Today’s passage, “Good morning monster." In Catherine Gildiner’s groundbreaking novel about her therapy practice, she chronicles the experiences from  five of her most memorable and heroic patients. 

On of her patient’s named, “Laura” was a young woman struggling to make sense of the world around her, in understanding her anxiety and relationships with others.  Laura had been abandoned at age nine by her father, left to raise her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the midst of winter. 

Laura’s mother had died a year prior.  Her mother became pregnant with Laura at age sixteen, which brought about shame and embarrassment to her traditional Italian family, so her parents forced her to get married, have the baby and promptly shunned, offering no emotional, financial, or physical support to the teenage girl, Laura’s mother.
 
Catherine writes, “I wondered if Laura’s mother had been clincally depressed and therefore emotionally unavailable for Laura. Who wouldn’t be depressed or traumatized having had an overprotective childhood, dominated by violent males and then marrying a man who didn’t want to marry her, who was himself inadequate, possibly emotionally and physically abusive, who resented and ignored her? Her parents had disowned her, never forgiving her for shaming them.”

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Today’s passage, “Are We Unconsciously Bias?”

“It’s the unease of walking into a meeting where no one looks at me.”

“And, the unease of being judged when I leave early to go pick up my children.”

“It’s the frustration of being talked over in meetings or not asked for my opinion.”

“And the frustration of asserting my opinion only to be labeled aggressive or angry.”

“It is the annoyance that I am less committed to my family life because I am a man.”

“And the annoyance of the assumption that I am less committed to my work because I am a Mother.”

“It’s the pressure to be super-human and not talk about how I am really feeling.”

“And the pressure to fit in.”

“And the anxiety of not wanting to share my personal life because most of the people I work with are heterosexual.”

These are just a few of the quotes pulled from #InclusionStartsWithI a discussion around bias and the importance of a positive, inclusive work environment. 

The video features an actual group of employees who work at Accenture. I think the video demonstrates that bias is a given and it can appear in the most unexpected ways when we lack awareness around the formation of our thoughts and how our thoughts lead to perceptions, which attributes labels on others. 

So what is bias? Bias occurs when we unconsciously stereotype other people. An example could be unconsciously favoring male resumes over female resumes when a hiring manager is looking at their first names.  

Here is another example of bias that’s in the form of a riddle. “A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son." How can this be?

#
Being biased doesn’t mean that you are bad or racist, it means you’re a regular human being living in a labeled world and everyone of us, in my opinion, is biased to a certain degree. 

So why does this matter? Well, when we are unconscious to our bias, we likely keep a circle of friends and mentors around us that think and act in ways that are similar. Perhaps, we share the same perspective on a wide variety of things. When we leave our comfort zone and enmesh ourselves with others outside of our family of origin, our geographical or cultural community, we begin to open up to a variety of ways of synthesizing information.  It is through diverse discourse that we begin to see one issue in a multitude of ways.  

If you would like to watch the full Accenture video on diversity and inclusion, I am enclosing a link in the details section of this episode.

How freeing it is to undergo a thorough investigation of our unconscious bias and liberate ourselves from labels.

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Today’s passage, “Should questions pertaining to early Adverse Childhood Experiences be appended to our routine physical checkups to better understand the relationship between trauma and sickness both physical and mental?”
 
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and chronic illness are clearly linked in numerous scientific studies. In Bessel van der Kolk's NY Times best-selling book, The Body Keeps the Score, he writes that trauma survivors have nearly 50 times the rate of the general population in developing breathing issues, issues of asthma, and COPD because trauma is stored in the lungs. 

Epigenetics is the study how our environment impacts the way our genes work, regulating whether genes are turned ‘on or off.’ Meaning, someone could carry a gene for an illness but it’s never activated for a variety of reasons and one might be the lack of adverse childhood experiences, or the healthy and secure environment in which they’re raised.  

If you’re interested in reading scholarly research on this topic, I am including a link to an article in The Lancet titled, "The role of epigenetics in psychological resilience” The article discusses whether Epigenetic mechanisms could be one molecular pathway into how adverse and traumatic events can become biologically embedded and contribute to individual differences in resilience. 

We must ask ourselves as a society why we continue to treat the symptoms rather than investigate the origin of its cause. We stick in the familiarity of asking lifestyle questions pertaining to food intake, drugs and alcohol. However, a questionnaire set that would include a rating system for early childhood trauma might help quantify the view on epigenetics in how it may predict whether genes are turned ‘on or off’.

So it stands to reason, genetically speaking, if trauma can be passed down from generation to generation, so can healing.

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Today’s passage, “Tapping away stress.” Dr. Roger Callahan, a clinical therapist and fellow with the American Academy of Psychotherapists Treating Addictions, in the 1980s had a client named, Mary, who had severe phobia of water.  He went through traditional therapeutic processes with her, to visualize a swimming pool, to expose her to small amounts of actual water and etcetera. 

Mary was in his office one day complaining of how her stomach would turn or she would feel bouts of nervous butterflies in her belly whenever she saw water. Dr. Callahan had been reading about the Chinese Meredian theory, which said the stomach meredian was located beneath the eye. He had an idea... He asked Mary to think of the water, while tapping beneath her eye to activate the stomach meridean.  As she looked at the picture of the swimming pool, she began tapping under her eye and almost immediately she said that her fear had evaporated, the phobia of water was gone.

The meridian system is a concept in traditional Chinese medicine. Meridians are thought of as pathways through which life-energy, what is qi, flows.  Although, there is little scientific evidence supportive of the claim, millions have reported the benefits from acupuncture, acupressure and reflexology, which also use the body’s energetic meridian points to ease or cure all sorts of ailments, including stress and depression.

So, in tapping the face, inside the wrist, the arms and other points may alleviate stress because the message of safety it sends to the amygdala.
 
 So what is the amygdala? The amygdala is the part of your brain that interprets your environment if it senses or perceives danger, it sends a distress signal triggering perhaps a trauma response. A great way to explain this to children is to use the upstairs/downstairs metaphor.

The amygdala is part of our downstairs brain.  We can literally be trapped ‘downstairs’ in a battle of fight or flight because the amygdala is in control downstairs. The downstairs brain is seen as more primitive.  Our upstairs brain contains the cerebral cortex and its various parts, including the middle prefrontal cortex located behind the forehead. So how does tapping take us from the downstairs ‘fear’ mode to upstairs prefrontal cortex ‘safe and secure’ mode? What a great visualization that is to ascend a staircase to safety…

 Well think of it this way. If someone robbed you at gunpoint and kickstarted your fight or flight response, would you be able to suddenly start tapping the cheeks or the forehead of your face? So when for someone with PTST, post traumatic stress disorder, tapping sends calming messages from the upstairs to the downstairs brain to say, hold up a second, you’re ok.  

If you combine tapping with re-processing of trauma by victualing what happened as you tap yourself and speak statements of safety, the idea is the trauma alleviates and the healing begins.

 If you’d like to learn more about self-healing through tapping, I am including a link to the practitioner I admire as expert in the field, Nick Ortner in the details section episode.

Remember the adage, “Check your feet”. If you are in a state of PTST, your body is shutting down, you’re having a panic attack, a memory, a phobia, “Check your feet” is a reminder to look down at your feet in order to breathe. Because by looking at your feet, welcome in the presence of awareness that you are not in that place. You’re a survivor. And, you survived that experience for a reason.

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Today’s Passage, “What colors reveal.” For me, there is no greater connection to inward happiness than to spend time in the splendor of nature. To gaze up at the blue sky, to swim in our beloved green ocean, or to just run my hands across a thorny bush or the bark on a tree.
 
 According to New York color therapist, Dr. Koran Johar, “colors actually give off a certain “feeling”. They are associated with different mental, physical, and emotional effects on people. Red, for example, can increase heart rate and adrenaline. While some colors have been psychologically proven to influence a change in affect, some may be subjective and can be opened to interpretation and perception between different populations or cultures.”

I read a fascinating article titled, “Female cleansing the momome ritual of the Akan world.” It’s a paper written by Stefano Boni, that discusses the female-led cleansing ceremony of a West African Community, in moments before what is deemed an ‘impending crisis’ . The use of color and other sacred rituals are thought to be a supernatural protection against treachery.

The colors turquoise, blue and purple are often associated with spirituality. In the seven chakras, the color turquoise or blue is associated with the throat chakra, and it relates to communication.  If it’s blocked, there would be an inability to articulate and communicate clearly, or perhaps a shyness.

Ellen Meloy writes, “Colors are not possessions; they are the intimate revelations of an energy field… They are light waves with mathematically precise lengths, and they are deep, resonant mysteries with boundless subjectivity” in her book, “The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky.” Color as a symbol of culture was what Meloy investigated, and in particular, why  turquoise, the color and the gem, is held in such high esteem by so many cultures. For example, the Persians liken the color turquoise to the equivalent of wearing a bulletproof vest, while the Navajo dress in the color turquoise in honor of their homeland’s ancestral landscape. Meloy died in 2004.

Mood rings were popular in the United States in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. And, I’ll be honest, I think they are overdue for a massive comeback. A mood ring changes colors based on the body temperature of the wearer. It’s a liquid crystal, and most of the Mood rings come with a handy dandy color chart, which supposedly indicate the mood of the wearer. Turquoise falls somewhere between, ‘happy, loving and relaxed.’ 

You know, there was a hit song Audrey Hepburn sang in the film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s --based on Truman Capote’s novel of the same name, it was originally titled, “Blue River” but that name was copywritten for another song, so one of the songwriter’s, Johnny Mercer, changed it to “Moon River” in reference to a river in Savannah Georgia, that ran near his childhood home. His song lyrics likely invoked the color blue as wrote nostalgically for those memories of home. But for me, I only plan Moon River, when I need a good cry. Mood color ring, black…for stress and sorrow. 

No matter what sort of mood prevails, we have the power to alter our state of being. Perhaps, the next time you’re feeling down or out of sorts, you will use color in a creative way in your home environment, in nature, or with others to uplift yourself and play in the wonder of color.

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Today’s Passage, “The childhood shows the man, as the morning shows the day,” Said by John Milton, an English poet and statesman who died in 1674. He was also the author of Paradise Lost.

 “As the morning shows the day”

My grandmother used to say, “Everything looks better, Megan, in the morning.” It sounds simplistic, but my grandmother lived to be 99 and endured many deprivations and hardships in life, as she grew up very impoverished, working in a cotton mill in small town in Georgia. She also lived through the passing of my younger sister to cancer. It was her house I drove to for comfort in the aftermath of my younger sister’s death.  So what did my grandmother, mean by ‘everything looks better in the morning’? 

Mornings are our new beginnings, a renewal, the birth of a new day day. They are also symbolic of a new thought, the dawning of a new idea. 

In  Pulse of the Morning, Maya Angelou,  a civil rights activist, poet and award-winning author known for her acclaimed 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, writes, “The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day, You may have the courage, To look up and out and upon me.”

Likewise, the innocence of children, like the dawn of a new morning, show us a new day. Children are our greatest teachers, our instructors, yet so often we view this the other way around.  

We develop into adults who buy into our own constraints, judgments and oppressions then shame our children to ‘toe the line’ and ‘follow our lead’, but we are operating in the shadow of the night. 

We demand early specializations, scripted lessons and course curriculums are taught to our children. We bring our jaded darkness to dawn. It is only when we see our children as the light, that we realize they should be taught less and listened to more.

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Today's passage, “Who Am I?” You may have asked yourself this question at some point in your life.  I know I did around the age of 39. Who Am I is also a famous song from the hit Broadway show, Les Misérables. I have heard this song thousands of times but it wasn’t until my own spiritual awakening that the lyrics carried more meaning. This song also came to mind when I began to question my life purpose.

The song goes, “Who am I? If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned…Who am I? Can I conceal myself for evermore? Pretend I'm not the man I was before? And must my name until I die. Be no more than an alibi? Must I lie? How can I ever face my fellow men? How can I ever face myself again? My soul belongs to God, I know. I made that bargain long ago. Gave me hope, when hope was gone. Gave me strength to journey on Who am I?”

Jean Valjean closes the song with “Who Am I? I’m Jean Valjean, 2-4-6-0-1! He references both his given name and the prison identification number chosen by a man he barely knew, Victor Hugo, who had dedicated his life to chasing and intimidating him. Hugo believed Jean Valjean was conceived on June (6) date (24) 18 (01) and so this was his original prison number before he escaped. Of course, neither his name nor his prison number personify who he really is.

Just the other day, I told someone that they reminded me of a Chameleon because Chameleons easily blend in and adapt to their environment and in this example, I was referencing different types of social situations. For Chameleons in the wild, it’s a survival skill to camouflage with their environment and hide from predators.  It’s a similar thing for us humans. When children grow up experiencing dysfunction in the home they learn how to blend in and not draw attention to themselves often when there are siblings, one will blend in more, also known as the, ‘good child’ and the other will standout more, also known as the, ‘bad child’ or the ‘rebel’. Sometimes a child will vacillate between blending in & rebelling.  And this falsehood continues into adulthood.  In extreme cases, it could mean blindly following orders or pushing back on authority running infractions with the law. 

Whether we blend in or standout, we are living falsely in an egoic state. We are activating our ego in understanding the life source of the ego is fear.  It’s fear that supports our hiding and it’s fear that supports our rebellion.  Fear of not being accepted, fear of others and not wishing to make waves and rock the boat, so we blend in.  Fear of being controlled, fear of losing something precious (a job, money, title, validity), so we rebel against authority.  

What if we all chose to take off our masks, step into the present moment with love and authenticity. To leave behind all pretense?  

In my mind, the only way to live authentically is to live honestly and openly without fear or intimidation from society, culture, family, friends and others.

So, I am placing a link to Hugh Jackman’s rendition of Who Am I  in the details section of this episode. It’s fantastic and worth a listen. 

Also, If you liked this episode, please rate and review this podcast. I so appreciate your support. With Love…

And remember, in the end, although Jean Valjean sang, “If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!” He didn't stay silent, he spoke his truth, stepped into presence and lived in authenticity.

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Today's passage, How can we win? It was nearly one year ago, when I first heard, Kimberly Latrice Jones’ remarks regarding Black Lives Matter protests about inequality, and police brutality. Her video picked up popularity and was widely spread throughout the U.S. There was an uproar against the BLM movement due to rioting and looting. Kimberly’s comments helped to deconstruct the "Why" behind the looting and rioting during the protests, which helped to keep our thoughts and beliefs on the root cause of the BLM issue, which is systemic racism and how it ensures a dismal financial gap between the poor and the wealthy for people of color.

Kimberly Jones' explains the differences between looters, rioters and protesters...[...] Now, I live in NYC. When George Floyd was murdered on Memorial Day, and in the days after his death, protesting began in the city.  It happens that my kids were away the weekend after, so I was out in Central Park, somewhere in the rambles, reading spiritual book. I was actually rereading, Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. As I was walking out of the park, book in hand, a couple walked past me, Caucasian.  The young woman was visibly upset. Her partner was carrying a picnic basket, he seemed perplexed. He said, “Well, what do you want me to do about it? Go out and streets and protest?” A novel idea by the way he said it. She goes, “I don’t know, maybe!” I’ve always wondered if they went out later into the streets and protested, because I did too.

As I stood alongside (with) a group of people watching a group of protesters sitting on the steps of The Met chanting for BLM, I felt hypocritical and completely idiotic. In my hand, I held this spiritual book about God’s love and returning in all ways to love, yet I was observing a painful injustice and was choosing to stand in observation. Why? So I joined the protest.

A few hours later, in Greenwich Village, I heard speeches given by several of the organizers and college kids from nearby universities.  I met a Palestinian woman named Tahanie Aboush who I would later learn was a civil rights attorney running for Manhattan District Attorney.  As we marched from Greenwich Village to Union Square, the sun setting.  I saw a young man run over to a trash can and push it over.  On the next block he ran to do the same thing, I ran after him.  I shouted, “Hey, that’s not the way, stop it – don’t start it!” He shouted back at me, “Why do you care? It’s the only way to get there attention! They don’t care about us!” Three of the organizers, all female, came and linked arms around me and said I was right to he should knock it off. We sort of skipped off to the square. I don’t know if he continued throwing trashcans as I took that as my cue to return home, but I do know that that’s when the riots started in New York.  I will never forget the look of shock on his face as I ran up to him, the "Mama" in me wanted to correct and protect him. But his "Why" was greater than me.

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Today's passage, “The dreams we use to distract ourselves." In “Heartburn,” Nora Ephron’s 1983 novel a fictionalized version on the demise of her marriage. “  Nora Ephron, writes, "And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.”

Of course, Nora Ephron leaves you with a biting, albeit somewhat sarcastic and bitter remark and therein lies the result of a broken heart, the humanness of an unmet dream, the foiled, disappointing and unfilled expectation of another.

Lisel Mueller writes in her poem, Immortality, “What exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious.”

In the Wachowski sisters’ hit 1999 movie, “The Matrix” the Key Maker signified choices and it was he, or his program, that held the ability to open the door to the Source. Whether your source is Christ, Allah, Buddha, Guru Grant Sahib, or within yourself, we each have this key.
Perhaps, the only way to reach immortality is to view our endings as beginnings---our belief that this is what makes life truly worth living – the master key to our inner peace.
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Today's message, “Say yes to the unpleasant and welcome the awful.” – Eckhart Tolle & The Course In Miracles (excerpts)

Perhaps at the root of all strife is our human inability to accept the present moment. In Romans 12:2 in the Bible it says, ”Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

How do we step out of our conditioning and renew our minds?

In the Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle writes about labeling. “It is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and unhappiness.  By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of its resistance patters, and you can then allow the present moment to be.

This is acceptance.

The Course in Miracles sets out to make a distinction between knowledge and perception, seeing knowledge as truth inspired by God and all else is unreal.

What it says, “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”
 
Are most things we find unpleasant our perception? Because if we experience pain in another person, and in our handling of the situation choose to respond in forgiveness, seeking to love without labels, conditions and judgment, will the situation become less problematic, less dire, less real in our minds?

There is something called a fear spiral.  How often do we find our senseless fears  spiraling into mad thoughts that leave us wrecked with anxiety? An example of a fear spiral could be, "If my child doesn’t get into the right kindergarten, they won’t gain acceptance into the right Ivy University."  Setting the control, projection and ego trip of the parent aside, this is a fear spiral or what is also called, "The Snowball Effect." When this happens with clients, I like to ask, ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen. The fact of the matter is this... Our needs are always being met, whether we reframe our situation or go inward into spirit or faith in God. We are always held in the space of love if we choose to accept, forgive and seek love in all ways.

For today, let us sit in peace with ourselves, remove the labels, the unreal thoughts, and mad ideas in order to allow the present moment to be in full acceptance of the ‘as is.’

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