Diana - Writing

Why do "bad" things happen to "good" people

The short answer is I don’t know. The paradigm that's presupposed by the loaded idea of "good and bad" is its own topic that I will explore elsewhere, but I use it here as a placeholder so I can talk about the deep trust in an experience I’ve been living.

A few summers ago, by the grace of the divine and an angel in the form of one of my best friends, I awakened to a hard truth: I had married a dangerous, abusive man who also engaged in several other disturbing things that are too sensitive for me to mention here. I didn’t sleep the night I found out, and as the sun rose, I packed as quickly as I could (by “packed,” I mean threw a bunch of random things into bags as I charged around the house, wishing I were the organized person who was good at planning ahead and would have printed one of those “what you need to pack when you’re escaping an abuser” lists). I carried my then 4 year old to the car while he was still half asleep, and my cousin came by to help me check there weren’t any tracking devices on my car. And then we went into hiding.

But controlling, abusive people don’t let go very easily. My ex has been fighting to try to get custody of our son, and using our son to try to continue to control me. I was horrified to discover firsthand that society’s structures largely work to protect abusers as long as they are of a certain demographic (in this case, white male, athletic, good looking). As I write this, my ex is having an unsupervised visit with our son.

In the aftermath of those years, I was living a situation so challenging I’ve been to the brink of my sanity several times. Yet, by the grace of the Divine, that space of hopelessness, fear, and anger have moved through as I surrendered to the moment and step into larger and larger magnitudes of personal power, love, trust and gratitude.

It’s inevitable in the healing and spiritual circles I walk in — the question comes up of my vibration and how that made me "attract" and "manifest" the situation with my son’s father. Sometimes things are framed as though I must suffer from low self esteem, low self worth, or had violent desires to hurt and control others hidden in my shadow self. These ways of thinking feel shaming, and they didn’t seem to resonate with me at all. Why and how, then, did this happen?

I’ve come to accept that at one level, my predatory ex was attracted to me for the same reason predators are attracted to children — their innocence, vulnerability, goodness, and wild sense of adventure, play, and spark. Children don’t vibrate with hate, control, and malice. They don't have low self esteem or schedenfreude. They simply are. They innocently look for love, play, and connection. Rather than seeing these qualities as faults I need to “fix” or “grow out of,” this experience has actually moved me further into and expanded these qualities in me. This way of being is part of Who We Really Are, and it’s our birthright to live in this space. There was nothing wrong with me before I met my ex, and I will continue to choose Love, connection, and joy. He does not get to take that from me. Nobody has that power.

This situation with my ex has been a terrifying, scary experience for me, yet it’s been so much more than just fear, anger, and helplessness. Facing the brink of my sanity, I sometimes found myself tempted to control whatever I could like an addict looking for a fix that would bring momentary relief. Yet the power of grace always reminded me that the way of control was not who I am. Every time I was brought to the precipice of the abyss, I found the strength of grace, power of surrender, and my path back to trusting life, trusting the universe, and trusting myself. I find my way back to joy and peace. In re-affirming and being Who I Am, I also align with Truth, Love, and the Divine. As long as I am in this space, we are more than safe. We are dancing!

My life right now has incredibly, remarkably, magnificently, challenging moments. This is not a punishment, a curse, or a sign of "low vibration." It’s a testament to how much strength, power, and support I have that the Universe, through my ex, gave me this opportunity to revel in the mystery of life and meet it with curiosity, excitement, and wonder.

The ability to awaken to your power isn’t blocked by your circumstances. The ability to awaken to your power is birthed from the darkness — your circumstances, challenges, and adversity.

If you are feeling challenged, rejoice! This is a sign that you are growing and that some part of you was not willing to stay stagnant and complacent. Facing and moving through your challenges can awaken the larger part of you that is connected to your Magic, so that you can access and live more fully from that space.

You are not wrong if your life isn’t perfect. The so-called imperfections are part of the perfection of life as it’s meant to be lived. Embrace the gifts of light, ease, flow when they come; and remember also to embrace the gifts of darkness, constriction, stagnation, messiness. Embrace them all because you are meant to shine through no matter what!

Physical and Nonphysical Spirals — They’re Everywhere!

by Diana

Now that I’ve been making my Flower of Life cloths for a while and inspired by sacred geometry, I’ve been venturing into other little projects — it really was just to play with different ways of creating and expressing myself, and I noticed I have been really into other round shapes.

I’ve been feeling inspired to crochet circular things lately. For those of you who don’t crochet, there are two main ways to form circles in crocheting — 1) you can “crochet continuously” which produces a spiral that emanates from a central seed circle and 2) you can “join with slip stitch at the end of each round” which produces concentric circles emanating from the central seed circle.

Both are beautiful, and lately I’ve been feeling really moved by the spirals. Spirals are ubiquitously found in nature, and represent continuous growth, limitless potential, and possibilities.

Spirals exist in the realm of what we see such as the formation of shells like the nautilus and the spiral bud of a fern. And spirals exist in the realm of what we cannot see — microscopic to macroscopic. At the microscopic level — the protein structure of hair is spiral due to the chiral structure of amino acids that make up your hair proteins -- ever notice that one side of your head makes pretty curls and the other side of your head makes wonky curls? At the macroscopic level — the unfathomably large spiral shape of galaxies such as the Milky Way we live in.

I even think spirals exist in non-physical realms — think about the formation of certain thoughts. (I consider thoughts to be non-physical in that they’re not made of matter and don’t have mass). I frequently notice thought-spirals in people who have certain anxiety issues or slippery slope-type fears. They experience something they don’t like, which triggers an unpleasant thought, which begets a whole cascade of possibilities that each could produce more unpleasant thoughts. Notice that the cascade of thoughts usually aren’t random — they are somewhat all emanating from a central thought, even if it is very tangential and loosely associated. My cousin, when under stress, says she has a tendency to do this, and she calls it “spiraling.”

The thought-spirals even have a seed-thought at the origin, analogous to the way my crochet spirals have a seed-circle at the origin! And of course, not all thought-spirals are born of fear and anxiety. Some thought-spirals are born of unbridled enthusiasm, creative brainstorming, and optimism. There are also thought-spirals that are very happy and magnificent but they’re born of wanting to dissociate from the present moment, rather than embracing and engaging it — so even if they produce some happy feels, I might consider some of these scenarios to be fear/anxiety based thought spirals as well.

The fact that spirals seem to exist on all levels of matter from microscopic, macroscopic, to “regular-scopic” and seems to exist in nonphysical realms seems consistent with the principle “as above, so below.” Maybe I would have realized it if I thought of it and it would have theoretically saved me from “having” to crochet all the various circles, but oh well. I’m not an efficient person, I usually do better getting insight from doing and engaging with things rather than just thinking, and I enjoyed the process.

Anyway back to crochet! When you’re crocheting you inevitably need to choose materials to work with. I almost exclusively prefer working with natural materials. They are beautiful, real, authentic. Wool is one of my favorites. I fell in love with wool when I got wool diaper covers for my son when he was a baby. Have you experienced wool?!?!!? It’s amazing. It can absorb a lot of fluid without feeling wet, it breathes, it is naturally anti-microbial so it doesn’t get smelly. The tiny little curls in the wool hold hands with each other and gently felt as you use it, wash it, dry it….

My cousin made a beautiful diaper cover for my son when he was a baby. Putting on that handmade, wool diaper cover made me feel like I was putting incarnated love onto him during our leisurely diaper changes. When I work with materials like wool (which is basically hair from certain animals), I get very contemplative about the physical spirals that exist in the material I’m working with that I cannot see, that are below the surface, that are invisible to my known senses but that I know are there because it leaves signs of its existence in how the hair fibers subtly curl, bend, crosslink and felt. These spirals affirm to me my own potential, my own growth, and my own development as well as that of other things in my life that I want to grow and nurture— my son, relationships, ideas, etc. This energy gets infused into the item I’m making, which is why I love handmade toys and items. And the contemplative, meditative state I get into is usually inspired only by the beauty of handling natural materials.

One of my recent creations showcases the spiral: an open ended Waldorf-inspired toy that can fly like a frisbee even though it's crocheted and not hard plastic. And I was somewhat surprised to see how open-ended it was as a toy that sparked imaginative, creative play in my son who uses it as a playscape, landscape for his toys, to carry his stones and rocks and toys, as a spiderweb. . . .

The rainbow is a source of inspiration too, and I’ll leave that for another post.

How about you? Are you a maker? What flashes of insight and inspiration emerge when you work?

Honoring the Near Future

by Diana

My Past, Present, and Future

After spending a lot of time considering Past Me, lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Future Me. I’ve noticed that I am totally neglecting Future Me. I’m not talking about the “Future Me” decades from now – I think I’m relatively mindful of her in that I consider retirement, savings and my longterm health. The future self that I’m consistently neglecting is the Near-Future-Me – the one that exists later today or tomorrow.

Sisyphus’s Hell

For example, in these cold winter mornings, I wear my slippers around the house, and then when I’m warm, I kick them off and they land wherever they happen to land. Sometimes I don’t take off both slippers at the same time. I might kick off my right slipper in the living room and then go to the kitchen, have a snack and kick off my left slipper in there. It’s so inconsiderate and rude! Every time I do this, I am dooming Evening Diana to the frustration of having to search and look for her slippers when her feet get cold in the evening. When Evening Diana is warm or goes to bed, she kicks off her slippers, and they land wherever they do, and Morning Diana will have to deal with having to look for the slippers. This single example isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is incredibly frustrating, inefficient, and it sucks time and energy from me. And I have to experience this several times a day! What’s worse is that this personal Sisyphus’s hell is entirely self-created!

Conclusion

Extrapolate this out, and you can imagine that there are a lot of things I do that indicate what little regard, kindness, and consideration I’ve been showing to Future Me who will have to deal with the mess, clutter, and frustration that Present Me left. I’ll need to take an inventory and be more mindful of these incidents and what to do about it, but to start with, I’ve designated a PLACE (corner of my bedroom) for where my slippers will go every time I take them off, and hopefully this will give Future Me (who is really Me) a little more peace, flow, and serenity.

Toddler Tantrums are the Seeds of Emotional Maturity

February 2, 2017 by Diana

As the parent of a toddler, have you ever witnessed a huge meltdown and felt the gripping fear that your toddler will never grow out of this?

I think a common response many parents have in the face of a toddler meltdown is to squash it, shame it, bury it, silence it – perhaps they fear that if they don’t shut it down, they are enabling behavior that will produce an adult who has anger and control issues, is emotionally manipulative, physically intimidating, or simply an insufferable jerk.

However, what if you could harness the power of a toddler meltdown and use it to plant the seeds for emotional maturity? The kind of emotional maturity that would allow your little one to grow into someone who is capable of nurturing deep, intimate, fulfilling relationships with you, their friends, their significant others, and their own future children?

Being a parent is a humbling experience. You frequently come face to face with your areas of weakness and deficiency, and this happens pretty often for me. It’s not just executive career women who forget their kids’ coats but remember their own, and it really isn’t fair that society seems to demonize career moms in this way just for being honest about their feelings. I, too, have been guilty of forgetting basic things for my son because I found other things more interesting to consider than whether his shirt and face still have egg yolk on them from breakfast or if the weather (or impending sunset) calls for a jacket. Luckily we don’t live in a rural area, so if there is an emergency while we’re out, I’ve always been able to purchase extra diapers and wipes, buy a sweater, wrap him up in my own jacket, or improvise a hat for him with spare leggings I dig out from the trunk of my car.

In any case, I believe every parent brings with them a unique set of skills that their kids can benefit from. I may not be very skilled at the logistical aspects of parenting, but one of the skills I DO have is I can, more or less, hold emotional space. I’m here to tell you that the epic toddler meltdowns are, in fact, gifts; they are the seeds of emotional maturity. I’m not trying to minimize and invalidate the angst you feel when you’re dealing with a toddler meltdown by making you “look at the bright side.” I’m simply stating what I know in my bones.

The Seeds for Emotional Maturity

Toddler tantrums, and how you manage and guide them, plant the seeds for your little one to develop a strong sense of self, boundaries, and the ability to work through the strong, heavy, emotions that sometimes debilitate grownup people. If they learn to deal with them at this stage, they won’t have to resort to the unsustainable coping mechanisms that many adults use like suppression, ignoring, or minimizing their emotions. At 3 years old, my son is an older toddler, and strong emotions in themselves are not developmentally new, but the presence of strong, conflicting, and ambivalent emotions ARE a rather recent development for him. The ability to handle ambivalent, conflicting emotion is THE hallmark of emotional maturity.

Let me give you an example from my life the other day. We were at the local children’s museum, and he had spent a LONG time playing with one of the exhibits. I usually don’t like to interrupt his play or force him to share, but he had been there a long time and it also didn’t seem right that no one else was getting a chance. I told him that he could have a few more minutes on it so someone else can have a turn. In the past, when I set limits, he sometimes gets upset and protests, but this day was very different. The look he gave me was intense. He was angry at me and wanted to physically lash out at me. At the very same time he was feeling hate toward me, he was feeling strong love and attachment as well.

How He Felt

Experiencing strong, contradictory, opposite, ambivalent feelings is incredibly painful. It’s confusing and frustrating. It feels helpless. It’s overwhelming. It feels unfair that someone could have this much power of you. It feels shameful to be so vulnerable that all you want is a hug from the very person who has triggered your suffering. My son was feeling all this inner turmoil and was trying so hard to process it. He tried taking some deep breaths. He verbalized what he could (“Mommy I feel very mad.” “Mommy I don’t want to give anyone else a turn.” “I’m very angry.”) He tried screaming and yelling. He rolled all around the ground kicking and tantruming. If you’ve ever had a toddler, you know the deal. . .

How I Felt

As a mom, part of me felt helpless too. Part of me just wanted to mollify him by giving in by saying “Nevermind you don’t have to give anyone else a turn. Screw them.” But I knew that if I gave into him, the momentary relief wouldn’t be worth it. It would make him feel worse in the long run. In that moment when he felt completely powerless and all attempts to exert control seem futile, it wouldn’t have felt good to suddenly see his mom giving up and demonstrating that she was even more powerless than he felt. It’s scary to have to realize that the people you depend on to take care of you can be so easily controlled, unnerved, or unhinged by your tantrum. While some autonomy for a toddler is important, I think if I gave in, he would have felt more abandonment than empowerment.

I held the boundary firm and held as much compassion, love, and space as I could for him. I could not process his emotions for him, and I cannot tell him how to do it. All I could do was stay present, grounded, and hold a lot of space for both of us as he tied to figure out how to do it himself. I felt so proud of all the effort he was making.

Eventually, he hit me. He lunged at me and hit me in the head as many times as he could until I pulled him loose and told him I wasn’t going to let him hit me. Now, hitting me did release some of his steam, but now he had this extra thing to process – the fact that he hit his mother. The incident was unresolved, so he repeated the outbursts throughout the day again and again. I won’t bore you with the details of every episode, but I think we had a total of 5 epic meltdowns that day that all resulted in him trying to hit me or actually hitting me. I know it sounds really bad on the surface, but I could tell that each time he went through it, he got a little more of a hold on handling his emotions.

My toddler is usually very cheerful and happy, and a happy kid can surely be a sign that something is right, and to me the bigger affirmation that something is right is that he feels safe being uncheerful and unhappy too – he feels safe showing vulnerable feelings of rage, frustration, helplessness, sadness, despair, confusion, and humility. These feelings aren’t hidden or repressed. The toddler meltdown is the ultimate affirmation that your child is still being authentically real with you. Really, it’s a gift. He doesn’t feel the need to put on a fake happy face to assuage you.

Conclusion

So to wrap up, when your attempt to set a limit results in a toddler meltdown, this is NOT necessarily an indicator that he will grow up to be an emotionally manipulative, abusive jerk. On the contrary, meltdowns are vehicles for your toddler to experience a full range of strong, contradictory, ambivalent emotions and work through them. This IS how emotional maturity develops. If you can, more or less, stay grounded, strong at your core, loving, AND maintain the boundary that they need, you are helping to water and nurture these seeds, and they will grow into something beautiful.

Not Feeling the Praise Vibes

January 23, 2017 by Diana

Before I became a stay-at-home mom, I was a teacher in the medical assisting program of a private proprietary school. We used to have a lot of staff meetings about how to “get” students to do such and such, and one of the things that always ALWAYS came up was that we should praise good behavior. I always felt so uncomfortable with this approach. It felt manipulative and inauthentic, and further reinforces this relationship of the teacher being the omniscient, belittling bestower of “praise” and that students are only worthy if they can scramble and hustle enough to obtain crumbs of praise from us mighty teachers.

I usually kept my mouth shut because saying anything at a staff meeting only made the meetings last longer. Also, if praise works for some people, and they feel authentic and sincere in doling it out, I didn’t want to change that. Anyway, the quicker the meeting was over, the more quickly I could get back to what I loved doing – which was being in the classroom, connecting with my students, and feeling the swell of appreciation that I had the privilege to witness them on this stage of their journey, and walk a bit with them at this part of their life. It was a time in my life that I will always cherish. Many of the students from this school came from academically disadvantaged backgrounds, were people of color, and have been marginalized by many authority figures in their life who were neither careful , responsible nor mindful of their power. Now this is not to say that I don’t express joy and excitement when a student breaks a milestone, or has some success story. I revel in it and feel the joy with them, not as some authority figure who will bestow them with praise if they are worthy. They already are worthy.

The truth is, I think that I just really approached teaching differently from the corporate protocol. Yes, IF I want obedient students, then I should praise them. However, I didn’t want obedient students. I wanted students who would find their place in the world, their voice, who they were. As a teacher, I wanted to foster their independence, authenticity, and real feelings of self esteem, self worth, and confidence. Praising students for compliance begets more compliance and dependence. It erodes their sense of self, and I think it gets them addicted to performing for praise instead of asking their inner voice what they want to do. Our culture doesn’t advocate much for punishment anymore, but make no mistake about it, praise is a “carrot” and is still part of the “carrot and stick” paradigm.

Inner Parenting Work

August 25, 2016 by Diana

Do you have a voice in your head that is extremely critical or discouraging? Maybe it says things like “Who do you think you are?” “You won’t be able to pull it off,” or “You always mess up.” Based on speaking with people and reading about their experiences, I have noticed that it seems a fair number of people have these critical inner voices…..So I’ve always felt really weird that my inner voices aren’t discouraging, criticizing, or shaming. My inner voices are actually cheerleaders and (I think) a bit delusional for thinking I can do anything. I see a lot of self-development advice that involves some aspect of taming critical inner voices, and because I have inner voices that tell me I’m capable, wonderful, and intelligent, I wonder why I have so much difficulty with so many areas of my life like processing situations and emotions, why I seem to have so much inner healing left to do, why I engage in self-sabotage such as procrastination, and why I always seem to jump from project to project without finishing the first.

Seriously, I often don’t even properly finish small projects like making tea without leaving loose ends open like not shutting the cabinet doors or being too lazy to take the tea bag out of my cup before I drink it. It really makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with me sometimes. Rather than acknowledging where I can make improvements, my inner voice often says things like “So what if you didn’t close the cabinet doors? It’s not a big deal.” But if you consider the Tai Qi saying “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything,” you can see that this IS a big deal. Imagine what the rest of my life looks like when you consider that how I make tea is a mirror of how I do everything else.

Somehow I gained some insights around this issue by exploring inner parenting work where you learn to cultivate your inner parent so you can parent your inner child the way she needs to feel safe, loved, seen, and cared for. So this is what I’ve been working on for a few months now.

For step 1, I started by just observing what my inner parenting was currently doing, and what I found was very surprising (to me): my inner parent is either very indulgent or completely absent. My inner parent allows my inner child to do whatever she wants with very little structure and boundaries. She gets to overeat things that probably should be limited. My inner parent buys my inner child anything she wants. If my inner child wants to make a mess in the living room and kitchen and not clean up after herself, that’s ok! Someone else will just have to deal with it. If my inner child wants to throw a tantrum, she is allowed to wallow, brood, and stew. If my inner child doesn’t want to “go to school” today, that’s ok too — she can fritter the day away goofing off. This lack of structure and boundaries, rather than giving my inner child independence and autonomy is, instead, making her feel unsafe.

As an extension of the indulgent/absent parenting style I’ve adopted for my inner child, my inner parent is usually not present when my inner child needs emotional support. When my inner parent does show up during times of emotional difficulty; she tends to minimize, deny, or distract/indulge rather than holding space, acknowledging, or validating how the child is feeling. It was a real eye opener to realize that I’ve adopted this parenting style for my inner child especially since this isn’t the type of parenting style I use for my son.

For step 2, I looked for examples of parents who parent in the way that my inner child needs, and inviting my inner parent adopt a parenting style that is more functional for my inner child.

A few months ago I was in the car breastfeeding my son and had the beautiful privilege of hearing an exchange between a father and his daughter (who was probably about 2). The little girl was pushed down at the playground, so she and her dad were at their car taking a break from the playground. As she cried, he said very calmly, very centered “It looks like you scraped your knee. That hurts doesn’t it? You didn’t like that (being pushed down). I’m very sorry I didn’t get there in time to stop it. Next time if this happens again and I’m not there, you can push back. You don’t need to let other people push you down” And after a bit of time to let his little girl process this he said “Would you like to have something to drink? Milk or water?” And then after a bit more sniffles “You can choose to let it bother you, or you can let it go and we can go back to the playground and have more fun. What do you think?”

I can’t say the little girl “chose” to let it bother her, but she did not want to go back to the playground for more fun, and dad was perfectly ok with her choice. He didn’t make her put on a happy face and play if she didn’t feel like it. He didn’t make a joke out of everything. He didn’t offer to buy her ice cream, a new car, a Barbie set, or promise a trip to Hawaii to try to rush her into feeling better. They sat in the car together for a good 10 minutes or so and then she eventually decided she wanted to have fun and they were back out at the playground having fun.

I marveled at this exchange and compared it to how my inner parent would have handled the situation.

My inner parent would have:

tried to minimize the crying and emotions: “Oh you’re ok! You’re ok! It’s ok. It wasn’t a big fall. You’re ok.”

fussed over her: “OH MY GOD YOUR KNEE IS SCRAPED!!!! Poor thing!!!” Smooch smooch smooch kiss kiss and then put all the focus on cleaning, disinfecting, icing, and bandaging the minor scrape and ignoring the potential emotional needs of the child.

put down the other kid and inadvertently set up a thought paradigm of abusers and victims, winners and losers, good guys and bad guys: “That other kid was such a jerk. You weren’t doing anything wrong and he just came up and pushed you! Out of nowhere! What’s wrong with his stupid parents?! You didn’t deserve this awful thing to happen to you!!!”

invalidate her right to be upset: “Why do you care that jerk was mean? Some kids are mean. You have to learn to just ignore them.”

attempt to distract her from how she was feeling: by telling a joke, changing the subject, pushing food, drink, and gifts. The dad in my example did offer water or milk to his little girl, but the manner in which he did it was to be sensitive to her needs, not to try to distract her from emoting.

rush her into putting on a happy face: “Ok your knee shouldn’t be hurting anymore so you can stop crying. Let’s go out and have more fun.”

Keep in mind, my inner parent has a very nice, sweet voice, which is why I didn’t realize how dismissive and invalidating the content of what her words are.

Anyway, I really liked how this dad was calm, centered, and grounded. He was authoritative, present, and empathetic. He took responsibility for his role (“I’m sorry I didn’t get there in time”) without overstating his power (He didn’t say things like he would never let this happen again and that he would always be there to make sure of it). He gently, subtly implied that he might not always be there or “get there in time” but that she had full permission to defend herself. He didn’t make her feel wrong for feeling bad. He didn’t’ rush her. He didn’t shame her lack of action by saying things like “Well why didn’t you defend yourself?” He supported her without needing to demonize the other child.

I have so much love for this dad and how this will impact his daughter. This is a dad who will support and trust his daughter’s empowered choices. This is not the kind of dad who would give his daughter mixed messages like “Be sweet and nice because that is what makes you lovable” and “Of course they pick on you. You’re so docile and vulnerable.” “Let daddy take care of everything” and “Why didn’t you defend yourself?!?!?!” and “Defend yourself, but do it in a nice and sweet way.”

If my inner child could have an inner parent like this, I think we could go very far and accomplish many things. :o)

The Blame Habit

June 21, 2016 by Diana

Have you ever noticed yourself replaying and reinforcing a toxic cycle? I’ve been noticing lately that I’ve been in a blame cycle.

I have probably had some form of this cycle for most of my life, and very recently I’ve become more curious about it. I noticed that when I get into negative thought patterns, I fall into a cycle of blame-based coping mechanisms. I blame the people closest to me for my circumstances. Then I blame myself for my role in attracting our circumstances and then quickly rationalize how it’s not my fault because I’m simply recreating what was imprinted on me by my parents. Then I blame my parents for their role in making me who I am today. Then I realize that myparents are not at fault – they are simply recreating what they knew from their parents, so then I get into blaming our grandparents and so forth. I dole out blame and pass it from person to person like it’s a game of hot potato.

I’ve been working through this for many weeks now, and each time I pass the blame to someone else, I hope the pattern dissipates, but it hasn’t yet. Eventually I pass the blame back to myself and delude myself into thinking that I’m taking authentic, empowered responsibility for my circumstances; but eventually realize that I’m just blaming myself. What is the difference between holding someone accountable vs blaming them? I’m still trying to get clarity on this distinction.

I think I’m slowly getting more insight – when I direct blame inward, it feels hurtful, shaming, and isolating. When I engage in this pattern, it feels like I’m telling myself that I deserve these “bad” circumstances, and that I’m unworthy of something better. This unbearably painful feeling then causes me to project this awful blame feeling outward, and I blame others: partners, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents to distract me from feeling the effect of blaming myself.

I’m also noticing that as painful and disempowering as blame is, there are aspects of me that find comfort in it. Blaming makes things feel more predictable and therefore safer. This feeling of ersatz-safety is also probably why victim-blaming in cases of rape, domestic violence, and bullying are so common. People read about terrible circumstances and frequently resort to blame. I suspect that part of why it’s so common is that many people don’t like facing their vulnerability and accepting that sometimes things are not in anyone’s control. To view these incidents as random is absolutely terrifying. It implies that any one of us could be that vulnerable person who is experiencing tragedy. Resorting to blame helps make the world seem more just, fair, and predictable. I can understand why people want to cling to this comforting story -- one where people deserve what they get, and that we have more control than we actually do.

Immune System: Friends and Enemies

May 22, 2016 by Diana

When I first learned about the immune system, the model used to explain the mechanism was that it worked by discerning “self” from “nonself.” Anything that was “nonself” (like a bacteria, virus, parasite, or other microbe) would trigger the body’s immune response to get rid of or “kill” the intruder. This model of the immune system essentially presupposes a metaphor of the body as a war zone. There is “us” and there is “them.” “They” are “not one of us,” and therefore they are dangerous, so we need to kill them before they kill us. Well, it turns out this overly-simplistic model isn’t quite useful in portraying how things really are. Or perhaps it is useful for those who have an agenda around us being overly tribal and viewing things in simplistic categories of "friends" and "enemies." Metaphors are so powerful in shaping how we think and feel -- they bypass the linear mind.

The truth is, some things aren’t so neatly black or white, good or bad, or any other dichotomous distinction that humans try to impose on complex phenomena. In actuality, your body is teeming with microbes and they play more of a role than just causing disease; certain microbes are beneficial and actually help keep us healthy and are involved in homeostatic metabolism (weight gain, weight loss, diabetes, etc), availability of vitamins, immune system and even human height. They are connected to us, part of who we are, and can help us thrive, as long as there is balance and harmony. In light of this, I think a better metaphor of the body is that of an ecosystem rather than a war zone.

See what happens when we use a different metaphor: one where the body is an ecosystem (rather than a war zone). When you approach the body as an ecosystem, you’re more likely to acknowledge the importance of the biodiversity of your microbes along with their harmony and balance. Just as marshlands and rainforests are ecosystems, your body is also an ecosystem. If a microbe in your body “goes extinct,” it can disturb the balance of your body in a way that can’t easily be predicted ahead of time because of the complexity of the relationships that individual species have with each other. Unfortunately, some of our modern habits may result in certain species of microbes dying off, potentially throwing the whole ecosystem of the body off balance. One microbe of note whose disappearance in the human population is linked with chronic disease is Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). H. pylori (most known for its role in causing stomach ulcers) was once found in every adult human. Now, fewer than 10% of children in America possess H. pylori in their stomach. The significant decrease in H. pylori found in the human population is due in part to antibiotic use as well as changes in sanitation. H. pylori plays a role in modulating the immunology and physiology of the stomach and its presence in the stomach protects against the development of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The diminishing rates of H. pylori in the human population is also linked to obesity and type II diabetes.

With a deeper understanding of the body’s microbial population, the field of immunology has also changed. The body’s immune system, once thought as needing to simply discern between “us” and “them,” has a far more complex job to do than just deciding who is a friend and who is an enemy. Is H. pylori, which plays a role in causing stomach ulcers and preventing GERD, obesity and type II diabetes, a friend or an enemy? Perhaps, the “friend and enemy” analogy doesn’t really fit here. H. pylori is neither “good” nor “bad.” It simply is, and as part a large, complex, ecosystem can be beneficial when it is balanced and living in harmony with the other organisms, and harmful when it is out of balance.

References:

Blaser MJ (2006). Who are we?: Indigenous microbes and the ecology of human diseases. European Molecular Biology Organization report. 2006;7;10: 956-960

Boundaries vs Walls: What’s the Difference?

April 18, 2016 by Diana

I’ve been exploring the concept of boundaries for a few months now, probably catalyzed as my baby has been growing into a toddler. As a toddler, he is making sense of his world, exploring it, and finding its boundaries. I would like him to develop healthy, authentic, comfortable boundaries; so I am being mindful of respecting his boundaries as well as modeling good boundaries for myself.

As I consider this, I’ve been ruminating on the difference between boundaries and walls. I used to think that they were interchangeable, but am realizing that they are actually quite different. Just like the boundaries of a cell membrane, boundaries serve a few purposes – they keep stuff out and they keep stuff in. Just like in cells, our metaphysical boundaries are (or at least should be) somewhat fluid. Boundaries are supposed to help us connect with each other better. Walls don’t help us connect with each other – their purpose is to isolate us, barricade us, and shut us off from connection.

When I was younger, single, and dating; I used to think I was great at holding my boundaries. If a man did something I didn’t like on a date, I would either let him know that I didn’t like it, or I would just not see him again. In retrospect, I wonder whether or not these were really were boundaries or if they were walls. To illustrate it visually, if my actual, authentic boundary was a 2 foot radius around me; I used to set up a wall 10 feet around me to give myself “buffer” space between the wall and the real boundary. Looking back, I think lack of self-trust played a huge role here. I didn’t trust myself to be ok if someone started transgressing on my authentic boundary, and sometimes I felt unbearably vulnerable letting people get too close there, so this metaphorical wall 10 feet away from me gave me the extra distance I thought I needed.

I still have some trouble with boundaries, particularly boundaries vs walls, and because of this, I have experienced a few difficulties with my toddler because he (like all children and most people) senses the difference between a boundary and a wall and will test them. Nobody likes having their boundaries tested, but I think it’s sad that society refers to this beautiful time in a child’s life as “terrible 2’s” – because it’s not the child who is “terrible.” It seems to me that society is collectively projecting their unresolved issues onto children. Yes it can be challenging to have your buttons, sore spots, and triggers poked at by a toddler, but this is what they’re supposed to be doing at this age.

Intellectualizing the difference between boundaries and walls can only get you so far. So I’ve been exploring how to really feel the difference between my boundaries and my walls. I notice that I resort to walls when I’m feeling defensive and scared of being trampled on, ridiculed, shamed, or attacked. I’ve noticed that these walls are an indication that I’m actually feeling weak and powerless about my boundaries. At the core, these walls exist because I don’t trust that I can maintain boundaries without rigid walls reinforcing them. Even worse, I have noticed that when I put up walls, it seems to provoke people to come knocking on them, poking at them, or pushing my buttons which of course further triggers me (Hello Toddler!). In the cartoon world, my walls are like a Big Red Button that says “Do Not Push!” – which almost invites people and situations out of the woodwork to come push this button. This further makes me feel panic, so I double down on reinforcing the walls. From this space, I need to muster up faux-energy so I can feel angry and this helps me produce the warnings, threats, cajoling, and pleading that I need to fortify the walls; How exhausting!

Boundaries feel very different to me – they are more fluid. Things can flow in and out. When I set my boundaries, I feel strong at my core, and this seems to allow me to be softer on the outside, and more present, and grounded. The stronger and more grounded and centered I feel internally, the softer and more open I can be on the outside. I feel when I verbally set/remind others of my boundaries from this space, it makes a huge difference. From this space, I can very calmly, kindly, and firmly say “I need you to stop doing that” or whatever. People may still get upset about me setting the boundary, or have a disproportionately indignant reaction; but I no longer feel like I am responsible for their reaction. I feel like they can sense the difference, and it tends to deflate whatever intentions they had to test my boundary. It is from this centered, grounded, and present state that I find myself best being able to handle the challenges of being a parent. And the funny thing is, when I’m in this state, being a parent isn’t challenging at all. It’s easy and fun.

Placebo Effect

April 2, 2016 by Diana

Our culture has an ambivalent attitude toward the placebo effect. In clinical trials, the placebo effect is seen as a hindrance to studying how effective a proposed therapy is. However, in the healing arts – both allopathic biomedicine and the various complementary and alternative medicine modalities – the placebo effect is often harnessed to maximize treatment outcomes. Generally, the placebo effect refers to healing (and side effects!) that occur when a person gets involved in their healing – such as their thoughts and expectations of getting better, and other factors.

One of the most powerful lessons I learned about the placebo effect occurred while I was working as a clinical research assistant at a lab for schizophrenia research. The doctor I worked for was a world-known expert in schizophrenia, and he was the principal investigator for various drug-sponsored trials, investigator-sponsored studies, and had a private practice. Many of the patients would complain of a self-diagnosed depression and, encouraged by direct-to-consumer drug advertisements, would beg him to prescribe an anti-depressant. He almost always refused, citing that although multi-drug therapy was ubiquitous among the medical community, he believed it did not actually improve patient outcomes. Given that every pharmaceutical has its list of side effects, if one medication can help you, it doesn’t make sense to add more medications (and the ensuing harm of side effects) if you aren’t going to receive more benefit especially since there isn’t a lot known about how all the drugs interact with each other. The other point he cited (to us, during team meetings) was that the majority of our patients didn’t have depression; they were demoralized, and demoralization is not clinical depression, and that they would be far better helped with psychotherapy than they would a drug.

One patient begged and complained so much that he relented and prescribed her an antidepressant. She picked up her prescription by lunchtime, and in the afternoon called the office to exclaim how much better she felt. She was feeling happier, hopeful, and more social. In my inexperience, I was amazed at how quickly the drug worked for her and silently criticized the doctor’s cruelty for letting her suffer so long with untreated depression. When I reported her improvement to the doctor at the staff meeting, he dismissively said “placebo effect.” I was appalled until he explained that the particular antidepressant he prescribed to the patient commonly takes about 12 days to build up enough in the body to produce its effects. The immediate improvements she felt were a result of her thinking and expectations and, as my good friend says, “a powerful ritual was invoked when the patient received treatment from the ‘all powerful magician-doctor.’” This lesson really stuck with me. The debilitating “depression” the patient had felt for months lifted within a few hours simply because of placebo. The politically incorrect conclusion I drew was that if you can cause your “depression” to evaporate with your thoughts and expectations, what were the thoughts you had the may have led to the “depression” in the first place?

A person’s expectations, thoughts, and beliefs are extremely powerful and can produce real, physiological effects on the body. These various psychological factors mediate brain activity and can result in changes in brain neurochemistry. Mood and thought disorders may have a physiological basis, but that does not necessarily mean that they require a pharmaceutical to treat. Now, this is not to say that people who are experiencing depression (or any other ailment) can just magically “think” their way out of it – much of the “positive thinking” stuff I see looks like thinly-veiled denial; nevertheless, I find the following intriguing:

Placebo analgesics modulate neural changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, and the periaqueductal grey to amplify or inhibit pain signals
Placebo Parkinson’s disease drugs cause the basal ganglia to release endogenous dopamine
Placebo response for anxiety and depression medications result in increased activity in the neural networks involved in emotional regulation.
Placebo responses have also resulted in lymphocyte and cytokine production (for immune response), glucocorticoid and growth hormone release (in the endocrine system), as well as modulated changes in the respiratory, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal systems.

Rather than dismissing the very real power placebo can have over your health; I am curious what could happen if this power were harnessed, cultivated, and practiced in a healthy, respectful way.

References:

Enck P, Bingel U, Schedlowski M, and Rief W. The placebo response in medicine: Minimize, maximize, or personalize? Nature Reviews: Drug Discovery. 2013 March; 12:191-204

Why Decluttering is So Difficult: Masks, False Selves, and Facades

January 29, 2016 by Diana

For as long as I can remember, every opportunity I get to make a resolution (New Year’s, New House, New Semester, New Job, etc) I’ve made the exact same one: to organize my life. I keep making the same resolution because I haven’t yet actually accomplished it. At every stage of my life, I always had a reason (an excuse, really) for why I couldn’t get organized, neat, and tidy –it’s the start of a new semester, and I’m still acclimating; it’s the middle of the semester, and I’m focused on classes; it’s the end of the semester, and I’m preoccupied with exams; it’s school break, and I deserve to rest; I’m getting married, and I have to plan a wedding; I’m a newlywed, and I am still acclimating to being married; I’m pregnant, and I have to focus on the baby; I have a baby, and I have to focus on caring for him and being a mom. Of course, at the time I’m giving these excuses, they really feel like legitimate reasons for why I can’t get my act together.

Usually these resolutions would catalyze a trip to the store so I can buy stuff to put my stuff in, but this time I took a different approach. I bought books to tell me where to put my stuff — Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up as well as her sequel Spark Joy. In a nutshell, in case you haven’t heard of these books, you are to go through all your items of a single category (clothes, books, etc) one at a time, and keep only those items that spark joy. Everything else gets thanked for its service and discarded. It’s incredible to face all my stuff and realize how much of it doesn’t spark joy in me. Why have I been keeping so much of it?

I’m not finished having a neat and tidy home yet, but so far, decluttering and tidying in the Konmari approach has been incredibly life-changing. I am confronting and shining light on aspects of myself that I didn’t want to face, that I was hiding from. These uncomfortable truths were the reason why I have had such a hard time decluttering and the reason behind why I was perpetually drowning in my stuff, feeling overwhelmed by my environment, and stuck in the past. I’m optimistic that addressing the underlying reasons for my clutter will result in permanent progress.

In Spark Joy, Kondo nails why it’s so hard to declutter. She writes “The responsibility for mess and clutter lies 100 percent with the individual. Things do not multiply of their own accord, but only if you buy them or receive them from someone else. . . tidying up means confronting yourself.”

There are many uncomfortable truths I am discovering about myself as I declutter. The most glaring truths I realized in confronting my stuff is that I have been clinging to the past AND clinging to false selves and false identities.

This is a little embarrassing to face because I have been exploring the importance of living in the present for a while now, and my accumulated stuff was evidence that despite all my efforts to live in the now; I was still clinging to the past. For example, I had a ton of heavy, space-hogging, out-of-date textbooks from college. I think I was clinging to a time in my life that I enjoyed. I felt free, I was making friends with like-minded people, I was connecting with my professors, having fun learning, and I was young and had my whole life ahead of me.

Even more troubling than clinging to the past was the realization that I was using these books to perpetuate a façade, a false self. I realized that at times, I construct personas of the person I sometimes wish I were. These particular books were “proof” that I was an “Intelligent Person.” Do you think I am frivolous and silly -- no worries, behold the EviDeNCe that showcases otherwise. In any case, they weren’t even great proof of my intellect – I can’t do calculus, physics, or organic chemistry anymore; and it’s questionable whether I ever actually knew how to do any of it at all! Though painful, I thanked these books for their role in my life, and discarded them because they were getting in the way of me getting more in touch with my authentic self. Maybe my authentic self is an intelligent person – if so, she doesn’t need to keep old textbooks around to prove it. Maybe my authentic self isn’t an intelligent person – if so, I might as well make peace with it.

I also said goodbye to many items from when I was working in restaurants – aprons, shirts, pants, shoes, server books, wine bottle openers, and check presenters. My first job was as a server in a restaurant, and I spent almost 10 years working in the restaurant industry. I really enjoyed my time in restaurants – I had a lot of easy access to good food and wine, and it’s interesting to reflect on the other things I liked about restaurants and what they revealed. In the restaurant jobs I had, nobody depends on you for anything truly important. You can quit at any time without feeling guilty. There are no hard feelings when you leave one place to move onto the next. . .

Just like with the old textbooks, I realized I was using old restaurant stuff to perpetuate another false self–this one was “Hardworking Person/Pick Myself Up By My Own Bootstraps Person.”

I won’t go into the sordid details, but it was a little unnerving to face how many false identities were residing in my old stuff. I hope that in discarding all the items that perpetuated these various personas, that I will be able to live a little more authentically.

Crystal Grids, Vision Boards, and Vulnerability

January 10, 2016 by Diana

A crystal grid is a geometric arrangement of crystals that can help center you in clarity over your wishes, dreams, desires. The synergy of the stones, sacred geometry, and your focus make them potentially a very powerful tool.

Sometimes I like to think of crystal grids as analogous to the “vision boards” people use to help them bring about their dreams and goals. I’ve heard of vision boards working well for many people because they help affirm and remind your subconscious mind of where you would like to be.

I’m not much of a visual person, so I’ve never had much success with vision boards. But more key to why I’ve had only limited success with vision boards is that I’m a rather shy person. I have always felt quite vulnerable and exposed at the thought of people being able to see my goals, hopes, and dreams so plainly. What would my friends and family think if they knew what I longed for? If I had a partner, and he could see my wishes, what would happen? It might make us grow closer to know me in this way; but what if it triggered feelings of inadequacy and anger? What if he felt burdened by me, judgmental over how idealistic and unrealistic I am, and horrified to realize that he had married a loon and didn’t know it. Maybe he would martyr his own life, well-being and happiness for mine; crippling me with feelings of unworthiness and guilt. Or maybe he would just pack up and run away! This wouldn’t do at all. It’s much safer just to keep it all to myself. There’s just too much at stake.

Because of this, the few times I have made vision boards, I was only able to put the most superficial goals on it — things like vacations, a job, restaurants and foods I wanted to experience — goals that felt really safe to broadcast but that didn’t get to the core of what my heart yearns for.

I have found that making crystal grids to represent my dreams has been very helpful. They allow me the benefit of affirmation, ritual, subconscious alignment to my focus but are more private than a vision board. People who walk by my crystal grid won’t necessarily know what I am not yet ready to share. Because the crystals hold my wishes, I don’t hold back in pouring my heart into my crystal grids.

Crystals don’t judge, and they are very good at holding space for your emotions and healing. Their energy is so solid and stable. As I’ve shared more and more of myself with them, I have found that over time, I’ve gotten more comfortable sharing aspects of me to the people I care about which, little by little, makes my relationship with myself (and others) stronger, deeper, more accepting, and more loving.

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