SELF-ACTUALIZATION was defined by psychologist, Abraham Maslow, as "the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more of what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." Maslow couches his definition in terms of his hierarchy of needs which posits that "basic needs [food, shelter, warmth, security, sense of belonging]" must be met before self-actualization can be accomplished. Maslow further suggests that even when these needs are adequately provided few ever reach the level of self-actualization to which he refers. (Ref Wikipedia article: Self-actualization).
In simpler terms, Dictionary.com defines self-actualization as "the achievement of one's full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world." This definition fits more easily into the focus of this blog entry (although we'll bring Maslow and his theories back into play in a little bit). When I first started writing this blog, the purpose I had in mind was more in line with Dictionary.com than with Maslow. I started with the intent of searching for my 'whole' or 'authentic' self, to get a better grasp on who I am and what my full potential in life might be. As usual, before I began writing, I went back and re-read my previous entries and honestly find that in the 11 years since I started writing this blog, I seem to have made little progress in that direction. My writings are all interesting and indivually insightful but, as a whole, I feel they represent little movement towards the ultimate goal, to be ACTUALIZED.
This brings me back to Maslow. Truth is, despite my occasional musings, I have been so involved in the basic needs of my life that I have had little time to devote to finding my 'true self'. I am too engaged in the day-to-day business of making money, paying bills, raising kids and the other simple acts of living we commit daily to engage in philsophical discussion or musings, even if they are just with myself. Funny thing is, I think this blog might have better served its purpose if I was more engaged in it on a day-to-day basis.
Now is the time when I say I'm going to write more often, spend more time, post these daily musings no matter whether they are read by others or not. Truth is, I really need the help and encouragement of my friends and family in this. I need to know that someone out there is reading this. Commentary from readers simulates dialogue and lets me know that someone is listening. So, for those of you that are interested, please drop me a note, or post a comment to let me know that you are out there. For my part, I will do my best to write often enough to keep you interested and, hopefully, engaged.
Peace and Blessings.
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
Friday, September 07, 2012
Thank You Virginia!
there is no one else exactly like me -
everything that comes out of me is authentically mine,
because I alone choose it - I own everything about me - my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions,
whether they be to others or to myself -
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears -
I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me - by so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts -
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me,
and other aspects that I do not know -
but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself,
I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me -
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do,
and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me - If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought and felt turned out to be unfitting, I can discard that which I feel is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded -
I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do.
I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive,
and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me -
I own me, and therefore I can engineer me -
I am me &
I AM OKAY
by Virginia Satir
Light Up the Darkness
Someone who has had a very unique affect on my life is a HUGE Bob Marley fan. She loves him, idolizes him and knows more about him than any person I have ever met. In the movie I Am Legend, the main character talks about Bob Marley and how he strove, in his short life, to 'light up the darkness'. I am not sure if this is a lyrical phrase from one of Marley's songs (maybe someone who will read this knows and can tell me) but it speaks to the place I have chosen to 'wander' to as I move through the daily paces of my life and try to find the person I am again, as I strive to become the person I know I can be.
In previous entries, I have written about darkness. In recent life, I have found myself floundering in the darkness, visiting there and becoming complacently comfortable. I feel that I have finally resumed the steady climb towards the light. Yesterday, I was reminded that the bright spots can be found in the smallest accomplishments. The effort can be monumental, to think in this way, to acknowledge the tiniest successes, but the affect it has can be equally as monumental. Just a single triumph, focused upon and nurtured in the heart, can be the catalyst in an unstoppable chain reaction of change.
Yesterday was a really good day. It was one of the best days I have had in a very long time. My simple triumph: I found out that I am meeting or exceeding the metrics required to be successful in my new position at work. It's a quiet victory but it spoke loud and resounding volumes of positivity into my spirit. I smiled all day; a genuine smile. I was proud of me. My persistence, work ethic and determination to succeed paid off. I received approval and accolades for my efforts. In the same way that a child's self esteem is strengthened and nurtured by recognition and praise, I believe that even as adults we can thrive on experiences like these.
This little point of light lead to another . . . GRATITUDE. I am thankful for my job. I am thankful for the roof over my head, the food on my table, the ability to walk, talk, think, speak and feel. I am thankful for my children and my family. I am thankful for friends, near and far. I am thankful for waking up each day and lying down in the safety and comfort of my bed each night. I recognize that none of these things is promised. I have never known what it means to be truly hungry or poor. I have never slept in the street or wanted for basic necessities. All of these things make me rich beyond measure. God has blessed me infinitely because I know joy, love and even pain.
Another point of light . . . I AM WRITING AGAIN. This is MAJOR. I haven't been able to use or even find my own voice in such a long time. Writing has always been a way for me to 'exorcise my demons'. I have used it to work through the toughest times in my life and find my way out the other side basically intact. The art and craft of using words to bring order to my inner world had been lost to me for longer than I care to think about. I feel immeasurable elation that those words are coming back and I have the intellect to express them.
As another day begins, I find that there is reason to be optimistic. I can feel good about myself. I can speak positively to myself. I am a flawed, fallible, fractured human being but I am me and I can . . . Light Up the Darkness. I encourage you to do the same.
Peace and Blessings.
In previous entries, I have written about darkness. In recent life, I have found myself floundering in the darkness, visiting there and becoming complacently comfortable. I feel that I have finally resumed the steady climb towards the light. Yesterday, I was reminded that the bright spots can be found in the smallest accomplishments. The effort can be monumental, to think in this way, to acknowledge the tiniest successes, but the affect it has can be equally as monumental. Just a single triumph, focused upon and nurtured in the heart, can be the catalyst in an unstoppable chain reaction of change.
Yesterday was a really good day. It was one of the best days I have had in a very long time. My simple triumph: I found out that I am meeting or exceeding the metrics required to be successful in my new position at work. It's a quiet victory but it spoke loud and resounding volumes of positivity into my spirit. I smiled all day; a genuine smile. I was proud of me. My persistence, work ethic and determination to succeed paid off. I received approval and accolades for my efforts. In the same way that a child's self esteem is strengthened and nurtured by recognition and praise, I believe that even as adults we can thrive on experiences like these.
This little point of light lead to another . . . GRATITUDE. I am thankful for my job. I am thankful for the roof over my head, the food on my table, the ability to walk, talk, think, speak and feel. I am thankful for my children and my family. I am thankful for friends, near and far. I am thankful for waking up each day and lying down in the safety and comfort of my bed each night. I recognize that none of these things is promised. I have never known what it means to be truly hungry or poor. I have never slept in the street or wanted for basic necessities. All of these things make me rich beyond measure. God has blessed me infinitely because I know joy, love and even pain.
Another point of light . . . I AM WRITING AGAIN. This is MAJOR. I haven't been able to use or even find my own voice in such a long time. Writing has always been a way for me to 'exorcise my demons'. I have used it to work through the toughest times in my life and find my way out the other side basically intact. The art and craft of using words to bring order to my inner world had been lost to me for longer than I care to think about. I feel immeasurable elation that those words are coming back and I have the intellect to express them.
As another day begins, I find that there is reason to be optimistic. I can feel good about myself. I can speak positively to myself. I am a flawed, fallible, fractured human being but I am me and I can . . . Light Up the Darkness. I encourage you to do the same.
Peace and Blessings.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Moving On ...Understanding...
I deleted some special pictures from my phone today. Though it was a simple task, easy to complete, it was harder on my heart than I expected. It was painful for reasons both good and bad. As I watched the images disappear into digital oblivion, I thought about how hard it has always been for me to close a chapter in my life, no matter how long or short. I also thought how equally difficult (more difficult?) I find it to open another.
I try hard not to think of the place I am at as another ending. I intend to look forward with optimism and see a new beginning instead. I see that others have moved on and it's certainly for the best. I wish them every joy and happiness. Admittedly, moving forward with enthusiasm, anticipation and hope has become quite a difficult task for me. I have come to dread the blind curves in the road before me and fear, almost irrationally, the looming things I cannot see ahead. I also know that this 'beginning' is another in a series of 'beginnings' with endings (not supposed to think of them that way but I'm being real) that have gone terribly wrong. In my mind, I understand that there were grave mistakes made on my part and lessons I had to learn.
It's been said, not sure by whom, 'with age comes wisdom.' If that's true, why is there so much in my life that I do not understand? Why, after countless hours and thousands of dollars in therapy, do I feel I have less understanding of myself than I ever have? Someone who loves me very much told me recently that I have become invisible even, if not especially, to myself. I'm not blurry or out of focus, as most of us get to be sometimes. I am just not there. How do I bring myself back from that?
People have told me to pray. I do. I haven't 'hit my knees' in a while, but God and I talk every day. I know s/he knows my heart. Maybe I need a booming voice or a burning bush to guide me as someome else I love likes to say. The subtle things don't seem to be helping me find my way. I have always believed that God understands about his/her children that we need to understand why things happen to us. We need to be able to rationalize, in the grand scheme, what the reasons are for our adversities. Knowing that God knows this, I hope to understand some day why I am wandering in my own personal wilderness. Maybe just that understanding will be my 'promised land. '
I don't mean to imply that I am the only person in the world who is suffering a serious crisis of identity. I know I am not alone. I know, just by reading my other entries on this blog, that there have been bright spots and revelations along the way. I guess I just feel like it's past the time to have 'arrived', past the time to have come to a place of understanding. Much like the Hebrews led by Moses and wandering for 40 years, I just want to get there. I want to understand.
This blog is about self-actualization. This blog was always meant to be about finding myself. I used to be able to clearly and definitively identify the places along my way where I'd gotten lost, how I got there and sometimes how to find my way back. Since fading into invisibility, it's harder to recognize the loss of my direction. In ways I am loathe to admit and to people who I truly love, I have become someone I and they don't recognize.
So, the question is, where to go from here. Right now, I am stuck. I am stagnant. I am in grave danger of the wilderness swallowing me up because I have even stopped wandering. Fear of and guilt about failures, real and imagined, have paralyzed me. The only answer I can think of is to find a way to resume wandering, to make some small peace with the wilderness and have hope that the journey will make me worthy and I will see the 'promised land' eventually. Someday I hope to understand.
I try hard not to think of the place I am at as another ending. I intend to look forward with optimism and see a new beginning instead. I see that others have moved on and it's certainly for the best. I wish them every joy and happiness. Admittedly, moving forward with enthusiasm, anticipation and hope has become quite a difficult task for me. I have come to dread the blind curves in the road before me and fear, almost irrationally, the looming things I cannot see ahead. I also know that this 'beginning' is another in a series of 'beginnings' with endings (not supposed to think of them that way but I'm being real) that have gone terribly wrong. In my mind, I understand that there were grave mistakes made on my part and lessons I had to learn.
It's been said, not sure by whom, 'with age comes wisdom.' If that's true, why is there so much in my life that I do not understand? Why, after countless hours and thousands of dollars in therapy, do I feel I have less understanding of myself than I ever have? Someone who loves me very much told me recently that I have become invisible even, if not especially, to myself. I'm not blurry or out of focus, as most of us get to be sometimes. I am just not there. How do I bring myself back from that?
People have told me to pray. I do. I haven't 'hit my knees' in a while, but God and I talk every day. I know s/he knows my heart. Maybe I need a booming voice or a burning bush to guide me as someome else I love likes to say. The subtle things don't seem to be helping me find my way. I have always believed that God understands about his/her children that we need to understand why things happen to us. We need to be able to rationalize, in the grand scheme, what the reasons are for our adversities. Knowing that God knows this, I hope to understand some day why I am wandering in my own personal wilderness. Maybe just that understanding will be my 'promised land. '
I don't mean to imply that I am the only person in the world who is suffering a serious crisis of identity. I know I am not alone. I know, just by reading my other entries on this blog, that there have been bright spots and revelations along the way. I guess I just feel like it's past the time to have 'arrived', past the time to have come to a place of understanding. Much like the Hebrews led by Moses and wandering for 40 years, I just want to get there. I want to understand.
This blog is about self-actualization. This blog was always meant to be about finding myself. I used to be able to clearly and definitively identify the places along my way where I'd gotten lost, how I got there and sometimes how to find my way back. Since fading into invisibility, it's harder to recognize the loss of my direction. In ways I am loathe to admit and to people who I truly love, I have become someone I and they don't recognize.
So, the question is, where to go from here. Right now, I am stuck. I am stagnant. I am in grave danger of the wilderness swallowing me up because I have even stopped wandering. Fear of and guilt about failures, real and imagined, have paralyzed me. The only answer I can think of is to find a way to resume wandering, to make some small peace with the wilderness and have hope that the journey will make me worthy and I will see the 'promised land' eventually. Someday I hope to understand.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
I AM AN AUNTIE!!!
YEAH!!!! My brother's wife recently gave birth to beautiful, healthy twins. I am an Auntie and it's kinda strange to think of my 'baby' brother being a Dad, but I am so proud of him and happy for him that I could BURST!!!
New life is always energizing and special. God Bless my brother and his wife and their new additions!!!
New life is always energizing and special. God Bless my brother and his wife and their new additions!!!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Lost Love
It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I don't think the person that said that understood much about loss. Lost love is a bitch. Maybe it's just that love is a bitch. That image of love that you learn about as a little girl is more bullshit than it's possible to swallow. I don't mean to say that I don't believe in love or that love is some kind of made up thing that we all learn about as children but can never really experience. I mean that love is work. Love takes effort. Love is painful and messy and challenging. That effortless fairytale love that you learn about as a kid is exactly that, a fairytale.
I have loved many people in my life. Most of those people, by God's grace and blessing, remain a part of my life. There have only been a couple that I have truly lost. But that doesn't mean that I don't suffer over the loss of love. I sometimes wonder what my fate is with regard to love. Am I destined to spend the rest of my life searching for the kind of love that lasts a lifetime? Is there even such a thing? It seems to me that whenever you hear about lasting love, it ends tragically. Romeo and Juliet. Anthony and Cleopatra. The Bronte sisters wrote about that tragic kind of love.
My parents loved each other once but they didn't last. My ex-wife and I loved each other and that ended too. In my most recent days, I let go of someone out of love and now that is over as well. For me, when love ends, the pain that's left behind is an aching place that heals ever so slowly. Then, that part of my heart, that I gave so willingly, becomes a scarred place full of memories that forever belongs to the lost. How many times can a heart heal and scab over before it loses it's capacity to love again? I wonder.
I learned a long time ago that humans are not solitary creatures. We are meant to bond and live out our lives in concert with another. If this is true, then there is someone out there for all of us, for me too. I hope my heart maintains it's capacity for open, unconditional, honest, messy, tragic, unexplainable, beautiful, magical, wonderful love. I live in the hope that I will someday find that love which last through my lifetime.
I have loved many people in my life. Most of those people, by God's grace and blessing, remain a part of my life. There have only been a couple that I have truly lost. But that doesn't mean that I don't suffer over the loss of love. I sometimes wonder what my fate is with regard to love. Am I destined to spend the rest of my life searching for the kind of love that lasts a lifetime? Is there even such a thing? It seems to me that whenever you hear about lasting love, it ends tragically. Romeo and Juliet. Anthony and Cleopatra. The Bronte sisters wrote about that tragic kind of love.
My parents loved each other once but they didn't last. My ex-wife and I loved each other and that ended too. In my most recent days, I let go of someone out of love and now that is over as well. For me, when love ends, the pain that's left behind is an aching place that heals ever so slowly. Then, that part of my heart, that I gave so willingly, becomes a scarred place full of memories that forever belongs to the lost. How many times can a heart heal and scab over before it loses it's capacity to love again? I wonder.
I learned a long time ago that humans are not solitary creatures. We are meant to bond and live out our lives in concert with another. If this is true, then there is someone out there for all of us, for me too. I hope my heart maintains it's capacity for open, unconditional, honest, messy, tragic, unexplainable, beautiful, magical, wonderful love. I live in the hope that I will someday find that love which last through my lifetime.
Monday, March 15, 2010
In the Shadow of Dragons . . .
I just finished watching a documentary about a 15 year old boy who was suffering from bipolar disorder and committed suicide. While I see the tradgedy in this loss for his family and his friends, I also feel a certain kinship with this child lost so young.
At 20 years old, I wasn't sure I would make it to 30. The year I turned 30, I had a wonderful birthday celebration because I felt so blessed to have reached this significant milestone. I am not sure why life saw fit to send a major storm into my world that year which tore apart the life I had been so thankful for making it to enjoy. I feel like I have been trying to emerge from that storm ever since. Now, I wonder about 40. I wonder if I will see it. Truthfully, most days, the only thing keeping me putting one foot in front of the other are the people around me who would be devastated by my loss. My own life isn't what motivates me. It's how my life, or rather my death, will affect others that keeps me going. I pray that I never reach a point where selfishness takes over and I decide I don't care anymore about how my loss will affect others.
When I was in my late teens, I had a therapist that I told I saw dragons behind my face. This wasn't a literal 'seeing' (that's another illness entirely!) but more a figurative expression of my own bipolar disorder. They aren't scary dragons as the image that the word brings to mind. In truth, these dragons are beautiful, coiled and silent. When the depression is under control, the dragons are asleep. When my illness is raging, the dragons are swirling but, oddly, they remain silent. This silence is the expression of my innermost pain. I know how my illness works. I know better than anyone how I suffer and what the symptoms are. I also know what needs to be done to keep the dragons coiled and still. Sometimes knowing, intellectually, and living with something in reality are such different things. I have learned to live with the dragons, to see them as they are swirling or still, but I also feel that someday the dragons will emerge, raging and roaring. I wonder what will happen that day and whether or not I will survive it.
These days, numbness is my friend. I don't allow myself to feel my feelings for fear that they will take me over completely. The feelings are so negative and so strong. Crying spells are rare but hope and faith are even more rare. I watch the dragons swirling and fighting them takes more and more of my energy. I don't think that fighting is even the right word, containing is probably a better expression. I contain them so that I continue to survive. I contain them so that I don't hurt the people I love the most by giving in and allowing them to take over. I contain them because not to do so is to succumb to the silence and be devoured by these beautiful monsters. When I am honest with myself, I know that I want to give in to the dragons and give up on my life. Instead, I keep watching and waiting.
Recently, my mother told me to focus on my brother and his wife's coming children and find light in the lives that will soon begin. She told me to think of them and the joy they will soon experience. This has turned out to be a double edged sword. In the shadow of dragons, I look at their coming blessing and feel the loss of my own. I always wanted to have a baby myself, but life had other plans. It's another way in which I feel loss and failure. I am so happy for my brother and his wife, but I also see what I will never have and that makes me sad. Happiness for them and sadness for myself . . . life in the shadow of the dragons.
Dragons are angry and selfish, lonely and scared. Dragons are raging and silent and I am the life that they share.
At 20 years old, I wasn't sure I would make it to 30. The year I turned 30, I had a wonderful birthday celebration because I felt so blessed to have reached this significant milestone. I am not sure why life saw fit to send a major storm into my world that year which tore apart the life I had been so thankful for making it to enjoy. I feel like I have been trying to emerge from that storm ever since. Now, I wonder about 40. I wonder if I will see it. Truthfully, most days, the only thing keeping me putting one foot in front of the other are the people around me who would be devastated by my loss. My own life isn't what motivates me. It's how my life, or rather my death, will affect others that keeps me going. I pray that I never reach a point where selfishness takes over and I decide I don't care anymore about how my loss will affect others.
When I was in my late teens, I had a therapist that I told I saw dragons behind my face. This wasn't a literal 'seeing' (that's another illness entirely!) but more a figurative expression of my own bipolar disorder. They aren't scary dragons as the image that the word brings to mind. In truth, these dragons are beautiful, coiled and silent. When the depression is under control, the dragons are asleep. When my illness is raging, the dragons are swirling but, oddly, they remain silent. This silence is the expression of my innermost pain. I know how my illness works. I know better than anyone how I suffer and what the symptoms are. I also know what needs to be done to keep the dragons coiled and still. Sometimes knowing, intellectually, and living with something in reality are such different things. I have learned to live with the dragons, to see them as they are swirling or still, but I also feel that someday the dragons will emerge, raging and roaring. I wonder what will happen that day and whether or not I will survive it.
These days, numbness is my friend. I don't allow myself to feel my feelings for fear that they will take me over completely. The feelings are so negative and so strong. Crying spells are rare but hope and faith are even more rare. I watch the dragons swirling and fighting them takes more and more of my energy. I don't think that fighting is even the right word, containing is probably a better expression. I contain them so that I continue to survive. I contain them so that I don't hurt the people I love the most by giving in and allowing them to take over. I contain them because not to do so is to succumb to the silence and be devoured by these beautiful monsters. When I am honest with myself, I know that I want to give in to the dragons and give up on my life. Instead, I keep watching and waiting.
Recently, my mother told me to focus on my brother and his wife's coming children and find light in the lives that will soon begin. She told me to think of them and the joy they will soon experience. This has turned out to be a double edged sword. In the shadow of dragons, I look at their coming blessing and feel the loss of my own. I always wanted to have a baby myself, but life had other plans. It's another way in which I feel loss and failure. I am so happy for my brother and his wife, but I also see what I will never have and that makes me sad. Happiness for them and sadness for myself . . . life in the shadow of the dragons.
Dragons are angry and selfish, lonely and scared. Dragons are raging and silent and I am the life that they share.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wandering In the Dark
For so long now, I have felt like I was wandering around in the dark. As I look back on the scattered entries of this blog, I see that there have been places of light but I can't seem to orient myself in the light permanently. Always, the darkness seems to descend again and I am back at the beginning. Am I destined to wander forever? Did I get so lost somewhere along the way that the glimpses of light are all I can hope for? Have I lost touch with my own inspiration? When I ask myself these questions, really thinking about the answers that are within me but somehow out of reach, I find that all I can do is weep. The tears come easily, sometimes noiselessly, leaving silent trails on my cheeks. Sometimes the tears come in great heaving sobs with running nose and blubbering words. However they come, they bring with them a sadness so profound that it threatens to drown me.
Where is my voice? I will be 36 years old this year, closer to 40 than I care to think about and still I haven't 'found my way'. I am raising children. My job is to help them find their way in the world. What kind of an example do I set when I am so completely lost myself? More painful questions! I know I exist in the dark because when I think about my life, really think about it, I feel empty, cold, unsucessful. More accurately, I feel like a failure.
I want to write. I want to teach. I want to be proud of who I am and what I have accomplished. It's not enough anymore to just survive. I want to LIVE! I want to be the person I dreamed I would be when I was a child. I want, I want, I want!!!! The question is . . . . HOW? Where to begin? How do I wander out of this overbearing darkness and find the light within myself again? Where do I begin?
Where is my voice? I will be 36 years old this year, closer to 40 than I care to think about and still I haven't 'found my way'. I am raising children. My job is to help them find their way in the world. What kind of an example do I set when I am so completely lost myself? More painful questions! I know I exist in the dark because when I think about my life, really think about it, I feel empty, cold, unsucessful. More accurately, I feel like a failure.
I want to write. I want to teach. I want to be proud of who I am and what I have accomplished. It's not enough anymore to just survive. I want to LIVE! I want to be the person I dreamed I would be when I was a child. I want, I want, I want!!!! The question is . . . . HOW? Where to begin? How do I wander out of this overbearing darkness and find the light within myself again? Where do I begin?
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