Personal Journaling

For the wise, travel through one’s Life Journey is a continual process of learning and personal growth.  Regardless of our age and life history, there is always so much to learn about ourselves.   We can use various methods to evaluate how our personal choices are working for or against us.

If one is fortunate, they will make a personal retreat happen in their life.  This is a process where one retreats from his or her everyday environment for an extended period of time to a place that supports the process of introspection.  For many, this experience is enriched by the presence of a personal facilitator to add another human dimension and appropriate guidance when sought. 

Since a personal retreat is personal, there are many forms that it can take to allow a person to focus on who they are, where they have been or where they wish to go in the future.  There is no one ‘best’ form for this process of personal growth.

One of most valuable friends that I have found for myself on a personal retreat as well as for other periods in my Life Journey has been a personal journal.  This friend is where I communicate by writing and use other creative processes to record my feelings, thoughts and actions.  In this series, a friend is defined as someone with whom you can dare  to be yourself.

Like most friendships, each of us develops a personal style of mutual behaviors creating our journals to meet our individual needs.  There is no right or wrong way to produce one’s journal any more than there is to develop a friendship with another.  “To thy own self be true” is the goal I use for my journaling process.

There are many factors for each of us to consider when we decide to create and maintain a personal journal.  And, like other friendships, these factors are individual, personal and change over time as our relationship grows and matures.

Listed are some factors that each of us can consider as we decide what we want our journal friend to be.

1.  A journal is not the same as a diary or scrapbook, but can have many of the characteristics of both.  A journal usually has much more depth than these, but can include descriptions of events, people, memorabilia, etc.

2.  What goals does the individual wish for the journal to meet?  Being specific can be most helpful, even when these goals may change over time.

3.  What will be the frequency that one interacts with their journal?  Some people choose to interact daily, several times each day, every other day, or weekly, etc.   What length of time will one choose to spend with their journal to allow the relationship to become most effective?

4.  What form will one choose?  Will it all be written, or will it include art forms?  Using modern technology allows there be audio and/or video parts.   Will one style of writing be used or will it vary by mixing poetry with prose? 

5.  After one begins their journal, will one tend to stay with consistency in the format and content of their journals?   Will one be willing and maybe eager to experiment with their journal friendship by introducing new components?  It is sad that so many stay with a pattern with which they are familiar rather than experiment with ways which may provide more nurturance  and enrichment.

6.  As time passes, does one notice any changes in the degree of honesty and intimacy that one has with their journal?  If there are changes, what does that convey about your personal growth?

7.  At some point, almost everyone faces  the question of whether they wish to share a part of their journal with another person.   Depending on the personality type of the individual and the contents of the journal, this can be a very difficult choice for many.  Sharing one’s self with others at a deep personal level is a goal for some while keeping that part of self very personalized is the choice of others.

Hopefully compiling a journal can be one way to aid you in your personal Life Journey.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Me Responsible?

Most of us grow into adulthood and finally accept that we are the one who is responsible for our thoughts and behaviors.  Much of childhood and adolescence is spent in trying to be responsible for only the fun things in life and trying to displace the responsibility for any messes somewhere else.

Most people follow a path that says that when one leaves the chronological age of being a child or a youth, it is time to behave in an adult manner with ourselves and with other people. 

However, there are always some who believe that the goal of life is to accept personal responsibility for the positive happenings and find someone else to blame for the negative.  Unfortunately, immature attitudes like this can give living a bad name.

Becoming an adult by age or physical development does not guarantee that one reaches the adult level of emotional maturity.  Understanding this concept can help one interact more realistically with those who have not reached the emotional maturity of adulthood, whether by choice or by some other causation.

When one chooses to be an active listener to people who are looking outsides of themselves for the solutions to their problems or attempting to find someone to blame for their situations, it pays to be cautious with these people regardless of how eager one might be to offer assistance.

In counseling classes, one important foundation is offered early and frequently by instructors:  when listening to the life story of another person, it is wise to remember that the talker retains ownership of any situation or problem contained within. 

Unfortunately, people who want to help people often attempt to take over the problem and make it their own.  Almost no one learns how to solve a situation when someone else is there to relieve them of the stress, anxiety or other negative outcomes.

Yes, support though listening hospitality can be helpful for most people.  It does not involve being a preacher, judge, social worker, etc., to relieve the person of their own situations.  To be a mature adult, we are the ones who assume responsibility for our own thoughts, beliefs, feelings and behaviors.

A similar thought that can be helpful in listening to people tell their life stories without taking charge is to recall:  when I do what I have always done, I will get what I have always got. 

For many listeners there is the tendency to take the responsibility away from another by telling them how they can do something different if they expect a different result.  For the person telling his/her story, repeating the same behavior over and over is one way to displace any responsibility for negative outcomes outside of themselves. 

One of the sad realities of life is that many people do not want a different outcome because it does involve the work of doing something different.  Embracing change is a most difficult behavior for many.  Why do that IF one can find another person to take responsibility for my problem or do a repetitive and familiar behavior that does not alter my situation? 

Also, listeners would be wise to know that if their suggestions do not meet the outcomes expected by another, the blame will soon be back with the one who tried to be helpful.

Listening hospitality is a gift that we can offer to another person.  Like other gifts, it is given with no attachments or expectations.   Our responsibility is to be direct, honest, caring, etc. when we give the gift of listening.  It does not involve assuming responsibility for the burdens of another that may encourage them to return to the behaviors of childhood and/or adolescence where someone or something is responsible for what is happening in their world.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Being Versus Doing

When one enters the world of personal growth and development, there are two questions that possess great power for the individual and others with whom he/she chooses to interact.

1.  Who am I?

2.   Who are you?

The question of ‘who am I’ represents the structure that we choose to build on our personal foundation.  Studying ourselves gives us the answers to the unique and personal questions of who is the unique and special individual we are.

When we look at ourselves in great depth, we often find that many of us have structured our lives around the perception that our lives are basically a sense of being or around the perception of doing.

One of the basic choices we make is whether we wish to build our lives based on the foundation of seeing life as a gift.  We are entitled to this gift by being born and have only to receive it and use it for the time we live on this earth. 

This means that we are of value as humans just because we exist, not on anything that we do.  Of the two basic choices, this perception tends to be the most difficult for most humans to truly believe about themselves. 

It does not take long in our conversations for other people to see whether we value ourselves for being human, or whether we see our lives as only having value for doing the tasks, goals and accomplishments of our life journey.  One can choose to value him/herself only for what they DO rather than just being a human being.

If we listen to what we say to others about ourselves, we find that frequently the predominate talk is about our behavior, about what we have accomplished.  For some, just being alive is not enough to merit our own appreciation of self and certainly does not impress very many other people. 

For many in our society, it is only by doing tasks and meeting goals that they can find value in themselves.  These people find it difficult to retire without remaining ‘active’ even as they need to work at playing or rest from vacations.

The power to ask for the truth in how we value ourselves by asking ‘who am I’ can be just as powerful when we take the risks and ask a similar question to another: ‘who are you?’  We can see by another’s response how they have structured their lives to meet the demands of the society in which they live.  Or they can they take the value of just being human as the ultimate gift we each receive.   

Usually individuals are seeking to be heard and understood by others.  If one chooses to listen, people will tell you where they tend to fit on the BEING vs. DOING continuum.  If emotionally healthy, they may have found a way to balance the two views in our human 'gray zone' rather than black/white.

Like most aspects of studying personal growth, these two points are opposite ends of a continuum.   For those familiar with the bell-shape curve, we know that there are very few instances of one being at either extreme.  Most of us have the characteristics of both perceptions of being and doing.  We tend to be more comfortable living our lives with one trait more than another and our culture certainly gives most of its encouragement to those who DO.

With our question of ‘who am I?’ as a guideline, we can have a positive beginning of personal growth in learning more about ourselves.  With the ‘who are you?’ question, we open the foundation for mutual exchange of honest and intimate dialogue.

As always, the personal choices we make to manage our life growth are ours.

Comments welcome.     Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Giving Living A Bad Name

 How fortunate we all are to have this gift of life!!  Regardless of our personal beliefs on the source of this gift, the reality is that each of is given this gift with a diverse range of skills, talents, assets and liabilities. 

Since life is a gift freely given where we have only to receive it, the individual choices we make to manage this gift are our own unique way of demonstrating our personal values.  Many around us make similar and/or different choices from the ones we make.

Some of us will take this gift of life as a given; there is nothing special about being alive.  Some may even come to believe that we are entitled to be alive and just muddle through waiting for life to give us more treasure since we must have more to be a ‘winner’. 

Some may conclude that giving this gift to them, as an individual was some type of mistake.  They see nothing to be given or gained from making choices that could bring positive changes to their lives.  They see themselves as powerless and usually are lonely.  Keep putting one foot in front of another with painful endurance until the journey's end is reached is often this person’s only goal.

There are many, many ways that an individual can choose to make his/her gift of life into a negative experience.  This blog will focus on three of the most common that probably are easily recognizable in our society and are open to the choice of alternation.

One of the first behaviors that we tend to learn early in childhood is developing a case of “the shoulds”.  Our society mandates that there are certain thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are acceptable and must always be done if one wishes to be ‘normal’ and live with other people.

As a former teacher, I may have tended to take over where the parents left off with developing the value of living the ‘shoulds’.  I had the support of the person’s peer group, social organizations, churches, etc.  Most people knew what they should or should not be doing by the time they became adults and enter the labor force.  These adult groups will teach them any ‘shoulds’ they may have missed.

How much of our life is wasted trying to meet the expectations of the ‘shoulds’ that we place on ourselves and by others!   The biggest loss tends to be realization of our personal power to chose and re-decide our life patterns.

When I think of labeling behavior as an obstacle to appreciating the gift of life, I sometimes wonder if we live in some type of giant file drawer where we are categorized by the many, many labels that society has given us to wear.

After giving all the label of human and the gift of life, we are then sorted into the many categories that start with male and female.  We are then labeled by age, race, religion, income, nationality, height, weight, size and type of housing, education, intelligence, social ability, health, mode of transportation we use, family history, friends, cleanliness, orderliness, clothing, food choices, introvert/extrovert, technical aptitude, etc.   The list is endless but they all affect how we decide to manage our gift of life in both positive and negative ways.  We make these labels real and usually grow to believe that we cannot re-label ourselves or find new choices in which labels we wish to use during our Life Journey.

The third way that can tarnish the gift of life and give living a bad name is the process of blame.  There are many who decide early in life that whenever something goes wrong in their world, their first goal is to find someone or something to blame.

During my early days of teaching it seemed to me that we were encouraging and rewarding the behavior of having our students find and/or create some way to avoid responsibility for something that they might or might not have done.  I lost count of how many times I heard myself say “what is your excuse this time”?  It seemed that I was encouraging the students to find new ways to blame a situation on another or be creative in building an excuse which was unique and would allow the student to avoid accepting any responsibility for their behavior.

As an adult I hear my fellow adults carry out the results of this early training.  Parents blame their kids.  Kids blame their parents and almost any adult.  Employees blame their bosses.  Employers blame the poor behavior of employees.  Individuals blame the government.  Government blames citizen apathy.  Farmers blame the weather.  The poor blame the rich for having so much wealth while the rich blame the poor for not doing something to make money while they pay the taxes. 

As with any of these games to avoid taking responsibility for our own choices, we can easily play any of these three perspectives in deciding whether we want to maximize this wonderful gift of life.

With positive management we can decide we want to have life be a process of minimizing the mental games of shoulds, labeling and blaming.  Or, we can choose to utilize these negative perspectives and give our living a bad name.  As always, we can make any choice we wish.  What a wonderful gift for this Life Journey we have!

Comment welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

There Are No Trees At Sea

 One of the first things that a person is likely to notice while sailing on a ship is that the view of the sea is the same in every direction.

There are no guideposts to give us a sense of direction like there are while we are on land where we have signs, roads, mountains, trees, buildings, etc.  Since we live most of lives on land, most of us develop a dependency on these guideposts that society and common sense places on us to follow so that we do not 'get lost' using our social graces.

Therefore, most of us develop a dependency on external signs to give direction to our lives.   We depend on parents, friends, school, church, employers, media, etc. to assist us as we build an external-based life compass. 

Few make the effort to learn how to develop and live by a complementary individual internal compass.  Many do not know that developing an inner order is even possible.  We have few human models on how to build one.

As we develop our life compass, we produce ‘tapes’ where external guidelines become internalized with beliefs about self and our world.  We easily develop an internal image that is the same as the one developed for us by our outside world.

It is often said, “children are the world’s best recorders, but the world’s worst interpreters on what they hear.”  Children tend to take whatever they hear or see as being true without any process of testing the information for validation.  Most adults play these tapes of self-image learned as children and adolescents over and over without any effort to test and validate them.

I recall one time when our family went to Myrtle Beach, SC, where we visited the House of Mirrors.  Some mirrors gave the appearance of a person being very tall while others projected one being very short.  Other mirrors projected an image of one being very thin while another projected one being very fat.

 

Life is often like this.  The person in front of these mirrors was the same; only the mirror was different.  Yet, many choose to select an image that conforms to their own self-image based on what others have told them.  In a country which is obsessed with looks and images, it is easy to see how many people can develop negative physical views of themselves by depending on the images that others (mirrors) give to us regardless of their validity.

Developing an internal compass is a life-long process of receiving data from outside of one’s self and learning to listen closely to how it fits internally through validation processing.  Most of us start with ‘being at sea and accepting that there are no trees or other signs to help guide us’. 

We can develop our own internal compass through discovering, questioning, confronting, experimentation, research, observation, exploration, clarification, redefining, etc.  Personally, I believe that this emotional labor is far more difficult that any physical labor we may confront.  It can give us a valid reason to avoid the process of developing an internal compass, one that is comfortable with the sameness of having fewer external guidelines such as the sameness of the horizon at sea.

As with everything in our lives with the possible exception of the gift of life itself, we pay some type of price for all that we choose to do.  There are no freebies.  Yet, out external-focused life often teaches us the opposite.

Our desire to be ‘normal’ and live comfortably and safely with others is one of the major obstacles to developing an internal value and guidance compass for our life journey.  It takes lots of personal courage to look inward and challenge the basics we have been taught  to determine who and what we are by so many forces in our life.

For example:  we are confronted with the ‘myth of the good norm’ where we or someone we care about believes that there is only one way which is best for all to believe and behave.  Developing an internal compass asks us to confront this and other myths to determine whether they truly fit into our lives.  After all of the 'practice' we have in being 'normal', it sure can be difficult to see alternatives. 

We can learn that there is no one way for all, especially if we can avoid being too close to see, hear and value differences.  An example can be to challenge very prevalent perfectionist expectations in self and others.  With a great deal of work and effort, we can confront and challenge the guidelines that society gave to us as we grew up and choose a degree that works uniquely for our personal needs. 



Developing both an internal and external compass is positive mental health.
Yet, we know that changing from our excessive dependence on external guidelines for living is very difficult.   Psychologists will tell us that most of us will avoid change at almost any price until the psychic pain we are paying for the status quo becomes so strong that we are finally willing to take the risks that come with change.

We as adults, regardless of our age, now have the choice of whether we wish to begin our own personal and unique internal compass development for whatever remains of our life journey.   Just like being at sea with no trees or guidelines, we are free to go in whatever direction(s) we wish.

Yes, there will be many prices to be paid for making these internal-compass choices.   Only each of us as individuals can decide IF it is worth the prices we are asked to pay to ourselves and others.

Comment Welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Being True To Self

If one has had the chance to study classical literature, they have probably come across the line that underlies much of our personal growth process:  To thine own self, be true.

By the time we have become adults, many aspects of our culture have indoctrinated us to their expectations of what is good and bad or what is normal or abnormal.  Our society has worked diligently to teach how we are to fit well with those around us.

Sometimes this process is so successful that our own true self may disappear.  We can become a collection of what others have told us to value and how we should behave so that we are liked.  It does not take a bright child very long before he/she knows the high value our society places on being liked.

It seems fairly obvious that I can love others only to the extent that I can love myself.  As a social creature I shall work on loving others to meet my basic needs of belonging with someone or some group.  However, until I acquire a positive and healthy love of myself as I truly am, this effort to share love with another becomes difficult to accomplish.

One way that I can love myself is to be honest in choosing which expectations from myself and other people I wish to honor; we always have a choice.  Many times throughout the year we are called to meet the needs of others while being dishonest on what we need to live a full and healthy life.  The many holiday periods are certainly some of the times we experience this type of stress and encouragement to be less than honest in acknowledging our needs in of our dealings with others.

Another way of being true with ourselves is the value system process we choose to bring persons into our personal friendship circle.  There is a saying that conveys to others and us how we see ourselves:  “show me an individual’s friends and the person I shall know”.

Friends are our family of choice; we honor ourselves when we select certain individuals to be our friends.  For these relationships to allow mutual love to exist, each needs to be true to themselves before they can offer love to another person.  Realistically, we cannot offer what we do not have.

Another indicator of an individual who is caring about self and being true to his/her self-image is when they strive to create win-win situations with others.  A “win-win” interaction with others allows me to feel true to myself and the other person.

What I choose to believe about others and myself tends to form the reality in which I live.  If I can truly know who I am and love me with total acceptance of my various traits, then I am in a position to honor myself.  I am being true to myself.

If I am seeking ‘answers’ in my Life Journey, I am more able to find these answers inside of myself if I have been true to the unique person that I am.  Without this truth to self, I am more susceptible to finding unhealthy outcomes in my decision-making.

While always a continual challenge, this effort to know and honor thy self in a truthful manner remains a foundation of the personal growth process.

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Foundations

Our world is full of foundations.  Our buildings have them.  Our economic and spiritual belief/value systems have them.   Our personal foundations determine what type of life we build upon them.

In the world of personal growth, I have found that certain foundational beliefs tend to be most beneficial for us to develop healthy guidelines as we travel our Life Journey. 

Among the ones I consider most important are:

** Different strokes for different folks (an inscription that my heirs have indicated they will place on my tombstone).

**  Life never promised to be fair, logical, rational, etc.

**  People make decisions and behave to meet their needs, not mine.  They basically do what they want to do, not what I want them to do.

While these three guidelines seem understandable and even agreeable by most people in our world, being able to actually implement them into active roles in our lives frequently brings anxiety, stress, depression, etc.  Many have a very difficult time internalizing these guidelines so that they actually do guide our own emotions and behaviors.

For example, we are surrounded each day by people who are different in some significant way from our own view of life and behavior.   Yes, we tend to be attracted to people who we perceive as similar to us in the important aspects of our lives, but common sense tells us that even these people are different from us in important ways.  

While this concept is logical and rational to most, counselors are constantly talking to people who want to “judge” the differences of others and frequently make them into right or wrong.  It seems difficult to fully accept that people see, feel and believe differently from us for reasons that are valid in their own perceptions.

This tendency to structure anothers foundation into absolute right and wrong usually leads to conflict and frustration with other people.  This same behavioral trait is often found in people who frequently believe that our world and the people in it should be structured to be fair, logical, rational, etc.  

From our birth until death, there is, and never has been, any contract with life that promises to be fair or anything else.   Basically, life is a gift that we receive at birth, make personal decisions to manage this gift for a period of time and then we die from earthly existence.

In spite of these struggles, the most difficult one for most people to actually internalize seems to be that people behave for their own needs and do what that they choose to do with their gift of life.  Life can be content and happy when we build win-win situations, but life never promised that anyone would evolve past the basic needs that we are born with: focus on the needs of self.

Fortunately we have civilization and socialization processes to help so that we can live together in peace, manage conflicts, give and receive love, etc.  However, the basic focus of choosing what to do with our gift of life remains the basic foundation of our personal life journey.

Comments welcome.     Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com