by Ellyn Zografi | Nov 6, 2016 | On Being Human
It’s very easy to focus on what we don’t have. Perhaps we feel we don’t have enough money – or time. Maybe we wish we had more acknowledgment or praise from loved ones, work mates, or society in general. Another common lament is not having opportunities that seemingly have been unfairly granted to everyone else, but us. We spend energy trying to acquire these things we think we lack, assuming it will bring us happiness, or in the least, ease our suffering. And, in our focus of what we DON’T have, we focus on what others DO have, making us even more miserable in our comparisons.
Relationships are messy and they’re complicated and the hard work of tending to family and friends, it’s not sexy or glamorous. It’s also lifelong. It never ends.”
So why do we spend so much time focusing on things that ultimately just make us jealous or frustrated? Why don’t we naturally rejoice in our plenitudes? This human preoccupation with what we don’t have both stems from and feeds a basic human survival instinct to need to know our place in the world, where we belong and preserve that sense of belonging. With that comes nagging pervasive thoughts like Who is the enemy? Who is on MY side? If I am right, they must be wrong. If they have something, I must have nothing. And you would think this zero sum mentality would be limited across political party lines or football fans, but this us/them instinct can tragically extend into our personal relationships creating a competitive and damaging you/me dynamic with our loved ones.
But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community”.
According to Robert Waldinger , director of the longest study on adult life and happiness the one thing that WILL ease our suffering and bring more happiness into old age is the very thing we often don’t recognize as threatened: our relationships. We take them for granted, or worse, push them away, in our other pursuits we deem more important. (e.g. money, time, praise, opportunity…being right!, etc.)
The good life is built with good relationships.
Waldinger, who has devoted his research to spreading the word about the importance of relationships — any kind of relationship–states in his TedTalk, that the act of nurturing relationships doesn’t have to be complicated or earth shattering. It could be the difference of how you spend five minutes of your day with someone.
But, don’t be hard on yourself. It takes awareness and vigilance to work with and against our survival instinct to “win” and “be right” and “get ahead”, the very instinct that acts as a roadblock to fulfilling our deep human need for love and connection.
Please join me in reading the transcript of Waldinger’s TED Talk and be amazed at your multiple and varied relationships right in front of you — every day.
They, alone, in their madness and mundaneness are your most likely passage to lifelong happiness.
by Ellyn Zografi | Apr 21, 2016 | On Being Human
Kintsugi is a Japanese art form mostly known for being used in repairing broken ceramics employing a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver or platinum. “The philosophy behind the technique is to recognize the history of the object and to visibly incorporate the repair into the new piece instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful than the original.”
I eagerly want to apply this to humans.
We all know none of us make it through life without enduring various sizes of trauma. From heartaches when losing a first pet, or a devastating loss from the death of a loved one, to a betrayal from an intimate, or having endured emotional, verbal or physical abuse -to only name a few – we all have painful events that “cracked” us in some way, leaving us emotionally and psychologically scarred; different and less innocent than we were before.
And more often than not we want to erase it. We want – understandably – to forget it ever happened. We attempt to return to our previous self , or to the relationship or lifestyle we had before, to our innocence; before the damage was done. We want to cover up any evidence that we have chipped, cracked or shattered from our experiences.
“But shame is like a word that is never exposed and therefore never heals” – Andreas Eschbach
The more we try to hide our scars and cracks, the more we postpone the chance to heal. The more we try to hide big pieces (or missing pieces) of ourselves hoping no one will notice, the more we may operate from a place of shame which keeps us, ironically, identifying as broken. By accepting, embracing and sharing the consequences of our sufferings, we fill in our “cracks” with new found strength, wisdom and growth. Like Kintsugi, we “wear” our repair, rather than trying to hide it.
Think of yourself as a mosaic comprised of various fragments from previously intact pottery pieces. You make a lovelier new whole.
Being beautiful in your brokenness, let your cracks and scars turn to gold.
by Ellyn Zografi | Dec 31, 2015 | On Being Human
In being human, we have all experienced doing or saying something that ultimately worked against what we actually needed most.
Inside we wanted connection. Outside we feared rejection and pushed someone away.
Inside we wanted to express love. Outside, we feared it wouldn’t be received and lashed out in anger that someone wasn’t loving us enough.
Inside we wanted to be accepted. Outside, we tried to change another because we assumed we were not free to be who we are.
And why is it so hard to ask for a hug or tell someone how much we care? Why are we so afraid to say what we believe, or share our most deepest thoughts and wants.
Survival. Our brains. It’s our hardwiring.
When there is a perceived harmful event, attack or threat to our survival, a stress response or the fight-or-flight response system sets our bodies up for action: to flee, fight or freeze. This response has the potential to save our lives if we are in situations such as a mountain lion jumping out from behind a rock, or a car veering off the road toward us or being restrained by another person planning to harm us.
However, for the majority of us, most of the time, our fight-or-flight responses are stemming from emotional or psychological stress: fear of rejection, being humiliated, not being acknowledged, seen or heard, or a threat to the security of a relationship or status. It seems it should be easy for our brains to know the difference between an actual threat to our lives and a threat to our ego, dignity or self-esteem. But it isn’t. Our bodies respond physiologically in kind, and we can endure the same symptoms, regardless if someone is coming at us with a knife or ignoring us at a party.
And we feel it ~ and when we do, we aren’t able to think coherently or deeply. The frontal cortex part of our brain, where we do think more clearly and logically is hard wired to shut down in order for us to react swiftly, and without consideration. Time taken to consider how to respond may cost us our lives in a physical threat. But herein lies the difference. Conversely, time NOT taken to consider how to respond in an emotional threat can cost us our well-being and our relationships in significant and long-lasting ways. In other words, where the former there is no time to think how to respond, it is our response to the stress response that matters most in the latter.
In her podcast, Compass of the Heart, Tara Brach refers to our hearts as the ultimate guide to a “liberated self”; a compassionate caretaker of the “egoic” fear driven parts of ourselves. Brach shows us how our emotional fears drive us to protect ourselves in ways that end up hurting and alienating us even more. We turn away from each other when we really need connection, or isolate ourselves when what we need most is company. We say hurtful things to avoid being hurt and blame each other when we don’t believe in our own strength.
She shows her listeners how to make space and give voice to that inner self that wants to reach out, but is often trapped in a body that is most practiced in survival.
This is well worth the time to listen.
Photo Credit. Sculpture “LOVE” by Alexander Milov.
by Ellyn Zografi | Jun 1, 2015 | On Being Human
This human thing I am writing and thinking about it – it is common, but rarely named. I don’t have a tidy label for it, but you may recognize it within the following questions:
- Why am I now resisting the very opportunity I have been wishing for?
- Why when I get where I wanted to be, do I feel afraid?
- Who would I be if I actually get what I want or where I want to be?
In his article “Lessons From a Traffic Light”, psychotherapist Hans R. Agrawal illustrates with compassion – and a bit of bemused wonder – why we cling so tightly to habits, thoughts, relationships, jobs, locations etc. which keep us entrenched in discontent and frustration. He helps his readers understand the power in CERTAINTY, the comfort in FAMILIARITY. He explains why it feels like such a risk to let go of parts of ourselves we have always known; why we choose to remain engaged in undesired parts of our lives with all its “known and familiar dangers”, rather than to “cast our lots with an uncertain world of new possibilities”.
After reading this article, you may afford yourself a bit more compassion in realizing you are not alone in feeling terrified of that fresh Walk Sign welcoming you effortlessly across new roads.
by Ellyn Zografi | Apr 2, 2015 | On Being Human
The next time you hear someone ask, “Is it bad to feel this?” or “Aren’t I right to feel this way?” Here is a suggested response:
Feelings themselves are never bad. They are never right either. They are not something with which we agree or not agree, nor something we can judge as making sense, or not. This is because having a feeling is never justified nor, on the other hand, unreasonable.
Feelings or emotions are not based in the parts of our brain that are responsible for logical or rational thinking. Rather, they are better understood as rooted in our biology as a source of power. The power to know what we need in order to make a needed change, or how to respond to any given situation, or even to know when and how to give our attention to someone else’s needs.
According to Julie Holland in her article Medicating Women’s Feelings, society often asks us to “restrain our emotional lives” and “apologize for our tears” and “suppress our anger” in order to be successful not only in our professional lives, but in our personal relationships as well. Although undoubtedly necessary and helpful for many with severe symptoms, psychotropic medication is sometimes prescribed to suppress or eliminate uncomfortable feelings of anxiety or sadness; feelings that are responding to normal everyday stressors.
Holland argues if we don’t feel, we cannot address these stressors. And if we don’t address the stressors, they don’t really go away. It’s like taking the battery out of a fire alarm so we can avoid listening to an irritating buzz, while letting the fire continue on.
This article shows how the discomfort of our emotions can actually act as a benevolent messenger, rather than an evil we need to eliminate. By suppressing this messenger, we obfuscate what really needs to be eliminated, the stressor.
“Change comes from the discomfort and awareness that something is wrong; we know what’s right only when we feel it. If medicated means complacent, it helps no one.” ~ Julie Holland
by Ellyn Zografi | Feb 2, 2015 | On Being Human
I embrace my flaws. I think all of us are supposed to have flaws. I think when you show there’s flaws in it, thats when it’s flawless” ~ StoryBoard P
I once saw a music teacher turn bright red from her shoulder blades to her hairline, apologizing profusely to her students when she blew her horn off key. Her shame was palpable. She put her horn down, threw up her hands in dismay, and asked her students to forgive her.
She asked them to pretend they didn’t hear what she just did.
But the students didn’t really hear what she did. They didn’t take note of her blunder. They were suddenly very busy processing another message. What they heard, loud and clear, and to their own dismay, was it’s not okay to make a mistake. It’s not okay to show a flaw. And if you do, you must cover it up and apologize.
I am the first to be awed by a performance done flawlessly. The figure ice skater that never wobbles after hurtling herself through the air, or the slam poet who has perfect cadence and memorization. It is not my hope that someone messes up. My concern is more what happens to us in everyday moments: in our conversations, in our relationships and at work and recreation, once we feel we have mis-stepped.
When we make mistakes gracefully, (and by gracefully I mean we don’t get blown over or stymied with shame by our blunder) we have the opportunity to connect with and teach those who witnessed us. When our voices shake in front of the microphone, or we stumble on the dance floor, or we can admit we don’t have the answer to a question, we have the potential for our audience to cheer us on, and in turn, cheer themselves on thinking of their own tumbles, their own shortcomings.
Keep reading! Keep dancing! Go find the answer and learn something new! When we get up, or move on, everyone gets up and moves with us. If we dwell in our mistakes, everyone gets stuck with us. It’s not about the mistake. Its what we do after the mistake that matters.
Watch dancer StoryBoard P when he stops and starts again or trips a bit over his feet. He doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t ask us not to see it or pretend it never happened. He simply smiles and keeps moving. He shows just how okay it is to stumble – especially when trying something new.
