The Stage

The Stage

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts

We, as humans, tend to think that we are the only players on the stage of life.  Life is all about us.  We are the only children who have been abused, traumatized, loved, never loved, and so on.  But, the world is filled with players on a quite imperfect stage.  Life was never meant to be easy.  I use this cliché with the upmost respect, as many of the clichés we use in life are utilized for a reason and a purpose.  We all have a reason for the way we live, and many of us are striving for the same things.  We want to be happy.  Happiness can mean just about anything: rich, poor, glamorous home, being a singer, actor, athlete, or simply someone famous, no matter what they are famous for.  Being infamous, for some of us, is just as important and just as good as being famous.  Some of us just want to be loved; some of us just want to be able to afford to live, but happiness is defined by the person who is striving for it, not by society, parents, friends, and other people in our lives.  So, the stage that we play on is multifaceted like an endless diamond in the rough that does not shine in the light but is iridescent nonetheless.  This life is filled with scripts we don't have the lines to, roles we don't have the directional compass for, and endless opportunities to learn.  Let's talk about the word players.

Player:

1.     A person who plays a musical instrument

2.     A person taking part in a sport or game.

Of course, if you are a wise man/woman, then you are very much aware that I'm not talking about the player who sidles up to women, talk a little in their ear, and walk away with the prize and the envy of other men.  No, that's not what I'm talking about.  But, this person, this character of infinite charisma and plenty of stories to tell, has a place on the stage of life.  His entire life is a role; he changes faces for each woman he approaches and probably has a better aptitude for acting than Hollywood's best actor to date.  But, I digress…

No, player in the master of poetry, William Shakespeare’s, play As You Like It was talking about men and women as a part of the world.  We, all of us, are actors in a way.  Think of the typical American woman, who has a million things she's juggling.  She has several roles in life.  Most women are wives, mothers, students and/or professionals, and homemakers.  Those are the general roles that women play in life.  Men also have their roles in life: husband, father, and student and/or professionals.  Along with these very general roles, there are so many more such as associate, friend, co-worker, and sometimes, manager or supervisor.  These roles only scratch the surface.  There are other activities that we pull into the juggling act such as gardener, basket ball coach or player, comedian, and so on.  I have only named the more positive roles so far, but there are the more socially unacceptable and negative roles we play such as smoker, addict, and so on.

The reason this is so important to the soul searching process is because being aware of the role you play on your own personal stage is important to being who you want to become.  I stated the sentence before very purposefully.  There is the person that others want you to be; there is the person you are in front of others; and there is the inner personal you.  We all play a role; don't kid yourself into thinking that you don’t behave differently when you're in public than you do at home.  Don't pretend with yourself that you are not nearly always conscious of what others think of you.  Being who you want to become is very different than who people think you should be and who you believe you are, and who you really are.  So, knowing the roles you play in life is important; it helps you become aware of who you are in the moment.  Think about the way you care for your children, if you have them.  Then, think, will I ever do this for anyone other than my children.  The answer to that question is more than likely going to be, "no."  If it isn't, don't worry about it.  You're still a great human being I'm sure, but the truth is that most people will put up with a great deal more from someone they love than they will from someone they either simply like to be around or heartily dislike.

We all know that when we dislike a person, we treat them differently.  For me, I'm either super quiet or overly polite.  If I don't know a person, the same applies.  I would rather be polite and distant than to treat someone with disrespect, but that's my way of being.  Do you know yours?  Do you understand your feelings?  Are you willing to travel into the depths of your soul to find the person within?  If so, start with the stage.  You think about the roles you play as a person on a daily basis.  Who are you in the moment you are a mother or father?  What do you do when you're a friend?  Who are you at work?  Does the person you are at work completely diverge from the person you are at home?  Do you like to be alone and can happily spend an afternoon reading?  Or, are you a person who enjoys company and fears being alone?  Your answers do not matter to me, as they are your answers.  I encourage you to ask yourself some of these questions.  Answer them honestly, as you don't have to share your answers with anyone but yourself and your higher power.  There are no wrong answers.  There are no right ways to find yourself within the vastness of the stage you have been thrust into.  While life is not meant to be easy; it gets a little easier the more you know yourself.  It gets a little easier as you learn your own patterns.  It gets even easier as you find things you'd like to change in your life and yourself for you, alone, and no one else.  The truth is that no matter how much you love your family: husband, wife, children, mother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends; they can't dictate who you are, only you can do that.  So, take the leap and plunge into the void of your soul and find out what you will find there.  You'd be amazed at the person you find; how that person is more wonderful than you may think; and how much of a pleasure it is to spend time with that person.

In the next post, we will continue the discussion of self-awareness by discovering what the essential needs are and how we can incorporate them into our lives.  I invite you to comment and have a discussion.  I would like to know what you think; I look forward to interacting with you again soon.

Until next we meet, stay encouraged and affirmed,

Nell

Self

Who are you?

“Loving oneself isn't hard, when you understand who and what 'yourself' is. It has nothing to do with the shape of your face, the size of your eyes, the length of your hair or the quality of your clothes. It's so beyond all of those things and it's what gives life to everything about you. Your own self is such a treasure”

(Phylicia Rashad).

The word self is used in several different contexts.  We often refer to ourselves as myself or in some way that individualizes us.   What’s interesting to me about self is that we say, “myself” or some version of this but rarely think about what we mean by this.  We don’t ask ourselves if there is a deeper meaning to the word self and how it impacts us on a daily basis.

One of the things I remember the most from my moments as an intern during my counseling degree was working with clients on the concept of self.  It is not an easy concept to grasp.  I would ask them the question many of us remember from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  The caterpillar asks her repeatedly, “Who are you?”  while he is smoking what to me looks like a hookah, he even blows smoke letters to show her his question.  I am not sure how many of you remember the movie, but Alice never really answers him.  He even gets frustrated with her, and eventually gets down right angry enough with her to turn into a cloud of smoke.  When the smoke clears, the caterpillar has disappeared, and we see him yelling at Alice a few minutes later, and he has become something different.  He has turned into a butterfly.  The self he was has transformed into something more magical and lovely, but his self remained.  He was still ornery, sarcastic, and a little disgusted with Alice.

When asking my clients, the profound question of “who are you,” I received several answers that, like Alice’s, did not answer my question.  It’s not a question we can really answer for someone else.  It’s only a question we can answer for ourselves.  The self is something that is a part of us.  It goes down deep and is a part of our very soul.  Only we can know ourselves better than anyone else, but majority of the world is walking around knowing others better than they know themselves.  I can remember those interesting “who are you” group sessions.  I received answers like, “I’m an addict,” “I’m a drifter,”: I’m a construction worker,” “I’m a cosmetologist,” and the list goes on and on.  Can you guess what is missing?  Can you see why it is that the caterpillar was disgusted with Alice?  Can you see why so many of us are walking around with identity crises?

As you can see by this week’s quote, the self has little to do with physical or surface aspect of who you are.  When you look up the word self in the dictionary it actually lists the different parts of the self, but it mentions the body only once.  Even those who wrote the dictionary are aware that the self has more to do with internal factors instead of external features or vanity. 

Self:

1.    The union of elements left such as body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations that constitute the individuality and identity of a person.

2.    Personal interest or advantage for a, entire person of an individual.

3.    The realization or embodiment of an abstraction.

In truth, the concept of self is abstract.  There is no concrete tangible substance to self.  It is just there, like the soul or our spirits.  Now, you may think I’m getting a little metaphysical in my idea of self, but if you think about it, you’ll see that it is difficult to truly explain self to someone.

Abstract:

1.    Only having intrinsic form with little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content

2.    Disassociated from any specific instance; difficult to understand; insufficiently factual.

3.    Expressing a quality apart from an object: dealing with a subject in its theoretical form: impersonal, detached

I believe self is the single most important part of our lives.  Many people have told me that I spend too much time alone because I value self over just about everything.  It is not selfish to love ourselves.  It is not wrong to indulge ourselves when we can.  It is not wrong to take the time to know ourselves and accept who we are without compunction even when others are hell bent on changing us, finding fault in us, or trying to find a way to make us become someone completely different from who we are.  One of the most important parts to remember is that we only have one self, and we are the one’s who can mold that person.

Oh sure, throughout life, we have been molded in some ways by our parents, society, our environments, and even our genetics. But who we are, the very core of our individuality is ours to sculpt and create.  A lot of people are under the impression that they cannot change.  One of my favorite clichés and old adages to hear is “I’m stuck in my ways.”  This statement can be taken one of two ways.  I can think this person is stubborn and closed minded and unwilling to grow, or I can think that this person has truly grown to know himself and refuses to be molded by anyone else’s idea of who he should be.

As you can tell, the word should is emphasized.  There is no should.  Throughout our lives we hear the word should over and over again when we receive advice from someone.  Once you understand and know who you are, there is no should.  Your values, morals, beliefs, and behaviors are yours to have.  You get to judge if you are right or wrong.  You get to understand if you want to change a behavior or not.  That choice is up to you.  We receive the ability to choose from our higher powers, and humans are often harder on us than our deities, and that should tell you something.  We have what the forefathers of the United States called our inalienable rights.  I feel that we have an inalienable right to learn who we are; decide who we want to become; and shape ourselves into the person we wish to be.

And so, we come to the crux of the matter.  The shaping and sculpting of ourselves is just as important as the concept of self.  Who you are today is all right.  If you’re happy with who you are?  I say only change the part of you you’re uncomfortable with.  As this series of posts go on, we will learn about self more in depth.  The first thing in this quest toward self-awareness is to understand that there are several parts to the self: self-awareness, self-confidence, self-concept, self-control, self-esteem, self-image, and self-worth.  These are the parts of self that we hear about the most in psychology and probably in the media as well.  We’ll hear a story about a girl with a low self image who became an anorexic or a young man with a low self-worth who engages in self-injury.  The problems that most of us have with ourselves have very little to do with us.  Usually it has more to do with others: what they say to us; what they do to us; how we are seen by others; how our lives are impacted by events; how we think of ourselves because someone has planted that view in our minds.  The reason knowing and understanding ourselves is extremely important is because we will never escape the shoulds and musts in our lives if we don’t first learn who we are.  Where there is no understanding, there is no acceptance, wrote Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Pease is Every Step.  If we can understand ourselves, we can accept ourselves, flaws and all.  If we can accept ourselves, what other people say about us or do to us won’t matter as much.  Another interesting side effect of self-acceptance is that when we accept ourselves, others find a way to accept us as well.  They stop spouting unsolicited advice at us and begin to try to find understanding and acceptance of us as well.

Next week, we start to learn more about self, how it impacts our lives, and how we can learn to understand who we are.  Thank you for being a part of the Soul Search Café.  I look forward to continuing a learning relationship with you.  Share your comments and perspectives with us, so we can learn from you.

Until next we meet, stay encouraged and affirmed,

Nell

Cause & Effect

Positive Thinking

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” (Isaac Newton).

Newton’s third law of physics has a great deal to do with every part of our being.  While this quote seems scientific in nature and may be a bit intimidating to those of us who do not have a background in such lofty studies, we all have an understanding of what Newton said, as we all have life experience.  Newton’s law is going to assist us with the discussion this week, as we are going to be discovering how positive thinking can impact cause and effect and contribute to our overall well-being: as we consider knowledge gained in the past, traverse instinctively through the present, and move forward toward the unknown future.

In the last post, we discussed reaction and response.  Everything we think affects our behavior.  If we take a step back from a moment in time and think about each happening, we can probably pinpoint when a situation went right or wrong.  We can discover how events took place.  We can see where the cause occurred and how it affected every segment of an event. 

Cause:

1.      A person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition.

2.      A principle, aim, or movement that, because of a deep commitment, one is prepared to defend or advocate.

In truth, we rarely have control over anything.  Though we like to think we have power over nearly every facet of life; the fact is that the only aspect of life we definitely have control over is ourselves.  This concept of self-control is important when considering cause and effect.  If we can train ourselves to see just one positive             element in a situation, we may be able to affect an outcome.

Effect:

1.      A change which is a result or consequence of an action or other cause.

2.      To cause (something) to happen; bring about.

When something occurs in our lives, we automatically think of what can go wrong.  We see this phenomenon in movies, read about it in books, experience this in our lives.  We see someone walking around with their pants hanging down their behinds, which I find rather unattractive, but there has to be one thing about this person we can say that is positive.  Is he handsome?  Was he polite despite his rather questionable taste in attire?  We see someone in downtown Jacksonville talking to himself and immediately come to the conclusion that he’s crazy.  Do we stop to think that this man has experienced something in his life that caused his inability to control his outbursts in public?  Have we stopped to wonder if perhaps he’s just fine the way he is?  Perhaps he has chosen to be who he is, and our own thoughts have imposed something upon him that’s not a part of him but a part of us.

We nearly get into a car accident and immediately think of all the hassle it could have caused.  We think about the possibility of the car insurance bill going up.  We think about the ramifications of how another car hitting ours would have impacted our lives.  Many of us curse the other driver, especially if they were on the phone.  I don’t blame drivers for getting upset about other’s paying attention to their phones while driving.  In my opinion, it’s one of those moves that make me want to scream and rail at everyone.  My thought pattern on this matter is that if people want to kill themselves they shouldn’t involve the rest of us.  Texting and driving is not only against the law, it’s dangerous, but there is a silver lining.  In the moment, that warping time of a car coming across the lane without a blinker and nearly hitting the passenger side of the car makes the heart race, adrenaline rushes all these different hormones through the system.  The driver of the vehicle is yelling at the other driver who nearly hit his car.  The mind races, the person’s entire being is literally fully involved in the moment.  One of the silver linings here is that the accident didn’t happen.  There is a reason for thanks.  This is a moment to lift our spiritual beings in happiness.  The other silver lining is that the person is fully engaged in the moment.  While many may not see this as a positive aspect of such an event, it is.  We are all walking around living in another moment while our bodies are in the present.  This flash of an instance might have been worrisome or fearful, depending on how we reacted to it, and I have to admit this is one of those times where a response is almost impossible.  During adrenaline induced events, we are acting on instinct, autonomic reactions are more likely to occur.  As explained above, there is very little we control in life.  However, our thoughts are our own.  Who we are and what we want to be are up to us.

When something in the world causes an effect, usually the cause is uncontrollable.  The effect, however, can be controlled.  The reasoning behind this thought pattern is that our thoughts become our actions.  If I’m yelling at a driver who just truly pissed me off.  Yes, I’m living in that moment, fully engaged in it, but am I still paying attention to what is going on around me?  Can I be the one to nearly cause an accident because my focus is solely on the other driver?  If I give myself a second to offer thanks to my higher power and continue on, what have I done?  I have made an effort to think of the positive.  The cause has become less of an issue, my thought was of thanks and gratitude for a reprieve from possible bodily harm and damage to my car, and my behavior reflects that.

In the next post, we will discuss the concept of self.  Thank you for being a part of the Soul Search Café.  I look forward to continuing a learning relationship with you.  Share your comments and perspectives with us, so we can learn from you.

Until next we meet, stay encouraged and affirmed,

Nell