All posts by Mary Young

Me too

April 18, 2020UncategorizedMary Young

(original date published 3/14/20)

Greetings!

I hope this finds you in good health!

I’m going to apologize for sending this to everyone on my mailing list, even though it may not apply to some of you.
I’m sure that you have already received a gazillion of these letters from other businesses and services explaining to you how they are handling the Covid-19. I will try to make this additional one as brief as I can:

I am taking extra time to clean and disinfect surfaces including door knobs in my office. In addition our building is cleaned daily.
No more blanket, so please dress in layers as the inside temperature varies and I have little to no control in altering it.
If you do not feel comfortable going out of your home, you have the option of using facetime or skype, or simply telephone to conduct your session until some of the warnings subside. Please notify me in advance of scheduling if you prefer this mode
I cannot guarantee that your insurance company will reimburse for sessions not done face to face. I am offering a letter to accompany your claims stating that technology was used as a protective measure against the spread of Covid-19.

I hope this helps to reassure any concerns you may have for future visits. Please take care of yourself and stay healthy!

Best!
Mary

Spoiler Alert

April 18, 2020UncategorizedMary Young

They all die in the end.

Original publish date 3/14/20

Greetings!
I’ve seen several people and talked with many more in the past week who are concerned in different proportions about the current pandemic. While we may all have different concerns at the top of our lists, the common link is that the Corona virus is affecting every single one of us in one way or another. Some people are out of work, some are working ridiculously long hours to compensate. Some are waiting for medical procedures, while others are simply waiting for this to pass so they can go back to their “normal”. Parents and children are finding themselves spending more time together, while others are feeling isolated because they can’t go out and socialize. Few could have imagined any of this, including a toilet paper shortage!

Over the past 20 years or so, we’ve been warned to prepare for many possible disasters, from Y2K, to Bird Flu. Thus, many of us took this latest warning expecting it to pass over like a blip on the screen. Maybe there will be a little inconvenience here and there, but all will be well. And that may certainly be the outcome of this one, except that the inconvenience will likely last longer and be more significant as businesses close to weather the storm.

On Sept 12, 2001 I heard two radio personalities talking with each other about the attack on our soil the previous day. The first said “Wow, we woke up today to a very different world.” The other responded, “No. We woke up the same world, but we no longer have the luxury of pretending that things like this can’t or won’t happen to us.”

Remembering that dialogue has given me a perspective on what is happening today. Nothing has changed from the standpoint of our mortality. Last month, six months ago, 5 years ago, we were all guaranteed life up until the moment. None of us were/are immune from our lives ending in a single instance. We could have a heart attack, contract pneumonia, get hit by a bus, even have a plane fly into our dwelling. I’m sure most of you know someone who has passed away due to unforeseen circumstances. We are all in this together and no one is getting out alive, its just that none of us knows in advance what or when that time will come for us.
It is universally true that we begin the process of dying the moment we take our first breath. In that sense, today’s news about the risks/prevalence of coronavirus doesn’t change this truth. Yesterday or today each of us has different levels of vulnerability to this thing called our existence. Sadly, any of us, or someone we love could in fact, contract this virus. But we or someone we love will experience a life ending condition at some point.
I write my blog with the intention it will help someone feel better. Despite the dreary tone thus far, I hope this post will do the same.
Imagine for a moment that I had the ability to tell you exactly when your death will occur, say March 21, 2031 at 3:00 in an auto accident. My suspicion is that anyone with that information about themselves would become hyper-focused on that fact. It would likely inform every choice from that moment forward and perhaps prevent you from living your life as you would have before knowing that information. I doubt this would be a positive thing for some of us. “Live as if each day is your last”, is predicated on the concept of “IF” But knowing an exact date and time fear, unsettledness because it is no longer an if, but a when. It promotes that natural tendency within us to move into survival rather than living mode.

In survival we use less of our frontal cortex. We anticipate, starvation and deprivation. We stock up on bread and toilet paper. We live in a constant state of heightened awareness and readiness to act because we are relying mostly on the primitive parts of our brains.

By relying on the more primitive or instinctual parts of our brains, we trick ourselves into thinking that we can do SOMETHING to increase our odds. We can have more money or have more toilet paper. We can believe we took the right vitamins or washed our hands enough than other people. We won’t take a trip or go to large gatherings and thus we will beat this thing! Many of these actions may in fact, tip the scale in our favor. But there are people who will do everything “right” and get the virus and people who do everything “wrong” will not.
I’m not suggesting we don’t prepare, but rather we do so with the same sense of urgency that we would if the hype of the COVID-19 was not so present in our waking moments. Yes, we are all affected by some of the externally mandated changes in our way of life. However, we need not let those changes suggest to us that our likelihood of living is always greater than our likelihood of dying, just as it always has been. If you accept that you were born, and that you will die, it allows you to LIVE to the best of your ability in the time in between. Living in NOW is the only guarantee any of has, just as it was prior to the appearance of the corona virus. Worry and anxiety suppress our immune system. Perhaps instead of worrying and putting your life on hold, try focusing on the joy of right now and the people who accompany you on your journey. Besides, stress suppresses your immune system.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.- however I still don’t have my website working properly. or now, please email your comments back to me and I will post them on the website and without your name unless you specify otherwise.

Mary

Up in flames

April 18, 2020Uncategorizedcovid-19Mary Young

A man once told me that when he was younger, he lived in a mobile home that caught fire. He watched as his home and possessions including, all his notes and papers from college, go up in flames. I tried to offer what I hoped would be an empathic response about his loss but he responded to me saying, “It was the best thing that ever happened to him”. With everything from his past gone, it gave him a clean slate from which to begin again. He added that there really was no reason he had kept all the things he had been unwilling to let go of, and so the fire got rid of it all for him.

We don’t have to be candidates for the show “Hoarders” to be guilty of hanging on to too much unnecessary things in our lives. This includes, but is not limited to, clothes, household items, hobbies, habits, time wasters and people.

I’m hearing many people right now during shelter at home to clean out closets and drawers and I applaud those actions. But because we are under new rules with this pandemic, it also gives us time to do lots of measures that we might previously looked at as extreme. While many people employ the habit of “Spring Cleaning”, this situation is unique because we not only have more time to look at these clogging pile ups we have created, but in many cases, we also have an opportunity to experience life WITHOUT those things. When we go back to work, do we really need all these clothes? Granted, I don’t recommend going back to work in your pajamas, but how are living now without all the extras? Worse still, how long do you need to keep those pants you wore when you lost 10 lbs., 15 years ago and gained it back in 6 months? Are you stuffing your closets because you are banking on hope?

We are experiencing less frequent or non existent outings such as trips to the grocery store. To adapt, we have to be more thoughtful. We try and plan out what food we need and when we are out of something we wanted to have, we create an alternative. And while there have been far too many deaths due to the virus, I don’t believe anyone has died yet because they didn’t have salsa on hand. (this does not however, apply to chocolate- if you are out of chocolate I recommend you go out right now and get some!).

Starbucks is closed. Who’d a thunk a time like this would ever occur? I’m finding that I don’t need really any coffee in the morning, I’ve just kind of changed my routine. And because I’m not driving much, no coffee is getting spilled in my car like it usually does- double bonus.

How about time? How much time have you spent doing things which, as it turns out, are “non-essential”. Of course some tasks are not necessary because they are not available to us, but they will resume once the nation is back on its feet. You need not drive your children to daycare now because there is no daycare to drive them to and thus you experience more time for other things. But post pandemic (which we all hope is sooner than later) do you really need a haircut as frequently or your nails done weekly? Now that you are in quarantine do you find a sense of relief in not having to see some people that you used to feel burdened by? Does it take a pandemic to let yourself make some changes ?

As always, I want to be clear that my message is always, this is not an edict for the “right way”. We all have the agency to set our own priorities and values even if they differ from others. But that also needs to include a dedication to our values rather than letting culture, friends, family dictate those for us to the point that we are no longer aware of why we do them. It includes an unwillingness to become on autopilot to the point that we aren’t mindful of our decisions and actions even to the point of self- harm.

I am not recommending anyone set fire to their homes or their lives. But I hope this time in quarantine provides you with a chance to pause and re-evaluate what you need to hold closer, and what you need to let go of. And most of all, I hope that each and everyone of you remains healthy as we find our way through these days.

I agree with the saying “Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got ’til its gone”. It’s true we may not appreciate the things we have sometimes. But I also believe that sometimes you need to be without something to realize that you really are just fine without it.

As always, I’d love to hear your thought

when the going gets tough

April 18, 2020UncategorizedMary Young

In recent blogs I’ve introduced you to people achieving some amazing results through perserverance. My hope is that their stories are inspiring. I realize however, that sometimes people will see a story, such as these, and conclude, “but I can’t do anything that monumental” and actually become less inspired, rather than more.

That’s incredibly unfortunate, because there is often something amazing in showing up to a “regular” life every day. It takes work. It takes commitment. And an uninspired conclusion comes from what I call “snapshot” thinking. It means to look at what you see in one image and think that, what you are looking at, is the whole story.

When we look at a snapshot of a model its easy to conclude that the woman (or man) is beautiful and we can’t possibly compete. But what we fail to consider is that the person photographed doesn’t actually look like the photograph either. The photo has probably been airbrushed to remove imperfection. It has also been staged, and in our normal everyday lives, most of us don’t have stage hands.

The people I introduced you to don’t have airbrushed lives. It was their effort, and mostly their attitudes that made them incredible. But what I presented to you was the snapshot version. It is the end result. I didn’t describe to you in detail how many times they curled up in a ball and cried, got overwhelmed with fear or just plain failed. Maybe those moments lasted minutes or days at a time. But they kept at it. They got knocked down along the way, but they kept getting up (eventually).

Sometimes its harder than others to get up. It’s harder to keep going when the finish line appears so far in the distance. I’d like to introduce you to a video that I find very inspiring as a source of motivation. Unfortunately at just over six minutes, it’s too large to load directly on my site so I’ve included only the link. I think you’ll find it worth your time. Here is an excerpt:

Pain is temporary. It may last for a minute, an hour, a day, or even a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit however, it will last forever.

You can find the video here:

One plus one makes three

December 16, 2019UncategorizedMary Young

“All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.” – Raymond Hull

I ran across this quote recently and it jumped out at me. My own version of this is to say that many couples who come together are focused on a wedding, but rarely do they think about the marriage.

A wedding is an event. A marriage is a process that is constantly changing, and constantly challenged. It is a verb, not a noun. Marriage is an active decision that must be made every day. It’s a decision in fact that IS made every day. We make the decision to support it or neglect it.

“We want to have kids. We agree on how many, therefore we are compatible.” Seems innocent enough. But have you, do you talk about why you want to have kids, what role will they play in your life, how will you manage care, discipline, education and religion for those children?

We want to buy a house and live in ____ area. Do you know how you will afford the house after the initial purchase? Do you agree on a budget for household expenses? Does one of you intend to not work if/when children come along, and if so, how will that impact the house affordability?

Family is important to us. Does that mean your family or does it include your spouse’s family. Will you participate in their rituals, make room for them to have a place in your lives going forward as well?

It never ceases to amaze me when a woman comes in complaining of her husband’s drinking problem. When I ask her when it started she says “college”, but now they have been married for five or ten years and she thought it would have changed by now. What do you use as the basis to assume that something you found distasteful before marriage will change after marriage?

Yes there are times when someone we marry becomes very different over the years. But more frequently we find we are married to someone that is the same that they were 10 years ago, but we have matured and now want them to be something different.

The longer I do this work, the more clearly it becomes that marriage is not about getting what you want, or sacrificing to ensure that your spouse gets what they want. Its about looking at the union as something in its own right that has to be cultivated, managed, and protected from everything else in the world, including sometimes, our own demands and desires. It means if I want a fur coat, but it hurts the union, then the fur coat is off the table. It means if he wants to go on a boys fishing trip, but it hurts the union, then guess who should make other plans. I don’t mean to suggest that we completely ignore our individuality, but rather we appreciate that our individuality chose this union. Our individuality should be reflected and included in this union. That is why it is important to ensure before marriage that we are selecting someone who has similar values, desires and capacity of discipline to work towards those goals. The marriage should reflect “us” and us should reflect the marriage, which again is not a constant, but rather constantly growing along with us.

So geeze Mary why didn’t you give me this insight before I got married? Probably because I didn’t know you, or most likely because just like me, you wouldn’t have listened if I had. Do we have to get divorced now that we know? You can. But you don’t have to. However, staying together requires a willingness for both people to work on these things. Working on them doesn’t mean battling it out to see whose version of the union is the right one, but talking things out to find the common ground. It means making a decision together to value the union over our individual priorities and seeing that choice as a win, rather than a loss.

What’s Love got to do with it?

September 26, 2019UncategorizedMary Young

My puppies are now a year old. I wasn’t writing during the events of last year, but a week after my oldest son Alex left for the Navy, and 3 days after my youngest Andrew left for a 3 week camp we had to put our 13 year old German shorthair dog, Snickers to sleep. It broke our hearts.
I lasted about two months before I convinced my husband that we needed another dog. And then I came home with two. The new girls are the same breed, as Snickers; German Shorthair Pointers. These two are named Millie and Olive and are a handful to say the least. They swim in the gold fish pond and have dug major trenches in the yard. They have chewed on furniture, eaten countless phone ear pieces, electronic training collars, shoes, cash from my wallet, the comforter on the bed, and a list that goes on a lot longer. And by the time each night rolls around, we still say to each of them “You’re a good girl and I love you so.”
Love is a funny thing. It’s one word with many meanings. It’s not just that it means one thing to me and another to you, although that is true, but it also means one thing to me, and then can mean something different to me depending on when I’m using it. But so often when we think about whether or not we love someone, or don’t love them as the case may be, we tend to think it has something or everything to do with the other person. I believe it has everything to do with our own hearts and heads and the stories we tell ourselves.
I say I loved Snickers because she was a good girl. But I love Millie and Olive who are ridiculously mischievous girls. It seems their behavior actually has little to do with how I feel about them, because if it did, I would have given them away to a puppy orphanage long before now. Instead, I seem to be able to look beyond my torn up shoe and see only the adorable puppy eyes that routinely melt my heart.
I have often said to my sons “Your dad drives me bat____ crazy. And that is precisely how I know I love him. Because even after he has done so, I still want to be with him at the end of the day and so I know it must be love.” It is love which allows me to look beyond the parts of him that make me want to kill him in his sleep sometimes. I still wake up each morning despite the fact that my snoring has kept him awake most of the night. I suspect, he too must have loving feelings for me that are stronger than sleep deprivation can break within him. Love is a very powerful force indeed.
Think about the example of a new baby. (or if you prefer, stick with the puppy metaphor). But new babies are generally speaking not that attractive, even though most of us parents don’t realize that until we look at the hospital infant photo about a year later. That new baby doesn’t do anything except cry and fill diapers. They bring no dowry to the relationship and in fact cost us an arm and a leg. In short, they bring nothing to the table. And yet, we are immediately smitten with the little creatures, full of love in our hearts and eyes. We imagine all sorts of scenarios ahead filled with joy because of the love we have for this little “soon to be person” despite the reality that he or she has done absolutely nothing to “earn” that love except show up. But even in the anticipation of them showing up, we start growing immense feelings for them. So how then, can it be that love comes from the outside?
Admittedly, it is difficult some times to find the feelings of love within us when the other person behaves in certain ways. It is hard to feel loving when you’ve asked someone to do something repeatedly and they ignore you. It’s hard to feel loving when someone behaves inappropriately. It’s hard to feel loving when you are expecting someone and they don’t show up for you. That is when it’s easy to say I don’t love them because of their behavior. But their behavior is just that: theirs. And our reaction to that behavior is a choice we make in accordance with our expectations. When the person does things that fulfill our expectations, we love. When they don’t fulfill our expectations, we choose to not love. We don’t love or not love because of their behavior, but rather because our expectations and stories are filled or disappointed. Thus, we don’t love or not love because of who they are, but rather because of who we are.

Thank you to the incredibly generous responses I got for my last blog. Apparently I’m still technologically challenged and did not have the link to the web comments page working but hope I have it fixed for now. Also, an astute reader suggested that I request you make reviews on Google rather than health grades. I will be greedy and ask for both. Remember, I have a few more years to work as I have puppies to feed.

You can check out any time you like… but you can never leave (The Eagles, Hotel California)

September 18, 2019UncategorizedMary Young

People keep asking me if I am still writing my blog. I tell them yes, but only in my head. I have written some really good stuff there, but it seems that none of it has made it on to the screen. So when I was asked again yesterday, I decided I would give it a shot and see what comes out. Here goes:

I have a few regular sayings. You may have heard some of them. One of them is “Therapy is supposed to make you feel better, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen today”. I usually pull that one out when someone is in a really tough spot and I have no great fix all answer, or I have to deliver news to them that they would rather not hear. Yesterday was that kind of day.

I sat with a young woman whose life is breaking apart from all that is familiar to her. It’s painful. I told her life is painful when you do dumb stuff and screw it up and then have to face hard consequences. But it’s harder still when you feel like you’ve played by the rules, worked hard, and done it “the right way” and it still doesn’t turn out like its “supposed” to. It seems unfair. It seems brutal. It seems pointless to keep trying. Most people have this experience at one point or another. Some people seem to have it at a level of unbearable frequency or intensity.

So how does one find the energy, motivation, hope, courage or perhaps blind faith to pick themselves up and keep going? Not everyone does. Some people give up. They end their lives. And some people keep physically alive but they shut down to a level in which they merely exist, waiting for their time to on earth to come to an end. Sometimes the latter is facilitated with an addiction that keeps one so numb, they are no longer aware of their original pain, but become embroiled with the pain caused by the addiction itself instead.

People in the throes of despair usually feel alone in a private hell believing that not only is their pain too great to bear, but that they are in a hole where no one else can or cares to reach for them. They feel certain that ending or giving up is personal and won’t really matter to anyone else. And that even if it does, another’s concern or misery will be short lived and forgotten sooner than later.

As Wally Lamb says “This much I know is true”. I can only speak from my own experience, both my personal reactions and the stories told to me over the years. There is a blue plaid teddy bear that sits on the bookcase in my office. It was a gift I gave to a client many years ago. It was returned to me a few years ago by her sister after my former client committed suicide. In the time I had seen her she contemplated it many times and we always managed to talk it through. When she was in despair, she always told me no one would remember her. A few years after we finished our work, I learned she had taken her life. I still remember her. I don’t need the bear on my shelf to remind me but I keep it there as if to keep some part of her alive and to bear witness to her pain. When she left, she may have ended her pain. I hope so, but she also deprived the world of something good and strong, smart and creative, capable and wise in ways she didn’t know and didn’t live long enough to prove to herself. And most of all, she left the potential of joys not yet known.

Last week I saw a different young woman. I met her a couple of years ago and after only a couple of sessions with me she made a very real suicide attempt that she survived only by the grace of God. Today that same woman is getting married soon; to a man that is her best friend. She has a job she likes and hopes to have a family. All of these are things she could not imagine when she was in despair. Had her suicide attempt been successful, her best friend would be looking to a different kind of life ahead. Her children would have no chance to be born. Her mother would still be experiencing an unbearable grief and trying to remember how to answer the question “How many children do you have?”

Agreeing to try again provides no guarantee that you will win the prize. It provides no promise that things will not get worse again. Trying again only means that you fully accept being human and to fulfill the contract of being here to do whatever it is you are supposed to do, even when you aren’t sure what that is. Just as your mind takes in a million marketing and social cues everyday unconsciously, so too does it take in interactions as small as a nod or a smile. You may never know how you being where you are at any given moment affects another person and helps them get along more easily in the world.

So just as therapy doesn’t always make you “feel better” the moment you want it too, this blog, long awaited by some, won’t likely provide the “feel good” message they may have hoped for. But I hope it will touch just one person who thinks trying again, doesn’t make sense. More importantly, I hope it will touch people who are in a good place to use some of their grace by looking a little bit longer at the stranger who may be struggling and ready to give up and offer them a smile or an act of kindness. There are so many ways to do this with so little effort on our part.

When I drive through the McDonalds (yes I’m admitting this) in Eureka, the person who takes the money hands out a dog treat when I have my dog in the car. She has done this for a couple of years. I tried to give the manager some money to go towards the treat fund assuming the employee was paying for this with her own money. The manager informed me that a gentleman who lost his own dog supplies the branch with treats and makes sure they never run out. I’ll never meet him. And it’s not that my dog can only get a treat if she goes to McDonalds. But the act warms my heart and reminds me that there is goodness in the world and that we always have a choice to turn pain into something productive.

On a final note, I now have “What would Mary Say” bracelets. Yes, for those of you who enjoy remembering some of the things I say or more realistically, they serve as a reminder to listen to yourself the way I listen to you, stop on by my office for yours. They are silicone bands (like the Lance Armstrong livestrong). If you are an out of towner, send me a note.

And finally, I have a favor to request. I am trying to be more mindful that we now live in the age of technology and that I should actually join that movement. If you have something positive to say, I would appreciate a review at Healthgrades.com
If you have something not so favorable to say, I hope you’ll write that to me and give me the opportunity to address it first.

Life’s a Pain

February 6, 2019UncategorizedMary Young

I’m back in the saddle so to speak. I still have a gimpy arm, but I’m managing pretty darn well and seem to have had the good fortune of having had a lot less pain than most people with this experience. It’s still a process that will take a few more months to have a “normal” arm. The rest of me will likely never get there.
In my down time I received so many beautiful notes from many of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and I mean that with all humility and sincerity. Your notes and calls lead me tot the realization that I will likely never retire. I am so blessed to have a job I love so much. Thank you. Thank you.

As many of you know, I keep a write board on my waiting room wall. The current quote on that board is “If you aren’t willing to change, don’t expect your life to”.

So often, we think about changes we want to have occur in our life but unfortunately we don’t connect the realization that we are the ones who actually have to take step by step actions in order to make those changes occur. Even if we do get that far, many of us would like to take the action once or twice, for maybe a week, but certainly not from here on out!. We want to diet for a day and lose 50 lbs. Quit drinking for a month and be “over it”. Or, we want to send out a resume and have a great job land in our lap. We might date the same type of person over and over, and believe he or she will change “this time”.

Last week I heard myself saying to someone “The illusion of comfort you feel right now is preferable to the pain you will feel if you make a change.

Make no mistake. Change often brings discomfort if not all out pain. Often, our perception and anticipation of that pain is magnified in our minds and we believe we can avoid it by not embarking on that change. We make a mental pro and con list in our head and determine that the comfort we get in this moment (pre change) is not so bad. Heck, it might even feel good IN THIS MOMENT. But we miss that it may be costing us a hefty price by continuing the status quo. notice this within myself when I want to avoid my “painful” therapy exercises on my arm at a time that I feel completely comfortable doing something else

Continuing to spend what we can’t afford because obtaining an item makes us happy, doesn’t take into account the pain when the credit card comes and we can’t pay the balance. But in the moment of putting those goods in our shopping cart, we maintain the illusion of our current comfort and don’t want to feel the pain of not going home with our goodies.
Continuing a relationship that is not good for us may feel preferable to the thought of ending and having hurt feelings to consider. But what about the pain of missing out on a relationship that might be better for us?

Pain is part of living. The sooner we come to terms with that and stop trying to run, hide or dress it up in lies for ourselves, the sooner we become able to stay in the moment of our present lives.

I will remember you

September 18, 2017A change in perspective, grief and loss, life lessons, Something to think aboutmindfulness, perspective, renewal, something to think about, spiritualityMary Young

I met a man once who said he wanted to get rich enough to sustain a fund that would enable his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and so on to be able to go to Disney World once a year. He felt that they would enjoy themselves and remember him fondly. I wasn’t very optimistic. I thought a generation or so down, people would not remember him, but remember that there was some relative who had created a hopefully fun experience for them. They would perhaps, enjoy the thought of him at best.

Do we remember John Wayne or Steve Jobs? We remember what they left for us. We enjoy their achievements. But who were they as individuals? Most of us never knew them, and so to miss them seems peculiar to say. Is it enough to be remembered for what we did? Or does it matter who we did it for?

Earlier this summer my father in law passed away. Russell was not quite 93. He fortunately had not been sick for very long and I believe was ready when his time came. His two youngest children, one of which is my husband, were with him when he died. It was evident by his last words that he knew they were with him and I believe he took great comfort in that knowing.

My in laws were not special, but they were as extraordinary as I understand the word to be. They were ordinary, somewhat simply lived people, but they did everything to their fullest capacity. They were kind. At my mother in law’s memorial a couple of years ago, so many people shared stories of how Russ and Marge had helped them over the years. They fixed things, baked things, drove people where they needed to go, lent them a dollar or two and even housed people who needed housing on occasion. Upon Russ’s death, grandkids posted stories on Facebook about their memories. These included fishing, hunting for mushrooms, sewing, cooking, making S’mores and watering the pecan trees at the farm.

The elder Young’s will not be remembered by millions or thousands. They might not be remembered beyond another generation. I wear my grandmother’s engagement ring. My children never knew her and were young enough that they barely remember my own mother. But remembering and knowing are two different things.

My children know their great grandmother because so many of her qualities still reside within me. My love for cooking undoubtedly was passed on by her to me. I can still remember how she taught me to bake bread when I was only seven or eight years old. And I share my love of cooking and baking with my family, not just as something I do, but something that is at my core.

My husband has so many fine qualities that are linked to his father. I see many of the same traits in our oldest son as well. Our youngest son sometimes has his grandfather’s laugh. Likewise, my husband’s five sisters all possess some of the same gifts as did my mother in law. And I see many of these traits passed on to their daughters as well. They are crafty and creative just as she was, but each in their own way.

I suppose what I’m really trying to convey here is that our lives are less about our own stories and more about seeing them as chapters in a larger book. Once the chapter closes, the book continues to build upon what was just conveyed. The value in our lives is perhaps more contingent upon the simplicity of the subtleties we leave behind in the people we love rather than the notable achievement others who do not know us will attach to our name. If that is accurate, then living well, being extraordinary and nurturing the growth of those around us, are our best hopes for immortality.

Beauty and The Beast

July 15, 2017UncategorizedMary Young

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I had an encounter recently that was reminiscent of many I’ve had over the course of my career. I’m going to describe it as pertaining to a woman, but there are male versions that come to mind as well. It goes something like this. I’m sitting with a young woman in her mid 20’s to mid 30’s. It’s a beautiful, accomplished, smart woman with a lovely disposition. And she is telling me about her low self confidence, esteem, unattractiveness and perhaps even a lack of merit. The Beauty and her Beast.

Her beast is the version of herself that lives inside telling her everything that is not only not okay with her, but is the opposite version of what most of us on the outside believe we are seeing when we look at her. We may seem kind, encouraging and may even believe we have empirical evidence when we try to contradict her Beast, but we are often no match. The Beast has held her captive for quite some time.

What about those of us who aren’t strikingly beautiful, don’t have stellar credentials, or won’t get invited to Mensa? How are we supposed to feel great about ourselves when the people we aspire to emulate still don’t get to feel that they are even near the finish line? Does that mean OUR Beasts are real or justified?

I think not. I think part of the human condition is that we are a constant work in progress and because of that, we never feel “ready” or complete. There is some merit to that idea, as it is a motivator towards expanding ourselves. But how about evaluating the incompletion simply as a stage rather than a judgement? When I bake brownies, I know that at the half way point they are simply not done rather than flawed and incapable of reaching optimal tastiness.

One of my favorite children’s books is called “There’s a Nightmare in My Closet. The little boy who is afraid of the nightmare in his closet discovers that his nightmare is equally afraid of him and he has to ultimately comfort the nightmare. Perhaps our beast is really just an untamed, part of ourselves who may even have been unjustly wounded a long time ago rather than an abusive dictator to whom we must submit. Maybe we could see our Beast as perhaps uneducated, or lost in an earlier time. Maybe our Beast is really a product of collective voices that no longer fit in the world we now live within. Or maybe our Beast is just a scared part of us that needs to be comforted so it will stop being a bully.

Either way, it becomes increasingly clear to me that achieving something on the outside is not what will make us feel better, ready, richer, happier. We are who we are, and while we hopefully will continue to grow and evolve until our last breath, the state of feeling enough is ours simply for the price of deciding it is so. Beasts need not apply.

Freedom and modern day slavery

July 4, 2017A change in perspective, Something to think about, When my mind wanderschange in perspective, changing course, fear, mindfulness, self-care, something to think about, taking risksMary Young

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Perhaps I’ll start again- time will tell. I love to write in this blog, and yet a million other things call my attention away from doing so. And that is part of what prompts this post.

Let me start before the actual content in saying that this is not in any way intended to be a political blog, and would appreciate there not be any comments of the same. Politics is a very volatile subject these days and I prefer to keep that out of my therapeutic realm. I also want to state clearly that my use of slave and its derivatives that follow are in no way intended as a comparison to historical slavery.

So today is the Fourth of July. It’s our national celebration of our freedom from the British. We have pool parties, eat good food, watch fireworks and socialize. Perhaps we fly our flag and spend a few minutes thinking patriotic thoughts. We celebrate what it means to be free.

But despite my own recent efforts with some points in the win column, I am aware of how easy and prevalent it has become for us to enslave ourselves. We become slaves to our jobs, our commitments, our homes, our families, cultural trends and while the list can go on, most of all, slaves to our fears.

Words that define slave: owned by another, works excessively hard, forced to obey. Certainly my assertion doesn’t meet that definition in the literal sense. And yet, I see people every day (and sometimes myself) working very hard to meet the demands of someone or something that is not me. An “other” be it a job one stays late to work at when they wish they were with their family. A socially inspired trend that requires spending outside of one’s comfortable budget. A body that is punished beyond reasonable limits in order to maintain a culturally identified ideal.

But unlike true slaves, we do this however unknowingly by choice. We put ourselves in the small box like prisons of behaviors and repeat them day after day both because they are familiar and because they are so often unexamined. This jail has no lock on the door, but we so often go years before we wander over and give it a tug and discover we could have walked out all along.

Fear is perhaps the most insidious of our masters. It keeps us faithful and in check. So often, our fears began a very long time ago and are tied to circumstances that no longer exist. Yet our actions which support them continue to persist.

So today is Independence Day. Brave people of long ago and soldiers still today die for our right to be free. Are you brave enough to light a sparkler to begin your own emancipation today? Here is a quote I recently came across:

One of the most courageous decisions you’ll ever make

Is to finally let go

of what is hurting your heart and soul

Bridgette Nicole

That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles

May 4, 2016A change in perspective, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, goal setting, mindfulness, perspective, self-care, something to think about, taking risksMary Young

No you didn’t fall of the email list. I just didn’t do a blog last week. I decided to try my hand at decorating sugar cookies instead. Why? Why not? My son was performing in a cello recital and I wanted to bring some fun food.

I watched a video and thought, Hmmm this looks easy enough. So I gave it a try. Wow, was my experience a lot different than the one of the woman in the video. My entire kitchen and my body were covered in flour, icing, icing dye, utensils. It was a major mess. As of this writing, I still haven’t mastered the skill but I haven’t given up. I heard Mark Cuban say the other day that he spent 10 years becoming an overnight success. So if and when I achieve cookies designs that are magazine worthy beautiful, I’m going to tell everyone it was easy.

Years ago I used to give a lecture with a slide show that contained a slide of a young woman sitting on the back of a lawn chair at the beach. I used to ask the audience if they wished they could look like the perfect model featured and many said yes. Then I let them know the model on the magazine probably wished for that as well, because the photo had been digitally enhanced to make her look the way she was portrayed.

Despite knowing this, so many of us deplete ourselves by trying to achieve the look that we feel someone else has, even if we have no idea how authentic their success is or isn’t. Is it any wonder that we are a nation functioning in large part due to antidepressants? How can we foster happiness when we live in a perpetual state of feeling as if we are incapable of achieving what we believe others have, in a system that is basically rigged?

I’m not playing the victim card. Anything but! I’m playing the “use your critical thinking skills” card. I’m not suggesting that it’s a bad idea to try and achieve a goal. But the goal should be realistic and personal rather than as a way to mimic another that you hold in unrealistic esteem. Even if that person has genuinely achieved a particular goal, you can’t possibly have all of the same predispositions and life conditioning experiences to achieve exactly what they have done. And they aren’t you. You have gifts that they can’t or won’t achieve.

So here is what really happened since I started this blog post. The first batch of cookies looked really horrible. Picture a kind of “Picasso” cello where none of the parts line up quite right. And they didn’t taste very good. So I gave it my best shot and made a second batch. And they looked well, slightly less horrible, but they tasted really good. So I took those to the recital. They were to be eaten, not hung in a gallery and thus, I deemed them “good enough”.

I’m still planning on taking a live class this weekend because I still want to learn. But I don’t feel badly about not knowing how to decorate beautiful cookies. I’ve had no practice, I’m not particularly artistic, and frankly, I have virtually no idea what I’m doing. The woman in the video made beautiful cookies, but I’m going to guess that she wouldn’t make a good therapist. And even if she would, I suspect there are still other gifts that I possess which she does not.

This week, instead of looking at something that someone else has that you don’t, try focusing in on your gifts. This may require that you look at yourself a little differently than you do normally. If you want to take a real risk in growth, tell someone else about something you do really well. Celebrate yourself! And if you need any decorated cookies to help you celebrate, call me. I just can’t guarantee you’ll recognize them as what I say they are.

True Confessions

April 20, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, disappointment, life is so good, perspective, something to think aboutMary Young

I’m a mom. Mom’s have a way of becoming somewhat psychotic or at least neurotic when it comes to defending and protecting their children. I am no exception. I remember when my eldest son Alex was about 3 years old and I dropped him off at the play yard of his preschool. A couple of 4 year olds came along and wanted to take a little tricycle away from him. I had to hold myself back to keep from wanting to beat up his 4 year old school mates.

Fast forward to today where I’ve reached a supposed level of maturity, which I have actually but not always when it comes to my kids. Recently there was a situation involving my younger son Andrew. I felt like he wasn’t getting the kind of recognition I felt, or rather I KNEW he deserved. I found myself behaving in a less than attractive way uttering unfortunate descriptions of his competition. Even while I was doing it, I knew it felt wrong, but I let the criticism roll off my tongue. At least I had the good sense to do it mostly in private.

And then I went back to reading Cheryl Strayed’s book “Dear Sugar: Advice on love and life”. While I don’t agree with every single piece of the book, I found it to be generally lovely. Strayed is a wonderful writer, an old soul and is a human being with more compassion in her bones then should be allowed. I stumbled upon the following passage that had nothing to do with protecting your kids or permission to be a momma bear. But here it is:

“When I feel jealous, I tell myself to stop feeling jealous and to stop being a jealous person. The cure for feeling jealous is to stop being a jealous person.”

Profound rocket science right? It is incredibly simple, and yet the key is not to simply utter magic words and the behavior stops. It means to ACTUALLY CHANGE the behavior and then the feelings will stop because there is no behavior for them to take root within.

When I thought about what I was really feeling, I was behaving in my own child (me as a little person- not Andrew) voice. I was feeling the many times that I didn’t win the prize or get picked for the team. And by projecting that on to Andrew in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about teaching him that he could not win the prize and still be okay. More importantly, I wasn’t thinking about how many times I DID win the prize, and did get picked by the team and someone else did not. I don’t recall times when I got picked and I started feeling how unfair it was that someone else did not.

This realization allowed me to realize that to stop feeling jealous, I needed to stop looking at what the other kids had done or not done. I needed to consider that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. To not win doesn’t mean that you are a loser. It simply means you didn’t win this time. To stop being a jealous person, I needed to focus on Andrew’s many accomplishments and to realize the joy that those bring to both him and me. With that in mind, it’s hard to behave in a jealous way, because there is nothing to be jealous about. Jealousy is not a flattering emotion on anyone. It speaks to a sense of lack, which is a condition created entirely from within rather than externally.

Our little selves are alive and well inside all of us. We want them to be because they contain many wonderful memories, vulnerabilities, innocence and raw emotion. But those parts of our selves also need to be parented by our more mature and wise self. They need to be protected and treated with compassion and they do not like to have their left over wounds ignored or pushed away by our adult parts.

Any time we find ourselves operating in an irrational or overly emotional way, I believe it is our child self that just took the driver’s seat. Rarely does this prove to be a good strategy.

If The Shoe Fits

April 13, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, marriage and relationships, Something to think about, therapychange in perspective, changing course, perspective, relationships, something to think aboutMary Young

A number of years ago a woman came into see me because she was incredibly frustrated with her husband. She sat down and began telling me that her husband recently told her she was crazy! She obviously found this very hurtful. I agreed and asked her to provide some context.

She went on to explain that they had been eating dinner at home. When he finished his meal he pushed his plate forward a bit, stood up from his chair and began to leave the table. She quickly told him that he needed to put his plate in the sink and that is when he told her she was crazy.

I asked her if this was an unusual act for him and if he normally put his own plate in the sink. She quickly responded saying “NO! That’s the problem. For twenty years he has been leaving his plate on the table for me to put it away. But on that night I had had enough and told him he needed to do it himself. And that is when he told me I was crazy!”

I looked at her and told her she was crazy!

I’m not usually so blunt, but this was so blatant, and yet she was unable to see what was happening. For 20 years she had been teaching her husband that she would take care of his plate. She may not have liked doing it; she may have thought it unfair, but she was actively maintaining an expectation for 20 years. And then one day she changed the rules and became angry with HIM for not jumping on board when she changed her expectations and his. She never considered the possibility that he may have some surprise, much less aversion to the new rule.

Everybody knows that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of crazy. But another definition is abruptly changing the rule that you have personally contributed to designing and maintaining. So is expecting everyone else to acquire the same level of motivation and commitment for that change by osmosis.

I am seeing a number of women in particular right now who seem to be struggling with getting their husbands to accept new rules because dynamics have changed for these women. Some have gone back to work, others have started a family. In some cases these women have simply matured in their needs

. As they get more pressured for time, or simply grown tired of continuing to do for their husbands what they may have eagerly signed up for in the past, they want their husband to “want to change” in the way their wives want them to change. What many women (and some men as well) fail to consider is that their partner was in part attracted to them because of the very behaviors they now want to abolish. Imagine that you go to a store that gives you free stuff for years. You love the store until one day they say no more free stuff, and let you know that you are greedy because you keep coming in and expecting them to continue the practice. Maybe the store has a very good reason, like it can’t make a profit by giving away free stuff anymore. Regardless of the rationale, you’re likely to feel a bit cheated or at very least surprised by the change in policy. (If you want proof, talk to someone who is this week absorbing the new Starbucks rewards policy!)

At the start of this type of discussion with me, a woman usually wants me to help her figure out how to get her husband to change. It doesn’t take long for me to help her understand that the only one who she is capable of changing is herself.

I’ve made this discussion gender biased for the sake of expedience, but the reality is that the dilemma is gender neutral. We all begin teaching others what our rules for engagement are from our very first meeting. If a pattern is embedded in our relationship that no longer works for us, it is up to us to take responsibility for how it began. Our partners (romantic or otherwise) can always introduce a behavior to us, but we are the ones who give it permission to stay in place by what we do in response to the introduction. When we make room for it to stay, stay it will. And when we are the initiators of a behavior because we want the other person to think about us in a particular way, then we alone are the ones responsible for maintaining that behavior. We are responsible for coming come clean about our motives and make recommendations openly and honestly about having changed our willingness to continue the practice. We also have to be willing to accept the consequences of changing expectations for both us and our partner. If I have always been willing to work overtime off the clock because I wanted my boss to think I’m a great employee and I elect to stop that one day, my boss may change his opinion of me, or even worse. I have to be willing to accept that possibility.

How about taking a look at some of the patterns that, you may be less than thrilled with in your relationships? Can you identify how you either initiated them or made them possible to stick by your behavior?

The young, the old and the truth

April 6, 2016A change in perspective, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, changing course, happiness, perspective, relationships, renewal, something to think about, taking risksMary Young

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Last weekend we went to visit my father in law who is now in an assisted living facility. Our son Andrew took along his cello and played a mini concert for the residents just before their lunch. Now that my father in law has been living there a few months, my sister in law Cristie has become a staple in their community as well. She introduced us to all of the other residents, clearly knowing them each by name and story.

In Tuesday’s with Morrie, there is a point in which Morrie realizing his condition has deteriorated to the stage where he now needs help in the bathroom to wipe himself. He says to Mitch that we come into the world needing help wiping and we go out the same way. The only difference in between is that we have the illusion that we don’t need the help. The point is we all need relationships including those where we are vulnerable.

Morrie’s wisdom came back to me again this weekend as I watched the residents. While I’m a proud mother, I realize objectively that Andrew is not playing at the level that should have garnered the excitement and praise he received from the residents. But like little children excited about someone dressed up in a dinosaur costume, the residents were delighted by Andrew’s performance. And I don’t think it’s because they are losing their faculties and lost the ability to discern. It’s because they are now not encumbered with all of the gazillion tasks that those of us in between childhood and aging call life. We are focused on getting the dog to the vet, cleaning the house, mowing the grass, getting our nails done and working to support all of those privileges. So often, we prioritize these tasks over relationship. And more often, we complete them to show we are competent, and sufficient without the help of others.

Younger people see old people as a group different from themselves. Older people see themselves as the same as they always were. They know their bodies have aged and they may perhaps even feel a bit wiser, and possibly more content. But they don’t see themselves as “old”. More specifically, they include an identity of the young men or women who hung out with friends, danced at parties, liked a particular kind of music. They reminisce about the things they once did not as something long ago forgotten, but as a part of themselves they still know, and more importantly part of themselves they still want to know.

I watched the residents form into social groups over the course of the visit and remember similar observations from when my own mother was in a nursing home. The women still group together in little clicks. They talk about relationships, updating each other on who is who and what “who” is doing now. The men are more likely to couple of in pairs or remain single. They watch TV or read. But if you look at the same gender distribution of a gathering of younger people, you would probably see similar patterns.

A little later in the weekend Bens father asked my brother in law about a recent handy man project they had previously discussed. My father in law wanted to know where his bucket of tools was so he could join right in. The reality is that his bucket has been gone for some time; it was sold with his house. But in his mind, he still sees himself as capable, ready to grab a screwdriver and do what he has always done when the need arose. He wanted to put into motion the feeling he has in his mind’s eye. He sees himself not as a man hanging out in a “home” until he dies. He sees himself as productive, useful and resourceful and still important to his son in law.

Children make a picture with their hands and they too feel productive. And most of the time, we encourage these feelings through our praise. We hang the picture on our refrigerator and say good job.

But in the middle of our lives we have the illusion that we have only so much time to “get it right or get it done”. We rarely stop to recognize that we are the same as we were as children. We need the same encouragement and permission to allow relationships to take precedence over accomplishment. We ignore this fact out of fear that our significance will fade into old age where we will be relegated to the home of productive lives passed. We defend against the fear that our vulnerability might be exposed.

Perhaps the alternative lies in seeing ourselves less as separate entities that shift from one stage to the next measured by our achievements and milestones. Perhaps there is value in retaining the child and younger parts of ourselves in our current states. Doing so would surely increase our vulnerabilities, but it would also afford us a proportionate amount of authenticity.

Enough is Enough

March 30, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, Something to think about, therapyaging, change in perspective, happiness, perspective, self-care, something to think aboutMary Young

Someone asked me yesterday how a person ever knows when they are enough. I thought I would use this post to try and tease out a more thorough answer.

This much I think I know. I know that for a long period of my earlier life I did not think I was enough. I thought I wasn’t smart enough, rich enough, pretty enough, thin enough, and probably a whole host of other things, had I thought about them for very long. How did I know this? Because there was always someone around me who appeared to be enough and I was different than them.

Today I’m still different than people around me in a variety of ways. That much hasn’t changed. But what has changed, is both how I interpret and measure others and myself. In fact, the gap itself is no longer the measure of anything except difference.

When a person is pretty, they simply are pretty. It doesn’t make them better or more, it just means they are pretty. Being more pretty is not a measure of their enoughness, or mine. Even if they are extremely pretty.

But to disassemble a system of measurement, something else has to take its place. I think the new system is based on truth, acceptance and having a much wider lens than I previously used. Let me try and take these one at a time.

Truth: So often I deluded myself into thinking that acquiring something, be it a physical item like clothing, or less tangible like an achievement would afford me a sense of completion and grant me permission to whatever status group I wanted membership. Of course every acquisition only left me more depleted and feeling still more illegitimate. So truth means to see symbols for what they are and to not chase them at the cost of authentic self- development. Truth also means to search inward to determine whether or not I have truly put forth an honest effort with pure motives. If I have, it is enough.

A wider lens: Maturity is largely responsible for adding this tool into my toolbox. Like many people I too was prone to what I call snap shot thinking. I only saw life in small snippets, a moment in time. When I see a beautiful person and think their life is beautiful based on that moment in time, I am severely limiting my view point. I don’t know if that same individual has financial, emotional, spiritual, physical or relationship challenges. I don’t know how much effort went in to achieving that beauty and at what cost. In fact I know nothing about the person. But if I give them a winning score and compare myself to that winning score, I am not enough.

To widen the lens does not mean to find fault with the other person. It means to find humanness within both that, other individual (or circumstance) and my own. Otherwise, it’s like measuring two things, one with English and the other with metric. They won’t match. Widening the lens also means for me, to include faith in something much greater than the constraints of this world and my own humanness. The dilemma with relying only on this world is that it is all so fragile and fleeting.

It’s truly like building a castle in the sand knowing the tide’s arrival is but a few short hours away. It is easier to see one as enough when you strip away the layers of triviality and build on something wider.

Finally there is acceptance. To accept that I am enough is an active act of willingness. It is a willingness to ACT. It means to live with that knowledge and to make choices accordingly. If I am enough, then it means to live as if that is true. It means to no longer invest all of my energy into the pursuit of what I think will make me more. It means to speak more kindly of myself and to not withhold rewards until I reach some higher earned level of wholeness. And it means to not hold back my efforts with the excuse that they are not important or won’t matter. They matter.

This is personal and based on my path. And please let me be clear that I have no illusion that this is a static and fixed level, but is rather, a work in progress that I need to frequently remind myself about. I hope there is something useful for you to take while developing your own sense of enoughness.

The circle of life

March 23, 2016A change in perspective, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, changing course, happiness, mindfulness, perspective, relationships, something to think aboutMary Young

No blog last week because I was on vacation. My family and I went to Disney World once again .

I can’t remember which number trip this was, but it’s been a lot over the last 10 years. Neither Ben nor I had ever gone to Disney as kids, but we took our sons in 2005 as the first time for all of us. It was Disney’s 50^th anniversary, the year of magic or some cute slogan to announce the wonderful new array of changes. We had a blast on that first trip which began our Disney love story.

After that we went a few more times, mostly enjoying each of them. There was a point in which I noticed that we would start to move towards a particular familiar ride and my oldest son would say “nah, I’ll ride it next time”. That’s when I began to realize we were going too frequently and the boys had begun to take the privilege for granted. We stopped going for a few years. Last fall we planned a trip and the boys decided working on their grades wasn’t important to them. Much to their chagrin, we cancelled the trip about 2 weeks out. So this spring break adventure was the follow through of a carrot we used to encourage their academic efforts.

We knew in advance of going this time that, there have been some changes at Disney. For the first time ever in my adventures there are Starbucks at the parks. We also got these really cool bracelets in advance that are programmed as your park ticket, your hotel key and for “convenience” your credit card. We knew that a couple of our favorite rides were down for renovation, yet we boarded the plane with familiar enthusiasm and anticipation.

This experience at Disney however was sadly, not so terrific. A few months back one of my many brilliant clients commented that there is a life cycle to everything. His words came back to me quickly as I realized that for us, Disney was now in hospice. I got my first clue when I entered the hotel room and there wasn’t a towel origami creature on the beds. I love Disney towel origami and always look forward to the surprise that waits at the end of the day. I simply noted that it wasn’t there but didn’t see it as a harbinger of things to come.

And come they did. Another of our favorite rides closed the day we arrived. Several other rides broke while we were on them. The park was insanely over crowded not simply because it was spring break, but because with a water park also closed and fewer rides, people crowded to what remained available. I could lament about a number of other annoying experiences but you can read plenty on some of the blogs about Disney complaints.

But this blog entry is anything but a Disney rant. My message today is really about the experience as a metaphor of life. As my client said, everything has a life cycle. The problem isn’t that Disney is cost cutting at its customers expense. The problem is that I wanted it to stay the same as it was 10 years ago. Back then I could better tolerate long walking and lines because the newness and excitement sustained me through frustration. I wanted it to stay the same as when my children were excited and dazzled by every character and parade buying the magic that Disney was selling.

And speaking of my children, something more important happened on this trip. Our son Alex, now 16 kept ditching us. I found it frustrating because it didn’t fit my expectation. I also found it irritating that he would leave us, and then call me 10 times, insist we come meet him at a location and then essentially ditch us again. It felt selfish and rude until my mature mind came back online. I realized that my confused expectations were again at work. The reason Alex left us is because he is 16, not 4 and he needed to be away from us to do what he wanted to do. The truth of the matter is that we too needed to be away from him because we wanted to do other things. At the point that I realized this, the trip became considerably more enjoyable for all of us. He stopped calling me every 10 minutes, and when we did meet back up he was in a great mood willing to share what he had experienced. Life had moved further around the circle. Regardless of what Disney does as a company, the experience has changed as it should and will never be what it once was for us as a family. But there are other experiences which lie ahead for a family with two young men which will undoubtedly contain a different kind of magic.

Perhaps I would have figured this out sooner in the trip if the “Circle of life” ride at Epcot had not already been closed before our arrival. Or perhaps I would have thought this through had I not been clinging to my expectations. But, it’s like the Buddhist saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I wasn’t ready until our last day. And just for the record, I never did make it to any of those Starbucks!

Be Extraordinary

March 9, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, Something to think about, When my mind wanderschange in perspective, happiness, mindfulness, perspective, something to think about, thoughtfulnessMary Young

Be extraordinary

I love the word extraordinary. It has a fun and almost whimsical ring to it. But I realized recently that I had not really been using it correctly. In fact, I don’t think most of us use it accurately. Usually when using the word extraordinary, we are referring to something that is amazing, a stand out, over and above.

But if you look at the word, it is literally EXTRA Ordinary. It means to take that which is ordinary, and make it even more ordinary. I am not a linguist or a scholar but this got me thinking in a different direction. What does it mean to be extra ordinary?

If I am washing the dishes and that is an ordinary task, does it mean to wash more dishes? I don’t think so. I would consider that it means to wash the dishes with as much presence of mind as I can muster up. It also means to appreciate and experience as much EXTRA in the task as is humanly possible. It means to feel the water against my skin, the smell of the soap, the shine of the dish, the awareness that there is clean water easily accessible to wash the dishes, a cabinet to store them etc.

I realize this is a corny example, because it’s unlikely that you or I are going to run to the sink and break out the dish soap just to have a mindful experience. If I could convince you to try, I’d start first by trying to enhance my children’s joy by getting them to do the task. But if you transfer this mindset into the other zillions of “ordinary” experiences that happen each day, there are probably many opportunities of where missing joy might be lurking

How about a meal? Instead of making small talk and zipping through your evening meal which is ordinary, how about making it even more ordinary? How about taking a few minutes in this everyday task and making it last a bit longer with a little more meaning? What about the commute to work? Are there ways to take this ordinary event and make it something even more than it is most days?

Most of us have no trouble making other events that are outside our ordinary routine special. We put something more into them and call them special. While that’s great, they are also things that may occur too infrequently to sustain us. By taking the everyday opportunities to experience “extra”, we increase our capacity and opportunity for more contentment.

I’d love to hear your experiences in taking joy by expanding your ordinary into extraordinary.

Floating in a sea of insecurity

March 2, 2016A change in perspective, grief and loss, life lessons, marriage and relationships, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, changing course, disappointment, fear, happiness, mindfulness, perspective, renewal, something to think about, spiritualityMary Young

Sixteen years ago I became a mother for the first time. I was 2 months shy of my own 40^th birthday. Obviously I am a late bloomer. And 13 years ago I became a mother for the second time. And so I have enjoyed saying that I am the mom of two kids for quite some time. But on Friday my youngest son Andrew will turn 13, meaning I will for the last time, be the mother of children and will instead become the mother of teenagers.

I would be lying if I said it was not bittersweet. On the one hand I am delighted to watch my boys grow and become people in their own right. It is fun to have the freedom that comes with the untangling of childhood needs and demands. We have the luxury of not attending to their every need. And I miss soft skin; baby smells (the good kinds) and coos. Even though these have actually been gone for quite some time, there is still a way of defining one’s self that changes with an official transition of stages. It’s neither cool or welcomed to remind a teenager of the things he did when he was a toddler.

But perhaps more than rearranging the child memories out of the forefront of my brain is the awareness that my own identity is once again cast out onto the open seas, unmoored from the dock of supposed security where I had been storing it for a time. This is what we do as a people. We link our identity to some safe haven so that we might know ourselves and have a way of introducing ourselves to others. The dilemma is, of course, when we delude ourselves into thinking that our identity claim is anything more than arbitrary and or temporary. I chose the identity of mother of children; some choose more exotic names like executive or entrepreneur, while others go for more personal descriptions like thin or beautiful. In the end, they are all mere snapshots of who we are, and fleeting. The only thing constant about our lives is that they change.

I am continuing to learn that genuine peace comes not from finding a more solid identity defined by my current circumstances, but rather increasing my awareness that who “I” am, is in fact, none of these adjectives or roles. I am “I” who has participated in many of these over the course of my years and will hopefully continue to participate in more still to come. I am “I” when I was not a mother of any children just as I am “I” today. “I” is a solid and constant, and is the only thing that is solid and constant. The lesson is to not get too attached to the ways I try to box “I” in. It is not the boxing in per se that is the problem, but rather the attachment to the limitations of that box. In other words, if I only feel present and solid because I am the mother of children, then once they become teens, it will be hard to know how and what to be the next day. It will also be hard to know what they are the next day as well. This is the case with folks who experience “empty nest” and depression from other kinds of life transitions like divorce, loss of a job etc.

This is deep, philosophical convoluted and truncated for the sake of space in a way that might not make it very clear. If you want to do more reading “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer is a good primer. This is predicated on the strategy of engaging in more eastern rather than western thinking. In particular, it means to be mindful of not becoming attached to culturally or familial definitions of our self and using those definitions to insist on their legitimacy. Failing to do so means we forfeit the right to choose anything not on our predefined path, and we require everyone around us to support our identity through their behavior as well. Unfortunately, they usually don’t receive the script in advance and they keep mixing up the lines. And when they do, it is us who falters. We don’t receive the right cues, we get agitated and we become the director who now focuses on everyone around us to get their lines right as we want them performed.

Nobody wants to work with a diva. Not in show business, not in life. No one wants to alter their behavior or their life trajectory so that we can feel safer in our comfortably created little identities. The alternative is to let ourselves drift as the fleeting souls we actually are and enjoy the waves as they come along .

It means accepting that some will be gentle and some not but neither condition is ours to control or claim.

Life in the fishbowl

February 24, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, disappointment, happiness, life is so good, mindfulness, perspective, renewal, spiritualityMary Young

I read what was for me, a rather moving book last week. Though, as much as I loved it, I recommend it with quite a bit of trepidation. I listened to the book on Audible and I must say until the last two hours, it was pretty dull. There was a lot of philosophical rambling. I nearly quit, but I held on and I was well rewarded by the gems contained within. I don’t know how well these will come through without the context of the book, and I have to be somewhat cryptic in order to not spoil the story in the event you might wish to read it for yourself. The book is titled “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”.

There are two concepts that I want to share here that do not give away the story. The first is the idea of the fishbowl. This theory is put forward by 12 year old Paloma, an intellectually gifted French girl who lives with her family. At the start of the story, Paloma is working out her plan to commit suicide on her 13^th birthday. As an intelligent child, she deduces that life is nothing more than the struggle to fulfill a great lie that our parents have thrust upon us and therefore, not worth the effort once you know the truth:

“Apparently now and again adults take the time to sit down and contemplate what a disaster their life is. They complain without understanding and, like flies constantly banging against the same old windowpane, they buzz around, suffer, waste away, get depressed then wonder how they got caught up in this spiral that is taking them where they don’t want to go…And yet there’s nothing to understand… “Life has no meaning and we grown-ups know what is” is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that’s not true, it’s too late…. People aim for the stars, and they end up like a goldfish in a bowl”.

Thus, her planning suicide is to suck out what few joyful moments might lie ahead and then save herself the agony of ending up in the fishbowl.

The second thread I want to share is something that Paloma learns at the end of the book. While we all use the word “never” quite freely, it is something that none of us truly understands until we are faced with a condition in which we experience no ability to transcend a limit regardless of our means and abilities. A real never occurs when the illusion of our control is shattered beyond repair. Everything becomes clearly defined without the fantasy of “if only or when this, then that”.

The irony however, is that in the midst of Paloma’s “never” experience (I must be vague here to keep from spoiling the book), she experiences a moment in which time as she knows it to be in its linear form gets “interrupted” for lack of a better word. In her words:

“I have concluded, maybe that’s what life is about: there’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that has come to us, an always within never”.

In short, life is filled with so much beyond our control. The idea that we can and should do X Y and Z and we will be guaranteed the magic answer and life without sorrow, is in fact a lie perpetuated upon us by our parents and our culture. Most of all it is perpetuated by our childlike naiveté and wish to have a perfect life with a happy ending.

Paloma begins with the understanding that the wish is a lie and attempts to resolve it by quitting the game. Despite her advanced intelligence, her immaturity and surroundings prevents her from knowing that there is an alternative to both wrestling to live the lie or dying to avoid trying.

That alternative is also known as life. But it is life that willingly accepts our limitations without shame, fear, denial and insistence that we and others transcend them. It is life that is open to the moments of beauty that allow us to step out of the Never of time for brief moments and to allow those moments to nourish us and hold us until the next one comes along and to let them go as naturally as they came to us. It is life that sees its end, not as a failing to hold on and thus succumbing to the fishbowl, but rather the transformation from this existence into something else, even if that something else cannot be definitively determined by the human mind. And most of all to be open to those moments of beauty in a variety of forms rather than to predetermine allowable examples conjured up by our own ego.

For Your Eyes Only

February 17, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, happiness, meditation, mindfulness, something to think about, yogaMary Young

Many moons ago I was a somewhat serious student of Yoga. I recall one particular class I was taking from a familiar teacher but in a new environment, thus, I didn’t know any of the other participants. As we began to get into our poses, I recall looking around at others to see how I was doing in comparison. My teacher, Lynn who knew me well, came over to adjust my posture and said with a kind but stern tone, “Keep your eyes on you own posture”. She added for the rest of the group a few lines about the importance of inward focus and that it was not helpful to let our eyes wander and compare out posture to the performance of others.

Yoga is the practice of holding poses to increase self-awareness. Its rewards include insights about how we trap energy rendering it helpless in facilitating own healing. Yoga teaches us how to become aware of those blocks and to apply release in very specific ways. It requires our attention.

Yoga is also a metaphor of the rest of what we do in life. How often I could use a “Lynn” around to remind me when I get dressed in the morning to not look around in my mind’s eye to see what I think other people will say about my clothing or my hair. I could benefit from someone who would refocus me when I start to think about how my writing may impact this person or that. She might say “Write what your heart tells you to write and don’t look around”.

I often notice that when I find myself discovering some juicy piece of information about another person and I go into judgment mode without thinking, a couple of things routinely result. First, I don’t feel very good about myself and second, I usually lose track of the information pretty quickly because in reality, it serves me no purpose. This doesn’t happen because I’m particularly enlightened, but the simple truth of the matter is that, when another person has done or not done something or anything, it really doesn’t have an impact on my life. If Susan gets an awful haircut, Susan has to look at it every day until it grows out; not me. If Pete wins the lottery, it’s unlikely he is going to share it with me so why should I spend time contemplating his advantages.

Even though we know this in our rational minds, more often than not we waste energy trying to anticipate how others are going to react to some aspect of us. Sadly, we allow those anticipatory thoughts to become rules that dictate our behavior. How unfortunate to make a decision to not allow ourselves an experience of joy because we feel someone else might have a reaction that, they will in all likelihood, either fail to notice or forget about moments after they do. How sad to expend enormous amounts of energy only to gain the same pointless outcome. How silly are we to make decisions of what to buy, eat, where, spend time based on others decisions, or worse still, our perception of their decisions.

Wayne Dyer said “If your voice was the only one you ever heard sing, you would think it was beautiful singing”. How unfortunate that it becomes less than beautiful because you hear someone else begin to carry a tune. Why must theirs be better instead of merely “not yours”?

For today consider practicing keeping your eye on only your own pose. See how much enjoyment you can get from looking at your own actions as the only ones on the stage with no one else to judge or compare them against.

A Matter of Death and Life

February 10, 2016A change in perspective, grief and loss, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, grief, painful goodbye, something to think aboutMary Young

I lost my father when I was 8 or 15 depending on how you look at it. When I was about 8 he had to have a surgery to repair his heart. My parents were told that without his surgery he didn’t have long to live. Because the medical field was still relatively young at that point, and heart knowledge in its infancy, he had at best 50% odds of making it through the surgery. He survived the operation, but not without some profound side effects. He had considerable paralysis on his left side which did improve somewhat in time. He also could not speak clearly for a bit, and suffered some brain damage. But more than anything, he lost his will and his fight along with his independence.

Although he had only been able to work part time since his health declined in the few years leading up to the surgery, afterwards he could not work at all. Nor could he drive. He was sentenced to a life of sitting around existing on TV, smoking his forbidden pipe and eating. He really ceased to be a person, much less a father. And he remained that way until his death. Ironically, despite his past 15 year battle with heart problems, his only heart attack took his life instantly.

I would say I know loss. I have said I know loss. But the reality is I do not. I know my loss. Or more clearly, I know that I grew up feeling something was not there, but having not really known what that something was, given my father was ill for virtually all of my childhood, I have really only imagined what I thought it was supposed to be and missed that.

For reasons, I am not wise enough to understand, these past few months I have been deluged with stories from people about their loss. There are adults who lose their aged parents; friends who lose their peers and most significant in numbers and magnitude, parents who have lost children. They come to me in hopes of finding some way of understanding what is occurring for them. I can give them none. But what I try to give them is some way of finding their way to at least a moment or two of peace as they try to build a life that now has a void. An unfathomable void.

We all know that death is inevitable. From the moment we take our first breath we are set on the path towards death

Our psychological resistance is an attempt to keep the unpleasant at bay and insulate us from discomfort. Count me among the masses who don’t want to feel pain. But I am increasingly aware of the saying “That which we resist, persists”.

The people who come to me to speak about their loss have not been resisting death. It is thrust upon them like a thief in the night robbing them of their most prized possessions. In the cases I’ve heard, despite the tremendous burden of guilt these parents bear, no one could have, should have, would have done anything differently to prevent such loss. If there is resistance, it is only in the form of trying to find meaning in why the tragedy has occurred. In the end the only answer I can find is simply “Because it has”. It is part of the human experience to die. And while most of us envision some sort of life plan for ourselves and those we love where, we live to 110 and die quietly and painlessly in our sleep after a beautiful celebration, that rarely occurs. Children die at 1 day, 10 years, 20 years. People die in harsh circumstances and illness. Sometimes they die while doing everyday ordinary ways. And when they do, it is painful for those of us left behind to feel their absence.

My father’s body died when I was 15. I was about 35 when I finally said goodbye not only to him, but to the fantasized version of him I carried around in my head for which I longed. Grief is personal and everyone has a right to choose their own method and timing of expression. It is also part of our human experience as natural as eye color and the need to breathe. Resisting it will not delay it or protect us, but perhaps embracing it for some value that it brings might allow us that moment of peace, for which we search.

The best teacher we have about the value of life, is in fact, death. It is death that sets boundaries, helps us to prioritize how to use our time, and most of all provides us with incentive for what to value most in our life. It is an awareness of death that motivates us to tell the people we love what we want them to know and to not become bogged down in people, places and things that we can’t take with us. When we ignore our grief but focusing instead on the why loss happens, and the push to prevent such, we step out of the current moment of loving what we have right now. When we think about what we lost from a person’s absence we are choosing not to think about all they have given us prior to their absence and how that has prepared us to live now.

These are in no way intended to be simple commands of advice. My father’s death immobilized me emotionally for so many years because I tried to insulate myself with trying to understand it rather than experience the grief for what it was. Perhaps loss of a different type might do that to me again, but I hope not. What I do know is that death and its resulting grief are not thing to be afraid of, and that because they are part of the human experience, they are teachers, rather than events meant to punish us. And if they are teachers, then we are students who must be willing to learn.

We cannot learn if we cannot talk about our loss. If you know someone who has experienced a loss, whether it is a child, their cat, or a relationship, reach out. Let them speak. Make an effort to refrain from using your own fear to keep the subject far away from you. Perhaps if you let them learn, they in turn will become better teachers for you.

It started with a penny and turned into a fortune of wealth

February 3, 2016Go check this out, life lessons, marriage and relationships, moneychange in perspective, changing course, happiness, life is so good, perspective, relationships, renewal, something to think aboutMary Young

I met my husband through a personal ad. Yep, honest. Our first face to face meeting was at the St . Louis Science Center. We met there to watch the movie Everest at the OmniMax.

After enjoying the movie,we walked around a bit and talked. Okay okay, since it was 17 years ago this month, I can say we walked around and began the process of falling in love. But while we were there Ben walked over to the squished penny machine and purchased a commemorative Penny. (Big spender right?).

The next smashed penny we purchased together was at our wedding in Sedona, Arizona. He made me close my eyes and he guided me over to the machine that he had previously spied. And since that time we have made a habit of getting a smashed penny on pretty much every adventure. I don’t know how much money we have spent on smashed penny’s as each one costs .51 cents. But it’s been a very wise investment. Each serves as a reminder not only of the event where we make the purchase, but of the way it all started. The way building our fortune began.

So let me tell you about our fortune. Shortly after I had our first son, I was ambivalent about going back to work. I was concerned that it would be problematic financially if I stayed off for an extended period. Ben told me at that time in response to my worrying “Mary, we are the wealthiest people I know.” He was referring of course, to the immense joy that had just come into our lives- a healthy beautiful baby. We were both healthy, we had a roof over our heads and not much to complain about. He was right.

Our fortune has continued to grow- both with our second son, and our lives in general. We have relationships we value, the opportunity to laugh often, and Ben and I are both lucky enough to have work that we both feel passionate about. Are we lucky? Sure we are. And we work at it; somedays more than others. But more than the presence of any of these gifts, or the absence of any significant tragedy, is the presence of an attitude we both work towards embracing as often as we can.

Whatever is or isn’t we have control only over that, which we think and conclude about, what is and isn’t in our lives. Every event that occurs is subject to interpretation. You can feel victimized by events or blessed by them. It’s always a choice.

Easy to do when the good stuff is happening. Harder to do when its not. But growth occurs in BOTH circumstances, and again, good and bad are relative terms, often arbitrarily determined by our own personal filters. Bad is determined by “I’m not getting things to happen the way I want them to”. But when we let go of insisting that life result in very precise circumstances as we deem appropriate, we position ourselves to just open up to whatever life actually is. By removing the pre-determined outcome, we need not be thwarted because something didn’t turn out the way we planned.

This post is redundant if you’ve been reading for a while. It’s not that I don’t have other things to write about, but rather this is an idea that I feel we all need frequent reminding. The world is bombarding us minute by minute with the opposite message and so this one is easy to ignore. Unfortunately, doing so results in our ignoring the tools for creating our own contentment.

I don’t always like Ben and he doesn’t always like me. The house is often messy, something breaks, I lose my keys. The kids fight with each other and skip out on their homework. I don’t think anyone wants to make a reality TV show about us. We aren’t that interesting. That said, we are still, as Ben declared “The wealthiest people we know” and it began with one penny.

The Best Friend I Never Met

January 27, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, marriage and relationships, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, connection, perspective, relationships, something to think about, taking risksMary Young

There is a somewhat obscure movie called About Schmidt starring Jack Nicholson. In the film Nicholson plays a recent widower who has to find a life and identity for himself, after a lifetime of being reasonably disengaged. Prior to her death, he had predominantly relied on his wife to execute any responsibility of personality.

One night after his despondence began increasing, he finds himself up late watching TV and sees a commercial soliciting money for poor children in a third world country. By donating one is assigned a specific child to begin correspondence with. The remainder of the movie includes letters he sends to the child on the subject “About Schmidt”. As he introduces himself presumably to give the child a sense of who is making a donation, he is simultaneously introducing himself as his own life is evolving.

Shortly after becoming pregnant with my first son, some form of communication came to us, I don’t remember exactly how it began. It was from a friend named Maureen who had shared the same dorm floor with my husband in college. Ben and Maureen stayed in contact loosely over the years, usually through a Christmas card. But somehow, that particular communication introduced Maureen to me and we realized we had much in common. We were both pregnant with our first child; I was due with Alex in January, she was due with Bella in April. Maureen also had a Master’s degree in Social Work.

Over the years, we have exchanged many letters and emails. I next had Andrew, she next had Sarah. We shared tales of motherhood, challenges and joys of being older moms. We talked about growing older, family changes, work and occasionally the state of the world. We offered and still do offer mutual support and reminders of a shared history as we both traverse this stage of life.

But the irony as you’ve probably already guessed is that Maureen and I have never met. It almost happened one time when we were going to be in Kansas City, but unfortunately our travels there were always short stays and already over packed with family obligations. Somewhere along the line, however, Maureen and I have figured out that seeing each other across the table at Starbucks is not a requirement for us to have a meaningful friendship. (I’m pretty sure she is reading this now with a bit of surprise).

I think this kind of a relationship is not necessarily common or easy to find. Historically, I’ve often found it hard for me to stay connected with people I don’t see often. Perhaps one of the things that makes this work more easily is that neither of us has expectations of the other. If too much time passes between exchanges, one of us asks for something at that point and the other grants it, or at least lets us know when we can. And regardless of how much time passes, we seem able to pick right back up in step and move from there.

I’m sharing this post as a way to think about how important it is to have support in one’s life and that it isn’t always necessary that it come from traditional sources. Schmidt found writing to an unknown child when exploring his unfamiliar parts. I write to someone I clearly think of as my friend, having never met. The similarity in both cases is the willingness to share honestly and to give mutually.

Perhaps the most important ingredient in finding support is the willingness to seek it out, or the willingness to accept it when offered. Schmidt could have changed the channel. I could have acknowledged Maureen simply as Ben’s friend and let it drop there.

That type of willingness comes from a belief that you have something of value to share and/or a belief that you deserve to have your thoughts and feelings heard. If you aren’t in that place yet, I encourage you to reach out anyway and let the response of another teach you that it’s so. Perhaps just focusing on giving the gift to another will help you find it within in yourself.

And to Maureen – maybe someday… but until then – Thanks for 16 years.

Chasing Rabbits

January 20, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, productivitychange in perspective, changing course, mindfulness, something to think about, timeMary Young

There’s an Old Russian proverb that says, “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.”

I suppose this jumped out at me because it succinctly captures a dynamic I hear so many times over the course of my work week.

I want to lose weight, and I want to eat whatever I want.

I want to be healthy, and I want to ignore self-care.

I want a loving and satisfying relationship, and I want to ensure my needs are all met.

I want to be financially secure, and I want to be able to purchase whatever I want.

Of course, people don’t usually say those statements so clearly to me. If they did, they might hear them and begin to question themselves. Instead, we utter the first part of the statement, and then act out the second part. It’s human nature.

Neither part of the statement is inherently right, wrong, good or bad. But both parts of the statements are in direct conflict with each other. Thus, trying to achieve both is like two rabbits one is trying to catch. Both options require considerable energy moving in opposing directions. But the rabbits have the advantage. Each has to move in only one direction while we have to move in two. They outrun us and we lose both. One of my favorite examples of this is the original Bridget Jones’ Diary. She began each day focusing on and recording her weight. Then she lived out the day ruining her diet. By year’s end, she had gained and lost about 100 pounds (up 3 down 2), finishing at relatively the same weight as when she began.

Are you chasing two rabbits? Or more rabbits? That’s the thing about rabbits; they seem to multiply pretty easily. Where is your focus? Do you have a clear set of goals? Not a wish list, but actual, defined goals? If you do, they include time tables, and plans for how to achieve those goals. Without a path towards achievement your ideas are merely a wished for fantasy of something you someday hope, will somehow happen.

Another important step in goal achievement is building in accountability. Ask someone to check in with you about your progress. Make commitments to knocking off steps along the way. Use outside resources to help you figure out when you get stuck how to work around or through the obstacle instead of simply giving up in frustration.

And finally there is the importance of letting go. You may have to spend a little time deciding and acknowledging to either someone else, yourself or both that, you are going to let one or more other rabbits go. Let someone else chase those or let them simply be free. You weren’t going to capture them anyway

A Beautiful Monkey Mind

January 13, 2016A change in perspective, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, meditation, mindfulness, perspective, something to think about, yogaMary Young

If you’ve been reading for a while you might wonder why I have been referencing old movies. We’ve been trying to introduce our kids to them over time. We want them to know the origin of some of the catch phrases and slangs that still linger, and we want them to enjoy some of the old stuff. Not long ago we watched A Beautiful Mind, which still remains one of my favorites.

One of the parts which sticks out for me in that movie, is when John Nash realizes that the little girl never gets any older. One of his recurring hallucinations involves his former roommate at college and the roommate’s young niece. Although neither the roommate nor the child ever actually existed, they frequently appeared to Nash. After treatment and medication Nash begins to realize that no matter how much time passes, the little girl never gets any older. This epiphany helps him to realize that she isn’t real, despite his feeling her real in those moments. In delusions, fantasy and imagination they can remain the same, but in real life, children age.

It made me think about a variety of things that we as humans cling to in an attempt to bring order to chaos, and comfort to our aches. Feelings come and we develop stories out of our imaginations to cope with those feelings. But those actions often require more details to make the story more real and sustainable for us. Let’s say I’m having a party today. I notice a feeling of discomfort. Perhaps I’m merely tired. But the chatter begins. “I don’t feel optimistic that many people will come. I can look outside and see some clouds. I tell myself that it will probably rain. Remember that other time you planned a party and it rained and the guests all got wet coming and going and it made everyone crabby? And some of them left early because they didn’t want to get caught driving home in the rain. It’s still early enough, I can just cancel the party now. But then people might be mad at me because it spoils their plans. And then….

This is brain chatter. Buddhists call this “Monkey Mind”. It’s the constant babble that plays incessantly in our brain. We talk to it, and it talks back to us. None of it has to be particularly “real”, but it can certainly occupy a lot of our time and energy and influence our actions and feelings. One of the biggest dilemma’s I see with Monkey Mind is that just like Nash’s child never getting any older, our stories never progress. While the subjects may vary, the process of the continuous loop stays the same and never really matures into anything useful. It can’t grow up because it is not informed by the present moment. It lives in the past and the future, but not in the present.

To be in the present is to, as Carolyn Myss says, “Call your spirit home”. It means to consciously choose not to give the Monkey Mind power to ramble on as much as it likes. Being in the present is to notice where you are and what you are doing at any given moment. This isn’t a permanent state to achieve, but rather an ongoing effort to keep bringing yourself back at the point you become aware you’ve left. Like breathing, you don’t simply do it once and then you’re done. You do it over and over, day after day. While breathing is automatic, you can also consciously alter your breathing if you choose. You can speed it up, slow it down and break the automatic cycle. The same is true of your thoughts. They are yours, not the other way around.

Meditation is of course, the best way to practice developing this skill. But its lack of appeal and difficulty turn people away from trying to practice. So instead of saying, “Oh I can’t or don’t want to meditate for two hours a day so I won’t do this”, let’s consider another approach. How about trying mini meditations in whatever it is you are doing. So if you are washing dishes, stay present with washing dishes. Don’t allow your mind to drift back into how dinner was, or shift forward to what you need to do when the dishes are done. Instead, notice the water, how it feels on your skin. Notice the movements you employ one step at a time to wash the dish and to hand it off. Engage your other senses, sight, touch, sound. And since you probably do many tasks over the day, you probably have many places where you can practice this skill building even in short spurts.

I’d love to hear how this works for you. Pay attention as to whether or not you start to see a reduction in your Monkey Mind, and if so what that is like for you. You may notice an overwhelming sense of relief, fear, sadness, or any other emotion or combination. Whatever comes up, ask yourself if Monkey Brain as the alternative ever makes those feelings any better in the long run.

Forgetting to Remember

January 6, 2016A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, happiness, mindfulness, self-care, something to think about, spiritualityMary Young

Forgetting to Remember

In case it isn’t obvious to you already, let me confess that I am in fact a Pinterest Junkie. In addition to my craft interests, I also enjoy the funny entries and quotes. One I’ve seen with some regularity of the latter category is: “What would it be like if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today?”

On more days than I care to admit, my life would be pretty awful if this happened. Like most people, I seem to forget to remember often enough to take stock in what I have to be grateful about. The end result of this is probably not that, God will open the heavens with a lightening curse and take everything away. That doesn’t make the result any less dramatic. Because what happens when I forget to remember is that, I distance myself from the joy of truly embracing all that I have. It’s there for me to experience and when I fail to recognize its true value, I get less joy.

There is a pretty funny old episode of the TV show Friends in which Alec Baldwin plays Phoebe’s new boyfriend Parker (you can check it out on YouTube)

I also have a word of caution. Sometimes I notice that people remember to appreciate what they have by way of comparing their lot to what others don’t have. An example of this is “Well, at least I’m not like that person I saw in the wheel chair.” Another is “There are people starving in some third world country and my belly is full.” While I appreciate the effort to be grateful, it comes at the cost of finding value only as a measure against someone else having a worse set of circumstances. This approach is more likely to produce relief at best, guilt at worse, and in either case, not much joy.

It’s admirable to notice the less fortunate but not as a means to bolster one’s own circumstances emotionally. The way to feel good about what we have is to simply focus on what we have whether or not anyone else has or doesn’t have the same. Authentic value comes from owning the voice that bestows it, as opposed to temporarily renting it from an outside source. As long as we depend on something outside us to determine what we find valuable, our happiness is subject to whether or not that outside source wants to continue to validate our need.

The new year is for most of us, off to a robust start. We are back to our routines, normal schedules and responsibilities. To avoid having the conversation with yourself in December of 2016 about how much of the year seemed to escape without your notice, this is a perfect time to begin incorporating some “taking notice of what is around you” time. All it takes is the willingness to remember that this is all you know that you have- right now. Acknowledge it and if possible, be grateful.

Happy Holidays

December 16, 2015A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, changing course, goal setting, happiness, perspective, renewal, something to think about, spiritualityMary Young

This is my last entry for the year. I’ll be back the first week of January. I just want to wish everyone a joyful holiday season, whatever your faith, including a hopeful new year.

The world is in a precarious state these days. There is a daily barrage of bad news, potential threats, and looming concerns. There is also joy, hope, and reasons for gratitude. Sometimes in the wake of the former, it is difficult to find or focus on the latter. Regardless of the difficulty, the choice remains ours.

To make the choice in favor of a more pleasant view of life however, is not to try and create a Norman Rockwell painting of upcoming events. Rather, it means to simply focus on and appreciate what works, rather than to dwell on what does not.

In his book “Conversations with God”, Neale Donald Walsh explains that we choose relationships based on what part of ourselves we wish to experience. I would extend that thought as a statement about our lives in general. What part of ourselves are we wanting to experience when we encircle ourselves with drama, chaos and hardship. Is it a desire to feel punished, incompetent or inferior? Is it a desire to see ourselves as a great rescuer?

And by the same token, when we surround ourselves with joy and plenty, are we bringing our self that is capable of richness and connection to God into the mix? Neither of these questions is a simple yes or no, but are worthy of self-reflection. What better time to do that than over this holiday season.

Once again, I want you to know how much I appreciate your dedication to reading, and value your feedback more than I can express.

Whatever you choose for this holiday season and the year ahead, I hope that you gain from it the knowledge you seek to make your life the best for you.

Happy Holidays

Let the Wobbling Begin

December 9, 2015A change in perspective, Go check this out, life lessons, productivity, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, fear, goal setting, mindfulness, perspective, self-care, something to think about, taking risksMary Young

Let the wobbling begin.

I’m going to attempt to create a visual experience for you. Try and imagine yourself in this scene as you read along.

You are a toddler about 12 months old. You are used to crawling around when you want to get to somewhere other than where you are. Your view of the world is predominantly at ground level looking up at everyone. While this has been fine for a while, you now realize that others around you are doing things differently. You also notice that your hands and knees are getting sore.

Everyone around you seems to be getting around on their feet instead of their hands and knees. Hmmm you think, perhaps I can do this too. You inch your way over to a table or chair and using all your might, you pull yourself to an upright position. “There! You exclaim. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Full of confidence and wonder you lean towards the direction you want to go towards. First your right foot, followed by your left and boom! Down on your bottom you land. It looked so easy when you watched others complete the operation, but it doesn’t seem easy now.

Of course you eventually learned to walk, but not without a few good drops to the bottom and perhaps your head as well. It’s the natural evolution of learning to walk without the conscious processing that I describe above. Yet, if we were conscious, I don’t think my description would be too far off base. It might include varying degrees of excitement and fear depending on our nature and our success rates. And of course, there are many other milestone achievements of which we partake as developing children that have a similar structure.

I submit that, to some extent, we retain our childlike approach to change and development throughout the life span. The differences however, include that 1) we are often more conscious and 2) we are often filled with judgment and fear, both of which, are founded on information we have collected over the years. That information not even need be accurate, but it still influences our decision making capabilities.

In application, this means that if I had to learn to walk today, I might say to myself “No, I’d rather not, because I don’t want to risk falling.” Or “I don’t think I’ll take up playing the piano because I don’t ever stick with things.”

Thinking about this topic reminds me of a quote I like very much:

A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because the trust is not on the branch, but on its wings. (author unknown).

Perhaps my argument is lost if your position is that you don’t trust your own wings. But even the most confident will at times lose faith in our selves. It is during those moments that we can trust that even our baby selves were once brave enough to take the risk towards change. We can know that sometimes we have to fall a bit to make progress and our boo boos and ouchies will heal. Wobbling is a sign of progress towards success rather than a prediction of our failure

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The baby in us has the desire for something more. It remains focused on the goal rather than the limitations. It is not necessary to recreate a state of unconsciousness to achieve this skill. Because we now have the ability as adults to exercise choice and reason, it is a matter of prioritizing the goal we want over indulging the fears, some of which are irrational, so that we might move towards the direction of our goals. We need not employ denial or ignorance, but rather the confidence that we are strong enough to tolerate the necessary wobbling and sometimes falling as a means to our achievement. And to consider that wobbling isn’t a sign of our failure, but is evidence of our willingness to grow.

The City of Lights

December 2, 2015A change in perspective, Go check this out, grief and loss, life lessons, Something to think aboutchange in perspective, disappointment, grief, life is so good, mindfulness, something to think about, spiritualityMary Young

The City of Lights

We are a couple of weeks past the tragic attacks on Paris. Hopefully, those affected more personally have begun the process of healing. The word process should be emphasized, because it is fact that and not as many expect, an event. Grief, like many other life circumstances ebbs and flows through many changes and takes time.

Paris is often referred to as the City of Lights. I would like to take liberty with that title by highlighting one of the stories I heard among those involved, because I believe they shine on the potential of a brighter existence for all of us.

Hélène Muyal-Leiris, left her husband of 12 years and their 17month old son, Melvil to attend a rock concert on Friday evening. Instead of returning to their lives, she along with 128 other innocent victims lost their life in the massacre. Upon learning the news, her husband Antoine offered the following powerful message to those responsible for his wife’s death:

“I will not give you the gift of hate.”

Leiris went on to interpret his understanding of the ignorance that leads to such violence, as well as, the limits of which, despite his grief, he will allow this to impact him and his son. When referring to his child’s future he added “He is only 17 months old, he will eat his afternoon tea as always and then we will go and play as always, and this little boy’s entire life will be an affront to you by being happy and free. For he will not hate you either.”

I am in awe of this truly remarkable posture. I often write about the accepting the freedom of personal choice in how we respond to what comes towards us in life. This example is one of the best examples I have seen of application. Leiris could choose to remain bitter, angry, devastated or immobilized by what has occurred. Who would judge him harshly for choosing any response? But instead, he opted to respect his grief, while also honoring the magnitude of love he felt for his wife. He achieved this by choosing not to tarnish his or his son’s love by being forced into other feelings dictated by the actions of others.

There won’t likely be follow up stories to let us know in 5 or 10 years of this man or his son succumbed to depression, drugs and alcohol or a life of crime of their own. But I have to hope that his gift of love will touch many people, who will in turn use it as motivation to choose in kind. I hope that his current posture emerges from a spirit within him that looks towards the good in the world and that as a result; he has surrounded himself with like- minded people who will continue to support him through the days and years which lie ahead.

I often hear people say they can’t choose their feelings. I’m not sure I agree. I believe that circumstances appear to us and then we create a story around those circumstances. How we build the story is predicated on our individual circumstances, both historically and in the present. Sometimes this information is in consciousness and sometimes not. But the story we tell is inevitably powerful, because it is the fuel that ignites our feelings. Thus, while we may not be conscious of choosing our story, we are nonetheless its author. Even if someone else originated the story, when we reinforce it by retelling it to ourselves, it becomes ours.

The good news is that all of our stories are subject to revision as we acquire new information. We don’t have to stop editing until we take our final breath. If you are not comfortable with the feelings generated by your plot lines, you have every right to change them. I hope you will choose those which allow you to shine at your brightest.

Dr. Mary Young

Helping people figure it out for over 20 years

All posts by Mary Young

Me too

Spoiler Alert

Up in flames

when the going gets tough

One plus one makes three

What’s Love got to do with it?

You can check out any time you like… but you can never leave (The Eagles, Hotel California)

Life’s a Pain

I will remember you

Beauty and The Beast

Freedom and modern day slavery

That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles

True Confessions

If The Shoe Fits

The young, the old and the truth

Enough is Enough

The circle of life

Be Extraordinary

Floating in a sea of insecurity

Life in the fishbowl

For Your Eyes Only

A Matter of Death and Life

It started with a penny and turned into a fortune of wealth

The Best Friend I Never Met

Chasing Rabbits

A Beautiful Monkey Mind

Forgetting to Remember

Happy Holidays

Let the Wobbling Begin

The City of Lights