Daily Om: Remembering Childhood Joys

Today's Daily Om is a reminder that fun is a choice - and as adults we too often get caught up in all of the responsibilities of being an adult and forget to have some fun. If you have kids, you get down to their level and play in the dirt, or color and draw with crayons, or watch cartoons. Even if you don't have kids, drawing and coloring can be fun, as is swinging on the swings at the park, or playing on the merry-go-round, or catching and releasing frogs in the local pond (if you live in a rural area), or playing in the fall leaves (like diving into the pile after you rake them up).

Whatever you enjoy, let yourself enjoy it.

Just for Fun

Remembering Childhood Joys

by Madisyn Taylor
October 19, 2014

Fun isn’t something that is given or done to you, it is something that you allow yourself to experience.

As adults, we often get so caught up in “grown up” business that we can forget how to have pure fun. This isn’t the kind of fun that comes from doing a specific kind of activity or being in a specific mood for fun. Rather, this is the fun born from the state of pure being. You see this kind of fun in small children who are so busy being fully present to their lives and in their own bodies that the glow of fun radiates from them just because they are alive: the delight that flashes across the eyes of a child who discovers that water flows with the turn of the tap knob or the squeal of pleasure from a young baby whose tongue is being tickled by cold ice cream; then there’s the full, infectious laughter of a child watching the same hat trick for the fiftieth time.

Back when we were children, this experience of pure delight didn’t have to come from a heightened, heady event in order for us to feel like our day had been made; and it can be that way for us again - if we are willing to remember and reconnect with that part of ourselves that knows how to be in the flow of fun. You can begin this process by reminiscing on what was fun for you as a child. Think about what caused you to giggle in delight or wriggle in pleasure or burst into endless laughter that you couldn’t sit up straight no matter how much you wanted to. Try to spend a few moments with each memory, and really feel what it was like to be in those experiences – allowing that feeling of pure fun to wash over you. It lives, in you – that feeling. It can’t be bottled, manufactured, or sold. You just have to call it back up in order to experience it again.

Pure fun happens when we are fully engaged with ourselves and our world in each moment. It is the spontaneous delight that bubbles out of us when we let go long enough to bring it through; it is the experience of natural, organic pleasure that springs up from our bellies, through our souls, up through our faces, and down to our toes. We’ve naturally known how to have pure fun since we were babies and the flicker of lights caused us to jump to attention from the sheer enjoyment of being able to see. Approach your life today with the knowledge that pure fun isn’t something that is given or done to you; rather, it is something that you allow yourself to experience.

What do you think?
Discuss this article and share your opinion

Judy Y. Chu - Boyhood is a Battlefield: The Dangerous Expectations of Early Masculinity

The article below is an excerpt from Judy Y. Chu's new book When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships and Masculinity (2014). Based on this brief excerpt, this looks like an interesting book.

Boyhood is a battlefield: The dangerous expectations of early masculinity

The idea that "boys must be boys" is pervasive in our society — and it's doing much more harm than good

Judy Y. Chu  | Saturday, Jun 28, 2014


(Credit: Ollyy via Shutterstock)

• Excerpted from When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships and Masculinity

Even before our son Xander turned 5, my husband and I fretted about finding a good school for him. Our concerns extended beyond the fact that good schools are few and hard to get into in San Francisco, where we live. Our main concern was about whether we would be able to find a school that was a good fit for him, given that he is both particularly sensitive and exceptionally bright.

In preschool, because he preferred calm, quiet activities and could feel shy at times, Xander tended to play alone. As he generally kept to himself and was rarely if ever disruptive, he was easily overlooked by his teachers, who needed to focus on kids who required more attention. But it wasn’t until our “sensitive boy” was ready for elementary school that our troubles really began.

We tried a public school for one year, starting when Xander turned 5. Although he had a good teacher and the school did the best it could with what resources it had, the curriculum was not challenging enough for Xander, who was an early reader and excels in math and science.

Next, we tried a private school for one year, when Xander turned 6. After three months, we were asked to leave the school upon completing the school year. We were informed that our son was “not a good fit” for this school. When we inquired further, we were told that his shyness was problematic. Offering an example, the teacher remarked that Xander rarely played with the other boys during recess. Instead, he often chose to sit and watch as the other boys ran around and chased each other (and occasionally he played with girls). When we asked Xander whether he wanted to join in the boys’ activities but felt like he couldn’t, he said he just preferred to sit and watch, and explained that, “some of the kids play too rough.”

My husband and I could understand our son’s decision. He had never been interested in boys’ (or girls’) rowdy and rambunctious play. Although he liked his classmates and was less reserved when interacting with them one on one, he tended to be cautious in social situations, especially with the more aggressive kids, and he generally preferred (and could be quite active and gregarious in) the company of adults, to whom he could relate more easily. Moreover, Xander was comfortable playing on his own and didn’t feel compelled to do whatever the other kids were doing. One time when a boy from his class approached Xander on the playground at school, punched him playfully on the arm and invited him to “chase me,” Xander responded by smiling and saying simply, “Uh, no.” When we relayed Xander’s preference to the teacher, she indicated that this was precisely the reason for her concern: He didn’t want to join in the boys’ activities. And so it seemed our son’s “problem” was not merely his shyness but that he didn’t behave like a typical boy or conform to the teacher’s notions about how boys ought to act. When we told the teacher that we were fine with Xander’s decision to opt out of the boys’ rough-and-tumble play, his teacher seemed exasperated:

“Well, I just don’t know what to do with him.”

Sadly, Xander knew that this teacher didn’t like him. Her disapproval was evident in the way she looked at and spoke to him (and us). As Xander observed, “She never smiles.” And it was heartbreaking to take him to school every day knowing that he was misunderstood, devalued and even resented there.

At times, we felt as though this teacher would have preferred for Xander to misbehave or act out. Then, at least, she would have a ready response or some ideas about how she should deal with him. But Xander’s mild manner did not match her expectations for boys, and this seemed to make her uncomfortable. Rather than question her own assumptions about what boys could and should be like, this teacher decided there was something wrong with Xander. Her negative assessment was especially apparent when, later in the year, she reported to us that Xander had “gotten better,” citing, for example, how she had caught him and another boy peeking into the lost-and-found box (something the students are forbidden to do). With a nudge and a wink, she added proudly that she had allowed this trespass because she was so happy to see Xander “branching out.”

As we did not want simply to ignore or dismiss this teacher’s view, my husband and I consulted a range of specialists — including a pediatrician, a pediatric neurologist, a developmental psychologist and an occupational therapist — over the course of the school year. Each of these specialists concluded that Xander is a “fully normal child” who is “very bright and cooperative” and “very sensitive” with no symptoms of pathology, either social or psychological. And so we had to reconcile the teacher’s perception that our son’s conduct was worrisome with our sense that the qualities that seemed to distinguish him from the other boys were, in fact, within the range of normal.

* * *

The issues my husband and I were confronting in our son’s education brought me back to my studies with Carol Gilligan, whose groundbreaking research with girls has inspired and informed worldwide efforts to support girls’ healthy psychological development and whose book The Birth of Pleasure makes the link between girls’ gender socialization at adolescence and boys’ gender socialization at early childhood. Drawing on her work, I undertook the first research study to apply a relational framework and use relational methods to examine boys’ socialization experiences and development during early childhood.

The importance of relationships, particularly as a context for development, has been widely recognized in most developmental and psychological theories. What distinguishes relational theory is that it starts from the premise that our perceptions of, and subsequently our knowledge about, our selves and our world are inextricably embedded within and influenced by our interpersonal relationships as well as our social and cultural contexts. That is, relational theories of human development and psychology emphasize the centrality of relationships in people’s lives. From this perspective, human development occurs not in isolation (with the option of having relationships), but through and within relationships with other people. More than a context for our development, our relationship experiences — including how we experience our selves in relationships — are a primary means by which we develop our self-image and learn how it is possible for us to express ourselves and engage with others.

A relational approach to psychological inquiry reframes the study of psychology as a practice of relationships and emphasizes the need for researchers to account for the fact that the quality of collected data depends in part on qualities of the researcher-participant relationship.

In other words, relational methods center on the understanding that the stories people tell us, or what people are willing to share with us about their experiences and their lives, are partly determined by how they view us and our intentions, and whether they trust us. In my study, I used a voice-centered relational method that involved attuning myself to what the boys said and how they said it, and also reflecting on how the boys responded to me and how I responded to them in our interactions.

Revisiting Boys’ Development

In the autumn of 1997, Carol Gilligan and I went to the Friends School—an independent primary school (pre-Kindergarten through grade six) in New England — to study the boys in the pre-Kindergarten class. Carol had studied sixth-grade girls at this school with her colleagues from the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development, and their research had revealed ways in which heightened pressures at adolescence — to conform to conventions of femininity, or notions about what qualities and behaviors are appropriate and desirable for girls — could constrain girls’ expression of a full range of thoughts, feelings, and desires, and thereby hinder their relationships.

In this work, Carol had been particularly impressed by the girls’ knowledge about the relational world (including their attunement to interpersonal dynamics, their ability to reflect critically on gendered norms of behavior, and their ability to distinguish between appearances and reality), the girls’ resistance to giving up their voices (including their struggles to remain open and honest within their relationships), and the girls’ ability to articulate both their knowledge and their resistance.

Based on the research with girls, Carol introduced the concept of resistance as a way of capturing what she had come to see as “a tension between psychological development or well-being and an adaptation that was both culturally scripted and socially enforced (i.e., an initiation into gender binaries and hierarchies that divide human qualities into ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ and privilege the masculine while at once idealizing and denigrating the feminine).” Carol had observed girls resisting this initiation and described “the paradox girls face when pressed to silence an honest voice in order to have ‘relationships’ that girls recognized were not relationships in any meaningful sense of the word.” The significance of this work is its emphasis that, as individuals, “we have a voice and, with it, a capacity for resistance.” Subsequently, Carol asked whether boys also know about the relational world and show a similar resistance (e.g., against compromising their sense of agency and choice) when faced with pressures to align with conventions of masculinity that — despite the social advantages of being male and acting masculine — may be detrimental to boys’ psychological health and jeopardize boys’ relationships. It was this question that led to my study with 4- and 5-year-old boys.

I was interested in learning how boys at early childhood experience and respond to their gender socialization, and specifically how boys negotiate their self-image, behaviors, and styles of relating to others in light of cultural constructions of masculinity that manifest in their everyday interactions with peers and adults at school. I had spent the previous two years studying adolescent boys and found that most of the boys had already resolved any conflicts they may have experienced regarding their gender socialization. For instance, many of the adolescent boys in my studies had come to accept any gaps between the way they experience themselves to be (e.g., their self-knowledge) and the way they are said to be (e.g., societal norms and expectations for boys) as being the way things are. With Carol’s encouragement, I decided to study younger boys in hopes of gaining insight into how they reconcile any tensions or contradictions between their self-image and prevailing assumptions regarding what makes a boy a “real boy,” at a moment in boys’ development when they are increasingly exposed to cultural messages and societal pressures pertaining to gender and when they are in the process of figuring out how they can act and be with others.

I was also interested to learn what young boys are capable of knowing (about themselves and others) and doing (in terms of expressing themselves and engaging others) and how these capacities evolve through and are influenced by their socialization and development. As every human is born into relationships with other people (otherwise one could not survive), we all begin with an original sense of relational connection. Studies of infants have shown that both boys and girls are also born with a fundamental capacity and primary desire for close, mutual, responsive relationships with other people. Thus, boys are not inherently less capable than girls of being attuned to emotions (their own and others’) and responsive within their relationships. Moreover, studies indicate that boys as well as girls seek to cultivate and sustain close interpersonal relationships throughout their lives. Yet, older boys and adult men report having fewer close relationships and lower levels of intimacy within the relationships they do have. This discrepancy between infancy and adulthood suggests that boys’ development is somehow associated with a move out of or away from relationships. However, few empirical studies have examined boys’ relational development — that is, boys’ development as a process wherein relationships play a central and critical role, and boys’ development of certain styles of relating to other people — much less from boys’ perspectives.

Popular Discourse on Boys

I conducted my study against a backdrop of literature that highlighted ways in which pressures for boys to conform to conventions of masculinity could negatively impact boys’ development. Research on girls’ development conducted by the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development during the 1980s and early 1990s had inspired a resurgence of interest in boys’ development during the late

1990s. Specifically, revelations regarding the centrality of relationships in girls’ lives and the relational nature of girls’ development called into question traditional models of human development that promote individuation and separation in the name of growth, health, and, for boys, manhood. Following the studies of girls, a number of books focused on how boys’ socialization — towards masculine ideals that emphasize, for example, physical toughness, emotional stoicism, and projected self-sufficiency — may lead boys to devalue and disconnect from their emotions and relationships.

While this popular discourse on boys has been helpful in drawing attention to possible problems pertaining to boys’ gender socialization, it has been limited by its tendency to pathologize boys and problematize boys’ development. For example, most of these books are based on clinical populations of boys and adopt a diagnostic approach to understanding boys’ development. Starting from the assumption that there is something wrong with boys, these books emphasize their alleged emotional and relational deficiencies (as compared to girls) and aim to identify what is wrong and who or what is to blame. Boys’ emotional capacities and relational strengths are rarely mentioned, much less addressed. Furthermore, these books do not account for group and individual differences in boys’ socialization experiences and outcomes, including how some boys manage to thrive, and not merely survive, within the same contexts that can be debilitating for other boys.

There is also a tendency in much of the literature on boys to conceptualize boys’ gender socialization in terms of a linear model of cause-and-effect wherein cultural messages about masculinity and societal pressures to conform to group norms manifest in boys’ everyday lives and subsequently affect their attitudes and behaviors. In depicting boys as passive recipients of culture and helpless victims of their socialization, this approach tends both to objectify boys and to discount their ability to influence their developmental outcomes. Seldom considered are ways in which boys — as active participants in their learning and development — can mediate the effects of their gender socialization, for instance through ways in which they make meaning of cultural messages and respond to societal pressures.

A more balanced depiction of boys’ agency and awareness appears in Niobe Way’s and Carlos Santos’s research on adolescent boys. In her studies of boys’ friendships, Way acknowledges the obstacles that boys commonly encounter in their efforts to develop close friendships, including issues of trust and cultural stereotypes that denigrate emotional intimacy as feminine. However, Way also underscores the intense emotional intimacy in boys’ close friendships, especially during early and middle adolescence, and she emphasizes how boys value and fight to maintain (but often end up losing) their emotional connections to others. The core finding of Way’s “Deep Secrets” is that boys resist as well as adhere to norms of masculine behavior. She also indicates that a boy’s refusal to buy into masculine ideals is ultimately beneficial to his psychological health. Building upon Way’s work, Santos’s longitudinal survey study with middle-school boys similarly emphasizes boys’ resistance against societal pressures to align with masculine norms, and shows this resistance to be linked to higher levels of academic engagement, as well as to higher self-esteem and lower levels of depression. These studies add depth to the discourse on boys by highlighting boys’ resistance to gendered norms and expectations that constrain their self-expression and hinder their relationships, and by demonstrating that this form of resistance — which emerged and gained prominence primarily through research with adolescent girls—is also vital to boys’ development and important for boys’ well-being. Moreover, these studies suggest the need to examine patterns of resistance in boys’ development prior to adolescence, in order to understand how and why, in the course of their socialization and relationship experiences, boys’ healthy resistance to gendered stereotypes might eventually give way to accommodation.

Importance of Early Childhood

Developmental theorists have identified early childhood as an important time of change, particularly for boys. Jean Piaget referred to early childhood as the time when gender bifurcated schemas that shape human behaviors and experiences are constructed and reinforced.

Lawrence Kohlberg concluded that children acquire their gender lens by age six. Erik Erikson observed that, from this age on, “Conscience . . . forever divides the child within himself by establishing an inner voice of self-observation, self-guidance, and self-punishment,” as children learn to reconcile their desire to act on their impulses with their desire to avoid the disapproval and rejection that can result from behaving inappropriately. And Sigmund Freud described early childhood as a pivotal moment in boys’ initiation into manhood — a moment when boys establish their masculine identities by separating from women and girls and aligning with men and boys.

Although ideas about gender and gender-appropriate behavior may be introduced as early as infancy (e.g., through adults’ differential treatment of and responses to boys and girls), it is during early childhood that boys (and girls) begin to understand how these ideas may have implications for how other people view them and also for how they can be with others and in the world. Moreover, studies have found in boys a marked increase both in symptoms of psychological distress — including depression, learning and speech disorders, attention deficits, and hyperactive or out-of-control behaviors — and in the use of Ritalin at this age. Yet, little research has been conducted to explore how boys experience their socialization during early childhood and how these experiences may have implications for their connections to their selves (e.g., self-acceptance, self-esteem) and to others (e.g., relationships).

The growing realization that pressures for boys to conform to masculine norms may negatively impact their development—coupled with concerns about young boys’ susceptibility to behavioral and learning problems—suggest our need and readiness for a new way of looking at boys and thinking about their development that both emphasizes their agency and awareness and considers what factors influence and motivate individual boys as they respond to their gender socialization.

Excerpted from When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships and Masculinity by Judy Y. Chu. Copyright © 2014 by Judy Y. Chu. Reprinted by arrangement with NYU Press. All rights reserved.

Scott Sonnon - The Boy I Was, The Man it Makes Me

This article is from Scott Sonnon on the Good Men Project - it's an interesting discussion of how the way we are treated by others is shaped by how others see us, whether or not that is valid.

As a child he was overweight, but in his teens he lost weight and built muscle. Following a suicide attempt after yet another humiliating beating, he went from being invisible to being invited to play sports, receiving smiles from girls, and being invited to parties.

After defending another overweight kid from bullies, he was given a wake-up call that changed his perspective . . . and made him an advocate for the overweight, as well as a coach who could help them change their shape.

It's sad that any child has to get to a suicide attempt because of shaming, humiliation, and beatings. Nothing deserves that kind of abuse, certainly not being overweight.

The Boy I Was, The Man it Makes Me

February 2, 2014 by Scott Sonnon

Scott Sonnon has a mission to speak out for all of what he has seen.

—

I was invisible; and the only times I had been seen were the uncomfortable moments of public shaming and violent abuse. Is it any wonder that I began to prefer my invisibility over recognition?

I had been fat. And the differences between how I am treated today with how I had been treated in my youth, I still find extremely uncomfortable.

Please don’t misunderstand. I am healthy now, and rarely ill, like I was as a boy. My joints no longer constantly ache from the condition which had once plagued them. And with a family history of diabetes and heart disease, my path was being carved for the same, had I not departed from carrying so much excess fat, into the fitness I am now blessed to have for the time it remains.

I remember precisely the day when I had returned home from yet another humiliating beating that I had decided I couldn’t become any more invisible unless I committed suicide. So, I tried. Calling a friend, I divulged what I had done. She called the police, and I had been saved, thanks to her and God.

The next morning, I realized that invisibility couldn’t serve me if I were to remain alive, and more importantly, LIVING. That day, the changes in my nutrition and fitness began.

The path that I had adopted wasn’t the best, as I didn’t know anything about how to diet and exercise at the time, but it achieved external results. Within a year, my physique made obvious changes. Within two years, most people no longer recognized me when we passed each other.

As my fat melted, so did people’s demeanor toward me. The fights virtually disappeared within months. Many more people began to smile at me, start conversations and even make gestures toward friendships like inviting me to parties and events. Girls began to flirt with me, an artform that today I still remain incompetently unaware of.

I had thought, “Was this some new type of invisibility? Do they not realize I’m the same person?”

♦◊♦

Guys would slap me on the shoulder and ask me about my exercise routine and ask me to join their team for a game of… anything. Girls would linger their eyes upon me, something that had never happened before. I had felt enamored with the lavish attention, the sudden rush of validation; an extreme contrast with the prior horrifying periods of unwanted visibility.

As a fat kid, I had grown familiar with being picked last and begrudgingly, “Okay, we have to take Sonnon.” I had been acquainted to sitting alone at the school dances watching everyone snicker at my exclusion. I had learned to not be heard or seen. And I had learned to be thankful for that invisibility for fear of the repercussions its opposite held: public shaming and physical violence.

I had come to understand those behaviors were “normal.” So, when I had begun to be treated like someone whose presence was not only acknowledged but DESIRED, I was completely overwhelmed, unprepared and socially uneducated.

At first, I held my guard expecting that it would again be one of the jokes pulled on me of pretending to be my friend or girlfriend in order to humiliate me, but it didn’t have a punch line. They just continued being friendly and affectionate. Of course, I basked in that warmth. And the more I had changed my physique, the more the affection grew. I had become a very willing captive of social conditioning.

But then, I saw the injustice committed against other fat people, and my new “friends” began to invite me into their “humorous” atrocities against them. I became livid with anger. I was ONE of those fat people, even with my bodily changes. Didn’t these people understand the terror and depression they were creating?

No, they did not. Every time I spoke out against their mistreatment, they’d turn in surprise, like I had taken off some sort of mask; they realized again that I was one of “those ugly people.” Whenever I had removed my mask by standing up against those unjust remarks and behaviors, I was excommunicated out of the “cool” clique.

The fights began again as I let my anger take control of me. But by that time, I had become a champion fighter, and I found myself a vigilante to the bullyism once committed against me.

I came to my senses one day in college. I had pulled two thuggish students off an overweight boy they had been pushing back and forth like a pinball; his carefully prepared papers flying in the wind, presumably lost in those years before memory sticks. Throwing one of the bullies against the wall, I took the other down to the ground, hovering a fist above his face, cocked to unleash my vengeance. The bully flinched his hands over his face, squinting his eyes to avoid watching the impact, quickly muttering, “Dude stop! We were just having some fun!”

I wish that I could write that I had had some moral epiphany at that moment, that I had stayed my hand and realized I had become the thing I had hated. But I didn’t. That word “fun” undid me. His nose exploded in a pool of blood, and I stood to check on my fellow fat kid; my fist uncurling from its wrath.

When I saw him, he was terrified. And his words rattled my brain, “What the hell, man!? Do you know what they’re going to do to me the next time they see me and you’re not around to pull your Captain America routine? Thanks for nothing!” He stormed away running after his still flying papers.

What had I done? I had become the monster; only one of a different breed – one with pointed, skilled malice, camouflaged as one of “them.”

The affection of girls at my changed physique began to lose its luster, as did the members-only guys club of athletics I had willingly joined.

I couldn’t hold them accountable for the social quicksand into which even I, with my fat aware perspective, had fallen. There was a very distinct social stratification: fit was SOMETHING and fat was NOTHING.

I was only physically different but mentally and emotionally the same. I had been something before I was fit. I had had dreams, ideas, goals, loves and fantasies. They were dismissed by others because they had learned to define fat as nothing, but once fit – my ideas had gained aknowledgement.

♦◊♦

Today, when I write, I find a few students of mine sending messages. They ask me why I talk about past hardships, philosophies, and advocacies for issues not regarding elite fitness. They plead with me to “just be the coach that once” helped them change their “shape” and they ask me to stop wasting my time advocating for severe cases when a coach of my “level” should dedicate himself to “the best athletes.” I recognize that they are teetering where I had once stood: inside the door to the cool kids club.

Our culture lionizes fit and castigates fat. But fit or fat is not who we are. It is only how we appear. Myamoto Musashi once wrote, “You can see the shape by which I am victorious but you cannot see the form by which I guarantee triumph.” Our form, who we essentially are, cannot be defined by our shape. Who we are is shapeless, beyond any transient state of our bodies, beyond our illnesses or our vitality, beyond our disease or our health, beyond our fitness or fatness.

Make no mistake, as I walk down the beach here in Costa Rica vacationing with my family, I see the reaction men and women have toward my athletic, tattooed shape. But they don’t see my form.

This shape WILL pass, but my form will remain.

My walk in life may be more visible on the surface now but my thoughts, hopes and dreams for a better future together remain invisible if I allow my current appearance to mask my true form.

I may be a fit adult man now but I will always have my awareness of the world from a young fat boy. I will take this shape I currently have while others will choose to make it visible, and bring light to the invisible world we are missing by its distraction.

Sharing that awareness might help others realize that they can choose to change their shape, improve their health and enhance their physical capacity, but acknowledge that they are already perfect in form, beautiful and wondrous in nature. And sharing that awareness might also break down the gated prejudice of the cool kids club so that we can improve our insight into the transient nature of our physical bodies, that the world is rich in shapes and sizes, beautiful and wondrous in each…

Very Respectfully,
Scott Sonnon
www.facebook.com/ScottSonnon

–

Photo by author

More writing by Scott Sonnon

• 45 Ways to a Kick Ass Life
• Rules of Engagement for Becoming a Man
• The Undiscovered Genius Hidden Within Challenge

Shane Koyczan - Remember How We Forgot?

 

Brilliant, touching, beautiful . . . . Discovered through Upworthy.

Credits:

ORIGINAL: By Shane Koyczan.

If you'd like to get one of Shane's poems emailed to you once a month, go here. And if you'd like to follow the amazingly talented Hannah Epperson, who accompanied this performance on the violin, Like her here.

This Is What a Good Man Looks Like . . . Patrick Stewart

I have admired Patrick Stewart as an example of a good man for several years. He always has seemed humble and grateful, yet is one of the most talented actors of his generation or any other. When he began to speak out about the domestic violence he lived with as a child (see here and here), my respect for him increased substantially.

A blogger at the Comicpalooza in Texas, held on Memorial Day weekend, thanked him for a speech he gave on domestic violence at an Amnesty International event. She said she had been through a similar event in her life and thanked him for speaking out.

From there, things got personal . . . .

Patrick Stewart hugs domestic-abuse survivor, tells of violence in his childhood

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

TODAY

Patrick Stewart told the Comicpalooza audience that his mother was blamed for the abuse rained on her by his father.

On television, he was the almost unflappable Captain Jean-Luc Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." But Patrick Stewart was raised in a poor household with an abusive father, and the experience gave him the fire to work for such causes once he had the fame to make himself heard.

Stewart appeared at Comicpalooza in Texas over the Memorial Day weekend, and while there, answered questions from audience members.

Heather Skye, who blogs at Lemon Sweetie, thanked Stewart for a speech he gave at an Amnesty International event about domestic violence, saying that she had come through a similar event and appreciated his speaking out, and asked him about what non-acting work he's the most proud of.

And then things got personal. Stewart, who has spoken about his father's abuse before, referenced his own childhood in 1940s England. "The work that I do in campaigns about violence towards women, particularly domestic violence, grew out of my own childhood experience," he said.

He discussed the specific groups he works with, and went on to say, "I do what I do in my mother's name, because I couldn't help her then. Now I can."

Stewart said his father, a World War II veteran, was then said to suffer from severe shellshock, but would today be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He works with both the veterans' mental-health charity Combat Stress as well as the domestic-violence shelter Refuge, saying he does so because of both of his parents.

"As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, 'Mrs. Stewart, you must have done something to provoke him,'" Stewart said to Skye and the crowd. "'Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument.' Wrong! WRONG! My mother did nothing to provoke that, and even if she had, violence is never ever a choice that a man should make. Ever!"

The crowd gave Stewart a standing ovation, and shortly after, he walked into the crowd and hugged Skye. She wrote on her blog, "He told me 'You never have to go through that again, you’re safe now.' I couldn’t stop thanking him. His embrace was so warm and genuine. It was two people, two strangers, supporting and giving love. And when we pulled away he looked (straight) in my eyes, like he was promising that. He told me to take care. And I will."

Poem - "The Moon in Time Lapse" by David Rivard

The Moon in Time Lapse
by David Rivard

The moon in time lapse sliding over skyline
the way a remote frisbee might wheel through air
as slowly as a banjo once floated across the wide
Missouri River in my mind when as a boy
the devil to pay permitted me to dream-up
my get-away from home, far from my parents'
witchy vigilance & the wine-barrel cellars
of their household—this after my experimental
stuffing of a dinner fork into a light socket
in the green gazebo under backyard grapevines.
That fuse box blown & blackened was the bliss
of departure—it was thrilling, but sometimes
I have to stop to touch my life & see if it's real.
How surprising to find that I wanted so much,
and mostly got it. My fantasies are fewer now
(one involves living through a day without
resentments, the other getting seated next to
gorgeous Fanny Ardant on a puddle jumper).
No need to see my life as a story the world
has to read, no need for sentimental
mooning & nostalgia—blessed with a bit
of amnesia anyway, I don't recall much
of what went down. I know that it's engraved
there on some cellular level, & that I can't
command the consequences. Like a spider
who has climbed atop a survey stake in a bull-
dozed field, I feel slightly truer in any case.

Tags: Poem, The Moon in Time Lapse, David Rivard, poetry, childhood, memory, Academy of American Poets

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. - Forgiveness Means Giving Up All Hope for a Better Past

My father never wanted kids. He was 36 when he married my mother (who was 32) and was nearly 40 when I was born. My mother really wanted to try again as a mother (she had a son at 19 in her first marriage, then had to give him up for adoption when she divorced her abusive husband - her twin brother adopted the boy), but she was a smoker.

My father said he would only have kids if she quit smoking, probably thinking she could not do it. But she did, and never smoked again.

Growing up, it was pretty clear that my father did not really enjoy kids and didn't really have time for us (my mother insisted on adopting a little girl after I was born - she really wanted a daughter). He worked six days a week as a mail carrier, with an hour-long drive each way to and from work. On Sundays, his literal "day of rest," that's exactly what he wanted to do - rest. And who could blame him, he was up at 5 am everyday and didn't get home at night until 5:30.

Due to a series of heart attacks, he was forced to retire at age 50, so he moved the family to Southern Oregon. For the first time in my life, he had time for me - and seemed to actually want to get to know me. We never played ball, and he never went to my soccer games, but we played horseshoes almost daily, and we worked together in the garden and taking care of the animals.

Then, when I was 13, he had another heart attack - he was taken to the hospital late that night. By the next morning, he seemed stable, but they held him just in case. Then another heart attack, in the hospital, and he died. I was notified by a family friend on my way home from school.

Let's just say, to put it plainly, I was pissed off at the world, and at him. How dare he die when I finally felt like I had a father. So I acted out, got high, crawled into a bottle, and raged for the next five or so years.

* * * * *

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. recently posted an article at Huffington Post called, Forgiveness Means Giving Up All Hope for a Better Past. The title alone is one of the truest things ever said. Too bad no one said that to me when I was young. It took another decade to figure that out - in therapy and on the cushion. Oh, yeah, he got that quote from Lily Tomlin.

When we refuse to forgive, it's as if we're holding onto the past and saying "see past, I'm not going to let you have the pleasure of me letting go of you." Meanwhile, the past is the past, it's not happening right now in the present moment -- or is it?

We keep the past alive by holding tightly to it, so perhaps it is occurring in this present moment. Now, I'm not suggesting we forget the past for the past is our teacher, however, I am suggesting that we loosen our grip on it a bit.

In a past post I asked you to consider this experiment:

"Think of someone in your life right now (maybe not the most extreme person) who you are absolutely holding a grudge against right now. There is no way you are willing to forgive this person right now for their actions. Picture that person, and hold onto that unwillingness to forgive. Now, just observe what emotions are there. Anger, resentment, sadness? Also notice how you are holding your body right now, is it tense anywhere or feeling heavy? Now bring awareness to your thoughts; are they hateful and spiteful thoughts?"

This is what lives inside of you by holding so tightly, so the question is always: who is suffering?*** ~ Adapted from a publication on Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at Psychcentral.com. Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is Co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook. You may also find him at www.drsgoldstein.com.

There's more at Huffington Post or at PsychCentral.

A lot of men I know I have not yet been able to forgive their fathers (or others) for things that happened to them in their childhood. Certainly, this is not just a men's issue, and I don't mean to imply that it is - this is simply a blog for men (and the people who love them), so I am addressing this topic to men.

One buddy has a father who is bi-polar and was not yet on meds for it. He was erratic and sometimes gone for days at a time before his mother divorced him. They have a relationship now, but there is still a lack of forgiveness. I understand how he feels, but I also think he might find some peace if he were able to forgive.

Another guy I knew came out to his parents as a teenager and was kicked out of the house - a common story in the GLBT community. He has no contact with his family, but he also does not hold the anger and hurt anymore. As long as he held onto the pain and did not forgive them, he was tied to them psychologically in a way that he felt as unhealthy. He no longer wishes for different parents, although he misses and mourns the loss of his family.

Dr. Goldstein goes on to say:

There is an understanding at some point that we are all human beings capable of all kinds of atrocities, depending on our genetic makeup, the environment we grew up in and the events that have surrounded and influenced our lives.

This is not a statement meant to excuse or condone an aggressive or violent action committed, however, it is a statement meant to help cultivate understanding and compassion in order for the ones who are suffering to come to terms with the way things are, and slowly let go of allowing the atrocity of the past to still be occurring in this present moment.

We can begin to forgive, even though we will never forget.

This is the crux of it - developing compassion both for the person we have not forgiven and for ourselves is so important. In realizing and accepting that the past can never be any other way than it was (as obvious as that sounds), we can begin to feel compassion for our loss, for our pain, for the past we wanted but never had.

As much as we can know intellectually that the past is done and immutable, accepting that at an emotional level can be challenging. Some part of us was wounded and is living in that past as though it is still happening - part of us is stuck and the only to get unstuck is to release the past.

One last quote:

“Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.”~ Sara Paddison

Tags: psychology, forgiveness, acceptance, childhood, compassion, Elisha Goldstein Ph.D., Forgiveness Means Giving Up All Hope for a Better Past, forgiving, the past, Huffington Post, death, fathers, men

Thoughts Toward a Developmental Model of Masculine Identity, Part Three (Attachment Models)

[This the third part of an on-going effort to build a developmental model of mature masculine identity. Part one here, part two here.]

In the first two installments of what is becoming a seemingly endless exploration of ideas that might contribute to an integral model of masculine identity development, I looked primarily at existing models of development for racial identity and, to a lesser extent, gender identity. After doing so, I thought I might be ready to develop and propose my own model. Not so much.

One idea I want to examine is the difference between individualist and collectivist identity constructs and how that might impact development. Western culture is largely individualist, while most of the rest of the world is more collectivist in how they define identity and the self. I'll get to that soon, I hope.

For today, however, I want to present some ideas on attachment theory and how that impacts identity development.

* * * * *

While talking with a client this morning, I mentioned that is she wanted to understand her husband better, she might want to look at his mother and how the two related. Driving home, I thought about this more. One thing that I had discussed with my girlfriend, Jami, is that attachment style might have a serious impact on identity development.

In psychology, the old canard is that Freud blamed the mother for all of the dysfunctions of her children (Sommerfeld, 2006). In "Mother-Blaming and the Rise of the Expert" (Aidenbaum, 2006), the author looks at the ways in which mothers took the blame for masculine "failures" in the wider domestic issues facing America during the Cold War.

In a sense this is true. And while the second and third generation of Freudian scholars continued looking at the mother-child dyad, in what came to be known as attachment theory (Bowlby, 1988). However, unlike Freud, Bowlby, Ainsworth (1978), and other attachment theorists do not BLAME the mother, even though they look at that primary adult-child bond (typically the mother is the primary caretaker) as an essential component of how the child is developing and how s/he will relate to others as an adult.

What they tend to focus on is how the child responds to the parent in the bonding dyad. The mother (or other caretaker) is who s/he is, and in general does the best s/he can with the experience and upbringing that formed their unique self. Children are adaptable, so however the parent behaves, the child will respond as best s/he can to seek love, attention, and mirroring, a major part of the neo-Freudian self psychology school.

* * * * *

Here is a brief definition of attachment (2004):

Attachment theory centers on the notion that emotionally responsive care, including love and nurturance from a primary caregiver, is essential for healthy and normal development. John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, used the term “attachment” to describe the emotional connection that develops between an infant and a primary caregiver through patterns of interaction that evolve over time. According to attachment theory, during the first year of life, infants develop special ties to their primary caregivers (i.e., attachment figures). Every infant invariably becomes attached unless no single caregiver is continuously present to care for the child (e.g., as in some institutions and orphanages). The particular nature or quality of the attachment relationship will vary, depending on the history of interaction patterns within the dyad. In particular, the consistency and appropriateness of the caregiver's response to the infant during times when the infant feels stressed or threatened, defines the pattern of interactions that develop during the first year. When the caregiver is consistently sensitive and responsive, a secure attachment typically ensues, whereas insensitive or inappropriate responding usually leads to an insecure attachment relationship.

After the attachment is formed, the infant shows a preference for the attachment figure. This is particularly evident during times of stress or emotional upset. When scared or distressed, the infant actively seeks comfort and reassurance from the caregiver and is not easily comforted by other individuals. The presence of the attachment figure is reassuring and enables more competent exploration of the environment. Mary Ainsworth, Bowlby's collaborator, noted that in a secure attachment relationship, the attachment figure provides both a “safe haven” during times of need and a “secure base” from which to explore.

Bowlby viewed the attachment system as a biobehavioral system that organizes behavior. The set goal of this system is to maintain proper access and proximity to the caregiver during times of need to ensure the protection and survival of the young. The attachment system operates in interaction and in collaboration with other behavioral systems (e.g., fear, exploration, sociability).

Attachment relationships are believed to play an important role throughout the life cycle. Although the specific behavioral markers of attachment change, their function remains the same. During times of need, infants, older children, and adults alike all seek comfort and support from significant others who are seen as more capable of coping with these situations. As individuals mature, new attachments are typically formed, but the early attachment relationships remain important because they are thought to exert an effect on subsequent behavior and close relationships.

During the attachment process, Internal mental representations are created during the formation of a relationship. Mental representations relate not only to the self, but also to the attachment figure. As we age and enter into other intimate relationships, these internal representations help shape the ways we relate to others and how we behave.

Research has show that most people (roughly 65%, based on Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation Protocol) are securely attached.

Secure infants use their caregivers as a “secure base” for exploration. These infants rely on occasional visual, verbal, or physical contact with their mothers as a basis for their own initiated exploration of the environment. When their mothers leave the room, secure infants may or may not cry. On reunion, these infants either greet their mothers positively or, if upset, go to them for comfort and then shortly after return to activities associated with exploration. (Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, 2004)

Three forms of insecure attachment have also been identified: anxious-avoidant, anxious-resistant (now known as ambivalent), and disorganized. Here are some brief definitions:

Infants who show patterns of insecure attachment of the avoidant type exhibit little or no reference to their mothers while exploring the room and show no overt signs of distress on their mothers' departure (although some studies have shown that these infants do show physiological markers of stress during separation). Most important, on reunion, these infants actively ignore and avoid their caregivers (e.g., by looking away).

Insecure—resistant (or ambivalent) infants are preoccupied with their mothers' presence, often unable to leave their sides even in light of curious attempts to explore their new environment. When their mothers leave the room, these infants become extremely distressed, and on reunion, the infants refuse to settle and to resume exploration, clinging to their mothers and at the same time expressing anger and dissatisfaction.

A fourth category of attachment classification was added in 1986 by Main and Solomon because studies showed that there are infants whose behavior does not correspond with any of the three existing classifications. During the Strange Situation, these infants showed sequences of unusual behavior with no clear purpose or orientation (e.g., freezing, falling prone). They seemed to lack an organized strategy for coping with the stress of the situation and looked “confused”; thus, they were classified as having disorganized/disoriented attachment to their caregivers. Disorganized classification is given in addition to one of the other classifications. In normative middle-class populations in North America, approximately 14% of infants are judged to be disorganized. The rate is somewhat higher (24%) in low-socioeconomic status samples.

These patterns are the ones that pertain to children in their primary relationships. As adults, these patterns are known as attachment styles, which suggests more fluid patterns of behaviors. Importantly, however, these styles do shape how we relate to others in intimacy.

One of the key issues in attachment is how the child learns emotional regulation. This definition also comes from the Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology (2004).

Emotional regulation refers to an individual's ability to manage and cope successfully with various levels of emotional arousal, including negative emotions, in response to external events and internal stimulation (e.g., anxiety, excitement). Current views suggest that the attachment system itself provides a basic mechanism for emotional regulation. Studies show that during the years when the attachment relationship is formed, children who develop secure attachment ties to their caregivers express a variety of emotions freely, whereas children who form insecure—avoidant attachment ties tend to inhibit emotions. Overall, studies following children from infancy to early childhood have found that secure children are spontaneous in their expression of a variety of emotions, read the emotional cues of others better, and generally tend to be more emotionally positive. Insecure children, particularly those with an avoidant classification, tend to exhibit minimal emotional expressiveness overall, and particularly restrain the expression of negative emotions. Also, these children tend to misperceive others' emotional displays, and to exhibit inappropriate affect considering the emotional climate of the circumstances (e.g., show anger when expressing positive emotions would be more appropriate).

The ability to self-regulate is crucial to healthy relationships with others. As the definition points out, securely attached children are capable of freely expressing emotions, which is one of key traits in healthy intimate relationships. Those who cannot self-regulate either withdraw or need others to regulate their emotions for them - both styles are very unhealthy and damage intimacy.

This is when begin to see how this material relates to identity development - many theorists are now proposing a self model and an others model in identity development, as noted by
Diehl, Enick, Bourbeau, & Labouvie-Vief (1998):

Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) suggested that if an individual's image of his or her own person and the image of others are dichotomized as being positive or negative, then four prototypes of adult attachment can be distinguished: secure (positive self–positive others), dismissing (positive self–negative others), preoccupied (negative self–positive others), and fearful attachment (negative self–negative others). Conceptually, this four-category model unfolds Bowlby's (1973) general internal working model into a model of the self, indicating the degree to which individuals have internalized a sense of self-worth, and a model of others, indicating the degree to which others are expected to be available and supportive (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991 ; Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994b).

Other variations of adult attachment have also been identified - and Wikipedia actually has one of the best summaries.

Secure attachment:

Securely attached people tend to agree with the following statements: "It is relatively easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I don't worry about being alone or having others not accept me." This style of attachment usually results from a history of warm and responsive interactions with relationship partners. Securely attached people tend to have positive views of themselves and their partners. They also tend to have positive views of their relationships. Often they report greater satisfaction and adjustment in their relationships than people with other attachment styles. Securely attached people feel comfortable both with intimacy and with independence. Many seek to balance intimacy and independence in their relationships.

Insecure attachment:

Anxious-preoccupied attachment

People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to agree with the following statements: "I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don't value me as much as I value them." People with this style of attachment seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their partners. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on their partners—a condition colloquially termed clinginess. Compared to securely attached people, people who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to have less positive views about themselves. They often doubt their worth as a partner and blame themselves for their partners' lack of responsiveness. People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry, and impulsiveness in their relationships.

Dismissive-avoidant attachment

People with a dismissive style of avoidant attachment tend to agree with these statements: "I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me." People with this attachment style desire a high level of independence. The desire for independence often appears as an attempt to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to feelings associated with being closely attached to others. They often deny needing close relationships. Some may even view close relationships as relatively unimportant. Not surprisingly, they seek less intimacy with relationship partners, whom they often view less positively than they view themselves. Investigators commonly note the defensive character of this attachment style. People with a dismissive-avoidant attachment tend to suppress and hide their feelings, and they tend to deal with rejection by distancing themselves from the sources of rejection (i.e., their relationship partners).

Fearful-avoidant attachment

People with a fearful style of avoidant attachment tend to agree with the following statements: "I am somewhat uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them. I sometimes worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to others." People with this attachment style have mixed feelings about close relationships. On the one hand, they desire to have emotionally close relationships. On the other hand, they tend to feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness. These mixed feelings are combined with negative views about themselves and their partners. They commonly view themselves as unworthy of responsiveness from their partners, and they don't trust the intentions of their partners. Similarly to the dismissive-avoidant attachment style, people with a fearful-avoidant attachment style seek less intimacy from partners and frequently suppress and hide their feelings.

Attachment and Masculine Identity

Part of theory I am trying to generate suggests (at this point in the process - but this all continues to evolve as I read more source) is that a man's attachment style helps shape his masculine identity. Most men (apparently 65%) will not suffer from significant attachment issues, and will pass through normal developmental stages (yet to be named) as masculine identity development.

But more than 1/3 of us did not have the advantage of a secure attachment to our mothers or other primary caretaker. These men will pass through the various stages in different ways, or maybe not at all. The type of insecure attachment will determine how and where a man gets stuck in his development - and how to repair that damage.

However, and this is a bit of putting the cart before the horse, Dan Siegel (2007) is teaching us that mindfulness practice provides a form on intrapersonal attunement that can help to heal the failed interpersonal attunement in the attachment period. By paying attention to tour own inner states, we can learn to self-regulate our emotions, can reframe our internal mental representations based on our intrapersonal relationship to our self concept.

But all of this also rewires the brain and makes these changes personal. So even if we did not benefit from the most healthy attachment relationship to our mothers (or other person), we can heal that damage as part of our growth toward a mature and balanced masculine identity.

More to come.

References:
Aidenbaum, A.M. (2006). Mother-Blaming and the Rise of the Expert. Journal of History; University of Michigan; Fall, 2006.

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: Assessed in the strange situation and at home. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Attachment. (2004). In Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/estappliedpsyc/attachment

Bartholomew, K., & Horowitz, L. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 226–244.

Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation. New York: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base. New York: Basic Books.

Diehl, M., Elnick, A., Bourbeau, L., & Labouvie-Vief, G. (1998). Adult attachment styles: Their relations to family context and personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1656-1669. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1656.

Griffin, D., & Bartholomew, K. (1994b). Models of self and other.Fundamental dimensions underlying measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 430–445.

Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1986). Discovery of a new, insecure-disorganized/disoriented attachment pattern. In M. Yogman & T.B. Brazelton (Eds.), Affective development in infancy (pp.95–124). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Siegel, D. (2007) The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Sommerfeld, D. P. (2006). The origins of mother blaming: Historical perspectives on childhood and motherhood. Infant Mental Health Journal; 10(1):14 - 24. DOI: 10.1002/1097-0355(198921)10:1

Wikipedia. (2010). Attachment in adults. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults

Tags: psychology, attachment, parenting, childhood, masculinity, identity, John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, masculine identity, developmental model, development, men, manhood, Frued, attachment theory, adult attachment style, Internal mental representations, Strange situation protocol, secure attachment, anxious-avoidant attachment, anxious-resistant, ambivalent attachment, disorganized attachment