Thursday, September 29, 2016
September is one reason you never really leave NYC.
If you know a better place to live than New York City, let me know. After 9/11, I moved out of New York and it was the worst thing I could have done not because there aren't other lovely places to live but because I needed to embrace what happened rather than run away and because once you live in NYC, it's not easy to live anywhere else.
September used to be that ho-hum month that gets wedged between the end of trips to the beach and the beginning of fall foliage tours. Now, September has a presence of its own, one that became etched in our hearts and souls. It's hard being away from New York City because it's a place that welcomes everyone. It's the gold standard for diversity in life as well as the arts. One of the best things about NYC is the creativity which is inspired by the beauty of the place, the energy of the place, and the memories which get more precious by the year.
"I love New York" is not just a slogan; it's a state of mind that starts deep within the soul. They say you can never go home again, but this isn't true for NYC because you actually never leave, definitely not in September.
MHJ
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Reflection is a very rewarding form of writing. If you'd like to write about something that caused you to reflect, start with a mental picture or an actual image.
Reflection is not an activity for any specific age group. It can happen to anyone who dares to take a backward look at past behavior in hopes of gaining information or finding the lesson to be learned. Reflection involves taking a backward look at an emotional event that happened but it also includes some introspection so as to determine how you feel about it in the present moment. By reflecting on negative events in the past, we are able to learn and change. Bad experiences turned into lifelong lessons is how we develop emotional competence and how we build empathy for others.
Reflection is best achieved through writing. You might begin by writing a paragraph about what happened, when it happened, and how you felt about what happened THEN. You would especially want to name the strongest emotion(s) that you felt at the time. The second paragraph you write would explain how you feel about the event, incident or situation NOW, after so many months or years. Reflecting on a past event requires the passage of time..
Reflection involves explaining what emotions you felt in the past and what emotions you feel in the present moment, but the purpose for writing is to discover what you learned and what difference this event made in your life. Examples of reflection can be found in poetry, songs, and creative non-fiction, or they can be rendered in a work of fiction. I love putting poetry or music and images together, and also, I like reading poetry, but the best place to start writing is with an actual image or an image in your mind.
Reflection is a very rewarding form of writing. If you'd like to write about something that caused you to reflect, start with a mental picture or an actual image. As an example, consider the following image. Life experiences and lasting memories begin at some point during any ordinary day.
Monday, September 12, 2016
After 9/11, I mostly remember the horns honking, the lights flashing, the arms waving out of windows as people sought to assure me, "You are not alone."
I remember like it was yesterday minding my business babysitting a three-year old and waiting to see his mother who had been ill for a week and hadn't gone to work, but on 9/11/01, she had said she'd be going in, taking the long bus ride to the PATH train in Jersey City; taking the PATH into the World Trade Center in NYC; transferring to the subway train headed uptown; walking two blocks to work. I asked, "Are you up to all of that?" She said yes like she always does because she's resilient, always. But because she followed her intuition and decided she wasn't ready to return to work after all, she's alive today. Trusting her intuition saved her life.
When the twin towers got hit, it was surreal. I thought it was a preview for some horrid movie, but then the commentators' frantic voices assured me, this was happening in real time--the explosion, the fire and black smoke, the people jumping from windows--horrific.
There had been a small attack on the World Trade Center in the early 1990's, but no one saw it as an experiment or practice run--but what else could it have been?. After all was said and done, people on the street, in diners, at work kept repeating, "Somebody should have known...How were we caught so off guard?"
So much about NYC and the world has changed since 9/11. The streets are more crowded, neighborhoods are unrecognizable, people are in such a hurry--sign of the times, but New York City used to be so different back before September 11, 2001. Neighborhoods still held together, supported each other, and the people took pride in their communities. Now, with all the hustle and bustle, who knows where one community ends and another begins?
After the event, I mostly remember traveling up and down I-95 with my NY license plate and a big red, white and blue bow & ribbon tied to the grill of my car. I remember the horns honking, the lights flashing, the arms waving out of windows as people sought to assure me, "You are not alone." Somehow, these friendly gestures and listening to Enya on the radio helped see me through. I was not alone, All of NY, all of the nation, and much of the world was mourning with me.
Still, I shouldn't have moved away from the city a month afterward. I needed the mutual support from those who witnessed the black debris hovering above the city stretched across the horizon for what seemed like an eternity. I needed to talk it out with frantic neighbors. I needed to be there in the thick of it, expressing myself and grieving out loud. Because I wasn't talking it out, it took years to overcome what happened to our city, our country, our people, and to me.
Yet I too am resilient, like New Yorkers and Americans are resilient. Had my NYC daughter gone to work that morning, I'd be mourning her death instead of celebrating her life. Like all who survived this traumatic event, I realize how precious and fleeting life is and how important it is to trust your intuition.
My intuition tells me to live with a sense of meaning every day. Looking back, I try to remember the beauty of the twin towers but I also embrace the new reality of our precious city. No matter how much it has changed, it's the place I call home, and visiting home adds meaning to my life.
When the twin towers got hit, it was surreal. I thought it was a preview for some horrid movie, but then the commentators' frantic voices assured me, this was happening in real time--the explosion, the fire and black smoke, the people jumping from windows--horrific.
There had been a small attack on the World Trade Center in the early 1990's, but no one saw it as an experiment or practice run--but what else could it have been?. After all was said and done, people on the street, in diners, at work kept repeating, "Somebody should have known...How were we caught so off guard?"
So much about NYC and the world has changed since 9/11. The streets are more crowded, neighborhoods are unrecognizable, people are in such a hurry--sign of the times, but New York City used to be so different back before September 11, 2001. Neighborhoods still held together, supported each other, and the people took pride in their communities. Now, with all the hustle and bustle, who knows where one community ends and another begins?
After the event, I mostly remember traveling up and down I-95 with my NY license plate and a big red, white and blue bow & ribbon tied to the grill of my car. I remember the horns honking, the lights flashing, the arms waving out of windows as people sought to assure me, "You are not alone." Somehow, these friendly gestures and listening to Enya on the radio helped see me through. I was not alone, All of NY, all of the nation, and much of the world was mourning with me.
Still, I shouldn't have moved away from the city a month afterward. I needed the mutual support from those who witnessed the black debris hovering above the city stretched across the horizon for what seemed like an eternity. I needed to talk it out with frantic neighbors. I needed to be there in the thick of it, expressing myself and grieving out loud. Because I wasn't talking it out, it took years to overcome what happened to our city, our country, our people, and to me.
Yet I too am resilient, like New Yorkers and Americans are resilient. Had my NYC daughter gone to work that morning, I'd be mourning her death instead of celebrating her life. Like all who survived this traumatic event, I realize how precious and fleeting life is and how important it is to trust your intuition.
My intuition tells me to live with a sense of meaning every day. Looking back, I try to remember the beauty of the twin towers but I also embrace the new reality of our precious city. No matter how much it has changed, it's the place I call home, and visiting home adds meaning to my life.
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Are you hiding your true emotions behind anger?
Losing ones temper is a cover-up for something that lies deeper. We don't like to feel vulnerable, so we default to what appears a more aggressive emotional response: anger. Are you hiding your true emotions behind anger?
If you want to know what you're hiding when you become angry, stop yourself as soon as you start to feel flushed and flustered, before you've had time to strike back. If you ever wonder why you get so mad at certain people or circumstances, tap into your feelings and see what comes up. It's good if you can notice your feelings after an incident, but it's much better if you can also name and target the emotion that appeared before it was hidden behind anger.
When I was in elementary school, I fought a lot because I was bullied. I felt sadness whenever it happened, but my first outward response was anger. Internally, I was feeling something too embarrassing to admit. It was only in high school that I learned to hide the anger, at least for a minute or two so as to discover what was really causing my negative response.
It took years to stop responding to insults and injury with anger, but I finally grasped the concept. What I realized was this: When I felt fearful or diminished, I responded with an act of aggression, which in my case was anger. I eventually learned, it's not the outward emotions that we need to control. The control must start with inward feelings, those we hide so no one is the wiser about our vulnerabilities.
Anger is a reflection of fear or diminished self-esteem. It is an emotional response that serves as an act of aggression used to protect ourselves from harm. Yet, we don't always realize our anger is an act of aggression against a perceived enemy. "We might first feel afraid, attacked, offended, disrespected, forced, trapped, or pressured. If any of these feelings are intense enough, we think of the emotion as anger" (www.creducation.org) without considering other possibilities. Anger is simply an outward response to feelings of endangerment.
Once it becomes clear that anger is a cover-up for other emotions, anger can be managed or eliminated. But anger cannot be managed if underlying emotions are not discovered and acknowledged. In order to control anger, underlying feelings must be recognized and emotions must be targeted so self-esteem is not diminished.
*Reference: "Image from Men For Change, The Online Healthy Relationships Project, 1998"
www.creducation.org.
If you want to know what you're hiding when you become angry, stop yourself as soon as you start to feel flushed and flustered, before you've had time to strike back. If you ever wonder why you get so mad at certain people or circumstances, tap into your feelings and see what comes up. It's good if you can notice your feelings after an incident, but it's much better if you can also name and target the emotion that appeared before it was hidden behind anger.
When I was in elementary school, I fought a lot because I was bullied. I felt sadness whenever it happened, but my first outward response was anger. Internally, I was feeling something too embarrassing to admit. It was only in high school that I learned to hide the anger, at least for a minute or two so as to discover what was really causing my negative response.
It took years to stop responding to insults and injury with anger, but I finally grasped the concept. What I realized was this: When I felt fearful or diminished, I responded with an act of aggression, which in my case was anger. I eventually learned, it's not the outward emotions that we need to control. The control must start with inward feelings, those we hide so no one is the wiser about our vulnerabilities.
Anger is a reflection of fear or diminished self-esteem. It is an emotional response that serves as an act of aggression used to protect ourselves from harm. Yet, we don't always realize our anger is an act of aggression against a perceived enemy. "We might first feel afraid, attacked, offended, disrespected, forced, trapped, or pressured. If any of these feelings are intense enough, we think of the emotion as anger" (www.creducation.org) without considering other possibilities. Anger is simply an outward response to feelings of endangerment.
Once it becomes clear that anger is a cover-up for other emotions, anger can be managed or eliminated. But anger cannot be managed if underlying emotions are not discovered and acknowledged. In order to control anger, underlying feelings must be recognized and emotions must be targeted so self-esteem is not diminished.
*Reference: "Image from Men For Change, The Online Healthy Relationships Project, 1998"
www.creducation.org.
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