A Horse, A Horse

King Charles III was coronated yesterday. In the midst of it, this well-known Shakespearean phrase came to mind. This historical ceremony confirmed the role of the so-called “highest-born” in the realm of the British Commonwealth. A king of “all the people.” Okay. So the Crown has been a little tarnished lately. And they don’t so much as “reign” over us as provide tabloid news fodder and open kindergartens. But we loyal subjects still sing in unison:

Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King!“

Switching out “Queen” for “King” in that anthem was something of a psychological jolt at first. The British monarchy – and more specifically Queen Elizabeth II – has been a mainstay of my life being a good Canadian “subject,” and all. The death of the Queen last year felt like the loss of a dear and beloved – albeit distant and incommunicado – aunt. It is impossible to overstate in the American context how ubiquitous her presence was in the lives of many in the British Commonwealth from the mid-20th century to her death last year. She was a source of continuity and stability globally, even if the role she played was largely ceremonial.

If there is a better example of an idea creating reality, the British Monarchy is one of the greats. After the nasty Battle of Hastings back in 1066, Great Britain and her “protectorates” has been governed by a series of familial inheritors to “do their duty” and “serve” the people for several centuries now. High and low-born is a social construct, of course. It has a lot to do with who has the most money and who has the most toys. All social constructs develop to serve a purpose. Social constructs last until they are no longer of service.

Whether the British Monarchy is any longer of value in the 21st century is a question asked with more intensity than ever before. In the midst of all the pomp and ceremony around crowning Charles King. there were and are widespread rumblings of discontent and discussion about turfing any affiliation with the Monarchy in many countries.

Richard III’s anguished cry in the Shakespeare play of the same name speaks to the limitations of power and being “high-born.” The rulers ultimately “serve” the will of the people. More than a few monarchs have lost their heads over neglecting that fact.

The wealthy elderly often learn this lesson the hard way. There is a point at which all of the money in the world will not give us what we need and want most. More time on earth. The warmth of family. The chance to make peace with the wrongs we have committed in life.

At the end of the day, even the most powerful people are just human beings. Still, it is hard to imagine that they have needs and emotions like the rest of us. But this current iteration of the British Monarchy has played the role of frail humanity and family dysfunction in the past 50 years like a badly written but enduring soap opera.

Death marks a transition in everyone’s lives. Princess Diana’s death rocked the world and Monarchy to its very core. It was a chilling denouement to a story that was already rife with subterfuge, deceit, infidelity, and inherent tragedy, in its planning and its execution.

Now just as that drama has more or less sunk into the annals of history and Charles and Camilla were settling ever deeper into comfortable domesticity, Prince Harry goes off the rails. A story not unlike the story in other “commoner’s” dysfunctional families, if on a grander and much more public scale.

Richard III called out in a moment of need for all he would have given for what he needed the most at the moment. We often use the phrase in jest these days, declaring we would “give our kingdom” for a cup of coffee. It is silly and untrue.

But it speaks to the urgency of how we feel when we need what we need. Life’s work is sorting out what those needs are for us and nurturing their sources so we do not go without. In life or at the hour of our death. Whether we are kings or queens or paupers. The work is the same.

The Four Agreements: 4/4

The fourth agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book is Always Do Your Best.

I shoulda-coulda-woulda learned this lesson much earlier. My inflated ego made constant judgments about the level of job I was in, my academic ranking compared to my peers, and my general circumstances. There were two negative consequences to that faulty thinking.

First, I couldn’t fully relax and enjoy the job experience I was having. Even though I didn’t have a clear idea of what level I should be at, I was convinced the current level was insufficient. For my ego. Never mind that I was an inexperienced kid who was at exactly the right place for her age and stage. I didn’t have the internal psychological framework to assure me that where I was was just fine. For now.

Second was the truth that by feeling somehow superior, I didn’t always do the best job I could. I was, by times, baselessly argumentative and demanding, and difficult. With my coworkers and with my bosses. I had some notion that I was “above” what I was doing. Today, I feel considerable shame and humility for that bratty attitude. It put people off (especially employers) and I had a hard time fitting into the work crowd.

There are a raft of things I could say to contextualize my situation. I was a traumatized child. I often came to work hungover in my twenties in the heydays of my hard drinking. I once showed up drunk in the morning at my TV job still drunk from partying the night before. Add “actress” to my job resume right next to “on-air reporter.” I hadn’t yet heard the term “personal work,” let alone begun to do it to wrestle my demons into submission.

Ruiz says that always doing one’s best helps turn the first three agreements into habits. If we internalize and follow the habits of taking nothing personally, being as honest and clear as possible with our word, and making no assumptions without verification, our best is a natural byproduct.

One’s “best” effort will change depending on the situation, but no one needs to feel guilty about that. In any situation, there are many factors working with or on us that we cannot control. But always doing one’s best builds immunity to guilt and judgment and self-recrimination. In effect, Ruiz’s four agreements are a prescription for taking personal responsibility.

Learning that lesson matures us as we let go of the youthful tendency to blame our parents and other external circumstances, such as money or culture, or religion. or race, for our misery and difficulties. The only way out is through. By doing our best, we can look back with pride and satisfaction on the wake we have left in our life.

In what looks like a nod to the philosophy of “pursuing your bliss,” Ruiz adds that one should not act exclusively for rewards in life but because one is doing what one wants to. Rewards will naturally follow.

I’ve always liked the saying: “Find work that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Still good advice.

The Four Agreements: 3/4

The third of Don Miguel Ruiz’s agreements is: Don’t Make Assumptions

This agreement did not just speak to me. It shrieked at me.

Most people have heard the colloquial advice about assumptions. “Never assume. It makes an “ass” out of “u” and out of “me.”

Assumptions are dangerous because if an individual believes an assumption is true—then they think and act accordingly. Relationships based on assumptions are more likely to end and end badly. Assumptions cause unnecessary drama and suffering. Communicating clearly and asking questions is key to avoiding assumptions and living happily.

In the culture I came from, assumptions were rampant. I would even go so far as to say it was the norm. Blind assumptions were the way it was in my family of origin. Even more so in the bureaucracy, that I worked in for a time. Power dynamics and informational sleight-of-hand were the bread and butter of seasoned bureaucrats. They hoarded knowledge like squirrels hoard nuts to hang on to their power and position.

Digging deep to really understand an issue or problem was not common in government for reasons of time, resources, or politics. Politics is the realm of the “quick win” where “perception is reality.” People’s fortunes within the bureaucratic structure rose and fell with their ability to “second-guess” their bosses and meet their needs before the needs were even expressed. And primarily, of course, to cover your ass.

This system worked to ensure career longevity for many people. I met people who had no real transferable job skills beyond their ability to “play the system.” Long-timers came to understand what every new Cabinet Minister needed and poured their efforts into meeting them. That approach did little to allow time to dig deep and devise comprehensive solutions to complex social issues. Bureaucrats’ shelves were littered with the detritus of “policy directions,” “briefing books,” “feasibility studies,” and “position papers.” The safest position was to appear to be doing something while doing nothing at all. Now that is artful.

Operating on assumptions was rife in my family. After the fact, I would hear about tearful sessions behind closed doors after something that someone had unthinkingly said or done was deemed “insensitive.” The rationale for this runs along the lines of “If you really loved me, you would know what I need (and what hurts me) without me having to say it.” Lovers often do the same. As if loving someone automatically conveys psychic powers and mind-reading abilities.

There is cowardice in making assumptions and a type of wilful ignorance. I watched this regularly in the small town I came from. Whole groups of people would make assumptions about someone and then conduct themselves in accordance with what they assumed. The protagonist was rarely consulted for an explanation or clarification. I often heard someone described as having said or done something egregious. When I elected to check it out with the transgressor, I often learned that the person had not said or done any such thing. If they had, their true intentions had been completely misconstrued.

I am reminded of the fable of putting the bell on the cat. Overconfident, self-important little mice devise the solution to put a bell on the cat’s collar to warn of the enemy cat’s approach. The only issue is “Who will put the bell on the cat?” When people live in an environment of powerlessness, talking about solutions is a way of achieving social cohesion without actually taking steps or being able to do anything about it.

I often experienced this in my journalism career. I was often able to get “ungettable” interviews just by making a phone call to someone that everyone “assumed” would not talk to the press. I had a few phones hung up on me, to be sure. But I was often pleasantly surprised by those who wanted to talk. To get their side of the story on the record.

Assumptions can create a host of false barriers and hurt feelings between people. Rather pointless and self-defeating actually. But then, cowardice can make fools of us all.

The Four Agreements: 2/4

The second agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book is Don’t Take Anything Personally.

I love this. Of the four agreements, this one taught me the most and armed me with a healthier strategy for how to interact with the world. The trouble in taking others’ words personally, one forms an agreement with those words, and they influence one’s beliefs and actions. We all do it. Think about how you can ruminate pointlessly over a nasty remark from a complete stranger you encounter during the day.

Ruiz says we shouldn’t even take the voices in our own heads personally. Tuning in to conflicting thoughts and opinions leads to confusion and chaos if we take them seriously and act on them. By letting go of the impact the random opinion others have on us and our own inherent need to be right, we can move toward a greater sense of happiness and freedom.

I’ve certainly been called some things in my time. Haven’t we all? I have an unsmall personality and I am not particularly shy or retiring. My “extraversion” (code for not knowing when to keep my mouth shut) has broken barriers in my life and broken relationships.

I am human and I have withered under an angry verbal barrage from time to time. Most especially, of course, from my mother. Who knows you better after all? But also from frustrated friends or colleagues or even complete strangers. The learning I took from Ruiz’s second agreement was that what was directed at me wasn’t necessarily about me.

On the other hand, I have also had extremely flattering and complimentary opinions said and written about me. The “truth” of who I am is somewhere in the middle. I know now that by analyzing my own beliefs – true and false – and coming to a sense of self that is comfortable for me, I have become someone I am happy to wake up with every morning.

Ruiz ties the logic behind this second agreement to ego. The fact is, individually, we are just not that important. We are all replaceable. We are all disposable. I did not like learning that. More important that realization threw my sense of who I was and what was important in life into chaos.

I look back now with a little compassion and a lot of humor at how self-important I thought I was. I muscled my way into situations to make sure people were aware of my importance. I sought out awards, situations, and job positions that rewarded and reinforced my inflated sense of self. I take some comfort in that I was not alone on this approach in my generation of women. I would even say that for a time as a young person trying to establish herself, it may have been necessary.

That strategy was a total cover for how insecure and little I felt. Also, it was simply absurd. Sure, I had some marketable qualities but the life I was living was something of a sham. I was a mess and living a double life where my resume expanded as my personal life imploded. Emotional hamburger internally is how I described it. I knew “something” wasn’t “right” but had no idea what to do about it.

I was operating in a world where options that are now commonplace were nonexistent or stigmatized. Therapy? For the wealthy neurotic New York intelligentsia set. Personal problems? They are all defects of characters or because God has not chosen to bless you. Trauma? You’re talking about shell-shocked war veterans, right? Well, yes, but sexual assault and being bullied is traumatizing, too. As is living with an addict (or addicts in my case), witnessing physical violence, divorce, neglect, suicidal ideation, and all the other elements of a profoundly dysfunctional home life.

It is not a perfect science. Life is never easy. But it is infinitely better than my beginnings would have suggested it could be. Ruiz clarified and laid out more clearly what I should and should not be responsible for. Losing my sense of personal importance turned out to be more gift than a loss. It allows me to listen respectfully to what others say, internalize the good bits and spit out the bad.

It also makes me a more genuine part of humanity than someone who is “better or less than” others. Both self-perceptions are delusional. Learning that was among the most important lessons I’ve had. I am still reminded of it frequently.

The Four Agreements: 1/4

The first agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book is: Be Impeccable with Your Word

So many people aren’t. Lying is commonplace and accepted these days. Expected even. People “exaggerate for effect” and “tell white lies” to gloss over deficiencies in themselves or some product they are selling. Politicians are among the least trusted professionals on the planet. The whole smarmy George Santos fiasco (is he gone yet?) took the falsification of credentials to despicable new heights.

Ruiz examines the power of the word, how it’s misunderstood, and how most people use it to spread emotional poison. Being impeccable with one’s word means taking responsibility for their own integrity. But he advises against judging or blaming oneself when we fall short. Life is a marathon after all, not a sprint.

Following this agreement faithfully, Ruiz claims clears emotional poison from one’s life by building immunity to the negative words of others, leading eventually to a place of peace and joy. Being honest and truthful can also neutralize emotional poison in oneself by saying only what is true for us – to ourselves and to others.

I don’t know about you, but I hate hurting people. I had been badly hurt in the past by words and the bad behavior that accompanied them. I know how that pain feels and don’t want to inflict it on others. For the longest time, I had no sense of my personal power so had no sense of how my words were taken by other people. Especially those close to me. In my youth, I said the words “I love you” too often and too casually, without considering their impact.

Worse, I had no clear concept of what “Love” actually meant. The recipient wasn’t getting much value from my declaration, to begin with. But neither I nor they realized how flakey my words were until it was too late. They became emotionally involved with me as one might expectedly do when they believe someone loves them.

If I eventually withdrew my “love,” (attention, support, time, benefits), both me and my erstwhile “lover” suffered. They suffered for the loss of someone they had come to believe loved them. I suffered for having spoken important words without full respect for another’s feelings.

There was a time when words were so respected in society that “a man’s word was his bond.” Contracts were made on a handshake after a discussion where terms were mutually agreed. Was that a perfect system? By no means. But it does speak to a time when words were valued more highly than they are now? It does.

Contracts are a lawyer’s mainstay and an anchor for the involved parties to cling to when dealings go awry. But even the most well-written contract provisions can be woefully inadequate to the business at hand. In family law, court orders can do more harm than good. A judge may order a mother and father to “co-parent.” But if they have what it takes to do that successfully, they likely could have made the marriage work.

So much which is sacred has been cheapened and derogated. Sexuality. Spirituality. Life itself. And even words. I have come to see words as delicate threads like spiderwebs that keep us attached to each other within our communities. But spiderwebs are very easy to destroy. So we live in a world where cynicism and pessimism rule. We expect people to lie to us. We expect them to let us down.

Ruiz shows us that we don’t have to do that. We can train ourselves to only say what we believe to be true. We can suppress words we don’t feel will help someone. We can keep our thoughts and opinions to ourselves until they are solicited. That may be easier said than done. But I can say from personal experience, that doing so leaves a lot less hurt feelings in your wake and gives you a lot less to regret in your life. For those reasons alone, it has been an “agreement” I have happily tried to pursue.

The Four Agreements: Intro

I don’t exactly remember when Don Miguel Ruiz came to my awareness. I do remember his words hit me like a ton of bricks. His perspective on what I call “essential rules” were key elements in helping me change the downward trajectory in my life. Ruiz’s pivotal book helped me take personal responsibility for a lot more of my life than I previously had. His “agreements” provided me with basic tools that we can all use to create and sustain our own happiness.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz was first published in 1997. Born into a family of healers and shamans, Ruiz dedicated his life to creating a philosophy that blends ancient Toltec wisdom with modern sensibilities.

Ruiz begins this book by introducing the dream of the planet, which he dreams as the collective dream of all of humanity. This includes family, school systems, religion, and culture. Children learn their particular versions of “the dream of the planet” or the “truth” from their parents, teachers, and religious leaders through a process Ruiz calls the “domestication of humans.”

Ruiz explains how humanity is driven by an internal call “to pursue happiness.” Depending on your culture or belief system or religion, happiness can be achieved via many different routes. And what is happiness? Lack of pain. Lack of want. An abundance of love and joy. Meaningful work. Belonging to and identifying with a group.

In Chapter 1, Ruiz notes that everyone makes agreements in their lives from early on about what to believe, how to feel, and how to behave. However, these self-limiting agreements can actually cause people to continue living in hell in their personal lives.

Think about Catholics who refuse to release one another through divorce for fear of going to hell for doing so. Homosexuality was deemed a crime not so long ago. Geniuses like Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde paid a high personal price for their pursuit of happiness. To escape it and form a new dream, Ruiz outlines four new agreements people can make to fundamentally change their lives and lead them to personal freedom.

I can so relate. In my life, I grew up listening to well-worn narratives about our culture, community, and our family story. I wouldn’t go so far as to call what I heard “the truth.” In fact, my mother would frequently and flippantly say: “Never let the truth interfere with a good story.”

Every experience we had as a family was dissected and compared to how it “matched up” to the family’s pre-conceived beliefs. People were judged and granted inclusion into the family’s circle of friends only if they “fit in” and accepted our family’s values. As our family’s values were a little outside the norm, most of our friends were that way, too.

Some of the narratives I was inculcated in were about so-called immutable characteristics that had never been questioned. Mom couldn’t do math so, to her mind, her daughters couldn’t do math. Mom’s side of the family were all good people. Dad’s side of the family was all bad. Or worse, average. That nothing set them apart or made them special was anathema to my mother and her narrative about our superior values of inclusivity and above-average intellect.

I remember drawn-out conversations in our family circle about the deficiencies of other people in our community. Their stature in conversations rose in tandem with their accomplishments, their success in business, or their adventurousness. But if they were “ordinary” or “house proud” or “unambitious,” the implied message there was something “lesser than” about them. As I grew older and my circle widened with education and travel, I got a sense that our family might have been the subject of such discussions in other families’ conversations.

I marveled at how these rules and “agreements” we made in the family or even those that we make in society develop without any explicit discussion or agreement. They evolve. And the tighter the belief systems, the more rigid the rules. It is a form of survival, to be sure, but can create a life filled with fear and constraints.

Ruiz’s words invite us to question those belief systems into which we were born and see to what extent they are true for us personally. The potential to change our lives lies in our own hands. Doing so may be another matter.

The four agreements are elegant in their simplicity but – as elegant as simplicity is – it is challenging to implement and live by. But doing so is so worth it, as I experienced. I plan to explore each of them.

Traction

Traction and where to reliably find it nowadays is much on my mind. In a world awash in information, blog posts, videos, video reels, and ad infinitum, how do we make the best and most informed choices now? Everyone has an opinion. they swear is the right one to follow. Everyone presents as an expert on something.

What should we read? What to listen to? What sources can we trust? Where do we find time to do anything, above and beyond what HAS to be done daily? How do we identify our gifts and what we are passionate enough about to invest our lives in? Even worse, how do we decide what is real and reliable?

This is not an exclusive problem for us in society today. But the complexity has definitely been ramped up. Ease of access to seemingly endless options on the internet seems to create illusions and false impressions. If everyone is led to believe they can (and should) become a millionaire before they are 30, it is frustrating and could be soul-crushing if you don’t reach that target milestone. It has the potential to imbue young people with a feeling of dissatisfaction about missing the boat. Widespread FOMO.

“Fear of missing out” is a real issue for many younger people and even mid-career professionals. They are putting off marriage and house buying and baby-making in greater numbers than their parents and grandparents. There is a burgeoning revival of all things retro. There is increasing comfort in looking backward rather than looking forward. Not because life is perceived to have been so great in the past, but because it is now so difficult to imagine what can be relied on in the future.

Teenage suicide is occurring at an alarmingly high level. Teenagers! Once marked by largely carefree days under their parents’ wing, it was expected to be a time devoted to seeding dreams, testing out love and sexuality, and taking part in the normal rites of passage in the childhood to adulthood transition. That so many precious young people are opting to get off the merry-go-round of life before it even starts should be an alarming wake-up call that our values are wildly out of whack.

I often wonder how character is being built in young people today. Our great-grandparents cut their teeth on life’s harshest realities. The need to survive trumped most other considerations. Our ancestors knew that if the cows weren’t milked, the eggs collected or the fields tilled, they weren’t eating. Back-breaking work to be sure but also the satisfaction of knowing that your fate largely rested in your own hands and on your own efforts.

In smaller, rural societies, everyone knew everyone else. There was a sense of belonging and community. And not online communities. But real communities with real people who baked real apple pies and built things with their own hands and met up in a sanctuary every week, for social reasons as much as for spiritual ones. I would argue the two are inextricably connected anyway.

I would argue that our social policies need to recapture the most positive elements of those times. Humans need each other. Somehow that message is being lost in the wake of new technological promise, widespread social fragmentation, and the breakdown of social cohesion.

Young people need to be protected and nurtured until they are strong enough to grow and survive on their own. They need a base on which to build and find the traction they need to propel them forward into their lives. Mass killings and rising suicide rates are dark proof that young people are being widely failed in that regard.

The pendulum of extremes in most eras eventually swings back to a more balanced and reasonable life-enhancing way of doing life. In today’s wildly fragmented environment, it is hard to see how a newly emerging society will find time to gestate and emerge with so many options to choose from. Social cohesion has largely evaporated.

Yet time and space for self-reflection and inner exploration are badly needed on a wide scale. That need makes sense of the abundant and divergent offerings of healing retreats and therapies. We all know we need help.

The availability of healing options is more a band-aid than a cure. Our society needs to move back to putting individuals at the center of our society again. Survival instincts must kick in as people feel the essence of what makes them human being eroded.

It may be time for a resurgence of the famous line that became a war cry for humanity in the 1976 movie Network. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Maybe when that war cry is expressed by enough people across society again, there could be a genuine shift towards leading a more collectively saner and equanimous life.

Vacay

Feeling a bit word-logged and struggling for inspiration, I went searching online for levity and comic relief.

This did it.

What use is a personal blog if not to shamelessly crib from the wit and intelligence available in the world?

I don’t have an original source for this material, except Steven Wright, of course. When I find it, I’ll edit it.

Meanwhile, enjoy a chuckle or two from dry and briliant comic Steven Wright.

The Genius of Steven Wright:

1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

2 – Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.

3 – Half the people you know are below average.

4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5 – 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

8 – If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

9 – All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.

10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ….. But she left me before we met.

12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

13 – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?

14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

17 – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

18 – Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

19 – I intend to live forever … So far, so good.

20 – If Barbie is so popu, why do you have to buy her friends?

21 – Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.

22 – What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

23 – My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”

24 – Why do psychics have to ask you for your name

25 – If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

26 – A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

27 – Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

28 – The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

29 – To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

30 – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

31 – The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.

32 – The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

33 – Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film.

34 – If at first, you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

35 – If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work

Just Come Back

Mental illness – to somewhat understate it – is a controversial concept.

I accept there are biological conditions that throw the brain and body seriously out of whack. I accept that anxiety and depression are real. I know. I spent a lot of my life there.

But looking back, the source of my mental distress was completely traceable. I was carrying around so much emotional pain that it squeezed out everything in me that was valuable. I didn’t have engaged parents. For their part, as long as I “appeared” to be doing well, their job was done.

And while dragging my pain around, I still had to create a life. First, I had to scramble to learn enough to get a job. Later it was imperative to make a living. I had babies to raise.

If I ever had a clear vision of what I wanted in life, I wasn’t sure what it was. My mother had soured me on marriage. I would say she was pathologically afraid of marriage given how hers had worked out. Worked out being a euphemism for disastrous long-lasting personal consequences. For Mom and for her children.

For Mom and many of her peers in the Fifites, marriage was a trap that heavily benefitted men. For women then – especially the bright and ambitious – it was often a prison. Conforming to the social expectations of the day, marriage often not only eroded a woman’s self-worth but subjugated her own dreams and needs in service to her husband and family.

Selfishness was akin to murder, rape, and incest for Fifties housewives.

The tragedy of women’s repressed dreams was explored in the movie Revolutionary Road. Starring Leo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet, they play a nice, young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s. Kate hates where they have landed in life. The lingering memories of the adventurous and freewheeling life they once lived and planned to again is lost. She pushes Leo to move to Paris while they still have time. Plans are well underway when he gets a promotion and pay raise. Paris gets shelved.

Moving to Paris is a prison break for Kate’s character. They struggle in their marriage to come to terms with the disconnect between them in their hopes and dreams. For Leo’s character, it was good enough for his Dad – a career long company man – so it is good enough for him. As was common for men in that decade, his avenues for relief and distraction were far greater and readily available than for her.

By times, the scenes in Revolutionary Road play on the nerves like fingernails scratching on a blackboard. The low-key struggle of the cookie-cutter lives of Fifties suburbia suffocated so many. The show achingly shows the emotional roller-coaster and internal torture Winslet goes through. She effectively goes mad.

And her type of insanity was a normal response to a tortuous situation from which she had no acceptable avenue for escape. She was not the first trapped woman who had to fight for her freedom and sanity. She was also not the first victim who didn’t make it out.

As people are regularly pushed to their boundaries of pain tolerance, life is deemed not only miserable but devoid of value. The message they must hear is to hold on. Find something bigger outside yourself to believe in. Never give up.

“It’s alright to go insane. Just come back.”

Dad

Dad once tried to help me visualize how he’d started out in life. “Most guys start out up here,” he pointed at an invisible line high in the air. “I started down here.” His other hand was way, way down very near the table we were sitting at to have lunch.

There’s no question Dad had it rough as a child. His mother – my grandmother – was a monster from all reports. I never knew the woman. She died when I was four and a half months old. But her legacy and impact pervaded my father’s psyche until the day he died. By her emotional bequest to my Dad, she deeply affected mine. Such is the way of inter-generational trauma.

I heard no stories of motherly love and comfort about my father’s mother. Only horror stories. When Dad was about eight years old, he was playing with matches in the back shed near a kerosene barrel. The kerosene ignited. Dad’s whole face was instantly burned. His mother heard his screams and came running into the shed. When she saw what happened, she slapped his face. His skin came away in her hand.

That story was all the insight you needed into his desperately unhappy childhood. He would later explain that in the aftermath of her slap to his savaged face: “She stayed up all night and put egg whites on it.” Like many abused children, Dad remained loyal to his mother until the day he died. By loyal, I mean attached psychologically. He kept her picture by his bed. That is a space usually reserved for precious loved ones.

I have often thought of Dad’s analogy about the different altitudes at which we start out in life. In my head, I picture life’s journey as ascending a mountain. At the top of the mountain, there is a desirable destination – maybe heaven – that people work their whole lives to get to. On top of that mountain, there is a lush green and vast plateau where life is safe and easy, and enjoyable.

To get there, many people seem to take a fairly easy path on a seemingly pre-ordained trajectory. For them, this is the course of their lives. They take a meandering route up the side of the mountain, attending to necessary daily tasks and enjoying life’s pleasantries. They may struggle now and then along the way, but they get help. There is plenty to eat and drink. These pilgrims are kind to one another. Reaching that destination is their expected reward for a path well-walked and a life well-lived.

But there is another side to this mountain. There is no well-mapped path to follow. They face a rocky cliff face. The way is not marked. The route to the top is full of obstacles and danger. Provisions are scarce. Kindness even less so. Their eventual arrival at that vast plain has come at a considerable cost.

This is a route many abused children are forced to take. They climb uncertainly from one rock to the next in life praying the rock they pick will hold.

I have heard the incredulity of other people who were raised by “good enough” parents. They honestly cannot relate to abuse scenarios they cannot ever even imagine happening. They are lucky.

Dad’s difficulties were compounded by the era in which he was born. There were no psychiatrists or psychologists anywhere near him. There were few paths to healing. Self-care was a luxury that was subsumed by life’s difficult demands. In many cases, therapy was scoffed at. Or viewed with deep suspicions.

Dad tried. I remember the endless Dale Carnegie meetings he would attend. He attended men’s weekend spiritual retreats. He tried AA to beat his alcohol addiction. Made it all the way to one year of sobriety once. It didn’t stick. He was drunk as a lord on his 92nd birthday – two months before he died.

My healing journey started while Dad was still on the planet. The healing modalities that are available now were only starting to take hold in society. I told Dad of my interest in exploring the psychological consequences of childhood on our adult lives. He grew quiet on the phone for a minute, and closed the call by saying: “Maybe you can help other peopleby talking about it.” I sure hope so, Dad. RIP