Category Archives: Attentiveness

Seasons

This weekend, our family moves from Northern Mexico to Greater DC.  

I believe that, if we pay attention during life’s transitions, the seasons of our lives can reveal themselves with unique clarity.  That is, it is possible to harness the emotional intensity of a transition and, holding the moment gently, to gather the meaning of the past years.

I often need help to pay attention in this way, and one song in particular helps me achieve this disposition.  It was written and performed by former colleague, master teacher, and dear friend, Michael Crean.  It is from an album that forms the musical backbone of the audiobooks for Audacious Ignatius and Sorin Starts a School.

Here is the song, entitled “Seasons.”  (It is registered on SoundCloud under his pen name.)  For an optimal experience, listen with good headphones after everything the day requires has been done.

Here’s to attentiveness, whatever the season.

Halten

A German verb for “to hold” (halten) can be used as the verb “to think,” as in: What do you think about that idea?

This structure illustrates a healthy relationship with our mind’s activity.  I am holding a thought in awareness.  I do not over identify with it.  I can let it go.  I can share it.  I can do something about it. But I am not the thought.

So.  Was hälst du?  What do you think?  (That is, what do you hold?)

Our Defenses Affect Our Flourishing – Part I

Life presents us with conflict, stress, and change, so we develop (often unconscious) defensive habits to deal with this pain.

There is compelling evidence* suggesting that the maturity of our defenses can determine the extent to which we develop psychosocial health. 

Here are some mature defenses (articulated in the DSM-IV).

(1) Altruism – Taking action to decrease the world’s suffering

(2) Anticipation – Holding future pain in awareness (i.e. memento mori)

(3) Humor – Being able to laugh at oneself and the vicissitudes of life

(4) Sublimation – Engaging healthy, gratifying alternatives to an opportunity denied

(5) Suppression – Stoicism (i.e. “If you are going through hell, keep going.”) 

Development of these habits is not a matter of will power.  They are cultivated in the context of significant relationships, drawn out of us in empathy and safety.  

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*For more, check out Chapter 8 (entitled “Resilience and Unconscious Coping”) of this fascinating book reflecting on the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

Our Defenses Affect Our Flourishing – Part II

Here I wrote that the maturity of our unconscious defenses in the face of life’s pain contributes to our overall psychosocial wellness.

And the opposite seems true as well.  Immature defenses tend to undermine our wellness. 

Here are some common immature defenses.

Some (dissociation, fantasy, passive aggression, projection) avoid or externalize responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in.

Other defenses keep the threatening thought or feeling out of our awareness.  These include displacement (directing anger at something other than the source of the anger), intellectualization, and repression.

Awareness of these immature defenses can help us leave them behind.  To truly grow, though, we need to witness exemplars of the mature defenses as well as experience the relational support to integrate them.  

Showing One’s Face

My wife and I used to work here in downtown Cairo, Egypt.

My wife’s work was in the legal aid clinic.  She worked often with one translator, a young woman from Somalia, when preparing the cases of Somali clients.  This woman wore the niqab, so my wife had only ever seen her eyes.

Then, the day before we were to return to the US, this young woman approached my wife to say goodbye and told her that she wanted to find a place alone so that she could show my wife her face.     

There was no real privacy on the compound.  The workspace of the entire legal aid clinic was, generously estimated, about 14 feet by 24 feet, with an adjoining bathroom.  So my wife and this Somali woman went into the bathroom, saw each other face to face, and said goodbye.

Deciding to show our face to someone takes significant courage. 

How do we become people who have the desire to show our face to one another?  

How do we become someone of such love that people want to show their face to us?

Power-tropism

Plants are phototropic.  Over time, they orient themselves according to the light source in their environment, bending either toward the light or away from it.

Many people are power-tropic.  They bend toward (or away from) those that they perceive are in power, and reflexively take on (or react against) their characteristics.

Seeing this phenomenon can help us understand our own motivation, the motivation of others, and, then, how to shape culture in a just way.

Difficult Conversations

One of the things that makes difficult conversations so difficult is that there are actually multiple conversations going on.  In a truly tough talk, there is probably:

1) The Feelings Conversation: Narrative spun out of the reality of how I am / we are feeling

2) The “What Happened” Conversation: Narrative establishing the facts the conflict

3) The Identity Conversation: Narrative and analysis about what this means for how I see myself / us.

If two people are stuck in different “conversations,” they can neither attend to each other nor communicate effectively. 

So, in a relationship where conflict is possible, it is an enormous help to have the ability to talk about and refer back to these three conceptual hooks before a conflict begins. (For more, check out the book on difficult conversations.)