Ah, dear, dear Pema Chodron (or whatever your name was when you were growing up in the Big Apple, where I too did my growing), I adore the freshness, vivacity and revelations of your teachings and the sharing of your own personal struggles. Each of the four books of yours that I have so vividly underlined and underlined and underlined, contain freshets of the friendly truths I have discovered through my teachers and my own meditation,truths I continue to rediscover. I have no doubt that your writings have invigorated my daily meditations. Gratefully, I find myself made more alive by words of yours that have penetrated and nurtured my own psycho-spiritual practices. Not long ago, meditating, after reading you, Pema, there flashed inside me a new answer to why I so often cry at the end of any beautiful, meaningful movie (e.g., Man On Fire, John Q,Tootsie, Now Voyager, Tender Mercies, Secrets and Lies). For years I have thought I cry because of the beauty of those movies,or because my ego jealously thinks I will never accomplish in my own plays and movies work so achingly, and hilariously, and sadly true and touching. Now I know another and deeper reason for my tears…. Read more »
The Good Enough Life: Reflection For 2011
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. In the sex therapy field there is a wonderful concept put out by my colleague Barry McCarthy called “good enough sex.” Modeled after the old psychodynamic concept of the “good enough mother,” it proposes that people’s idealized visions of what should be – the perfect mother, the perfect sexual experience, the perfect partner – get in the way of enjoying what they ‘really’ can have. I think we need a concept of the ‘good enough life.’ I’m a boomer who has been around for a while, I came of age in the sixties, my life has been almost a caricature of a sixties lefty chick. Among many, many other adventures I’ve had in my life, good and bad, I weathered losing countless young gay male friends from 1983 through 1996, and in 2004 I lost a child, my daughter Jesse, not quite ten years old at her death. Whatever ills aging brings, it also, if you’re lucky, brings perspective. After my daughter died I felt I never would be happy again. For quite a while I felt I was living primarily for my other children. Only in the last year or two have I reached a… Read more »
WANDERING MIND
“The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.” — Killingsworth and Gilbert “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think about such things.” — Paul, the New Testament It seems that most people spend about half of their time thinking about being somewhere else, or doing something other than what they are doing, and this seemingly endless stream of thoughts ends up making them unhappy. According to the newest research by Harvard psychologists Killingsworth and Gilbert, reported in the journal Science, ‘mind wandering’ is generally the cause, not the consequence of reported unhappiness. So often clients have come to us to help them stop the painful, repetitive and often obsessive thoughts that create what they call stress, but which usually turns out to be some form of toxic emotion, generally anxiety, disappointment, anger, shame or disgust. To still that river of flotsam and jetsam thoughts, mental images, memories, mental constructions of the future, most people turn to sex, which does the trick momentarily, or some other totally absorbing activity, be it mountain… Read more »
HOLIDAY BLUES
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. The winter holidays are hailed as a time for family, gift giving, and happiness, yet for many they are the most miserable time of the year. Lots of reasons for this: these days evoke memories of horrible childhood holidays that still seem to overwhelm the present; they evoke memories of wonderful childhood holidays that will never be equaled; they always fall short of the cultural expectations of the perfect, loving, connected family. And then there are more mundane reasons: many people are sensitive to the loss of light that reaches its peak right before Christmas; many exercise less in the busy holiday season, and both light and exercise are clearly connected to depressed mood. Add to that the increased carbohydrate and alcohol intake and there can be multiple physical factors adding to the blue outlook. This year the economy makes the season even potentially gloomier. Sales of clothing outweigh those of big ticket items for the holidays, and it is seen as an ‘economic indicator’ that more ‘Dear Santa’ letters ask for clothing and even food instead of toys. How can you beat the ‘Holiday Blues?’ Start with ‘radical acceptance’: our imperfect human lives will never… Read more »
I Need A New Drug – I’m Human!
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. “One of the criticisms leveled against the APA for removing homosexuality as a disorder is that science does not advance by a vote of hands. These critics forget that any list is produced by a group of people who vote for or against it in the first place. “ —Charles Silverstein, Ph.D. I’ve just read an article written by my friend and colleague Charles Silverstein, a psychologist who was instrumental in helping get homosexuality removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in the early 70’s. In a piece to appear in an upcoming newsletter of a division of the American Psychological Association, Charles recounts the history of how the removal came about from the point of view of a gay professional activist in New York. He begins in 1972, with the disruption by gay activists of a meeting of behavioral psychotherapists who used ‘aversion therapy’ – electric shocks to the body – to ‘cure’ homosexuality, . That led to a presentation to the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association. The “Nomenclature Committee” determines what is in the DSM – the “Bible” of psychiatric illness. Literally, the Nomenclature Committee at the time decided by vote what… Read more »
Hello, Ego! A Meditation-Poem by Neil Selden
How easily the ego enriches delusion bitches at what is itches for what is not pitches its tent in the hot shit of jealousy ditches reality kitsch it applauds ignores love-ability hitches its wagon to whichever star happens to twinkle stitch by stitch and twitch by twitch until we itch for what IS bitch at what is not the IS pitch a tent in a youth beyond truth love the inanity of kitsch no more, nor the twinkling whore’s core of a door that is no door, and laugh the False Self into its most aimless interbeing of selflessness, without inflicting history upon the joys of misery — Neil
Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child
Book Review by Michael Moran, L.C.S.W With the tragedy of Rutgers student Tyler Clemente’s suicide this past September, the pivotal importance of positively impacting mainstream culture of the issues and experiences our lesbian and gay children face has painfully hit our radar. Too many lesbian and gay adolescents continue to be harassed — GLSEN’s recent National School Climate study indicates that 84.6% of LGBT youth are verbally harassed, 40.1% are physically harassed, and 52.9% experience Cyberbullying*. As troubling as these statistics are, it is equally concerning that too many parents lack the understanding or ability to discuss sexuality openly with their adolescent children, too many teachers and school administrators lack the training to skillfully mitigate harassment when it occurs, and too many school systems and communities lack the resources necessary to effectively address these concerns. It is not a pretty picture. As social workers, we hold the responsibility to look this squarely in the eye, name it for what it is, and do what we can, with what we have, right where we are. Fortunately, we have leaders pointing the way, shining a flashlight toward our next steps for lasting change. Michael Lasala’s insightful exploration of sixty-five families, Coming Out,… Read more »
WHY TOES WIGGLE
— Vivekenanda With increasing freshness, vivacity, fascination and energy, my meditation practice has been becoming, more and more, though not every day, a source of freedom from the hourly everyday seesaw of good feelings and bad feelings that was my lot before I began a serious– forty years ago– daily practice of meditation and concentration that kicks up from inside me unexpectedly great deeps of sorrow, and joystreaming, delightful surprises. The great deeps of sorrow and the joystreaming, delightful surprises have been coming and going for decades, and the insights and changes in myself are an evergrowing gift. Most of us feel good when life gives us what we want, and then inevitably feel bad when we lose what we want, or are afflicted with what we don’t want. We are informed by recent scientific research (and the research of meditators throughout history) that good feelings and toxic feelings are not created by the events we experience, but by thoughts we think about those events. Most folks still resist that discovery and consider it crazy wisdom, because it seems to them so obvious that events outside us are the causes of our feelings. That is why the discoveries of the… Read more »
Pfizer Killed My Kid: Now That The Check Has Cleared I Can Tell The Truth
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. I believe in pharmaceuticals. I take them. We all do. Medicine- medications, drugs – are a necessary part of life. But, just as I like my car manufacturer to monitor problems with my car after it is off the lot and swiftly recall dangerous cars, I like my pharmaceutical companies to be honest about the drugs I’m taking – or the ones given to my children. On March 31, 2004 my nine year old daughter Jesse was admitted to a hospital with a large, slow-growing tumor. On April 2 the tumor was removed ; her prognosis was excellent. But because the tumor was large, Jesse needed extensive residential rehabilitation in a center, and because she had one post-operative seizure she was put on phenytoin (Dilantin.) While in rehab she caught a hospital bug called C.difilis and given the potent antibiotic Flagyl. Within twenty-four hours she developed a raging case of Stevens Johnson Syndrome/Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis, a syndrome induced solely by pharmaceuticals. She was taken off the Dilantin and Flagyl and transferred to a burn center —SJS/TEN is essentially like having a chemical burn, inside and out. The disease ravaged her and she died on June 2, 2004,… Read more »
FORTY YEARS LATER
“He who does not know that he does not know is a fool, avoid him. She who knows that she does not know is a wise woman, seek her company. He who does not know that he knows is a saint, love him. She who knows that she knows is God, worship her.” — Anonymous Something was breaking and breaking again, over and over, something in my chest, under my ribs, without pain, a flood of emotion, a cataract of sorrow and a tremendous love, bursting from my heart, the breaking of my heart such as I had never felt in forty years of daily meditation, not just an idea of it breaking but the actual sensation of something inside me being shattered, like a vessel cracking apart, waves of a sorrow beyond sorrow and a love beyond love. Watching it, feeling it, I remembered my darling teacher, inspiration, collaborator, brother-in-law Robert McCrea Imbrie asking me to promise to laugh every morning for five minutes with nothing to laugh at. Twenty years of daily laughing practice had taught me that no matter what I was feeling, toxic or not, I could give it up at a moment’s notice and avoid… Read more »
