Discovering & Declaring Your Genuine Voice: Lessons for Any Age or Stage – Part I

Can you really Discover Your Voice at Any Age?  Actually, that’s the title of my upcoming guest presentation for the Baltimore Universalist Unitarian Congregation.  This question of “finding your voice,” has been on my brain’s front burner for several decades.  What does it mean to “find your voice?”  And what happened that we lost it in the first (or last, or anywhere in between) place?  And, most important, how can we recover, uncover, or discover it?

Clearly, a voice can evolve or dissolve at different ages and stages of life.  (And what about the possibility of having multiple or multi-layered voices?)  Mine has had its fair share of “highs and lows,” as well as mute phases…and vocal-verbal-verse mutations.  But first, what does it mean to “find your voice” as an adult, especially when having grown up in a walking on eggshells, “Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, Don’t Feel” environment?  (DTDTDF is a mantra of the 12-step ACoAlcoholics/Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families program.)  Of course, one can lose their voice in a codependent relationship, especially when sensitive to rejection or abandonment feelings.  We often feel stifled in a “my way or the highway” workplace, especially when questioning our own worth. Or, doubting our ability to break out of “prison” and find a healthier, financially viable alternative…we become resigned and passive.  Conversely, frequent yelling and screaming is rarely a sign of an authentic adult voice; actually, just the opposite:  we are often caught up in a feeling of helplessness and/or humiliation, i.e., childhood/child-like fits of rage.

Defining the Foundation and Discovering the Fountains of Voice

Finding and evolving your authentic voice means being able and willing to identify and purposefully and spontaneously convey in words, images, body movement, etc., honest feelings and memories, ideas and beliefs.  Speaking of images and body movement, one might say that Voice, Vision & Identity interchangeably frolic together and feed off each other in, au naturelle, Matisse-like “Dance of Life” fashion.  Voice, especially, feeds off vision and identity:  a new or expanding self-image potentially frees up self-expressive breadth and depth.  Hopefully, it's an expansion in self-other understanding, not just self-aggrandizement.   For example, once I envisioned the concept of Shrink Rap ™, psychologically humorous – IMHO, en-light-ening – rap offerings began pouring out.

When it comes to feelings do you stuff them inside?
Is tough John Wayne your emotional guide?
And it's not just men so proud and tight-lipped.
For every Rambo there seems to be a Rambette!

(More on the early '90s discovery process in Part II.)  And finally, authentic voice is ever a work in progress, calling on practice, perspective, and, sometimes, patience.  For example, raw honesty without some empathy often reveals more hostility than humanity.

Voice discovery-recovery also involves substance, style, and timing of self-expression, including choosing silence for a time.  Having a vital voice may be fueled by healthy and mature anger; you are not afraid to be “TnT”:  Tough n’ Tender!  Such a voice, without apology, can admit not being sure, yet still be determined to articulate, intuit, or speculate.  “I’m not really clear on this, but right now I must trust my gut and think out loud, to put my cards on the table.”  (And, naturally, you choose which “word cards” to play.)  And your intuition or argument does not have to hold up in a court of law (unless, of course, you actually are on the witness stand).  Finally, having an authentic voice means being open to another’s authentic voice, with the understanding that, “Acknowledgement does not necessarily mean Agreement!”

Now, without further ado (or psychobabble) …Well, almost:  P.S.  Having a real, strong-vulnerable voice, if it means anything, surely involves an ability to poke good-natured fun at one’s own flaws and foibles!

The Stress Doc’s Finding Your Voice Lessons – Skills and Strategies:

1.  Confront Your Intimate FOE.  Projecting your voice involves speaking up, even when feeling anxious.  Don’t wait until you have your thoughts and feelings all figured/sorted out.  For example, have you ever presented an “in progress” idea or hypothesis, and a listener chooses to pounce – discrediting your “finished product” – with “constructive criticism?”  Trust me, this reveals more about his or her temperament (and need to control the spotlight, or a perceived state of threat or envy) than the merit of your viewpoint.

Recovering a genuine voice as an adult begins with “Confronting Your Intimate FOE”:  Fear of Exposure.  If psychiatrist, Ernst Kris, is right, what was once feared and is now mastered, is laughed at, then risking intimate or, at least, more open and self-accepting engagement, just may transform this FOE into a friend – by embracing the Fun of Embarrassment!  And, according to the Stress Doc ™, if not a friend, perhaps a defanged FOE:  What was once feared and is now laughed at…is no longer a master!

2.  Playing with a Child.  Reconnect to and revive early childhood voices by playing with a child.  Of course, when such rediscovery also evokes painful “lost voice” memories, this may be daunting.  Then again, it’s a TIFO moment – Transformational Intimate FOE Opportunity.  Playing with my ex’s three-year-old granddaughter led to a whole new voice arena – writing children’s songs.  For example, Charlotte and I loved to play hide-and-seek.  Somehow, I paired the tune of “Frere Jacques” to my own “h & s” lyrics…and “Where Is Charlotte” was born:

Where is Charlotte? Where is Charlotte?

I’ll find you, I’ll find you?

Is she hiding in the closet?

Is she underneath the blanket?

No, she’s not!  No, she’s not!

I don’t need to tell you how much she loved the eponymous ditty.  (And, of course, you can substitute any child’s name.  In fact, I have created a “Where Is Charlotte” Power Point Slide Song.  (Email stressdoc@aol.com for more info.)

3.  Try Poetry and Pictures.  Akin to playing with a youngster, reread Dr. Seuss, or any favorite childhood book – with a child or simply by yourself!  I especially like Dr. Seuss’ vivid imagery and rhythms and rhymes.  Think of the evocative power of Martin Luther King’s speeches.  My versified orations are hardly so Olympian, still, they do capture attention…and, on occasion, tickle a funny bone.  Consider these boundary-setting yet voice-stretching mantras:

A firm “No” a day keeps the ulcers away, and the hostilities, too!

Do know your limits and don’t limit your “No”s.

One of my favorite workshop exercises is having small groups identify and discuss the sources of daily stress and conflict…and then come up with a group picture that captures the collective stress storm.  Vivid “group art therapy” examples include:  mindless sheep jumping off a cliff and burnout fires raging through a building, dinosaurs stalking a plant with employees scattering in fear and sinking ships surrounded by sharks.  And while the follow-up “show and tell” is filled with knowing laughter, along with the opportunity to risk more candid expression, something else vital is evolving.  Seeing that management can handle the visual and oral critique heightens employee motivation and trust.  Folks are more ready to get down to work on the problems and issues depicted.

A good way to cultivate and test out a voice:  be a little larger and louder, more rhythmic, colorful, and vivid than life!  And now discover that your evolving voice, unlike in childhood or in that dysfunctional relationship, is no longer immediately throttled or stifled.

4.  Be Out-Rage-ous.  While healthy anger can fuel and fire a purposeful and passionate voice, try adding a touch of the provocative and playful to transform “outrage” into the “out-Rage-ous.”  (FYI, “provocative” comes from the French, provocare, to awaken the mind, to arouse curiosity.)  For example, one of the “Three ‘B” Stress Doc ™ Stress Barometer Smoke Signals”:  my take on TMJ – Too Many Jerks!  Or, what do you think of this Psychohumorist ™ lyric?  (And, naturally, when performing live, I let the audience decide where the emphasis on the word “Psychohumorist” goes.)  It’s the closing two stanzas from an early Shrink Rap ™ – “The Self-Righteous Rap”:

And for those who demean with, "Grow up, act your age"
Here's some advice that's worthy of a sage.
While only young once, it's true, however,
You intend to be immature forever.

So, if life's a soap opera: "As the Head Swells"
No need to be walking on those ego shells.
When the righteous start ranting they're all of a kind
The bigger the ego, the smaller the mind!

© Mark Gorkin 1992
Shrink Rap Productions

Pursue “the call of the wild.”  Of course, be prepared for “civilized” pushback.

5.  It’s a Digital World.  Clearly this new digital world allows for unprecedented levels of personal self-expression.  Alas, more quantity than quality, I’m afraid.  And, yes, some attempts at being “out-Rage-ous” leave me “outraged.”  The opposite of courage:  Digital anonymity that facilitates cyberbullying or hostility.  Of course, I have outraged more than a few readers, especially when adding “psycho-political parody” to my “Psychohumorist” ™ Voice.

However, digital technology often compresses one’s focus.  For example, the impact of having to read text on smart phone screens is palpable:  too long = so long!  At least to me, it seems obvious that our text- and social media-driven culture is diminishing attention span and self-reflection.  Along with the dramatic tilt in the balance between the visual and verbal (e.g., computer graphics vs. characterization and plot), a new Stress Doc voice has had to emerge.  Of course, sometimes kicking and screaming.  But eventually, this digital Psychohumorist defers to “The Bard.”  As Shakespeare noted:  Brevity is the soul of wit.  So, I continue to refine a pithy yet passionate, poetic and aphoristic voice, as captured by my “KISS” and “MISS” mantras:

Keep It Short and Smart:  Seek the Higher Power of Stress Doc Humor:  May the Farce Be with You!

Make It Sassy and Surprising: Recovering from Burnout:  Breaking Out of a Hell of a Shell or Don’t Feel Too Sorry for Humpty Dumpty…He Needed to Hit Bottom!

Well, I haven’t quite hit bottom…there are five more steps and strategies for bringing out that true voice.  Until then…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.

Dynamics of a “Passion Power” Partnership”: Enduring the Crucible, Cleaning the Wound, Forging New Ground

Dynamics of a “Passion Power” Partnership”:

Enduring the Crucible, Cleaning the Wound, Forging New Ground

I was the fearful, confused, angry bronco determined to throw him off.  He was the steadfast rider, holding the reins tight, yet allowing enough slack for me to snort, kick, and buck.  Never was there a sensation of being choked.  Still, there were a few times I came close to bolting.  And, as he explained later, he too wondered if I would ever let him again be my mount.

And the present day drama brought me back to a childhood trauma…when I was the scared little rider.  And alas, my father was not able to hold onto the reins.  Actually, it was the seat of a bike.  Maybe I was five or six, and dad was trying to teach me how to ride.  Though it was the early ‘50s, perhaps “The Great Depression” (as well as my dad’s major – perhaps manic – depression) played a role in the fiasco.  Knowing dad and his fairly impoverished childhood, especially after his father left the roost, he probably bought a bike that was too big, figuring the bike would last longer.  Alas, a tipping point obstacle for an anxious kid.  While most of the brain-body memory is repressed, I was not able to learn to ride the bike.

The Remains of that Day

Likely, dad was frustrated with me as well as with himself.  And we both felt like failures, him as a father-teacher, and me as son-learner.  I have no recollection of our ever having another riding lesson, nor of our ever talking about this experience – as a child or an adult.  It would take nearly twenty years (and both of us being in therapy) before beginning to bridge our widespread communication chasm.

The only indelible “bike” imprint was the ongoing “silent shame” watching other kids riding their bikes, taking off from the apartment building on some individual or group adventure.  Not only was a feeling of inadequacy reinforced but so too was lost opportunity for reducing separation anxiety, heightening sense of mastery, as well as independent exploration.  I still carry these painful memories, brain baggage that never totally empties.  Even today, upon hearing adults talk of a relatively carefree childhood or a capacity for early joyful learning, my eyes may suddenly water; my mood, for a time, turns perceptibly somber.

Post-script:  About six years post-learning curb failure, one day I saw a six-year old riding a small two-wheeler.  I briefly commandeered the bike…wobbling and falling, but also persisting.  About an hour later, I had become a “rough rider.”  Alas, the feeling was more relief than real accomplishment.  I never mentioned this “N of one trial” to anyone.  I never asked for a “three speed”; sadly, I never became real buddies with a bike.

Back to the Daunting Digital Future

So what’s the connection between the metaphoric horse-riding (in the present) and the bike-riding scenarios (from the past, though still emotionally alive and kicking me today)?  Let me provide some background.  I am in the process of publishing an e-book titled, Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  The path is strewn with visible and covert IEDs – Infrastructural Electronic Dangers – especially for a sixty-something, “Internet Immigrant” like myself.  When it comes to most digital technology, I may not be a “dinosaur” but “early stage mammal” label would be apt.

Having to work with and, especially, be dependent on other individuals – a college-age graphic artist (who did not know how to format an e-book cover) and a professional e-book formatter, who doesn’t talk to clients on the phone – definitely had me quite edgy, if not on the emotional edge.  In the mental grind to the publishing finish line, if not for my good friend E, a truly compassionate and, when necessary, “tough love” spiritual brother, I would not have made it.

“E” is for Exceptional

First and foremost, E is the personification of an individual who integrates both “High Tech and Human Touch.”  Almost twenty years my junior, he’s a graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School who decided not to practice medicine.  A Renaissance individual who both loves to write and to explore the intricate architecture of the digital world.  E works for Medicare and consults on writing and web design with various contracting agencies.  And he’s a devoted father who continues to grapple with the contemporary challenges of balancing work, marital and family life, along with a passion for writing.  (E has a popular blog and is awaiting his soon to be published novel).

Some additional background info:  E and I have known each other for the last three years or so. But it was this past year that solidified our psycho-spiritual bond.  For example, E vividly captured growing up in an insular ("de facto" segregated or exclusive, depending on one’s socio-economic point of view) hardscrabble, working class African-American community in Michigan.  Mostly raised by a controlling single mother, his upbringing was steeped in spirituality.  He is in a bi-racial marriage.  (My roots are working-middle class, Jewish, and Brooklyn-Queens, attended Stuyvesant H.S. in Manhattan; alas, a family tree strewn with serious psychiatric labels and breakdowns. I was a late bloomer.  I’d say my religious-cultural affiliation is Jewish Atheist.  Also, never married.)  Significant emotional pain is a common childhood thread uniting our past and present day sensibilities.

This last year, we both really opened up.  Some of his “life at home and on the street” tales evoked both wonder and tears.  In turn, E lent a head, heart, and shoulder, helping me grieve the loss of a beloved three-year old – collateral damage in the dissolution of a ten-year relationship with my ex.  Once again, turning the mirror, E says he is inspired by my uncommon ability to paint with words, to capture what’s in my heart and portray it on the page.  (A former girlfriend once dubbed me a “word artist.”)  So words, water, and mutual wonder have cast a web in which E and I both are inextricably – intimately, inseparably, and most gratefully – bound!

Trial by Fire

With the above narrative in mind, let me refocus this essay’s opening – horse and rider – partnership paragraph in a more representational light.  Not being able to meet at our common hangout, Mad City Coffeehouse, over the phone E was trying to get me to see my manuscript in the “Bazaar Book Reader” (BBR) platform.  (To my way of thinking/reading, “Bizarre” could also work.)  First, I couldn’t recall my Microsoft password.  Then, the platform was not accessible without passing a letter-number security code.  And I kept failing, as the design was complexly intricate for a primitive brain.  E asked me to take a picture of the code and send it to him.  Somewhat ashamed, I had to admit never using the camera.  So suddenly I’m engulfed in a learning curve/trial by fire scenario.  And the communication phone friction is mostly turning the rising heat into a growing conflagration!  Admittedly, the frustration and friction is one-sided.  My blood pressure is rising.  (Stress Doc heal thyself!)

With patient coaching, I finally figure out how to shoot and send.  We eventually get on Bazaar Book Reader after E inadvertently triggers an awareness of my Microsoft Password.  Of course, an inner voice is berating me for floundering and wasting a half-hour of our time.  Again and again, E keeps saying we have plenty of time.  With all the angst-ringing in my ears, it’s hard to hear (or believe) him.

Finally, opening the e-book (for me, nothing is “plug and play”)…I start making sense – through fits and starts – of the BBR “App command,” that is, how you navigate the pages, Table of Contents, text size and spacing, etc., of the book.  As noted, several times I blurted out my frustration, questioning the workability of this virtual tech support.  A digital learning curve is challenging enough; trying to play follow the leader on the phone…I’m just about ready to quit….but I don’t!  As General George Patton noted:  Courage is fear holding on a minute longer!  (So maybe I’m a tad hypocritical.  This quote was delivered to my inbox this morning.)

Purpose, Patience, and Persistence:  The Dynamics of Passionate Partnership

In truth, it was our partnership that kept me in the cyber-corral, not just bucking and running from atavistic instincts.  E had a goal and an understanding:  to do meaningful editing for the formatter, it was critical my viewing the e-book’s text in an e-reader format.  Beyond having to jump in the trenches, my main driver:  I was so appreciative of his time and energy…guilt kept me from aborting our mission.  And, in fact, we discovered a vital operational structure that needed reformatting – hyperlinking poem titles in a back of the book Index with the corresponding poems in the body of the book.  Because of today’s Tower of E-Book Babel zeitgeist, with its chaotic variety of reading platforms, my expectation to index items to page numbers was about as realistic as having a uniformed-sized cup for only one coffee blend option at Starbucks!

After over an hour of this grappling, we reached another tension-filled juncture; trying to problem-solve on the phone was again proving maddening.  I had enough…and this time E did not coax, console, or challenge.  Being on the same screen, having achieved the essentials of the mission…we would live to fight another day!

In fact, E later admitted the charged nature of our working/learning encounter had him somewhat concerned:  in the future, would I want to partner, really to follow his e-design and e-marketing leads?  Believe me, this is a no-brainer!  However, it was a post-riding-the-bronco-session message that enabled me to fully appreciate the gift that E had bestowed.  His text read:  “Learning is rewarding but rewards are often an acknowledgement of hardship.  It seems we have to go through something to get something.  You were a trooper and challenged yourself to step out of your comfort zone.  I recognized that it was a bit distressing, but you endured.  I am very proud of you.”

The Power of Partnership:  Present, Past, and Future

I immediately understood why E is such a good father, for in some ways he had taken on that symbolic role with one who, under duress, had situationally regressed to a pre-adolescent, mechanically-technically challenged Baby Boomer.  His determination to not let my anger, fear, and shame throw him off course was part of his script.  This was one-hundred-and-eighty degrees in contradistinction to the dysfunctional transaction between my dad and me.  What exactly had E given me?  Let me count the ways…“The Top Ten Partnership Steps for Enduring the Crucible, Cleaning the Wound, Forging New Ground”:

1.  Trusting in E.  Though feeling vulnerable, I was able to put my head and heart into E’s confident hands as a techie, teacher, and soulful brother.  As affirmed in 12-Step work, I recognized the critical need to be vulnerable and place my trust and faith in a “higher power,” albeit the human variety.  I began to grasp the difference between feeling absolutely powerless without feeling totally helpless!

2.  Stepping off the Edge.  With a truly knowledgeable and trusted guide, I entered the digital labyrinth, despite not sure what challenges would be encountered along the unfolding, invariably unpredictable, “gotcha” path.  Or, to return to our operational metaphor, I warily got back into the horse/bike seat saddle.

3.  Fighting the Voices.  E’s calm and solid manner along with his patience was helping me to fight the voices in my head, and the emotional echoes:  my father’s short fuse frustration at things not going as expected, my feelings of inadequacy in realms mathematical, mechanical, and technological along with movement and balance activities. 

4.  Confronting the Abandonment Fear.  With my drive to get the e-book “live” on Amazon (the moment is so right) and E’s busy schedule, there was some time urgency.  However, whatever transpired, this would not be a one shot learning trial.   E was not going to abandon me and, perhaps most important, he was subtly encouraging me not to quit on myself. 

5.  Accepting My Fear and Frustration.  My agitated-aggressive reaction may have self-defeating elements in other spheres of life, but on this e-book partnership journey, it was not going to have destructive effects.  In this realm, at least, E had a mature handle on his own self-doubt and aggression.  I was not triggering him as that poignant early learning encounter had thrown my father.  

6.  Taking Steps.    With E as ballast and buffer, leaning on his poise and patience, tentative learning steps became small but meaningful mental and moral victories.  (In fact, the next time we met f-2-f, I couldn’t help smiling:  I was now more facile than E in using the Bazaar Book Reader “App command.”)

7.  Embracing the Intimate FOE.  Perhaps less in the maelstrom moment, but in the aftermath of my “trial by fire,” a realization dawned:  I may have been singed…but I was not burned or scarred.  And even the pain of childhood memories seemed less acute.  Perhaps not quite on the scale of Jacob and God but, in my own fashion I had wrestled, to at least a draw – perhaps a bit more – with my Intimate FOE:  Fear of Exposure!

8.  Cleaning Some Wounds…Launching Some Words.  The saddle/bike seat experience was helping clean out the decades-old insult and injury from the original, unsuccessful, father son trial-by-failure.  No illusions of absolute purity:  progress not perfection is the goal!  Of course, there definitely are other deep pockets of pain to engage and explore…and to “harness and ride” as creative expression!

9.  Debriefing Power.  A couple of days later, we had an “f-2-f” book strategy meeting.  In contrast to the aftermath wall of silence between father and son, for the first 90 minutes of our debriefing, E and I talked out how each emotionally perceived our encounter.  As much as I appreciate him as technical guide providing critical water and helping carry me by the arm as I painfully stumble through both that digital jungle and the alien kaleidoscopic media mindscape, it’s our ability to wax purposefully poetic and passionate, to be enthralled with each other’s substance and style of expression, no matter the subject (okay, the animation is mutual when it’s mostly non-technical) that, for me, is the greatest blessing.

10.  Building on Trial & Trust.  All of the above increases that feeling of trust in E and our mind-body-spirit simpatico.  And this essay is one way of sharing my heartfelt appreciation.  Our friendship and partnership too is akin to entering the labyrinth:  Who knows what we will endure, what wounds we will help each other cleanse and, together, what new ground we will forge.

Closing Quotation

I can’t think of a better close than the medical pioneer, Dr. Jonas Salk’s, observation on “Evolution”:  Evolution is about getting up one more time than you fall down; being courageous one more time than you are fearful; and being trusting just one more time than you are anxious.  Amen and women to that!

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.  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.  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 Stress Doc’s Resiliency Poetry: UNDERage: A Father’s Volcano – Part I

Dealing with a cauldron of grief emotions triggers poetic reflection on past and present, hot and cold rage.  What really underlies the fire and ice, the sound and the fury?  In Part I, “UNDERage:  A Father’s Volcano,” the Stress Doc ™ explores a past family drama, fueled by shameful trauma (a father’s fifteen years of unspoken and likely unnecessary shock therapy along with radiating effects) within and between father and son.  And what it may take to break out of such secretive, toxic binds.  In Part II, “, “UNDERage:  A Son’s Iceberg,” the Doc captures how “hot ice” rage numbs personal sadness about love lost and seemingly freezes tenderness toward a former lover. Prolonged, at some point, this open-wound iceberg rage, shadow-inducing frost on the surface, blocking out stormy currents below, may pose Shakespearean danger:  There is a tide in the affairs of men (and women) which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.  Omitted, all the voyages of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries!

The Stress Doc’s Resiliency Poetry:

UNDERage:  A Father’s Volcano – Part I

The Volcano

My father’s rage

Never did fully age.

But now spewing volcanic steam

The gathering rumble toward Edvard Munch’s “Scream.”

Throwing up lava rocks…still

Better than the fears and years

Of mind-numbing shocks.

Me:  asking tough questions

About ECT, alleged bipolarity

About who are you…who me?

He:  Keep Off the Brain!

Away from a gated ghetto memory lane.

Forget using my unspoken guilt

To weave your remembrance quilt.

Somehow not scared away

From the smoke and the roar

His vulnerable core

That pushed him to the edge…

A hunger for knowledge

Breaking down my locked recall door.

Poised to commit family sin

Bring on the fire and brim

Stonewall no more

Damn, let go…jump in.

Who would make an ash of himself?

Who cares…No more stealth!

Two Titans at war

No need to keep score.

But when I didn’t cave

In the face of rant and rave

Despite owning my demons

Of childhood seasons

Oft bowed, muted, and frozen…

Who knows rhyme or reason?

In this fight to the light test

Trauma flashes laid to rest

In that old family grave

Now a born-again battlefield:

The home of the brave!

The red hot button stream

Cries from dad’s endless bad dream:

Hanging on by life’s thread

Medical wires to the head

A secret would hover

So much undercover…

Is it a shock to want to be dead?

Last chance…implode or explode

Just rip off the cathode.

Stop the hand-wringing wrath

Now exposed as a relic –

A dead-end subterranean path.

Wait…a smoldering magma spring

The healing fountain of shame?

(This is no ironic reframe)

For wherever you live – below or above

The dark veil of shame has no name to speak of

But your reborn rite of passage

As you stumble and crawl through that tunnel of love.

His wall of rage starts to shake

A mask that seemed never to break

No match for this father-son quake.

Eyes start to water

Tear down those borders.

Pulling his head to my shoulder

“Let it out”; scream and shout

Eons of self-doubt

It’s a load, but for me not a boulder.

No more need to save face

Wrapped in my embrace

Lava love flowed from my arms:

To purify Pandora Box wounds

Ignite mythic brain storms!

Back then…all the fury without sounds

Flying under the radar, no evil Vader

More silent darts seeping into heads and hearts.

Putting to sleep eyes and ears

After all these years

Finally to be cleansed

By our waterfall tears.

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a former psychotherapist and Stress & Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service.  The Doc is a Trauma Debriefing and Critical Incident Consultant for variety of organizations, including the national post-earthquake, Nepali Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative. He has led numerous transformative -- silo-breaking and communications bridge-building -- Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for US Army Senior Officers and Sergeants.  He also provides international Stress Resilience and Burnout Recovery Phone-Skype Coaching.

The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress:  Healing and Laughing in the Face of Stress, Burnout & Depression and The Four Faces of Anger:  Transforming Hostility and Rage into Assertion and Passion, and Resiliency Rap:  The Wit and Wisdom of the Stress Doc.  His award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  Email stressdoc@aol.com for more info.

Courageous Resilience & Creative Risk-Taking (CR2): The Art of Designing Disorder – Program and Poem

Over the past few months, I have been developing a collaborative relationship with ORATE, a new national speaker/webinar bureau.  I have a pretty cool home page:

Click here: Mark Gorkin « Orate or http://www.orate.me/resume/mark-gorkin/

The page includes videos, program blurbs, testimonials and some fun pics.  In fact, the final program addition appears directly below:

Courageous Resilience & Creative Risk-Taking (CR²):
The New "R & R" or the Art of Designing Disorder

In today’s TNT – Time-Numbers-Technology – Driven and Distracted World, there’s definitely a need for a new and improved “R and R” model and method – Resilience and Risk-taking! Discover and practice “hands on and helmets off” tools and techniques, skills and strategies for: a) identifying “barriers” to courage and creativity, and b) building resilient and risk-taking professional-team “bridges.” Learn to “aware-ily jump in” and “strive high and embrace failure”; “thrive on thrustration” and “take an incubation vacation.” Prepare for “courageous conversations.” “Learn to fail or fail to learn.” Create “winning” teams that blend individual creativity and interactive community. Stimulate and integrate your head and heart, the obscure, the obvious, and even the oppositional. Come out of the courageous and creative closets.

1.  From Agenda to the Arena: focus on “constructive discontent” and prepare and develop a courageous and paradoxical (vital & vulnerable) mindset

 

2.  Aware-ily Jump In Over Head: generate rapid learning curve – threat-loss-challenge; quick assessment of skills & resources; beware of alligators

3.  Strive to Survive High Dive: “Strive High and Embrace Failure”; “Resilience & Risk-Taking” time frame; “come up for air”; TLC resource collaboration

4.  Thrive On “Thrustration”…Incubate to Illuminate: embrace and harness creative tension; take an “Incubation Vacation”: from letting go to letting come, from frustration to flow

5.  Design for Error and Evaluation, Coming Out and Opportunity: range of possibilities over fixed or ideal goals; choosing confusion over illusion of control; avoid “b.s.”; develop IC2 Networks

So seek the higher power of Stress Doc humor…May the Farce Be with You!
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And this leads directly to the latest addition of “Resiliency Poetry”:  Courageous Resilience & Creative Risk-Taking:  The ABCs of Designing Disorder.  Actually, both the program and poem are based on an article penned in the 1980s, after a chaotic two season “Mind-Body Connection” experience/experiment on the newly arrived New Orleans Cox Cable Television.  (In addition to the weekly performance angst due to my “tele-virgin” status, the fondest memory is of my closing salutation:  “This is Mark Gorkin, the Stress Doc ™.  Good night and good connections!”)

In addition to the ORATE posting, I will introduce my (CR²) model and method at an upcoming June program, Inspiring with Passion Power, for the Eastern Region of the International Professional Management Association (IPMA).  So with (CR²) on the brain, I decided to jump in the “Resiliency Poetry” waters, once again.  I hope you enjoy the ride!

Mark

P.S.  Notice the vertical letter pattern to the left of the first “Preamble” stanza.  It’s the rhyme scheme:  A-B-CC-A-B-CCC.  This is the basic scheme throughout the poem.  Also, it’s one reason the poem is subtitled, “The ABCs of Designing Disorder.”
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Courageous Resilience & Creative Risk-Taking (CR²):  The ABCs of Designing Disorder

Preamble Trio

A     Resilience and Risk

B     The new “R & R”

C     Where effort and pluck

C     With guidance and luck

A     Help you stretch and stick

B     To that rising star

C     Even when feeling stuck…

C     Just don’t pass the buck, alas

C     There’s that crawl through the muck!

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You’ve been tossed aside

And question your worth

From reaping and sowing

Which way’s the wind blowing?

Will you choose to hide?

Or still walk this earth?

With the tide ebb and flowing

All the time knowing

Not a clue where you’re going!

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Is failing shameful?

Or a chance to learn

About life and living

To be forgiving

If not successful, then

A point where you turn

“Right-Wrong” believing

Last gasp self-deceiving…

Look…a Phoenix:  “born again” grieving!

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Five Stages of Courageous Resilience and Creative Risk-Taking

 

How do you cultivate

Risk & Resilience?

With ”coeur”-rage and a savvy “tete”:  **

Fling an alert-anxious net

Focus your radar sensate

Explore shadow and substance

“Five Stages” is the conduit…

Less a gamble; more fierce mindset

“Design Disorder”…sans regret!

**  “coeur”  and “tete” – French for heart and head respectively

1.  First an Agenda…Then into the Arena

Grabs your mind, heart, and gut
You’re alive yet still wary –
Just “Constructive Discontent”
Or a brain bolt heaven sent?
Finally, out of your rut
Wrestling with the contrary
Hones the range of intent
While still being hell-bent…
On a stage all too pregnant!

2.  Aware-ily Jump In Over Your Head

Take the plunge; eyes wild and wide
Quickly glean skills and resources
For the challenge of losing (it)
Excites laser learning (and wit)…
And surprise! – a dopamine ride
Craving pleasure and dark forces:
Are you in flight or still fighting?
To avert stage fright freezing
Keep the play brain juice flowing!

3.  Strive to Survive the High Dive

Facing Your Intimate FOE:
Oh no…”Fear of Exposure” –
That gap between ambition
And a burnout situation…
Cutting edge tension:  “b.s.” or grow.
So “Strive High, Embrace Failure” –
Yin/Yang paradox potion:
Repetition with reflection…still
Beware Icarus ** perspiration!

**  Icarus – in Greek mythology, son of Daedalus who lost his life daring to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax

4.  Thrive On “Thrustration”…Incubate to Illuminate

Your ideas just won’t unite
Still, don’t fight the big muddle
Slowly harness frustration…
Build a platform for “thrustration”:  **
Volcanic dreams in the night
A lava light for your puzzle…
Now drift with meditation
Join in collaboration, then
An “incubation vacation”:
Let go…retreat…hatch new creation!

**  “thrustration” – a term coined by Dr. Richard Rabkin; I defined it as being torn between thrusting ahead with direct action and frustration as you cannot quite put together those key puzzle pieces

5.  Design for Error and Evaluation, Coming Out and Opportunity

Pursue three-fold pathways:
Trial, error, and appraisal
Not a fixed or “my way” goal
More “b.s.” – be safe! control.
So set hollowed truths ablaze…
From the ashes…mythic renewal:
Mandala ** vision of the soul
Spirit voice from a black hole
Are you ready?…Let’s “Rock 'n Roll!

**  Mandala – Sanskrit for “magic circle”; a meditative tool/artistic structure often displaying geometric – concentric and symmetric – patterning; for the pioneering psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, a collective unconscious symbol of psychological wholeness or “individuation”; email for more information

Closing

On this “R & R” journey
Not “a means to an end”
Nor a quest “one and done”…
Battles seem lost ere you’ve begun.
Red-hot electric memory
Lurking around every bend…
Dark images eclipse your sun
Still…there’s a chance for madhouse fun:
Will you resist that urge to run?

© Mark Gorkin  2015

Shrink Rap ™ Productions

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Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a national keynote and webinar speaker and "Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his interactive, inspiring and FUN programs for both government agencies and major corporations.  The Doc is a training and Stress Resilience Consultant for The Hays Companies, an international corporate insurance and wellness brokerage group.  He has also led “Resilience, Team Building and Humor” programs for various branches of the Armed Services.  Mark, a former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, is the author of Resiliency Rap, Practice Safe Stress, and of The Four Faces of Anger.  See his award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.