Back on Track

I think it is high time that I returned to my blog its initial purpose. It started out as a story-telling outlet, as a place where I would tell the story of my coming to America, and everything after that. It turned into more of a “here and now” kinda thing, and even though it’s good for me, and I like it, it’s not good for my “constancy.”

As it turns out, I am not a very constant person. I make decisions on the spot, in the spur of the moment, I take things on and don’t see them through (sometimes), I don’t always keep my promises to myself. This blog is one of those promises, and as one of my friends pointed out a couple of days ago, when it had been almost a week since my last post, I had already fallen behind, and was only days away from giving up completely. It wasn’t true, he had made that assumption based on my lack of activity, but it might as well have been – I hadn’t been writing simply because I didn’t feel like it.

My creative writing professor used to say that it doesn’t matter if you write well or not, the first step is to write. So just sit down at your desk every day and put something on paper. This will develop your capacity to write, and eventually quality will come. I have been doing that, writing in this blog much more constantly than I’ve ever done anything. Ever. However, lately I’ve gotten to the conclusion that I need to take the next step. Not only do I need to write, and constantly, but I need to write about the same thing all the time (my story) even though I don’t feel like it. At least for a while, this is what I intend to do. I need to keep myself on the task. Of course writing about what I think or feel daily is easier, but it is also less interesting and it falls into the realm of “too intimate” which is what my sister warned me against. I can’t help delving into my thoughts and feelings when I read books which bring various aspects to surface, and I think that especially now that I am reading a psychotherapy book I would do well to steer away from personal postings.

So look forward to the 4^th episode of my story, titled “Cape Cod and a Baby”

Have you ever wished you were a boy?

Of course, the question is mainly addressed to the ladies reading this blog 🙂

Why would I ask something like this? Because I, as many other fellow women, have some preconceived ideas about men (boys, men, same thing… most of them never grow up anyway), ideas born out of life and observation (don’t I sound so wise) and exacerbated by emotion.

I keep reading the book I mentioned in yesterday’s post, and some things strike me. I am only halfway through the first of ten psychoanalytical stories, and it is the one giving the title of the book: “Love’s Executioner.” It is about a woman in her seventies, having a love obsession. The woman says “I am living my life eight years ago” (when she had had the love story that ended inexplicably – at his decision) and her therapist (the author) ponders that she will never get over her love obsession until she strips her former lover of his power over her – until she stops caring about what he would think, and about him in general. I thought a lot about this, because it’s something I struggle with a lot – of course, there is a long way to go from just suffering to developing a love obsession, but there are common characteristics worth exploring. The therapist said something that kept my attention for a long time. He thought that she was not even living in the present any more, choosing instead to relive her past love affair and miss everything that was happening in the here and now. I realize that I sometimes do the same: no matter how much fun there is around me, I can’t pull myself out of my own head enough to enjoy it.

The therapist also said that every psychologist is interested in problems that he or she experiences personally (of course, aren’t we all just a bit more interested in ourselves than others?) and that one’s own experience of problems can help shed light on the patient’s problems in therapy (for example, this therapist had had a love obsession himself). So maybe I’ll become a relationship counselor. (I don’t want to know what my closest friends think about that. Really, I don’t)

So I get to the reasoning behind the title of my entry. I believe that women and men feel differently. They most certainly act and react differently, and I think that reflects exactly what goes on behind their eyes. I wish I could experience that ease, that lightness, that carelessness that I see in them, just for a little while. To be able to wash away everything but my innermost feelings, my deepest desires.

The poor woman (in the story) tried to commit suicide because she was so desperate. Do you think a man would EVER do that for a woman? Let me answer that for you: NO. I am not saying I agree with what she did, and in fact I am completely against suicide. All I am saying is that women feel more than men do (in general). And I wish there was a way to control that.

Love’s Executioner – by Irvin Yalom

Why did I choose psychotherapy as a profession? Why am I planning to become a therapist, a psychologist? Is it really to help others, or is it to help myself? Are we ever really helping other people by listening to their problems and trying to support them while they attempt to fix them, or are we simply discovering pieces and aspects of ourselves that we were not aware of? Why can’t it be both?

It can, in fact… I mean it could. But I am no longer sure that a person has the power to help another, if that person is not willing to help himself or herself first and foremost. I used to believe that with the proper amount of conviction, insistence and maybe force, if we “knew what was better for them,” we could help others. Not any more. All we can do is to get them to take responsibility for their own lives, and then be there, by their side, there to catch them if they fall as they take the first step. As they take the first step.

I have started reading a new book. No, it is no longer Jodi Picoult, but thank you for the credit 🙂 It is the book which gives this post’s title. It is a compilation of ten psychotherapy stories, written by a psychotherapist. I haven’t even finished the first one, but I did read, … no, I drank in, the prologue. The fragment that I liked the most, and that made me think, was this:

“Though the word responsible may be used in a variety of ways, I prefer Sartre’s definition: to be responsible is to “be the author of,” each of us being thus the author of his or her own life design. We are free to be anything but unfree: we are, Sartre would say, condemned to freedom. Indeed, some philosophers claim much more: that the architecture of the human mind makes each of us even responsible for the structure of eternal reality, for the very form of space and time. It is here, in the idea of self-construction, where anxiety dwells: we are creatures who desire structure, and we are frightened by a concept of freedom which implies that beneath us there is nothing, sheer groundlessness.

Every therapist knows that the crucial first step in therapy is the patient’s assumption of responsibility for his or her own life predicament.”

Maybe it will make you think, too.

Motivational books

Maybe it’s just a bad day, but today I am totally against motivational books. My dad sent me one a couple of weeks ago, and I started reading it tonight. I also ended the reading session about 5 minutes after I started. Usually I like self-help books, motivational quotes and all that…. They really help, and as he (my dad) says, one usually keeps you in “spirit” for at least a couple of days – so if you read about two a week, you should be good….

But today I couldn’t help but think: what the freckles (freckles = f**k) does this woman (the author) know about my life? About my struggles? How can she tell me that if I do this or think that I will feel better? This book just wasn’t for me, so I don’t recommend it (it is called The Easiest Way, and it really wasn’t worth my 5 minutes). I didn’t like it – maybe sometime I will change my mind. But today I just wanted to take it and toss it against the wall. I couldn’t, because it was an E-book. Oh well…

On another note, Eat Pray Love did what this book didn’t: it inspired me. I guess because it wasn’t necessarily trying, like this one was. Maybe that’s the secret – don’t try too hard.

Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize – recognition or mere encouragement?

I know this post comes a week too late (was it only a week ago? Anyway…) but I just had to comment on this.

Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. What do you think about this?

To be clear, I am a big Obama supporter. Not because of his plans, or policies, or political affiliation. I am apolitical like you have rarely seen someone be. I just don’t care about politics, because when I do decide to care for a little, and start following the news, I realize how the people who lead us oftentimes care so little that it breaks my heart. Literally, my heart aches. So I have to forget about it, and focus on other things.

The reason I like and support Obama is because he is a man of color. It is shallow, and it may be wrong, but I do believe this country, of all places, needed a man of color to lead it. Do I believe that this will solve all its problems? NO – not by any means. But it is a good start, because it gives people hope. And hope was the last thing left in Pandora’s box, it must mean something. I have seen the reactions at Dartmouth when he got elected – granted, a lot of people at Dartmouth are liberal – hundreds went out in the middle of campus, screaming, laughing and just being generally happy. It was great! It was hopeful! This is why I support Obama. Because he is a *black* ray of hope.

However, I was very disappointed to find out that he got the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most important and consequential prizes in the world – arguably, the MOST. And usually people who get it have *already* spent a large part of their lives serving others, making sure that the world is a better place – more peaceful, quieter, calmer, fairer. What did Obama do to fit into that category? He got elected TWO weeks before the nomination deadline, and he didn’t practically implement any of his peace plans, hopes and ideas. He failed at the Israeli-Palestinian talks (hopefully only in a first phase, I am not up to date on next steps), he is still leading two wars and deploying troops… He hasn’t done anything to deserve to take a place at the side of personalities like Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, the 14^th Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Elie Wiesel, Martin Luther King Jr., and other names that ignorance forbids me from enumerating.

Hopefully this is an important enough signal that the world expects a lot from him, and Obama will rise to the challenge. I am afraid, however, that this is only another heavy burden to carry for a man who hasn’t yet developed the muscles to support it.

May I be wrong!

My thoughts of the day

This weekend was so weird. All my plans fell through, other plans were created ad-hoc, and I ended up with two wonderful, calm, peaceful and slow days, like I haven’t had in… well… since I moved to Boston. The weather is very appropriate for this: huge pieces of snow are falling from the sky (no, they are not snow flakes, it’s more like dust bunnies, I guess the clouds felt they needed some cleaning up) and all I want is to cuddle up in bed with my book. Or laptop, as the case may be.

So I had time to get myself up to date on all the shows I’ve been watching (or most of them, I try to save some episodes for later, just in case) – by the way, House (ep. 3) is not to be missed. A real breath taker. I also had time to cook, not in a hurry, but taking my time and using lots of butter, just like Julia (yes, I refer to Julia Child by her first name, anyone who has a problem with that needs to take it up with me personally), and it paid off – not only I have food for the whole week, but it is actually really good. Now that’s a tasty reward for a job well done! 🙂

I also had a lot of time to think and imagine my future. And watching all the commercials for all kinds of products, houses, and services I never knew I needed, I started wishing all of them. Since when do I need a walk in closet? But oh, how I’d like one! Do we all wish what we can’t have, or always more than we need in order to live comfortably? I don’t know, but I sure would like that closet in my next apartment! Even though I may have to forego that if I want to fulfill my “bigger” dreams… Oh well, there will be a time for a walk in closet, just not in the near future.

What a blessing it is to be able to take the time to think. To breathe in and out and realize that life is giving you only things you can take, handle, bear… it will never be too much, although it seems so. Maybe I’m just lucky.

I’ve started to think lately that I really am, because I was born with this wonderful opportunity: I was born free (which is the greatest of all my lucks), in a supportive family who did nothing but help me every step of the way I chose for myself. What do I do to make sure that this chance doesn’t go unutilized to the fullest? What do I do to make sure that others benefit from the fact that I made it to where I did, and got the education I did? I am now aware of many things going on in the world, of people who need help, and of possible ways I (and we all) could make a difference. It’s time, maybe not now, but soon, for me to act on it.

More about this in another post. A post in which I will also describe my orphanage project. Donations are welcome.

In the mean time, enjoy the day!

TED.com – Why are we happy?

Or why are we not happy – because as it turns out, many people don’t know that the capacity to be happy lies within them. Of course, as the presenter says, there are indeed some situations that may be preferable to others, but on the whole, people are happy with an outcome as long as they realize they can’t change it – they make due with what life gives them. This is called the synthesis of happiness. If you fight it, and always reject the reality in search of something else, you reject your own chance at happiness.

However, I am not advocating for people to relinquish their dreams and make due with their circumstances, whatever they may be. All I am saying is that it’s worth to be happy with what you have while at the same time following your dreams. What is better: to be happy, or to be unhappy, while working towards a higher purpose? No brainer, right?

Here is the talk. Enjoy.

Eat, Pray, Love – Brazilian men = mmmmyeah!

All I can say in response to page 288, lines 9 and 10 in particular (and the whole second half of the third part of the book, in general) is:

I need a Brazilian man in my life.

ASAP

Eat, Pray, Love (by Elizabeth Gilbert) – How to Let Go

I am reading this book on the T (subway) on my way to and from work (and from the T to the office, and back, and in bed before I go to sleep, and every time I have a spare moment), and I wish I could write my entries then and there. All I want to do is quote the book, and maybe add my own thoughts from time to time. But then I’d have to quote the whole book, because every single page is worth passing on to as many people. I guess that’s why mankind invented libraries and bookstores. In the mean time, I will quote a page that spoke to me more than others. I put my *one* thought in square parentheses.

The author is in an Ashram in India – a place where she went to meditate and find herself and God through Yoga, and is having a particularly difficult time that day. She has made a friend there, Richard from Texas, and right now they are at the dinner table together, talking.

“What’s got you all wadded up?” he drawls, toothpick in mouth, as usual.

“Don’t ask” I say, but then I start talking and tell him every bit of it, concluding with, “And worst of all, I can’t stop obsessing over David. I thought I was over him, but it’s all coming up again.”

He says, “Give it another six months, you’ll feel better.”

“I’ve already given it twelve months, Richard.”

“Then give it six more. Just keep throwin’ six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time.”

I exhale hotly though my nose, bull-like.

“Groceries [he calls her Groceries, how AWESOME is that?!],” Richard says, “listen to me. Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it – in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out here in India.”

“But I really loved him.”

“Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don’t you see what happened? This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching. I mean you got zapped, kiddo. But that love you felt, that’s just the beginning. You just got a taste of love. That’s just limited little rinky-dink mortal love. Wait till you see how much more deeply you can love than that. Heck, Groceries – you have the capacity to someday love the whole world. It’s your destiny. Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” I was actually crying. “And please don’t laugh at me now, but I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate.”

“He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go. It’s over, Groceries. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it’s over. Problem is, you can’t accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.”

“But I love him.”

“So love him.”

“But I miss him.”

“So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she’s really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.”

“But I wish me and David could —“

He cuts me off. “See, now that’s your problem. You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”

AMEN.

What makes a good book? Jodi Picoult, for one

I have recently discovered an author that has made me love her so much, that in an effusion of enthusiasm I borrowed her books from the library – all 14 of them. At the same time. Her name is Jodi Picoult, and even though in the mean time I decided to return 8 of them, and take them out one by one leaving a certain time interval between them (this way I can enjoy them better, and also what else I read in between), I kept wondering what makes her books so special in my eyes. I think I’ve got the answer!

What makes me want to read her books and not miss a single page, or a single book of all that she wrote, is the fact that I want to get to know her characters. Her books have many many qualities: her research is extensive, and the way she includes it in the fiction doesn’t take away from the informative quality, but at the same time it makes it accessible. She sets her books somewhere that I know (New Hampshire mostly, or New England in general), and her characters are people we can all identify with, with problems we could all have (and as a nation the United States had all these problems). But what is most important in my eyes (maybe because I am a psychology student, after all) is character development.

Jodi Picoult takes her time with presenting her characters. She never gives more than she needs to at a certain time, she perfectly paces the speed at which we discover a character. This is why I read breathlessly, waiting to hear what else “June,” for example, is thinking, or doing, to understand her motivations and feel what she is feeling. It is easy for me to empathize and identify myself with a character I have gotten to know so well. I have grown to love some characters and despise (but not hate, Jodi Picoult never gives the opportunity to hate her characters, there is a shred of humanity even in the hardest of crimes) others, I have imagined what it would be like to go through the experiences that her families go through, and I have learned with her and from her.

I have learned about the Amish and their customs, about the Gnostic Gospels and what they mean, and much much more. I am now learning about the humpback whales’ songs. Did you know that only males sing?

I am planning to write an entry about each book, but in time… now I am going to bed. I am wiped out.