Altruism Is Good For YOU

Gordon Gecko may have said "greed is good," but from a physiological and well-being perspective, altruism is better. The Institute of HeartMath reports that "when we act in other people's behalf, we feel better, more secure and experience less stress."

When we are helping others from a place of care, compassion and pure intent, both our brain and heart produce oxytocin, the love or bonding hormone. Heart cells as well as brain cells produce "feel good chemicals"including dopamine and endorphins. Only genuine intent creates this hormonal benefit.

An article on altruism prepared by the Institute of HeartMath cites research that shows:

* altruistic people are healthier and live longer
* older people who are helpful to others reduce their risk of dying by nearly 60% compared to peers who provide neither practical help nor emotional support to relatives, neighbors or friends
* altruism promotes enhanced meaning and purpose, and the presence of positive emotions such as kindness that displaces harmful negative emotional states

When we can shift our focus to what we have to give, instead of what we have to get or take, what follows actually helps US. Is it paradoxical that in giving, we receive more than if we had only focused on our selfish self-interest? Perhaps this shows the difference in scope between the ego and the heart. Because the heart operates from a place of connection and interconnectedness, it understands the flow of life. When we operate from ego, fear or scarcity, we can disconnect from this very flow.

Hearts know how to balance self-care and care for others. When we use our intellects with the balancing perspective of the heart, we can operate from a sense of duty or obligation, when can lack pure heartfelt intent. Using our heart's wisdom and guidance is key to keep ourselves in the circulating flow of giving and receiving, rather than burning out from giving in a disconnected state.

Living From the Heart Workshop

On Friday, May 20, I will be giving a workshop on Living From the Heart at the home of Margaret Arndt and David Sneickus in Newton, MA.

LIVING FROM THE HEART

Our hearts thrive when our lives are "coherent," meaning we have a sense that life is purposeful, manageable and meaningful. This approach to living makes us happier and healthier in all ways. The messages we receive from the culture, however, do not often invite us to go inward and listen to our hearts. Instead, we are told to do more, go faster and keep going...skipping over the critical messages our hearts and bodies give us moment to moment and over time about the things we really need.

In this evening workshop, you will have a chance to slow down, bring your focus inwards and listen to your own heart. We will explore some of our basic human needs (beyond food, shelter and clothing...like being welcome in the world, not having to do it all alone, and having emotional and spiritual connection), and how to bring more of what really matters into our lives. We will do meditation, experiential exercises and partnered sharings drawing from EKP body psychotherapy to nourish and honor our hearts.

Linda Marks, MSM, has practiced body psychotherapy with individuals, couples, families and groupsfor 26 years. EKP (Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy), a heart-centered, psychospiritual body psychotherapy method is her contribution to the field. Linda has presented nationally and internationally, published two books and hundreds of articles, taught at universities and professional conferences and has appeared on radio and television. She also practice coaching and mediation. Her website is www.healingheartpower.com.

For more information, contact msarndt@verizon.net

Being A Face to Face Person In An Increasingly Virtual World

When I started my psychotherapy practice in 1985, the world was dramatically different than today. There was no internet. There were no cell phones. There was no e-mail. There were no texts. All media--books, newspapers and magazines, were physical and in-print, not on-line. And if I wanted to have a conversation with someone, there were two options: face to face and on the phone.

In many ways, things were much simpler back then. When my first book, Living With Vision: Reclaiming the Power of the Heart, was published in 1988, I threw a big book launch party at a Boston area nightclub to bring people together to celebrate in community. If I were to publish a new book tomorrow, I would set up a Facebook fan page for the book, organize a party on Meetup.com, send out an event announcement using Constant Contact, post announcements on LinkedIn and on my regular Facebook page, and tweet updates as often as possible to let people know.

As a writer and psychotherapist, I feel the changes from our old face to face based relating culture to our modern technology based more virtual culture. As a person, I feel the changes even more strongly, and watch the changes color the landscape of others' lives.

People of all ages can spend hours chatting with "friends" on Facebook, without ever leaving the comfort of their living room. They can "talk" while dressed in their pajamas and never utter a spoken word. Committees can meeting using a free internet conference calling service, and never need a face to face meeting to get their work done. Teens or older adults can communicate daily with their loved ones through texts and e-mails, forgetting or perhaps never learning that some topics are best discussed in person and not in a virtual medium.

At its best, virtual communication allows us to feel connected easily, quickly and without much logistical work to be at a certain place at a certain time. At its worst, virtual communication leaves us feeling isolated, connected but alone, missing the special meaning of a look on someone's face, a gleam in the eye, or the warm, nurturing feeling of a hug or caress. Some experiences translate into virtual moments. Others simply do not.

In late March, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the increase of teenage depression with Facebook use. On the one hand, many teens feel a wider social network than kids in their actual classes at school through their connection of Facebook friends. On the other hand, they may feel lonely and disconnected, because all of their communications take place when they are by themselves with only a computer as their companion. If they try to arrange a time to "hang out," they may find their phone call unanswered, or their plan forgotten as their friend gets lost in a sea of cyberconversations or video games, while time marches on. Facebook allows people to post photos that create an image of life as wonderful and fun, even if real life is not nearly so grand. And people create "avatar-like" personas, never needing to do equal work to develop their inner personas.

No matter how many virtual tools we develop to stay "in touch," communicate quickly, efficiently and replace the need for a meeting real-time, if we go too far on the virtual side of the human-technology continuum, a part of our spirit gets lost. If you are sad, does it not feel better to look into the eyes of an understanding friend? If you are scared, can a text replace a hug? Can a kiss be replaced by an e-mail saying "I love you?" Our human senses make life richer and more meaningful. WHh lose them in our relating with others?

While I can talk to someone on the phone and counsel them on Skype, I cannot reach out and touch them, or bring the full energy of my heart to them when we are so far away. Some part of relating simply cannot be whole when done at a distance. To "be with" someone, really means being with them.

Just like the experiments with the clothand wire monkeys in my freshman psychology class, there are lessons about the emotional and spiritual cost of a more virtual and less tactile existence. Technology can help us share our words, ideas and thoughts, but to physically feel another's presence, hold another's hand, and feel the beat of another person's heart in a mutual embrace introduces a much deeper, essential dimension of human experience into our lives. May we never forget the important of being face to face people in our increasingly virtual world.

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