The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

YES, PLEASE and THANK YOU

By Leave a Comment

T            H            I             S
is a picture that needs no caption
especially TIME of the year
when our already hectic lives go in to
C         H         A         O           S
m o d e
CRAZY ON STEROIDS.             .              .
where calm feels like just a word
but not a feeling
or another WAY.       .      .
which is why I dug deep into my files
and with the help of the
GREATER GOOD Editors
have provided some much needed
r e s p i t e
(IF YOU’LL TAKE IT TO HAVE IT)

Good Resources for Thriving Over the Holidays

Here are some articles that explore holiday stress management, managing conflict, picking gifts, making resolutions, and more.          .         .

The holidays can be rough—really rough at times; so here are literally dozens of articles and that try to help readers navigate the issues that arise when far-flung family members gather, everyone expects a present, and they all have an opinion. There are also some collected articles on making sense of this quickly-almost-gone-previous year and looking ahead to the new one. However you celebrate or are celebrated, here’s wishing you some severely-well-deserved-happy holidays!

Click to jump to a section:

Holiday stress management
New ways to think about gifting and celebration
The psychology of generosity and gratitude
Raising generous, grateful kids
Looking ahead to the new year

Holiday stress management

New ways to think about gifting and celebration

The psychology of generosity and gratitude

Raising generous, grateful kids

Looking ahead to the new year

It’s enough to just not get your wires crossed but to literally,
BLOW A CIRCUIT.            .          .
and here’s the biggest kicker of all,
it’s not that we don’t have the
R E S O U R C E S
of countless
WHAT TO DO’S
(uhhhhhhhhhhhh did you see how long this blog post is, already)
so much as utilizing them
plugging some of them in
and unplugging a few others
B                           U                          T
will you.          .         .

It just may be all of the difference between a really good or a really bad
h    o    l    i    d    a    y
(AND YOU GET TO CHOOSE.  .  .or let it CHOOSE FOR YOU)

UNKNOWN GOINGS

By Leave a Comment

T R O D D E N
are the paths we all walk but rarely in the same way and even more rare, at the same time.  No matter what trails choose us as we step out, they quickly put meanings to our steps.  Sometimes those steps are ones that are backwards, where we can pause and look at where we may be headed even in the Unknown Going.     .       .

Twice in the past month these words have come down my path from the wisdom of the desert and they soothed my walk without making me stumble (except into something good)

N.463 ( cf. 2.33) Anonymous Sayings of the Desert Fathers

An elder said: ”In the same way no plant whatsoever can come up on a well-trodden highway, not even if you throw seed on it, because the surface is well trodden down, so it is with us. Retire quietly from all business and you will see things growing that you did not know were in you, for you were walking on them.
In the Unknown Goings
sometimes there’s a Trail
not for the Traveling
It’s not a treacherous road
but it’s only to be trodden
by the Weary
seeking rest

On this byway to 
NOWHERE 
there’s a leading to the best
SOMEWHERE
I’ve ever ended up
And without wanting to return
I’m always back in the thick
of the Thoroughfare
trafficking away my
tranquility

The CERTAINTY of Uncertainty

By Leave a Comment

A GIVEN:
THE ONLY CONSTANT IS CHANGE
A GIVEN
THE ONLY THING CERTAIN
IS UNCERTAINTY
and now, Ladies and Gentlemen
we can all collectively sigh
(rather dramatically LOUD):
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
. . .now what always isn’t so
c e r t a i n
and even more so in a constant flurry of
c h a n g e
is
WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT

FOR ME
I found it’s not so much looking for
THE ANSWER
so much as asking the right
Q U E S T I O N
(and then, LISTENING)

What should we do when everything feels so out of control?
(see, an important question, right?)

 CHRISTINE CARTER, a freelance journalist for THE GREATER GOOD helps us ASK THE QUESTIONS to not so much get to a reaction but a RESPONSE

Living with so much uncertainty is hard. Human beings crave information about the future in the same way we crave food, sex, and other primary rewards. Our brains perceive ambiguity as a threat, and they try to protect us by diminishing our ability to focus on anything other than creating certainty.  

Research shows that job uncertainty, for example, tends to take a more significant toll on our health than actually losing our job. Similarly, research participants who were told that they had a 50% chance of receiving a painful electric shock felt far more anxious and agitated than participants who believed they were definitely going to receive the shock.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .

It is no surprise, then, that there are entire industries devoted to filling in the blanks of our futures. See, for example, the popularity of astrology apps, or the prestige of management consultancies dedicated to strategic planning. Fundamentalist religions counter anxiety by providing us with unambiguous rules and absolute truths. Conspiracy theories provide us with simple explanations for complex phenomena.

But sometimes—maybe always—it’s more effective not to attempt to create certainty. Though evolution might have rigged our brains to resist uncertainty, we can never really know what the future will bring. And in improbable situations like the pandemic, which has massively disrupted our routines and utterly destroyed our best-laid plans, we need to learn to live with ambiguity. “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is,” wrote mathematician John Allen Paulos. “Knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” 

So how can we best cope when everything feels so out of control? Here are seven surprising strategies. . .

Don’t resist

There’s no doubt: We are living through some severely challenging times. But resisting this current reality won’t help us recover, learn, grow, or feel better. Ironically, resistance prolongs our pain and difficulty by amplifying the challenging emotions we are feeling. There is real truth to the aphorism that what we resist persists.  . . .

There’s an alternative. Instead of resisting, we can practice acceptance. Research by Kristin Neff and her colleagues has shown that acceptance—particularly self-acceptance—is a counterintuitive secret to happiness. Acceptance is about meeting life where it is and moving forward from there. 

Because acceptance allows us to see the reality of the situation in the present moment, it frees us up to move forward, rather than remaining paralyzed (or made ineffective) by uncertainty, fear, or argument. To practice acceptance, we surrender our resistance to a problematic situation, and also to our emotions about the situation.  

For example, you might find your marriage to be particularly challenging right now. Instead of criticizing or blaming your spouse—two tactics of resistance—you could calmly accept your marriage for the time being. 

That doesn’t mean that you won’t feel frustrated anymore, or disappointed, or saddened by the state of things. A big part of acceptance is accepting how we feel about difficult circumstances (and difficult people) in our lives. But allowing our challenging marriage to be as it is right now—and acknowledging our feelings about it—puts us in a better position to move forward.

To be clear, acceptance is not the same as resignation. Accepting a situation doesn’t mean that it will never get better. We don’t accept that things will stay the same forever; we only accept whatever is actually happening at the moment. We can work to make our marriage happier, while at the same time allowing the reality that right now, the relationship or the situation is complicated. Maybe it will get better, maybe it won’t. Practicing acceptance in the face of difficulty is hard, and it’s also the most effective way to move forward. 

Invest in yourself

The best resource that you have right now for making a contribution to the world is YOU! When that resource is depleted, your most valuable asset is damaged. In other words: When we underinvest in our bodies, minds, or spirits, we destroy our most essential tools for leading our best lives.

We humans don’t do well when we defer maintenance on ourselves. We need to sustain the relationships that bring us connection and meaning. We must get enough sleep and rest when we are tired. We need to spend time having fun and playing, just for the joy of it. And here’s the biggest
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst of the Day there could ever be:
THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL

Don’t be confused: Self-care is not selfish. Selfishness is an anxious focus on the self. Selfish people tend to refer back to themselves a lot by using words like I, me, and mine. They pursue extrinsic goals, such as preserving their youthful beauty or cultivating an image of themselves on social media. They often hunger for more money, power, and approval from others, and they are often willing to pursue these things at the expense of other people or at the expense of their own integrity. That sort of self-focus is linked to stress, anxiety, depression, and health problems such as heart disease.

So, there’s no recommending selfishness, just a strong urging of self-care and personal growth. 

Find healthy comfort items

One of the most important ways we can invest in ourselves is to comfort ourselves in healthy ways. 

If we are to stay flexible, we need to feel safe and secure. When we feel uncertain or insecure, our brain tries to rescue us by activating our dopamine systems. This dopamine rush encourages us to seek rewards, making temptations more tempting. Think of this as your brain pushing you toward a comfort item. . .like an extra glass of wine instead of a reasonable bedtime. Or the entire pan of brownies. Or an extra little something in your Amazon cart.

But instead of turning to social media, junk food, or booze to soothe our rattled nerves, we do better when we preemptively comfort ourselves in healthy ways. 

Make a list of healthy ways to comfort yourself. Can you mask up and go for a hike with a neighbor? Schedule a call with a friend? Reflect on what you are grateful for? Let yourself take a little nap? Perhaps you could seek out a hug or watch a funny YouTube video. 

Those things may seem small—or even luxurious—but they enable us to be the people that we want to be.

Don’t believe everything you think

Perhaps the most essential stress-reduction tactic that anyone has ever taught me is not to believe everything I think. In these seemingly unending, uncertain times, it’s really important not to believe thoughts that argue for the worst-case scenario (of which we are experts).

It can be helpful for us to consider worst-case scenarios so that we can weigh risks and actively prevent disaster. But when we believe these stressful thoughts, we tend to react emotionally as though the worst case is already happening in real life, rather than just in our heads. We grieve for things that we haven’t actually lost, and react to events that are not actually happening. This makes us feel threatened, afraid, and unsafe when we are simply alone with our thoughts. (IS ANY OF THIS RINGING A BELL YOU’D RATHER NOT HAVE HAD RUNG?)

Our negativity bias can also set us up for failure. Expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we expect the worst, we often feel too afraid or close-minded to seize opportunities or respond to challenges with creativity and grit. 

Instead of buying into every stressful thought, we can actively imagine the best possible scenario. We can find silver linings to replace ruminations. This counters our natural tendency to overestimate risks and negative consequences. 

Pay attention

The opposite of uncertainty is not certainty; it’s presence. Instead of imagining a scary and unknown future, we can bring our attention to our breath. From there, we can check in with ourselves. Every time we wash our hands, for example, we could ask ourselves: How are you doing right now? 

Notice what emotions you are feeling, and where in your body you feel those emotions. Bring curiosity and acceptance to your experience.

Even when it feels like everything is out of our control, we can still control what we pay attention to. We can turn off our alerts to keep the news or social media from hijacking our awareness. We can drop our ruminations and negative fantasies by attending to what’s actually happening in our inner world, right now, here in the present.

Attending to what is happening within us at any given moment keeps a crappy external reality from determining our inner truth. It allows us to cultivate calm, open-mindedness, and non-reactivity. 

Stop looking for someone to rescue you

When we act as though we are powerless, we get trapped in narratives that leave us feeling angry, helpless, and trapped. And we start hoping other people will save us from our misery.

Although it can feel good when others dote on us, most rescuers don’t really help. Our friends might want to save us—because helping others makes people feel good—and their intentions may be noble. But rescuers tend to be better enablers than saviors. If we stay stuck, they get to keep their role as our hero, or they get to distract themselves from their own problems. 

Rescuers tend to give us permission to avoid taking responsibility for our own lives. On the other hand, emotionally supportive friends (or therapists) see us as capable of solving our own problems. They ask questions that help us focus on what we do want instead of what we don’t. 

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is”

―John Allen Paulos, mathematician

In short: To best cope with uncertainty, we need to stop complaining. When we drop our fixation on the problem, we can focus on the outcomes we desire. How can we make the best of this mess? What can we gain in this situation?  

When we take responsibility for our lives, we trade the false power of victimhood for the real power that comes from creating the life we want.

Find meaning in the chaos

Social psychologists define meaning, as it applies to our lives, as “an intellectual and emotional assessment of the degree to which we feel our lives have purpose, value, and impact.” We humans are best motivated by our significance to other people. We’ll work harder and longer and better—and feel happier about the work we are doing—when we know that someone else is benefiting from our efforts. 

For example, teens who provide tangible, emotional, or informational support to people in crises tend to feel more strongly connected to their community. Research shows that we feel good when we stop thinking about ourselves so much and support others.

When we see something that needs improvement, our next step is to recognize what we personally can do to be a part of the solution. What skills and talents (or even just interests) can we bring to the issue? What really matters to us, and how can we be of service?

Meaning and purpose are wellsprings of hope. When the world feels scary or uncertain, knowing what meaning we have for others and feeling a sense of purpose can ground us better than anything else.

So, don’t just wait for this ordeal to be over. Don’t be resigned to your misery while we wait for a vaccine. What have you always wanted to do? What outcome are you hoping for? How can you make a real life in this? Live that life. How can you be A Caring Catalyst, NOW, not then or w h e n.

I F
The only thing that’s constant is
C H A N G E
and the only thing
CERTAIN
is
UNCERTAINITY
then nothing
S T A Y S
the same. . .
even this
UN-MATHEMATICIAN
gets that
e q u a t i o n

BE THE PROOF
of CERTAINTY
in the always present
UNCERTAINITY. . .

H E Y O K A

By 40 Comments

DO       YOU       KNOW       ONE?

ARE     YOU     ONE?

heyoka

I hadn’t  even heard the term until yesterday afternoon during a Spiritual Care Coordinators Discipline Meeting.  Dr. Kevin Dieter, a hospice doctor gave a presentation about Palliative Sedation/Management of Symptoms Intervention and began with this term.  .   .

And then I began asking those first two questions:

DO  YOU  KNOW  ONE?

ARE   YOU   ONE?

An empath is a person who has the ability to feel the emotional state of another individual. There are many different types of empaths, however, Heyoka empaths may be the most spiritually attuned of them all.

What      is      a      H e y o k a ?

‘Heyoka’ is a Native American word meaning ‘sacred clown’ or ‘fool’. This term is apt because it describes the way Heyoka use light humorous energies to open people’s minds and to heal. They work almost by tricking or joking with people.

This kind of empath sees life differently. They understand that sometimes the only way shift people’s thinking is to startle them out of it. They do this by showing them a completely different way of looking at things, often the complete opposite way.

The healing of a Heyoka is important, but they don’t take life too seriously. Heyoka empaths also behave as a mirror, reflecting other people’s behavior back to them so others can see themselves in a new way and begin to heal.

What      do      Heyokas      do?

In Native American ceremonies, the Heyoka’s role would be to disrupt things in order to enable people to see things differently. This kind of empaths uses the energy of the sacred clown to open people’s eyes to new possibilities and different angles on a situation. They also have the ability to shift the energy of a group through their understanding of emotions.

Modern day Heyoka Empaths will often say or do something to shift energy and change perceptions. This allows others to begin to see clearly and heal. This kind of empath doesn’t heal in a conventional way, with crystals, their hands or through spirits. Instead, they create the space for others to become more aware of how they are behaving and thus heal themselves.

Heyoka empaths often heal through chaos and disruption. This is not always an easy or peaceful healing. However, it may be necessary for those completely stuck in a way of thinking that does not serve them.

Because Heyoka are empaths, they understand the emotions of others and are, therefore, able to provide the healing method suited to the individual’s needs. They might not heal someone completely all at once, however, he or she can lead someone through the next step on their journey to wholeness.

How   do   you   know   if   you   are   a   Heyoka?

Traditional signs that you are a Heyoka include being born breech, being dyslexic, being emotionally unpredictable, doing things backwards, being left-handed and thinking differently to others.

If you can feel other people’s emotions and instinctively know what they need to heal, you may be a Heyoka. You may also notice that when you have a deep conversation with someone, they often experience life-changing insights.

Perhaps you help people to heal through humor, or point out the ridiculous nature of a situation, in which case, you are using Heyoka energy. If you often find people are surprised or shocked by what you say or do, but then come round to your way of thinking and are able to move forward in their lives, then you are most certainly a Heyoka.          .          .

DO     YOU     KNOW     ONE?

ARE               YOU                ONE ?

Pssssssssssssssssssssssst   of   the   DAY:

The ANSWER
to both questions:
Y                    E                    S

W     E

at our worst are
SHADOWS   of   Ourselves 

a            n            d

at our BESTS
SHADOWS     of     OTHERS

(recognize THAT)

 

Cha-Cha-Cha-CHILLING

By Leave a Comment

Muriel de Seze—Getty Images
 BRIAN O’CONNOR is a professor of philosophy at University College Dublin and the author of Idleness: A Philosophical Essay.     .     .
And he has some really interesting things to say about
plain-ordinary-kick-back-put-your-feet-and-don’t-do-a-thing-NOTHINGNESS

From the age of Enlightenment onward, philosophers, political leaders and moral authorities of many kinds have tried to convince us that work is one of the most important opportunities for freedom. Through work, we can become a somebody, relish the esteem we gain, structure our lives and, while we are at it, contribute nobly to the common good. This is a strange brew of ideas, but one that has seeped deeper into our psyche than we may realize.           .          .

R         E         S         O         N         A         T         E  ?

We develop a craving for recognition that is rarely satisfied. We need to be seen and admired, pushed along by a narcissism that doesn’t really believe in itself, but doesn’t know how to stop. We depend on the approval of strangers with needs of their own. Self-satisfaction proves elusive. If we are lucky enough to accomplish one thing, another seemingly compelling challenge — or even just an after-hours email — steps in to give us a new worry.

The ever-tightening connection between our work and our personal identity constricts even more. We come to believe that being idle at all is, somehow, the antithesis of freedom. But we would do well to think about idleness more, and rather differently from how we do.

Leisure today is, for many people, a glimpse at what it would be like to do nothing for more than a few hours. It is — or at least it used to be — downtime, lazing away, forgetting the bothers of the workplace. We use our allowance of paid vacation to recharge the batteries, address some level of emotional well-being… and gear up for a return to work. Leisure, in this way, is incorporated into the world of work. It is not a subversion of it.

H E A D Y     S T U F F,  huh?

And this is how many want it to be. Doing nothing at all, the thought goes, is good up to a point. But over-doing nothing is boring. In that light, modern work practices look just right. They respect, one might naively think, our natural moderate desire for idleness — paid vacation time — and the deeper need to keep ourselves busy.

It was not always this way. In 1963, the German writer Heinrich Böll published a fictional story of a visitor to a small fishing village somewhere in the West of Europe. His visitor carries with him the full conviction of the work ethic. Spotting an apparently lazy local fisherman resting in his boat, the visitor asks impatiently why the man doesn’t spend more time fishing, catching more, eventually building a lucrative multi-vessel business. With that effort, he could hope to work his way towards time away from work. It falls to the simple but not so naive fisherman to point out the irony of that recommendation. With no pressure to make something of himself, the fisherman is free — enviably so. He has what many seek: his own idle time. He has it by default. His circumstances may have been remarkably fortunate, yet Böll’s story captures a recognizable time when work was considered a necessary evil, second in value to other goods like friendship, rest and community.

It may be unrealistic to believe we could return to a world like that. And there are dangers of wishful thinking in believing such a world was ever successful in meeting the fundamental range of human needs — our emotional, material and intellectual needs. Our unqualified belief in progress especially affords it little credibility. There is nothing commendable about leaving all work to others, or in pretending that no level of work is essential to survival. Economic precariousness is not just dangerous to one’s health but also psychologically draining. (It is telling that a common perception of people out of work or down on their luck — that they are lazy — is infected with the supposed moral virtue of busyness.) In society today, we cannot forget these facts — and realize that it will be difficult to decouple ourselves from our deep socialization as useful workers.          .             .

W        A        I        T.            .            .W        H        A        T    ?

Great philosophers have argued that we have nothing to learn from ways of life that exists outside the busy world of western civilization. But if we have some hunch that the world we have today demands too much effort in return for too little happiness, we could do worse than to see what we can learn from those other forms of living. The potential in idleness for greater freedom seems worth the exploration. Or at least an attempt to think about what prevents us from truly doing nothing right now.          .          .

R          E          M          E          B          E          R :

BURN OUT sometimes happen NOT when you put too many logs on the Fire, but when you remove THEM ALL, or too many.          .          .

JUST    MAKE    SURE    THEY    ARE    THE    RIGHT    LOGS

and  B U R N

Warmer

and  B  U  R  N

Brighter

P          E          A           C          E

comes   in   many   forms   and   in   many   ways

BUT  IT  COMES
(if  you  let  it)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man