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Posts Tagged ‘psychology’

  1. Your World is How You View It

    April 19, 2015 by Diane

    Young Woman Capturing Photo Using Vintage Camera. Monochrome Por

    Picture a world where magic is commonplace. Where people of all creeds and colors sing together in harmony. Where fun is had at any age, and food is plentiful, and everyone is merry and childlike and awestruck at least once a day.

    That world exists.

    It’s the world of Disney.

    I recently watched Saving Mr. Banks on DVD. In case you haven’t seen the film, it’s the story of Walt Disney’s quest to purchase the movie rights to Mary Poppins. But the author, P. L. Travers, is a stubborn nut to crack, and doesn’t want to part with her creation. It takes years of wooing and convincing on Disney’s part, but finally the movie gets made. Oh, sure, there’s plenty of backstory revealing why Travers is the persnickety, repressed woman that she is, but those darker scenes are outweighed by the delightful world of Disney Studios, where scriptwriters and lyricists dance around like children (and Bradley Whitford waltzing in a goofy manner is reason enough to watch the film).

    Anyway, it’s a delightful movie, and I was sharing my delight with a neighbor—let’s call her Chicken Little—who agreed. She lit up, and said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were all just a bit more reserved nowadays?” and then she deflated. “Oh, Diane, the world is going downhill.”

    And I thought…really? What lens are you looking through?

    But I wasn’t about to get into an argument with this woman. I wasn’t about to point out that Saving Mr. Banks is set in the early ‘60s, a time of rampant racism and the brewing of the Vietnam War and the uprising of women fed up being repressed. And before that, there were two world wars and poverty and prohibition and rationing and polio and tuberculosis and some guy named Jack the Ripper. There were men in white coats who carted you away in a straightjacket if you suffered a mental illness. There was the plague and beheadings and…well, you get my drift.

    There were always frightful things afoot, but no immediate broadcasting throwing it into our faces 24/7.

    I understand how Chicken Little came to adopt her particular viewpoint. She scours the internet daily, pouncing on scary, negative stories that will back up her vision of a world in decline. Through the mail she receives angry, doomsday missives from her political party. She seeks out people who hold similar negative views, and together they chew on the gristle of their dissatisfaction.

    But what about the wonderfulness of the universe? It’s there, too. We might not live in a Disney world, but it’s not skidding into skid row, either, regardless of what our elected officials may spout. And while it’s important to be aware of what’s occurring around us—even the horrendous stuff—if we are unable to personally change it for the better, isn’t it best to focus on all that is good? And in so doing, expand that goodness?

    Just as Disney created his own playground of the mind (and a literal one for all of us to scamper in), Chicken Little creates the world she believes in.

    So I write this for the Chicken Little in us all:

    Where do you aim your lens? Do you focus on the fearful tales that the media highlights? Do you dwell on the people in your life who are grit under your eyelids? Do you rehash the mistakes you’ve made?

    Or do you see the possibility in every human being you encounter? Do you remember the times you triumphed? Do you speak uplifting words? Do you find humor in the craziness?

    Where do you aim your lens?

    Because you have a choice. You are the director of your life. You are the producer and the writer and the actor. You have a choice of whether to live in a drama or comedy or romance or fantasy or action-adventure or cartoon. And if you suffer abuse or unemployment or a life-threatening illness, or mental, physical, or spiritual pain of any kind, then you need to sharpen your focus on something joyful. You need to remember: above the clouds, the sun is always shining.

    It’s not easy. Our thoughts are squirrelly things.

    But I do believe it’s necessary. For the sanity of ourselves and our planet.

    So let’s ask ourselves, periodically, throughout the day: Where am I aiming my lens? What view, of all the views in this buffet of life, am I choosing to focus upon?

    And choose the uplifting one.

    Category Ain't Life Grand | Tags: ,,,,,, | 9 Comments

  2. What Makes a Writer?

    March 22, 2015 by Diane

    hand opening red curtain on white.

    What compels a person to isolate herself in a room, have imaginary conversations with people who don’t exist, observe life from the sidelines, and suffer extreme highs and lows? Is it neurosis, or art?

    In her book The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, Betsy Lerner asks, “Is your neurotic behavior part of your creative process or just…neurotic behavior?”

    I decided to peel back the curtain and take a look at what makes up the writer’s personality:

    1. The voyeur

    Lerner says, “…the great paradox of the writer’s life is how much time he spends alone trying to connect with other people.”

    This “trying to connect” became painfully obvious to me when I accepted a friend’s invitation to hear a live band at a bar and grill downtown. I wasn’t prepared for the assault of music, so loud that we had to shout to hear each other. My ears ringing, I parked myself on a stool with a view of the band and the kitchen, the smell of something akin to rotting food and spilled wine overpowering my senses, and I was back in junior high again, the wallflower watching others on the dance floor flinging their arms about, twisting their hips, one bespectacled man in a hat firmly grasping the derriere of a young blonde woman. I might have joined in (the dancing), but couldn’t bring myself to budge from my perch. Why? I felt paralyzed. Was it social anxiety? Was I showing my introvert colors? Was my ability to interact with my tribe reduced to 140 character tweets and 700 word blog posts?

    No. You’ve changed, I told myself. You’re more reflective now, more meditative. This just isn’t your scene. Followed swiftly by: you haven’t changed at all. You’re still that twelve year-old aching to be included.

    Have I become a voyeur? An observer of life, mentally recording sense impressions, and not a participant?

    2. The neurotic

    I spend a great deal of time alone, writing, and there’s a danger there: I become lonely. Even in a coffee shop surrounded by people, I’m focused solely on my words. Yet at the same time, I’m not lonely at all: I have imaginary friends who populate my pages. I have ideas I immerse myself in, conversations in my head to imaginary readers—albeit one-sided conversations—but I anticipate the reader’s response.

    Am I neurotic?

    3. The schizophrenic

    I write in many voices. Here’s one:

    Oz is within, man. It’s always been within. Isn’t that what Baum was saying? There’s no place like home-sweet-home, man, but that home-sweet-home is inside you.

    And another:

    We were doing okay, you and me. We were doing what people do on Sundays…reading the newspaper, slurping coffee, eating a late breakfast of bangers and mash, taking a drive, and then you straightened up in the passenger seat at the stoplight and said “that’s it, Pete. I want a divorce.” Just like that. And the light turned green and I sat there, my mouth open, until the driver behind us tooted his horn.

    And another:

    There wasn’t much evidence. A wallet. A handkerchief. The boss chalked it up to another rendezvous when the missus was gone. Who shot him? And why? You might be wondering these things, and that’s good. You keep on wondering. Because what I’m about to tweak your ear with could fill a shot glass in an hour.

    All these voices: am I schizophrenic?

    4. Bi-Polar

    Some days the writing goes well, the ideas flow, the words flow into pleasing patterns and I’m on a high. Other days I struggle to be clever, or concise, or compelling. Plot becomes elusive. A character becomes passive. I plunge into hopelessness and slog through despair and wonder if I’ll ever finish the novel, the copy, the post.

    Am I bi-polar?

    5. The Artist

    Writers are a neurotic breed. We teeter from neurosis to neurosis, blessed with a “gift” but also a “whip,” to borrow from Truman Capote. It’s the mark of the artistic temperament. It’s the way of the creative process: to observe, isolate oneself, experiment with voice,  “stalk our demons” for material (as Lerner advises), to triumph and fail.

    So, to answer the questions I posed: am I a neurotic schizophrenic voyeur with bi-polar tendencies?

    No.

    I’m a writer.

    Category Behind the Writer's Curtain | Tags: ,,, | 6 Comments

  3. Lost in the Self-Help Section

    December 21, 2014 by Diane

     

    Stacks of books

    I spent an afternoon in the self-help section in the library, searching for a fix for whatever was broken inside me, and I got lost. I got lost in books that offered advice on how-to, and why-not, and what-if. I got lost in books about how someone’s cat or dog or horse helped them overcome whatever it was they overcame. I got lost in the channeled texts and the autobiographies and the manifestation manuals; in the advice from Buddhists and Hindus and Christians and Athiests; in books on mindfulness and compassion and stress relief and figuring out one’s purpose. And if that weren’t enough, I then wandered over to the creativity section, to the books on how to plot and revise and overcome writer’s block and open the mind and dump out the contents.

    I gorged on all of this information. I pigged out. I greedily sucked it up. And like the dry soil in California that is suddenly inundated with rain, I couldn’t take anymore in. Like the soggy earth that bleeds water, I needed to find a metaphorical leech to release some of the pressure.

    But I kept grazing. In a bookstore.

    I’m a book buyer, after all. The books come to me.

    I continued to stuff in every crumb of wisdom from people other than myself, and then I wondered how I could stuff some of my wisdom into other people; add to the mass of information that’s already out there in the world. I wondered how I could help others through my blogging.

    So I gorged some more. On the internet.

    I visited blogs about blogging, and blogs about gaining followers, and blogs about the proper way to tweet, and finally, finally…I couldn’t take in another word. I couldn’t open another book. I couldn’t click on another email about how to (fill in the blank). I couldn’t read another tweet directing me to another self-help site.

    I needed to back away from the table and put down my fork.

    I lost myself in the voices of others. I had shut out the puny voice within me that was shouting, “Hey!” and “Yoo-hoo!” and “Listen up!” I had forgotten: what did Dorothy and her gang learn from the wizard? Whatever we are seeking is already inside us, in that place called “home.”

    So my advice, if the world needs another piece of advice, is this:

    Go home.

    It’s fine to look for answers elsewhere–from books, television shows, your mother, your best friend, your spouse, your significant other, your minister, your therapist, your doctor, the stranger on the bus bench. It’s fine…up to a point. But eventually, you need to go home.

    However you get there–via a stroll on the beach, a walk in the woods, in an empty church; on a meditation bench or couch cushion or the back of your father’s pickup truck–make a point of spending time in that still, quiet place within.

    Ask your questions.

    And then listen.

    The answer might not come immediately, but keep checking in and eventually you’ll get that twinge, that shot of instinct, that certainty, that knowing. It was there, all along. Sometimes we don’t trust it. We need validation from outside. That’s okay too. That’s what other people are for; and books.

    But if you’re among the lost souls in the self-help section, look up. It’s called self-help. Go home.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,, | 6 Comments

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