Gratitude Amidst Living with Coronavirus Pandemic in NYC - Part IV

Gratitude Amidst Daily Challenges of

Living with the Coronavirus Pandemic

in the Greater New York City Area – Part IV

Revival of religious principles and renaissance in faith communities undoubtedly will put snake oil salespersons out of business. Since 1970, the “Gospel of Wealth and Health” commandeered the expression of Christianity in America. Preying upon the weariness of poverty that plagued the rank and file of persons who weekly filled the pews in churches, this commercialization of Christ’s message declared an end to their misery. Its proponents who occupy the upper echelon of celebrity ministers told listeners that God desired nothing more than their immediate and undeniable prosperity as evidenced in financial and material acquisition and perfect physical health. Through books and other media, these religious salespeople sold formulas for success, wealth, and health. The manifestation of these promises relied upon large monetary gifts to their parachurch organizations that stealthily and shrewdly utilized tax laws to maximize receipts and bolster their ornate lifestyles. The last half of a century witnessed a proliferation of these ministers and organizations. We have every conceivable racial, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, national, and creedal iteration of prosperity preachers. Despite intractable poverty in developing countries, clergypersons rank amongst the wealthiest persons. Not surprisingly, these rogue ministers have a divine message relating to the coronavirus as they did for Hurricanes Katrina and Maria and “September 11^th”. One can only hope and pray that the effects of the current challenge will sink so deeply within the minds, hearts and beings of everyday people that they will demand more from local pastors and discard the shady, morally questionable and unprincipled teachings of snake oil clergypersons whose main motive is a lifestyle that they could not earn in the free market.

Incidentally, clergypersons are not the only snake oil salespersons taking advantage of vulnerable citizens. The mixed, confusing, and contradictory messages from health professionals through the coronavirus briefings compels us to question their motives, objectives, and purpose. Some of them appear to acquiescence the revolting political schemes of the Trump Administration. Others have perfected verbal dodge ball as they attempt to relay the best science standing in a field of political land mines. Yet, other scientists waffle between the interests of business, research, politics, and future government funding. Mental health professionals, hopefully, are preparing for the onslaught of immeasurable depression, survivor’s guilt, bereavement, and post-traumatic stress that will emerge from the experiences of millions of Americans. Treatment will provide a chance to empower average people with intrapsychic tools to achieve self-determination in resolving their challenges. As with the prosperity preachers, the $10 billion self-help industry encompasses magic formulas, luxurious conferences, and multimedia commodities. To counterbalance this crass profiteering from people’s pain, psychoanalytic and mental health professionals must reinforce standards, training, and ethics. Additionally, the palatable fear in which many people will live following this healthcare threat will create openings for financial, pharmaceutical, insurance, real estate, investment, and telemarketing scandals.

I have another hope and measure of gratitude for egalitarian advancement in education. In my opinion, the establishment of public libraries throughout the nation remains one of the greatest components of Carnegie’s legacy. Between 1883 and 1929, his philanthropy built 2500 libraries. This gift gave average, anonymous but gifted persons who lingered in poverty one passageway of self-improvement. As one who relished trips to the public library in my childhood, I appreciate the incalculable worth of any attempt to extend education to common people. It is an American priority to eliminate the digital divide from the Bronx to Appalachia to Southside Chicago to Inglewood California. As we do so, we should encourage the completion of the Google digitization project which includes the entire collections of the libraries at University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. This can be done solely through the open market and without need of any public funds. Amazon offers subscribers access to fifty million songs for a minimal monthly fee. There are multiple options for movies and videos. The Google project would offer common people access to scholarly libraries and collections exceeding ten million volumes. Anyone with the discipline to educate himself or herself would be able to learn the latest research on any subject. Amazing! Trips to the library and access to scholarly material will be as instant as turning on the laptop or tablet. Simply amazing!

I recall the days of S & H Green Stamps which you received at the end of grocery shopping in the 1970s. Were you disciplined enough, you would fill books of these stamps and redeem them for toasters, mixers and other appliances.  Also, the Sears Roebuck and JC Penney mail order catalogs were state-of-the art technological advancements in shopping. Receiving clothing that fit via the postal mail seemed as if it were a giant leap for humankind. Imagine adding to your wardrobe without leaving your home. What we contemporarily experience with Amazon seemed futuristic and for The Jetsons. My reminiscences yield gratitude for advancements in e-commerce which will lower prices, increase jobs, and require new standards for success and profitability. Traditional laissez faire economics employing Adam Smith’s principles demands competition for Amazon. Monopolies lower the value of common people’s incomes and spending power. When retail brick and mortar stores reopen, they must prioritize good and respectful customer service. Consumers will no longer tolerate rude, disrespectful, and unknowledgeable salespersons. They can purchase online instead. People who live on the bottom economic rungs can advocate for themselves with their wallets. They can demand respect, fair prices, and input into the market. Imagine the control that Black people can exert over television, film, and social media depictions of them in the post coronavirus world. Their patronage will send a clear and direct message to Hollywood and other relevant industries. Personally, I do not watch or buy any “Blaxploitation” shows or films. I am not a Sambo or minstrel and will not further these demeaning stereotypes.

Politically, common people can use the power of the purse and wallet to combat businesses that fund political action committees that further White supremacy, imperialistic international policies, unjust and expensive wars, misogyny, corporate welfare, and other iterations of xenophobia. Recall the threat of a potato boycott of the State of Idaho in 1990 and the multiple company boycott of the State of North Carolina for its discriminatory gender and sexuality laws in 2017. Whether women of color whom the fashion industry takes for granted or children of color who still struggle to find toys that affirm them or professional athletes of color who insist “Black Lives Matter,” average people possess more power than they realize.  Indeed, “it is all about the Benjamins.” Given the incontrovertible disparity relating to infections and deaths amongst Blacks and poor Americans, these vulnerable citizens must respond to this virus with an intensity to reorder society and allocation of resources. Rather than begging politicians, media executives, businesspeople, bankers and manufacturers, marginalized people have tremendous power in multiplying and directing their money and purchases. Economic self-determination necessitates expanding entrepreneurship in localized communities. Community activists, social justice advocates, public officials and clergypersons have an obligation to empower their followers to awaken this sleeping giant.

Gratitude Amidst Living with Coronavirus Pandemic in NYC - Part V - Conclusion

Gratitude Amidst Daily Challenges of

Living with the Coronavirus Pandemic

in the Greater New York City Area – Part V – Conclusion

Consumers will demand greater cleanliness in all eating venues. Restaurants with dirty restrooms will not last. Bars and clubs with sticky and smelly floors will not remain open. Any eating places that fail health department inspections will soon close. Moreover, if a restaurant receives a grade lower than a “B,” it will soon be out of business. Coronavirus has unimaginably and irreversibly educated the public on infectious diseases. A corollary benefit to the market driven insistence upon cleanliness and sterilization of food places will be expansion of small private cleaning businesses specializing in restaurants, bars, clubs, catering halls and types of food venues.

If marginalized people organize themselves to combat racial, cultural, and ethnic pigeonholes in athletics, entertainment, mass media and Hollywood, they can accomplish the same in banking and the automobile industries. Predatory lending, usurious interest rates, discrimination in extending and categorizing credit and redlining as it relates to mortgages and rental rates financially cripple communities of color. Despite the Federal Reserve Bank lowering rates in this crisis to stabilize markets, banks have not passed along these savings to average consumers. Common people need debt relief. Marginalized communities cannot build wealth without any liquid or expendable income. How can they get ahead if housing costs (rent or mortgage) consume sixty percent of their monthly net pay? When you add utilities, automobile expenses (car note, gasoline, maintenance, and insurance) and groceries, what is left? Rising healthcare costs erode their gross salaries. Still, rather than complaining about these economic injustices, poor and disenfranchised people, individually and collectively, can direct their spending, saving and business to compel the banking class to end these oppressive practices.

The coronavirus clarifies the necessity of electing persons who possess the education, knowledge, personality, experience, and competence to govern. Leadership abilities and skills must be a requirement regardless party affiliation or ideological positions. Whether left, center or right, a person must possess the wherewithal to resolve the aftermaths of natural disasters, prevent a burgeoning pandemic, halt an economic crisis, stabilize markets, punish players in financial scandals, bolster economies, allocate tax dollars as investments rather than handouts, expand rights of all citizens, specifically marginalized persons, encourage better social relations and portray confidence when the public is justly frightened.  The incompetence of the Trump Administration and several governors compounds the threat of the coronavirus. Undoubtedly, their failures resulted in preventable infections and deaths. One of the Southern governors incredulously stated at a press conference that he had learned of the potential of social distancing to curtail the spread of the virus within the last twenty-four hours. He made this profoundly ignorant comment after a quarter of a million infections and nearly ten thousand deaths. The states of New York, California, Washington, and Illinois had already declared stay-at-home orders. Additionally, New York City had become the international epicenter of the pandemic. Given the myriad issues that I address above, marginalized, vulnerable and disenfranchised citizens must use the political process to advocate for themselves. They must demand genuine public servants who understand the privilege of holding office requires care and compassion for all citizens. Regrettably, until the United States Supreme Court reverses its 21 January 2010 decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (558 US 310), the disproportionate power and influence of the monied class will determine outcomes in American politics. Average people have their votes and the small yet significant contributions in the millions with which to combat the burgeoning American oligarchy.

I conclude with a recitation of my gratitude for the countless and anonymous health professionals, first responders, grocery store employees, pharmacy store workers, food delivery people, postal workers and their nuclear and extended families who assume tremendous risk each day enrich our lives during this pandemic.  Also, I think of the local, state, and federal government employees who labor in the shadows and burn the midnight oil to allow millions of American households to maintain a semblance of equilibrium. A pandemic exposes the absolute best in some people. For the thousands of our fellow citizens who teach us what duty, sacrifice and patriotism really mean, I am wholeheartedly grateful. Equally, I appreciate the opportunities that this regrettable crisis affords us to create a more just and equal society. We have three decades to prepare our nation for major shifts in world population and subsequent changes in the international economy, trade, competition, and geopolitical dynamics. Resolving systemic inequalities of healthcare, education, housing, hunger, employment, technology, transportation, criminal justice, and other human and infrastructure needs is the surest way to prepare future leaders and workers. The electorate should insist upon strategic and smart planning from political and governmental leaders. Candidates for the United States House of Representatives and Senate should reveal their plans for bipartisan collaboration to achieve American preparedness for mid-century demographical, market and diplomatic challenges. Continual systematic indifference to large swarths of citizens will undermine the country’s ability to thrive.

Living in the valley of the shadow of death as a nation offers us a unique chance to demolish historical racial and ethnic myths, invest in educating and equipping people, correct past injustices, recalibrate upon democratic ideals and principles, direct markets toward fundamental fairness and legislate to expand personal freedom and opportunity. I am thankful that our market driven responses to the pandemic will induce some of these changes. I expect we will enjoy a better life which values people instead of financial and material prosperity. If we harness the positive attitudes that I observe in the grocery store and on long walks every two days, we will experience growing relationships with potential to normalize human dignity for all persons. Whereas I truly hoped that this pandemic would not have landed on our shores, it offers a contradiction which is an opportunity to heal myriad ills that plagued our society long before we learned of coronavirus. In this deep darkest, I am grateful for the possibility of holistic healing in our society.

Fifth Pathway - Persistently Looking Inward - Part I

Fifth Pathway – Persistently Looking Inward

Self-reflection is an especially important pathway to healing.  I contend countless people do not heal from past pain because they do not examine their personal backgrounds and learn from them.  It is easier to ignore these lessons.  Retreating to bitterness and resentment appear more empowering than reflecting on situations that fuel those emotions.  It seems weak to consider how you might grow because of those difficulties.  People who refuse to forgive their victimizers nurse toxic feelings believing they retain the upper hand.  Instead, those lethal emotions poison the people who nurse them.  Rather than remaining in the vicious cycle of pain, depression and anger, you can embrace self-reflection as a means of healing.

A friend of mine who is a psychoanalyst had an amazing quote sketched onto the wall of her office.  “The inward journey is the only one worth taking.”  She offers these encouraging words to her clients to motivate them to dig deeply within themselves until they achieve serene self-acceptance.  Looking honestly and persistently at yourself is ridiculously hard work.  From time to time, it becomes discouraging as it appears extraordinarily little progress has been made.  It seems easier to simply terminate, walk away and resolve to react to whatever happens.  It is particularly disheartening when the past blindsides you.  Periodically, your current circumstances enflame the embers of anger, fear and resentment thus plunging you back into the abyss of bewilderment, toxicity and hopelessness.  Still, persistence pays incalculable dividends as anyone who endures the utterly painstaking process of digging within the rubble and ruins of past pain and trauma.  Utilizing biblical imagery, it is worth traveling through “the valley of the shadow of death.”  Thorough self-examination is a reliable pathway to healing.

Alan Alda speaks of the necessity of time in the “intuitive wilderness” where a person genuinely learns who he or she is.  That self-knowledge in turns yields serene self-acceptance.  That ideal is attainable if individuals embrace this process.  Alda specifically says, “Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself.”  He encourages us to discard old ways of thinking.  Businesses fail because owners refuse to change and adapt to shifting market trends.  Basically, “think outside of the box.”  Wipe the canvass of your life clean.  Be willing to make bold and creative edits to the script of your life with God’s guidance.  Open the dream files stored in your mind and heart.  Dust off the latent and even lofty ambitions of your youth that time, monotony, fear and aimlessness have corroded.  Healing and miracles are divine creative processes which require your desire and cooperation.  To live creatively, you must be bold and imaginative.  Are you willing to entertain the smidgen of possibility that your dreams could come true?  Will you pause for a moment and visualize the prospect of living the life your envisioned in your childhood innocence?  Imagine that you can live happily ever after in perfect, gracious and divine self-expression. 

Reminiscent of the space explorers of the Star Trek Enterprise, persons who discover creative space land “where no one else has ever been.”  Creativity demands fearlessness.  Personally, I err on the side of right-brain, Western, logical and linear thinking and approaches to life.  I am not the type of person who gets in the driver’s seat without previously researching my route or activating Google maps.  I must know where I am going!  Preferring efficiency of time and gasoline, I am not content to travel aimlessly until I reach my destination.  Internally and sometimes externally, I holler if I am lost.  With free and readily available GPS software and smart phones, there is no reason for any mistakes in traveling directly to any destination.  A wrong turn infuriates me.  However, zigzagging is very necessary when traversing internal terrain of self-discovery, self-expression and self-acceptance.  Detours and wrong turns are par for the course.  Rarely is someone able to travel directly to this sacred and serene space.  Trial and error are necessary fuel.  Like Edison’s one thousand failures in an engineering lab and Lincoln’s perpetual defeats in pursuit of political office, a person encounters rough terrain and unexpected obstacles as he or she seeks to become the person whom Almighty God created him or her to be.

Alda next insists you should leave “the city of your comfort.”  Unchallenged childhood and formative trauma ironically become normal.  It is easy to romanticize it.  Unwilling to embrace the depth of pain and innumerable feelings of hurt, victims make excuses for their “well-intentioned” victimizers.  Using literary techniques of American folklore, people turn the horror of their personal experiences into Horatio Alger myths.  “It really wasn’t that bad.  After all, I made it through and lived to tell the story.”  Practically and intra-psychically speaking, some people make peace with their past pathology.  Regrettably, they surrender to fear, anger, resentment and other poisonous attributes.  On an unconscious level, they make decisions regarding love, work and other important relationships from this unfortunate and ineffective space.  Captive to erroneous voices of the past that insist he must externally affirm his inward desires and ambitions, a talented, intellectual and driven man allows family members, colleagues and friends to talk him into entering a profession for which he was not suited.  The man experienced two major “failures” within that profession before finally exiting it.  Had he listened to his inner voice as God was guiding him, this man would have trusted himself thereby sparring himself the waste of fourteen years of his professional life.  Resulting from his poor decision to defer to other people and deeply embedded fear, this man spent twenty-five years in anger, fear, resentment, bitterness and cynicism.  His inability to live in harmony and collegiality with other people stems from his formidable inner anger at himself for surrendering to fear and people-pleasing.  The unacceptable fear that paralyzed him became acceptable.  He began to live comfortably with it.  Living with fear, anger and other venomous emotions as normal receded into the background of his “city of comfort.”  To change fundamentally and achieve inner healing and wholeness, this man needs a wholesale paradigm shift in his daily outlook.  It is as if he became comfortable living in “the valley of the shadow of death.” 

Healing requires this man to strip himself of all assumptions and establish a “new normal.”   Leaving his “city of comfort” necessitates openness to transforming every aspect of his life.  What if this man were to ask for God’s help in transitioning to the job of his dreams?  Finally, he would listen to himself and do what he always desired in his heart of hearts.  Perhaps, he attains a greater sense of self-acceptance which empowers him to live peacefully with other people.  Conceivably, he discards character defects (procrastination, debt, failure to forgive, self-righteous indignation, etc.) that compound his pathology.

Fifth Pathway - Persistently Looking Inward - Part II

Fifth Pathway – Persistently Looking Inward – Part II

Persistently looking inward demands a major pilgrimage and subsequent annual or biannual trips to a most holy space, “the wilderness of your intuition.”  This existential space requires a person to divest himself or herself of his or her material and intangible riches.  Formal education and multiple degrees lose their significance.  Titles preceding your name and letters following your name are meaningless in this wilderness.  Occasions to wear formal attire and attend events at the top of the social registry evaporate.  Finances decrease and tighten.  Each dollar counts.  Cutting expenses proves insufficient to combat overspending and living above your means.  Fearing your horrific circumstances are contagious like infectious diseases; coworkers and friends call less frequently.  They fear your plague will attack them.  Essentially, in the intuitive wilderness, you find yourself completely naked: mentally, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.  Your willingness to erase the canvass of your life and stare honestly at a blank plank graces you with divine gifts of discernment and acceptance.  Listening to God is equally important.  The wilderness is a perfect setting in which to hear Him and your inner voice.  The distractions of well-meaning relatives and friends and noises of daily busyness cannot impede your internal journey. In the darkness, mystery, scariness and isolation of the wilderness, a person clearly sees himself or herself.  The main discovery of the intuitive wilderness is your heretofore “Undiscovered Self,” your unquestioned divinely given and gifted uniqueness.  In a moment of epiphany, you realize the singular and special life which your Creator means for you that past conformity to social expectations nullified.  You cease to be someone others want you to be.  You stop pleasing other people and grasp the incalculable worth of your uniqueness.  Simply stated, you unconditionally accept yourself as God does.  Self-acceptance is the pathway to acquiring your true “Self.”  Carl Jung describes this process as “Individuation.”  Open-mindedness, honesty, humility and willingness are the main prerequisites to embarking upon the lifelong process of ever-increasing self-acceptance and self-knowledge.  Without time in the intuitive wilderness where you are separated from urbane comforts of modern utilities, effortlessly efficient creature comforts, lavish artistic choices, myriad shopping conveniences and millions of other self-indulgences, a person cannot know his or her authentic “Self.”

The standard business practice of taking a quarterly inventory suggest practical means of achieving individuation.  It is helpful periodically to determine your assets and liabilities.  Numerous theorists recommend a person’s energy is better spent on strengthening his or her assets instead of compensating for personal weaknesses.  Failure to listen to the inner voice quite possibly explains formation and proliferation of weaknesses.  As a person invests substantially in self-discovery, he or she undoubtedly acquires greater self-awareness.  Constant vigilance about his or her interior life is a means of striving for self-expression and self-acceptance.

Alda insists that you cannot arrive in the intuitive wilderness by bus.  This is not an easy trip.  Mechanisms of modern technology and media of transportation cannot lessen the necessity of struggle and adversity in this inward journey.  “Hard work, risk and not quite knowing what you are doing.”  To discover who you are necessitates total deconstruction of the façade you built prior to your arrival.  Probably, a catastrophe propelled your motivation to travel there.  Fundamentally life-altering experiences such as termination, divorce, bereavement or a major health crisis are usual factors.  Colossal loss and isolation compel you to examine your life.  Jung proffers the concept of “the midlife crisis” wherein a person can no longer distract himself or herself with busyness in work or duty in marriage and family relationships.  The loss of a job creates space for consideration of how you exactly wish to spend time, abilities and energy that you allocate to work.  Beyond yielding an income, is your work rewarding?  In an ideal setting, would you commit seventy hours of time inclusive of commuting, twelve-hour shifts and immeasurable mental energy to the job that you lost?  If not, what should you be doing?   Additionally, you may ask, “Have I contributed anything meaningful to the betterment of humankind?”  Regarding relationships, at midlife, a person cannot deceive himself or herself about whether he or she is or has ever been happy?  If a person cannot answer in the affirmative, then his or her psyche compels clarification and rigorous honesty.  The reality of having fewer days in front of you than behind you forces you to define how you wish to spend the remaining years of grace. 

Your hard work also includes cessation of external validation.  Many people erroneously look to others to give them something that they can only find within themselves.  Titles, degrees, feature articles, social media followings and other indicators of external success are meaningless within the intuitive wilderness.  There, a person must look as deeply within as possible.  Who are you?  Risk, ask and answer the question.  I surmise many people fear they will not respond with anything concrete upon which they can live.  I think of the third servant in The Parable of the Talents whose fear made him bury his talent lest he be a failure.  Ironically, this man preferred to succeed perfectly in accomplishing nothing rather risk; make obligatory and human mistakes; and then succeed following several hard lessons.  With a deconstructed veneer, you erase the canvass of your life.  As your past is perfectly inalterable, your memories are indelible.  It is time to paint a new canvass with exciting colors, hues and brushstrokes of unimaginable joys, mysteries and experiences.  If you linger in past pain, anger, fear and failure, you cannot appreciate the new vistas which a sustained period in the intuitive wilderness reveals.  Begin with gratitude for today and any positive changes that may evolve in your life.  Your solitude affords blessings in discernment.  You remove the herculean burden of adhering to societal norms and people’s expectations.  You ask God to take away the character defect of pleasing other people.  You pray for grace to know and accept yourself.  You seek self-knowledge which eventuates in perfect self-expression. To achieve this invaluable milestone in self-acceptance, you dissolve previous assumptions and misconceptions.

Alda adds the necessity of admitting willingly that you may not know what to do.  Humility and lack of knowledge create a teachable person. It is amazing what we can learn when we honestly admit that we do not know anything.  Whether a new language, musical instrument, math, science, technology or a trade; a clean canvass of an open mind enables you to learn from a master teacher.  As you do not know anything about the subject, you will not judge the information, process or person transmitting it.  Honesty and humility create expectancy and excitement.  It positions a student to build a solid mental, methodological and mechanical foundation in a new subject.  Practically, your willingness to listen earns points with the teacher as he or she passionately shares “tricks of the trade” in addition to generally accepted principles and procedures.  As I write, I recall learning to drive.  My late beloved paternal grandfather assumed the burden of teaching me.  With each attempt to demonstrate a different aspect of driving, my grandfather experienced frustration as I rudely stated, “I know.”  The tenth time became his breaking point.  “Look son, you keep saying ‘I know’ every time I show you something.  But it appears that you do not know as much about driving as you think.  Because people who know as much as you do already have a license.  You don’t have one.  So, you don’t know as much as you think you know.”  His thoroughgoing rebuke humbled me and allowed my grandfather to share his knowledge with me.  If you are unsure what to do as you find yourself in the wilderness of intuition, then you are ready for the ultimate blessing.  Allow Almighty God to instruct you.  Humility is the only requirement.

Fifth Pathway - Persistently Looking Inward - Part III

Fifth Pathway – Persistently Looking Inward – Part III

Your honesty and humility generate an open mind which equates with a blank canvass upon which God can paint a new story for your life.  A genuinely open mind affords an opportunity to reconsider old and erroneous assumptions.  Perhaps, your time in the intuitive wilderness will resemble a Damascus Road experience.  Like Paul, you may have held unrelenting conviction that you were doing the will of God as you misguidedly persecuted people of good faith.  Alone without any distractions and interruptions, you see clearly that your self-righteous actions conflict with God’s love, grace and mercy.  You discard your previous concept of God.  You exchange your idolatrous paradigm for a relationship with a holy personality.  This new insight upon God produces even greater insight into your unique identity.  If you are willing to let go of old ideas and misconceptions, you will be born again.  You will discover your exact mission and purpose.  God needs the solitude of the intuitive wilderness to deposit this revelation within you.  Resist the arrogance and fear of my driving lessons.  Be teachable and let God assist you in editing the script of your life in accordance with His divinely designed journey for your life.

Alan Alda completes his powerful quote with an equally formidable promise.  “What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself.”  God gives life to each of us as a unique gift.  We are equally unique as recipients of this incomparable and incalculable gift.  What a waste of life when we spend it trying to be someone whom we are not.  It is also regrettable when we squander time, talent and other resources preoccupying ourselves in activities that conflict with our mission and purpose.  To avoid these pitfalls in life, we must know who we are.  The intuitive wilderness graces us with a clear and unequivocal picture of who we are as children of God.  In adherence to cultural norms within faith communities, we indirectly conspire to deprive ourselves of God’s gift of a unique existence.  Carl Jung’s epoch-making book, The Undiscovered Self, posits a unique character created by God exists within each person.  Discovery of our inimitable and authentic self occurs when we differentiate from parents, siblings, extended relatives, neighbors, friends and coworkers.  We find ourselves when we no longer seek external validation.  In a sense, who we really are remains veiled from us until we embark upon the inward journey.  Until we begin that process, we live as public personae projecting an image and veneer to others.  We linger in aimlessness about mission and purpose in life.  We live on autopilot as we think, feel, act and react to the unconscious messages that people in our formative communities deposited within us.  Our genuine talents, abilities, interests and endowments are held within a vault of conformity and monotony.  When God graciously leads us to the intuitive wilderness, He blesses us with the incredible and inexpressible gift of discerning who we are! 

The recovery community offers practical means of self-discernment.  They prioritize the necessary of completing an inventory of one’s self.  Modelled after standard business operations, a person looks inwardly to determine assets and liabilities.  Any business that fails to examine periodically its credits and debits risks bankruptcy.  Does spending exceed receipt of revenues?  If yes, what accounts for their imbalance?  What corrections are necessary?  Likewise, a person evaluates his or her attributes to see if weaknesses outnumber strengths?  Are there unhealthy patterns?  What are their origins?  Why do they continue?  Can a person eliminate character defects?  Can he or she strengthen assets?  As an individual engages this arduous process of looking intently within himself or herself, he or she finds the contours of his or her authentic and unique character. 

A personal inventory is a treasure hunt.  It is not merely a matter of internal housecleaning.  That imagery connotes the weekly task of vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, washing and polishing.  It ends with discarding trash, dust and dirt.  Looking intently inward exposes past trauma.  Assuredly, you need to resolve the lingering effects of childhood and formative pain; otherwise it unconsciously dictates your thinking, feeling and choices.  I recall a fellow graduate student whose father left her family when she was sixteen years old.  A self-absorbed adolescent at the time, she was unable to separate her father’s love and consideration for her from the dissolution of his relationship with his wife, her mother.  This former classmate personalized her father’s departure.  She concluded he abandoned her.  Regrettably, she failed to analyze the facts and feelings of her experience and pain.  As a physical adult, she remains an emotionally immature and underdeveloped adolescent who believes the world owes her special allowances.  She has been unable to establish an emotionally healthy relationship with either of her parents.  More regrettably, she has been equally incapable of remaining in any relationships beyond two or three years.  When circumstantially forced to examine herself and make changes to improve any relationship, she bolts and begins another one.  Her incapacities have left emotional damage and relational wreckage in five failed marriages.  Had this woman looked further into her pain and sought holistic healing, she would have found internal treasures to assist her in acquiring self-love, self-acceptance and the ability to love someone else.  She would have found riches in the rubble.  Her most painful experience held underneath the surface the inner treasure to heal from her pain and progress toward a life filled with love, health, wealth and perfect self-expression.  This woman lamentably made fear larger than life and recoiled from searching within herself.

Beyond talents and gifts that yield financial and material acquisition, this inventory discloses latent spiritual attributes.  A personal inventory reveals characteristics that enables a person to give and receive eternal and enduring riches of life: love, truth, justice, mercy and peace.  This process of self-evaluation unearths your mission and purpose.  There are tasks God assigns to you that you and you alone must accomplish.  No one else can fulfill your unique assignment.  In contrast with the negative messages you heard in your formative years, you have divinely given gifts within you.  A component of knowing who you are and achieving unconditional self-acceptance is recognizing these gifts.  They reflect your incalculable and inherent worth as a child of God and member of the human family.  If you embrace the painstaking process of looking into the mirror, you find this wonderful person.  Once you accept yourself and steadily begin to extricate yourself from the thoughts and assessments of other people who wrongly assumed the right to tell you who you are; you increasingly enjoy your unique life.  Persistently looking inward is a pathway to healing because it reliably reveals your character instead of focusing upon your childhood trauma.

An inventory seeks balance in accounting.  Readily, we glance at positive attributes and assets.  We, however, must grapple with liabilities.  Self-righteousness cloaks defects of character that impede spiritual progress and personal development.  Recall the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son.  He stays home and seethes silently with righteous indignation and resentment as he detests his father’s indifference to his hard work, duty, obedience and religiosity.  The elder brother expresses contempt for his father and younger brother.  Their father loves both sons equally and unconditionally.  Upon the return of his wayward younger son, the father joyously and spontaneously holds a feast to express his heart’s oceanic gratitude.  He celebrates his son’s resurrection from spiritual death.  In stark contrast, the elder brother derides his father for rewarding a son who squandered the family wealth with “prostitutes and riotous living.”  The specificity of the older brother’s condemnation possibly hints toward hidden sinful desires that he suppresses with religion and self-righteousness.  He remained on the family farm and did not enjoy any of the excesses of which he accuses his younger brother.  The elder brother describes himself as a slave whom the father did not deem worthy of a delicious meal of curry goat yet alone filet mignon or veal.  We suppose the elder brother held bitter contempt in his heart for his father and brother.  The elder brother symbolizes the danger of ignoring liabilities of character.  To respect his father and extend mercy and forgiveness to his younger brother, the elder brother would need to recognize and resolve any prodigality that lingers within his mind, heart and soul.

Fifth Pathway - Persistently Looking Inward - Part IV

Fifth Pathway – Persistently Looking Inward – Part IV

Sin, crime, mistakes and other patterns of behavior that undermine personality development emerge from hard wiring in a person’s character.  Untreated alcoholism and drug addiction inevitably result in additional misdemeanors and felonies including theft, armed robbery, sexual assault, vandalism and other violations of law.  Within marriages and families, infidelity, deceit, poverty, unemployment, eviction and violence substantially damage relationships.  Empty refrigerators and cupboards are the clearest indication that alcoholism and addiction consume the family’s food budget.   Also, utility termination notices, lack of gasoline in the car, tuition arrears and failure to remit payment of other expenses are further evidence of internal deterioration.  An inventory excavates these defects of character.  Once exposed to the disinfectant of sunlight and spirituality, these traits become potential fuel for transformation.  Jung describes this dimension of human character as the “Shadow,” a bleak and hidden space in the mind and heart where dark traits lurk.  Childhood coping mechanisms became toxic and cynical tools.  Possibly, you perfected lying as a means of manipulation to gain the things you desired.  Cultivating a likability persona becomes a way of tricking people into liking you and granting your wishes though you may not feel favorable toward them.  As a person willingly embraces his or her full character, he or she neutralizes weaknesses and eliminate liabilities. In some instances, you will be able to convert previous ineffective and erroneous behavior into a new way of living.  Persistently looking inward is a pathway of healing that encourages and empowers you to clean house continually.  As you remove bad habits, you develop better ones that catapult you into the life you wholeheartedly desire.

Individuation is the formal term in analytical psychology that Carl Jung ascribes to the process of progressing irreversibly into adulthood.  Beyond physical growth and changes, a person distinctly separates his or her personality from parents and anyone else who contributed significantly to character formation during early childhood.  Practically, a person learns to think and live independently.  The need for external validation lessens considerably.  In certain instances, it necessarily disappears.  Fundamental decisions pertaining to love, work, sexuality, bodily autonomy, vocation, relationships and use of resources are made internally.  Intuition, the divine voice which lives and speaks genuinely and reliably within everyone, guides decision-making.  Mature adults do not require parental affirmation or other forms of external approval.  A person learns to trust himself or herself within an interdependent relationship with God.  Achieving individuation is a process of independent thinking.  A person learns to listen to his or heart and aligns motives with God’s divine design.  It empowers a person to utilize divine gifts to worship God in service of humankind.  It is a lifelong process of learning more about a person’s unique “Self” as a child of God and member of the human family.  This inward journey seeks synchronicity of mission, purpose and talent.  Ambition seeks a combination of God’s will and a useful desire to live purposefully with humility.  Whatever practical form dreams and goals assume is satisfactory; external trappings lose their importance.  The need for titles preceding your name, letters following your name, designer clothing, luxury vehicles, residing in a sought-after zip code or being on a popular social registry dissipates.  A person ceases to look outside of himself or herself for something that he or she can only find within his or her character.  As a person willingly embraces the challenges of achieving individuation, he or she pursues alignment with God’s will thereby enabling his or her soul to sing openly and freely to the glory of God. 

Individuation is the ultimate liberation from bondage to self and others.  “Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.”  George Gurdjieff’s provocative quote argues that freedom begins internally.  Any person who does not possess a free open mind wherein he or she thinks independently will be a slave to someone else.  Many people do not learn to think for themselves.  They are whomever their spouses, children, parents, siblings, extended relatives, friends and society tells them they are.  Gurdjieff insists self-knowledge is foundational to personal identity and independence.  Unless a person embarks upon the inward journey of self-discovery, he or she cannot function as an autonomous being.  To be free, a person must possess minute knowledge of his or her character.  Otherwise, self-governance is not possible.  Without that crucial attribute, a person cannot obtain dreams and goals.  Lack of self-knowledge means a person is unable to define any ambitions.  It further means that he or she does not have any discipline, focus or other attributes to achieve or succeed.  Anyone who cannot discipline himself or herself is incapable of leading other people.  Such a person allows other people to lead him or her.  In the process of differentiating from the people who initially fostered his or her identity, a person excavates his or her authentically divine and unique personality.  The need for external validation disappears.  Self-acceptance and self-expression, the aims of spirituality, emerge as individuals embrace the necessity of painstakingly toiling in the rock quarry of self-awareness and development. 

Persistently looking inward becomes a daily spiritual discipline of self-reflection.  Combine the vocations of geologists, archeologists, anthropologists and historians.  The first group of teachers and scholars study the Earth’s formation particularly rocks ridges in terrain which indicate dating and developmental processes.  Applied spiritually, you examine hardened contours of your character to understand origins and growth of your personality.  Your habits and coping mechanisms signify certain defining and influential experiences from your formative years.  Your initial reactions became permanent; they reveal how you have chosen to relate to people and respond to similar situations.  Analyze a solid habit the way that a geologist would.  When did this habit begin?  What is the primary cause?  Consider the Grand Canyon in Arizona or the Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.  Those rock formations equate with a candy store for a geologist.  There are similar fossilized traits in our character.  With liabilities, it is necessary to take them into the laboratory of self-analysis to determine how they corrode the positive aspects of character.  I suspect that negative emotions such as guilt, fear, regret, resentment and anger emerge from a definite past experience.  Perhaps, your family ganged-up on you and held a group session in which you were the butt of as many jokes as attendees told at your expense.  Chances are laughter in a public setting makes you fearful of reliving that humiliation.  Conceivably, you forego family gatherings lest you become the butt of jokes yet again.  Even more hurtful, parental betrayal and abandonment solidifies as an estimate of a person’s inherent worth.  The singer, actress and activist, Eartha Kitt, experienced that horror.  For many years, her parental abandonment defined her.  She accepted love and attention from anyone as it helped to fill the huge internal vacuum.  Over the course of her performance career, she cried an ocean of tears in response to an audience’s nightly applause.  In time, as healing unfolded in her life, she realized that her parents’ action did not define her worth.  In persistently looking inward, Kitt separated her intrinsic worth and unique character from her parents.  In so doing, she took a sledgehammer and smashed the rocks of self-contempt and masochistic suffering.  As she healed, she demolished detrimental patterns of behavior in which she allowed people to manipulate her by simply complimenting her.  As Kitt looked deeply within the mirror of her soul, she studies the rock-like formations in her character.  She discovered ways to transform these patterns into growth rather than allow them to remain as monuments of pain and hurt.

Fifth Pathway - Persistently Looking Inward - Part V

Fifth Pathway – Persistently Looking Inward – Part V

Archeologists look for artifacts to deduce how previous civilizations lived.  Depending upon their discoveries, these social scientists can extrapolate our ancestors code of conduct, religions, social values, means of trade, languages, literature and societal structure.  In utilizing this pathway of healing, a person employs an archeologist’s tools.  Look for the relational artifacts embedded within your personality.  What sayings, values, principles, prejudices or other concepts did you uncritically accept from your parents and grandparents?  Chances are these ideas solidified within your thinking, feelings and behavior. In order to differentiate from them and accept yourself as a unique individual, you examine these artifacts from your formative relationships and years.  Ask similar questions of your relationships with siblings, aunts, uncles and close cousins.  Do you continue to hold beliefs, assumptions and principles borne of these significant relationships that are incongruent with your character?  Interestingly, I met people in college who held racial prejudices because their relatives imparted these ideas to them.  Upon reflection, my college contemporaries realized that they did not agree with these concepts.  They acquiesced them because people whom they loved held those false, misguided and uninformed notions.  As you analyze these relational artifacts, consider any lingering toxicity in your mindset.  How will you demolish hurtful and continually detrimental patterns of behavior that undermine your progression toward self-acceptance and self-expression?  As you read, consider pausing and listing in detail any artifacts from previous relationships that provide you with clues about the composition of your personality and belief system.  Do those relationships and the concepts that they conveyed to you retain relevance?

Anthropologists would advise you to delve more deeply into the foregoing relationships.  Examine the context of your formative years.  Who are the persons who contributed most significantly to your self-concept?  What did they believe?  In the larger periphery of your upbringing, what role did neighbors, teachers, friends and acquaintances play in your formation?  Did you go along to get along?  Did you inadvertently become a stereotype?  Did you listen to the music that everyone else enjoyed even if you liked other artists and genres?  Did you wear what everyone else wore because it was in style?  Did you believe what everyone else believed?  Did anyone question the pervading assumptions about politics, economics, religion and social relationships?  Can you find any points of departure between you and the chorus of persons who were on stage during the drama of your formative years?  Did you ever stop and ask, “Who am I?”  Were you aware of what you wanted most to do in life?  Did someone attempt to rebuff your dream and goals by impeding your progress?  Were jealousy, ignorance, limited experiences and provincialism prevalent in the lives of the people who lived in the shadows and on the sidelines of your early life?  How much of this negativity still dwells within your mind and heart?  Within your childhood and adolescence, do you recall distinguishing yourself from the people, context and convictions that fostered your personality?  Simply, an anthropologist would ask if you ever questioned anything you were taught within your home, family, church, school and local society to ascertain how these factors cultivated your beliefs and behavior before becoming an adult?

Historians begin where geologists, archeologists and anthropologists finish.  Evidence such as journals, diaries and letters comprise a corpse upon which you complete an autopsy.  The dead body is the persona you cultivated based upon other people’s impressions of you.  As you look through any documents, photos, mementos and memorabilia of your past, you will garner clues of how this inauthentic expression of yourself developed.  More significantly, however, this evidence yields clues about the seeds of the authentic you.  Looking persistently within is a pathway of healing because it allows you to search through the rubble of the past and find your diamonds hidden in the rough.  Your heartfelt dreams and goals forged in the anvils of childhood trauma symbolize who you are.  The painful experiences you survived may indicate a passion you have carried in your heart to assist others in similar situations.  Are their creative impulses and imaginative inspirations that have lain dormant in your consciousness and intentions?  Is there an imprisoned entrepreneur, composer, author, artist, linguist, business owner, musician, vocalist, athlete, teacher or inventor inside of you?  As you analyze your patterns of growth and development, you will find the most reliable answer to these questions.  Persevere in inward exploration and you discover the tools of self-mastery.  You learn to neutralize your weaknesses and liabilities which impede your forward progress.  You invest time, energy and resources in strengthening your asserts, talents and abilities.  Practically, you become even better at what you do best.  You acquire greater spiritual attributes especially the willingness to forgive anyone who harmed you.  In forgiving those persons who injured you, you liberate yourself from anger, fear, resentment and bitterness.  Freedom from that extreme toxicity creates passageways for your advancement.  With that dross burned from your character, you will create, imagine, inspire, motivate, encourage, empower, endure, produce, achieve, succeed and excel!  A whole new life awaits you when you unload the bags of cement you have been carrying for thousands of days.  New vistas of possibility for a life of joy, happiness and freedom filled with new experiences and mystery burst on the horizons of your mind and heart.  It begins with persistently looking inward.