The Feisty Future of Female Power: You’re Never Too Young or Too Old to March

Reporting from the front-lines, the Stress Doc shares his impressions wandering around a lot of feisty and determined women!  The future looks bright!

 

Women shall inherit the earth.  Fallopians 21.  Just one of many signs that grabbed my attention today in downtown D.C., e.g., Beware Pussy Power and The Re-vulva-lution is coming!  Along with quotes from Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, and Frederick Douglass.  Nothing better than a purposeful socio-political happening of hundreds of thousands to put an inauguration hangover behind me.  Today was cloudy but unseasonably mild, in the 50s, perfect for walking around, milling about, shouting slogans – whether responsively or in unison.  The mass of humanity was mostly women of all ages, colors, nationalities, from many states near and far.  But also, a fair share of the XY species came out – sons, boyfriends, spouse, fathers, grandfathers, and vagabonds, like myself.  When I saw mothers with their five, six, and seven year old daughters, my immediate response:  “You’re never too young to march!”

It felt important to be here:  to register my deep concern about positions and personalities that have the potential to unravel the tapestry of civil and human rights legislation and judicial decisions woven by many hands and hearts, especially during my lifetime.

Sixties Redux

Today evoked memories of the 60’s, especially of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights struggles.  Back then much dissent was stirred because people’s lives, especially men’s lives, were on the line.  I recall students having to take a proficiency test at the end of their Freshman year, to retain their student deferment.  Too low a score…and you were heading to the draft board, basically.  Or that was the palpable fear.  (Because I was still seventeen at the turn of 1966, I was exempted.)  Of course, African-Americans (and white compatriots) were fighting (and dying or being battered and arrested) for their Civil Rights.  Then it was protests, sit-ins, and marches for the right to participate fully in American Society – for the right to pursue the American Dream.  (Ironically, this is a slogan popular with many of the immigrants/fairly new American citizens from Nepal that I have encountered in my community mental health advocacy work.)

Akin to the previous anti-war and freedom struggles, today, women and immigrants are being mobilized by political-cultural forces that literally threaten their womanhood and livelihood, their health and welfare.  As a woman friend noted, we have been awakened, as if from a slumber.  They are fighting for a voice, a choice in acutely personal matters of human life, human rights, and human dignity.

Back to the Future

The area was so jammed with people, I could not get anywhere near the speakers’ platform.  The closest I came to being part of the formal program was when a deafening wave of sound from Independence and Third would cascade up to the Mall.  Back in this area, autonomous groups would form their own mini-event.  A woman in a tree was exhorting dozens with, “Hey, hey what do you see?  This looks like democracy.”  Or something to that effect.

I couldn’t help asking myself:  Would these many men come out for a cause, other than if the government reinstated a mandatory draft?  Personally, I’m not so sure that’s a bad idea.  I have seen what multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan do to military personnel and their families.  I believe a year or two of national service – whether in the military or in some national service corps – would help many young men mature physically and psychologically; we’d definitely have fewer couch/video game potatoes.   In my mind, such a step would tangibly contribute to making America, if not “great again,” at least a more democratic, less racial, ethnic, social class-divisive society.  The barracks in Basic Training were real social-cultural “melting helmets.”

Other Comparisons

Oh yes, I walked among the throngs of the Million Man March, what 20-25 years ago?  (There are some advantages living in the Greater DC area.)  It was like a whole segment of society finally decided to truly come out of the cultural closet:  This is who Black Men really are!  Not the one-dimensional, often biased portrayals in the media.  As I recall, the atmosphere was a bit more subdued, yet with a warmth of recognition, like lost landsmen, meeting at a communal convention.  I sensed connections being made in this multi-hued sea of brothers; men were discovering both their individual selves and their common humanity.

But today, I picked up a different vibe:  one of joyful defiance.  The animated yet determined looks and bold body language fairly roared:  “We’re mad as hell…and we’re not gonna take it anymore.”

Actually, I just free associated to a group of women I encountered, also about twenty-five years ago: single mothers, at the time, receiving welfare assistance, taking training workshops for independent living.  For one of the graduating classes, an especially vital and motivated group, I wrote a commencement anthem, one of my “Shrink Raps” ™.  I’ll paste it below.  In a way, it captures my admiration and hope for the fair and feisty sex!  For after today, I’m convinced, in the good old US of A, women are the wave of the political future.  All I can say…Amen and Women, to that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welfare Momma Lion

Now just listen to me I’ve got something to say

We may not agree or even think the same way.

For I’ve had a chance to confront an old myth

That the women on welfare are all just the pits.

I don’t mean to confuse ya, but I must confess

This woman’s a loser is a lot of b.s.

She’s feisty and noble, a momma lion with pride

Who carries her pain like a child inside.

Feels rejection real fast; sure can gossip all day

But her bosom is your refuge till the hurt goes.

With a mouth that can roar, my lady why so shy?

A quiet dignity just won’t let her cry.

Now she’s rather be alone than to be with those men

Who refuse to grow up or only prowl on them.

Her mind has an edge; she cuts right through the crap.

You’d better not give her that same old rap.

So I’ll take my advice and finish this song

Cause the woman gets restless if you take too long!

So all I will say my dear, dear lady friends

What you’ve given to me I just hope never ends.

©  Mark Gorkin   1992

"Shrink Rap" Productions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative.  Current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters.  A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army.  Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services.  The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info, email:  stressdoc@aol.com.

Forty years later, the Stress Doc is revisiting a mystical moment – both cause and effect, and how the past is being brought to life in the present and future – through essay, poetic words, and mythic-meditative images!

 

Mandala Vision:  The Seed of Passion, Wisdom, and Connection – Part II

Almost forty years ago, I had a “mystical” experience.  I don’t believe God was talking to me as much as it was, for a brief moment, realizing the deep, inner recesses of my psyche.  One day I showed up for my psychoanalytic session at Tulane University Medical School/Psychiatry Dept. with “nothing to say.”  This was very uncharacteristic.

You Take Your “Self” Wherever You Go

Let me provide some context.  I had entered analysis at an impasse in my dissertation pursuit.  I could not select a topic that brought out real passion.  In hindsight, with a dissertation topic, practical should trump passionate.  However, my doctoral studies were driven more by long-standing feelings of academic underperformance, bouts of depression, concentration-constricting anxiety, and deep-seated shame – from grade school throughout college – than by rational consideration.  US Army Basic Training, my first professional position as a Social Worker, and a few years of face-to-face psychotherapy along with group therapy enabled me to risk applying for a doctoral program, far from my New York City roots.  Being only twenty-six, my troubling emotional past was soon to rear its self-deflatingly grandiose head.  An obsession to prove my worth along with a craving for self-validation proved a volatile mix. Not surprisingly, I was on the path of psychic paralysis.  Hence the need for a new stint of therapy.

The Mystical Moment

With a student discount, working with a Psychiatry Resident, I was able to afford three times/week on the couch.  Anyway, my youthful analyst’s response to my “nothing to say” remark was prescient…and to the point:  “Don’t say anything!”

I was somewhat skeptical; for nine months, I had been engaged in continuous grieving. Nonetheless, I did his bidding.  Lying down, in a state of stillness if not unprecedented serenity, suddenly this feeling of being connected to everything washed over me.  I understand why this has been called an “oceanic” feeling or experience.

The Mystical-Mythical Moment and Beyond

Early 20^th c. psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, a pioneering explorer of the creative and mythic side of our subterranean mind, might say my nine-month, three days/week inner journey on the psychoanalytic couch enabled me to reach our neuro-biological heritage – the “collective unconscious.”   In any event, in a short period of time, several startling things manifested:

1.  As mentioned, I was enveloped by a unique sense of being without boundaries, of being connected to everything.

2.  While lying on the couch, an out of body experience, that certainly might have been a dream-like hallucination; nonetheless, I envisioned a manifestation of myself on the ceiling of the office looking down at his physical counterpart on the couch.  I believe this visualization-revelation captured the psychic split within that I had been carrying within me for three decades.  A split that, for the first time, I began to understand and to transcend.

3.  A realization that I contained all of me – the good and the bad, the kind and the selfish, the tender and the aggressive, the logical and the emotional, the masculine and the feminine, the fearful and the courageous; and this is the natural state upon discovering or uncovering one’s deeper or holistic “Self.”  Jung called this process of Self-realization, “individuation.”

4.  For the first time ever, I felt not just a sense of acceptance but an unprecedented feeling of self-love.  And,

5. Later that evening, still mystified by what had earlier transpired, without knowing what I was doing, but compelled to do it, I began to unconsciously sketch a verbal and visuospatial Mandala.  This “magic circle” (see explanation below) precisely positioned and integrated psychological concepts in a multi-level, concentric octagonal map, with an infrastructure of overlapping terms and triangles.  The original Mandala captured my understanding of that mystical/Mandala Moment and my own dawning creative process:  The Octagonal Vision:  The Creation of a Pathway, the Pathway of Creation.

Ironically, this moment of serenity was fleeting.   As noted in Part I, From Burnout to Breakout:  Following Your Inner Voice (and the Road to Oz), almost four decades ago, it was the post-mystical-like experience, unconscious creation of a Mandala (and obsession to make it my dissertation topic) that ultimately led to my dropping out of the doctoral program.  I call that creative…destructive period:  “When academic flashdancing whirled to a burnout tango!”  Yet, in mystic-mythic-like fashion, this vicious and virtuous cycle helped me find/design a new voice and uncover/discover my calling.  (This was pre-mid-life; when it came to burnout, I guess I was precocious.)

Forty Years Later

And now…I am allowing my mind to play around with a second mandala.  In fact, the new poem below is based both on what I’ve learned about “The Pathway of Creation” and on a recently designed octagonal vision.  Mandala 2.0 has been inspired by thinking anew about intimate connection.  And while the latest geometrical/verbal-visual-spatial iteration is still under construction, the poem, Mandala Vision:  The Seed of Passion, Wisdom, and Connection, is ready for display.

In case you missed it, here’s Wikipedia’s description of “Mandala.”  “A mandala (Sanskrit for “magic circle”) is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism, representing the universe. In common use, "mandala" has become a generic term for any diagram, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.

The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. (FYI, in Mandala 2.0, the four gates or S-N/E-W directional points are Energy-Spirit and Body-Mind.)  Mandalas often exhibit radial balance…(Like 2.0, the original mandala has eight spokes or “paths,” loosely akin to the Buddha’s “Eightfold Path of Enlightenment.”)  (The mandala) is used in a variety of religions and philosophies, particularly Buddhism…In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.”

Without further ado…

Mandala Vision:  The Seed of Passion, Wisdom, and Connection

The embedded seed of “loss and love”

A naked-sacred “self-soul” space

Of earth-Energy below to Spirit-sky above

From water-Body to the east

And west cool-fire-Mind of grace.

Four cardinal points:  Energy-Spirit and Body-Mind

East and West across, crossed by North and South

From existential mountain peak to roaring river mouth

The shadow-hero route outlined…

A Mandala Map for humankind.

Into the Arena

A night of heat, a primal beat

In your head or on the street

How do you deal with opposition?

Sway to the rhythm – ebb and flow

Or tug of war of “Yes” and “No?”

Forget my righteous indignation?

You really want me to “let go?”

It’s black or white…or filled with tension

On the edge…so much dissension!

Embrace confusion, even regression?

Go ahead…try confession, then

After all is said and done

Let your head and heart meander…

Wow, being lost is kinda fun

It takes real courage to surrender

To The Many in the One!

The Passion Path of Mastery and Meaning

Time to escape your Ivory Tower

Endless mind games to and fro.

To unearth your path to flower

Do explore…be learner slow.

Soak up knowledge from a mentor

Take a backseat in the show

Until leaping from your bower

Now a rebel, start to grow

Spread your seeds of “Passion Power” **

Defying all “those in the KNOW!”

Nature’s Flow:  Chaos and Calm

The evolution mantra…

Rise up one more time than fall. ^^

Unite the pro with the contra

Tear down that fearful WALL!

Bring that “Touched with Fire” ++ passion

Your brooding/blazing wild call:

Destruction in Creation…Creation in Devotion

Devotion in Creation…Creation in Destruction!

Be receptive to the chaos, be focused in the calm:

Know to ride the storm, when time for the alarm!

Now that you are in the flow, pray tell:

Where do you most wish to go?

Wandering the Mystic Desert of Grief

Our map:  a complex code – a weave of art and text

For Jung’s Self-revelation quest

One must embark with mystic spark

The inner journey…never easy

A crawl to light from night soul dark.

Will you persist; withstand the test

Of soulful call:  Who’s Next, Who’s Next?

Wait, another daunting question:

Are you ready…the grief journey?

For a life crashed on the rocks

You are at the crisis junction:

To discover your real voice…

Or, to bleat with sheepish flocks!

Surviving the Deep Dive by Dawn’s Early Light

To reach for freedom or be forever hiding

Now’s the time to hit the bottom:

Deep sea diving…primal grieving

Reveals the white light-rainbow spectrum

The powerless to princely power paradox.

Dawning light…early life regression

Helps decipher many locks

Both real and of self-invention.

Wait, look…a new horizon

Not unlike a Phoenix rising

Within you such unique design?

Paint with ash “Mandala Vision”

Way past time for your own sign!

Releasing, Expanding, and Sharing Your (Un)Holy Self

And while seeming rather tired

Just two daring questions left:

With a brain now so hot-wired

Are you ready for some stealth?

Sneak down from Mt. Olympus

Take your trickster off the shelf

Reread Henry Miller’s Nexus ~~

Forsake the halo for real health.

Strut those boots from Texas…

Give voice to a bigger Self:

Be authentic, show respect

Pay attention, then reflect…

With passion and compassion

How can two truly connect?

Now time to walk your vocal

Let mind and body flex:

So elegantly simple – “Think Global/Perform Local”:

World Peace through Awesome Sex!  ##

~~~~~~~

** "Five 'P's of Passion Power": my Mind (Cognitive-Affective) x Mood (Gravitas-Comedia) Model of Creative Presence/Leader Communication: being Purposeful-Provocative-Passionate-Playful-Philosophical; email stressdoc@aol.com for more info

^^ "Rise up one more time than fall": Based on polio pioneer, Dr. Jonas Salk's observation on "evolution": Evolution is about getting up one more time than we fall down; being courageous one more time than being fearful; and being trusting just one more time than being anxious

++ "Touched with Fire": The title of Johns Hopkins Univ. Psychiatrist Kaye Redfield Jamison's book, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament; Dr. Jamison makes the case that having to grapple with mood swings – especially elation and darkness – challenges the writer or artist to grapple with and synthesize more complex inner and outer worlds

~~ Henry Miller's Nexus: The Rosy Crucifixion, a trilogy consisting of Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus, is a fictionalized account documenting the six-year period of Henry Miller's life in Brooklyn as he falls for his second wife June and struggles to become a writer, leading up to his initial departure for Paris in 1928 (Wikipedia).

## "World Peace through Awesome Sex": the brainchild/vision of a colleague and friend, Maggie Rast; she is in the final stages of introducing her concept WP/AS – based on "Authenticity, Respect & Contribution" – to the world; email me for more info

© Mark Gorkin  2017

Shrink Rap ™ Productions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative.  Current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters.  A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army.  Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services.  The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info, email:  stressdoc@aol.com.

From Burnout to Breakout: Following Your Inner Voice (and the Road to Oz) – Part I

A friend and colleague is setting aside her once productive now exhaustive career as an architect to pursue an embryonic yet evolving “World Peace” mission:  whether the revelatory plan is more vision than hallucination…hey, it’s often such a fine line.  However, if one believes that the journey itself is often equal to (if not more rewarding than) the destination, then she is likely seeking, maybe even witnessing, her “Promised Land.”  Or at least sensing and designing her own “Post-Mid-Life-Pre-Senior (PMLPS) Calling!”

Shaking and Firing Up the Puzzle at Any Age

Now job boredom or burnout, or just a need for new challenge, is not uncommon in this “Been there, done that,” Is this all there is?”, or “I can do more than this” end of main career life demographic.  Many in the Mid-to-Early Senior (or, as I like to say, “Still Eager Senior” – the SES bracket; a Washington/Fed insider joke ;-) experience what, years ago, I dubbed the “Bjorn Bored Syndrome.” BBS was named for the ‘80s Swedish tennis great, Bjorn Borg – who suddenly burnt out from the sport…and vanished from the world stage:  When Mastery x Monotony provides an index of Misery!  At the time, my urging:  Fireproof your life with variety!  (PMLPS, SES, BBS…As many of you know, I’m a founding member of the 12-step AA group:  Acronyms/Alliterations Anonymous.)

And maybe there’s more than just fireproofing.  Perhaps, paradoxically, one can go up in flames yet, Phoenix-like, rise again, that is, exit a local arena and build your own world stage.  Such a transformation becomes viable especially if you have a powerful vision…combined with a passionate and compelling – “touched with fire” (thank you, Dr. Kaye Redfield Jamison) – presence and brand.  Not surprisingly, this woman’s dynamic is attracting followers.  I, for one, (and, actually, there is a “Team North America-Washington, DC”), was stirred by her mind’s energy, daring, and wit.  And her courage to engage interpersonal-intimate issues that we often keep under wraps, if not beneath the covers.  (I need to save the more specific nature of her vision for a Part II closing punchline.  Please be patient. ;-)

From Wit and Wisdom to…

I think what helped win me over was a recent exchange:  I had texted that for the New Year we are on the “Yellow Brick Road…and we’re off to Oz.”  She responded pithily, “And what are you going to ask the Wizard”?  My kind of gal:  A wise man and a wise guy!  To quote yours truly… (Feels like the equivalent of taking a “selfie”).  Who knows…perhaps the basis of a creative partnership!

For she is a-muse-ing in both aspects:  has a sly sense of humor and is providing fuel for a mind quick to recognize, play with, and synthesize a new whole out of parts disparate and contradictory.  She’s enabling this Psychohumorist’s ™ dream/calling:  To infuse mirth and meaning into elements seemingly wandering aimlessly in the creative ether.  Or as pioneering American humorist, Mark Twain, noted in more down to earth fashion:  Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.)

“Off to Be the Wizards”

So, with a new source of inspiration, I can look old Dr. P straight in the eye.  A professor of mine, Dr. P, once reminded me during my mentally meandering (okay, more like floundering) doctoral student daze: “Mark, remember, the noun associated with the adjective productive is PRODUCT!  Well, Dr.P…here they are:

1) The first “Wizard of Oz” lyric-takeoff is an offshoot of the aforementioned text exchange.  I need to/love to transform external or conceptual surprise and my own resultant emotional intensity – painful or joyful –  into a thought-provoking or fun essay or poetry piece…or both.  In fact, grappling with emotional pain or conceptual challenge, often sets the stage for the playful.  As psychiatrist and student of humor, Dr. Ernst Kris, observed:  What was once feared and is now mastered, is laughed at.  And as the Stress Doc inverted:  What was once feared and is now laughed at, is no longer a master.  And for good measure, also echoing my wise man/wise guy sensibility:  What was once feared and is now laughed with…likely becomes a mistress or lover!”  ;-)

Mandala on My Mind (Once Again)

2) The second offering, to appear in Part II, is a bit more abstract.  The poem is based on a recently designed Mandala that was also inspired by my thinking anew about intimate connection.  P.S. Almost forty years ago, it was the post-mystical-like experience, unconscious creation of a Mandala (and obsession to make it my dissertation topic) that ultimately led to my dropping out of the doctoral program.  I call that creative…destructive period:  “When academic flashdancing whirled to a burnout tango!”  Yet, in mystic-mythic-like fashion, this vicious and virtuous cycle helped me find/design a new voice and uncover/discover my calling.  (This was pre-mid-life; when it came to burnout, I guess I was precocious.)

So, to capture this paradoxical process I will need Part II to provide some historical context.  In the meantime, here’s Wikipedia’s description of “Mandala.”  “A mandala (Sanskrit for “magic circle”) is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism, representing the universe. In common use, "mandala" has become a generic term for any diagram, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.

The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Mandalas often exhibit radial balance…It is used in a variety of religions and philosophies, particularly Buddhism…In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.”  Hopefully, this will whet your spiritual appetite for now.  Amen and women, to that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’re Off to Be The Wizards for Maggie’s Wonderful Cause

We’re off to be the wizards

The Wizards of Maggie’s Cause

You’ll find she is a whiz of a wiz

If ever a wiz that was

This Woman of Peace is one because, because

Because of the wonderful things she does

We’re off to be the wizards

The Wizards of Maggie’s Cause!...

If ever, if ever a wiz there was

This Woman of Sex is one because, because

Because of the dynamic brain she has…

We’re off to be the wizards

The Wizards of Maggie’s Cause!...

If ever, if ever a wiz there was

This World Peace Woman is one because, because

Because of the truly big heart she has…

We’re off to be the wizards

The Wizards of Maggie’s Cause!...

If ever, if ever a wiz there was

This So Awesome Woman is one, because, because

Because of the newfound courage she has.

We’re off to be the wizards

The Wizards of Maggie’s Cause!

Oh, we’re off to be the wizards

The Wizards for Maggie’s Cause!...

© Mark Gorkin  2017

Shrink Rap ™ Productions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative.  Current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters.  A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army.  Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services.  The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info, email:  stressdoc@aol.com

The Danger of Not-Being Present or Being Who You Are Not: In Another Voice

In talking with a colleague at the close of a support group meeting, I asked why he had not shared this evening.  He usually does.  This night he said he was unsure how to organize his thoughts; he seemed concerned about how they would come out, how they would be perceived, how he might be judged.  So, in essence, he stifled himself, though acknowledged a headache had been building throughout.

I reflected on my less than smooth share.  On the one hand, I stumbled out of the gate, not exactly sure what I wanted to say, or how I would connect the disparate elements, though convinced of the need to talk.  And while gradually getting my verbal-emotional footing, I also recalled the voice of a group member who had previously challenged my typically (in his ears/eyes) “down and heavy” manner of presenting.  While sharing in the group, I was also wrestling with myself to just be real, pushing his words to the side.

Awakening this morning, I recognized a need to identify some forces of suppression.  Then wanted to concisely capture guidelines for disarming critical voices, often triggered by a struggle between our ideal and real self.  Would appreciate hearing if this abbreviated substance and seemingly omniscient style works for you.  Thanks,  Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~

Closing the Gap Between the Ideal and the Real

Do not try to impress or disarm by being who you are not.

Be your authentic self – strengths and liabilities – even when falling short of an ideal to which you aspire.  Of course, be careful this ideal is one you genuinely desire; not an impostor image to deceive, please, or appease others.

See this ideal-real distance less as a critical gap – a psychic hole to fall into, thereby receiving censure or ridicule, surely from self (including old voices), possibly from others – and more as a path for self-discovery.

Such honest, albeit at times painful exploration, helps generate new perspective as well as strengthens emotional muscles, including muscles of self-affirmation.  You are demonstrating the courage to both challenge critical inner and external voices and to be your flawed, imperfect self in the potentially daunting, if not damning, public arena.

Finally, each time you take this courageous path, facing those lurking antagonists, coming out becomes easier.  You are confronting your biggest enemy…you are “Confronting Your Intimate FOE:  Fear of Exposure!”  Now take a bow.  ;-)

Just remember…Practice Safe Stress!

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative.  Current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters.  A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army.  Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services.  The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info, email:  stressdoc@aol.com