The Metaphysics of Gender Non-Conformity

A slightly edited version of The Metaphysics of Gender Non-Conformity was published on the Georgia Voice website on 6/24/2021: https://thegavoice.com/outspoken/the-metaphysics-of-gender-non-conformity/

I first became aware of the issue of gender non-conformity a number of years ago when I saw straight boys with their girlfriends walking around Little Five Points with sundresses pulled over their tee shirts and jeans. At this same time I was doing volunteer counseling with homeless LGBTQ young adults and they were giving me an education into the rising awareness of transgendered people and their needs and what they face societally. Awareness of and respect for the transgendered community has been growing, rightly so. It has sparked culture war battles over who can use what bathroom and issues with transgendered athletes. And it has led to people of all stripes specifying the pronouns they wish to be addressed by in the signature of their emails.

What I have found most interesting about all of this is the intense focus on living and expressing physical gender and little to no discussion of the masculine and feminine energies that we all possess. All of us. These energies have NOTHING to do with stereotyped sex roles. Nothing. They are about complimentary energies at work in each of us that need to find a balance that leads to wholeness as a person, as a human.

Jung talked about them, I believe, as inner opposites. They are not. Ancient Chinese philosophy, more correctly, talks about them as part of a dualism - complementary, interconnected forces within each of us. Dualisms – light and dark, summer and winter, expansion and contraction, for example. You can’t have one without the other. More closely aligned with our purposes here are thinking and feeling, heart and mind, doing and being.

The masculine energy of will and the feminine energy of imagination. Imagination is a sense that is common to us all. Think of how dreary and empty life would be without it. What you can imagine for yourself and your life is unlimited. Who you can be and become, places you can go, experiences you would like to have, things you would like to do for yourself and others, and more, is all within the province of your imagination. As example, can you imagine yourself being wildly successful? For some of us, heck yeah I can imagine that. For others of us, no, I can’t imagine not having to work like a dog to get what I want. Can you imagine being a great parent? Can you imagine being loved and cherished? What would that be like?

But how do you bring all of that into manifestation in your life? Those things won’t just walk up the driveway. It takes will to make things happen, otherwise, all of the wonderful things we can imagine remain flights of fancy. But when our will, our determination, our focus, our perseverance are applied, we can move mountains. Maybe not immediately but people know to get out of the way as it is our will to create what we truly want in life that is essential in making it happen.

The feminine energy of being and the masculine energy of doing. I ask this question constantly – Who are you? That is about being. Your goals, hopes, dreams, desires, beliefs, choices, what you imagine for yourself and your life. All of that and more contributes to your being. However, most of us are way more comfortable with doing. It has become a badge of honor, at least until the COVID pandemic, to be constantly busy. “I have to be wired into work 24/7. I must stay on top of growing my personal brand on social media. I have things to do, kids to raise, aging parents to take care of, projects to finish. Who the hell has time to worry about being? Piffle. I’m busy doing. Besides, how ‘do’ you do being?”

I keep reading about the rising number of people who are really questioning whether they want to return to that pre-pandemic rat-race life. There is no right or wrong answer here. The only right answer is what works for you. But as some people got to put down all of that doing, they got in touch with just being. Being closer, in some senses, to what they wanted more of in their lives and busyness wasn’t on that list. “I want to hug and just be with the people I care about again.” “I have been able to be there for my kids in a way that I wasn’t pre-pandemic.” You all have heard or said these kinds of things.

It is the feminine energy that creates the space in which something can happen. The womb of creation, metaphorically, if you will. If there is not the space nor the place for something to occur in your life – “Well, I just don’t have time for a relationship right now,” – it won’t. “It isn’t the right time or place for me to seek a new job, start a new career, go back to school, start painting again, get back to baking.” And it never happens because the space was not created. Feminine energy. The masculine energy fills that space. It brings the activity and fills that created space with the activity of job seeking, career switching, firing up the oven to bake. But without the space being properly prepared, we may start something with the best of intentions but we never see it through. Our goals never fully come to fruition.

And finally, the feminine energies of conception and perception. To conceive of something new – a new idea, a new project, a new way of doing things, a new goal, a new hope, a new dream, a new way of expressing something creatively that has never been done before. And conception’s handmaiden, perception. How we perceive something to be. We perceive through our five familiar senses, yes. We talk about the range of light or sound that our human senses are able to perceive. But we also perceive through unfamiliar senses as well. Perception is about the mental and emotional impressions that we get. An awareness, if you will. For example, what we perceive of our past, our present, and the future we think or hope is coming. How we perceive ourselves through our own experience of ourselves.

These are balanced by the masculine energies of meaning and understanding. Who decides what things mean to you? You do. “What if I get it wrong?” There are no right or wrong answers. However, you can always change your mind about what something means to you. What does it mean that some of your shirts have started coming back from the laundry with cracked or broken buttons? Could mean it is time to switch your dry cleaner/laundry. Could mean they are just being careless and you need to point it out to them. Could mean you’ve had those shirts since the dinosaurs roamed and they have been laundered and pressed a thousand times and it is about time for the whole shirt to give out.  Whatever meaning you assign to anything is A) your choice and B) a masculine energy.

Understanding. There is a real crisis in the world right now of understanding. Nobody wants to try to understand anyone else. They want to be understood first. The act and process of really understanding yourself or someone else is a masculine energy. And it has a number of components to it as understanding is a process. For our purposes here, I want to focus on the three final components of the process as I understand it. What can you infer from the thoughts, feelings, facts being supplied to you? We can gain a deeper level of understanding through something that was not directly said. You may tell me you don’t like shopping malls but what I can infer is you don’t like crowds.

Then comes appreciating the other person’s point of view, lived experience, and meaning they have assigned to things, just was you are able to assign meaning to things in your life. And finally, the understanding process concludes with valuing what you have learned and come to understand. And giving that new level of understanding meaning and significance.

Will and Imagination. Doing and Being. Creating the space for manifestation and taking action to bring into manifestation. Conception/Perception and Meaning and Understanding. All important and things that all of us do. So maybe the next time your physical gender identity is not resolving or answering life’s dilemmas, consider starting here with these eight things. Begin bringing them into balance. The gifts you find along the way can be priceless.

© 2021   Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

Self-Respect

An edited version of Self-Respect was published in the Georgia Voice paper and website on 7/23/2021: thegavoice.com

I don’t usually eavesdrop on conversations. That said, when someone is talking loud enough for me to hear, it’s on them. Right? So I am listening to this guy tell a friend that as he is now in his 50s, he has recently discovered self-respect and having done so, has put his wife and his twenty-something aged kids on notice that if they dare to disrespect him, they are all going to be sorry. He isn’t going to take it anymore. But wait, there’s more.

Not only is his family now on notice, but he isn’t taking it from anybody else either. So he finds himself on a surface street that is being blocked by two cars, one headed in one direction and one headed in another and they are having a conversation. When the one headed in the opposite direction of him moves, he drives around the person that has been blocking him, yelling something out the window at the driver. Then the driver catches up to him and starts yelling at him. This goes on with them now chasing one another so that the last person that got yelled at can yell back and get the last word. It escalates with an open water bottle being thrown back and forth between cars and then eventually an opened canned soda being thrown back and forth between the two cars.

The story teller eventually chases this other car into a cul-de-sac where they are both stopped with the cars facing one another. The yelling continues until the passenger in the other car gets out and pulls a gun on the guy telling the story, who then backs his car out of the cul-de-sac and goes home. But he feels vindicated, even though he almost got himself shot, because he wasn’t going to put up with being disrespected.

Respect is not something you can demand any more than you can demand that someone trust you. Respect, like trust, is earned. First from self and then from others. It is not unlike understanding. If you want people to understand you, you must first seek to be understanding of others. “Oh, no. They better ‘get’ that they need to understand/trust/respect me first.” Good luck with that. People that can’t or won’t treat others with respect, as clichéd as it sounds, usually have no idea what respect means or they don’t respect themselves.

So, where to start? Step one is to honestly and appropriately express all of your emotions. Back in March I wrote a blog post entitled, “Feelings, Wo-O-O Feelings,” about dealing with feelings so I am not going to belabor this now. However, first you have to be able to correctly identify what you are feeling. Are you angry or are you sad? Are you happy or just content? Are you really hurt or just disappointed? Once you have identified what you are feeling, then express it appropriately. If I am angry or confused, let’s say, sometimes just the admission of that can help clear it. If I acknowledge I am angry with myself or someone else, or, if I am confused about something or you are confusing me, then I can do something about it. And I will earn respect from myself for having identified the feeling and moved beyond it. But if I scream and holler at you because I am angry at you or I punish myself because I am angry with me, I am inflicting pain by my inappropriate expression and there is no basis there for earning respect from myself.

Further, too many people, like our friend above, get the idea in their heads that “out of self-respect, I get to tell you what a no good, dirty rotten, low down Communist I really think you are.” That isn’t acting out of self-respect. That is acting out of judgment and ego. Far better to just walk away from behavior you find offensive or inappropriate.

So it goes with positive emotions like love. Famed Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca wrote, “To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” Or suppose you are proud of yourself or someone else and instead of expressing that pride, you give them or yourself some kind of left-handed compliment or say something snarky instead. There will be no foundation on which to build self-respect. When you can appropriately express of your feelings, your estimation of yourself will rise.

Secondly, when you fail at something or fall short of your goal, stop and figure out what went wrong. Why did you not succeed as you had intended? Do not blame anybody or anything else. You can‘t fix what you won’t be responsible for. Whether it is a work project, a hobby, or a relationship, whatever the nature of that relationship, when something goes awry or doesn’t work or falls apart, look for what happened. Could it have been avoided? What decisions, actions, choices, beliefs, etc., led you to where things are now? And own and admit that you contributed to this outcome.

Now, a lot of us grew up with the idea that if we made a mistake, not only do we feel terrible about having done so, but we were supposed to be punished for it. No. I learned many years ago that when you hold up you hand, say, “Yeah, I did it,” and be responsible, people will break their backs to help you correct whatever went wrong. And you and others will respect that.

But what about when things go right, go well? How did you get here? What decisions, actions, choices, commitment, perseverance, got you here across the finish line? Own that. Not out of ego. Succeeding doesn’t make you better than. But it is important to figure out and know how you succeeded. Why? So you can do it again. ‘”It was just luck.” Really? Honor the process you used to succeed so that you can replicate, usually with adjustments for the situation, additional successes and greater successes. That you can and will respect.

And finally, always – always – operate from a place of integrity and character, meaning that the ends never ever justify the means. It is always about how you got there. The process. The steps taken. How you conducted yourself along the way, on a daily basis. Were you honest or did you manipulate others? Did you cut corners or did you make sure that the quality of work or product was not sacrificed in the name of expediency? Did you build bridges to others or did you burn bridges in your quest to be first? Did you seek to be understanding and compassionate of self and others or were you impatient, condescending and rude as you progressed? My personal yardstick has long been if I can look into my own eyes in the bathroom mirror at the end of the day and feel good about me, that is all that matters.

Life is a process in the big picture, and so are all of our days, in the little, immediate picture. No one is saying we have to be perfect. Clearly not. But process is the means to our ends and how, on a daily basis, we get to where we are going, is one of the surest ways we can and will learn to respect ourselves.  And, rather than risking getting ourselves shot in a dark cul-da-sac, we will be able to respect that maybe someone else was just having a bad day.

© 2021   Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

Sensuousness

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“Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Sensuous.” “Sensuous who?” “Sensuous up, would you bring me another soda out of the fridge?”

Sensuality is about feeling. I started thinking about it listening to a friend complain about how unsatisfying most of his online hookups were.  They were very mechanical but not much more. Certainly no feeling on any level other than physical. Sensation, yes, sensuality, no. Most people think of sensuality as something between two people but the sensuousness of life starts with self and our own experiences.

Life is full of sensuousness, if we will pay attention. Full of luscious, rich, sumptuous, exciting experience of feelings on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels. Once we understand what it is, then we can better share that understanding with others.

Think about the feeling of certain foods in your mouth. The taste of your favorite dish and how that resonates throughout your body and the satiation that can bring. When I was little, my favorite dinner was fried shrimp. I liked the crunch of the breading. Combined with flavor of the shrimp and either the kick of the cocktail sauce or the cool tanginess of the tartar sauce. All of that together gave me a feeling of pleasure and excitement because it was so good. Or, the warming sensation of a hot drink on a cold day. A cup of tea or coffee or hot chocolate soothing you as you drink it. There is also the added bonus of the caffeine helping you to feel more alert to the sensations of your body relaxing into the warmth. 

The feel of a breeze on a beautiful spring day as it gets inside your clothes and inflates them, making your skin tingle and feel refreshed. It can also refresh the mind and spirit if it has been a long winter and you are now free to go back outside and enjoy the freedom. The lightness you feel by not being weighed down by heavy winter clothes plus that rush of anticipation that you are about to take off with the wind.

The feeling of a friend’s hand on your shoulder that tells you you belong and are accepted just as you are and that you are alright. The sound of rain on a tin roof or the rustle of the wind through the trees that reminds you that nature can be soothing and healing.

Intimacy is not about the mechanics of sex. You’ve been watching too much porn. It is about the closeness, the tenderness, the vulnerability, and the trust between two people regardless of the specific nature of the relationship. The tenderness in the way we treat each other. How close we feel to each other. How willing we are to trust one another enough to be vulnerable with each another. All part of the sensuousness of life.

Thoughts and feelings are very sensual. Some people love drama and the way it makes them feel excited and alive. Other people hate drama. Some people like confrontation, others hate it. Some people love surprises. Other people hate surprises. Some people like spontaneity, others don’t. The sensations of life lived through our physical senses as well as our mind and emotions. Though they all seem something that just happens on the surface, all of these feelings, that rush of sensuousness takes us someplace deeper into our psyche, somewhere outside of time and space, giving our momentary experience a richness and texture and meaning that physical sensation alone can’t provide.

But there is also the sensuality of your spirituality. Our lives are constantly sending us messages with feelings that provide context and texture. A song we hear in passing on the radio that has a message we needed to hear at the moment. A passage we read in a book that is timely. A conversation we overhear. A chance meeting. An unexpected good fortune where something just arrives out of the blue. A feeling that won’t leave us alone. A thought that urges us forward or warns us to stop. A coincidence where – “Hey, I was just thinking about you and here you are.” A synchronicity where something worked out perfectly though it wasn’t planned at all. “Yeah, well, it was just luck or fate or chance.” Are you sure?

“Stop and smell the roses,” we are told when we feel too stressed or overwhelmed. We all live in a world that now prides itself on being so busy all the time that we need to be plugged in 24/7. We are constantly distracted from our own life and the cornucopia of sensual pleasures it affords us every minute of every day.

Sensuousness is about connection on an unspoken level. It happens between the words used to describe it and beyond those words. It is experiential through the five common senses, and through the senses you possess like intuition and knowing and warmth that lie beyond the familiar ones. It opens you to the transcendent where in a moment, and maybe only for a moment, you are lifted beyond time/space where you can touch and be touched by something more than what words can describe. A sensual experience – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - between two people can end the sense of separateness and/or alienation, leading to a sense that approaches oneness whether with partners, family or friends. Your work, your creative projects, your hopes and dreams all are sources of and all benefit from sensuousness.

Put down your phone. Open your senses. What are the smells, touches, tastes, sounds, sights, that your life is providing you with? Where do the accompanying thoughts and feelings take you? Do you find inspiration or hope or beauty or peace? Maybe a sense of well-being or contentment. Gratitude. Pleasure. Excitement.  Life is a very lush experience. But you’ve got to be paying attention or those experiences will slip on by and you’ll be left wondering, just like my friend, why is this all so mechanical and rote? It’s not. But do you dare to find out?

© 2021   Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media 

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

Authenticity

Years ago, before Abercrombie & Fitch lost their minds, they used to sew patches onto their clothes that read: “A F (Original), Expert Quality, Guaranteed Durability, Genuine Performance,” and the year it was made, “Issue No. 1993” This patch was evidence of the garment’s authenticity. They had other versions of this on various labels, depending on the garment.

Dictionary.com defines authentic as - 1) not false or copied; genuine; real; 2) having an origin supported by unquestionable evidence; authenticated; verified; 3) representing one’s true nature or beliefs; true to oneself or to the person identified.

Given the above definition and demonstration of the use of the word, imagine my surprise when I read, in Esquire Magazine, an article entitled, “Meet One of the Most Popular Men on Tinder.” The article begins with the advice from a popular figure on Tinder who states that in the first pic of your profile, you have to be strategic about your smile. A closed mouth implies one negative thing and too wide a grin implies something else negative. The article states, regarding your smile, “Display the faintest whiff of inauthenticity and you’re done for.”

Well, wrong. Who makes up these rules? If you were actually being legitimate about it, you would display your natural smile and not some contrived version meant to send a signal that hopefully everyone knows how to interpret. And, if your eyes are your nicest feature, show them off instead. Just sayin’. Appearances have nothing to do with authenticity. You have all heard the old saying not to judge a book by its cover, and if you have ever read a book, you know that to be true. Appearance may be important as to the level of physical/sexual attractiveness, but otherwise, as they say, beauty is only skin deep.

The article then goes on to tout the wisdom of presenting a very sparse profile (4 items per category). This is fine unless you are not a sparse person and, thus, your brevity is a misleading representation of who you actually are. Suppose you are gregarious or funny or collegial or very extroverted and sparseness doesn’t really represent you? So much for realness. And if you are only allowed 4 photos, 4 interests, a 4 word bio, how credible can you really be?

Authenticity is a word that currently gets thrown around a lot. I see it on LinkedIn and in various “How to Job Hunt” articles that warn that you’d better be authentic in the process even though, as we spoke about in my previous post, you are also supposed to be a brand. And where are the official guidelines about how you do this in a resume? Honesty is a good idea. Accuracy as to your work history is a good idea. But how can you be authentic if, in your interview, you go in prepared to play the game and bury who you really are?

Or supposed you are on a date and the subject of favorite sandwich comes up. Theirs is arugula and spirulina on gluten-free Naan bread and yours is, in reality, peanut butter and sardines on white bread? Do you dare tell the truth? What happens when they find out later? If that is actually your favorite, in being true to yourself and admitting that sandwich preference, then you are way more authentic than someone who goes with the trends or goes with the politically correct foodie way to eat.

Authenticity is about self-knowledge, character, principles, and integrity. It is about knowing who you are. What you think and feel and believe. It is about the things you do and don’t do well. It is about what you like and don’t like, and the people and places you like and don’t like. It is about knowing how honest you are with yourself, about everything, all of the time. It’s about knowing what you got right, what you got wrong, where you can improve and how you can and will do better tomorrow.

Authenticity is about having and developing character. Character means having ideals that you live by – dignity: wisdom; love; courage; balance; being of service to others; virtue; loyalty; creativity; responsibility; compassion; caring; gratitude; being understanding; always being respectful of others. These are not the only examples but ideals that we seek in the living of life. We don’t ever completely master these, never completely grasp them, but we become more in seeking their bounty. Principles are the things we will and will not do in seeking those ideals. As example, as much as I may love you I will seek the ideal of never ever consciously hurting you. That doesn’t mean, if I am having a bad day or am preoccupied or whatever, that I always will be fully present with you or that I won’t forget something you asked me to do or that I won’t say something without thinking it through that is hurtful. But I will seek the ideal of never deliberately, consciously, making the choice to be hurtful to you. Character is measured by how frequently, or not, you implement your principles.

Integrity is doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, even when no one is looking, and even when it is inconvenient. Integrity is living by my ideals and my ethics and morals. Integrity is keeping my word and keeping my commitments.

Authenticity will not be found by following someone else’s rules about who and what you are supposed to be. You have to make your own rules and live by them and deal with the consequences of those rules – revising them when necessary. Authenticity will not be found in your pics on social media, in getting the buzz words right, or trying to live your life by abiding by the decrees of influencers.  It will not be based on the number of social media friends or followers you have or in how many times you have been retweeted. It will be found in the depth that life calls on you to develop.

Sounds like a tall order. Right? It is. It is the work of a lifetime. Where can we begin? One the most authentic things we can do is to meet people where they are, let them be who they are, leave our judgments at home and practice being compassionate and understanding, and by being ourselves in all of our glory.

© 2021   Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

Branding & Self-Image

An abbreviated version of Branding & Self-Image was printed in the June 6, 2021 issue of Georgia Voice

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For more than 10 years, it has become a “thing” to think about and talk about oneself as a brand. You are encouraged to protect your brand and grow your brand and promote your brand, especially in regard to business relationships. I bring my brand and its services to your business, and I expect us to be on a more or less equal footing.

In addition to this being total bs, I find it deeply offensive and unhealthy. 

Brands refer to things like the brand of toothpaste you use or the mayonnaise you like. And when you are done with it, you throw out the old tube or jar and go buy a new one. Humans are neither disposable nor interchangeable. Humans are not things. We are complex, sentient beings and each of us is unique and multi-faceted. We are not a thing engaged in a series of transactions. The idea that all interactions are transactional, that we are each supposed to “get” something out of the transaction each and every time precludes the higher parts of our nature like altruism, compassion, understanding, caring, intimacy, even love.  

Back in the late 80s and early 90s we heard the idea that, especially in personal relationships, we were to become the right kind of product that “people would want to take off of the shelf.” Become the right product and you will succeed. People will want you. You’ll find the relationship or job you are looking for. 

I like the products I buy at the store. Whether bagged lettuce, nice shirts, comfy shoes, or sliced deli, I like and use certain products regularly. Is that the way I would want myself to be treated? A bought and paid for product that is then used by the purchaser however they see fit? “I got someone to take me off the shelf.” Well, that’s nice. Did you get to have any input into the transaction? Did it work out well? The problem herein is that people begin twisting and distorting who they are, or completely losing who they are, in order to be the “right” product or the right brand. Who sets these rules? When it comes to what the “right” product is, everybody will never all like or want the same thing(s). Right? Nevertheless, I am willing to lose myself to become a desired product.  

The right product/brand wears the right clothes, goes to the right places, knows the right people, watches the right TV shows, likes the right music, and has the right kind of thinking, whatever. No dissent or divergence or diversity of thought is tolerated. The danger here is that these things that we are supposed to do and be begin to warp our self-image. “Well, I’m a yoga pants wearing, paradigm-aware, synergy of best practices augmented and informed by my core competencies.” 

Heinz is a brand of ketchup. Tide is a brand of clothes detergent. Dial is a brand of soap. A brand is nothing more than the name of the maker of a product. The product has a very specific use but no matter how good the ketchup or the all-beef franks or the paper towels are, they are objects, things, and once used or consumed, I move on. Is this how you want the relationships in your life to be?  

My identity – what I do, what I say, what I think and what I feel. If my identity is that of a product or brand, then I am focusing only on what I need to do or be to please other people – professionally or personally. What this leaves out are important questions like - Who are you? What are you about? What really matters to you? What brings you joy? Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, who are you? Who are you becoming? What fulfills you? 

My self-image is about how I see myself. And that starts with the components of self-value. Self-awareness. Knowing who I am. Knowing my beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, decisions and choices. Giving myself a sense of agency in my own life, rather than being something that others use to fulfill their purposes. My self-worth, acknowledging and honoring my emotions and the complexity of them. My self-esteem, the esteem that I earn from myself. Self-love. When I learn to love myself, no one can take that away from me. Self-confidence, knowing that I can handle what life throws at me on a daily basis. These are some of the important things that influence and inform my image of myself. 

When I relate to other people, whether in a business, personal, or intimate relationship, I need to have a real good idea of who it is that I am asking them to relate to. If I have fallen into trying to be the right product or the right brand, then the potential trap here is I am letting others define who I am. I may be a good brand for making your teeth whiter and stronger but what about my own teeth? Problem with being a tube of toothpaste is that the tube never gets to refuse being squeezed. 

Self-image and self-identity are big and important issues in our lives and should not be trivialized. Yet in the “brand” way of thinking, that is exactly what we wind up doing to ourselves – trivializing ourselves. Why am I making an issue of this? Because next time we are going to talk about another popular buzzword circulating right now – authenticity. Product and brands don’t ever reach the level of authenticity. They may be good or bad quality. I may or may not like them. But they are only good for one purpose. They work or they don’t. We are all so much more than that. You are so much more than that. 

If you have to play the Brand Game at work, OK for now. But don’t let those narrow confines define who you are and are becoming.

 

© 2021   Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media. 

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

The Geometry of Choice

An abbreviated version of The Geometry of Choice was printed in the May 7, 2021 issue of Georgia Voice

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Do you ever stop and think about the number of choices you make every single day? From the moment you open your eyes, you are choosing to do or not do something. How good are the choices you make? Do you ever stop to evaluate them? Are they good or bad or neutral? Further, when you make a bad or neutral one, does it register differently with you than when you make a good one? Do you take your good choices for granted? How about your bad and neutral ones?

Choices define a singular point in time. What will I have for breakfast? Will I get dressed up today or be casual? Do I need to go to the grocery store? Should I call my brother? Is it time to run the dishwasher? You get the point. It is a singular choice made at a certain point in time. We don’t usually pay a lot of attention to them because many of those that we make are habituated.

Habituated choices are those that have become automatic. I don’t consciously choose to feed the cat while my coffee is brewing. It is something I do every morning without thinking about it. I leave my keys in the same place all the time so I don’t have to think about where to leave my keys. I never let my gas tank go below half full so I just automatically turn into the gas station when the fuel indicator is at about ½ full. No thought involved. But in all of these examples, there is a choice made.

Then there are choices made around the initial choice. If I want to have coffee, how many cups do I think I want this morning? Do I want my usual Folgers or do I want one of Peet’s varieties? If I am going out to lunch, what kind of food do I feel like having? Which restaurant do I want to go to? These kinds of choices define the area around that initial determination of having coffee or going out to lunch. In geometry, the initial choice to go out, for example, would be a single point on the page. The rest of the choices about what kind of food, etc., supporting that initial decision define the area around it – Length X Width = Area.

Then there are the choices that define the space, the volume (length X width X depth) of our life in which all of those things happen. These are the fundamental choices that we make about ourselves, our beliefs, our emotions, other people, our relationships, our work, how we see rest of the world. They shape and mold, and in many cases, twist and distort the choices we make on a daily basis. They not only effect the individual ones that define a singular point in space and time but all the others we make around those individual choices. Here are some examples of the kinds of foundational choices we might make. And keep in mind, sometimes we make a number of fundamental decisions that come to define who we are and how we live our lives.

I am good enough. I am not good enough. I can forgive myself. I am unforgivable. I can trust myself. I can’t trust myself. I seek to be understanding of others. I only try to understand people who try to understand me first. Love heals. Love hurts. I can easily create successes. I have to struggle with everything. I can handle it when challenges arise. I have to control everything so there are no surprises. I can handle my feelings. I avoid my feelings. I am responsible for my life, the good and the bad. I get to blame everybody else for anything bad in my life. I get to decide what matters in my life. I let other people tell me what matters in life. People are basically good. People are selfish and rotten. The world is a friendly place. The world is a scary place.

As you can see, the list could be and is, indeed, endless. But let’s look at one example very quickly. Love hurts. I’ve made the fundamental choice to believe that. Thus I will believe that if I love, I am going to get hurt. I will have an attitude of wariness and mistrust of others, especially anyone I might decide to date.  I will want to control. I will potentially think love is too much work or is a struggle or is not worth it. Or, that I need to keep love at arms’ length so that, if I get hurt, it won’t hurt as badly. I feel scared or mistrustful or suspicious. I may decide to sabotage my relationships before I can really get hurt. All of this and more out of just one fundamental choice that love hurts. And that colors and taints all the others I make about dating or not, intimacy on any level - not just physical, the level of caring I am willing to have and show, how vulnerable I am or am not willing to be. All the many many choices contained within that volume, that cube, that world of mine are defined by that fundamental decision that love hurts.

It is always a good idea to review the choices we make. The simple, point-in-time ones and then those we make around it that make it happen. And also to evaluate and review the environment, the structure of our own direction and design, that we have created for ourselves by the big choices, the foundational choices we make about ourselves and our lives.

Do you make good or bad choices? Do you practice making them? Do you think about their potential impacts and outcomes? Do you look at the really big foundational choices that don’t often come up for review? As you review and revise the big, fundamental choices you make, the single point-in-time choices you make will change. And as those choices change, the choices that you make around those single choices will change. And as all of those choices change, your life will change. Change for the better.

© 2021 Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

But, But, I Trusted You

How do you know if you can trust someone? Most of us think of it as a leap of faith. “Well, I’ll take a chance.” So we make the leap. Sometimes our trust is rewarded and sometimes it isn’t. And when it isn’t we feel betrayed, disappointed, hurt, angry. “But I trusted you.” And then you blame either them or you or both.

Trust is actually something way more practical. Do someone’s actions match their words? When someone says that they will attend an event with you but then “something” always comes up, do you continue to trust their words or past actions? When someone says that they can keep one of your secrets but they are forever telling you other peoples’ secrets, can you trust them to keep yours? If a friend swears that this time they will be on time for a concert, a movie, dinner, whatever, do you trust their past track record of behavior or what they are telling you now? That doesn’t mean you are not willing to be pleasantly surprised if they actually do show up on time but what are the odds?

If you go out with someone and they check their phone constantly, do you still trust them to be considerate and attentive? If every time you have a disagreement or fight with a friend or family member or significant other and they always go for the jugular and then tell you that it is your fault because they have told you not to make them mad, is this someone you should trust?

If someone tells you, “Listen, I gotta be honest here . . .,” the question isn’t should you trust what they are telling you now, but if they are being honest now, have they not been previously? If every time you go out with someone and they spend the night attention seeking or flirting or cruising the room, are you going to trust them to keep commitments such as fidelity – mental and emotional, not just physical – to you?

This also applies to self. Do you keep your word? Your promises? Or do you only do so when it is convenient? Do you keep confidences or is the allure of gossip too strong to resist? Do you keep your promises to yourself regarding your goals, you hopes, living by your principles like honesty and integrity (two components of self-esteem), your commitments to yourself? Are you the good friend, sibling, partner, you say you are or only when you have time?

You know yourself and your patterns and you know others and their patterns of behavior. It doesn’t take a lot of analysis or special powers of intuition. It only takes the power of observation regarding others and the power of honesty regarding yourself. Are you trustworthy with yourself? That will also impact your process and ability of trusting others. Do you say what you mean and do what you say? It is really that simple and that practical. Maybe not always easy or convenient but it is that simple.

If you trust someone who has demonstrated over time through their behavior that they are trustworthy, good.

If you don’t trust someone who has demonstrated over time through their behavior that they are not trustworthy, good.

If you don’t trust someone who has demonstrated over time through their behavior that they are trustworthy, not good.

If you trust someone who has demonstrated over time through their behavior that they are not trustworthy, not good.

All this to say that it doesn’t mean trust will never be broken by someone who you appropriately trusted. But the odds are much slimmer. And if and when that happens, that is on them for a poor choice or series of choices they made and not a reflection on you.

It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. It starts with you. Are you trustworthy? Can you trust you?

© 2021 Living Skills, Inc. All rights reserved in all media.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc