This past week was the Jewish New Year, a time when we’re encouraged to reflect on our lives and make reparations for the things we regret, especially with important people in our lives.  I was thinking a lot about how powerful relationships are and with this, how much responsibility there is when we hold this power with someone.  Some types of power come in the form of appointed positions of authority, perhaps as a boss, teacher, or leader of an organization.  Other types of relational power come simply from being loved by someone, as parents, partners, friends, or sister-in-laws, even.  Our opinions and the way we use our power really matters and our words can be extremely impactful.  Often we’re so focused on how others are treating us, that we miss the influence we do have, or could have, on someone in our lives.  

In thinking about the potential that comes with this power, I am reminded of something I read about Nelson Mandela.  He was the son of a tribal chief, and recalled two important lessons from watching his father at tribal meetings. First they would always sit in a circle.  Second, his father was always the last to speak.  To be an effective leader, Mandela came to understand, you must gather the opinions and ideas of all involved, making sure that everyone has been heard and contributes.  While listening, you only ask clarifying questions to better understand.  This, he explains, creates an environment where everyone feels valued, and the leader benefits from the ideas of the group without influencing them with his authority.  If the leader speaks first, he might silence someone from sharing information or an important perspective, even a dissenting one.

Whether as a boss or a loving partner, our approval and opinions really have great influence.  We need to be aware of how our critical opinions can hurt or even shame someone, and how our support, encouragement, or acknowledgment can bring joy.  Even the simple act of noticing someone’s efforts, especially in the mundane routines of our daily lives, can have great effect.  Being thanked for our work, asked for our ideas, being given the benefit of the doubt for our intention even if we made a mistake, or being appreciated for our uniqueness by someone we respect and care for can shape our self image and give us resilience against the many challenges we face.

As Mandela learned from his father, by holding our tongues, especially when we have the authority to speak, we can often be most effective in our relationships.   This year, I am going to work to be more aware of this vulnerability with both my staff at work and with my loved ones at home.  I will remember the difference between choosing carefully to be the last to speak and forcefully needing to have the last word.  One is a loving focus on listening, the other, a selfish tactic to impose our authority.   It is an honor when someone depends on me and even a higher honor to be blessed with their love.  I must hold this as a precious gift, delicate and in need of great care.  Power may be appointed, but trust must be earned.

This past month we’ve been inundated with images of hurricane damage that’s left so many people with demolished homes and the loss of all their belongings.  We can feel the overwhelm, even while sitting safely in our homes miles and miles from the devastation.  Our hearts are so moved as we watch, because even if we’ve never even experienced a hurricane before, we all know what it’s like to face a loss or a crisis that knocks us off our feet and leaves us feeling like we’ll never be able to get up again.  Sometimes the situation hits quickly, like the forceful winds, and sometimes it’s like the flooding, a slow build up over time, layering its impact little by little.  But what is common is the feeling of paralysis, that our life as we knew it has been so lost, we have no idea how to find a way back.

This situation is what brings a lot of people into the clinic where I work.  But even then, in telling their stories, people have little hope that anything can be of help.  It’s usually a friend or a loved one who sends them to us, because they’re worried about the person’s depression or have been worn down by helplessly watching a person they care about suffer.  I must admit, in the face of some tragedies, I, too, feel an initial panic of how to help someone in what seems like an impossible situation.  I can so empathize with the lack of control they experience, that it seems hard to imagine any way out.  

But then I remind myself we don’t have to deal with everything at once.  And just because we FEEL a complete loss of control, there are still things we can indeed control.  (I remind myself of the wise writer and neurologist Victor Frankl, and how he kept his sense of personal freedom while a prisoner in a concentration camp).  Starting with the simplest of things, as tiny or as insignificant as it may seem, we can always find one thing we can do.  “But that is so very little,” people say, and I encourage them not worry about it, and just do the little thing they can.  For the point I know from my training and experience is, it’s not the thing you do that matters.  It’s the fact that you did something.  And this small thing will give you the confidence to do one more small thing and then maybe another, until the momentum picks up and you feel a little more in control again.

With some people it helps to actually make lists.  I have two columns, one with “Things I CAN”T Control” and one with “Things I CAN Control.”  I ask them to start thinking of what goes in each category.  At first the “Can’t” list fills up quickly, with items big and daunting.  But then they think of a few very little things that go on the “CAN” control list, such as what they eat or who they talk to.  As this list develops, the next step is to make it concrete.  What exactly will you you eat, or who in particular will you call to talk with.  I ask them to just pick one thing and go ahead and do it.  Even with the simplest of activities, such as taking a shower, borrowing someone’s car, or going to the library, a path is created that moves someone forward and life begins to be lived again.

It really rings true that every journey begins with a small step.  And after a while of doing a very small thing after a very small thing, you can start to see a difference between where you have been and where you are now.  Of course there are setbacks and bad days, and life will never be the same as it was before the loss, but the sense of agency can return and with it a vision for a new way of being in the world.  As one person I worked with told me, when she felt her life was crashing around her, “my “I CAN” list is my escape route.”

Victor Frankl quotes:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

My older daughter went back for her Sophomore year of college and somehow I thought her leaving would be easier the second time around.  We’ve definitely learned some lessons (like scheduling more frequent visits, using Amazon prime to send her things quickly, and coordinating conversations in the different time zones) and we’ve gained the confidence of knowing that we can still be close, even if we’re far away. Having gone through it before, though, I’m frustrated that it’s still is as hard as it is. We always hope to learn from experience, so why is it that even when we’ve been through things before, we struggle?  So, I thought this would be a good week to reflect on “second time arounds” to help me better manage this second year.

When you do something for the first time, you go in with expectations, but when you do something the second time around, you go in with a set of real consequences from your first effort.  In some cases your experience was really good, and yet, it can make the second time harder.  Most novelists will tell you, the hardest novel to write is the one after their first successful one.  They agonize with self doubt and the pressure of having to create another success or be an “imposter.”  And if the first effort ended in “failure,” the second time around is filled with the burden of the baggage of disappointment, perhaps with a touch of resentment.  Second marriages actually have a 17% higher divorce rate than first marriages, and third marriages are 23% more likely than firsts to end in divorce.

In reviewing the literature on creating sustained success, or rebounding from hardship, a critical component is self honesty and awareness.  You can only learn from things if you are honest about what brought you to where you are.  It is crucial to take ownership for what you did that worked well (you are talented, you are forgiving) and what you need to improve (having more discipline or not being as reactive).  People often fear “failure” or making mistakes because they equate the failed experience with BEING a failure.  Our culture does not give much room for learning from mistakes.  In order to take advantage of our experience, we must take responsibility for ourselves.  Some people feel that if they agree to change, this means there is something wrong with them.  In order to protect our egos, we then look to external circumstances or what others did in a blaming way.  It’s often more comfortable to list everything wrong with an ex-spouse than admit we could have listened earlier on to what she or he was unhappy about.

Another critical step to sustained success or overcoming a setback is feedback.  We are often blind to our own selves, even if we are trying to be honest.  Even though it may be extremely painful, being open to the opinions, even criticisms of others, especially if it is a repeated theme, is a key to getting out of a trap of repeated patterns.  Getting other people’s perspectives can be really helpful and give us fresh eyes to a situation.  Identifying what went wrong as well as  what went right are both critical things to know.  What can you bring to your second effort that brought you success in your first?  Where might things have gone awry?  What would you do differently and what would you do again?  Sometimes we need other people to give us advice, new skills or just help us be accountable.

Most often I notice that when people look back to get perspective on a situation they’ve experienced, they get a much broader perspective.  Our minds tend to want to view experiences in all or nothing terms, such as “it was a complete disaster” or “it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” which rarely is ever true.  Life breaks down into smaller moments and thousands and thousands of little decisions, opportunities, and choices.  It was really never one action, one person, or one event that sums it all up.  Life is complex and always in a state of change.  Keeping open to what we can learn and letting go of how things went in the past is liberating as well as empowering.

So in thinking about second times around, I feel a bit lighter.  Because in fact, we never really do anything twice.   If we are learning from the past and staying open to the present, we can create a very different future.  This year, I may miss my daughter even more than I did last year, but I can also stay open to creating a new relationship with my bittersweet feelings regarding her growing up.  She is wiser, I am stronger, and we are definitely going to have a great time when I visit her in November since now she now knows all the fun things to do!  Experience tells her that Insomnia Cookies delivers warm snickerdoodles until 3 am!

Today, across the United States, many of us will be treated to a grand sense of awe as we watch the unique experience of a Solar Eclipse.  Masses of people will have traveled hundreds of miles and paid high prices for hotels, all to experience the sense of awe and wonder of such a rare experience.  

When the moon is perfectly aligned in front of the sun, we experience totality, a brief period of darkness created by the moon’s shadow.  It’s not that the sun and moon have changed in orbit in any way, it is simply a phenomena of the relationship of the sun and moon in the sky creating a rare alignment available from a particular perspective on Earth (the band of totality).

This rare alignment inspired me to think about this on a more everyday scale.  If we stop and think about it, we have the opportunity for moments of awe almost every day if we just notice them.  For example, just yesterday I saw a beautiful fox run across our property at sunset.  Last week, I helped an older woman who had fallen on the street and was on the ground as I happened to walk by.  I met my husband in Austin Texas at a wedding we were both attending from opposite sides of the country.  All of these experiences happened because of a unique timing, a special alignment of relationship.

So as we look to the sky today in awe of the Solar Eclipse, let’s also look around us each and every day for the beauty of synchronicity.  These rare moments not only can bring joy to our lives, but also have the potential to change the meaning or direction of our lives in profound ways.  And an added bonus,  we don’t even have to wear those strange glasses to see them.

Ok, let me just start this post by making it clear I LOVE my cell phone.  It keeps me connected to my daughter at college and I can send quick messages to people I care about without bothering them.  It frees me up physically and psychologically because I know that my interns from work or my mother’s caregiver can get a hold of me wherever I am, when needed.  I see how it opens up our social worlds and puts information at our fingertips (I never have to buy a map and I always know when my favorite Pottery Barn item is on sale).  But like most of us, I tend to think I ‘m not one of “those people” when it comes to being addicted to my phone.  But I came across a study this week that made me stop and think about the effect of my cell phone.  What really caught my attention was the fact that we are impacted not just when we use our phone, but just by its mere presence,  that I thought was worth sharing and reflecting on in this week’s post.

Having a smartphone nearby, even when turned off, reduces our ability to think and reason, new research from the University of Texas, Austin, concludes.  A team of investigators conducted two studies in which 800 people engaged in tasks with their smartphones placed either nearby and in sight (face down on the table), nearby but out of sight (in their pocket or a bag), or in a separate room.  The researchers found the mere presence of the phone reduced performance, even though the people involved reported they were not thinking about their phone.  As smart phone salience increased, the performance on tests of cognitive capacity decreased.  The interesting thing was that when asked about the frequency of thinking about the phone, the average self report for all groups was “not at all.”  

The researchers then repeated the experimental situation, adding a group for each condition where the phone was actually turned off – the phone was off but in sight, turned off and out of sight, or turned off and in another room.  The results were the same, supporting the linear trend that as your smart phone becomes more noticeable , your available cognitive capacity decreases.  Interestingly, the participants who reported the highest dependence on their smart phone benefitted the most in terms of performance by leaving their phone in another room.

In reflecting on the study, the lead researcher, Dr. Adrian Ward, suggests, “Your conscious mind isn’t thinking about your smart phone, but that process – the process of requiring yourself not to think about something – uses up some of your limited cognitive resources.  It’s a brain drain.”  Professor Larry Rosen, of California State University, author of The Distracted Mind, has also researched the effects of merely having your smart phone nearby, and concludes, “People feel compelled to check their phones.  Even if the phone does not vibrate or they do not get notifications.”  His research confirms that this checking behavior increases anxiety and creates difficulties in processing information.  If you are interrupting your train of thought, it is going to be much  harder to absorb information or think deeply.

So for me, in thinking about my phone habits, I must confess I often have my phone sitting on my desk, and what the research suggests does ring true.  I do tend to check it, each time thinking it is just a brief, harmless pause.  But what I also wonder about is the many times I’m sitting with people I care about at home or in a coffee shop, and my phone is out on the table or in a bag by my side.  What is this doing to our intimacy and our ability to truly listen and understand each other?  It’s so annoying when you see someone’s eyes glance over to their phone or they pick it up to “multitask” while you are talking.   I realize in thinking about this research, that not only is it rude, but that the phone between us is much more than just a phone between us.  Next time, in order to be the kind of friend I want to be, I might just need to leave it in the car.

People often complain about how awful it is to feel guilty.  Ironically, though, I notice that the people who express feelings of guilt the most often are also the people I would say are the most considerate. So when I saw the study I describe in today’s post, it made sense to me, and showed me the upside of guilt.

According to La Trobe University’s (Australia) Matt Treeby and colleagues (2016), the guilt-prone are more aware and more sensitive to the emotional expressions of others. If you’re worried that you’ve hurt someone else, they reason, you’ll be highly attuned to judging people’s emotional states (and whether they’re mad at you) from their faces. People who have the tendency to feel guilty are likely to expend a fair degree of mental energy on concerns about the negative effect their behavior may have had on other people. Guilt, then, has various adaptive qualities in terms of helping you interact with others in a more prosocial fashion. If you’re worried about hurting people, you’ll try to restrain your anger or aggression. Moreover, according to the Australian team, you’ll also stay away from high-risk impulsive or addictive behaviors. Previous research conducted a number of years ago by George Mason University’s June Tangney, showed that people inclined toward guilt were higher in empathy. Not only do the guilt-prone want to gauge accurately the emotions of others, but they also can resonate more closely to the way they’re feeling when they’ve been wronged.

Too much of anything, as we know, is never good, and the same is true about guilt. Excessive guilt is one of the symptoms of depression. And research shows that people who have low self esteem tend to experience more than a healthy dose of guilt, overburdening themselves with the feeling of being bad, not just doing bad (making bad choices). In fact, shame, when someone feels they themselves are bad, was actually found by the Australian team, to make people more self focused rather than sensitive to others. The response of those who experience shame is to reduce the pain of their poor self image by withdrawing or to hiding that they have done anything wrong, rather than tend to the other person and make amends.

Guilt can also lead to trouble if you are prone to feeling guilty for things that are beyond your control or for things you did by accident, without intention. This guilt can not be rectified and therefore lingers, causing helplessness and hurting your esteem. In these cases, it is best to transform your attitude into one of regret rather than guilt. On the other hand, if you can accept responsibility when you have done wrong to someone else and make amends, research shows this actually works to build self esteem.

So, the next time you feel guilty, look at the bright side. It means you are a thoughtful and caring person. Hopefully, you also have the self esteem and maturity to accept responsibility for your behavior and take action. This may require some humility and saying you’re sorry, but you will feel lighter and feel more love in the long run.

My father passed away on June 6th in 2006.  Every June I especially miss him between the anniversary of his passing and Father’s Day.  My Dad was a unique man, a scrappy survivor who had trouble enjoying the fruits of his labor.  There are many things I now wish I could ask my father and I often think of how he would advise me.  My relationship with him is still very active and as I get older, I actually learn more from him, appreciating things about him as I gain more perspective.

My local Rabbi recently reminded me of the saying in Judaism that follows the mentioning of a deceased person.  In Hebrew it is, “Zikhronah livrakha,” meaning, “May his/her memory be for a blessing.”  (You may see the phrase on tombstones in cemeteries).  I have always really liked this ritual, and now that I have several loved ones who have passed, I especially like it.  For me, “May their memory be for a blessing” is an active invitation that is bi-directional.  When we remember someone, it certainly is a way of honoring them.  Each time we think of them, we are blessing the deceased by bringing their life and their love into our presence.  At the same time, I also think “may their memory be a blessing” means we are blessed with their memory.  When I remember my father, I feel blessed with a closeness to him, even if it is painful.  I also remember things he said or would say, knowing who he was and what was important to him.  It helps me remember that I was blessed to have known him.

Every once in awhile I have an intense dream with my sister or my father, or even one of my grandparents, in it.  When I wake, I really do feel blessed that I was in their presence.  I can see their face, hear their voice, and feel the connection.  It saddens me as the closeness fades as I awaken, trying to hold on to the vividness in vain.  But I always feel lucky that they had come to visit me, and that we had some time together.

Rituals are an important part of the lifelong journey of grieving for someone who was important to us who has died.  Whether it is making “Nanny’s cole slaw,” listening to the song that my sister liked at Christmas (thanks to my girls for helping me find it in spotify), or lighting a memorial candle on my Dad’s birthday, the actions are a concrete way of remembering, which is truly a blessing.

Below is a piece I wrote about my Father several years ago.  I had just been laid off when the clinic I was working  for lost funding.  I was longing to ask my Father for advice, as he was someone who knew how to rise up when knocked down.  I include it as a blessing to my Dad.

The Secret Lives of Our Father’s

My favorite piece of what is left of the life of my Father is an item I never knew he even had.  I discovered it in a tiny white box hidden in the back of his armoire, tucked behind several classic pieces of art we made him as children.  It would have been easy to miss it when I was sorting through his belongings after his death, as my Father was a large man, not prone to owning things that were literally so small.  

But inside the box, sitting on top of crumbling old foam, was a small medallion, the kind you pin on your chest, with crossed swords prominently embossed in the metal.  There was also a tightly folded yellowed newspaper article, carefully placed underneath.  “Lefty Lenny Leads Team to City Cup Championship,” the title read.  My Father’s name was Leonard, and I’d known he had fenced, but this article describing his championship was indeed news to me.  It told the story of how my Father not only fenced to win in the tournament, as a Sophomore, but also ran the entire team.  His poorly funded public high school in Brooklyn could not afford a coach, and so rather than give up on the sport, Lefty Lenny led the team, as its captain and its coach, to the New York City Cup victory.

I’d always known my Father was from very humble beginnings, living in a tenement apartment in Brooklyn, the son of a garment salesman, as was the trade of many of the Jewish immigrants at the time.  I was quite familiar with his stories of playing stickball on the stoops of the brownstones because they had no fields to play in, and passing the time with chemistry experiments made up of kitchen ingredients because they couldn’t afford a chemistry set.  I’d heard my Grandmother talk about her sweet sons and all the ways they respectfully made due.  But to me, my Dad had always been a financially successful man who was actually rather argumentative and rough.  He seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder, vigilant to getting what he could.  He showed his love by making sure we had everything he felt we were owed from the world, even if we didn’t want it.

I recall even now with a cringe my Dad negotiating the price of my first car.  “I’m going to wear them down,” he told me, and instructed me explicitly not to say one single word, even threatening me if I showed any hint of actually liking the car.  But wear them down he did.  We sat in the used car office for more than five hours, some of the longest of my young life.  There were loud echoes of his fist slamming on the desk, grunts as he tried to raise his large body up out of the chair in a feigned attempt to march out of the negotiation, and many heated exchanges with the string of chain smoking car sales managers who moved in and out of the office throughout the day.  But my Father had the ultimate upper hand, as the man could not be embarrassed, nor would he ever give up.  Indeed I drove away that evening with a car, an extra tire, and a year’s warranty.  They even bought us lunch.  But the thing I learned that day about my Father was how much it meant to him.  While I was writhing in teenage humiliation and exhausted from the effort, my Father was in his element having won a victory not only for me, but for the underdog and the downtrodden consumers of the world, who, on this one day, would not be cheated out of one extra dime.

My Father was always picking a fight with the world.  Each day and every encounter represented an opportunity to battle injustice.  I once remember on vacation, my Father spending an entire afternoon in his room making repeated phone calls to house cleaning and management because we hadn’t been given the proper amount of towels.  The rest of us were frustrated and at his use of our vacation time for something that seemed so insignificant.  But when the stack of towels finally arrived, he glowed with the pride of a man who had saved us from impending doom.  No matter where we were or what we did, my Father could find the one thing that was lacking.  A complete reversal of gratitude, he glossed over all that was good and zeroed in on acquiring the one thing that could be better.

His motivation had so little to do with materialism and nothing to do with selfishness, however.  In fact, my Father was the most unselfish man I knew.  He drove a beat up old car and wore clothes with holes, while my mother drove a top of the line model and had a closet full of dresses and shoes.  It was part of my Father’s paradoxical nature.  He took such poor care of himself, while forcing the rest of us to settle for nothing less than the best.  Only when I became a mother could I begin to put this characteristic in perspective.  Like so many parents, we treat our children in reaction to the way we were raised.  For my Father, it was providing us with all the things he never had.  It gave him such pride to pay for my Ivy League education.  He himself had gone to a small, then unknown, college, yet smooth talked his way into a place at MIT for his doctorate.  Professors took note of his determination and his fortitude in filling in the gaps of his education.  They provided him with a scholarship if he could prove that he could keep up with the many students of privilege.  He was extremely intelligent and throughout his years used his smarts and determination to catapult himself into places and opportunities that he would never otherwise been offered.  He sold himself, promising things he knew nothing of, but would teach himself how to do.  Even winning the hand of my mother, an upper income girl with a finishing school mentality, was a success that my father prided in.  He literally miraculously survived being shot in a robbery.  After losing his own business while recuperating, he reinvented himself and talked his way into being a well paid expert consultant for an industry he had little knowledge of when he was hired.

The rough and slightly paranoid man I had grown up with was just an extension of the young man who had to be scrappy and make his way in the world by being aggressive and reaching for what was beyond his grasp.  He had to believe he was entitled to what the world had not given him.  And for me, having been provided with the essentials of what I needed growing up, it was hard to understand his constant battle for more.  But now, years after his death, during the economic recession and with a family of my own, I have a newfound appreciation for my Father and a longing to have been more connected with this aspect of him.  My husband and I are going through hard times and I feel a vulnerability I have never known before.  We are in financial crisis and I feel scared that we can lose our home and the world does in fact often feel like a dangerous place:  bills, taxes, loss of income from my non-profit employer losing funding and my husband’s manufacturing business floundering.  I now have a connection to the man who felt the need to fight, but I lack the confidence and the experience in asserting myself the way my Father could.  I feel such empathy for my Dad and a respect for his ability to rise above his situation and make things happen by sheer will and hard work.  I think about his determination, and wish I had taken note of his skills and self reliance, his courage, and his self made success despite the odds.

He died in early June seven years ago, now.  This past Father’s Day I felt a particular emptiness when I passed by the store displays of fishing gear or  the tools I used to buy him as gifts.  I wish I could ask him what he thinks I should do.  I would love to find out how he would address our situation.  I know he would not be lying awake at night worrying, but then doing nothing but hoping things would get better.  I know he would have a plan and a list of people to contact.  He would pound the pavement or pound his fists, whatever it took to make sure he was given a chance, and then he would make it work out.  I try to channel that energy and feel the part of me that is indeed a part of him.  I miss him in a way I have not missed him before.  I can only imagine what Lefty Lenny would do.  What sword might he draw?

I was talking to a colleague who works in the field of addictions.  She works with people who have many ups and downs; one step forward and often  two steps back.  I asked her how she handles watching people she cares about relapse into harmful behaviors that put themselves at risk?  Three words, she said, are the key to how she approaches these relationship dilemnas: “bless and release.”

What an empowering phrase, I thought.  Useful in so many different ways.  It so quickly sums up an entire process and moves you into a positive state and a liberating one.  It creates a barrier to obsessing and feeling responsible for what you can’t control.  You can apply it to someone you love, such as a child, wishing them well with their overdue school assignment, but not taking on the stress yourself.  Or someone you have conflict with, such as a call from an ex-husband or someone who implies something hurtful on Facebook.  Bless and release keeps you within yourself and not pulled into a conflict or chain of events that will drain you.

Bless and release is an intention to feel positively and to choose to wish someone well.  It’s also an acknowledgment and a practice of divesting ourselves from the outcome of a situation.  The intention is to stay in love and regard for someone, but let go of the illusion of control or need for a particular change.  We have to be careful we don’t bless and release too early, however.  We shouldn’t use a bless and release strategy as a way of avoiding our role in a conflict or as a way of detaching from people who we do have responsibilities toward that are part of mutual healthy relating or parenting.  Bless and release is a practice we use when we have been accountable for ourselves and need to let go of being responsible for what is the responsibility of another.

Since learning the phrase, I also am finding you can use it not just with others, but within yourself.  As I hear that internal voice repeat some obsessive worry, I say to myself, “bless and release.”  It actually makes me feel a bit of love toward myself and gives me permission and a push away from what may be creeping in to take over my thoughts and feelings.  I can bless and send warm regard toward the part of myself that is scared or feels inadequate, and then create distance from the painful experience of it.  Now that is a blessing!

It has been a little more than a week since my older daughter has been home from college, and I am immensely impressed with how she handled her first year.  It certainly was challenging, not only in terms of her classes and learning to handle the pressures and changes of college life, but in talking with her, I have been really struck by the perspective she has gained from choosing to leave California and attend a school in the South, where she was very different.  Her insights have really stayed with me, especially as I am preparing for a trip outside of the United States, and finding myself a bit nervous.  It really got me thinking about how we take our sameness for granted, and while it’s comfortable, easily fitting in is not always the best for our personal development or for our understanding of and compassion for others.

At first it was fun to be different, she told me.  As soon as she told people where she was from, she instantly had a topic of conversation and was easily remembered.  She was exposed to different foods, customs, and ways of speaking, often finding humor in the contrasts.  But over time, the realization of deeper levels of differences emerged, from the lack of common experiences to differences in political views, and even interpretations of relationships, communications, and cultural norms.  It was often tiring to explain herself, she told me, and be on guard for ways in which she might misinterpret others or say something that others would find challenging, or be judged by a preconceived notion of what someone thought she would be like.  Being different became isolating she found, and even painful, at times.  She longed for people who intuitively understood her meanings, preferences, and accepted them.

“What a great lesson, though.” she told me, as she tried to imagine what it would be like to be a constant minority in the world.  She also recognized the privilege of being able to choose when and how she revealed her status as different.  Being blonde and blue eyed, she could easily blend in until she chose to tell people where she was born and what her religious upbringing had been.   Even the relatively small chasm between her and her school community had a big effect on her.  While she absolutely chose her school in large part to experience a different culture, what she didn’t expect was to experience the effects of being different on such a deep level, longing for opportunities of similarity and the comfort of sameness.  “I am so much more aware and sensitive,” she explains, “of everything I took for granted.”

So why am I nervous to travel abroad, I ask myself, and experience being different?  I love to expose myself to new people and places and have looked forward to this trip for a really long time.  Being different involves being vulnerable, it occurred to me.  I might need to ask for directions in a different language, trust a vendor to give me an accurate price, or, God forbid, need medical help.  I will be at the mercy of others to understand my needs, respect them, and take them seriously.  Being different involves continually fighting the preference for and the ease of sameness along with the prejudice and misperceptions of perceived “other”ness.

Decades of research support the notion of our preference for sameness.  We choose employees and partners who are most like us, we sit with those we look like, and we tend to hold in higher esteem people whose beliefs are most like our own.   Even in schools and communities of great diversity, we tend to congregate and separate ourselves into similar groups within them.  Research also shows we assume more in common with people we perceive as similar and project greater differences with those we assume to be different, regardless of actual measures of sameness or difference.  Perceived similarity has the effect of bonding and attracting people to one another, while perceived differences have the effect of alienating and engendering distrust.

It takes a lot of courage to be different, and that is one of the many reasons I am inspired by so many of the people I work with, who have endured great prejudice or stigma in their journey to grow and heal and connect with others.  And it is also one of the many reasons I am proud of my daughter, for her courage to be vulnerable and her strength in being who she is, even if it means having to explain it, defend it, or just feel alone with it.  I am grateful for the enlightened reminder she has given me to be more open to others, especially someone who might be new, unique, or different.  I am definitely more aware of how important it is to put myself in the place of being the different one every now and again, but also how important it is to have my people to come home to.

Welcome back, Sierra, you have been missed!