Movement

I just returned from a wonderful 5 days in Boston where I presented my research on  Creating Growth Fostering Communities at a conference on Relational Cultural Theory at Wellesley College. My interest in RCT began back in the 1980's when I was introduced to the work of Jean Baker Miller, MD through her new book at that time entitled Towards a New Psychology of Women.  She and other women researchers were looking into the established developmental theories of the time, Freud, Erikson, Object Relations and others that were only based on male development and claimed to be the norm.

Interesting how far we've come along these days. Now we know that only half the world is men and the other half women. And that not all people are the same race, ethnicity, religion, or have the same sexual orientation...I hope!

In any event, I learned about oppression and how being born into a culture that operates in oppressive structures leaves an imprint...a 'footprint' if you will on our lives. I learned about dominant and subordinate relational setups and how that is called 'power over'. I also learned how the antidote to power/over relational models is to create relationships based on 'power with' or 'power from within'. 

I learned how girls grow and develop differently than boys...not in a less than way...just differently. I learned how their way of thinking involves care and concern for the interconnectedness of relationships...How their thinking involves both head logic...and...heart logic and that  head logic is not better than heart logic..both are required for thinking and evaluating.

I learned about stratification and privilege...you know...the one's who have and the one's who don't...remember that's the way we learned 'who was who' and 'who got what'  based on some arbitrary system of privilege.

I thought all those years ago that I was just learning and having my consciousness raised about the plight of 'women and blacks' ( that's how we said it back then).  I'm a Boomer who lived through Civil rights, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, Kent State Protests, Women's liberation, Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin...and all that jazz (or should I say sex, drugs and rock n roll). Then in the 1980's I discovered what it was called...oppression...power/over.

I began teaching a Psychology of Women course and I used Jean Baker Miller's book Towards a New Psychology of Women...and...added another voice articulating the new discoveries in moral development ...Carol Gilligan... written about in her book  In a Different Voice.  I was on fire, alive and spreading the message to girls and women who came to college.  And they were responsive. They too loved being able to share their life stories and have their experience, their thinking and their feelings validated through the work of these women.  They too learned about power over structures and the imprint left in their lives.

I've been teaching Psychology of Women for over 25 years. I thought in the beginning that I would only be teaching this information for a few years and we, meaning, we as 'women and blacks'  would move on.  I, again being a Boomer, had some idealistic notions that the world would change and that marginalization, acceptance of difference, stratification and privilege would somehow be gone!....How naive of me to think that such an oppressive structure...such a prominent way of being that has been around for over 4000 years could be shaken in just the blink of my teaching career.

My passion of all these years has been to see if it would be possible to create a nurturing community of people that could develop their own sense of empowerment through growth fostering relationships transforming power-over to power-with and power from within.  To see if people who had been so imprinted by oppressive structures could heal and create the kind of nurturing community they so desired.

Exuberantly, I discovered that it is possible...for I have had a healing and empowerment group going now for some 15 years.  People have come,done their work and left. Others have stayed since the group's inception. Some come for awhile, leave for awhile, and come back for awhile.  An open door policy for nourishment and growth is the key. 

This is the work I presented at the conference. This is the kind of work that will change the world.
And "Yes"...I am a Boomer...And "Yes" I still am naive...And "Yes" I still believe that as much and as long as we human beings have lived in fear, suffering, strife and struggle of power over structures...we hope to and we are creating growth fostering relationships.  We are raising our children in nurturing families. We are celebrating and embracing our differences. We are doing the compelling work of dispelling our fear and reaching out to one another to create a global community that realizes how very much we are connected and need and depend on one another for our very existence.

We are all people of color, coming from diverse origins, travelling different paths, holding different preferences and persuasions, sharing experiences of joys and sadness, love and pain.

It is through our connection...not...rugged individualism...that we have survived this far...and those connections are creating our future.  ROCK ON!!! 

Workshop Series: The Family presented at the Aletheia Center

The Workshop Series    “The Family”       February- June 2012

Intense, powerful, and sublime…

John Bradshaw with Pat's interpretation,

Power point presentation…

Poisonous pedagogy, anachronisms, addictions, compulsions, 

Secrets, birth order and traits…

Soul filled journeys with lots of ideas to implement, reflect, and use through time.

Now Bradshaw is awesome make no mistake,

Yet, Pat interwove Covington and Beckett’s, “The Enchanted Forest”

With even more inspiring episodes, interactive learning,

For our conscious and unconscious to awake.

It is always phenomenal for me to see

How much we each develop, share, take in…

Reciprocate, grasp, comprehend…and come to believe.

It's an experience which is so hard to EXPLAIN

Listening and learning at Pat's workshops always touches

The heart, soul, spirit…life's wounds and pains,

Helping to understand, heal and make choices for life changing GAINS

Once again, 

Thank you Dr. Patricia Jameson,

For a wonderful workshop filled with learning, thought provoking, and healing time.   

With love, admiration, respect and awe,  M.G.

It has been some time since I last checked in on this blog. I have been remiss in my entries...not because of lack of enthusiasm...only because of responding to new opportunities and dream fulfillments.  It is wonderful how life can send opportunities, ones that we have been wanting for along time. I often wondered...Why has it taken so long?...and...How did this opportunity come right now...and not any time before hand?  It has taken me some time to realize that as always the timing is right on target for the person...not too soon and not too late. 

Preparation for the opportunity...getting all the players up and ready for the opportunity...making sure the stage is set just right....and creating the opening...what fine orchestration!
It makes me realize that "MY OPPORTUNITY" exists within a whole world of intricate and beautiful relationships...already evolving and morphing...and "My Opportunity" is really really not "Mine".  My opportunity is really the 'jumping on point' of my involvement in an already moving, evolving organic process of creation that I am now being invited into; waking up to; being asked to participate with in a  particular way that only I can fulfill.

It's like making sauce.  (As you know, spaghetti sauce is my metaphor for life.)

Sauce is merely a part of an ongoing creation...the seeds, soil, sun and water to grow all the plants; the people who tend the gardens who nurture and harvest; the way to get the plants and you together. 

Then, there's the choice of the 'pot'!!!  Ceramic...stainless...cast iron...big one...little one...so many choices...Oh my!

Next comes the  heart and soul of the creator of the sauce.

I love to make sauce and one of the true reasons I love to make sauce is that sauce never allows itself to be made the same way twice.  No matter what the recipe; no matter how closely followed, sauce creates itself.

I participate in the creation of sauce as a humble observer/participant.  I know that I must carefully listen to that inner voice that directs my ideas for what ingredients to use...oregano...garlic...thyme...chopped tomatoes or diced...onions...mushrooms....this time....Yes...No...Olive oil...short ribs...ground beef...turkey....sausage!!!

How shall this sauce design itself this time?

And speaking of Thyme...when is just the 'right' time to add 'thyme'....how much thyme for time???

The who, the what, the when, the where, and the how much are intricate to the creation of sauce...co-creators if you will of the sauce....and lest I forget...the how long to cook.

You see, ultimately, the cooking of the sauce, the adding of the heat, the adding of the energy of fire...is what catalysts the ingredients to release their essences, at just the right moment and in just the right way for the sauce to become..."Sauce".

Opportunity works just the same way...all the nurture and care of all the essential ingredients; all the inspiration and inner listening to guidance and direction...the careful selection of the container...the selection and timing of adding the particulars...the deliberate introducing of the energy...and one thing I forgot...the careful attention and stirring of the cook!

So next time you find yourself asking for a dream to come true or beckoning for a certain opportunity to come your way....Remember.........Sauce!

Unfolding and Enfolding

I wonder sometimes what in the world goes on inside my body-being.  One day sadness mixed with anxiety and another day joy rolled up with hope. Sound bi-polar doesn't it? You know naming something puts a frame around it...a box....if you will,  enabling "it" to be carried more easily.  Have you ever let yourself wonder what 'normal' means...or...'crazy'? We use those words so flippantly sometimes, I really wonder if we even know what we are saying.

I wander around thoughts like this alot when I'm not thinking linearly.  I sometimes wonder how ordinary people live...or if I am really ordinary... or if I'm extra-ordinary... and think this as a way to feel special....Probably. Yet, unboxing my thoughts has been my life's endeavor.

Just yesterday I thought that my thinking has been circling around the same ideas for awhile now. How I need to stretch my thinking and exercise those neural connections and even make new ones. I realize I need to move out of this present box-i-ness in order to grow and discover...and make new neural connections.  My head has not hurt for awhile from the stretching of thought.

However, even this thinking about stepping out of the box is also a boxing of thought too.....How about that!   One box...expanding beyond and creating another box; expanding beyond and creating another box; and another and another....all those increasingly larger boxes...feels like Christmas or one of those Russian dolls.


I think, (here I go again thinking).  I think....Who thinks?...I think...Really?....You think?...NO!...I think!

Who's on first?                 Well anyway, all joking aside...see here I go again.

I think that all this 'boxiness' needs to be more rounded....more like concentric circles expanding...unfolding enfolding, undulating, folding out and then folding back in like kneading dough almost...stretched out and then folded back in upon itself...the...unfolding and enfolding.

Well, I have just experienced the unfolding and enfolding today as a matter of fact.  I believe it was just my day to choose to be with my own thoughts. Something from within held me true to my being today.   

I felt that strange yet familiar something from within take hold of me like a hand reaching up and pulling me in close. As a matter of fact, I felt the stretch of her loving reach earlier in the week, too.  La Que Sabe, the one who knows, the wise knowing one who lives deep within me holds me, reassures me, and comforts me so that I many remain truly connected to myself.

Boxing...No!

Expanding from within, in the arms of La Que Sabe, unfolding and enfolding, just like making bread.

Is the oven ready?

It's been a long time

I have not been here to write anything for some time, however that does not mean that I've been idle. I have embarked on a new adventure into the world of full time teaching...and...what a wonderful adventure it is.  On the one hand, it is a very new adventure; and on the other hand much remains the same.  Somehow I have entered into a vortex of a world that I have already been in for sometime...yet this world within a world is new and exciting and very invigorating. Entering into an 'already been in' world creates a new form; a new way; a new me.  This 'world within a world, inner circle experience' is one that I know is not unique to me.  Others have had this experience as well.

So many times I have heard people talk about the experience of "being on the outside looking in." This is not that. This is an experience of moving more into an 'inner-ness' within an already existing world.  WOW!  Just let yourself think about what that really means. To move into an even more direct, intimate connection; to be taken into something in a new and different way; to gain access to a specialness that you always was knew was there, yet could not fully touch some how.  How many get to have this kind of experience?

I guess you could say that anyone who falls in love has this experience and you would be right.  Falling in love is without a doubt a movement into an inner world of connection that is special and sacred wherein a person feels privileged.

Climbing Mt Everest, watching a Sedona sunset, giving birth, sitting on the edge of a pond, kayaking on the Mononghela River, journeying through a divorce; entering the world of the Fairey King...except for actually climbing Mt.Everest, which I have done metaphorically many times...I am blessed to have been given access to "the inner circle" the "world within the world" many times before.

I've also been privileged to enter the inner world of many people. Perhaps, that's why I was called into my profession.  Being able to enter that inner world of someone's life - a world that is sacred, precious, awesome, holy is a very sacred life mission.

I have been called, yet again, to enter an inner world.  And, as it has ever been when I am called, I answered "YES".  I know that, yet again, I am being called for a very special reason...for a very special healing...for a very special time of empowerment. I answer, "Yes" for me...and..."Yes" for all those I encounter.

What are you answering "YES" to?

From an ODE Magazine article

Are you using diminishing language in your speech and writing?
The law of diminishing returns is defined as: "A point beyond which the application of additional sources yield less than proportional increases in output." In the same way if we use diminishing language in our speech the effect and power of speech 'yield less than proportional increases' in the effect we are trying to achieve.
What is diminishing language?
Diminishing language is usage of words such as: kind of, but, sort of, just, might, would, could, maybe, probably etc. in your speech and writing. Do you find yourself using plenty of these diminishing words in your speech and writing? The answer is often yes, because most of us are guilty of using these words when we are trying to make a point. The reason being habit, and also a lack of awareness regarding the usage. We often don’t realize that these words are taking away the effect and power from what we are trying to put forward.
Language is the medium of interaction between human beings and has evolved since many centuries down the line. Early man used signs and symbols and the gradually increasing civilization saw speech and writing come into being. To make a point or to put across an idea we use many terms to stress upon what we are trying to say however involuntarily we use words that unwittingly diminish the power of our speech and writing.

Ever tried blowing into a balloon with all your might, not knowing that there is a tiny tear at the bottom that wont let the air sustain long enough and is actually deflating the balloon despite your repeated attempts at filling it with air? The use of diminishing language is like that attempt to blow up a balloon with a tiny tear. It will never get filled with air, never float in the air. In the same way your sentences would never create the impact and effect if you use the diminishing words. Here is an example:
The interviewer: "Are you an expert in your field?’"
The interviewee: "Yeah, I sort of trained for a year and then joined my father’s business."
The interviewer: "Would you be able to handle the client’s demands autonomously?"
The interviewer: "Probably, if I work in this organization, I might be able to do so."
It wouldn’t take a genius to guess the result of the interview. The candidate was shown the door with polite thanks.
It gives a lot of personal power to use the kind of language that is full of strong words such as "I will," "yes I can" and "I am going to do it." In this fast paced world very few people would stop to listen to your pondering words. It will be more beneficial to you and the organization if you sit back in your reclining chair and nurse a cup of hot tea in your hands, if you think "You might be able to do some work."

How does it feel when you ask someone if they could do some work for you and they say "Sure, I will."
It surely sound sweeter and more affirming and reassuring than "I would let you know." It helps to use "I will" even when one is saying, "No. Sorry, I will not be able to do it." Of course with a gentle smile. The person will have more faith in you than someone who says "I am kind of busy these days and might not be able to help you."
One of the most common mistakes when using words that weaken the power of speech is this: misunderstanding that the usage of these words, "sort of," "kind of," add to the fluency of language. When we are trying to make a point and are thinking at the me time while we ponder over the next sentence then instead of allowing reasonable gaps, we rush to fill it with "you know," "kind of," "probably…"
English dictionary defines the word diminishing as:

to make smaller or less or to cause to appear so.
to detract from the authority, reputation, or prestige of.

The point we are trying to make is signified largely in these definitions. The diminishing language detracts from the authority of the speech and cause to appear less effective.
When we talk about great orators and writers with admiration it is because they have the power to impress and announce their words with authority and command. A powerful speaker will never use ‘sort of’ ‘kind of’ in their speech. They will command respect and attention only because their speech is full of power and devoid of diminishing words. Imagine a speaker on the public dais saying "It’s kind of nice to see you all here." Most of us would immediately think "He/she is nervous."
Remember to use to words for power. I have learned that there are three words that really steal away the power of performance from our personal dictionary. These words are: could, should, would. People use these words when there is no ‘intent’ and ‘commitment’ in their sayings and want to slither away from a situation. I have noticed that usage of "I will" creates a magic that begins an inner shift in our own consciousness. By using "can," ‘"will" and "do" in vocabulary more often we send out a clear message to our subconscious that we mean business. Thus, an inner reallocation like this brings about an outer change in the attitude and automatically the words that we begin to use are more powerful and full of affirmations.

I wanted to post something in this New Year, 2011. I have a visceral sense that this year will be one of great prosperity and GOOD changes for people.  So often we want things to change, yet change is one of those crazy enigmas that we tend to desire and resist all at once. I believe our resistance to change is grounded in fear, since for so many of us change has meant something terrible, awful, more suffering or more craziness. 

However, my sense is that the changes we are traveling into are wonderful changes and maybe, just maybe, for some, may be the first time that change= wonderfulness! I can feel the wonderfulness and completeness of this in my being. Sounds crazy, perhaps, but I feel it deep in my soul...a clearing...a settling....a confirmation that whatever our struggle...it has come to a good and fruitful completion.  It lives within me as a good and complete ending of a cycle, so that a new, even better, more wonderful cycle can begin.

Endings and beginnings, both Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves--Life/Death/Life cycle;  and William Bridges in his book Transitions- endings /limbo/beginnings; and  remember of course, Virginia Satir's 6 step Process of Change- all speak to change/growth.

  Growing up isn't so bad; we may be afraid of it due to our cultural conditioning. Yet, growth, sense of responsibility, stepping into our new life patterns requires all of us to literally 'morph' into a new form, one which we have never yet been.  Remember, as Pascal stated, we are beings who are in the process of becoming...already, but not yet creatures living our life adventures.

So as we all reconfigure let us remember that with each new form, each new manifestation, we need to get reacquainted with ourselves and offer that new self to others.  " A new and improved form"
 and Let the Truth of Your Soul Shine Forth