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Integrating Art & Science ~ Lessons from My Childhood

10/5/2013

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PictureOn a trip to Mt Zirkel Wilderness Area. I was 7.
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places  ~ Ernest Hemingway

          I am a reconciliation of spirits. My father was a surgeon and my mother a painter and musician who played 12 instruments. My parents divorced when I was 10, which was a good thing.  The separation helped relieve the constant tension between rational intellect and creative expression.  At one point, you might think intellect would win, but in the end raw expression had more endurance. I say this as my mother has a dragon to slay called mental illness.

      When my mother was younger, she didn’t always take her prescribed medication. As a result, she attempted suicide three times that I know of. I was very angry about her attempts. In fact, I can remember that at one point I even wished she would succeed, not because I was a cruel child, but because it was so hard to know whether, at any given time, she was stable or present or safe or alive. The anxiety of “not knowing” and constantly having to worry were very painful. Fearful as I was about my mother’s health, it turns out that my father, who had long been as stable as a rock and I might add as emotionally impenetrable, was killed in a car accident when he was just 44 years old.  I was 24 at the time.

      There’s a saying in Wyoming: “When the wind stops, the cows fall down.” I had no idea how much the force of my father’s presence was like the wind, or how much I was buoyed by my resistance to him. His death came as a complete shock.  I had always thought my mother was the fragile one. I had no idea life would teach me otherwise.

Why am I writing this now?  I am turning 44 this month and am facing the question that many people have already confronted “Will my life transcend my parents’ fate?” The occasion makes me reflect on what I learned from my childhood. Furthermore, unlike cancer survivors wearing a band to signify their strength, resilience, community and triumph, there is no such zeitgeist for those who struggling with mental illness. So with my birthday and Mother’s Day fast approaching, I felt it would be both cathartic and helpful to share how much I learned from my mother’s illness.

Here is what her dragon has taught me:

1)   One’s core has nothing to do with money or things. Three times I know of during my childhood, my mother became homeless and lost everything she owned, including her paintings, photographs instruments and books. And three times she rebuilt her life.  Because she provided such a strong beacon of being herself, regardless of her possessions, I have never worried about money or things for my fundamental survival.

2)   Reality lies within, not without. As an eight-year-old child visiting my mother in the hospital, I would meet many patients who were a bit “out there.” Too young for shame, I could easily jump into fascinating conversations with people who were immersed in characters of their own creation. I remember the day, while sipping chocolate milk and getting ready to play another round of ping-pong with a woman patient, I said to myself, “All these people truly see the world differently. Let me put my mind down so I can go play in their world.” What a gift! It was years before I realized what many adults have yet to learn that reality is a perception.

3)   Art can have its own unique resilience and endurance. My mother is now in her sixties, and she is thriving. She has a wonderful husband who ensures she takes her medicine and gets consistent care. They live a very modest, very meaningful life. When I see her now, I see a mirror. I see how much we look alike and I see how much my work draws upon creative expression as well as intellect. 

In my thirties, as an executive coach, it was very important for me to work with “smart people.” Some of my motivation to work with smart people was fear. I would reason, “If smart successful people need my strategic help, that proves I am sane and intelligent, too.“ I am not proud that this was my motivation, and I have compassion for where those fears came from. Now, in my mid-forties, I no longer need that kind of validation and am able to acknowledge and embrace how insights come from both the grace of artistic expression and the intelligence offered by rational thought. 

 I have written this for myself. I have written this for my mother. I have written this for anyone struggling with the accidental shame and fear caused by the shadow of mental illness or their parent’s fate. I have learned so much from my mother’s dragon.


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Building Resilience - Hug and Nudge

29/4/2013

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Picture
Sometimes a warm hug is the answer to our question and sometimes a gentle nudge is the answer.

Question-How does an individual build resilience to face the ever changing environment?
A Great Question by Preeti Subberwal, Life Skills Trainer, New Delhi

My Answer
As you know by now I don’t think of resilience in isolation. I think of resilience in the context of agility = resilience + responsiveness + reflection. However, we can zoom directly to resilience for this post.

Building resilience is an ongoing process and there are many ways to foster and buffer this capacity. I will only share a few that I think will have the most immediate impact.

First, I think we need to start by acknowledging how resilient you already are. I want you to think of a time between the age of 5 - 7 and something that made you feel either proud or special? 

Before we knew about 'ego' or before we experience 'shame' many of us have had experiences that allowed us to illuminate and experience our unique contribution to the world. I like to start with the past because I think people are so used to looking forward to the mountain they are climbing that they often devalue - or forget to honor where they have come from.

Here is one of my favorite quotes that keeps me feeling renewed during times when I might forget how strong, resilient I have been:

“The true result of endeavor, whether on a mountain or in any context, may be found in its lasting effects rather than in the few moments during which the summit is trampled by mountain boots. The real measure is the success or failure of the climber to triumph, not over a lifeless mountain, but over oneself: the true value of the enterprise lies in the example of others of human motivation and human contact.”
— Sir John Hunt, The Last Blue Mountain 

Our world fosters competition and it is easy to envy others for what they are accomplishing. What we don’t know is whether the individuals we admire are truly happy and if they are honoring their own life journey. What we know is only our own hearts (even we are mysteries to ourselves).  Helen Keller is a wonderful teacher on resilience. I think we need to keep her voice in this conversation:





Second, if you don't have a journal - now please get one. Writing in a journal is a wonderful way to build resilience. The only way we can track how our thinking is changing is by reading our past thoughts and how our focus and language shifts over time.

Many people do not know how to get started. I have a practice I call Plus + / Delta Δ.  
At least once per week write down a situation that happened that you were proud of and what actions you took to support a successful outcome Plus +. At least once per week write down a situation that happened that you wish you could have been better prepared for or if you could have a do-over what you might do differently. We think about these things and then ruminate in our heads - but unless we get into disciplined practice and write these things down-- we might set ourselves up for lateral loops instead of progressive learning loops.

Even if you keep a blog - please, please keep a private journal. I think there are some things we need to keep private for our own learning and for our own unfolding.

To keep this post both brief and actionable, the last thing I will share for now is the idea that you create time in the morning for at least 10 minutes to think about how you want to be in the world. I have a prayer and an intention that I say that grounds my day. While we are connected to the globe, many of us are not connected to ourselves, our core. I begin my day with a 10 minute ritual that includes a prayer for safety and a prayer for my intention.

I will be in a lot of noise today.
May I have the wisdom to separate grain from chaff.
May I use my time to honor my long view commitments.
May my interactions create reciprocal value.
May I be safe from energetic and psychological harm.
Finally, may the ripples I create include wisdom, grace, and impact. . .
 Amen

This is just an example of the type of prayer or meditation that I believe is vital for our practice. Your prayers (requests) might be different. The ripples you desire to create will also be unique. The point here is to claim your space and how you want to be in it - prior to jumping into the water of life on the outside with everyone else’s design.

You are already resilient. Honor how far you have come. Build some additional habits to fortify yourself from the dangers in the macro.

Onward . . .
Jennifer

Read the original post, including Dr Amit Nagpal's response to the same question.

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    About the author


    Jennifer Sertl is a business strategist combining neuroscience and existential philosophy to foster better decisions, systems thinking and scenario planning.

    Beacon of hope. Purveyor of discipline.
    Global Citizen. Transleader.
    Coach. Facilitator.
    Co-Author- Strategy, Leadership & the Soul and Founder of Agility3R.

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