The Caring Catalyst

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ALONE. . .WITH YOUR THOUGHTS

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Most of us feel like we just need to
STEP BACK
and take a moment to process
TO THINK 
and some of us do all we can
to make sure we don’t.          .          .
WHAT SAY YOU

How to Enjoy Being Alone with Your Thoughts

It’s hard to think pleasant thoughts—but a new study suggests a quick way to make it easier.     .     .

Kira M. Newman of the Greater Good Magazine took an inside peak of dealing with our THOUGHTS, Alone.

Be optimistic. Think happy thoughts. Lots of happiness advice makes it sound as if we could flip a switch and fill our heads with puppies and rainbows—and wouldn’t that be great?

But it turns out that positive thinking isn’t so easy. In an infamous 2014 study where people had 15 minutes to mentally entertain themselves, about 40 percent chose to help pass the time by—no, not meditating—receiving an electric shock.

In fact, a recent study found that only 13 percent of people’s thoughts are positive and inner-directed, and they enjoy those thoughts more when they arise spontaneously. (In other words, they prefer that happy thoughts come naturally rather than putting in the effort to “think positive.”)

Could this process be easier and more enjoyable? It’s not an idle question: According to the researchers behind the new study, if people were better able to generate pleasant thoughts, they might rely less on technology for constant stimulation. It could help those who have trouble falling asleep, or who start pounding the steering wheel in traffic.

The researchers didn’t find a magic switch. But they did discover a simple trick.

Across four studies, more than 250 college undergraduates and 800 online participants started by listing eight topics they’d enjoy thinking about, including memories, fantasies, and things they were looking forward to. People wrote down everything from their wedding day to Valentine’s Day, their family or the summer, eating decadent cake, or living in the World of Warcraft universe.

Next, participants (alone in a room) were instructed to entertain themselves for four to six minutes with thoughts about the topics they had listed. “Your goal should be to have a pleasant experience, as opposed to spending the time focusing on everyday activities or negative things,” the researchers advised.

That was it, except for one small difference: Half of the participants had access to their list of topics, either written on notecards or displayed on a computer screen one by one. The other half didn’t.

Afterward, participants rated how pleasant the activity was (how enjoyable, entertaining, and boring) and how cognitively difficult it was (how hard it was to concentrate, how much their mind wandered, and how much time they devoted to irrelevant topics).

Ultimately, the researchers found that the group who could look at their list of topics found the experience more pleasant and less cognitively demanding. All the participants had made lists in the first part of the experiment, but having access to that “thinking aid” was key.

“Often when we have a few free minutes, we reach for our cell phones to entertain us,” says Erin C. Westgate of the University of Virginia. “But with a little planning ahead of time, we might be able to use our own minds instead.”

She and her co-authors (including Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University) speculate that the list might have made it easier for people to concentrate; to remember their go-to, happiness-boosting topics; or to decide which one to think about when.

After reading this study, I’ve already  put up some kind of posters and art work in my little man cave, filled it with images of loved ones, surrounded by my favorite books, with a great sound system and yes, even a nice ECHO that allows me to listen to music that seems to fit my mood or my anxiety at any given time.  Those are certainly better than an electric shock!

 

YOUR VERSE

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Dead Poets Society is a wonderful film, obviously filled with a lot of references to English and American poetry. In this scene, John Keating (Robin Williams) teaches his pupils the reason for reading and writing poetry, quoting Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.      .      .

AND JUST WHAT IS YOUR VERSE.          .          .          ?

Sometimes I feel
like an unfinished poem
Looking for just the right
word or phrase

Sometimes I feel the most
incomplete without a final punctuation mark
searching for a word

It doesn’t exist or come from me
But you,
Oh how you bring what
I don’t possess but desperately need

So _____quickly
before the paper blows away
and the ink runs low
or the pencil point breaks

Finish me so we can start
a new verse worthy of the both of us

MARY MERRY

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INVITATION

OH do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

MARY MERRY

Mary has a way of 
making Merry
that allows a 
marrying between 
Who we are
and Who we’ve yet to Recognize
The Who we are now
in a Forest yet to be walked
A Lake yet to be swam
A bird, an animal yet to be 
Observed or named
A Universe yet to know 
Another Sun’s rays
A poem 
not yet to be written
even as it ever is being 
composed
not so deeply within us
as it rises to surfaces 
waiting to support
new Foundations

It was the birthday of best-selling poet Mary Oliver, on September 10; she was born in Maple Heights, Ohio (1935). As a child, she spent most of her time outside, wandering around the woods, reading and writing poems.

Oliver went to college in the ’50s at Ohio State University and Vassar, but dropped out. She made a pilgrimage to visit Edna St. Vincent Millay’s 800-acre estate in Austerlitz, New York. The poet had been dead for several years, but Millay’s sister Norma lived there along with her husband. Mary Oliver and Norma hit it off, and Oliver lived there for years, helping out on the estate, keeping Norma company, and working on her own writing. In 1958, a woman named Molly Malone Cook came to visit Norma while Oliver was there, and the two fell in love. A few years later, they moved together to Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Oliver said: “I was very careful never to take an interesting job. Not an interesting one. I took lots of jobs. But if you have an interesting job you get interested in it. I also began in those years to keep early hours. […] If anybody has a job and starts at 9, there’s no reason why they can’t get up at 4:30 or 5 and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day — which is what I did.”

She published five books of poetry, and still almost no one had heard of her. She doesn’t remember ever having given a reading before 1984, which is the year that she was doing dishes one evening when the phone rang and it was someone calling to tell her that her most recent book, American Primitive (1983), had won the Pulitzer Prize. Suddenly, she was famous. She didn’t really like the fame — she didn’t give many interviews, didn’t want to be in the news. She once wrote in an introduction to a poetry collection, “I have felt all my life that I was wise, and tasteful, too, to speak very little about myself — to deflect the curiosity in the personal self that descends upon writers, especially in this country and at this time, from both casual and avid readers.”

When editors called their house for Oliver, Cook would answer, announce that she was going to get Oliver, fake footsteps, and then get back on the phone and pretend to be the poet — all so that Oliver didn’t have to talk on the phone to strangers, something she did not enjoy. Cook was a photographer, and she was also Oliver’s literary agent. They stayed together for more than 40 years, until Cook’s death in 2005.

Oliver said: “I’ve always wanted to write poems and nothing else. There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you’re working a few hours a day and you’ve got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you’re okay.”

Oliver’s books of poems include No Voyage (1963), The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems (1972), Twelve Moons (1978), The Leaf and the Cloud (2000), Owls and Other Fantasies (2003), Red Bird (2008), Dog Songs (2013), and Velocity (2015). Her most recent collection, Devotions, comes out in October of this year.
#TheWritersAlmanac

 

I’ve always been a Mary Oliver fan
but I’ll also admit that I’ve read much more of her
now that she’s dead
than when she was alive
I suppose which not only makes her
not only more Alive
than ALIVE
but still doing
what she did the best
(and still is)
S      H      A      R      E
As I page
through this Anthology
I often have a rainbow of  feelings
as she gently pulls off the scabs
of some of my most tenderest wounds:

The Uses of Sorrow | Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.


No matter what the poem,
Mary has a way of letting us know that
when you need a prayer
notice that nothing all around you
is miraculously short of that
with the worldly unspoken invitation:
WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A PRAYER
B E
O N E
(The only true prayer you’ll ever need
is the one you are)

A MORE GENTLE, HUMBLE YOU

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Is today
T  H  A  T
D A Y
you’ll make a
DIFFERENCE
you’ll be a
DIFFERENCE
you’ll feel a
DIFFERENCE
Being a consistent CARING CATALYST 
is a great way to take the
MAYBE
of it all
out of the equation
for you making
for you giving
a great day
for Others
for Yourself.          .          .

A new study finds that when we practice intellectual humility, we have less animosity toward the “other side” of political debates.     .     .

 JILL SUTTIE from  Greater  Good  Magazine  recently  wrote  an  article  that  far  exceeds  our  political  differences.     .      .

But.     .     .when it comes to social and political issues, many Americans feel hostile toward those they disagree with. Unfortunately, those feelings of contempt can affect our ability to cooperate, keeping us from working together on solutions to the big issues of our day—like our economy, climate change, poverty, and racism.

How can we engage with each other with less rancor and hostility and all out hate? According to a new study, we might want to practice a bit more intellectual humility.

In this study, Glen Smith of the University of North Georgia analyzed data from surveys in 2020 (prior to the presidential election) and 2021, where over 1,700 participants reported on how strongly they opposed or supported political issues of the day (making college free, legalizing marijuana, imposing higher tariffs on foreign goods, and abolishing the death penalty). For each issue, the participants were also asked if they thought their views could be wrong, if they might be overlooking evidence that contradicts their position, and if they might change their view if presented with additional evidence or information—all questions related to intellectual humility.

Afterward, the participants also reported how they felt about people who had a different viewpoint from theirs on each topic—meaning, how warmly they felt toward opponents and how smart, honest, moral, and open-minded their opponents were.

After analyzing the results, Smith found that those who held more intellectually humble attitudes on a topic viewed opponents in a more positive light—more warmly and as more smart, honest, moral, and open-minded. In fact, their own intellectual humility was a better predictor of their hostility toward others than their own ideology, political party, political knowledge, or strength of their opinion.

This tendency held true even within an individual. If people held more humble views on a specific topic, they were less likely to dislike or dismiss an opponent in comparison to topics where they held more arrogant views. This suggests intellectual humility can be variable and context-specific, which could be a good thing for reducing political animosity.

“When people hold opinions with humility, they feel less hostility toward those who disagree, while the more people think they know about an issue, the less humble they are and the more hostile they are towards other people,” says Smith.

Why would being humbler affect us like this? Smith says that we tend to assign negative qualities in our minds to people who disagree with us—maybe thinking they’re less educated or have a moral defect—which, in turn, makes us dislike those people. But, when we hold some doubt about the rightness of our beliefs, we’re more open to listening to others without feeling hostile just because they see things differently.

“If I’m humble, there’s an implication there that I might be wrong and you might be right. And, if that’s the case, then why would I hate you? It doesn’t make any sense,” he says.

Nudging people to be humbler can lessen hostility

This finding doesn’t necessarily prove that being humbler causes less animosity. To get at that, Smith did an experiment where he tried to increase people’s humility.

In the experiment, 306 participants were asked to rate the strength of pro and con arguments on whether marijuana should be legalized, while told to ignore how they personally felt about the issue. In some cases, people read just one pro and one con argument; in other cases, they read a third argument in which the author expressed uncertainty about the potential effects of legalizing marijuana—saying they didn’t know enough about it—and, because of that, they were afraid of legalizing it.

Afterward, the participants were asked if the arguments they read changed their opinion. They also reported how humble they were around the topic of legalization and how they felt about people who were making arguments against their own position. Smith found that none of the arguments made a big difference in people’s opinions on the topic. But those who read the humbler argument felt more humility than those who read just the pro and con arguments, even though they rated the humble argument as the least convincing. And, as a result of feeling more humility, they also felt less animosity toward opponents.

“Humility doesn’t have to change your mind on the underlying issue, but being exposed to an expression of humility has an independent effect on how you feel,” says Smith. “It can make you both humbler and more accepting of disagreement.”

Perhaps this means that humility can be cultivated in particular contexts—at least to some extent. Nudging people toward expressing less certainty and more humility around their knowledge of sociopolitical topics might lessen other people’s defensiveness, leading to less hostility and more productive conversations.

Of course, Smith’s results don’t necessarily mean that intellectual humility will always be helpful. When it comes to other, more contentious issues—like climate change or abortion rights—it may be harder to encourage people to reconsider their position or listen to the other side without hostility. Nor do the results imply that politicians and others who benefit from increased polarization will be eager to embrace intellectual humility.

But it does provide some hope. By practicing more humility, we can foster more positive dialogue, at the very least, says Smith, and maybe make a dent in political polarization.

“If you can approach arguments by admitting that you don’t know everything, it’s contagious. Other people start to question how much they know and take a less defensive approach,” he says. “If we can become humbler and accept that people disagree with us for good reasons, we can reduce some of the acrimony.”

 

MET IN THE STAIRWELL

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I know it’s an occupational hazard, getting things others think you might like, enjoy, use because I’m a minister and a chaplain.  I’ve received this video dozens of times since it was released 11 years ago, and having been ordained now for a little over 43 years and a hospice chaplain for 29 years, I get asked this one question more than any other: “WHERE WAS GOD AT________________, you can fill in the blank, yourself; at 9/11, when a loved one was dying or going through a most horrendous time, when prayers don’t seem to be answered or can’t even be prayed, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE.        .        .          ?

And YES, it’s a question we often ask during a tragedy, a sickness, an unanswered prayer, an unmet expectation but rarely during a celebration, an exceeded expectation, a painless, completely beautiful day.

As we remember, and we do, this 22nd anniversary of 9/11, WHERE WERE YOU AT ON that day.          .          .where are you NOW?  The GREAT WHOEVER doesn’t show up in Places; the SHOWING UP comes with People; in them and from
them.          .          .does the SHOWING UP come with you in the tragic/triumphant and all the seemingly inconsequential unnoticed times in between.          .         .          ?

And now, as we
R      E      M      E      M      B      E      R
(Who we are and Who we aren’t)
may I offer you one more special video from one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins

SOMETIMES
THE GREATEST GRIEF
IS MISSING 
WHAT WAS NEVER HAD
BUT ALWAYS WANTED.          .          .

MORE THAN A SINGER

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A          N          D

A          N          D

A          N         D

A          N          D

A          N          D

 

A          N          D

A          N          D

Ever since his death, all of the pictures and all of the tributes have been nonstop on Facebook, and so many other forms of social media. It’s almost as if he’s bigger than life, and in many ways he is, but in many ways, we don’t realize, so are we!

What we bring to this world continues way after we are gone, even if a name is not attached to it. I am not, and most likely you aren’t either, as famous as Jimmy Buffett, or ever will be, but each and everyone of us brings a song to this life.  The world may never recognize it as easily as CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE or MARGARITAVILLE, but it’s still our’s not just to sing, but to share even with a very few limited but intimate ears.  Jimmy, admitted, even in his own band, he wasn’t the best singer or musician, but he knew how to share what he had and share he did, share he still does.  THAT is the lesson in itself, and also to grieve that what we have had is still very much what we still have if we but notice it in the new form it has taken.

 

So LISTEN
HUM ALONG
SING
S  H  A  R  E
RINSE  AND  REPEAT  OFTEN
and now if you’ll join me
how about we
CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS  UP
and go on a little
E X P L O R A T I O N.          .         .
LET’S  GO



 

 

T S U N D O K U

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THERE IS THE LITERAL VISUAL DEFINITION OF
T S U N D O K U:
A
S T A C K
O  F
B     O     O     K     S

The value of owning more books than you can read

  • Many readers buy books with every intention of reading them only to let them linger on the shelf.
  • Statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes surrounding ourselves with unread books enriches our lives as they remind us of all we don’t know.
  • The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits.

Kevin Dickson recently wrote an article for BIG THINK that caught the attention of my friend, a fellow Book Lover like myself that immediately took the weight of a severe guilt I carry and am reminded of even as I type and watch the AMAZON person drop me off another book selection I just recently read about.

Kevin confesses: I love books. If I go to the bookstore to check a price, I walk out with three books I probably didn’t know existed beforehand. I buy second-hand books by the bagful at the Friends of the Library sale, while explaining to my wife that it’s for a good cause. Even the smell of books grips me, that faint aroma of earthy vanilla that wafts up at you when you flip a page.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.   .    .     .

The problem is that my book-buying habit outpaces my ability to read them. This leads to FOMO and occasional pangs of guilt over the unread volumes spilling across my shelves. Sound familiar?

But it’s possible this guilt is entirely misplaced. According to statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, these unread volumes represent what he calls an “antilibrary,” and he believes our antilibraries aren’t signs of intellectual failings. Quite the opposite.

LIVING WITH AN ANTILIBRARY

Taleb laid out the concept of the antilibrary in his best-selling bookThe Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. He starts with a discussion of the prolific author and scholar Umberto Eco, whose personal library housed a staggering 30,000 books.

When Eco hosted visitors, many would marvel at the size of his library and assumed it represented the host’s knowledge — which, make no mistake, was expansive. But a few savvy visitors realized the truth: Eco’s library wasn’t voluminous because he had read so much; it was voluminous because he desired to read so much more.

Eco stated as much. Doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he found he could only read about 25,200 books if he read one book a day, every day, between the ages of ten and eighty. A “trifle,” he laments, compared to the million books available at any good library.

Drawing from Eco’s example, Taleb deduces:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. [Your] library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

Maria Popova, whose post at Brain Pickings summarizes Taleb’s argument beautifully, notes that our tendency is to overestimate the value of what we know, while underestimating the value of what we don’t know. Taleb’s antilibrary flips this tendency on its head.

The antilibrary’s value stems from how it challenges our self-estimation by providing a constant, niggling reminder of all we don’t know. The titles lining my own home remind me that I know little to nothing about cryptography, the evolution of feathers, Italian folklore, illicit drug use in the Third Reich, and whatever entomophagy is. (Don’t spoil it; I want to be surprised.)

“We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended,” Taleb writes. “It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco’s library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations.”

These selves of unexplored ideas propel us to continue reading, continue learning, and never be comfortable that we know enough. Jessica Stillman calls this realization intellectual humility.

People who lack this intellectual humility — those without a yearning to acquire new books or visit their local library — may enjoy a sense of pride at having conquered their personal collection, but such a library provides all the use of a wall-mounted trophy. It becomes an “ego-booting appendage” for decoration alone. Not a living, growing resource we can learn from until we are 80 — and, if we are lucky, a few years beyond.

T     S     U     N     D     O     K     U

I love Taleb’s concept, but I must admit I find the label “antilibrary” a bit lacking. For me, it sounds like a plot device in a knockoff Dan Brown novel — “Quick! We have to stop the Illuminati before they use the antilibrary to erase all the books in existence.”

Writing for the New York Times, Kevin Mims also doesn’t care for Taleb’s label. Thankfully, his objection is a bit more practical: “I don’t really like Taleb’s term ‘antilibrary.’ A library is a collection of books, many of which remain unread for long periods of time. I don’t see how that differs from an antilibrary.”

His preferred label is a loanword from Japan: tsundoku. Tsundoku is the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. Its morphology combines tsunde-oku (letting things pile up) and dukosho (reading books).

The word originated in the late 19th century as a satirical jab at teachers who owned books but didn’t read them. While that is opposite of Taleb’s point, today the word carries no stigma in Japanese culture. It’s also differs from bibliomania, which is the obsessive collecting of books for the sake of the collection, not their eventual reading.

THE VALUE OF TSUNDOKU

Granted, I’m sure there is some braggadocious bibliomaniac out there who owns a collection comparable to a small national library, yet rarely cracks a cover. Even so, studies have shown that book ownership and reading typically go hand in hand to great effect.

One such study found that children who grew up in homes with between 80 and 350 books showed improved literacy, numeracy, and information communication technology skills as adults. Exposure to books, the researchers suggested, boosts these cognitive abilities by making reading a part of life’s routines and practices.

Many other studies have shown reading habits relay a bevy of benefits. They suggest reading can reduce stress, satisfy social connection needs, bolster social skills and empathy, and boost certain cognitive skills. And that’s just fiction! Reading nonfiction is correlated with success and high achievement, helps us better understand ourselves and the world, and gives you the edge come trivia night.

In her article, Jessica Stillman ponders whether the antilibrary acts as a counter to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias that leads ignorant people to assume their knowledge or abilities are more proficient than they truly are. Since people are not prone to enjoying reminders of their ignorance, their unread books push them toward, if not mastery, then at least a ever-expanding understanding of competence.

“All those books you haven’t read are indeed a sign of your ignorance. But if you know how ignorant you are, you’re way ahead of the vast majority of other people,” Stillman writes.

Whether you prefer the term antilibrary, tsundoku, or something else entirely, the value of an unread book is its power to get you to read it.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Now if you’ll excuse me.           .           .
THERE’S 
THIS
B     O     O     K.     .     .

Eco stated as much. Doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he found he could only read about 25,200 books if he read one book a day, every day, between the ages of ten and eighty. A “trifle,” he laments, compared to the million books available at any good library.

Drawing from Eco’s example, Taleb deduces:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. [Your] library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary. [Emphasis original]

 

 

BEING A CARING CATALYST ON FORGIVENESS

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Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
JUST WHAT CHAINS
are you flying free.          .          .          ?|
COULD IT BE THE THE PRISON
OF UNFORGIVENNESS.     .     .     .

BE HONET.     .    .
When another person hurts us, it can upend our lives.

This essay has been adapted from <a data-cke-saved-href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OD8Z0K0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00OD8Z0K0&linkCode=as2&tag=gregooscicen-20&linkId=UMPHE5GNLL2P3XCK” href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OD8Z0K0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00OD8Z0K0&linkCode=as2&tag=gregooscicen-20&linkId=UMPHE5GNLL2P3XCK”>8 Keys to Forgiveness</a> (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015)I recently re-read this essay that has been adapted from 8 Keys to Forgiveness (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) and thought it absolutely was “SHAREABLE”

Sometimes the hurt is very deep, such as when a spouse or a parent betrays our trust, or when we are victims of crime, or when we’ve been harshly bullied. Anyone who has suffered a grievous hurt knows that when our inner world is badly disrupted, it’s difficult to concentrate on anything other than our turmoil or pain. When we hold on to hurt, we are emotionally and cognitively hobbled, and our relationships suffer.

Forgiveness is strong medicine for this. When life hits us hard, there isnothing as effective as forgiveness for healing deep wounds. Robert Enright says, “I would not have spent the last 30 years of my life studying forgiveness if I were not convinced of this.”

Many people have misconceptions about what forgiveness really means—and they may eschew it. Others may want to forgive, but wonder whether or not they truly can. Forgiveness does not necessarily come easily; but it is possible for many of us to achieve, if we have the right tools and are willing to put in the effort.

Below is an outline of the basic steps involved in following a path of forgiveness, adapted from his book, 8 Keys to Forgiveness. As you read through these steps, think about how you might adapt them to your own life.

1. Know what forgiveness is and why it matters

Forgiveness is about goodness, about extending mercy to those who’ve harmed us, even if they don’t “deserve” it. It is not about finding excuses for the offending person’s behavior or pretending it didn’t happen. Nor is there a quick formula you can follow. Forgiveness is a process with many steps that often proceeds in a non-linear fashion.

But it’s well worth the effort. Working on forgiveness can help us increase our self-esteem and give us a sense of inner strength and safety. It can reverse the lies that we often tell ourselves when someone has hurt us deeply—lies like, I am defeated or I’m not worthy. Forgiveness can heal us and allow us to move on in life with meaning and purpose. Forgiveness matters, and we will be its primary beneficiary.

Studies have shown that forgiving others produces strong psychological benefits for the one who forgives. It has been shown to decrease depression, anxiety, unhealthy anger, and the symptoms of PTSD. But we don’t just forgive to help ourselves. Forgiveness can lead to psychological healing, yes; but, in its essence, it is not something about you or done for you. It is something you extend toward another person, because you recognize, over time, that it is the best response to the situation.

2. Become “forgivingly fit”

More on Forgiveness

Read and watch Fred Luskin explain “What is Forgiveness?”

 

Read three evolutionary truths about forgiveness and revenge.

 

Discover how to overcome barriers to forgiveness.

 

How forgiving are you? Take our quiz!

 

Try this forgiveness practice, based on Enright’s work.

To practice forgiveness, it helps if you have worked on positively changing your inner world by learning to be what I call “forgivingly fit.” Just as you would start slowly with a new physical exercise routine, it helps if you build up your forgiving heart muscles slowly, incorporating regular “workouts” into your everyday life.

You can start becoming more fit by making a commitment to do no harm—in other words, making a conscious effort not to talk disparagingly about those who’ve hurt you. You don’t have to say good things; but, if you refrain from talking negatively, it will feed the more forgiving side of your mind and heart.

You can also make a practice of recognizing that every person is unique, special, and irreplaceable. You may come to this through religious beliefs or a humanist philosophy or even through your belief in evolution. It’s important to cultivate this mindset of valuing our common humanity, so that it becomes harder to discount someone who has harmed you as unworthy.

You can show love in small ways in everyday encounters—like smiling at a harried grocery cashier or taking time to listen to a child. Giving love when it’s unnecessary helps to build the love muscle, making it easier to show compassion toward everyone. If you practice small acts of forgiveness and mercy—extending care when someone harms you—in everyday life, this too will help. Perhaps you can refrain from honking when someone cuts you off in traffic, or hold your tongue when your spouse snaps at you and extend a hug instead.

Sometimes pride and power can weaken your efforts to forgive by making you feel entitled and inflated, so that you hang onto your resentment as a noble cause. Try to catch yourself when you are acting from that place, and choose forgiveness or mercy, instead. If you need inspiration, it can help to seek out stories of mercy in the world by going to the International Forgiveness Institute website: www.internationalforgiveness.com.

3. Address your inner pain

It’s important to figure out who has hurt you and how. This may seem obvious; but not every action that causes you suffering is unjust. For example, you don’t need to forgive your child or your spouse for being imperfect, even if their imperfections are inconvenient for you.

To become clearer, you can look carefully at the people in your life—your parents, siblings, peers, spouse, coworkers, children, and even yourself—and rate how much they have hurt you. Perhaps they have exercised power over you or withheld love; or maybe they have physically harmed you. These hurts have contributed to your inner pain and need to be acknowledged. Doing this will give you an idea of who needs forgiveness in your life and provide a place to start.

There are many forms of emotional pain; but the common forms are anxiety, depression, unhealthy anger, lack of trust, self-loathing or low self-esteem, an overall negative worldview, and a lack of confidence in one’s ability to change. All of these harms can be addressed by forgiveness; so it’s important to identify the kind of pain you are suffering from and to acknowledge it. The more hurt you have incurred, the more important it is to forgive, at least for the purpose of experiencing emotional healing.

You may be able to do this accounting on your own, or you may need the help of a therapist. However you approach looking at your pain be sure you do it in an environment that feels safe and supportive.

4. Develop a forgiving mind through empathy

Scientists have studied what happens in the brain when we think about forgiving and have discovered that, when people successfully imagine forgiving someone (in a hypothetical situation), they show increased activity in the neural circuits responsible for empathy. This tells us that empathy is connected to forgiveness and is an important step in the process.

If you examine some of the details in the life of the person who harmed you, you can often see more clearly what wounds he carries and start to develop empathy for him. First, try to imagine him as an innocent child, needing love and support. Did he get that from the parents? Research has shown that if an infant does not receive attention and love from primary caregivers, then he will have a weak attachment, which can damage trust. It may prevent him from ever getting close to others and set a trajectory of loneliness and conflict for the rest of his life.

You may be able to put an entire narrative together for the person who hurt you—from early child through adulthood—or just imagine it from what you know. You may be able to see her physical frailties and psychological suffering, and begin to understand the common humanity that you share. You may recognize her as a vulnerable person who was wounded and wounded you in return. Despite what she may have done to hurt you, you realize that she did not deserve to suffer, either.

Recognizing that we all carry wounds in our hearts can help open the door to forgiveness.

5. Find meaning in your suffering

When we suffer a great deal, it is important that we find meaning in what we have endured. Without seeing meaning, a person can lose a sense of purpose, which can lead to hopelessness and a despairing conclusion that there is no meaning to life itself. That doesn’t mean we look for suffering in order to grow or try to find goodness in another’s bad actions. Instead, we try to see how our suffering has changed us in a positive way.

Even as one suffers, it’s possible to develop short-term and sometimes long-range goals in life. Some people begin to think about how they can use their suffering to cope, because they’ve become more resilient or brave. They may also realize that their suffering has altered their perspective regarding what is important in life, changing their long-range goals for themselves.

To find meaning is not to diminish your pain or to say, I’ll just make the best of it or All things happen for a reason. You must always take care to address the woundedness in yourself and to recognize the injustice of the experience, or forgiveness will be shallow.

Still, there are many ways to find meaning in our suffering. Some may choose to focus more on the beauty of the world or decide to give service to others in need. Some may find meaning by speaking their truth or by strengthening their inner resolve. If I were to give one answer, it would be that we should use our suffering to become more loving and to pass that love onto others. Finding meaning, in and of itself, is helpful for finding direction in forgiveness.

6. When forgiveness is hard, call upon other strengths

Forgiveness is always hard when we are dealing with deep injustices from others. I have known people who refuse to use the word forgiveness because it just makes them so angry. That’s OK—we all have our own timelines for when we can be merciful. But if you want to forgive and are finding it hard, it might help to call upon other resources.

First remember that if you are struggling with forgiveness, that doesn’t mean you’re a failure at forgiveness. Forgiveness is a process that takes time, patience, and determination. Try not to be harsh on yourself, but be gentle and foster a sense of quiet within, an inner acceptance of yourself. Try to respond to yourself as you would to someone whom you love deeply.

Surround yourself with good and wise people who support you and who have the patience to allow you time to heal in your own way. Also, practice humility—not in the sense of putting yourself down, but in realizing that we are all capable of imperfection and suffering.

Try to develop courage and patience in yourself to help you in the journey. Also, if you practice bearing small slights against you without lashing out, you give a gift to everyone—not only to the other person, but to everyone whom that person may harm in the future because of your anger. You can help end the cycle of inflicting pain on others.

If you are still finding it hard to forgive, you can choose to practice with someone who is easier to forgive—maybe someone who hurt you in a small way, rather than deeply. Alternatively, it can be better to focus on forgiving the person who is at the root of your pain—maybe a parent who was abusive, or a spouse who betrayed you. If this initial hurt impacts other parts of your life and other relationships, it may be necessary to start there.

7. Forgive yourself

Most of us tend to be harder on ourselves than we are on others and we struggle to love ourselves. If you are not feeling lovable because of actions you’ve taken, you may need to work on self-forgiveness and offer to yourself what you offer to others who have hurt you: a sense of inherent worth, despite your actions.

In self-forgiveness, you honor yourself as a person, even if you are imperfect. If you’ve broken your personal standards in a serious way, there is a danger of sliding into self-loathing. When this happens, you may not take good care of yourself—you might overeat or oversleep or start smoking or engage in other forms of “self-punishment.” You need to recognize this and move toward self-compassion. Soften your heart toward yourself.

After you have been able to self-forgive, you will also need to engage in seeking forgiveness from others whom you’ve harmed and right the wrongs as best as you can. It’s important to be prepared for the possibility that the other person may not be ready to forgive you and to practice patience and humility. But, a sincere apology, free of conditions and expectations, will go a long way toward your receiving forgiveness in the end.

8. Develop a forgiving heart

When we overcome suffering, we gain a more mature understanding of what it means to be humble, courageous, and loving in the world. We may be moved to create an atmosphere of forgiveness in our homes and workplaces, to help others who’ve been harmed overcome their suffering, or to protect our communities from a cycle of hatred and violence. All of these choices can lighten the heart and bring joy to one’s life.

Some people may believe that love for another who’s harmed you is not possible. But, I’ve found that many people who forgive eventually find a way to open their hearts. If you shed bitterness and put love in its place, and then repeat this with many, many other people, you become freed to love more widely and deeply. This kind of transformation can create a legacy of love that will live on long after you’re gone.

FORGIVENESS IS NOT EASY AND IT’S NOT FOR THE WEAK
BUT THE WEAK SOMEHOW NEVER STAY THAT
WAY WHEN FORGIVENESS IS OFFERED.     .     .

DESIDERATA

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Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace
there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly
and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself
with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater
and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well
as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery
But let this not blind you to what
virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity
and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is  unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery,
and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy. ~Max Ehrmann

(Book: Desiderata https://amzn.to/45kJvnK

IT’S ONE THING TO SING WORDS
IT’S ONE THING TO HEAR WORDS
IT’S ONE THING TO READ WORDS
IT’S ONE THING TO BE WORDS
and make them come to life.      .      .
No matter when they were sung, heard, or read.          .          .

A POWERFULLY PROFANE PRAYER

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Anthony Hopkins might be one of the best actors in the past 50 years and one of the reasons I personally love and admire him is because he says his lines almost as if they were your own thoughts, and a flawless double-take.

B                         U                         T   

Here’s the problem with his film clip.        .        .Most of us either got disgusted or we stopped watching or maybe we even haven’t gotten this far when we heard those
TWO WORDS that start with an F and end with a T.          .          .DID you hear what he said after that.          .          .You see what makes that prayer so powerful isn’t the words, it’s a REELEASE,  A SURRENDER  that powerfully were related, actually felt, in those words.  When’s  the last time you had that kind of surrender, felt that kind of release that you offered it or felt it or just flat out better still, that you actually lived it.          .          .

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.          .         .
maybe it’s not the most powerful and the fastest prayer in the world
or maybe it’s just one that’s long been waiting to be
PROFANELY PRAYED

 

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man