Sage Woman Chronicles

Question Everything

An image of the Kunta Kinte Alex Haley Memorial in Annapolis.

“The key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.” ~ Peter Abelard

“Of all the questions we leave unanswered the one that comes back to haunt us the most is: ‘What if …’ What if I’d married my college sweetheart? What if I had the good sense not to? What if I had been born in this job market? What if … What if I’d planned a little less? What if I’d lived a little more? What if I’d chucked it all and started my own company? ‘What ifs’ are never idle fantasy. These are our hopes, dreams and desires.” ~ Rashmi Bansal, Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Have you ever, well, I’m sure you have because you’re human, but has your life ever been shattered in some devastating way? It’s happened to me more than once. I’m sure it has to you too. You’ve lost a loved one, or a job, or a relationship broke apart, and your life is turned upside down. You know the feeling, everything you thought was true comes into question and you don’t know what you believe anymore, you don’t know how to get out of your current dreadful situation.

The first big time it happened to me was when I began to study religion in college. Many of the things I thought were true about The Bible, and Christianity, and world religions, and history challenged my tiny little belief system. In a way I welcomed this. After all I went to college to expand myself. But it was nerve wracking too because I had to do a lot of internal work examining the old and new information. That process was emotionally and physically draining. I was lucky though, because I’d been taught by my father to question everything. That’s what I did. I asked lots of questions in my classes, and I began to ask myself, “What if this or that thing I was taught wasn’t true?”

Even though this process was unsettling, it was also familiar and I embraced the challenge of taking all my beliefs out and seeing if they fit the new information I was learning. Anything that didn’t fit, I threw out.

So, even though I was going through this tremendous internal upheaval, it was exhilarating too. I did, however, have problems with people looking at my struggles from the outside. They wanted to fix me. And that more than anything traumatized me.

I think we get into comfortable ruts and don’t want to change and if someone we know is struggling with some existential upheaval, we don’t know what to do to help. In a way, their struggles challenge our own. Sometimes we do more damage by trying to get them to go back to the way they were, which makes us feel better but might not be the right thing for them.

I’m grateful to my father for asking lots of questions and teaching me to do the same. He taught me how to pay attention, to read between the lines, to look at people’s motivations. Those skills have served me well when I’ve been confronted with life shattering events. But he taught me something else, that he learned from his father. Sometimes the best way to help someone going through a life altering event is to just be with them. Don’t try to change them. Just stay by their side so they know that if they need you, you’re there to help.

I’m coming out of the doldrums that began at the beginning of the year. I’ve let myself take time to look at my situation and figure out where I want to go from here. And this time, since I have lots of alone time at home, I don’t have any annoying people trying to interfere with my process.

Part of my doldrums also had to do with the upheaval going on in the world. It seems to me we are collectively challenging everything we thought was true. People are speaking up and challenging not only our belief systems, but the way we’ve been doing business, governing, and the doctrines of our religious communities. I think this is a good thing, but it’s also draining. The only way I see that we can get through these troubled times is to just be with each other. It will also help if we listen, question our old beliefs, and try to see things from a different point of view.

Having been through this process many times, I can say the end results are worth the effort.

Welcome to my new followers. Thanks so much for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it. Have a fabulous weekend.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Our Legacy

“True leaders don’t invest in buildings. Jesus never built a building. They invest in people. Why? Because success without a successor is failure. So your legacy should not be in buildings, programs, or projects; your legacy must be in people.” ~ Myles Munroe

The other day in acting class, a former acting student of mine came by with a friend of hers who is in my current class. She wanted to give me a hug and tell me how much she loved me. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t remember her name, though I do remember her quite distinctly.

As this year has begun, I’ve felt off balance, unsettled, burned out, and perhaps that I have failed to contribute much to making this world a better place. Then, in walks a former student out of the blue to tell me how much being in my class all those semesters ago still means to her.

The next day I was listening to Oprah interview Bradley Cooper on an episode of Super Soul Sunday. Of course, Oprah was asking Bradley about his experience of making A Star in Born, and the Oscar nominations for various people who had worked on the movie. The conversation turned to the idea of legacy. Oprah related again what she learned from Maya Angelou. We never know what our legacy will be. That idea made me feel so much better.

For quite some time, I have been chomping at the bit to quit teaching and work only on my writing. I’ve wanted just a little bit different life than the one I’m living at present. That’s not a happy place to be.

But I realized that because I’ve been focusing on the future instead of the present moment, I’ve been completely oblivious to the fact that maybe my efforts as a teacher over the years have had a positive impact on the lives of my students and I should be grateful for that.

I don’t have children. Most people think of their children as their legacy, but going back to Oprah and Bradley’s discussion, there are other kinds of legacy. He told Oprah how much of an impact she had on his life as he began watching her show as a preteen. He credits her with helping him understand how to be a good human being. If we can be a positive influence on people’s lives, that is one of the best legacies we can leave behind. Perhaps that’s why stories of ordinary people affecting even small changes one person at a time are my favorite.

Every year, I weep at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life. If you can believe it, that movie didn’t do well at the box office when it first came out. But look how it has endured. Watching that movie is a Christmas tradition in many a family. And I believe that consuming positive content is much better than entertainment that is negative in nature. What we watch becomes a part of us. It’s A Wonderful Life has become a part of our collective psyche, which makes me happy.

I’ve been thinking about that too. Maybe I need to better curate all the news and entertainment I consume. Even social media has lost appeal for me. I don’t mind reading about the things my friends are doing, but I’m so tired of the political and personal sniping back and forth that peppers social media. When I see something like that, I just scroll right on by. I like to support my friends by posting encouragement and positive comments on their posts.

And one more thing, I have to accept the fact that I will always experience a tension between where I am at the moment, and where I want to be. I was reminded of that this week too. None of us will ever come to a place where peace reigns all the time. Humans aren’t built like that. We’re always looking for the next thing to learn, or place to explore, or adventure to experience.

In the end, Maya Angelou is right, we will never know the full impact our lives have had on those around us. It’s okay with me if mine is small. I don’t need to be famous but I do want to leave people feeling better about themselves after meeting me, taking one of my classes, or reading something I’ve written.

Thanks for reading what I’ve been thinking lately. I appreciate your likes and comments. Have a blessed weekend.

Assumptions

“Remember, we see the world not as it is but as we are. Most of us see through the eyes of our fears and our limiting beliefs and our false assumptions.” ~ Robin S. Sharma

I’m still recovering from being sick. This is a bit annoying since I don’t get sick very often. Part of me wants to be finished with the hacking and fatigue, another part realizes that healing takes time and I just need to rest. Pushing myself to get well will only prolong the process. It’s another aspect of the lesson of living in the now and not assuming events will go a certain way.

While I’ve been sick, and even before, Barry and I have been watching all the Marvel Universe movies in preparation for the release of Captain Marvel, and then Avengers: Endgame. I don’t know why, but when I watch each of these movies, I notice the assumptions the characters make about each other and their role in the grand scheme of things that end up causing all kinds of problems. We do that in real life too. We make assumptions then get angry and upset when things don’t go according to plan.

Last night we watched Dr. Strange. It’s a story about the different ways we seek healing. Dr. Stephen Strange is a brilliant neurosurgeon. He’s arrogant, confident in his abilities, and sure of his path in life until … he’s in a devastating car accident that injures his hands so badly that he will never be able to operate on anyone again.

That kind of life shattering event sends some people into the kind of despair that they never get out of. But not Dr. Strange. He’s convinced there is a way out and he spends every bit of money he has to find a cure. At one point his physical therapist tells him of a patient he once had who was paralyzed from the chest down. The patient worked hard to recover, but one day he just stopped coming for sessions. The therapist thought perhaps the patient had given up and either killed himself, or just accepted his situation. Then one day he passed the patient on the street, walking. Of course, Dr. Strange is skeptical but the therapist produces the file and Strange seeks out the patient. The man tells him he was healed at a place called Kamar-Taj in Nepal. Going there is the first step on an unusual journey of altered realities and magic, things Dr. Strange never would have considered possible before his accident.

Every story needs an antagonist. In this one a former student of The Ancient One at Kamar-Taj, Kaecilius, begins to wreak havoc on the world. He sought out The Ancient One so she would heal him. Though she did what she could, he didn’t ever accept responsibility for doing his own healing work. When the process didn’t turn out the way he assumed it would, he got angry and vengeful. He blamed The Ancient One for the fact that he still experienced the pain he wanted to avoid. Since she didn’t heal him, he wants her to pay.

Every time I watch this movie, I think of people who attach all importance onto their pastor, teacher, or mentor and when they discover that person isn’t perfect, they are devastated. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes and it’s not wise to hang all our hopes and dreams on someone else. We are, after all, responsible for our own lives.

Dr. Strange doesn’t do this. He knows The Ancient One is not perfect. He embraces what she can teach him, then takes responsibility for his own healing and spiritual expansion.

I don’t know why but being sick makes me reflective and I’ve been thinking about who I think I am as opposed to who I really am. For some reason watching Dr. Strange added to the mix. I’ve been doing some fundamental self-examination which I hope to continue this year. I’m convinced that there is so much more to life than we experience on a daily basis and I want to expand into a larger part of myself.

Okay, all of that is a bit of a muddled mess of ideas. I do like these new superhero movies because they are our new mythology. They make us see the world in new ways. Anyway, I’ll blame this post on my weakened state of health.

Have a lovely weekend. Thanks for reading, commenting and liking. And thank you to my new followers.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

Unexpected Gifts

“It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

My husband and I have been sick all week. At first I was rather angry. I had a full week of activities ahead of me all of which had to canceled, even the class I teach. But then I decided to just let what was happening flow. After all there was nothing I could do about being sick.

I’m sure you’ve noticed when you’re sick your world becomes very small, the bed, the bathroom, and the kitchen. It forces you to take life one moment at a time and that’s a good thing.

I don’t know about you but I don’t live in the present moment often enough. I’m thinking about the list of things I need to get done that day, or that week. So even though I don’t like being sick, it’s a good reminder to live in the present moment.

I’m going to end this post here because it took almost every ounce of energy I’ve got to get out of bed and write this much, but I didn’t want to break my streak. Hopefully next week’s post will be more substantial and edifying.

Stay well and enjoy your weekend.

Welcome to my new followers. Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting. I appreciate it very much.

Empath’s Confession

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” ~ James Baldwin

“I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” ~ Maya Angelou

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” ~ Meryl Streep

“The opposite of anger is not calmness, it’s empathy.” ~ Mehmet Oz

I’m an empath. I admit it. I’ve written posts here before about how difficult it can be to be a magnet for other people’s feelings and not know what to do with them. It’s exhausting. But recently I gained a different perspective. Being empathetic can also be extremely empowering.

Last fall I got an idea that my sister, Celeste and I should write a memoir about our father and the influence he had on our lives. It’s not a typical memoir enumerating the pain and suffering we endured, but rather how our father taught us to use compassion and empathy to help ourselves and others.

My initial thought was that it was going to be about how he used movies to teach us important lessons because stories are an important way to connect emotionally with another person’s point of view. Our book may still include some of that. However, I see now that the book has to include our memories of how Dad influenced people by using his empathy to spread love and compassion to help them heal. It was as if he was plugged into some deep well of emotion and information that helped him understand exactly how the people around him were being affected by the experiences they were having. But how to write that so our readers can understand?

After discussions with Celeste about what to include in the book, I came to this startling deeper understanding of my father. Not only was he an empath, but he was an extreme introvert. He kept his deepest feelings hidden most of the time, even from us. That’s where I learned it! For most of my life, I’ve kept my head down done my work and not shared my deepest thoughts and feelings. However when I broke my own rule, I was exposed, extremely vulnerable, and my ideas generated controversy. That happened to Dad too because he had ideas that went against common convention. When he shared his point of view, it often stirred up fierce debate.

These are extraordinary times. We can use new ideas and fierce debate about how to make the world a better place. And yet, I remember all those controversies, both mine and Dad’s and I ask myself, do I really want to draw so much attention to myself again? The reality is, in times like these, everyone needs to be sharing their creative ideas and their stories. That’s one of the best ways we learn and grow. We have to share our stories and listen as others tell theirs in return.

Over the years as I’ve written these blog posts, I’ve become more comfortable with being open and vulnerable. But it’s uncomfortable to share my mistakes. I’d love to be perfect. I’d also love to keep these posts intellectual. In fact, I was going to write an intellectual essay and post it today. But after years of work in theatre, teaching, and directing plays, I know the best way to help someone see another point of view is to touch their emotions. Then they are open to new ideas. We need the marriage of ideas and emotions to effect real change. So, I need to share my stories, and listen to those of other people. That’s where we discover that we’re not so different after all.

Admittedly, Celeste and I have so many deep emotions about our father, that we’re having a difficult time focusing on what to write about him. He was an extraordinary man, living an ordinary life. Yet the ripples of his influence keep reverberating. Things my father taught me come to mind often and help me through the situations I face. I’m grateful that he gave me such a fantastic head start in life.

There will be more things to share about this project later. But for today, that’s enough.

Welcome to all my new followers. Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. Have a lovely weekend.