Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Authentic Voice Project: F is for ….

March 21, 2012 by Joanna

I will posting F later today, but I wanted to remind you that if you would like to submit your own Authentic Voice “redefinitions,” please let me know. (Reminder of what this project is all about, see here: Authentic Voice Project)

Posted in Authentic Voice Project | Leave a Comment »

Authentic Voice Project: E is for Evil

March 8, 2012 by Joanna

Photo credit: colossus from morguefile.com

The Authentic Voice Project: Week 5 (Full Moon)

E is for Evil

In my opinion the most evil word in the dictionary is, well, evil. It bites, slices, crushes; it infects, sickens, kills. I believe this word is too often thrown around where it doesn’t belong. It instills fear of rejection and shame in those who do not have (or were never given the opportunity to have) a strong sense of belonging and/or self-love. And those who think themselves to be of little significance have little power and are easier to push around.

Growing up, especially during those “rebellious” teenage years (when I never actually did rebel much more than attend a high school dance that I “shouldn’t” or make out in the car after a date), I heard this phrase too often: “Don’t give the appearance of evil.” Six words that imply so much more. “Your actions, and therefore you, have the potential to be evil. So, I don’t trust you (you shouldn’t trust you either) and you also shouldn’t trust others because their opinions – what they might be thinking – is more important than anything. Bottom line: be afraid of yourself and others. Just do what is right – what you should do – not what you are inherently capable of doing, which, as we said, is evil.”

And what about all those “evils” flung around at church each Sunday? “…every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.” (Gen. 8:21) Yikes! How can anyone who has ever had or held a baby think for one moment there can be grain of evil in that precious, innocent little body? Of course we all have the potential to make “bad” decisions and we aren’t always nice. But evil?? According to the Bible-thumpers, we apparently have evil thoughts, evil ways, even evil bodies – from birth! Our basic needs are evil: eating, drinking, having sex, making money, getting educated, loving and caring for our bodies, minds, and spirits, seeking actualization and self-enlightenment… Seriously? This is evil?

Hilter was evil. Torture is evil. Child/domestic/animal/nature abuse is evil. Rape is evil. War is evil. A man,woman or child living their life according to their human nature is NOT evil. Convincing us that our nature is evil is abuse in itself. It denies us of our Mother-Earth-given right to pursue our potential, make use of our talents, and follow our bliss towards happiness and joy. Tell a child they are evil and you fill them with self-hate. Self-hate breeds Other-hate. Other-hate makes for a fear-filled and evil world.

I say: No thanks. I choose to believe that I – and others – have the potential of love.

Posted in Authentic Voice Project, Emerging Voice, Journaling Techniques & Prompts | 2 Comments »

Authentic Voice Project: D is for Drive

February 21, 2012 by Joanna

The Authentic Voice Project: Week 4 (New Moon)

D is for Drive

Society says: Drive is good. Drive is what allows one to come from nothing and go to something. Drive makes the downtrodden get up, turns the girl next door into the celebrity on the hill, and gives the death-diagnosis a bill of good health. This is all true. But drive can also be destructive.

Drive to be more… better, faster, slimmer, prettier, richer… this all implies that what is here, now, you, is not OK. Of course, there is always room for improvement, and I do believe in order to have purpose and meaning in our lives we must always reach beyond our comfort zones and propel forward towards our potential. But pursuing our potential must an intrinsic goal if it is to be authentic. However, to be driven towards a goal/standard that is projected upon us by some outside authority – whether that is society, family, your boss, professor, etc. – is not authentic to you,it cannot bebecause it did not comefrom you.

I think women have a special relationship with Drive because we, as liberated women of the 21st century, suddenly feel we have so much to prove. Yes, we can be mothers, housekeepers, cooks (organic and fresh at all times, of course!), volunteers, activists AND full-time employees or students; tough AND beautiful; independent AND care-giving; and the list goes on. Saying “no” is hard to do because we don’t want to be seen as weak or uncaring or uncooperative. And in many cases, I do believe, we are still trying to prove just how smart we are.

I say: You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Accept yourself for where you are right now, in this moment. Yes, by all means, Drive! But drive towards your own dreams, not someone else’s dream or plan for you (or the plan you think someone else has for you). You’ll know when it’s authentic to you because instead of Monday morning rush hour, it will feel like a Sunday drive through the country.

Posted in Authentic Voice Project, Emerging Voice | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

I drove through sadness

February 16, 2012 by Joanna

I drove through sadness today.

Tears from clouds and tears in ravaged river banks.

Tears, rips, and gashes. Gutted, graded and gored. Rutted, raked and ruined.

As I drove along Route 107 between Pittsfield and Bethel, Vermont for the first time since Tropical Storm Irene, I cried for my home state. Yes, I had seen the seemingly endless stream of pictures of devastation in the immediate aftermath, and I wept for Vermont then. But six months later, despite mind-blowing road and bridge repairs, to see the land so… so…wounded – it hurts.

It is raw. Scoured. The land torn open in gaping welts. And not even a new, white bandage of snow to cover its wounds. The pain of the land and its people exposed. Mud where trees should be, rocks where there should be grass. Houses once in a field teeter on the edge of cliffs. Or crumpled in a ditch. Farms grow nothing but silt and stones. Hillsides are mudslides. Trees are tangled masses of sticks. And the river…

The river runs through it all as if nothing is amiss. Barely restrained and rambling wildly in places, serenely in others, it is like a temperamental child, unaware and uncaring of the chaos it leaves in its wake.

And there, on his newly river-fronted property, a man standing alone, gazing over the water. What is he thinking, I wonder? Cursing God or Mother Nature? Thanking them for saving him and his home? Maybe he was feeling as small as I against the awesome power of nature, attacking so suddenly and so violently. But I believe he was crying for this land – I felt his sadness. It hangs in the air and descends with the cold rain.

—-

P.S. Strength comes in the wake of a storm: “I do matter.”

Posted in Life, Home & Community | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

Trust the Process (part 11): Re-turning

February 15, 2012 by Joanna

The Silo Room (aka The Womb Room) at Goddard College. Credit: Robin Russell

On the eve of my fourth residency at Goddard College as a IMA-TLA student (Individualized Masters in Transformative Language Arts), I am sitting on the upper level of a gym as my son and two dozen other miniature humans are noisily jumping, swinging, rolling, and springing below me. Might as well be another planet from where I will be in 24 hours time. To pass the time, I was checking my blog stats and there I found an incoming link to my blog from worldsofchange.com where my very first “Trust the Process” post from August 2010 is published. Strange – that seems so long ago now. And me, so different. I can even read a subtle change in my writing.

I am particularly nervous to go back this time (or am I like this every time and I’ve just forgotten?) because I am returning after a semester off. It is time to commit again, get back to the discipline of 20-ish hours per week researching or writing (when I’d rather be doing anything but) and to face the reality that this degree is going to happen – and going to be a lot of work. But I am excited! I waited a long time for my life’s work to make itself known to me and it was worth every panicked journal entry,  every incorrectly colored parachute, and every “wrong” turn. I now know I am doing exactly what I was called to do, what I was born to do and – no matter how much work and discipline it will take – I will have a grand time doing it!

People always say you shouldn’t take a break from school because you’ll never go back, ya know. Well, I have done this twice now. When I left school after a disappointing freshman year, I did so because I knew I wasn’t doing the authentic thing. During high school I went through the motions of applying to college because that’s just what you did. When I suddenly found myself on campus the fall I turned 18, I thought, what just happened?! I struggled through that first year studying for a major I wasn’t suited for because I hadn’t known what else to do. When my grades reflected my confusion and discomfort, I took a break. And everyone said, you won’t go back, ya know. But six months later, I was back and raring to go. I now knew what I wanted and I flung myself at it and graduated with honors. I just needed that break to check in with myself.

And now, 22 years later, I have done it again. I had gotten off track with my grad work, lost in what I thought others thought I should be doing. My own authority, my authentic voice, had momentarily been drowned out. But not completely. It was there tugging at my  hem: Mama, are you listening? That’s not what I wanted! So I took a break to give my voice a chance to grow and tell me what she did want. I had turned away from myself, but now I have re-turned, back in the direction of my potential and purpose.

It’s OK to take a break to make sure you are doing the right thing, the authentic thing that will make YOU happy, not what others think will make you happy – or worse, what will make THEM happy. It’s OK to admit you might have made a mistake or gone off track. Listen. Listen hard. Take a break so you can really hear. And then re-turn back to your dreams and make them happen.

Prompt: If I listen to my own voice, it tells me…

Posted in Emerging Voice, Journaling Techniques & Prompts | 2 Comments »

Authentic Voice Project: C is for Christ

February 13, 2012 by Joanna

I realized with discomfort that my last Authentic Voice Project post was in itself Inauthentic. I chose a safe word to explore. I shied away from tackling a true “trigger” word. I again silenced my voice out of fear of rocking the boat. I realized the hypocrisy of this and now I must fix it by writing about a “C” word is controversial (in some circles). But isn’t that what creates change? Controversy is just another word for “fear of change.” In this case it is me who needs change – transformation – towards self-acceptance and healing. It is the language that was etched into my cells and has caused me to deny my own potential, and it is, therefore, this internal language that must change. Authentic Voice knows my own truth.

C is for Christ

Society (i.e. Tradition) says (with slight alternations according to particular doctrines): Christ is the son of God who was born here on earth as Jesus of Nazareth, preached to the people of the Kingdom of Heaven, was crucified, rose to life and ascended to heaven. He died for our sins and is the mediator between humans and God and through whom we might one day also be with God.

I say: Christ, the divine, is a symbol. Spiritually, it is a symbol of our own divinity, psychologically it represents our personal individuation or actualization. It is a symbol of Self, the center, the highest aspect of our human-ness: “the inner image of god… which resides in every person.” (Jung)

Christ and Self both describe something beyond human or ego, something that is divine, spiritual, reconciling, and gives meaning. – Jean Shinoda Bolen, The Tao of Psychology

To be “Christ-like” is to symbolically “wake up Christ within” in order to engage ‘the deeper levels of the soul… to live our individual lives as fully, as authentically, and as obediently [i.e. true to our True Self] as Jesus lived his.” His death and resurrection are symbols of our repeated struggles to discover our unique potential by “crucifying” the myths we have been told and have told ourselves about ourselves (the “sin” of not recognizing our potential and/or purpose), and to arise anew. With each self-discovery we “ascend” towards our own divinity – i.e. be with God/Godde/Goddess/Spirit now and in every moment.

Instead of focusing on the horrific death of a man on a cross (symbol of Union of Opposites, i.e. Wholeness), I choose to see the Christ story as one of Life, Healing, and Wholeness: “discovering the meaning of one’s own unique, individual life and participating in life’s larger purposes… discovering one’s vocation and one’s own myth, that story which helps to make meaning out of the mystery of existence.” (Wright, Christ a Symbol of the Self) Jesus was human, and a beautiful one at that, who preached love and equality (but never called himself Christ), a deeply spiritual man who must have known that once one has experienced “the spirituality of the Self or inner Christ, it would have the power to heal.” (Bolen, Crossing to Avalon)

Prompt: What other religious/spiritual myths or symbols speak to you and your psychological growth towards Wholeness?

——-

Jung’s diagnosis of modern men and women was a spiritual malnutrition bought on by a starvation of symbols. He called for a recovery of the symbolic life which had been abandoned to a one-sided literal, rational approach to religious matters… Without a symbolic appreciation of Christ, or any other religious figure or leader, religious concerns are made small by literalism. This in turn is the spawning ground for fundamentalism which, in spiritual matters, is tantamount to the death of the soul. In addressing Christ as a symbol of the Self, Jung challenged the Church to recover its symbolic life. Failing to do that, the Church will remain a minor voice in speaking to the deep spiritual longings of modern men and women. Furthermore, it may unwittingly undermine the reconciliatory and peace-making processes it desires to promote in the world. (http://www.jungatlanta.com/ChristSelf.html)


Posted in Authentic Voice Project, Journaling Techniques & Prompts | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

More thoughts on Authentic Voice (and writing)

February 9, 2012 by Joanna

Authentic Voice is that which longs for interconnectedness, looks toward growth and actualization (as opposed to purely “defense” needs and “elemental drives” such as eating, sleeping, finding shelter, having sex [Eisler, 190]), and is not “encased” by societies’ rigid hierarchical gender roles and stereotypes. It is not selfish or self-centered, but a recognition of “our essential interconnectedness with all humanity.” (Eisler, 190)

Authentic Voice is the one yearning for connection – love – and as such is the spiritual voice. Self-actualization cannot occur when living in fear or under suppression, and Authentic Voice cannot be heard in those states either. Love cannot be heard when there is “fear” of an “enemy” – within or without. “Hierarchies… require defensive habits of mind.” (Eisler, 190)

Authentic Voice is the suppressed “feminine” voice of the psyche – that which yearns for connection and affiliation with nature, others, and self – held down by fear in order to keep hierarchy in place. Releasing this “feminine” aspect through writing gives voice to the other half of our psyche and to our natural selves – our actualized self and helps bring us into balance.

So, like a mother does for her children, we write to vanquish the fear, to build self-confidence, to empower ourselves, so we can empower others (by realizing we are the same and not enemies). And to enter states of mind, i.e. whole, balanced, meditative states that increase “flow’ and feelings of connectedness. When we write we are fostering our own psychic growth towards actualization which in itself moves us “toward a different reality: the ‘peak experience’ consciousness of our essential interconnectedness with all of humanity” (Eisler, 190).

Writing allows us to tap into our own symbology, it uses both sides of the brain – this is whole “seeing.” It accesses body wisdom – the unconscious memories and collective unconscious. It balances the psyche, which fosters growth through creativity. Creativity is new ideas brought together in a “non-conventional” way to envision different forms of beauty that can initiate change. Creativity is insight – into self, into others, into new possibilities. Authentic Voice is our source of creativity and a path to self-actualization.

Source: Eisler, Riane Tennenhaus. The Chalice and the Blade : Our History, our Future. San Francisco, Calif.: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995. Print.

Posted in Authentic Voice Project | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »