Author Archive

Rough Draft

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 by Sara

Over the weekend, I was speaking with a co-worker about her resistance to writing a paper for school and I found my thoughts returning to my not so distant days of college research papers. I couldn’t help but flinch a little.

I tend to be someone who agonizes over papers (and blogs, for that matter). I spend weeks contemplating what I am going to say and usually get really excited about the general directionality of whatever I’m working on, but I freeze when it comes time to commit my ideas to paper. My hesitation has to do with “getting it right” or making it “perfect”.  I’m afraid about my ideas being criticized, edited, and judged. But underneath all of that, my real fear is that what I am saying isn’t valuable—that it can’t possibly measure up to the perfect potential that is represented by a blank sheet of paper and therefore is worthless. So, even when I finally do get something down on paper, I either edit incessantly until the last minute, or give up, knowing it will never be perfect, and leave lots of mistakes behind that would have been easy to fix.

As much as I hate to admit it, paper writing gets at the crux of the way I operate in the world: I edit. I question what I’m saying and I withhold, and then erupt inappropriately. I tell myself that the editing is meant to help clarify what I am trying to say, but most of the time, my editing actually does more to hinder my communication; my constant working and re-working of sentences in my head rather than contributing them to the conversation has created more fights than it has resolved.

Sometimes I know exactly what I want to say and keep quiet because I want to play nice, but a lot of times I don’t even realize I’m holding onto something until after the conversation is long over.  And then suddenly all of the things that I could have said come flooding into my brain.

Through my work in the Year of More and now in my Nourishment and Self-Care lab, I’m learning how to be more present to myself, to access what I am feeling in the moment and communicate it to the people around me. I’m not saying I’m perfect at it. It’s a process and there are still days that I hold back a lot of what I want to express. But I also have the tools to be able to go back and re-engage. And as I get more practice, the time elapsed between the first conversation and the second lessens. Being present and engaged in conversations has allowed me to bring more intimacy into my relationships, bring truth to fights, and change the dynamic of my work meetings. And, when I get home at the end of the night, I’m not sitting on all of my upset, because I expressed it honestly in the moment. I don’t have all of today’s sentences swirling around in my head and keeping me awake.

I don’t want my life to be the equivalent of a blank sheet of paper—avoiding contact and relationships because I’m too afraid of making a mistake. Nor do I want it to be an accumulation of messes and mistakes that I was too ashamed to go back and re-examine and fix. Sometimes I still find myself searching for the perfect words, but I find that as I express more of the genuine words, I feel more fulfilled and nourished and the “perfect” isn’t nearly as important.

Sara

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Black and White

Monday, July 12th, 2010 by Sara

In a recent staff meeting,  Bob mentioned the recent trend of European laws banning women from wearing Burqas and Nijabs. This is a trend that began in Belgium back in April when the Lower House approved a bill banning the  use of a Burqa and imposing a fine of €15-25 ($20-33) or imprisonment of one to seven days for those who break the law. Since then, France and Spain have joined the race and politicians from Germany rallied to have the law be extended to the entire European Union (which was since examined and denied).  There are many reasons being quoted by politicians for this movement, but the most common reason quoted in the media boils down to an argument the Burqa undermines gender equality.

This is not a new idea. My own first exposure to the politics Burqas and Nijabs came through an episode of 7th Heaven that aired back in 1999 which emphasized the Burqa as the key symbol of the Taliban’s oppression of women. As I recall, my outraged (reactive) adolescent feminist self went straight into researching, printing pictures, and carrying a petition. I firmly held that no good could come from wearing a Burqa.

So it caught me by surprise when Bob suggested that forcing women to not wear a Burqa would be experienced by some women in the same spirit as forcing her to not wear a shirt. Whoa.

I suddenly felt ashamed of my 13 year old self. Not for protesting the Taliban’s abuse of women, but for assuming that the clothing and the violence were synonymous without considering that there  are cultural differences at play that I didn’t (and don’t) understand.

My initial reaction to Bob’s comment was to retract everything my 13 year old self believed and only take in the new information I had. But that’s not really a responsible reaction either.

What I’ve realized is that I need to come to terms with my own discomfort and reactivity in order to be able to sit with the information available and sift through it with more openness. I don‘t have enough information to form an educated opinion about the laws that propose a ban on Burqas. The truth is, I feel incredibly uncomfortable seeing pictures of women in Burqas. At the same time, I am aware of the Wright Institute voice inside my head that clings to the importance of holding people as whole and complete. There’s a blatant victimization in telling women who choose to wear Burqas that they need to be rescued from their culture. In forcing restrictions like this in the name of gender equality, aren’t we sending the message that they are incapable of good decision making and handing them a condescending “you just don‘t understand yet”? How liberating is that? And, on a more elementary level, I firmly believe that women’s rights cannot be won by eliminating choices and limiting behaviors and that freedom is never gained my imposing a restriction.

I feel scared about how easy it is for me to fall into the trap of thinking that everything is black and white even though situation after situation has proven that it’s not. My instinct is to start debating issues instead of recognizing that there are people with emotions attached to them. I wonder what would happen if we would all confront our emotions and approach the discussion a little more vulnerably– try to see the other side rather than digging our heals in for the sake of being right. Because I think the Burqa ban, and many debates like it, would be completely different discussions, they wouldn’t be as contentious and, the resolution would probably be far more satisfying to everyone.

Sara

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Yes Means Yes!

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 by Sara

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape is, without question, my favorite book. I think everyone should read it. This compilation of essays written by feminists (both men and women) is the first book I have found that lays out a creative (vs reactive) vision for sex and sexuality in our society; instead of talking about sex from the traditional “no means no” message that defines consensual sex as not saying “no,” the authors of this book instead encourages society to teach couples how to approach sexuality from the expectation that there is “enthusiastic consent” to each and everything that happens in the bedroom.

I think enthusiastic consent is a genius method for building positive relationships; it demands that both partners be engaged in genuine, truthful conversations about what’s wanted in each and every intimate encounter.

What a great way to build a positive sexual relationship– what a great way to build ANY relationship!

I’ve been doing an inventory of my relationships, both romantic and platonic, and I have noticed how few of them operate with consistently open, honest, and direct communication. In evaluating my relationships, I’ve noticed four patterns that keep me from having authentic relationships built on Truth:

1)     I don’t know how to directly ask for what I want-or let my embarrassment or fear get in the way of speaking up.

2)     I don’t know what I want and defer to someone else to make decisions for me or mirror their wants.

3)     I’m not up to date on my relationships: I assume that yesterday’s (or last year’s) operating agreements are the same and forget that people’s wants change.

4)     I don’t trust other people to be forthcoming with me and try to read minds rather than asking what they want.

Cycling through indecisive, apologetic, and passive communications is not nourishing to me, and it doesn’t help me build intimacy. I think about how much better I feel when I take responsibility for myself, evaluate what I want, go for my satisfaction, and trust that other people are capable of doing the same.

Withholding my wants means that I am building fake relationships based on an inaccurate projection of who I am—my “false self” rather than genuinely intimate relationships where I am really seen for who I am as an individual. And, if I can’t be honest with friends about inconsequential things like what movie I want to see and where I want to have dinner, how am I going to be able to directly express what I do and don’t want in my romantic relationships, which are far more intimidating and which I have far less experience negotiating?

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Got stress?

Thursday, May 13th, 2010 by Sara

Last week I was riding on the El and saw an advertisement for a study about depression. It announced that people who have more anxiety than usual, who are unusually irritable, or having trouble sleeping may be depressed, but come join the study and see if our new magic drug will cure you! (flippancy added)

As someone who has been unnecessarily put on drugs, I feel outraged by these advertisements and what it reflects about our society’s tendency to use drugs as a means of managing people’s upset.

Six years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I mentioned to my new doctor that I was experiencing cycles of exhaustion and hyper-energy and after a 10 question survey, she diagnosed me with bipolar disorder and prescribed Lithium.  Two more doctors confirmed her diagnosis within a matter of minutes– it was a  “classic case”—one added an anti-depressant to help off-set the possible low that would come from the Lithium’s attempts to reduce the high.

So I spent my college years taking serious drugs and meeting with psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctors, many of whom didn’t think I had bipolar disorder, but kept me on the meds anyhow “just to be safe”. These are not innocent drugs to be on: I gained 50 pounds, slept 16 hours a day, and generally felt dazed and foggy.

What I know now is that my “classic bipolar” was, in fact, the culmination of all my efforts to suppress my emotions, which I experienced to be an overwhelming “puddle of mess” inside of me. I didn’t know how to interpret what I was experiencing or distinguish one feeling from the other;  I remember people would ask me how I was feeling and the honest answer was, “I don’t know”. It took me a really long time to move through upset—I could spend weeks in a funk.  And, as hard as I tried to suppress my emotions, they would find a way to erupt—and then they felt uncontrollable and scary—so I tried even harder to suppress them.  Even joy was threatening—I was so relieved to not feel depressed that I would explode with hyper, manic energy.

I would like to think that this doesn’t happen very often that I’m one of only a handful that has been medicated unnecessarily, but the truth is, bipolar disorder is the fastest growing mood disorder diagnosed in children. We as a society are unwilling to look at and nurture emotions in children (or in ourselves) and instead tell ourselves that we are bad or wrong for feeling things. And now, in addition to the old messages—that anger is a symptom of PMS, or irrational bitchiness, that we need to stop being a wimp, grow thicker skin, or “just get over it”, we are being inundated with the message that all of our troubles can be cured with medication.

I was fortunate to find a psychologist in my senior year of college who encouraged me start doing work with my emotions. He would sit with me patiently and watch me struggle to put words to the “puddle of mess”. He told me to hang up a list of emotions on my wall and check in with it several times a day.

I’ve come a long way since then. My on-going work with the Wright Leadership Institute has taught me invaluable lessons about the gifts that come from honoring my emotions, expressing them, and holding them as Divine.  Being with my emotions takes considerably less energy than trying to suppress them. I can move through the hurt and upset in a matter of minutes instead of weeks. I’m more grounded and alive and I use my emotions to help me understand myself better. And even when I am scared or hurt or angry, I know that I am okay; I can dig into the pain and not feel like the world is coming to an end. And I feel joy more fully and meaningfully because I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to disappear.

I hold a vision that someday there won’t be a market for anti-depressants and mood stabilizers; that we will use medication as a last resort and that instead, our society will hold emotions as a valuable resource and will teach children to engage fully with them.

I would love to have you join me in my vision. Start tapping into the power of your emotions at our next More Life Training June 4-6, 2010.

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The Sky is Falling!

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 by Sara

Over the weekend, a woman approached me with a brochure—All Suffering SOON TO END! My first reaction was to dramatically roll my eyes and crumple the paper in my hand. I get irritated with conversations about who will be Saved. As a non-Christian and someone who identifies as queer growing up in a Conservative city, I’ve gotten a lot of crap. There’s even a Fred Phelps (God Hates Fags) flyer with a picture my face being consumed by the devil roaming around the internet.

So imagine my surprise when I actually gave the flyer a second thought. First of all, I was struck by the word “suffering.” Am I suffering? Sometimes I think I am—when I’m caught in mood addictions and victimhood and feeling sorry for myself, but when I’m fully engaged with my life, regardless of the pain and hurt I feel, I’m not suffering. There’s an inherent victimhood in the suggestion that we are all suffering on earth—to believe that we have no other option but to stew in our self-pity and misery and wait to be rescued by another person or the Divine.

The other element that caught my attention was the idea of the end of the world. I don’t believe in the apocalypse or the second coming, but I do recognize that I have a limited time to experience the world. I have had several experiences that caused me to reflect on my mortality in the past several weeks. I was recently asked to write my obituary as a means of figuring out what I want my legacy to be and who I want to be in my life. Whoa.

It’s easy for me to toss off discussions about living like we’re dying as cliché and sappy, but writing my obituary brought me face to face with the reality of my death. Do I want to be someone who is remembered for watching TV, hiding, avoiding intimacy, and playing it safe or someone who embraced adventure and life, who took risks, fully engaged, and played with possibility?

Sitting with my obituary brought immediacy to my life—to repair relationships that aren’t working, to get clear and current with the people I care about, and to take action rather than sitting passively by. It also means that I want to be  building relationships with people who encourage me to live life fully and authentically.

Now, I don’t think this was what the woman was intending when she handed me the pamphlet—I’m not giving myself to Jesus and I don’t believe the apocalypse is coming. I don’t know if I have an afterlife, but I don’t want to spend my life waiting for something better to come along.

As Mary Oliver eloquently puts it:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Sara

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Eat, Pray, Love

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 by Sara

I was in the bookstore last week and found myself flipping through the pages of Eat, Pray, Love– a book that I have thus far been resistant to reading. I found myself pulled in by a passage that (ignoring location and some crazy acrobatics) reminds me very much of myself. Elizabeth Gilbert is in India awakening her spirituality. She has overslept; she’s groggy, unmotivated, and looking for an excuse not to go to her 4 am morning meditation when she discovers she’s been locked in her room. Her first reaction is, “If there’s ever an excuse not to go, this is it.”

Some other impulse intercedes, however, and she takes quick action, actually climbing out the second story window, crawling over the railing, and dropping onto the hard pavement below before sprinting to her meditation service. And yet when she arrives at the temple (bleeding), she catches herself thinking “I don’t want to be here.”

Like I said, the acrobatics do not apply to me, but the seemingly irrational impulsiveness  does—in fact, it is such an impulse that moved me from Seattle to Chicago; a decision made and executed in the course of two months.

I’d like to say that I live every day with this kind of intention, but I have to admit, most days I sound more like the whiny, unmotivated, and looking for excuses not to go Elizabeth. For me, the “don’t make me” voice is most likely to show up before social gatherings.  I can get really creative about making up excuses to stay at home with a movie. In high school and college, the pre-party scene could reasonably be described as a tornado of drama and hysterics, I spun madly between feeling victimized by my “dire circumstances” and persecuting those around me for “making me” go. While my pre-event scene is not nearly as overtly dramatic as it was in my teens, I still find myself cycling through the same drama.

And, just like Elizabeth, who instinctively resents her morning meditation even after taking rather drastic steps to get there, I often fall victim to my choices to the point that I forget I made the choice to go. No one forced me or decided for me, I had options (usually several) and from those, I chose a course of action.

What I most like about this story is the end—Elizabeth is able to catch herself in her victimhood and, when confronted with the thought “I don’t want to be here” is able to point out, “That’s funny, you sure act like somebody who wants to be here.”

I think of that voice as my “One Decision” voice– the internal compass that laughs and says, “Uh oh, Sara, you’re taking yourself too seriously again.” This is the voice that encourages me to experiment, to be willing to take risks, and to approach life more like a curious little kid playing with one of those colorful light-up toys: ooh—what happens when I do this? This is the voice that encourages me to take responsibility for my decisions, and make the most of it. So, if I go out, I can make a goal of how many people I want to meet and create a vision for how I want to engage. And, if I choose to stay home, this is the voice that helps me learn about myself rather than punish myself.

As I continue to nurture my One Decision voice, I find that the “don’t make me voice” doesn’t hold quite as much clout. I am able to appreciate that I have options and am empowered to make decisions that serve me to live my life as an adventure, be more intentional in the moment, follow my urges, and truly appreciate and value the decisions I make.

Sara

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