Cat Wisdom

You walk into a room and the cat is snoozing on your favorite chair. You "shoo" the cat. It jumps down, stretches and looks around for another place to nap. It starts its next nap, quite content.
Simple. Practical. No drama. No recriminations. Nothing to hang on to. No Bitterness. No Vituperation. Etc.

Remember that the next time something doesn't go the way you want it to. It would be a better world if people were like cats (in some ways).

Neglect of the inner life

This is worth some quiet time, reflecting and praying for guidance about what you might do for yourself.

 

Our culture suffers from a negation of the inner self, the god-self

We don't often witness that self in each other. It's important to know

who we are, who others are, where our tender spots are. These are not

mechanized needs, nor needs that can be met in front of computer

screens. When a primary need is ignored, it may express itself in

destructive ways: Our preoccupation with material. possessions is

unsettling. The violence on the part of young people must be, in part,

a call for attention to the soul. There are children I know who, after

school, instead of playing on the street or at the homes of friends,

park themselves in front of the computer and play games. Carl Jung

said, "The cat neglected becomes the unconscious tiger:' We're seeing

a number of neglected cats these days. When the need to attend

to the inner self isn't modeled as valuable, when art and the spiritual

life aren't integrated into the culture, the self may choose destructive

routes for attention, such as reckless displays of violence.    Veccione, Writing and the Spiritual Life, p. 15

It's OK to say "I don't know."

Parker Palmer (Let your life speak) tells how a depressed person once asked him why it is that some people recover from depression and why some end up killing themselves. All he could answer is, "I have no idea."
He felt guilty about giving that answer--about not giving that person more help. He felt he had let her down. But then, two days later, she sent him a note which thanked him for his words (I have no idea) and told him how it made so much more sense than some of the simplistic religious explanations.
It turned out she didn't need an explanation; what she needed was to hear that someone beside herself struggled with answers to the basic questions of life. She felt liberated. As Palmer explained, "my not knowing had freed her to stop judging herself for being depressed and to stop believing that God was judging her. As a result, her depression lifted a little." (p. 59)

How do you respond when someone asks you a question that you don't have a ready answer for? If you're like most people, you try to come up with some answer even though the truth is that you "have no idea."
Can you have to courage to say "I don't know" or "I have no idea" when that is actually the truth? It may be very important for someone else to hear that.

Challenge for the day

Engage in some totally meaningless, spontaneous laughing. If you dare, try it when you're with friends. The benefits are worth the risk of looking silly. I assigned this to my students, and one reported:

I decided to experiment with this meaningless laughing by laughing outrageously loud when something only remotely funny occurred in the show I was watching. I actually really enjoyed the experiment because it made me really happy. The laughing somehow injected energy into my body almost like I had taken a happy pill. After laughing ridiculously loud throughout my 30 minute program I was ready to release my energy which I did by walking through the woods.

Go for it!

Unhelpful sympathy, helpful sympathy

From that book by Iain Matthew that I cited a couple of weeks ago:

"Sympathy can be ruinous. 'I think it's dreadful--I don't know how you put up with it. No. I really can understand, you must feel awful.   . . . . There is a kind of sympathy that leaves the sufferer exhausted. . . . it is important to respond in the right way . . . not just to console, but to help someone bear pain creatively.'"

IMHO: That's the reason the image of the suffering Christ on the crucifix is so consoling. Don't go around the pain, go through it to the other side.

Creativity in Business

A student reports: "1,500 CEO’s polled by IBM said creativity was the number one factor behind leadership competency."

The Joys of Solitude

As an assignment over the weekend, I asked my students to go and see a movie--totally alone. They groaned and kvetched, and some couldn't see the sense in it. But once they'd done it, they reported that that they were surprised at what a good time they had, were more focused on the movie than ever before (even if it was not a good film), and most said it is something they would do again. Go figure.

It's a wonderful skill to develop, especially at a young age: to enjoy your own company.