Not Thinking

Here we are: a mid-winter Saturday. And, baby, it’s cold outside. I went out to do a couple of errands earlier today, but I believe I’ll just stay huddled here inside until it’s a tad more hospitable in the great out-of-doors. Two days ago it snowed enough to close down all the area schools, and there’s still some of the white stuff left on the ground as we speak (write? read?). It’s below freezing right now and, cold-averse weenie that I am, I need to keep cozy underneath my electric comforter for a while longer.

So, I sit. Thinking. But mostly trying not to think. Being with myself. Accepting my life. Breathing in and out. With the in-breath, opening my heart. With the out-breath, clearing my mind. Focusing on the breath. Trying to just be: in the here and now.

I seek comfort in the wisdom that is available in the universe. So I sit. And also read. There is so much to learn about this existence.

…everything we see, hear, feel, and think is [in] constant flux and change. Nothing endures. We long for permanence and as a result we suffer, for we find none. Buddhism Plain and Simple (p. 46)

Stress-Related Stuff

First to consider, I suppose, is the age-old question: the chicken or the egg: which came first? An interesting intellectual exercise, no doubt, but isn’t the energy expended in trying to decipher this dilemma rather futilely spent?

How about if we let folks with more time on their hands tinker around with this particular debate, ok?

Next up: Nick Hornby asks, in his thought-provoking novel High Fidelity, when considering some of his favorite songs (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” “When Love Breaks Down,” “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself,” etc.): “[w]hat came first—the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?” (pp. 24-25)

Again, more of life’s great questions that I think I’ll leave to the pundits and amateur therapists & philosophers out there who focus on our popular culture.

All of this is just a weak lead-in to where I’m really going with this self-reflective, self-indulgent discourse today: my own questions about chronic pain and depression. In a 2003 Stanford University study, not surprisingly, the correlation between chronic pain and depression was found to be quite high: sufferers of one likely needed treatment for both. “The question now is which comes first: the depression or the pain,” they asked. Of course, I think it likely works both ways. For example, just as depression is common among individuals who suffer from lower-back pain, it also appears to be true that depressed individuals can develop lower-back pain.

In my case, I have lived rather my entire life wondering about such issues. After approximately 40 years of chronic physical pain (beginning in my early 20s), the downturns to my physical self are quite typically mirrored in a mood decline. And, then again, when an outside entity or event exerts a change to my emotional well-being, my body almost always follows. The peaks and valleys for my affective state completely parallel my physical ups and downs.

In sum, this serves to remind me that I need to revisit a book I started a little while back, and then subsequently got sidetracked from…Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping. It’s a rather large and scary tome, but valuable information is contained therein, nonetheless. I need more of what’s in there, I think.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

On an otherwise cold, gray, blustery, wet and miserable day, a few rays of sunshine poke through during the late afternoon. If sunshine and warmth are possible on a day like this, anything is…

I know, I know: this sounds uncharacteristically optimistic of me, doesn’t it!?

First Do No Harm

I optimistically reported an energy “surge” yesterday. That has turned into an energy trough today. Sigh.
 
Ah, the ebb and flow of my life…the story continues.

A week ago, I reported on overwhelming feelings of sadness in the aftermath of some deep-tissue work on my legs. I’ve also discussed, within these entries, feelings of rejection, heartbreak and loss with respect to past relationships. Authenticity, trust and the meaning of the human experience are also topics I’ve taken on. I realize that the discussion of these, and similar, themes, are likely to continue. Examining my emotional state, awareness of my physical self, exploring spirituality and existential questions are part of the fabric of my life; I write what I know (or think I do) and ask questions as they occur to me.

But: what, exactly , am I doing this for? What is this blog about?

The simple answer, I guess: my own therapy. I write because writing is what I do. I write because it provides an outlet for thoughts and emotions I don’t have any other place for. And this particular venue gives me a place to share, should anyone self-select into my online world.

But, in writing about myself, I sometimes need to make reference to others. I said in a recent email to ya’ll that “…given that you’re in my life, it’s possible that you could end up being mentioned at some point. If that happens, I hope I respect your privacy and feelings appropriately.”

This means I’ve been doing some serious thinking about blogger ethics. Can I be true to myself, talk honestly about my experience, and still, at all times, treat others fairly and decently? I surely have no outright intention of embarrassing, attacking, angering or hurting you. So: I’ve been asking: what is the “right” way to go about this blogging business, anyway (at least in terms of a personal-experience blog like mine)?

Some thinking has gone into this subject already, of course. I’m not the first to be pondering the ethical treatment of fellow humans within this communication medium. A bloggers’ code of ethics has even been proposed.

I have explored this topic, albeit somewhat superficially, with a colleague I went to graduate school with. Although currently not a blogger himself, he is interested in my attempt here — and he’s an educational researcher with keen awareness of confidentiality issues and the possibility of “harm” to participants in research studies. In terms of the kind of human interplay that is blogging, he opines that:

…we have to remember that this ain’t research!!!! It’s public, democratic, open-sourced, put it out there and see who takes a whack at it discourse.

This goes to my own sense of a communitarian, dialogical reality (put that in your blog and float it). That is, we live in a world where very little is private, even though we value privacy above much else. Privacy is negotiated, just like everything else. And a writer (blogger) has to make his/her own decisions about what s/he can live with if somebody else gets a feeling hurt.

Well, that gives me something to think about.

Now, I don’t have any tremendous insights or answers that I can share with you here today. All I can say is that I continue to think about the potential impact my public words might have on my fellow human beings. And I absolutely intend to do everything in my power to respect others’ feelings and their right to privacy.

REALness, Authenticity & Leadership

I last wrote on the topic of becoming REAL (as defined in The Velveteen Rabbit). Actually, the more time I spend thinking about this topic, the more I’m coming to the place that that kind of REALness is more accurately aligned with age, maturity, wisdom, and being SIGNIFICANT to someone else. Yes, the Velveteen version of REALness appears to be a response to being loved for a long time.

Typically, though, I think of the term “being REAL” as being AUTHENTIC. I believe that being authentic is a critical factor to success in human relationships in general, and effective leadership in particular. Authenticity leads to trust which can lead to great things being accomplished.

You might ask: what exactly is authenticity?

Well, the phrase “bein’ who you are” comes to mind, first of all. Being real or authentic has a lot to do with displaying your true self to the world, without pretenses or “phoniness” (as Holden Caufield might say). Openness, honesty, and transparency are also other synonyms that seem to fit. At any rate, traits such as these in an individual are ones that I admire, am attracted to, and lead me to trust another. I will trust someone when I believe (when I feel) that the other person is allowing me in enough to see who they really are. They tell the truth. Their defenses are down; they allow themselves to be vulnerable. They are, simply, human, and comfortable with themselves. I love the connection that’s possible when individuals are truly authentic with each other.

I see authenticity as an important characteristic of great leaders, as well. Leaders by definition, after all, need followers. And, what inspires one to follow? Well, trust, of course. How could I possibly be expected to follow somebody I don’t trust?

So: Who do I trust: Who can I trust?

Answer: Someone I really know.

In my role as an academic dean at a college, my role is one of leadership. It is that by definition; anyone with the title of “dean” has some power by virtue of the position and can exert leadership (demand followership?) — if you think that that’s really possible. My style is not to rely on power, control, and role-definition, though, but rather to provide a kind of leadership based on trust: trust in me, trust in my decisions, trust that I’ll do the right thing, trust that I’m someone who has everyone’s best interest in my mind and in my heart.

When I came on board as the “interim dean” (and I'm still interim, eighteen months later), Katrina asked me what my priorities were going to be. I said, “relationships. This is probably not what you’d expect your Science & Technology Dean to say, but that’s me: not necessarily talking, thinking, or behaving like a science guy. I knew that to be successful (not ever having been a dean, department chair, or even a full-time faculty member anywhere, ever), I would have to build the trust of those around me as rapidly as I could. During the very first meeting of the entire Science & Technology Division, the first day of Fall term, I deliberately started to work on building that trust. At the beginning of that meeting, I took a healthy portion of time to “tell my story.” I outlined my biography, highlighting a few of the twists and turns that I’ve taken in my personal and professional life, and exposing, I guess, some of my “philosophy of life.” I believed then, and I still do, that this was a very important thing for me to do in terms of relationship- and trust-building.

I’m told that I’m an effective leader. If such is the case, then I think that’s happened because people trust me. And, I believe that they trust me because they know me. My goal is to be as honest and forthright as I possibly can, with no secrets and no secret agendas. I am who I say I am, do what I say I’m going to do when I say I’m going to do it — and do my job as competently and conscientiously as possible.

I don’t think that great leadership ever happens without trust. And, in my case, I know I could not ever see myself in a leadership role without letting those around me, know me.