Every year I sing the praises of Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday with the three F’s – family, food, and football. But I also really love it for being a holiday centered around gratitude. I have written before about how gratitude is the Superpower of positive psychology and most people by now have heard about Gratitude Journals (thanks Oprah).  But this year I came across some good research about the mechanisms of gratitude’s power and thought I would share with you some insights and good news about that attitude of gratitude.

In an article from the Center for Greater Good (wouldn’t you want to work there?) the review of the literature on gratitude leads to a conclusion that gratitude is not just a positive state of mind but an active process that leads us to cope with stress and regulate our emotions in beneficial ways.  When we feel grateful we manage difficult emotions both more effectively and in ways that are deemed “healthier,” meaning they lead us to better future outcomes. Researchers found four basic underlying mechanisms of how this works.First, grateful people were more likely to take steps to actively deal with their problems or try to look for “silver linings” (called positive reframing in psychology speak). As a result, they were less likely to give up trying or blame themselves. Second, grateful people were more likely to reach out to others when they were stressed.  When we feel appreciative of people’s past efforts at helping us, we will have a higher expectation of finding benefit if we reach out again. The third finding of what grateful people do that leads to good coping is that gratitude actually changes our experience of negative emotions. It almost serves as a thought inoculation. Grateful people use more insight into cause and effect that helps them reappraise negative situations and thereby manage the negative emotions that may be a result. And finally, research reveals that grateful people are more patient. Grateful people show a higher capacity for delay of gratification (more psychology speak for the idea that you can put off the desire for a small reward to wait for a bigger reward.)  Delay of gratification has been largely associated with emotional intelligence and life success (like getting through 4 years of hard work in college to get a degree or resisting the good looking guy who isn’t so good to you to wait for the better choice).

But the most interesting and best news for me in reading the research about gratitude was how easy it was to achieve the gratitude. In each study that found a beneficial effect of gratitude, they created the group of grateful subjects by simply asking people to write about gratitude! (The control group of “non-grateful” people wrote about neutral topics). Some studies had subjects journal a few times a week for a month and some studies had subjects remember a time when they were appreciative and write about it.  But that was all it took! It wasn’t that they combed the streets looking for grateful human beings, they were able to create an attitude of gratitude in the lab and then have people reap the benefits!! How amazing is that!!

So in thinking about my love of Thanksgiving, maybe it’s the aura of gratitude that makes the children look a bit cuter, the pie taste a little sweeter, and the football loss a little less painful. Digging into a helping of gratitude may actively engage my more positive coping tools and facilitate what makes the day feel so special. So when your Aunt Bessie hurts your feelings or you burn the dinner rolls because Uncle Fred was telling you about his latest political theory, take a moment to remind yourself about what you do love about your family.  It just may be what keeps you wanting to come back year after year.

This past week, having survived the evacuations and power outages caused by the Kinkade fires in my county, I’ve had an interesting re-awakening to the meaning of community.  While being more of an introvert who lives in a rather remote home environment, the realization of how vulnerable I am as an individual was never more apparent than when faced with a looming natural disaster.  The networks of relatedness and dependency became all too clear as we each sat and listened to the radio for news from our community leaders, texted one another to check in and share information, and offered one another resources, many families sharing homes (thank you Hart Kaufman family!), volunteering in evacuation centers, and providing food and care as needed.  Whether we are aware or not, we are all part of multiple layers of community including family, friendships, religious or spiritual, political, social, professional, and the list goes on. This weeks post is an homage to this interconnection that we too often take for granted.

The dictionary definition of community involves both a boundary and a relationship.  The boundary aspect is defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.”  This can be your County, your neighborhood or your housing. It can also be your ethnicity, your religion, or your love of hummingbirds.  We are all complicated beings with many possible layers of community defined by our our unique combination of both inherent and chosen identity characteristics and interests.  The relationship aspect of the definition of community involves “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.” It is our tribal human nature that once we define ourselves as having something in common, a sense of bonding or camaraderie tends to follow.  

Particularly in California culture, the Western notion of individual achievement and autonomy of spirit is valued.  We think of the lone cowboy riding off on his horse for our history and the brilliant home grown entrepreneur of modern day heroics. But the fact is, that no one lives without community and we all reap the benefits of that collective structure.  It is the very essence of civilization and society providing us with rules to live by, streets to drive on, and places to feel safe. But that all feels so abstract, until a fire bears down on your home and smoke fills the air. Suddenly and with great clarity, we come to see how much we need each other.  Community provides resources and knowledge. It provides support and comfort, and it provides leadership and opportunities for service. There is nothing that bridges differences better than a shared sense of community effort.  

As people return to their homes and the smoke in the air clear, I hope we can all keep the spirit that holds us together during these tough times.  Personally, it has encouraged me to take a look at my own sense of community belonging and how it has changed. I don’t have children in the local schools any more, and this was a big source of community for me for many years.  Replacing community feels to be an important effort that I could easily ignore. Over time, layering disconnections can lead to isolation. I see this in my work every day, the breakdown of family and social connections that leads to depression and isolation.  It’s very hard to be alone, but it’s also very challenging to join in once you feel like an outsider.  

When I think about who I am, I think about myself as an individual:  Romanian, college graduate, psychologist, New York Giants fan. But every one of these pieces of identity is within a community that offers the opportunity for connection.   It does take effort, but stepping up and out of my comfort zone is an important thing to do for my emotional and physical well being. Community gives me a sense of purpose and belonging when times are good and resources and support for times when I need help.  Disasters can come at any time and in many forms for each of us: fire, drought, divorce, illness. The old cliches still ring true: No person is an island and we all need someone to lean on. And if you’ve watched the NY Giants this season, you know how true that is.

It’s always fun for me to watch people trying on costumes for Halloween.  Their body language changes, their demeanor shifts, and some sort of alter ego emerges.  It got me thinking about our clothes and the influence it has on us. Fun fact, as it turns out, there is a developing psychology all about this! 

“Embodied cognition” is the study of how our thought processes are based on our physical experiences that set off abstract processes.  For example, research shows that washing your hands is associated with a sense of moral purity and ethical judgments. People rate others personally warmer  if they hold a hot drink in their hand, and colder if they hold an iced drink. And if you carry a heavy clipboard, you will feel more important! A group of researchers took this a step further to investigate “enclothed cognition,”looking at the “systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer’s psychological processes.”  In other words, what do the clothes you wear say to you, not about you, and how this influences how you behave. 

Researchers at Northwestern University did a series of experiments having subjects wear either a doctors coat, an artists smock, or street clothes.  Despite the fact that the doctor’s coat and the artist’s smock were actually absolutely identical, the people wearing what they believed was the doctor’s coat performed much better on  tasks and were more careful and attentive. Just looking at the doctor’s coat had no effect on performance, it was only when subjects had it on did it change their outcomes. The researchers conclude that “the influence of clothes depends both on wearing the clothing and the meaning it invokes in their psychological schema.”  Doctors are generally thought to be highly intelligent, precise, and scientific thinkers, while artists are generally thought to be free thinking creative types. People ascribed a symbolic meaning to an article of clothing and while wearing it, took on the character strength they perceived.  

Enclothed cognition gives scientific proof to the idea that you should dress not how you feel, but how you want to feel.  The clothes you choose are sending messages to those around you, but also to yourself! When you dress a certain way, it does influence your internal self.  When you feel low or nervous about a job at hand, dressing up can change things. Clothes influence the body and the brain, putting us in a state of expectation that alters how we approach and interact with our world, and in turn, how the world responds to us.  We have uniforms of all types in our lives, beyond what we wear to work. What we wear to the grocery store, to work out in, or on a date may have more influence than we realize in how we things go for us.  

So this Halloween have some fun!  Try on an outfit very different from your comfortable self.  How does it make you feel? How does it affect how you hold your body posture? Your attitude?  Does it make you feel more powerful or more attractive? Bolder or sillier? Then imagine how you might use this in what you choose to wear each morning.   This new research shows it to be at least somewhat true, that clothes makes the man (or woman)! 

After writing in my last post about the positive shift in attitude I feel when I use the word I “get” to versus I “have” to, I began to think about another word change.  I notice I also experience the same tightness in my body that happens when I say “have” whenever I use the word “should.”  I also realize how often I say it! So this week, as a follow up, I’ll spend some words on this word.

Most of us have heard the phrase “You’re shoulding all over yourself.”  We recognize that when we use the word should it invokes a little burst of guilt.  Hence the tightness. So I started reframing that each time I use the word ‘should” I’m actually identifying an ambivalence.  I want to have cake and ice cream for dinner, but I also know its healthier to eat the chicken. Should alerts us that we want something else rather than what we feel is the “right” thing to do.  I should do the dishes, but I want to watch This Is Us.  I should call the insurance guy, but I don’t want to talk to him.  

Obviously, it’s not a good idea to do whatever we want.  Shoulds impose reason and reflect important internalized messages of past learning that are necessary.  But should has a childlike quality; like when I was a little girl and for my own well being had to do what my parents and teachers wanted.  Should makes me feel young and beholden to some authority and therefore makes me feel that my desires are in some way bad. Inevitably, it makes me a bit rebellious.  Ironically then, the more I feel like I should do something, the less likely I am to do it. And then the more I put it off, the more resentful I am about it.

So the antidote?  I have been playing around with replacing I “should” with I “ choose.”  It helps me own whatever I should do as a choice that I, as my adult self, am making, rather than being guilted to please someone else.  Whenever I hear a should, I’m trying to think it of it as information about my own ambivalence. It helps me explore the basis for the should as well.  Sometimes shoulds are based on things that are good for me, and sometimes not. Often, my shoulds come from my desire to please other people. I should volunteer for the fundraiser, I should apologize, or I should say yes to something.  I do it because I want approval rather then really what’s true for me.  

Again, being an adult often requires doing things we don’t want to do.  But it also allows us to go off the rails once in a while because we’ve achieved the maturity to get back on track.  It’s ultimately all about weighing pros and cons and making a choice, then taking responsibility for the choice. Saying I choose rather than I should affirms my behavior as a decision rather than an imposed activity.  I’m also finding that when I say I “should” do something, it leaves it in the future. When I change it to I choose to do it, it brings it into the now. It also helps me prioritize. Rather than having a list of shoulds building up, I can evaluate what’s most important to me at any given time.  Yes, I should be cleaning the house, but right now, writing my blog is more important to me. Or, yes, having the cake and ice cream for dinner would be fun, but keeping my sugar in balance is more important to me. And sometimes, in switching from I “should” to I “choose,” we actually give ourselves permission to compromise.  

So here’s my choice:  After I write this I’ll call the insurance guy, have a piece of the leftover chicken for dinner, do the dishes, and relax with the slice of cake while I watch my recorded episode of This Is Us.  Hmmmm what do you know.  Being an adult isn’t all that bad!

I recently heard a little technique that has had a relatively powerful effect on my attitude and mood at times when I’ve needed it.  It came from a woman in one of the groups I am fortunate to facilitate. (If there’s an original author who should get credit, I apologize, I did my best to find you via Google). This tool is quick, involves just one word, but takes me from a feeling of obligation and low enthusiasm to a feeling of gratitude and enthusiasm.  The word is “get” and replaces the word “have” in this simple sentence: “I get to” versus “I have to”. (Hand to head in explosion gesture!)

Here’s the magic:  I am driving home from work pretty tired.  I suddenly realize that I never made it to the grocery store over the weekend and have very little with which to make dinner. Worse yet, we’re out of coffee for the morning.  I feel a heaviness in my already worn out body as I tell myself, “You have to go to the grocery store.” I imagine the busy parking lot, the annoyance at how long it takes to think about and find what I need, the long line at check out and feel a sense of dread.  I picture this exhausting scenario versus just going straight home to take off my heels and lounge on the couch. I feel annoyed and obligated, burdened and resentful.

Then I wave the wand by substituting the word “get” for “have” and say out loud, “You GET to go the grocery store.”  I know it sounds so hokey, but it suddenly shifts my energy. I’m suddenly thinking about all the fresh produce I am so lucky to have available here in Sonoma County.  I think of all the work that has gone into the production of the food and other items I will consume. I begin to think more creatively about what I might make for dinner and don’t take for granted that I can just walk in and purchase what I need to satisfy my hunger. I am now in a frame of mind of appreciation and bounty, gratitude and openness.

It doesn’t work every time to that degree, but each time I’ve tried it (I experimented with it for a month before feeling good about writing about it), I always find something good about what I “have” to do that makes me feel more open.  With a change in that one little word I move from an attitude of victimhood to a feeling of privilege; from looking at what is negative about what I’m about to do to looking at what is positive. I see each activity in my life for the choice it really is rather than the obligation.  

As someone who enjoys both reading and writing, I am a lover of words. I often reflect on the choice of language and what it means in my writing and in my work with people as a facilitator of self expression and communication.  But every once in a while an example of the power of vocabulary comes along and rocks my world (yes, I know, I am old.) It’s the closest thing to magic or miracle I know. So please, give it a try and see what it does for you.  I promise, there’s no danger, no side effects, and it doesn’t cost you a penny. And since it’s all in your mind, you never have to worry about leaving your wand or magic hat at home!

I just returned from moving my younger daughter across the country for her first year of college (insert bittersweet tears here). The school had a gathering for us new parents with several of the big wig Deans giving us a pep talk, of sorts, that all of our many dollars were being well invested (insert anxious tears here).  The President of the College, Philip J. Hanlon, however, had a bit of good advice for us that I appreciated most of all. It made a lot of sense to me and for anyone making a big change.

“Your son or daughter will probably be calling you at some point to say they don’t fit in,” he warned us.  It may be after their first exam when they get a lower grade than they are used to, when they get a paper back with more red ink then they have seen in all of high school or when they look around and feel everyone else looks fine and they feel so very different.  Just remind them at those moments that they did not come here to fit in, he encouraged us. They chose their school to be challenged and to expand their skills and experiences. They will need to work hard and to ask for help. They will need to tolerate being uncomfortable and feeling inadequate.  They will need to give it time and to trust the process (my words). With all of that, eventually, they will grow and change to a new identity that fits in with their new surroundings.

As a constant student of change, I loved being reminded of these words to say to my daughter or to anyone going through a change.  And to remind myself when I’m trying something new and feel I don’t fit in. When it is a change you choose to make it is no doubt easier.  You have a vision and a goal to motivate your change. You feel your expansion to fit a new identity is in an “upward” direction. But sometimes the change we must adapt to is not wanted and not asked for.  No one wants to take on the identity of a widow, an ill patient, or being unemployed. But these indeed are new identities that require us to build new skills and tolerate anxiety and insecurity. Although we didn’t sign up for it we still inevitably must learn through periods of loneliness and self doubt how to manage and where we need to alter ourselves.  The same holds true as well for the process of change whether it is chosen or not – that it takes time, hard work, and it is best to ask for help.  

I clearly remember feeling in my first year of college, my first year of graduate school, seeing my first clients (sorry, I did my best), my first year of marriage, and my first year of motherhood (sorry, I did my best), that I did not fit in.  Same was true in my first year of caretaking my mother, looking for a job after being laid off, and being an adult orphan. Whenever we go through a change, we ourselves need to change. Our identities, capacities, opinions, and perspectives inevitably do change along with us.  By definition and by necessity, we are not the same. We no longer fit in to who we were, but expand out to become who we are now.

My younger daughter invited me to attend a talk given by the distinguished astronaut Sunita Williams.  What an impressive person! Having graduated from the Naval Academy, she learned to fly helicopters and did so in several tours of duty, then she became a test pilot, and eventually was chosen to become an astronaut.  After piloting the space shuttle, she moved on to become the Commander during her six months of time on the International Space Station. My daughter, being the curious and persistent young woman she is, waited and waited in line to greet Commander Williams.  The advice she gave my daughter, as a young woman interested in a male dominated field of science, was well worth the price of admission and I think a gift to share with others.

“Confidence comes from competence” was her message.  In other words, learn, train and practice practice practice.  In order to be taken seriously she had to be good at what she did.  Out in space, no one cared about her gender as long as she could keep them alive in a crisis. She had to keep practicing and improving her skills in order to be as best prepared for whatever might happen that she could not ever anticipate.  At the same time, she had to have the humility to accurately evaluate herself and take feedback. She shared about the importance of a leader knowing how and when to be a follower as a critical skill for success. As a leader, she had to have confidence enough to give way to other’s opinions without being threatened.   

Confidence without competence is entitlement  In a Harvard Business Review article by Thomas Chamarro-Premuzic, titled “Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders,” he addresses this problem.  He posits that we often fail to distinguish between confidence and competence and concludes that this bias toward confidence “too often results in the selection of arrogant and self-centered leaders.”  These very traits (overvaluing yourself) are actually inversely related to leadership ability. He further writes: “The paradoxical implication is that the same psychological characteristics that enable male managers to rise to the  top of the corporate ladder also leads to their downfall.” Being a good self promoter is not just different from, but in direct contrast to what it takes to actually be a good leader.

We may not aspire to be a space walker or a Fortune 500 business leader, but we each have goals of things we’re learning to do that are really difficult.  We feel awkward and insincere when we first do them. But with practice, if we keep learning and practicing, the confidence does come. The more we try, the better we will  get, the more confident we will be. If we wait to have confidence, we’ll never have the chance to get the competence! And as Sunita Williams suggests, true confidence, the kind that allows for humility and team work, comes when we continue to put ourselves to the test over and over again.  The deeper we build our foundation of competence, the more stability there will be for our confidence!

Like many people, I find it hard to listen to the actionless debate that takes place after every mass shooting.  But as the nation continues to move on from one of the most violent weekends in history, I am particularly disturbed by what I hear being said and the simplistic and inaccurate conclusions being used as a smokescreen to cover over the need for gun control.  For me, as a psychologist, I see the studies and the conclusions drawn on the causes of violence. As a daughter, I know the impact of gun violence all too personally.   

My father owned a transmission shop in Jersey City, NJ.  One night while he was closing up, a man walked in with a sawed off shotgun.  He demanded that my father give him the money from the cash register, which of course my father did.  Then he wanted his wallet. As my father reached in his pocket to retrieve it, the man held the gun to my father’s face.  As he pressed the trigger, my father pushed the gun down and it shot hundreds of pellets into his abdominal area. The man ran off,  leaving my father to die. I still cannot believe the courage my father had, holding his wounds to reduce the bleeding and reaching for the phone to call 911.  He tells the story of talking to himself out loud, for fear if he let himself drift off, he would never wake up. We were lucky, they told us in the hospital, that he was taken to Jersey City Medical Center, as the doctors there train for the military because there are so many gunshot victims.  By skill of a surgeon placing mesh where his own flesh should be and from my father’s dogged determination during months of recuperation in the hospital, my father survived. He lost his business because of the tragedy, but he kept his life. And for the rest of his days as a constant reminder, my father had to carry an x-ray to show in airports, as so many pellets remained in his body that it set off the screening machines.

When the shooting took place I was in my second year of graduate school.  At the time I was overcome by the relief that my father was still alive. But I also felt such relief that we didn’t live in Jersey City.  My father could come home and we could live far enough away from Jersey City that I did not feel the threat of gun violence so common that military doctors would train in my local hospital.  I, like so many people had the privilege to live in a safe suburban neighborhood,. I could move on with my life, not feeling that guns or gun violence was an issue that related to me.

But now that I am older and wiser, I hope, my understanding of the problem of gun violence is far broader.  I have worked in neighborhoods where gun violence is common and most everyone is afraid. I have worked in juvenile hall where lonely boys are made to feel a sense of belonging when they learn to use a gun.  And I have treated family members who lost a loved one from self inflicted gunshot wounds. I can’t help but now recognize how selfish I had been, ignoring the problem of gun violence far too long as other people’s problems. I now believe it is our nation’s collective problem a public health crisis that demeans us all as a society.

I feel protective of people with mental illness who are being blamed for gun violence.  I can only hope to counteract this notion by sharing the facts. I quote the words of the CEO of the American Psychological Association, Arthur Evans, PhD,  in response to many of the politicians statements implicating mental illness: “The United States is a global outlier when it comes to horrific headlines like the ones that consumed us all weekend. Although the United States makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, we are home to 31% of all mass shooters globally, according to a CNN analysis. This difference is not explained by the rate of mental illness in the U.S. The one stark difference? Access to guns.”  And in regard to those politicians who were quick to blame video games, the evidence is also clear: “Researchers have extensively studied whether there is a causal link between video games and violent behavior, and while there isn’t quite a consensus, there is broad agreement that no such link exists.”  Every country in the world has people with mental illness and people who use video games at similar rates to our own. In fact, Japan and Korea have much higher rates of video game usage but much lower rates of gun violence.   In contrast Americans own nearly half of the 60 million civilian owned guns in the world.

I share with you the conclusion and recommendation of my professional association.  I ask you to think about supporting these measures in our next election cycles and letting your local politicians know how you feel:

“Based on the psychological science, we know some of the steps we need to take. We need to limit civilians’ access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. We need to institute universal background checks. And we should institute red flag laws that remove guns from people who are at high risk of committing violent acts.

“And although the president called on the nation to do a ‘better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs,’ that requires research to ensure we are making decisions based on data, not prejudices and fear.

“We agree with the president’s call to strengthen background checks. But this falls woefully short of what is needed. We must take a comprehensive public health approach and provide dedicated federal funding to agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, to better understand the causes, contributing factors and solutions to gun violence.

“The president clearly said that it is time to stop the hateful rhetoric that is infecting the public discourse. We ask that he use his powerful position to model that behavior.  And we ask that the federal government support the research needed to better understand the causes of bigotry and hate, and their association to violence, so that we may devise evidence-based solutions.”

After reading the book “Belonging:  Remembering Ourselves Home” by Toko-pa Turner, a question she raised stayed with me.  Even now, just saying the words of the question gives me pause: “What are you most longing for?”  These words seem to touch me on a level deeper than most personal questions, as an invitation of sorts, of a more spiritual nature. I decided to do some journaling and indeed it was a rich experience I highly recommend to get in touch with what is truly important to you.  It had a great effect of differentiating what I think I want to what would truly feed me.  

We are such a goal centered society.  When you ask most people, myself included, what they think they want, most of us will say “to lose weight, to get a promotion, to go to Europe.”  We tend to think in terms of action oriented items that are controllable. So when you ask about longing, especially what you are most longing for, it feels different.  Goals tend to be from the head, while my experience of sitting with my longing seemed to come from my heart.  Longing seems to feel like an ache for something that’s missing, an essential element of life that you are missing or want more of.  

In considering what you are most longing for, you may run up against some painful truths (this is where the daily life distractions come in handy).  But so often if we can let ourselves feel our dissatisfaction and work with it, we can get to the heart of what is our truth. I must feel my loneliness to identify my longing for connection or feel my emptiness when I become aware of my longing for meaning.  And there is also some grieving that may need to happen, as well. We can’t always have what we long for, such is the truth of life and loss. But in identifying our longing and working with these feelings, we can develop an acceptance for what cannot be. It is actually through coming to terms with what is missing, that we open the doors to possibilities of what is new to discover.  

My daughter spent a semester in London this past Spring.  It was a wonderful experience for her and educational on so many levels.  Prior to going, the business program prepared the group by offering insights about subtle and not so subtle differences in how the British relate.  In visiting her and talking about her internship experience, she shared with me how being mindful of these differences was key in developing good relations with her coworkers.

Tea is, in fact, a big deal in London.  If someone offers to make it for you, it’s important to reciprocate the effort.  When you are riding the Tube (the train system), British people don’t talk. If you do talk, expect that everyone will know you are American and will listen.  When eating, you use the back of your fork, not the front, and going out for a “swift pint” is a common invitation after work. But more relationally, small talk is very important in London, but it tends to be about the weather, transportation, or even politics as opposed to personal information.  It is considered impolite to ask about family or share about your children until you know someone well. Politics, on the other hand, is much less sensitive. Compared to the eggshells people walk on around political opinions here in the US, it is considered part of small talk. In fact, some of the first things people asked her about was Trump, while no one ever asked about her family or if she had a boyfriend until near the end of her time in their office.  

It would be easy to misinterpret these differences, especially regarding small talk.  You might act rudely without knowing it, or think that no one cared because they never asked more personal information about you.  It got me thinking about how many layers of cultural interpretation we live with every day. In the melting pot of our country, we have become more aware of the need for understanding cultural differences, and most people try to educate themselves.  But what about our more hidden or less obvious cultural differences? I’m thinking that we are all raised in unique households that develop their own cultures by the blending of people and personalities. In deconstructing my own family culture growing up, it was a mix of Depression era habits (we put catsup on spaghetti!), New York Brooklynisms (Mets, not Yankees, Giants, not Jets and we drink Cawfee, not coffee) and Eastern Eurpean Jewishness (some trauma related paranoia, Yiddish insults, and of course, cake after your brisket).  Combine that with my husband’s Irish Catholic historical influence (he notes for example you would never hire anyone to fix what you can do yourself and suffering is a virtue) and this creates a whole new culture for our children in how our own family histories are blended.

We go through our days assuming others think and act in the same understandings as we do.  Especially if we think of ourselves as similar to someone, we make assumptions that may not be accurate, especially regarding motivations or intentions.  Travel is a great way of stepping back from your own experience and recognizing that most things we assume to be the way things are done or assume to be true, aren’t necessarily the way things are or have to be!  Her stories invite me to think about the cultures we are raised in on many levels (family, extended family, neighborhood, town, State, Country) and how this might influence the way we experience the world. It can affirm our commitment to traditions, but also free us up to make changes.

Discovering that most people eat pasta sauce on spaghetti at my best friend’s house was life changing.  But I must admit with some embarrassment, when I’m home alone on a rainy day and I’m feeling blue, a good bowl of noodles with a squirt of Heinz and a sprinkle of Kraft Parmesan is somehow oddly comforting!  Just goes to prove that taste and perspective is all in what you were raised with!