Race to Nowhere

Having heard about the documentary film, Race to Nowhere, first from an article in the paper and then from a client, I was ecstatic to learn that Newton North High School was showing the film this past month. My son, Alex, and I cleared our calendars so we could attend the screening. I was very glad we did!

Produced by Vicky Abeles, using the words and experiences of students across the country, their teachers, administrators, parents and other professionals who serve them, the film paints a very accurate and sad portrait of what education is like in our culture today. With all the pressure to build a resume to be successful in the job market, starting in preschool, students are overloaded with homework, pressured to take top level classes and get straight A's, while also excelling in extracurriculars, sports, and even more, lacking time for eating, sleeping, thinking or learning.

This silent epidemic touches all school-aged kids and young adults, from pre-K through graduate school, leads to stress-related illness at younger and younger ages, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, suicide, apathy and a mechanized, robotic approach to personhood. Because of the pressures to look good and have "everything together," on the outside, countless students suffer in silence, under the radar, until a crisis hits where things crumble from the inside out.

The ultimate prize is success, as defined by our materially addicted culture, measured by how much money you have, how big a house you live in, and how fancy a car you drive. Happiness, health and humanity are left out of the equation entirely. As one student in the film commented, "Success in America is defined by how much money you make, not by how happy you are."

And with inhumane pressures that could cause even the strongest person to eventually crumble, students are learning to take shortcuts, like cheating and taking drugs, which will ultimately lead to their collapse or the collapse of the systems that depend on them. Sadly, we have countless examples of the adult version of this behavior, with Bernie Madoff as the poster child of cheating and its costs, including the life of his son.

One of the students in the Newton North auditorium commented after the film, we have a system that is creating an economically and emotionally depressed America. Something has to change, or our race to nowhere will be the lemmings' suicidal race off the cliff. Are we frogs in the proverbial pot of boiling water or have we already died emotionally, spiritually and practically? Can we leap out of the water and keep other frogs out of the pot? Can we find a way to get grounded and keep frogs in frogponds and people in human environments? Do we need to revision and re-engineer these more healthy and natural environments, because we are so used to the boiling water, that we don't even remember how it should be?

This provocative film is a call to action, including getting together and talking with one another face to face. The film is only shown in small community settings, like the high school, rather than being distributed through the commercial film market. The purpose is to engage dialogue and thought, rather than passive viewing in our isolated lives.

I hope more and more people see the film, and join together to get to the root of the systemic issues. Our survival is at stake. As they say, our children are our future. And if we don't take action, we will lose them and our future.

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

Greed Is A Terminal Disease

While intellectually, many of us know that anything taken to an extreme can lose its goodness, practically, our culture seems to have forgotten that this is so. While the Wall Street culture promoted the idea that greed is good, just as a person who lives on a diet of junk food will ultimately become seriously ill, too much greed for too long exacts a toll. This toll is felt by the greedy, the people taken advantage of or shut out from the food chain, and by society as a whole.

Bernie Madoff's uncontained greed not only led to his sentence of life in prison, but also to the suicide of one of his sons. Greed on Wall Street, in business, and in the political arena, has left countless people adrift, unemployed, homeless and displaced, without hope of any change in their circumstances. And the greedy who put so many people in such difficult positions turn their head the other way and watch their bank accounts grow.

We have example after example that greed is a terminal disease, and perhaps an addiction in our culture where success is measured in financial terms, not in meaning, contribution, and making a difference in the world. In his article, The Real Social Security, published in Ode Magazine, Kenyan microcredit bank managing director, Kimanthi Mutua notes that the only REAL social security is our collectiveness.

Mutua notes, "Centuries of individualism and materialism have destroyed most of this essential support structure in the West." We have no collective infrastructure to catch people when times are tough, and falling through the cracks of life is all too familiar a risk of hard times and forces beyond our control.

While Americans may look at Africans as residents of third world nations, emotionally and spiritually, America is a third world nation, or worse. The richness of daily connections with people, face to face, where people know and care for one another, cannot be made up through bonding in virtual reality. Mutua notes that in Africa, people connect in the daily reality of their lives. They naturally support each other, which builds an experience of community and compensates for the hardships of their lives."

Mutua notes as well that based on data from a World Value Survey, "most people in Africa do not report feeling less happy than people in developed nations despite being the poorest people on the planet. African is a living example of the fact that more money does not bring more happiness."

So, if we can stop looking at our own reflections in the narcissistic mirror that is so common today, perhaps we can look at ourselves through the lens of other cultures that may be more spiritually and emotionally rich than we are. As we are lost in the trance of working ourselves to death, and pursuing the American Dream, that a Psychology Today article notes has transformed into the American Nightmare, we lose sight of what really matters, and what we really need to survive.

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

See "American Nightmare" in April 2011 issue of Psychology Today, and "The Real Social Security" by Kimanthi Mutua in the October 2007 issue of Ode Magazine for more.

Happiness Versus Well-Being

On Tuesday, March 15, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, "Is Happiness Overrated?" With positive psychology as one of today's popular buzzwords in research and media circles, who would question whether pursuing happiness might, as the WSJ article suggests, be doing us more harm than good?

It turns out that "happiness as people usually think of it--the experience of pleasure and positive feelings," is not nearly as important to physical health as meaning and purpose. Engaging in meaningful, purposeful activity creates a deeper and more impactful positive state, which is called "eudaimonic well-being," than lighter, fun, which is called "hedonic well-being." The effects of eudaimonic well-being contribute not only to better mental health and cognitive acuity but also to a longer life than focusing on achieving feelings of happiness alone.

Dr. Carol Ryff and her team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that eudaimonic well-being reduced the impact of known risk factors like low education level on some critical health indicators. "Participants with low education level and greater eudaimonic well-being had lower levels of interleukin-6, an inflammatory marker of disease associated with cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease" than those with lower levels of eudaimonic well-being, even when taking hedonic well-being into account.

Too, researchers say that focusing too much on happiness, "can actually lead to feeling less happy." All too easily, we become addicted to the "quick fix," and swim on the surface of life, leaving the deeper layers of our beings untended.

While small, fleeting pleasures, like listening to good music, enjoying a good dinner or getting a new outfit, give us a burts of good feeling, in the long term, these activities, which contribute to "hedonic well-being," do not have real staying power. The article notes that raising children, volunteering or going to graduate school "may be less pleasureable day to day," but gives us more of a sense of fulfillment, "of being the best one can be, particularly in the long run."

Another important principal is everything in moderation. It is not human to be happy all the time, nor is it necessarily desireable. Life brings challenges, loss and hard times. To be able to feel through these different experiences is critical to being human. Being too unhappy too often is not good for us. And being more at peace more often is indeed more enjoyable. Yet, in a culture that has become far too narcissistic, "fixating on being happy in itself can become a psychological burden," reflects Dr. Ryff.

Middle Class As Underclass

I remember reading Lou Dobbs' book, The War on the Middle Class, and feeling as though what I had been noticing, sensing and observing for so long was finally being named. Over the past three decades, the gap between rich and poor has grown steadily. But as the very rich have become richer, it is not just the poor who have grown poorer. The layer of people who emerged with new opportunities during the Industrial Revolution and continued to thrive "until the music stopped," beginning in the Reagan era, "the middle class," have lost standing over the past three decades and have now emerged as an underclass.

When I was a kid, plenty of my peers defined success as "having more than their parents had." While that might have been possible for past generations, for those who are parents themselves today, it is far more difficult to accomplish. According to an article on money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm, in 1988, the average American tax payer had income of $33,400, adjusted for inflation. In 2008, the average income was still just $33,000 according to data from the IRS.

On the other hand, the richest 1% of Americans, those making $380,000 or more, have experienced a 33% growth in income over the last 20 years. The gap between the richest and everyone has grown, while the middle class, trapped with stagnant income in the face of rising costs of living, has experienced a decrease in their standard of living.

Years back a friend of mine from Europe commented that the United States was well on its way to becoming a 3rd world country, while what used to be known as 3rd world countries were gaining new wealth thanks to globalization. As American workers watched their jobs move overseas, with nothing to fall back on, workers in India, China and other 3rd world countries found themselves with new opportunities. Corporations took advantage of cheaper labor in other countries to cut costs and increase profits, and found new markets in the countries they were "developing" their new workforce in.

The article also notes that with the decline of unions and other labor protections, American workers had no voice and no power. Add to that anti-regulation that loosened rules governing banks in the 1980's, barriers between commercial and investment banks dissolving during the Clinton era, the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which weakened oversight of complex securities and the Bush era tax cuts that benefited the most wealthy, and the pathways for the wealthy to become "the ruling class" broadened and deepened.

I find it noteworthy that 65% of school-aged kids are going to school hungry, and teachers are now spending on average $25/week of their own money to help feed their students so they can concentrate in class. Reasons for this trend include chaotic households, families that just cannot afford food, and families with no food in the house for breakfast. When I learned about this trend, it seemed more third world country news than what one might expect for kids in the US.
Yet this trend is happening here on our home territory, and perhaps in a kitchen near you.

As kids turn 16, instead of being welcomed for retail sales jobs or supermarket cashier jobs, they struggle to find the kinds of opportunities their parents looked forward to at the same age. Today, immigrants from other countries and older workers who need to work into their retirement years have taken the jobs that were once available to high school students. More and more teens scramble for unpaid internships to gain work experience and valuable credentials for their resume to improve their odds for paid employment in the years ahead.

It is far more common for twentysomethings to still live at home with their parents as they try to stake out an economic foothold in the world. Those who have fled the nest often share apartments with multiple roommates to contain costs. Some young families wonder if they will ever be able to own their own home, once a staple of the "American dream."

How we can regain the power to help change the world for the better is a question well worth pondering both on our own and in communities of like-minded others. It will take gatherings of people face to face to generate the energy for a true uprising and revolt. Watching this happen in the Middle East is very telling. Will Americans be able to rise up together and create a new revolution? Time will tell. But something revolutionary is needed.

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

Equality, Vulnerability and Well-Being

While when many of us heart the word, "vulnerability," we run the other way as quickly as we can, vulnerability is actually a critical human capacity, necessary for connecting to self and others.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, on the very same day, two people in my network sent me links to two very powerful pieces, an article from the New York Times, "Equality, a True Soul Food" by Nicholas Kristof, and a video clip of Brene Brown from the University of Houston presenting on "Wholeheartedness" for TED. While the two pieces seemed unrelated at first, together, they got me thinking deeply about the nature of vulnerability, and how equality and vulnerability relate to well-being.

Few people I know like to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is usually given a bad rap, bringing to mind images of being hurt, taken advantage of, being powerless or unprotected. In "Equality, a True Soul Food," Nicholas Kristoff (New York Times, January 1, 2011), the cost that comes with the vulnerability of being low in the social pecking order is made clear. The kind of vulnerability that comes from not having what you need for physical survival (food, clothing and shelter) or psychic well-being (connection, meaning, inner peace) is an emotionally unsafe and disempowering kind of vulnerability.

Kristof reflects on the "stunning" levels of inequality in America, which "seem profoundly unhealthy for us, and our nation's soul." We live in a time of "polarizing inequality," where the wealthiest one percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent. The inequality is not just economic, but soul deep, marked by high rates of violent crime, drug use, teen birthrates and even heart disease.

Kristof refers to a book by British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Greatest Equality Makes Societies Stronger. "Gross inequality tears at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrust, and an array of mental and physical ailments," concludes the authors. Inequality not only makes us vulnerable, but even polarizes vulnerability and invulnerability.

Those who have the bulk of society's resources can become "invulnerable" to the pain, struggles and daily deprivations of those who lack them, as they are both distanced and protected from the raw reality of thsoe who lack what they need. Out of sight is out of mind, and this leads to a dangerous disconnection between human beings living in the same country, but in very different worlds.

The very wealthy live in an alternative universe, flying around in personal jets, living in gated estates with personally selected staff, with easy access to "recreational" drugs, that more disenfranchised people use to self-medicate the pain of hopelessness and powerlessness. By being far removed from those who suffer from long-term unemployment, lack of access to needed resources, and no clear pathway out of their state of struggling for survival, the wealthy can maintain an ultimately false sense of invulnerability.

Wilkinson and Pickett show that those at the bottom of the social pecking order "suffer from a range of pathologies." A long term study of British civil servants found that "messengers, doormen, and others with low status were much more likely to die of heart disease, suicide, and some cancers and had substantially worse overall health." When you are vulnerable due to circumstances beyond your control, and there is no clear pathway to get what you really need, life loses meaning and becomes little more than a struggle.

Why is inequality so harmful? "The Spirit Level suggests that inequality undermines social trust and community life, corrodoing societies as a whole. It also suggests that humans, as social animals, become stressed whewn they find themselves at the bottom of a hierarchy." High stress levels long-term lead to the release of the hormone cortisol, and with it com today's epidemic diseases: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression. Kristof notes that "social ailments like violent crime, mutual distrust, self-destructive behaviors and persistent poverty," follow suit.

Inequality creates a state of almost institutionalized disconnection, bringing with it despair, powerlessness, hopelessness, and high levels of cortisol from long-term stress. If we are indeed all interconnected as human beings and as a society, even those who through wealth and social status imagine themselves immune from the struggles of the more common man, will suffer from this tear in our collective fabric. In this sense, by living in a society with polarizing inequality, we will all become more vulnerable as we become more disconnected from ourselves and one another.

Disconnection is damaging to well-being, since in the eyes of social worker and University of Houston researcher Brene Brown, connection gives purpose and meaning to our lives. "The ability to feel connected neurobiologically is why we are here." The effect of disconnection is so strong, Brown found, that when people were asked to talk about love, they talked about heartbreak, and when they were asked to talk about connection, they talked about disconnection.

Disconnection brings with it feelings of shame. Brown defines shame as "the fear of disconnection," meaning, that for any of us, there are things about us, if known or revealed, we fear will make us unworthy of connection. Pressure to be thin, rich, beautiful, or educated with a proper pedigree lead to a lack of feeling worthy for who we are internally and essentially. Our worth becomes externally defined, not internally felt. This decreases our sense of personal power, and places us once again in the uncomfortable experience of vulnerability.

Brown points out, "we live in a vulnerable world." We are NOT always in control, and the way people in the US today deal with vulnerability is to numb it. Brown notes, "we are the most in debt, obese, addicted, medicated adult cohort in US history." Rather than risk rejection, judgment, uncomfortable feelings, bad news or feeling not in control, we numb our uncomfortable vulnerable feelings. As we do so, we deny reality and create a fantasy bubble whic is ultimately destructive.

Brown notes that in addition to numbing vulnerability, people today:

* Try to make everything that is uncertain, certain

* Try to perfect everything, often to our own detriment

* Pretend that what we do does not have an effect on others

All of these behaviors not only disconnect us form ourselves and others, but also can destroy our lives. We cannot selectively numb emotions. If we numb out our fear and sadness, we also numb out our capacity for joy and happiness. If we only embrace the behaviors and qualities in our children that look "perfect," we destroy their humanity and the qualities that make them uniquely who they are.

Numbing and running from vulnerability ultimately endangers us more than revealing who we really are. Vulnerability, while initially frightening, is critical to our sense of connection, and therefore, our well-being. By treating ourselves and others with more love and kindness, we break through the walls of judgment and inequality that polarize us, and create a deeper sense of connection, that can heal us individually and collectively. By being vulnerable, we help create a safer and more equitable world, and restore a sense of dignity and worth to all, just for being human beings living on the earth.

As we improve the emotional and spiritual quality of our lives, we reduce the levels of cortisol in our bodies, increase our sense that life is purposeful, manageable and meaningful, and reduce the need to numb out through substances or processes. We re-create an environment that nourishes the heart and soul.

Kristof opens his article with a quote from John Steinbeck, "a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ." By embracing our vulnearbility and un-numbing our deeply sad, disconnected souls, let germs be our strongest danger, not one another!

Vulnerability need not be a liability or contributor to lower status. When we can be vulnerable, yet feel emotionally safe, our vulnerability can actually be a source of personal power and contribute to a greater sense of connection with self and others. If we feel safe in our vulnerability, rather than experience vulnerability as excruciating, vulnerability can become a deeply rooted source that moves us to reach out to others, take passionate stands on issues we care about, and even touch the heart of others in a most human way.

This allows us to live in a way Brown describes as "wholehearted." A wholehearted person, according to Brown, can embrace their vulnerability fully, realizing that vulnerability may not be comfortable, but it is necessarym and can even be beautiful. Perhaps it is time to revision vulnerability as a powerful tool to brake the chains of inequality, to allow us to be authentic, and to facilitate the experience of connection with self and others that keeps us healthy, happy and human.

So, perhaps paradoxically, vulnerability can be the "great human equalizer," assuring not only our own well-being but also a healthy social fabric where through our sense of interconnection, we will tend to the well-being of others as well.

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

Tiger Mothers and Other Approaches to Parenting

This past month, the Wall Street Journal has managed to run an article each week presenting very different and even extreme approaches to parenting. While perhaps not intentionally envisioned as a "series," this series nonetheless, was kicked off with Amy Chua's article, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" on January 8. Chua proudly states that her two daughters were not allowed to do what we in the Western world consider "normal activities," such as attend a sleepover, have a playdate, or be in a school play. In addition, complaining about not being in a school play, choosing their own extracurricular activities, getting any grade less than an A, or not being the number one student in any subject other than gym or drama is more severely disallowed.

Chua assumes that American parent are wimps, psychological and emotional factors don't exist, and if you don't get what you want from your child, you humiliate them, berate them and shame them into submission. Chua suggests that this is for the child's own good, since children would not be motivated to be successful without such a heavy hand and rude mouth coming from their mothers.

She details vignettes of parenting her own daughters, speaking to them in ways those of us who are psychologically inclined would consider verbally abusive, such as "hey fatty--lose some weight, " or calling a child "garbage, stupid, worthless or a disgrace," and psychologically abusive, such as forcing her 7 year old daughter to practice a piano piece she was struggling with for hours and hours, including working through dinner and not being able to get up for water or to go to the bathroom for days, weeks and months.

While books may portray these "Tiger Mothers" as "scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests," Chua posits that maybe Chinese parents believe they are more committed and caring than Western parents are in regard to their children.

The second article in the "series," appeared on January 16, a sort of rebuttal to the "Tiger Mother" article, entitled, "In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom" by Ayelet Waldman. Waldman identifies herself as a modern day Jewish mother of four, who allowed her children to quit the piano and violin, sleep over at friends' houses and participate in any extracurricular activity they wayted to, with a few narcissistic caveats thrown in.

Waldman was delighted if the child quite their instrument near a recital, so she wouldn't have to be "tortured" listening to other children play, or if the sleepover was on a holiday or night she wanted to go out with her husband to save her the cost of a babysitter. More narcissistic was her insistence that she not have to drive more than 10 minutes to get her kids to any activity or "sit on a field in a folding chair in anything but the balmiest weather for any longer than 60 minutes."

All practicality aside, the thread of narcissism strikes me as just as troubling as the streak of domination expressed by Chua. For the most extreme article on parenting, the January 22 Wall Street Journal presented the case of a Russian-born Christian couple living in Oregon, who were arrested on criminal child abuse charges. When their 14-year-old son escaped to a pay phone to report his beatings (and that of his 6 siblings), to the police, all 7 children, aged newborn to 15, were taken away from the parents, as the parents were sent to jail.

Within their isolated and non-assimilated Slavic Christian community, the brutal beatings of children for wanting to wear Western clothes, trim their hair without permission or wear eye make up were considered "disciplining their children according to Biblical Law." Being whipped, struck and beaten with wires, branches and belts was considered to be an expression of their faith. In the Western world, it is considered child abuse.

All 6 of the older childre, aged 5 - 15, were sick of their parents' abuse and told police they wished to be removed from their home. At times, their beatings were so severe, they could not go to school because of their wounds. Eventually, the infant was removed from the parents' home as well.

While cultural difference do account for differences in parenting styles, too few take into account the actual nature and developmental needs of human children. Religion, narcissism and historical norms do not allow for or even recognize psychological needs. As I studed the reality of family life in early Colonial families in the US, I discovered just how rampant domestic violence was.

Sadly, while those who practice Tiger Mothering or Slavic Christian parenting can rationalize and justify their behavior saying they must shape the child to be "successful" or even "good," their children often have serious mental health issues as teens and adults. The suicide rate for Chinese teenage girls is much higher than for their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the cultural model I find most appealing is that of my Siamese chocolate point kitty, Prayer. When Prayer had her kittens in April 2008, she was a present, attentive, nurturing, loving mother. She knew to stay close to her kittens and keep them warm, fed and safe when they were tiny. She knew to give them more space to stretch their paws and explore as they grew ready to do so. She nursed them gladly until they were ready to start eating solid food. And she carried them in her mouth by the scruff of their necks when she perceived they were in danger. Prayer occasionally "disciplined" her kittens with a growl or a gentle tap of her paw. But she never beat them, humiliated them, rejected them or hurt them. All of her kittens grew up to be well-adjusted, loving cats. Might there be something to learn here for human parents?

Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

Couplehood As A Spiritual Path

Many years ago, a client gave me a powerful quote that has been posted on the walls of my writer's cave. The paper is yellowed with age, but the message remains fresh, powerful and true:

"To 'listen' another's soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another"

--Douglas Steere, From Gleanings: A Random Harvest

Being listened to, really listened to, is a basic human need. Having a caring listener, who is emotionally invested in hearing how it is to be who we are, and who can share and follow us in our life's journey over time is empowering, healing, validating, and nourishing.

Being able to truly speak and listen from the heart to the heart, allows for much deeper feelings, thoughts and experiences to emerge and be felt and spoken. This kind of listening space is very sacred and provides a kind of relational heart meditation for both the speaker and the listener.

When we are in a relationship that is meant to last the test of time, and provide a structure for companionship and connection over the course of our lives, developing the ability to speak and listen from the heart can allow both the relationship and the two individuals who comprise it to develop emotionally and spiritually. In this sense, couplehood can become a spiritual path, if both members of the couple choose to envision and engage in communication from this special, deeper place.

In an interview published in the Ericksonian Newsletter (Volume 29, No. 3), relationship author Harville Hendrix notes, "When we ask listening partners to quiet their minds and focus on the messages of the partner who is sending, they not only listen more accurately and deeply, but they become more peaceful inside. They refer to this as being more centered similar to what is described by people who meditate."

In EKP couple therapy, when I invite a couple to slow down, get grounded, take some deep breathes, and begin to speak and listen from the heart, I witness a sacred safety and co-holding that allows both people to go much deeper within themselves and express much more deeply with one another. Heart to heart communication not only enhances emotional connection between the partners in the here and now, but also allows a space of healing to develop, in which past hurts, traumas, disappointments and misunderstandings can be released, rectified and processed in the here and now.

Hendrix explains, "When this happens, emotional memories, that have been housed in the amygdala are translated into words and relocated in the hippocampus--thus putting the past in the past. This process integrates alienated and isolated aspects into the self, thus contributing to the recovery of wholeness, which is another aspect of healing that is both spiritual and psychological at the same time."

In this sense, couplehood can be a spiritual path, and as Hendrix reflects, "dialogue is a spiritual practice." If those of us who share our lives with a partner recognize this possibility and develop the skills and awareness to slow down, take time and space and speak and listen from the heart regularly with our partners, the quality of both our lives and relationships can increase tremendously.

There is truly no need for fighting, reacting out of old triggers and "othering" a loved one. If we can only taste the possibility of emotionally safe, grounded, heartfelt relating, our relationships can become more meaningful and less limiting or entrapping.