Yes, And...

I spent much of this week co-leading a Living Compass training retreat in Chicago, something I do on a fairly regular basis.   In addition to people from Chicago and the Midwest, others come to these trainings from all around the country.  This week we had participants from upstate New York, a rural community outside of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, north central North Carolina, downtown Los Angeles, California, and the greater Chicago area.  Everyone was coming to get trained in our Living Compass approach to wellness and wholeness so that they can then go back and offer Living Compass wellness programs in their own local communities. At these trainings we especially like to give visitors that come from farther away a little taste of what makes Chicago special.  Free time is given to visit sites such as the Chicago Art Institute, Millennium Park, or perhaps to go to the top of one of Chicago's many famous skyscrapers. The highlight of our time together seems to be however, when we offer people the opportunity to not just to see something that has a long Chicago history, but to participate in something that is a signature creation of Chicago-and that is improv comedy.

Chicago has long been recognized as the home of improv comedy, a tradition that continues at comedy centers throughout the city such as Second City and the iO (Improv Olympics) Theater.   Many of the original cast of of Saturday Night Live came from Second City, including Mike Myers, Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Chris Farley, Dan Ackroyd, and John Belushi.  At our trainings in Chicago we bring in a team of four improv actors led by the Rev. Jess Elfring Roberts, deacon and youth leader in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago.  These four creative geniuses entertain us first and then, in no time, have us up participating in various improv games and scenes.  As the evening of improv begins, it's not uncommon to hear someone say that they will not be  participating in any of the improv games, only to find themselves flopping around the floor pretending to be a fish a short time later.

Improv comedy is not just great fun to watch and participate in; there are also great bits of wisdom about life and about wellness that it can teach us.  An essential principle of improv is to have a "Yes, and..." mentality.  This means that when your partner in a sketch says or does something, you always "go" with it, adding to what you have been given by your partner and further developing the scene and the action.  You never block or question what your partner has just said or done, even if it seems ridiculous or impossible.  If you are partner turns to you and says, with her hands out, "Here's a bowl with my pet goldfish in it, will you please take my goldfish for a walk," you don't say, "But I don't like goldfish," or, "You can't take a goldfish for a walk."  Instead, you say something like, "Oh, I love goldfish-I think I have a goldfish leash in my drawer, let me put it on your fish right now."

With improv comedy, like life itself, we rarely know what someone else is going to say or do next, and so we have to remain totally present to what is being presented and completely open and flexible as to how we respond.  These skills of a good improv actor are completely applicable to life in general.  Being fully present to someone else and staying open and flexible as to how we will respond are true gifts that we can give to others and to ourselves.

Life doesn't come with a script.  Life is improv.  It unfolds and happens in the most surprising of ways  and we are always creating the script as we go along.  Being able to say, "Yes, and" to whatever life presents us, and being able to stay open and flexible in our responses are essential keys to wellness in our personal lives, our homes, and our places of work.

Delayed Gratification

Pickles have been on my brain a great deal this week.  It's not that I have been eating that many pickles, it's just that the following sentence has been stuck in my mind all week:  "My very educated mother just served us nine pickles."  This rather odd sentence was embedded in my brain some fifty years ago, and perhaps just reading this sentence awakened a similar memory in your brain as well.  Several of my grade school teachers used this sentence as a mnemonic tool to remember the order of the planets of our solar system, moving from the planets closest to the sun to the planets much farther out.  My very educated mother just served us nine pickles was how I learned to remember the order of the planets, moving away from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  (I am well aware of the debate about whether Pluto is truly a planet or not.  Some have reclassified it as a dwarf planet, but in my mind I still consider it to be a planet after memorizing this sentence all those years ago.) Pluto, the planet that is represented by pickles in the mnemonic device I learned in grade school, has been on the world's brain this week as we all have had the amazing privilege of seeing the first ever closeup photographs taken of the planet at the outermost edge of our solar system.  Much of the world, including me, has been fascinated by the New Horizons space probe adventure and its photographs of Pluto.  The fascination with the photos of Pluto has led me to ponder just why so many people have been captivated by this.  There are no doubt many reasons that people find this all so fascinating, but there is one reason that I would like to propose because I think it has a lot to teach us.

We live in a culture that is increasingly defined by a desire for immediate gratification.  Advances in technology mean we can often have what we want faster and we can have it when we want it--on demand.  Immediate gratification is what we expect more and more.  So in the midst of this "want it now," instant gratification mindset, I find it fascinating that this week we are all riveted by something that is the very opposite of instant gratification, something that took 3,464 days to come to fruition.

Almost nine years ago the creators of the New Horizons expedition to Pluto launched their space probe into orbit at the speed of 36,373 miles per hour.  Traveling at that inconceivable rate of speed, it still took New Horizons almost nine years to travel the 3,000,000,000 mile distance from Earth to Pluto.  The leaders of this project had to wait nine years to find out if it would be a success.  And what a complete success it has turned out to be as New Horizons has already returned stunning close up pictures of Pluto, a planet up until now no one had even dreamed of seeing.

All of this is a great reminder that some things simply cannot be rushed and that great reward often comes to those who learn to be patient.  A loving marriage takes years of patience and commitment in order for it to truly mature.  To fully explore the depths of any significant passion, whether it be writing, running, quilting, or playing the piano, takes years, if not decades.  Deep friendships are not built instantly, but through years of shared conversations.  A deep and mature spiritual life emerges only after years of discipline and practice.  Some hurts and losses take years to heal and move beyond.

I all like quick or instant gratification as much as anyone else. When I search Google for the history of how Pluto was first discovered, I want to see my results within a few seconds.  When I text a friend a question, I love it when I get an immediate response.  What's important for me to remember though, is that some of the most important discoveries, lessons, and joys in life, the ones that truly open up new horizons in my heart and soul, might very well take nine years or longer to unfold.

As I ponder all this, I suddenly have a strong urge for a pickle.  I sure hope there are some in the refrigerator so I don't have to wait all the time it would take to go to the grocery store to get some!

Inside Out

Have you ever had the experience of having a "good cry," and then  later find yourself feeling so much better?  Or have you ever had the experience of having a "good fight" with a family member or friend, when you work through a conflict that has been building for some time and then find that you and the other person are both feeling renewed positive feelings toward each other?  If so, then you would enjoy and identify with the wonderful messages that are taught in Inside Out, the new movie from Pixar animation playing in theaters now.  Inside Out is the story of the inner, emotional life of an eleven year old girl named Riley.  Riley's family uproots itself and moves from Minnesota to California because of her father's new job. Riley, understandably, becomes quite sad and angry as she misses her friends, school, and hockey team back in the Midwest.  Riley's well-meaning parents don't like seeing her being upset  and so they repeatedly encourage her to "focus on the positive" and want her to try to act happy on the outside even when she is not feeling that way on the inside.

The brilliance of this film is its portrayal of Riley's inner, emotional life.  Through the magic of animation we are able to see inside  Riley's brain where  five characters (pictured above) represent five emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust) that take turns controlling the keyboard of Riley's brain.    Before her family's move from Minnesota  Joy was clearly in control.

This all changes when the family moves and Fear, Sadness, and Anger start battling  for control, with Joy ultimately being pushed out of the way.   Riley's parents want Joy to be her prominent emotion and Riley clearly wants to please her parents. For this reason we see Joy doing everything she can to keep the other emotions, most especially Sadness, stifled.

But alas, the plan fails and Joy relinquishes control  to Sadness.  At that point it seems that Riley is doomed to a life of total sadness.  It's just then that something surprising happens, something that is, in fact, the most important point of the movie.  Once Riley embraces and allows herself to feel the sadness related to the move, she gradually begins to feel happier.  There is a touching scene near the end of the movie when the animated characters Joy and Sadness both put their hands on the controls of Riley's inner, emotional keyboard.  The message is clear for both children and adults who are watching-authentic joy and happiness occurs when we can integrate and feel all of our natural emotions.

 Inside Out reminds us that all of our emotions are important, need to be heard, and serve important purposes.  Our emotional wellness will be high when we can allow ourselves to both feel and express the full range of our emotions and it will be low when we try to block out or numb any of our emotions, as allowing the expression of all of our emotions brings openness and provides space for healing and growth.  This is the paradox of emotional wellness, the paradox of what we mean when we talk about a "good cry" or a "good argument." When we allow ourselves to express what we tend to label as "negative" emotions, the positive emotions of joy and happiness often return and increase.

So, if you are in the mood for good movie that will provide plenty of good laughs along with a great message for kids and adults alike, I highly recommend seeing Inside Out this weekend.

Of Fireworks and Relationships

Fireworks are a lot like relationships. Both combine ingredients that have the potential to create something beautiful--worthy of "oohs" and aahs." Fireworks are created by a precise combination of several chemicals, most commonly calcium, aluminum, carbon, and a chlorine oxidizer. Relationships, on the other hand, are created through a combination of soul, desire, emotion and character. In the past two weeks two different people have spoken to me of fireworks and relationships. One person talked of growing up in a home that was full of fireworks. She said she never knew when the next explosion would happen. Would it be mom exploding at dad, dad exploding at mom, or mom or dad exploding toward one of the children? Another person spoke of a relatively new love relationship that he was in. He met a woman six months ago and said he felt like he had found his soul mate. He spoke of the electricity in the relationship that often turned into fireworks of joy and elation.

It seems that fireworks, like relationships, can be both beautiful and dangerous. People get hurt if they don't handle them properly. There is a fine line between beauty and danger when you are dealing with either volatile chemicals or volatile emotions. It is one of life's great paradoxes that the forces that can combine to create the greatest beauty are the very same forces that can combine to create the greatest harm. Religion can create a Desmund Tutu, a Mother Theresa, or a person who terrorizes in the name of God.

So how do we make sure that we are creating fireworks of beauty in our relationships versus fireworks that backfire and cause harm? A short answer to that question can be found by looking at the holiday we celebrate today. As important as the individuals were that labored to create our nation, the essence of what formed our nation is the principles upon which it was founded. And so it is with healthy relationships. The common theme of all healthy relationships is not the uniqueness of the individuals that form them, but the principles that guide them, namely humility, integrity, honesty, vulnerability, love, hope and faith.

As we celebrate the founding ideals of our nation and look up to the skies to see the beautiful fireworks, may we also look upwards to the enduring values and ideals that define beauty in relationships and work to embody them each and every day.

Happy 4th of July to all!

     (Some of you who have been long time readers of this may realize that this is an updated version of a column I wrote in 2010).

Change: Planned and Unplanned

Change tends to come in one of two ways-planned or unplanned.  It is a given that unplanned changes will be stressful.  A job loss, an unexpected health diagnosis, an accident, the sudden death of a friend or loved one or the sudden end to a relationship are of course some of the most stressful events any of us can encounter in our lives.  No one ever plans or chooses such events, which of course only adds to the stress created by these types of changes. What is perhaps not as well understood is that even changes that are planned, those that are chosen for very positive reasons and are happily anticipated, can also be very stressful.  Beginning a new romantic relationship, starting a new job, moving to a new community, adding a baby to the family, retiring, adding new staff to an organization, beginning a school year, or joining the military are all changes, while planned and chosen, can come with their own fair share of stress.

We at Living Compass are currently in the midst of many planned changes, which are not without their share of stress.  You may have already noticed one of our changes, as this week's column features an updated look for our logo.  In addition to a new look, we are in the midst of a major expansion of our wellness resources for adults, teens, parents, and families. We are extremely excited about the changes that we are making at Living Compass and grateful that they are needed as they are being made in response to the tremendous growth we have experienced in requests for our resources and programs. Nevertheless, there is still stress as we change and grow with the addition of new staff and new programs.

Allow me to introduce the "J" Curve, the single most helpful concept in explaining why change, both planned and unplanned, creates stress.  The "J" Curve, pictured above,  has a vertical axis showing "Stability" and a horizontal axis showing "Openness/Growth."  The dotted line shows the trajectory we would like to see when positive change is planned and freely  chosen.  We expect that such change will put us on a path where each day we will feel better than the day before.  While we may expect positive, planned change to follow this path, the reality is that all change, even positive change, initially creates a period of instability.  This is shown perfectly by the "J" Curve as it illustrates that the initial movement toward openness and growth is accompanied by an initial decrease in stability.

In the Book of Exodus, found in the Old Testament, we read a story of a group of people who find themselves in the midst of a "J" Curve.  Moses is leading his followers on an exodus out of years of bondage under a dictator in Egypt, an exodus -a change- that the people choose and are initially excited to be making.  The journey to freedom takes Moses and his followers through the wilderness of a "J" Curve. Eventually their excitement wanes and the people get frustrated that the journey is not the path that they had expected.  At one point, when they are discouraged and are losing hope, they announce that they want to turn back to the the life they had so much wanted to escape.  They were at the bottom of their "J" Curve and they wanted to go back.  They wanted to go back to the stability, the status quo of their previous bondage, because they perceived it to be more stable and familiar, better than the struggle they were currently experiencing.  As the story goes, they resist the urge to go back and forge ahead with new determination and eventually  experience the promise of a new life. They lived through the worst of the "J" Curve process, came up the other side, and were then able to enjoy the benefits of their hard work and determination.

Living Compass is in the midst of a "J" Curve.  Perhaps you are, too.  Maybe your "J" Curve is one that has been planned, or maybe it was not.  Either way, it is helpful to know that all change initially creates instability and yet in order to experience growth, we must be willing to persevere through the times of stress that naturally come with change.  Such perseverance is greatly aided by the support of others and by the support of one's hope and knowledge that such times of stress and change are not signs that things are falling apart, but rather are signs that things are coming together in a new and different way.  This very understanding can help us develop the patience and perspective needed to move through the challenging times of transition, planned and unplanned, that we all face.