The Grandpa/Grandma (or aunt/uncle) Challenge

With the 2016  election we now have a new president who appears uncertain about  climate change. During the campaign he openly questioned whether climate change was real or whether its impact on humanity was significant.  And his cabinet appointments to the EPA,   Department of Energy and Interior Department seem to suggest that he will be pro oil and coal and skeptical of the impact of climate change.

The climate change deniers say increased carbon emissions are not a problem. Environmentalists warn of dire consequences if we don't cap our CO2 emissions. So who is right? The reality is that the next generation will be able to say who is right in this debate.  

According to the UN Sustainable Goal 13 climate change is now affecting every corner of life on earth

http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-change-2/  This goal states:  “.. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are driving climate change and continue to rise. They are now at their highest levels in history. Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century and is likely to surpass 3 degrees Celsius this century—with some areas of the world expected to warm even more.”

Even Pope Francis, in his Encyclical Laudato Si, warned of the dangers of climate change: “ Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences. (Par 161)

Here's your challenge: write a letter to your grandchildren and ask them to read the letter some 25 to 40 years later. The purpose of the letter is to ask them if the effects of climate change have created a big or small impact in their lives. If you don’t have grandchildren or children, then write a letter to a nephew or niece or even a child sometime who will live sometime 25 to 40 years from now.  If you don’t agree that climate change is a bid deal say so. In your letter to your future grandchild assume that carbon emissions have gone unchecked.

Ask your future grandchildren these questions:

• Is your life better off with increased carbon emissions and increased global warming?
• Have the coastal cities worldwide been inundated and the coastal populations forced to move further inland due to sea level increase?
• Have there been increased drought and crop failure due to climate change?
• Have there been forced migration of millions of people seeking drinking water and food due to the impact of climate change?
• Have there been increased conflicts and disruptions in food production and distribution?
• Are there parts of the world that are now uninhabitable because temperatures there have made it inhabitable?
• Have there been major disruptions in our fisheries due to ocean warming and acidification, have our coral reefs died?
• Do you blame this generation for not doing anything to limit carbon emissions and move to green technologies and thus bringing down the CO2 present in our atmosphere?

Some of us might be alive 25 to 40 years into the future.  You might be able to hear what your own grandchildren think of our generation today, with our reluctance to limit carbon emissions. Will our grandchildren blame us for  gratifying our short term desire for quick and cheap energy with the consequence of long term pain for the future generations?   Let's not use the excuse "we didn't know any better" or "we trusted in our leaders who said everything would be ok".   Now is the time to be very mindful of the impact of our carbon habits.  Can you hear the echo of the future generation asking, "why didn't you do something to prevent this?"

 Hunger Games

In this last year I became aware of the post Harry Potter reading rage among middle school aged children, the Hunger Games.  The book was brought to my attention by a middle school client, who told me the entire 8^th grade class was reading the story.  I admit to not having read the book or having seen the movie, but the theme of the Hunger Games intrigues me.  It seems to be almost a metaphor for our times. 

The story takes place in a North America following the destruction of the countries comprising North America. In the story each year one boy and girl from each of the 12 district of Panem are selected to participate in the hunger games.  What is interesting to the entire plot of the book is that this is a no holds barred competition to live, to eat, to make it in a world gone terribly wrong.  My teen clients readily admit that in this book teens kill teens to survive.

This is why I think the title Hunger Games is a metaphor for our society today.  There seems to be so much more anxiety over our future as a country then there was before.  And the theme of hunger intrigues me since it seems we have real hungers facing all of us.  To name a few:

1.      Hunger for what it takes to become fully human. John Powell, a popular author and speaker cites four desires of being human: Freedom, peace, happiness, love. All of us hunger to some degree for the deep longing to fulfill our lives and for the conditions and resources to meet these needs.

2.      Hunger for sustenance, real hunger.  According to the U.N. one in seven in the world will go to bed hungry.  That is nearly 1 billion people.    There are more people hungry in our world than the combined populations of the US, Canada and the countries comprising the European Union.  In a country dealing with an epidemic of obesity one in four children worldwide are underweight due to hunger. Go to  http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats for more information.

3.      Hunger for solving the huge problems we face, including feeding the more than 6 billion humans worldwide.  And it seems that the more problems we face the more polarized we all become.  It seems that one group is pitted against the next in a competitive struggle to gain influence and power.  Competition seems to have replaced cooperation.  The right fights the left, and so it goes.

4.      Hunger for God, a spiritual hunger.  St. Augustine says, “Our hearts are restless Lord until they rest in you.” Karl Jung said that after age 40 most problems people face are spiritual in nature. Facing limits, vulnerability, the death of family and friends forces a person to try to pierce the veil of limits and cry out for transcendence only God can fulfill.

Of the four hungers I cited above only the fourth, the hunger for God, doesn’t involve competition.  This is because, as our major religious traditions tell us, God’s love is not limited, but abundant.  It is an expanding and infinite resource.  When we say “God is love” we also call ourselves to embrace a cooperative, not competitive stance towards the world and the relationships which define us.

When I work with couples I often notice spouses compete with each other  to get their  intimacy needs met.  Competition creates winners and losers, which is not good for the relationship.  When it comes to scarcity of resources and meeting needs, cooperation, not competition is the most important thing for a couple, and I spend most of my time trying to get a couple to become more cooperative and less competitive in the meeting of their needs.

This brings me back to the theme of hunger and the thought that cooperation, not competition, is more God-like.  Of course, in order to make resources more abundant I might have to sacrifice some of the resources I have.  I might have to become more cooperative in allowing someone to have the resource of being listened to, attended to, educated, housed, fed.  But it seems like a good trade off, becoming more cooperative rather than competitive. Or perhaps you would like to consider the alternative dystopian view of the Hunger Games, where the more resourced, better armed, more clever people eliminate the weak and less skilled. 

“Our hearts are restless Lord, until they rest in you.”  For what are you hungry, and who will fill that need?

Black Swan, Perfection and Broken Symmetry

I have a confession to make, I love to watch movies. Not that big of a secret, many people love to watch movies. I have fallen asleep listening to homilies, speeches, at the symphony, at meetings and even have gotten a bit drowsy at times when working with clients. But when it comes to a movie, I can be so very tired and something in me gets more alert when the movie starts. All the visual stimulation must hit the “wake up” centers of my brain.

This has been a great year for Oscar nominated films. I have seen five of the ten nominated films and have enjoyed every one of them. The last nominated film I watched was the most haunted and complex film of all of them, The Black Swan staring Natalie Portman. She plays the role of Nina, a ballerina who auditions for and gets the starring role in Swan Lake. In this version not only must she dance the role of the White Swan, she must also dance the Black Swan. This is where the tension begins.

As the movie progresses Nina struggles with conveying the emotions and spirit of the black swan. She also wants to be perfect, and her quest for perfection takes her down a pathway of psychological decomposition. There is interplay between reality, fantasy and delusion that sometimes made me wonder if I had wandered into a Stephen King thriller. The viewer can be disturbed and confronted with distinguishing between what is real and what isn’t. On some levels this movie is disturbing and on other levels it is a great psycho drama. Of course, the acting, directing and the score are superb.

What struck me the most in this movie was Nina’s quest for perfection that led her to a neurotic need to be in control. There is a tension between achieving our ideals and falling short of them. It is in the resolution of that tension that we discover more of our real self. Of course, the crisis that we all face is that of failure and disintegration, of things falling apart when we suffer failure, defeat and the loss of our dreams.

I think too of the notion of broken symmetry, a concept from cosmology and physics that is used to describe the creation of matter. This theory holds that before the universe began things existed in a super symmetrical state. Can we call it a perfect state? It was only when the symmetry was broken that matter leapt into existence and our universe was born. We humans are built on symmetry; we have mostly two of everything in our bodies which exist in symmetrical relationship. We have two eyes, two feet, two hands, even two halves of one brain. Yet at the same time it is not a perfect symmetry. You can see this when you look at experiments that put together a mirror opposite of someone’s left or right side of the face. When one looks at pictures like that the human person actually looks a bit more weird or sinister. Our symmetry, while mostly perfect, is still broken a bit.

Think of a car, look at its rear and you will find that the lock for the trunk is often put off center a bit. Nearly perfect symmetry, yet broken a bit. Most things of true beauty, like a great piece of art, participate in some way in this concept of broken symmetry. The smile of Mona Lisa is another example of that, just a bit off in a way that gives the work some creative tension.

In the Black Swan Nina strives for perfect symmetry, yet at a great cost to her own sense of self. It seems that embracing our own broken symmetry in our quest to be better is an important part of being human. Karl Jung called it embracing our shadow; Dr. Karen Horney (a contemporary of Freud) called it resolving the tension between the real and the ideal. It’s in the tension that we come to realize more fully who we really are, and it may be that collapsing the tension between the real and the ideal will make us either a first class cynic or a delusional idealist.

The movie is worth seeing, but it is disturbing on some levels; itt will make you question the dividing line between reality and delusion. It might also lead you to question what it takes to be really good at something, even perfect, and how you integrate all the different forces in your life into one unified personality.

Qualities that Affect How Couples Bond with Each Other

Understanding how couples bond together can help pastors and counselors assist couples who experience difficulties in their relationship. Sometimes conflict, affairs, toxic communication and the like weaken the quality of bonding. Here are some factors that help with bonding. Much of the following material is taken from an article in Scientific American Mind, January/February 2010 edition.

• Arousal. We bond emotionally to another when we do things that arouse our senses. Things like exercise, adventures, even adventures that require some risk. Perhaps couples sometimes get themselves into trouble by settling too much into a routine.
• Proximity and Familiarity. Just being around someone a lot tends to create bonds. This might explain why long distance courtships often run into trouble, a couple might simply not have enough time to get to know each other.
• Similarity. Research indicates that we like to pair with people who are similar to ourselves in terms of values, intelligence, cultural background and attractiveness. As a marriage couple I look for a 80/20 split of similarity vs. differences. There is a saying in the counseling business that we meet and fall in love on what we hold in common and we grow – or split, on our differences.
• Humor. Happy relationships are ones where couples help each other laugh. Humor is an important quality with one caveat: sarcasm and teasing are a two edged sword, they may be funny but both can cut deeply into the feelings of another.
• Novelty. Newness creates bonds, people are attracted to new things and to each other when they do new things together. This is why couples need to sometimes shake up the Friday night routine, the “same old, same old”, but taking a risk to do something new.
• Lowering Inhibitions. Being inhibited blocks feelings and puts up shutters into the deeper self. Sharing more of your feelings, even vulnerabilities helps with bonding. Some couples use alcohol and other substances to lower inhibitions, perhaps solving one problem while creating another, substance abuse.
• Kindness and Forgiveness. Being kind and forgiving actually makes a person more attractive and enhances bonding. Letting go of resentment, choosing to change a behavior out of love for others, forgiving someone of hurt are all relationship building and bonding behaviors.
• Touch and sexuality. Touching another can result in feelings of closeness. But sometimes we misinterpret another’s signals and instead of creating closeness we invade their boundary. That is why touch and sexuality are at their best when they are grounded in clear communication that checks out what another likes and wants.
• Self Disclosure. Sharing of secrets is one way we bond with another, keeping the trust of another’s information. A couple can create their own secrete circle by defining for themselves what information is shared and what is held back concerning their own relationship.
• Commitment. People whose own commitments to another are more tentative tend to be viewed more negatively by their partner. Threats of “I’m out of here” and the like tend to undermine the bond.

Here are a few more characteristics to add to the mix, based on my own work as a therapist and promoted by John Gottman marriage therapist and researcher.

• Respectful Communication. Respectful communication bonds us to another because the other person makes a commitment to avoid the use of criticism, defensiveness, sarcasm and contempt and walking away (stonewalling) when there is conflict. These toxic communication patterns undermine the bond of a relationship.
• The Five to One Rule. Gottman maintains that a healthy relationship maintains a ratio of five positive comments and behaviors to every negative comment and behavior between a couple. This is hard to maintain. It is also, by the way, the same ratio that contributes to healthy ego development in children.
• Using Soothing Words and Gestures when the other is upset or stressed out. We all know how good it feels to have another join with us when we are upset; the way we join with another is by using the language of soothing, soothing words and gestures. This shows the other person that we are having empathy and care.
• Use of “We” Instead of “My” and “I” when there is conflict. Successful couples make an attempt to use inclusive language when they fight. They might talk about “our” children instead of “my” children. Using the inclusive pronoun signals to the other that despite the conflict there is a the underlying belief that “we” will work it out.

The Monsters Under Our Bed

Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are has been enjoying new popularity, in part due to the movie by that name that was released this past Fall, 2009. The reading level of the book is listed as ages 4-8, the enjoyment level ranges from 4 to 80 and beyond.

I have referred many couples to numerous self help books for relationships and marriages. But just recently I have been asking my couples and even individual clients if they have a copy of Where the Wild Things Are, and if they do, to take it out and give it a reading.

The book centers on a youngster named Max, who is sent to his bedroom for playing mischief when he shouldn't have. In his room a forest grows and Max descends from his bed into the land of the monsters; and while they threaten to eat him all they want to be is tamed by him. He obliges, tames the monsters, and they make him king. In the end he returns to his bed because he misses the comforts of a good home cooked meal.

My question to my clients when talking about Max and his monsters is this: “what monsters lie beneath your bed, that threaten to devour you, but really want to be tamed and befriended?” All of us have monsters of some sort that lurk in the hidden recesses of our lives, and they seek to have their voice heard. Some might have the monster of anxiety, others depression and still others a fear of being seen as a fraud. Or perhaps it is the monster of addiction that threatens a person.For every personality you meet you can imagine that there are some monsters lurking under that person's bed, waiting for their proper expression, and most likely causing fear and trembling.

One reason the book works is that Max doesn't destroy the monsters, he tames them, perhaps transforms them. Ask someone who attends a twelve step group and that person will say that he/she is recovering, not cured. This means that the monster of addiction has been confronted and tamed, but it still remains to some extent a force in the person's life. Our tendency is to try to uproot, conquer, stamp out and basically destroy those parts of our personality that cause us grief, shame and embarrassment. When we do that we usually only feed the monster and it grows. Only by naming our shame and embarrassment and those patterns in our lives that cause us the most distress, can we seek to transform them into something that works with us, not against us.

I used to smoke cigarettes and that addiction to nicotine exercised a powerful hold on me. I can't say with certainty that I will never smoke again and that this addiction is conquered. But I can identify the underlying forces that led me to smoke in the first place (acceptance and belonging, stress, to name a few) and know that I am doing better with those forces. In a sense, like Max, I have looked them in the eye and made peace with them.

So we all have some underdeveloped parts of our personality that cry out for greater development and integration, and when we deny these parts they do take on the guise of monsters who seek to destroy us. A person with an eating disorder often is more controlled by the disorder than in control. A person with an anger issue often tries to suppress the anger, only to have it blow at some point like Vesuvius. Maybe we can learn from Max and take a risk to descend into the land of our own personal monsters, not to vanquish them and destroy them, but to befriend them and tame them, and in their taming transform and integrate our own personalities on a deeper level.

What Do Texting, Social Networking and Jealousy Have in Common?

Therapists often deal with couples where presenting problem is an affair or some form of emotional infidelity. Generally, when we face infidelity issues we are talking about three major boundaries, the emotional, physical and sexual boundaries. A couple who pledges fidelity to each other often have the expectation that fidelity will exist in all three boundaries, yet the expectations of appropriate behaviors in these areas are often unvoiced and not expressed.

It is easy to know when the sexual boundary is crossed. A spouse is either reveals or is discovered having sex with another person. This is a clear case of infidelity. But what about hugging, even kissing? These both are physical and not sexual in the sense of sexual intercourse. When is a peck on the cheek crossing the line? And then, of course, there is the emotional boundary. When is emotional closeness with another person crossing the line, how much confiding can someone do with another person before it violates the rules of the relationship? And what about texting another person or writing on their Facebook, MySpace or other social networking site’s “walls” or “whiteboards”. Is it o-k, for instance, for a married person to write on another’s wall, “You look hot?”

Recent research has indicated that the more time one spends on social networking sites the more jealousy is engendered in partners where there is a committed relationship, whether that be a committed relationship of engagement and marriage, living together or just going together. Part of the reason for this is that there is a certain anonymity to writing on someone’s social network site. This is largely a private affair where one communicates to another individually on a computer. There is often not a crowd or others checking out your behavior. The same is true for texting. Texting is often a private thing and can create a sense of bonding by linking two people together in an extended conversation. Sometimes the rules of flirting are suspended because there is only one form of communication, the written word. Missing are the voice tonality, the body postures, and the community of others that notice what is going on.

You can imagine, then, the surprise of a spouse to discover words written by the other spouse to a third party. These can be texts, words written on someone’s “wall” and even e-mails sent to a third party. Often, the spouse who is doing the writing protests that everything was innocent, but the other spouse usually feels left out and excluded, that there was a secrete bond that got created in these private messages.

And since technology is omni present in our lives, even omni intrusive, these types of issues are popping up more and more in the therapy office. So here are some rules of the road to offer a couple whenever texting, jealousy and social network pages are linked together.

Transparency. If you are going to text another person is the text something that you are willing to show to your spouse? If you find yourself hiding a text message from your spouse you might be crossing an emotional boundary.

Honesty. If you were in the same room with the person you are texting or writing to, with your spouse and others around you, like at a party, would you engage in the same behaviors? If you answer no, you might be drifting toward trouble.

When your spouse questions you on who you’re texting, or your internet usage can you calmly, without anger and defensiveness, tell your spouse about your usage? If not perhaps you have a guilty conscience and are responding in a defensive manner.

If there is jealousy on the part of your spouse over your texting or internet usage consider talking to a therapist who can help you sort out these issues. Don’t let something like this build for too long, the hurt and anger created can and will do real damage.

Relationship Mindfulness

I was working with a couple recently on their marriage. Both had hurts that could be traced back to their respective families of origin, and both had a fear that the other would be the first to leave. Fear of being abandoned comes in different flavors and the way this fear manifested itself in the relationship is that each would engage in dramatic threats or statements. These were usually made in a state of argument and high tension. “Just get out” or “I knew I shouldn’t have married you”. There were other serious and hurtful statements that were said, and remembered.


Upon examination both admitted that they engaged in these behaviors because of fear: fear of the other leaving, fear that they would be made to look the fool, fear that they might wake up one day and the other would be gone. At one point I stopped them and said, “In fact one of you will leave the other and you won’t be able to do anything about that. That will happen, somewhere along the line, when one of you dies and leaves the other behind.” I pointed out to them that they couldn’t prevent death from happening, but that they could work to love each other deeply, respectfully, and to build each other up every day.


These words came back to me forcefully when my wife and I learned that a good friend had died suddenly, unexpectedly, leaving his wife of forty years behind, bereft. He had the flu, it went away, he caught a cold, fought it off. The night before he died he told his wife he was going to stay up and watch a video. The next day she found him, he had died sometime during the night.


Our friend was grief stricken and still is. We traveled to the services to be with our friend. I was struck by the love and support present in the room the day of the farewell service. There were stories told, tears shed, laughter and a lot of sadness and concern for our friend who now needed to cope and move forward. At the end of the service the newly bereft widow rose and thanked everyone for coming. She said, “it’s all about love” and encouraged us to continue to love and be present to our relationships.


Being present to the present, mindful of the state of our relationships, and keeping our love current is the legacy of our friend who died. Are we afraid to live the love that is given us for fear that we will be hurt, abandoned or that things won’t work out? I wonder. Our two friends lived respectfully, lovingly for forty years and because of their energy and commitment they empowered many other people to achieve their own potential.Buddhists talk about "being mindful", Western Christian Spirituality talks about "being present to the present". Whatever your metaphor, the task it seems, is to be as current as possible, loving, living your life without regret, being present to the other as best you can. Our friends did this for one another, they lived an authentic relationship. It is worth remembering, celebrating and emulating.