesn’t pull out a picture frame. But something like it. They metaphorically place something around the thoughts that redefines the issue. The therapist offers an alternative perspective. They re-frame it. They help the client see it as something different than before.
One example. Reframing a feeling
A client comes in saying that she is sad because her teenager seems to behave politely to everyone but her. She is bemoaning the fact that her child “lets it all out” on her but “is nice as pie with everyone else”. The client sees this as something fundamentally wrong with not only herself but that it must mean something bad about her relationship with her child. Possibly the child doesn’t like her. Possibly there is something inherent about her that makes her child treat her badly. The therapist suggests something different. She offers a perspective that maybe she, her client, is the only person with which the teen feels completely comfortable and safe. It is one relationship in which the child can release emotions authentically, even the unpleasant ones, and know they will not be rejected or abandoned. Suddenly this isn’t about there being something wrong with the relationship, but quite the opposite–that the mother is providing a space the child can’t find elsewhere. The mother, strapped with this new framework, might possibly be able to hold space for her child’s behavior in a different way, without feeling rejected, defensive, or worried. With this framework, she might be able to hold appropriate boundaries with her teenager, without internalizing something is wrong with her.
Re-framing isn’t only a therapeutic intervention. Unwittingly, we are often re-framers for each other just by our simple words or actions, or how we live our lives. Something we read in a novel or magazine article can reframe something that makes us less critical of ourselves. We may say something off the cuff and our friend, coworker, or family member could be quietly taking this in as a magical new outlook, one that impacts their life in explicit or implicit ways.
Where the river comes in
A beautiful example of something getting re-framed without it being labeled as such is shared in this article “Finding A Voice and Coming to Terms with a Stutter”. The article reviews a picture book called I Talk Like a River written by Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney Smith. According to the article, the author, Jordan Smith, has a stutter. But his book does not mention this fact explicitly, nor is it the main point of the story. It is poetry with pictures depicting one simple moment. A moment when Scott’s father told him that he talks like a river. This comment by the author’s father, however, was not an intentional move to re-frame his son’s stutter more positively. But, it did.
From the article:
And when Scott’s father told him he talked like a river, it wasn’t to share a profoundly philosophical thought. As a matter of fact, Scott doesn’t think his father even knew how profound his words were. It was just a little moment, an ordinary moment in an ordinary day, that changed the way Scott thought of his stutter.
And so the re-framing continues…
When I read this article, I was in a current state of feeling stuck about what to write for my next blog. I was getting mired down in self-defeating thoughts about the futility of even writing a blog in the first place. It started me down a path of being quiet; trying to find and justify reasons not to write – just like a stutterer might find reasons not to talk.
And then I looked up I Talk Like a River online. I listened to a short audio clip of the author reading his book. I heard him repeat what his father said:
See how that water moves, that’s how you speak…
Although referring to the author’s speech moving like a bubbling, churning, whirling, crashing river, upon hearing this, it somehow reframed my own negative thoughts around my ability and credibility to write. Just like a river doesn’t flow smoothly, a river also doesn’t worry whether it’s allowed. The author heard from his father’s comparison that his stutter was okay. He was allowed to talk, despite his stutter. I heard in this comparison I am allowed to write. I too, can churn, whirl, crash and bubble in my process. I write like a river.
Sometimes it takes a change of perspective to get the words flowing.
These words led to me finding my voice for this blog, and remembering one moment of my own- a moment when I was at work and my boss was framing a simple piece of paper with scribbles, and magically turning the paper, and the moment, into something I had never forgotten.
Enjoy this video right from the words of author and illustrator as well: PreviewPreview3:46I Talk Like a River book videoYouTube · Holiday HouseMay 11, 2020
Writing Exercises
- Write about a moment in time when your perspective changed when someone or something put a ‘different frame around it”
- Think of someone you know who is struggling with a specific perspective about themselves or life in general. Re-frame it.
- Write a poem or essay starting with Sometimes it Takes a Change of Perspective…
- What is something you churn, bubble, crash and whirl with? What do you do like a river?
Feel free to share with me what you wrote via email at ellyn@sixwillows.com. If you’d like feedback or have a discussion about what came up for you, let me know and we can schedule a time to talk.
Thanks again for showing up for yourself today, taking the time to reflect, receive and recognize who and where you are.
by Ellyn Zografi | Dec 16, 2020 | On Being Human
I would like to start this post with a poem by Danusha Lameris.
Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic Plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down a bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “ Go ahead- you first,” “I like your hat.”
– Danusha Lameris
One thing strikes me about this poem, which is part of a wonderful collection called Bonfire Opera, published in 2020. When written, it must have been pre-pandemic, as Lameris calls a ‘bless you’ in response to a sneeze “a leftover from the Bubonic plague, while we live very much today with a fear of what a cough or runny nose might mean for ourselves and others. Not much of a leftover anymore. It shows how much our world has changed in a short time, and how many of us are feeling at a loss of what we can do to feel better or to help others – at a time there is so much loss, uncertainty and change due to the pandemic.
Small kindness is no small thing.
Recently, a client told me about how he went into a coffee shop and handed the barista a bill much larger than normally used to buy a cup of coffee. He stated, “please use this money to buy everyone behind me in line their cup of coffee until it runs out”. The owners of the coffee shop showed approval and excitement to be able to tell their patronage their coffee was free — due to the kindness from a stranger.
My client wrote to me:
“The staff looked like they were walking on air as they told people their coffee was paid for. Folks dragging their way to work held their heads higher and quickened their pace back to their cars. Three seasoned ladies shared a little hug when they found out”.
And the impact it had on my client?
Well, as he watched the first few responses of people being told they didn’t have to pay for their coffee, and he said that it was some of the best therapy he had!
The impact on the coffee customers is maybe surprising given a coffee paid for is saving someone less than $5. But obviously the money saved isn’t the point. Being given something without question of what will be owed back is something people aren’t used to receiving often. We are a society of ledgers. We often don’t trust why someone would want to help us if there isn’t something also in it for them. We are taught to be vigilant of keeping score; keeping everything in balance so what we give (or receive) isn’t taken for granted or exploited.
We have learned to not trust free kindness.
In fact, my client shared with me later that when going back to the coffee shop another day the baristas shared stories from the ‘free coffee day”. The baristas told him there was an “elderly man that they had to argue into accepting the free coffee, wondering about the catch or gimmick, and not wanting to owe anyone”. Can’t blame him too much given most of the time we are lured into a sea of advertising promising us things (happiness even) only to find out there is a much larger cost than first presented. But also… how sad he struggled to trust the gift.
And what about when we are the giver of free kindness?
Maybe you have heard how an antidote to depression is an ‘act of service’. When we are helping others, our focus goes outward to places we have agency to make a difference, where we can have a positive impact and we can feel a sense of purpose which in turn helps ourselves. Therapists often suggest to struggling clients to find an organization to volunteer or reach out to friends and loved ones on a more regular basis. Simply, we feel better when we are in the acts of service to others, no matter how small the act, and this includes very small, seemingly insignificant acts like described in Lameris’ poem.
Although not in poetry, another voice advocating the importance of practicing small kindnesses is John Gottman, one of the most well-known researchers on relationships, and creator of the-gottman-method – one of the most widely used modalities in Couples Therapy. According to Gottman, “successful long term relationships are created through small words, small gestures, and small acts”. Periodic large bouquets of roses and trips to Hawaii are nice, but will never nurture or sustain a relationship the way a practice of daily small gratitudes, compliments, and helpful gestures will.
Small acts of kindness
What’s wonderful about small acts of kindness is that we can do them often — every day even– giving us a frequent renewed sense of purpose and impact. We don’t have to save someone’s life, or spend lots of money or time on someone in order to be kind. We can see they have two items in their grocery cart compared to our large load and let them go ahead of us in the check out line. We can tell a loved one that we liked the coffee they made this morning even though we have that coffee every day . We can say “thanks” even if it is someone’s “job” to take out the garbage. Small kindness is the most underestimated and powerful superpower we ALL have!
As Lamerius says about small kindnesses in her poem, they just may be the way we still can “have each other”, finding ourselves around “a fire with our tribe”.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “ Go ahead- you first,” “I like your hat.”
Writing Exercise Ideas
- Write about a time when you encountered a “small kindness” (either receiving or giving, or both). Describe in detail what happened and how it made you feel.
- Write a list of ‘small kindnesses’ you would like to bring into your daily life with a loved one or ones.
- Write your own poem or essay entitled “Small Kindnesses”
- What comes up for you when you read the line from Lamerius’ poem “Mostly we don’t want to harm each other”?
- What would it feel like to give a small kindness to someone you have hard feelings for?
Feel free to share with me what you wrote via email at ellyn@sixwillows.com. If you’d like feedback or have a discussion about what came up for you, let me know and we can schedule a time to talk.
by Ellyn Zografi | Nov 18, 2020 | On Being Human
The title “Growing at the Speed of Wood” comes from one sentence in the novel, Overstory, by Richard Powers. Since this is a reflection in writing, rather than a book review, I will not delve into the details of this book, but will say that I highly recommend you witnessing this collection of stories too large in message to even describe. For every book out there on what nature has to teach us as humans, the pages of smaller stories within Overstory offers its readers an unusual realm of lessons… without an ounce of teaching. I would like to share with you one, of many, lessons I learned.
We, as humans, have to slow down and stop trying to improve.
This, at first, I think will bristle most people. How could that be the goal? Aren’t we usually reprimanding ourselves for not trying hard enough? Should we not always be striving to be better, be our best selves, and improve our skills and relationships? It is what we learned at a fundamental level starting at an early age why we exist in the first place. To use Dr. Gerald May’s words, We are a people of progress. From the time we learn our colors in preschool to the time, as elders, we are trying to keep up with everything that has progressed, we are commended for our improvement.
Let me clarify by saying that the key word in my above lesson is ‘trying’’. We are the only species in the natural world who try to improve ourselves. Other species, in both the plant and animal realms, respond to and participate in the world, rather than any agenda to be better than before. And yet, they evolve in many ways, responding and adapting to changes in their environments, often improving their survival. Could we take our cues from nature and, rather than trying to grow and improve, could we, too, allow ourselves our growth when needed? What’s the difference?
Well, simply put, the position of our goals.
Trying puts our goal as a premise (e.g. “I need to improve my relationship”–the cart in front of the horse), Allowing puts our goal as a result, and gives space to results we may have not even thought of. (“I am going to practice being loving and see what happens”–the horse is in front of the cart) The former is passive and general, and confined to one subjective outcome which can lead to feeling stuck or shame if you don’t achieve it. The latter is more specific, proactive, and tangible and gives space to many possibilities of outcome — promoting movement and a sense of agency. When passive and general goals are looking to reach a specific outcome, we are often frustrated because our very specific outcome isn’t happening. If proactive specific goals are created and open to outcome, something always happens (Just not maybe what we expected). When I work with clients , I always ask them at the end of the session to state one small thing they will practice doing differently until we talk again. It takes the focus off the vague “trying to improve” and puts it on a specific allowing myself to do something different.
And about the slowing down…
Written on the back of the book Simply Sane a reviewer writes about author, Gerald May, “Dr May reminds us that human beings are not objects to be fixed or improved…We need to quit worrying about who we are, to relax and be our natural selves; to accept our craziness, to find love rather than build it.”
In other words, yes ‘we are a people of progress’ but that is because the natural world we live in (and are part of) is constantly changing and progressing. It is happening whether we grit our teeth, rush to our millions of “finish lines” shaming ourselves endlessly for not getting there fast enough, or… if we give space and respond to, and participate in the changes occurring around us. The world asks us not to conquer, not to race, not to dominate or try hard. It asks us to participate in ways that honor we are alongside it, rather than trying to beat it. Because if we do beat it, we beat ourselves. We need to slow down like wood so we can see this, and enjoy our improvements– without trying.
As always Bruce Springsteen for me finds a way to say things simply, humbly and as a lesson… without an ounce of teaching:
“When you’re young, you believe the world changes faster than it does. It does change, but it’s slow,” You learn to accept the world on its terms without giving up the belief that you can change the world. Thats a successful adulthood-the maturation of your thought process and very soul to the point where you understand the limits of life, without giving up on its possibilities” -Bruce Springsteen
Writing Exercises
- What comes up for you when you read ‘Growing at the speed of wood’?
- Write about something you want to improve about yourself or about the world. What would happen if you were to let go of trying, and instead you explored a practice that would give space to and allow for that change? What would your new practice be?
- Write about ways you can slow down in your life, live alongside the world, rather than having an impact on it.
- Think of something you often hear yourself saying “I have to get better at” and change it to “I am going to practice…” See what comes up.
Feel free to share with me what you wrote via email at ellyn@sixwillows.com. If you’d like feedback or have a discussion about what came up for you, let me know and we can schedule a time to talk.
by Ellyn Zografi | Oct 27, 2020 | On Being Human, On Being Outdoors
Many of us have heard the phrase, You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself.
And many of us cringe wondering what we are supposed to do with this.
This is challenging for those of us whose sense of self worth is wrapped around being there for others or feeling like we are selfless. We put others’ needs before our own. It’s how we know we matter. It’s how we know people will accept us, praise us, and cheer us on.
It’s how we know we belong.
And this is the clincher because increasingly more studies are coming out revealing the human NEED (not desire) to feel a sense of belonging and connection with others. It’s a core human need. It helps us survive like food and water. It’s knowing we are secure in the “herd” and that we will not be ousted or left behind due to irrelevance. If we aren’t helping, then who are we?
It’s why we literally feel lost when we are given simple advice: Take care of yourself.
This happened to me on a recent 16-day commercial river rafting trip in the Grand Canyon. My role was to be an assistant to river guides and clients alike, in exchange to be able to go on the trip for no cost along with my husband, who was part of the crew. I asked friends who had been in this role previously, “What advice would you give?” One friend said “Don’t work too hard”. Another guide said to me as we were traveling to our launch location, “Elly… your job is to have fun”. I was thoroughly perplexed by this. Wasn’t my role as assistant to assist? It was becoming glaringly clear that my role was unclear. I wasn’t going to be told how to help, and what to do. I wasn’t going to be able to sit securely in my wanted identity as a helper. And of course I wasn’t expected to sit around and do nothing and just have fun, was I? My husband smiled, and said, “Don’t worry, you will figure it out”
And I did. But not without a break-down the third night.
I was slated to be one of the cooks. I was so relieved to have a set role, to know that my help was actually expected and needed after 2 days of scrambling to feel helpful — sometimes getting a clear message that my help was not really needed. And if that wasn’t enough to send me into full anxiety, I realized that my attempts to carry out certain tasks guides had been doing for years actually necessitated someone helping me help them. My help was burdensome!? Yikes.
So I scrambled up to the makeshift kitchen and started chopping onions. I was rushing to keep up with the other assigned cook — and I sliced my finger. I tried to cover it up with a paper towel as blood poured from what was now apparently a pretty deep cut. I was horrified. Another guide spied my mishap, and without a blink of an eye, said, “Elly, go take care of that, I will take over tonight”
Shame filled my body. I reluctantly removed myself and went down to the river to try and stop the bleeding of my finger–and my horrified ego. I had blown my first chance of being helpful.
Everyone else was nonplussed. “Oh this happens all the time to all of us” they said to me as I sunk further into a shame cycle. I finally got my finger to stop bleeding and felt relieved I could redeem myself by returning to the kitchen. In my rush to get back I didn’t notice that my flip flop had sunk deep into the bank of the river in a thick sludge of sand. My hurried movement to pull my foot out blew out my flip flop, followed by the quick realization that I had only brought one pair of flip flops, with yet another realization that the other pair of shoes I packed had given me sore spots on my foot (due to ignoring pain when it first started rubbing) and wouldn’t be the best alternative in the coming days.
I snapped.
I was good to no one in any capacity much less in the kitchen. My husband gave me some wise words that could not penetrate the tornado of shame encompassing me, and I retreated to the boat to calm down.
“Elly, you really got to be more patient with yourself” said a voice from a neighboring boat.
I wanted to scream at her accuracy.
How does this happen to some people and not to others? Why do I, and not others, think the world will end if anyone thinks for a second I am putting my needs first? How do I fear so deeply looking selfish or self centered or unhelpful? Why do I go into a shame cycle, a stress response or into desperate acts of managing perception so I mitigate looking like I think I am worthy of my own attention.
The answer is conditioning.
From the time I was a child, I was told over and over how helpful I was, what a good listener I was, how I was the person everyone turned to for help, and how I was self-less. This developed in me a drive, if not an urgency, to be these things…all the time. Because if I did not, it created shame and a fear that I would lose connection from those who loved and accepted me for, and only for, so I believed, the very qualities they affirmed.
But not all of us received affirmation for the same qualities. But we usually have one or two that brings up a primal fear of rejection if we don’t live up to it.
Some of us were told we are funny, we are pretty, we are smart, athletic, brave, strong, calm …the list goes on. Whatever compliments we heard most about ourselves growing up can become in our adult lives, and often do, a vehicle for shame and a risk to our sense of safety with others, if these qualities are threatened or not realized. Which is why it is uncomfortable for people who conjure their self worth by being helpful to not feel helpful. In desperately trying to perpetuate this identity, it’s easy to fall into a habit of poor self care–in its many forms.
Now, life on the rim as we know it –not on the river–we can get away with denying ourselves our own attention for quite a while, years even, without obvious or dire consequences–at least on the surface. We can go years thinking we are okay putting ourselves aside, not tuning into our own needs in order to be there for others. We are slow to wake up to how we have become not only dependent on being needed for our worth, but also depleted emotionally and physically by all the ways we haven’t also asked ourselves what we need.
It only took three days on the river for this to be mind boggling apparent about myself.
If I wanted to continue to be a viable assistant I was going to have to assist myself-first and foremost. After my trip to “Snap Canyon”, which is what emotional breakdowns are called on river trips, I slowed down. I became more present to myself which allowed me to see the people around me more clearly–and ironically be more attuned to what they needed, and what needed to be done in general. The less I tried to help, the more helpful I was. I washed my hair at lunch time instead of rushing to cut apples, which allowed me more time in the evening to avail myself to small details around camp needing tending. I bandaged my feet and fingers first thing in the morning instead of putting it off while I voraciously washed breakfast dishes. I was then able to be ready to help with loading the boats for the launch of the day. I could go on and on with all the ways I listened first to how I could take care of myself so I was prepared, centered and solid to be part of, and helpful to, the group.
We need to be worthy of our attention
When I think back to the original two bits of advice I received and ignored: Do not work too hard and be sure to have fun, I laugh thinking how that made no sense to me. And how now it feels magical and true for all of us, in our everyday lives. In order to show up and be present for others, we need to center ourselves first. We need to be worthy of our own attention. It is then we can see with clarity what’s really needed around us, how we can be helpful, rather than just doing whatever it takes, at cost to ourselves, to remain perceived as so.
Otherwise, I hate to say it but it shows up in so many ways. We are sure to find our finger cut and bleeding, while walking around with one flip flop.
I invite you to think and write about…
- Ways you practice being worthy of your own attention.
- Ways that you practice self care
- A story about a time in your attempt to help others, you lost your own balance and what you learned from it.
- How you know you aren’t taking care of yourself…how you know you are. What does each look like?
Feel free to share with me what you wrote via email at ellyn@sixwillows.com. If you’d like feedback or have a discussion about what came up for you, let me know and we can schedule a time to talk.
by Ellyn Zografi | Jul 17, 2018 | On Being Human
There is largely unknown movement out there. It’s demographic is hard to describe.
It’s not Left. It’s not Right. It can’t be labeled as Liberal, Conservative, Grassroots or Fundamentalist. You cannot fit the members of this movement into one box and expect to know everything about who they are, and what they believe, or agendas they support. I cannot give you a stereotype of who has joined this movement but I can mention a few names: Walt Whitman, Martin Luther King, and Pope John Paul II.
These three, and many others, wittingly or not, make up a radical movement called Personalism which is “a philosophic tendency built on the infinite uniqueness and depth of each person”. In other words, it is a recognition that to be human is not only to be ambivalent at times, but also to have inherent worth. This combination of our humanness makes all of us worthy in our complexity and complex in our worthiness. It makes each and every one of us deeply and completely unique in our thoughts, beliefs and world views, and not always straightforward and consistent in how we manifest them. Not one of us can actually be simply labeled exactly the same as someone else.
However, there is a catch. Our humanness, to make sense of who we ARE, often wants to simplify who we are NOT, which leads us to categorizing ourselves and others into neat tidy groups of like mindedness that either join or oppose us. I understand my worth because you and your group are wrong. I understand my worth because you and your group agree with me.
Personalism which doesn’t divide and organize into any kind of group yet perceives that each and every individual is riddled with nuance, contradictions and hypocrisy, all trying to not only makes sense of their purpose, but to ultimately connect to others. Ironically and tragically, in this process of understanding our purpose and desiring to join with others, we look for a “Them” to find our “Us” and then our purpose is nothing more than spending all our energy defining our enemies in simple and dangerous ways. Please read this important opinion piece called “Personalism: The Philosophy We Need” by David Brooks.
Our individual and collective mental health and well being depends on a movement away from “Us and Them”. It’s been said a million times. We need a We. A WE that recognizes an inherent worth in EVERYBODY that makes up this We. And also to recognise that this We makes up many many, many complex, messy, beautiful, terrible, enlightened, judgemental, compassionate, wrong, right, selfish, selfless, undefinable, definable ‘I”s.
