In honoring RBG after her passing, clips were shown of her sharing the advice she was given on her wedding day: “In every good marriage,” Ginsburg’s mother-in-law said, “it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.”  This reminded me of the great advice my Grandmother Rose gave me when I got engaged.  In honor of my 25th wedding anniversary this week, I thought I would share her advice and what it’s meant to me.

“Never do in the first year of marriage what you’re not prepared to do for the rest of your life,” she said to me.  Being rather young and naive, it sounded like great advice to me.  But I took it pretty literally.  I thought about the sharing of household duties and decisions about our finances and what precedents I did or did not want to set.  It was all very practical and, I can admit now, rather defensive.  I looked at everything through the lens of what I did not want to get stuck doing or be expected to do from then on. Luckily my husband is a pretty easy going guy and knew it was important to me to keep my independence, especially as I was freaked out about giving up my aspects of my identity in moving to California.

But now 25 years in, I am older, and hopefully wiser, and think just as much about that advice, but from a very different perspective.  Rather than thinking about what I should not do in that first year, I think about what I should keep doing that I did do in that first year.  The mindset of young lovers is a beautiful thing. When we’re fresh in a relationship and falling in love, we tend to give each other the benefit of the doubt, we express our love frequently and delight in the words of the other person and enjoy how we make them happy.  We stay in the moment and don’t throw our history of complaints at them (ok, mostly because we don’t have many) or stay bitter.  We see the best in each other and project that lovely image forward to a lifetime of respected, adoring, and empathic partnership.

Like everyone blessed to reach this milestone, my husband and I have been through a lot together; births, deaths, illness,  fires, professional ups and downs, and financial challenges.  But looking back, it isn’t the magnanimous gestures that I most appreciate, but the little ways we were there for eachother; the steady, trustworthy, reliable voice at the end of the day that said through actions and listening far more than any words that we are loved and valued.  

And to my beloved groom, I still want to make you happy, I still envision our future together, and respect your opinion immensely about most everything.  I want you to live your dreams and know that you feel cherished.  I feel so blessed at all you have taught me and the partnership and family we have created and nurtured together.  And yes, we argue over the same topics and get annoyed at the same pet peeves with one another, but the stability of knowing we can disagree andbe angry, we can say things we regret and forget to do what we promised, but have the faith in our commitment that we are going to say we are sorry and not just say we will do better, but mean it.

And for me, at our 25th anniversary with all of the history together behind us, I look forward to a renewed commitment each year of my grandmother’s wise words:  We will do for each other what we did in our first year of marriage for the rest of our lives.

Funny note, we were finally going to do the honeymoon we never had and go to Greece this week.  That fell through due to the pandemic.  We thought we would play it safe and so we booked a night at a local spa with a mineral pool for soaking.  That just got canceled due to wildfire evacuations.  Such is 2020!  Hopefully we can celebrate it all for our 26th!

Like many people this past week, I’ve been grieving the loss of the Notorious RBG.  As with the passing of many of our great leaders, it gives us a chance to have perspective on their life’s accomplishments and how this will translate to a future legacy.  But somehow for me the passing of RBG feels so personal,  like I have lost someone so dear to me, even though I never met her.  This got me thinking about the role of role models, and how even in my 50’s it helps to have someone to look up to.

Role models, as defined by the  Center for Parenting Education are people who influence others by serving as examples.  They are often admired by people who try to emulate them.  “Through their perceived qualities, behaviors, or achievements, they can inspire others to strive and develop without providing any direct instruction.”  I certainly greatly admire Justice Ginsberg, as her work on behalf of equality was brilliant, persistent, and took great skill and courage.  She emulates many of the values that I hold dear such as showing strength without sacrificing kindness, appreciating the power of words to express and influence, and carefully crafting her dissents to stand against a majority when she felt it was right.  She valued relationships and humor, her actions often embodying her quote “you can disagree without being disagreeable.”

But there is also something personal for me in my connection to Justice Ginsberg.  She felt familiar.  Like her, my grandmother Rose and my mother, Irma, were Jewish girls raised in the synagogues and libraries of Brooklyn.  Her sense of style and decorum, intellectual discourse, and dedication to service reflect the strength of the women who raised me and who made it possible for me to pursue my goals.  I was lucky to be surrounded by these influences and somehow, when Justice Ginsberg evolved into the cultural icon of RBG, it felt like validation.  It gave me hope to see the love, by young women as well as older women, for the ideals and intellectual prowess Justice Ginsberg demonstrated.  With so many reality stars and pop culture celebrities dominating the media, the celebration of the life and accomplishments of Justice Ginsberg as the “elder stateswoman of feminism” (according to the NY Times) felt like a breath of fresh air and a renewed commitment to the values of justice for all and a fight against oppression.  Seeing her face on t-shirts and tote bags, and even on the cup I use to drink my coffee, gave me a sense of pride in us as a society that we valued her values.

We all need to feel this sense of connection to people who look like us and sound like us that are celebrated as a valuable part of our society.  RBG represented this for me and so many women, and for that I am so grateful.  Role models open up a sense of possibility for who we also can become and blaze a trail for how to get there.  In my reflections about my connection to Justice Ginsberg it occurs to me that to find a good role model we need to feel the person is enough like us that we feel a common bond, but different enough from us that we want to learn and grow in their direction.  

As a parent, it’s a big responsibility to make sure that our kids have good role models, whether as teachers, coaches, religious leaders or political leaders.  But we also need to be  keenly aware of how our kids closely watch and imitate what we do, so much more so than what we say.  Our kids will like who we like, approach their problems in the manner we do, and view the world through the lens we provide for them.  As I get older and watch the passing of many wonderful people, I am grateful for their legacy in understanding the importance of not just having a good role model, but in being one.

Thank you for opening so many doors for us, our dear RBG. Your memory will certainly be for a blessing.

I was listening to an interview with a rookie football player (it’s back!!) talking about his experience in training camp trying to fit in with the veterans.  Because they were all wearing covid masks, he found it hard to know when he was being teased or seriously spoken to as the subtle facial cues of his teammates were covered up. This got me thinking about my own struggles in communicating while wearing a mask and feeling grateful that my potential miscommunications with a grocery checker would not result in boldly harm by a very large man trained to hit people.

I tend to be a soft spoken introverted person anyhow, and the mask just seems to add a barrier to friendly chatter I would normally make the effort to do.  I often have to repeat myself, and my corny joke or superficial banter definitely does not feel worth the person’s extra efforts to hear it be repeated.  Voices are muffled, smiles are hidden, and cues we usually can use to see if people are in the mood to talk or if they are receptive to what we are saying are blocked.  Already isolated from socializing, masks, despite their overwhelming public good, can create even more of a feeling of alienation.

Zachary Witkower at the University of British Columbia, an expert on social interactions, states that, “the face is one of the first things we use to assess those around us…and guide our social interactions.  Because masks obscure so much of the face, the ways in which we typically process social information is greatly disrupted.”  David Matsumoto, a psychology professor at San Francisco State University says we lose our social smile when we wear masks, as it only engages the corners of the mouth, compared to a “Duchenne “ smile that reaches the eyes and lights up the face (also known as smizing, smiling with your eyes).  He also notes that masks can hide other facial expressions that can communicate emotions like disdain or discomfort which is critical for effective human interactions.  Masks also damper the sounds and vocal inflections in our speech that can convey important aspects of intent or attitude, especially for those with hearing issues.

Experts suggest ways to compensate so that we can be understood and convey what we need to express.  Exaggerating is an important tool, such as using more pointed eye contact and turning your head to directly face someone.  Eyebrows also can express a great deal as well.  They can furrow, change angles, height and shape, all communicating a range of emotions from fear, disgust, anger and surprise.  You can also use gestures like waving, nodding and being conscious your body is an open position rather than having arms crossed and fists clenched (unless you want to intimidate someone for that last roll of toilet paper.)  

Millions of women around the world wear face veils in the form of burkas or niqabs. A woman from Saudi Arabia, Al Zayer, describes being more attentive to eye contact, tone of voice, and listening more carefully.  She says while it isn’t hard, it definitely requires more effort. On a positive note, there is more of a tendency to laugh out loud and say what you are thinking rather than just listening and nodding.

While masks literally put another layer of boundaries between us, by wearing them, we also have a common experience and shared purpose. And for those of us who love to accessorize, we can think of it as another opportunity for fashion!  Or a way to express your opinions and preferences on a personal facial billboard.  We are definitely in this together and wearing a mask is one of the few things we can all do to decrease virus transmission.  While we all hate wearing them, we can at least interpret it as an act of love for one another. So each time I have to put on my mask, I’m also going to do my best to put on a smize and think of my facemask as the modern equivalent of a victory garden!

“I’m so bored!”  That seems to be a common echo in this time of lockdown and the sameness of every day, when there is nowhere to go and seemingly nothing to do.  But while boredom seems to be about nothingness, in psychological worlds, boredom is becoming an increasingly interesting topic with there being more to boredom than one would assume.  The fact is, that underneath its banal surface, when you are bored, there is actually a lot going on!  Understanding your ennui may be a tool to better coping.

The very idea of boredom is a modern concept, ironically arising as the amount of stimulation has increased exponentially.  As Luke Fernandez and Susan Matt examine boredom, the word did not appear in the lexicon until the mid 19th century.  “Before that, tedium was an expected part of life.”  It is only with the rise of consumer culture, they surmise, that people were promised constant excitement.  So when you don’t feel stimulated, you feel something is wrong or that you’re missing out.  It leaves you in a restless state of desire to do something or experience something more.

Really, though, the problem is not with the boredom, but what we do with it.  Often people seek immediate relief through quick fixes, such as drinking or calling an ex rather than be left with their own thoughts.  When we’re bored, we’re more likely to become internally focused in a negative, ruminative cycle.  People will go to pretty extreme lengths to avoid these feelings.  Consider this.  In one experiment, researchers asked a group of people to spend just 15 minutes in a room and instructed them to entertain themselves with their own thoughts.  They were also given an opportunity to self-administer a negative stimulus in the form of a small electric shock.  Amazingly, 67% of men and 25% of women found being alone with their own thoughts so unpleasant that they chose physical discomfort over emotional discomfort!  

Often in therapy, when someone is bored, we might look for how they are pulling back from some unpleasant thoughts, feelings, or memories.  When we therapists find ourselves bored in a session with a client, we use this inner feeling as a tool to tell us that someone is distancing from their own inner experience.  In this way, boredom can be a useful experience to tell us where our healing needs to be directed.  

Now apply this to the pandemic.  Cooped up in our homes, we’ve been stripped of our everyday structures and routines.  Many of the activities we engaged in that brought us meaning are taken away.  We’re left with more time to think and more awareness of our own inner experience.  Couple this with the worry, sadness, and anger that we may feel given the circumstances of so much death, loss, economic hardship and political conflict and no wonder we do not want to be left alone with our thoughts!  We feel bored and cranky, looking for some kind of relief.

Rather than fighting boredom with a rapid need to run away and preoccupy ourselves with anything (like eating or watching the latest 100 tik tok videos), try to use the sense of boredom as a messenger.  We may be needing some support or help in finding peace within ourselves.  Researchers suggest that when we feel bored, it’s helpful to  try to find a more meaningful way to engage with the world.  For example, while not being able to do anything may be unpleasant, reminding yourself that we are all doing this to save lives and be healthy will help you tolerate your feelings.  Meaning seems to be the healthy antidote to boredom.  Look to activities that give you a sense of purpose, such as calling someone you care about, sorting through old pictures, or even directing your thoughts to creative thinking or happy memories.  Create a path to re-engage with the world that feels positive.  

Mindfulness is a great tool to learn to calm your inner mind and find a way to be at peace with your thoughts and feelings. There are great Apps such as Insight Timer and Calm that you can get for free that can help guide you through the process of using mindfulness tools to tolerate inner thoughts and therefore avoid running from them.  Rather than an unpleasant feeling, boredom can become an invitation to engage more deeply with yourself and the world.  With so much to stress about and more time to do it in, we have to watch for the ways we might be harming ourselves through distraction without even realizing it. It may not be an electric shock, but shopping online for another not really needed kitchen gadget may just be my own cry for help!

Quite often I hear people, including myself, refer to doing something relaxing or just for fun as “being bad.”  New research out of the University of Zurich may be just the thing we need to hear.  It turns out that it’s actually really good for us to be hedonistic at times, and that the better you are at it, the more it helps!

We all tend to think that self control is the key to well being, as it allows us to sacrifice short term pleasure to reach long term goals, such as getting in shape, saving up money to travel, etc, all things that lead to feeling happy.  And those of us who are good at this often feel guilty when we hang out on the couch to watch a movie or just sit out in the yard to read a book.  We ruin our fun by telling ourselves that we “should be productive” and we judge ourselves for being slackers.  It turns out, though, that the ability to let ourselves enjoy the down time is just as important to happiness as reaching long term goals.  In fact, this new research shows that enjoying short term pleasurable activities that don’t lead to long term goals contributes at least as much to a happy life as self control.  The trick is being able to let ourselves really enjoy it!

Researchers Bernecker and Becker found that certain people get distracted by intrusive thoughts in moments of relaxation or enjoyment by thinking of things they should be doing (sound familiar inner task master in my head?).  “Those thoughts about conflicting long term goals undermine the immediate need to relax.”  But those people who can fully enjoy themselves in relaxing situations tend to have a higher sense of well being in general, not only in the short term, but are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.  “The pursuit of hedonic and long term goals needn’t be in conflict with one another,” Bernecker writes.  “Our research shows that both are important and can complement each other in achieving well being and good health.  It is important to find the right balance in everyday life.”

With so many of us working at home right now it can be even more difficult to allow ourselves to relax.  With the boundary between work and home much more blurred, it’s harder to keep work and down time separate.  For me, this research is a big motivator and a “Get Out of Jail” card.  Not only does it give me permission to relax when I can, but prescribes that I not allow myself to feel guilty about it!  The article’s authors suggest much more needs to be known about the role of pleasure in well being. So, when you finish reading this, my suggestion is to do your own research on hedonism.   Go out and have some fun, and don’t let yourself get distracted by your inner critic.  Remember, to really have a healthy happy life, you need to be good at “being bad.”

The eulogies in Representative John Lewis’s funeral honored his great legacy of standing up for justice and getting into “good trouble.”  Mom’s are donning helmets and dad’s their leaf blowers to become protesters.  And professional athletes are locking arms and kneeing in solidarity.  As we witness the movement, how can we not be inspired by the large numbers of people taking risks to make their voices heard to speak out for what they believe in?  We know it’s not easy and for some people in some situations it can be downright dangerous.  But asserting our boundaries and speaking up for our self is one of the most important things we need to do, and yet, it remains one of the most universal challenges that people face.

Often our beliefs and behaviors around how we communicate emerge from how we are taught and treated in childhood.  Gender bias and cultural expectations also play a big role in what we feel we are permitted to say and how we are supported or shut down when we speak up.  Much of the work I love to do with people is helping them find their voice.  It can take time for people to feel safe enough to find the words of what they want to say, even within themselves.  Often therapy involves giving one’s self permission to express the truth of our experience and become aware of the harmful restrictions we’ve endured to our personal  values, needs, and wishes.  And the next step involves summoning the courage to face the disapproval, if not full rejection, that inevitably comes with expressing what has been forbidden.

Speaking up can often “upset the system.”  Whether it’s a strong family dynamic, a workplace culture, or a societal norm, there will be a cost to going against the status quo and advocating for change.  And one important thing I’ve learned in supporting people and in taking the risk myself, is to do your best to be the highest version of yourself when you do.  Often when we’re in difficult interpersonal situations, we’re highly stressed, which leads us to become defensive or bitter.  We flood with emotions and our clarity and moral center get out of balance.  Staying in touch with  our authentic truth and with the love behind our desire for transformation helps us to keep our strength. 

It’s also important to prepare by knowing your audience.  Before speaking up, create a plan.  Ask yourself what’s the outcome that’s desired and what is the range of responses you can expect.  Rehearse your plan if possible with someone you trust.  You have options for how and what gets communicated. Be aware of the power dynamics and assess the risks you are willing to take.  How does this person or system treat people who speak their mind?  What consequences are at stake?  Are their others who can join in with you?

While there will be consequences for speaking up, ranging from not being liked by someone to being attacked by a force that could overwhelm you, there is also a cost for not speaking up.  If we live in fear and repress our resistance, there can be psychological and physical health effects.  Living a disempowered life can be extremely stressful and studies show it can lead to heart disease and autoimmune disorders, as well as depression and anxiety.  Acting in ways to advocate for a higher purpose gives our lives meaning and satisfaction.  And it is the only way to facilitate change.

One of the most essential features in finding your voice is to have someone who cares enough to listen, even if they don’t necessarily agree.  Representative Lewis talked about the importance of Dr. King as his mentor.  The mom’s link arms with one another to form their wall and the professional athletes have each other’s backs (at least now).   If you don’t have a close ally, I can’t stress enough how important it is to find one.  Often the first step is finding just one person you can share your truth with.  Sometimes it may be a therapist, like me, or another member in a support group.  Over time your courage will grow as well as your desire.  Because once you feel the power in speaking your truth, it becomes an important factor in all your relationships, most importantly your relationship with yourself.  No change ever was able to happen without people envisioning it first, asking for it to happen, and then taking the bold steps to ensure it.  It’s so easy to take for granted that for every freedom we enjoy, at some point in our history,  someone took a risk to assert it, even at the greatest of cost.

“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” Lewis, in Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

There’s nothing that makes me feel old like seeing the look in my daughters’ eyes (even though they try to hide it) when I ask them for help with my computer.  And with my work schedule switching from a fairly long commute to absolutely no commute, the extra time I thought I’d have is now used trying to connect to WiFi, unfreeze my remote computer access, or find an email with the right link to the right meeting.  My struggle with technology makes me feel embarrassed, clueless, and down right like a stressed out idiot.  Turns out, though, I’m not alone, and if you’re relating to what I’m saying, there’s a term for it.  According to Fast Company’s computer experts, it is called “technostress,” a condition they wrote about even before the pandemic.  And in this unprecedented stay at home time, it’s only gotten worse with our complete dependence on our phones and computers for connection.

Part of what stresses me out is how absolutely vital technology has become.  The good news, truly, is that I can continue to do my work, stay connected to my staff, and talk with family and friends.  I’m continuing in my book club and even going to religious services all from my home!  But the privilege of all of this connectivity is a constant layer of stress on all of us.  And the more important the meeting, interview, or communication, the more stressed we become.  Technostress is defined as the “negative stress and psychological symptoms directly related to the use and adoption of new technologies.”  The term was first used by Craig Brod in 1984 with the widespread adoption of computers in the workplace.  Research shows our frustration has only grown as our dependence on technology has greatly increased and spread throughout both our personal and professional lives.

Technostress isn’t just about using specific tools or kinds of technology, it also refers to our relationship with technology.  For one thing it blurs the boundaries between work and home life, not just in location, but also in our time.  And the speed of communication also ramps up.  We have constant emails backing up or we may worry about it, constantly checking.  And then there is the learning curve of how to use all the tools that are supposed to make life easier.  And there is little help, except for reading instructions that leave us more confused.  Every new tool I use has so many features and functions, I find I tune out and just want to use the basics.  The constant insecurity I feel is wearing.  I wait for emails that have links, stress when the link won’t open, and panic when they can see me but can’t hear me, or I can hear them but they can’t see me, and all the variations of things that go wrong.  

Studies show technostress can cause a wide variety of symptoms to look out for such as headaches, hypertension, back aches, and other physical symptoms.  People can develop mental fatigue and burn out, as well as a feeling of helplessness and low morale.  It can also cause emotional symptoms like panic/anxiety, feelings of isolation, irritability, reduced satisfaction, and an increased sense of pressure and overwhelm.  Sounds about right.

So what can we do?  First of all, give yourself a break.  Who knew we would all be shut in at home and having to make this shift to a new way of living so all of a sudden?.  Some of us are just not computer types of people.  I went into psychology to engage in conversations that were intimate and personal.  I try to remind myself that it’s ok to struggle with the technology and my ignorance does not reflect my competence in my work or my intelligence.  Next, and this is a tough one, you need to ask for help.  No doubt, we have to admit when we’re having trouble.  Sometimes I get lucky and make it work on my own,  but more often I may stare at the computer for hours getting nowhere without someone to help troubleshoot.  Finding someone with the patience and knowledge is a life line.  Also, use technology when it’s most important and necessary, and then take breaks.  Get away from a screen, meet someone in person for a socially distant chat, or if you can’t avoid technology, ask to use the medium you are most comfortable with whenever possible.  

Ironically, technology is supposed to be about making our lives easier.  And used in balance and when seen as a tool rather than a torture, it can be of great benefit.  For me, personally, I have to stop thinking of it as out to get me and remind myself that it’s just metal, plastic, and wires and has no personal desire to make my life miserable. In fact, at times these very tools can bring me a lot of joy and facilitate keeping my life going.  For the truth is, without my crossword puzzle app or online shopping, just where would I be these past four months?

Remember the marshmallow test?  It was developed by Walter Mischel at Stanford University and was made even more famous by Daniel Goleman in his book, Emotional Intelligence.  In this experiment, preschoolers were offered the opportunity to have one marshmallow right away or wait 15 minutes and receive two marshmallows, in other words, delay gratification.  What Mischel found (and has been repeatedly replicated) was that the children who could use strategies such as counting, pacing, or talking to themselves in order to resist the immediate temptation for a future greater reward had higher success as measured by better grades and increased self confidence years later. 

Recently, another group of researchers repeated the marshmallow test with a twist.  In the ‘solo” condition a child was given a cookie and told if they could wait to eat it, they would be given another cookie, essentially the same experiment as the marshmallow test.  But in the “interdependent condition,” two children in separate rooms were given cookies and told if they both successfully waited to eat it, both would get a second cookie.  What they found was that significantly more children delayed gratification in the interdependence condition than in the solo condition, even though the children did not even know each other.  The authors who published their findings in Psychological Science concluded this as evidence that the children had a sense of social obligation to others at a young age and that children are “more willing to delay gratification for cooperative goals than for individual goals.”  Co author Rebecca Koonan noted the children felt they “shouldn’t let their partner down.”

So now the pre-schoolers grow up and are adults with years of being encouraged to think about what “I” want or what is good for the people “I” love.  They don’t like being told what to do and in fact will become defensive and argumentative even if what they’re doing is self destructive or potentially harmful to others. Prolonged behavior change, in fact, is very difficult to achieve by simply telling someone they need to change.  That’s why NYU psychologist and leading researcher, Jay Van Bavel, in his paper combining the work of 41 experts in such fields as economics, psychology, and sociology regarding handling the response to the COVID-19 virus suggests a social modeling strategy over a directed appeal.  He writes, “If we’re asking people to behave in an altruistic or pro-social way, it helps to show a respected member of their social group modeling that behavior and to highlight the prospect of receiving approval from others in their social group.”

But in order to be persuaded or influenced by a group, we first must feel a sense of belonging to the group.  Somewhere between the preschooler wanting his unknown partner to have a cookie and our decisions not to wear masks and social distance, we have lost a connection to and a trust in what Damon Linker, columnist for The Week.com, refers to as the “social whole.” He writes:  “We resent being told what to do.  If wearing a mask is unpleasant, we don’t want to be forced to do it.  In fact, a governing authority – or really, anyone, even fellow customers at a grocery store – reprimanding us for failing to do our part for public health is enough to make us dig in our heals and stubbornly refuse to go along.”  Our connections to a “social whole” have faded into an us versus them mentality.  

It’s no wonder Americans are experiencing high rates of stress, anxiety and depression during this pandemic.  We don’t know who is “on our side” when we enter the public arena.  We wonder what the best course of action is and how the behavior of others will affect us.  This is a lonely experience.  Researchers in China found low levels of mental health problems among returning workers compared to high rates in America.  The reason for the lower levels of stress was the confidence the Chinese workers had that prevention measures would be strictly upheld.   What we gain in individual freedom, we lose in cooperation and trust.  What feels good in the moment of doing as we please, in the long run leaves us in vulnerable isolation.  

The truth is, we need each other.  We certainly do better when we work together than when we have to act alone. We are happier, more resilient, and have a sense of purpose when we feel connected.  To confront the societal problems we face, we will need to establish a feeling of a social whole, to act in the common good, not just for “our side.”   We will have to give up doing what “I’ want in order to support this larger community.  Certainly by delaying our own personal gratification, we can move to a more successful collective good for many.  Indeed, what we can learn from a pre-schooler is the power of social cooperation, not just with someone you know, but with a someone in the other room who might just also want a cookie.  

My daughter graduated from college this past weekend (celebrating virtually, of course).  As a proud parent I’m so impressed with how hard she worked, how much she gained in both academic and personal knowledge, and how much more worldly she is at her age than I was.   Her education was so important in not only building a foundation of knowledge, but in challenging her thought processes and exposing her to new ideas.  It got me thinking about how at the tender age of 21 our formal education generally stops, but how our need for learning is actually lifelong.  Unfortunately as so many of us become comfortable with what we know and enjoy the confidence that  familiarity gives us, we may overlook the potential cost in becoming increasingly closed off to new ideas and inflexible to change.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of experience!  I use it every day in my work and sometimes feel a  bit like a fraud when my interns ask how I know something, thinking I’m so talented,  when it’s just that I’ve seen similar patterns or presentations so many times before.  But I do notice that as I get older I can become a bit complacent and set in my ways.  (Which, ironically, is actually part of why older people are happier according to research).  When I listen to young people challenge the status quo and question why things are as they have been, it’s a wake up call.  When I go to a protest organized by young people, it shakes up my acceptance of how things have to be. Inexperience has its advantages.  There is a freshness of opinion and a willingness to try something new.   There is definitely a trade off in having to tolerate discomfort when you are open to change, and I ask myself about this unease.  Change is scary.  Change brings uncertainty, and with change is the very good chance that you may be left behind or, worse yet, dismissed, or rejected.  

This last month has been a big lesson for me in the downsides of comfort, as I wonder how much my own comfort with how things have been stands in the way of someone else’s need for change.  As I look at so many of our leaders in Congress holding on to their seats well into their 80’s (but not you RBG!!), it does give me concern for how hard it is to change things when our leaders are so comfortable in their power and the style and leadership that keeps them there.  If ever there was a time to embrace the youthful vision of possibility and marry it with the wisdom of experience, it is now.  But in order to do so we must ask ourselves what are we afraid of?  Rather than shutting down the hope of change, we must support its energy and guide its direction.  We must look fear in the face and be willing to give up some of our certainty and with it, some of our authority.  As a society, we must start to share the load of vulnerability.  Equality doesn’t mean all of us being the same, it means a shared ownership of power and its flip side, a leveling of the burdens that must be carried.

As I lift my glass to toast this year’s graduates and see the beauty of their visions for how they would like the world to be, I am pained with its contrast to the world we have handed them.  But I am also inspired with their ingenuity and passion.  With the climate changing, with the country divided, with inequality rising steadily, they are not comfortable, thank God.  Now, if the rest of us can allow ourselves to give up a bit of control, us old dogs may just learn a few new desperately needed tricks that might make our world a better place, despite us..

To be honest, I’ve been speechless this week.  Despite thinking for days about what I might have to say in the midst of what is happening in our country, I sat at my computer with a complete loss for words.  The same thing happened in my work meetings when we tried to support each other.  All I could find to say was “how very awful” it was and “how sorry I am” and how “profound the grief is.” At first I thought it was just about the pain.  What does one say in witnessing George Floyd on the ground, grasping for his last breath. Or in imagining being hunted and shot like an animal, as was Ahmaud Arbery, the last words he heard being a racial slur?  The pain of these truths of injustice is so deep and so difficult to tolerate.  Yet I am a psychologist, and one who works with trauma, no less.  I am trained to talk about emotional pain.  The meaning I find in my work is in this very act of putting words to the darkness one feels from traumatic pain in a process that promotes personal agency and awareness.  So why was this pain any different?  Why was I struggling to find anything of use to say?

In thinking about how to work with this, I went to another therapy technique.  When someone is so overwhelmed by a trauma that they cannot talk about it, we address this by first  “talking about the talking about.”  We explore with them what feelings come up in just the idea of talking about the trauma.  What fears do they have, shame they might be carrying, or guilt?  What must be worked through before they can move forward?  There are many layers to what can silence someone from opening a lid on a box filled with pain.  So I sat with this.  For a while.  And what emerged for me was a real sense of anxiety in not knowing the right thing to say.  As a person with white privilege I am afraid of saying or doing something that will be seen as wrong, hurtful, or even worse, assuming I know something I don’t know.  I am keenly aware of being caught in a dilemma between speaking as if I can understand something I cannot possibly understand and the fear of being silent, which is even worse.  So I say little, try to listen a lot, all the while feeling badly because I know that I am not doing enough.

Fortunately, in trying to understand what is going on for me, I came across an interview with a woman named Robin D’Angelo who is a diversity trainer and author of a book called White Fragility:  Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.  Her words rang true for me, even if it was humbling.  She states “Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we either are unaware or can never admit to ourselves, we (white people) become highly fragile in conversations around race.  We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge to our very identities as good moral people.  Thus we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as an unsettling and unfair moral offense.  The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable.”

Yup.  That about sums it up.  I try not to be a racist, I try to be aware of my biases, knowing, however, I can’t help being racist as a white person raised in a culture and society that is racist.  But it hurts to think that I am a part of the system that continues to oppress.  That I and my family benefit from the effects of one race dominating over all the others.  For the truth of it is, the very white privilege I have has allowed me to avoid the racial stress, thinking my empathy and good intentions at trying to be kind to everyone are enough.  Or that expressing outrage every time there is a victim or an incident that is brought to my attention is enough, all the while having the privilege to move on and go about my life until the next news cycle.

The good news?  The book by Robin D’Angelo is back ordered; enough of us white people want to understand and are willing to read a book entitled White Fragility, or a novel The Vanishing Half by black author Brit Bennett, or How to Be An Antiracist by IbramX Kendi, and the picture book I am Enough. As of last Wednesday (today is Friday as I write this) 15 of the top 20 best selling books on Amazon are about race, racism, and white supremacy in the US.  

We are a traumatized nation.  In grieving both a viral pandemic and a racial pandemic, openings are being created to become aware of injustice and to express it.  There will be a backlash, as we see, not just politically, but within ourselves.  It is up to each of us to take the steps to not only read the books, but to follow through on supporting change in our societal structures.  But for me personally, this week has been a sorrowed recognition of my own discomfort and avoidance.  I’ve awakened to the fact that I can’t do anything until I can first tolerate the awareness of racial inequality (and how I benefit from it) and find the language to talk about it.  I will need to be vulnerable enough to take ownership of it rather than thinking it’s about other people. For me, this will be a needed first step and one that I no longer want the luxury of not taking.