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Inside Week 2 of What Do You Want?

May 15, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

This is the second guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She wrote about week 1 last week.

Inside Week 2 of What Do YOU Want?

Continually look backward asking why?—as we so often do—is sort of like picking at a scab. Does it really help us to heal? Can it take us anywhere new if it’s just a “tired rehashing of the fragmented, misremembered past?” Asking why? forward instead of backward can be much more fruitful.

The handouts for week 2 of the What Do You Want? course were on looking forward vs. looking backward, which shed more light on the way our brains work. Can we get new experiences in life if we so often ask why? about the past? What matters more: exploring a past we can’t change or exploring what we want for the future so we can get clearer on the changes we can effect.

We think maybe it will help us put the past to rest if we make up “answers” to our why? questions about it. That’s all we can do about it, after all. On the other hand, we can be energized by looking at and probing for what we want to have ahead of us. There is a forward thrust toward truth when we ask why? forward.

Think of a 4-year-old child’s drive to ask why? Children at this time discover the power and vastness of that word why. Sometimes we may suspect that they persist with their why? questions just to annoy us. Yet, really, it’s all new to them. Maybe the only intelligent thing for them to do in their “new to the planet” situation is to keep asking why?

WE are in a “new to the future” situation. It is a vantage point for discovering what we really want our future to look like by asking of each answer we give—or is it get?—why?! If we probe for an answer to each why? that will allow us to deepen our understanding of ourselves and what DOES really matter most to us.

As Joycelyn says, “If you keep asking why? forward, you’ll eventually get to the ultimate answer…to the heart of what’s at stake.” One thing that is clear to me is that I have not yet asked why? enough times. If I find it intimidating to start, once I begin, I find it surprisingly interesting and exhilarating to do. Try it! It’s great for getting to clarity.

Inside Week 1 of What Do You Want?

May 8, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

This is a guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. More posts by Jean will follow, on consecutive Thursdays, as she gives us her perspective on the rest of the sessions.

Nila's Mama (Left) Preforms with a Barbershop ... — Barbershop Quartet (Photo credit: Lea LSF)

I used to think there was something wrong with me because there are things I really, truly want and need to do before I die, and yet I haven’t gone after them, or even half-satisfied the need. In the first meeting of the What Do You Want? course, I learned that it isn’t a flaw in me. It’s System 1, the unconscious, doing its job, what it knows how to do, which is maintaining the status quo. That’s a biggie. As Joycelyn said, “The unconscious keeps you alive, but isn’t interested in enlivening you.”

There are always worksheets which we complete in class, and if not done in class would be harder to do on my own at home. We learn and expand our own thinking as we take turns sharing our thoughts and writing, which we could not do at home, alone. By writing in class, we are sure to get it done, or at least get the process started.

We are never asked to share things that we are not ready to, although sort of by the nature of this work, we end up sharing a lot and finding we have a strong, mutually supportive group.

The main assignment for this week was to fill out one 5″ x 8″ card per day, dedicated to completing the sentence that starts: “What I really want is…” I have gotten past criticizing my every entry. I hear when it starts to sound like a “what I don’t want is…” list. My entries can range from little things that have been bugging me in my environment, such as “What I really want is a new, hand-held shower head,” to somewhat more elusive goals such as “to be clear as much as possible about how to behave so as to be my best self.”

I don’t pay attention to whether it makes sense to put something on this list. I just keep writing. Day after day, many of the same things come up and this tells me they must really be important enough to me to do something about.

Then there are little surprises, like “What I really want is to sing in a Barbershop Quartet.”

The class is provocative, as Joycelyn has many ways to shift our thinking and our understanding about the way we work. This is a great investigation, and I see how exposing it all to light will help us make a difference in our “status quo,” even if we sometimes drag our feet in the process.

The Gift of Existential Discontent

April 14, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 7 Comments

Spring in New Mexico brings longer, brighter days, but those days seem to be carried in on incessant, howling, nasty winds. Two years ago, I was out for a walk on one of those very windy spring days. It was so windy that each step I took was an effort, and effort seemed to accurately describe my entire existence at that point. Abruptly, I thought, If this is how it’s going to be, I’m not interested.

Unhappiness and dissatisfaction are associated with a release of cortisol by the brain. Cortisol makes us want to do something to change how we’re feeling. A low level of cortisol—indicating a low level of discontent—triggers us to do something we know will make us feel better. Immediately! Whether that response is eating something sweet, going for a run, or surfing the internet, it’s automatic. No conscious thought is involved.

Cortisol also makes us pay attention. But more than a little cortisol has to be released before we actually sit up and pay conscious attention to our discontent. Otherwise the stimulus-response of cortisol and self-soothing behavior just runs in the background—at least until we start to notice all the weight we’ve gained or the time we’ve lost.

The amount of existential discontent I experienced that day did not feel good at all. I definitely wanted to do something about it! But I knew there was no easy response or quick fix. I couldn’t just go home and lose myself in a good book or have a glass of wine or play with my cat and expect to forget about it.

If this is how it’s going to be, I’m not interested was the impulse—the inciting incident, you could say—that eventually launched Farther to Go! I didn’t just want to feel better; I wanted to be better. I had a variety of tools to work with, processes and techniques I’d used before, but I quickly recognized none would do the trick this time. So I began carving out a path, hacking through my own wilderness, to find a way to be better.

I was kind of excited about my discoveries (if you know me, feel free to laugh here) and shared them with anyone who would listen. After a few months I began getting together twice a month with several other women. The members of the group changed, and as a result of my ongoing explorations, so did our focus. It was a few months before I found my way to learning about how the brain works and the revelation that underlies Farther to Go!

Trying to understand and change behavior without taking the brain into account is like trying to bake a cake without understanding that baking involves chemical reactions.

Two years ago, I had a general idea of what cortisol was, and since I had been a substance abuse counselor, I knew a little about serotonin and dopamine. But I had no idea how fortunate I was on that windy spring day to experience enough existential discontent that the amount of cortisol my brain released made it impossible to ignore.

Roll the Dice

April 12, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

English: A pair of dice Español: Dados cúbicos. — (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been thinking lately about randomness and probabilities. And then there’s this poem by Charles Bukowski.

On the face of it, it seems to have more to do with commitment than with rolling the dice. But maybe he’s talking about taking a chance–or taking the chance. The big one.

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
there is no other feeling like that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, it’s
the only good fight
there is.

The Danger of a Single Story

April 10, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

This TED talk is very important and very moving. It made me think about and ask myself who are the people and what are the places I have a single story about?

So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.

The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

Stories matter. MANY stories matter.

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie

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