Tag: Jeff Brown

Stay Open to Mystery

And here I share and thank poet Susan Frybort for this powerful and affecting poem. I believe she is married to writer, Jeff Brown. Strong creative pairing right there.

I am all for writing that explores aging as the stage of wonder and grace it can usher in.

Sure aging is tough on the body. Life is generally tough on the body. And everything else.

Our youth centric, immortality deluded society keeps a very tight lid on aging’s upside. Let’s face it. Impending death (whether 10, 20 or 30 or 40 years in the future) is bad for business.

Our main North American society is painfully arrested in advancing widespread integration of and honoring our elders. We can look to indigenous tribes and many immigrant cultures for much better modeling of how to treat senior citizens.

They are just people after all.

Archaeology for the Woman’s Soul

No one told me

it would be like this—

how growing older

is another passage

of discovery

and that aging is one

grand transformation,

and if some things become torn apart

lost along the way,

many other means show up

to bring me closer

to the center of my heart.

No one ever told me

if whatever wonder

waits ahead

is in another realm

and outside of time.

But the amazement, I found,

is that the disconcerting things

within the here and now

that I stumble

and trip my way

through, also

lead me

gracefully

home.

And no one told me

that I would ever see

an earth so strong

and fragile, or

a world so sad

and beautiful.

And I surely

didn’t know

I’d have

all this life

yet in me

or such fire

inside my

bones.

~Susan Frybort~ With gratitude for this Soul Deep Poem

Jeff Brown, Redux

When you’re good, you’re good. I have followed Jeff Brown with equal measures of respect and resonance for some time now. His writing is consistently strong and insightful. His new book, Humanifestations (link below this post), is another marker on his journey to make sense of the human condition.

Brown’s most recent post (below) resonated strongly.

He points out a human tendency to credit exceptional creative output or the deeper insights of talented individuals as “Gifts of the Divine.” He disputes this and calls out the human tendency to hide our light under bushels. I both agree and disagree with him.

Brown argues that if humanity believes the wondrous works exhibited by individuals are based only on external factors, it discourages us from accessing and owning what is inherently great and gifted in ourselves. Without owning it, Brown suggests, humanity will continue to marinate in mediocrity.

Jeff Brown argues – the former lawyer dies hard – that his writing insights and clarity have come from the hard emotional work necessary to overcome a difficult childhood.

Again I agree and disagree with him. I had a hard childhood. I have done a ton of personal “work.” At the same time, I also feel I was given a “gift” for writing. And, yes, sometimes it feels like a Divine “gift.” Sometimes I have written things that I have to read over and over again to fully get what I have written. I cannot fully credit or connect what I have written with “me.”

Dale Estey, a dear author friend, and I have a throughline in our friendship. We often talk about our mutual belief in what we call “invisible hands” that overtakes our writing. We agree we do not always consciously “think up” what we write. How words get put together often feels unbidden. Painters, dancers, and even athletes all speak of this phenomenon, too. Think Flashdance.

Jeff Brown is right. Humans tend to downplay genius when they find intimations of it in themselves. Or credit a “higher power.” Well, I also believe there could be “something else” at work in the creative process.

For the love of god, do not ask me what that something is or ask me to explain it. For the most part, our society is just plain incompetent at handling “the gifted.” A perfect storm of luck and opportunity, and will is needed. It takes a certain social alchemy for a child’s gifts to be recognized early, encouraged, and supported to develop their talent over the long haul.

And it can be a very long haul, fraught with emotional and other landmines. [Read the late Swiss psychologist Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child for an analysis of this dilemma.]

I am happy to feature Jeff Brown on my blog again as he triggered one of the biggest issues I have faced in writing. My work or god’s work? Who’s to say? And to what end? Who knows?

All I know is that it is a good thing when coherent messages that promote the value of each human life get pushed out there – over and over again. Because we are human and need to be frequently reminded of that.

Whether humanitarian messages come from “the Divine” or are a distillation of our own hard-won insights that come from processing “hard things” is more or less immaterial to me. Any writing that promotes a greater appreciation for the sanctity of humanity and individuals gets my support – whether it comes from Divine inspiration or inspiration from deep within ourselves.

Take it away, Jeff Brown … Let me know what you think, dear readers. It is a legitimate point of contention for debate and wider discussion. Jeff Brown argues his point brilliantly. Like the genius he is.

“I went through a particularly potent writing phase some years ago. I was writing one clarified quote after another, and immediately sharing them in social media. What I found interesting was that many people would come onto my walls, and remark that I was “channeling.” At first, I imagined this a good thing. As though I had somehow formed a bond with the Divine, and the Divine was using me to bring their m, I arrived at a different perspective. I had worked long and hard, and overcome much, and whatever insights I had arrived at did not come from the beyond. They came from within me, from the heart of my lived experience, from the depths of my story. And then I looked closer at many of the ways that we associate moments of achievement with something beyond ourselves: “Her performance was out of this world”, “He rose above his circumstances and channeled greatness,” “Her genius is heaven sent,” “He has found his DIVINE purpose.” It is as though we are only allowed to own our mediocre achievements. Anything clarified or brilliant or awesome had to come from somewhere beyond our humanness. Little wonder our views of enlightenment and awakening are frequently associated with transcendence. We haven’t been taught that we are the marvel, and that our lived and learned experience is the source of our most profound creations. If we don’t come to get this, if we continue to bury our magnificence below a bushel of judgment, we will continue to look for our greatness outside of ourselves and our species will never actualize its possibilities. Because we really are marvel-us 🙂. Each of us, a living marvel...”

Live and Let Live

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them. After my father died, the book that sort of saved my life was Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Because of that experience, I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.”— Emma Thompson in @oprah’s O Magazine.

I have a whole book I want to write about this phenomenon. Books and messages show up when you most need them. It is a real thing.

I want to write a book that is an homage to the many self-help geniuses who emerged in the middle of my life as I was facing different challenges. I was a single parent of two babies. Their father turned out to be financially and emotionally inadequate. My family had utterly let me down and abandoned me.

But my book coaches tell me I am not yet well-enough known to succeed at that type of “healing anthology.” Success in their view, understandably, means how many books will fly off the shelf. More sales, more profit. Duh.

I am really glad I am out from behind the paywall. I get to write whatever I want within the realms of good taste and what I hope is, readability. I don’t much give a care about that really. I mean, it is impossible to know what will strike other people’s fancy. I am mostly here to develop my own writing voice and to find out what I really think and feel about things.

So I have had the exact same relationship with books that Emma Thompson refers to. At the very moment guidance is needed, a book popped up in my life to comfort me or provide insight or help me find a resolution. For a girl that felt pretty odd and alone for much of her life, those books were nothing short of lifesavers.

I remember with fondness and some amusement the book The Dance of Anger by Dr. Harriet Lerner. Her book nailed and accurately described problem-solving in troubled families. Instead of tackling and working on issues to resolve them together, raising issues in many families just causes resistance and more turmoil.

The book jacket blurb puts it this way: “Anger is a signal and one worth listening to,” writes Dr. Harriet Lerner. While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence their anger, deny it entirely, or vent it in a way that leaves them feeling helpless and powerless. In this engaging and eminently wise book, Dr. Lerner teaches both women and men to identify the true sources of anger and to use it as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change.”

Did that ever speak to me. People bring up a difficult topic. Feelings get hurt. People hurl insults and blame at each other. The conversation you wanted to have escalates and before you know it, slam. Someone has headed out the door in a swath of anger. The issue – whatever it was – gets left on the floor abandoned and is ignored yet again. Nothing changes. The issue continues to fester.

When I first read Lerner’s book, I fairly danced with excitement. She gets it! Here is a way out of this horrible pattern! This will bring us all closer to each other! I rushed out to the local bookstore and immediately bought three more copies. One for my mother and one for each of my sisters.

Gathered around my kitchen table that evening, I gave my elevator pitch on the book. Why it was helpful to me. How it could help us.”If we all read it,” I reasoned, naively, “We could work at making our relationships better.”

My youngest sister picked up her copy. Glancing at the back cover, she curled her lip in disdain and threw the book down on the table: “You and your psychobabble.”

Yes, well, okay. That did not work. No one will likely be surprised that I have been estranged from her for decades and the relationship is unlikely to right itself in this lifetime.

Author Jeff Brown (https://www.jeffbrown.co) recently posted about a likely reality we need to accept if we have chosen a healing path. Not everyone feels the need to heal. Not everyone has the capacity to face up to their pain and demons. There is wisdom in the German saying made famous in the movie, Cabaret. “Leben und leben lassen.” “Live and let live.”

The choice to stay where you are and not grow is a choice everyone can make. What we don’t have to do is stay there with them or engage with them any longer. That single decision has made my life a much more peaceful and pleasant place to live. Considerably less drama and accumulated emotional clutter.

Thank You, Jeff Brown

I hadn’t initially planned to feature other authors on this blog, but here we are. When someone says exactly what you have been thinking about and wrestling with for years, why not? What’s not to like about a website that opens with this front page: “If you want to live a more spiritual life, live a more human life. Be more truly, fiercely, heartfully human.” From, Jeff Brown, Author, Teacher, Enrealment Activist & Grounded Spiritualist. https://jeffbrown.co/

When one of his posts popped up in my Facebook feed, I emailed Jeff Brown and asked for permission to copy it to my blog. He quickly replied: “For sure.” Those of us raised by troubled and immature parents know how easy it was to take all of their deficiencies on ourselves. Children would prefer to believe it was their fault that no one was consistently there to care for and protect them. It is nearly impossible for children to put the blame for neglect and abuse on their caregivers. Their sense of self is not strong enough or big enough. Also, by taking the blame on themselves, it gives children some measure of control. And so the seeds of people-pleasing are sown. It is easier for children to believe that they are the problem than to admit their caregivers are doing a bad job.

There is one question children should not have to ask: “Who is going to take care of me?” I remember wondering that often. When Dad crumpled in a heap to the floor, weeping uncontrollably after losing his businesses, money, and marriage, I put my arms around his neck: “Don’t cry, Daddy. We’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.” At the time, I remember casting about wildly in my mind for what I might be able to do. My mother was in a mental institution at that time so could not be reached, let alone expected to help. I was 11.

Here’s what Jeff Brown writes about what children raised in that situation often do: “In order to deal with the feelings related to the absent parent, children often make the assumption that they are to blame. This is the only way they can make sense of it – if the adult isn’t loving, it must be because we are ‘unworthy.’After all, “Rachel’s father spends a lot of time with her”, and “Michael’s mother always hugs and kisses him in public.” So if yours doesn’t, it must be because there is something wrong with you, something not enough, something not worthy of love. Thus begins the internalized shame and self-blame cycle, often reflected in the disdain we feel for our bodies, our creations, and our very existence. Of course, our unworthiness is entirely untrue, but it is experienced as deeply true for the child self. And if the bitter parent actually told you that you are unworthy, or bad, or a mistake, or anything that undermines your sense of self, then you have literal evidence of your own valuelessness. Who do we believe if not the parent? Who defines us before we are ready to define ourselves? It then becomes very difficult to recognize and call out abuse and neglect, because you move through the world certain of only one thing – your inherent unworthiness. If you are constantly seeking validation and approval, if you are not yet at an egoic stage where you can recognize your own value, on what basis do you stand up to those who abuse you? I think one of the reasons I didn’t call out my mother in my early adulthood was because I had taken her negative message to heart. If I was a bad person, how could I demand she treat me with respect? If I was ‘persona non grata’ on Mother Earth, on what basis would I fight for my right to the light?”

Mr. Brown, you speak my mind. You also mirror my experience. Parents coping with addictions are absent de facto. It took an astonishing number of crises large and small in adulthood based on low self-worth for me to learn to live crisis-free. I wandered too far and too often down wrong alleys in pursuit of love and stability.

Finally, the penny dropped in that I realized to attract love and support, it was up to me to create it inside myself. You cannot drink from an empty well. I finally came to a place where I could see myself as worthy of happiness. Only then, was I able to open up to the possibility that I was capable of giving and accepting love. How I got here is the main message of the book I am writing. Jeff Brown’s take assures me there are others out there who get that type of journey, as well.