Clear and Present

If you ain't broke..

don't fix your bad self.

Hey. Quick. Name three useless industries which rake in millions of dollars each year. (Nah.. tobacco's too easy).  Number one. The Diet Industry. Why is it useless?Hell, no mystery there. You push yourself away from the table. Move around more and eat less. If you take in less calories than you use - you'll lose weight. Second. The Laxative industry. Billion dollar cash cow. Eat a vegetable once in a while, drink your water and by the way - prunes are cheap. 

Third industry. Oh boy, this is where I gotta start checking the brakes on my car.  The Personal Development Industry. How to Fix Yourself.  Newsflash. There's nothing to fix. You can't fix your feelings because they're not controllable by you. And you're not responsible for them anyway.  How many millions of dollars a year do we spend on trying to work on steps which are intermediate between intention and action?

We have to empower ourselves, increase our confidence, self-esteem, self-affirm, visualize in order that we can act. Does this make sense? Hell, no.

We need to do what we need to do when we need to do it. Accept our feelings and get on with it. Anyone out there got a problem with that I will give you four free coaching sessions so that you can feel the power of Purpose and Intention. Take me up on it, why don't you?

National TV Turn-Off Week

TV gets a bad rap.  Like anything, it's ok in moderation. Sometimes my husband is so brain-dead from working a 12 hour day with little immediate gratification he needs to watch multiple episodes of "Cops" back to back. . After an hour of two of piteous shirtless drunks sitting on the sidewalk weeping about how their woman beat them up and their babies are still in the trailer - he feels better about himself.  It's like eating a quart of Ben & Jerry's at one sitting. You don't do it everyday. But, hey, sometimes - you just gotta.

Everything I Need To Know In Life I Learned From My Dog

I was mooching around the Self-Help section in my local Barnes and Noble the other day when I got to  thinking about the first Self Help book I ever read.  Most of the early ones were actually based on psychology and written by psychologists.  Remember “I’m OK. You’re Ok.”?     It actually had pie-charts and you needed some intelligence to get through it.

I remembered, too, that during the rise of the Feminist movement in the Seventies the greatest of all self-help books were feminist books. Heady political stuff.  These books actually changed the course of lives.  How well I recall my first Consciousness Raising group. It was full of scary looking women in black mao slippers carrying well-thumbed copies of Simone de Beauvoir’s “Second Self”.  I was introduced to many of these books in my Assertiveness Raising Groups. A phenomenon so familiar, back then, we would casually refer to them, over our Chablis and Fondue, as A.R. Groups.  As in “Whose A.R. group are you in?”  I don’t think A. R. Groups even exist these days.  Why would they? They’ve gone the way of Betty Crocker and hipsters.  Anyway, those books were rare gold.  Passed around, recommended, endlessly discussed and few and far between.

Now, Self-Help rivals only Computer Software as the largest department in any bookstore.  Everybody, it seems, has something to say.  Self-help books are opinion pieces. And some of them are opinion pieces in very slim volumes with very big writing.   And just to make things really interesting we know nothing about the writers so as to evaluate whether their opinion is actually worth more than a bus ticket and a cup of coffee. Do this. Do that. They are written by the dying the sick, the addicted, the narcissistic. Especially the narcissistic. Everybody’s got the secret of life.  Or at least that magic bullet which will help you go one or two days more.

I've seen the future and it's

compassionate, funny, articulate, well-prepared, organized, smart and engaging.  I've written before about my experience judging leadership scholarship applications for UCLA.  Just got back from the State Finals.  I had the extreme privilege of listening to 50 of our best and brightest answer questions on the fly about their aspirations, parenting, balancing our freedoms with our need for security. 

What vat of Kool-Aid are they all drinking from - and how do I get me some of it!!

It was hard to believe these young men and women are still teenagers.  Their activist causes and social consciences were already so clearly developed.

I think I mentioned I gave up taking the daily paper a while ago because I didn't want to have a morning ritual which dumped an unhealthy dose of death, discouragement and poverty in my lap each day.

If I could somehow get a paper written by these young  people, or one which chronicled their doings I think I could be wooed back to the paper news media.  'Till then I can only encourage anyone inclined to read tea leaves for the future path of our country to check out, and support, their local University or Community College.  You'll be amazed at what you find there.

Two books converged in my mind and I...

I always have a couple of books on the go at any time. It 's like making stew. I love the serendipity of reading a few chapters of one and then dipping into another and having them fire off of each other.  For me, it's a playful and minor art form to choose the books which when  read together will create an altogether different whole in the mind.

Right now I'm halfway through "Circling the Sacred Mountain" by Robert Thurman and Tad Wise and "Chronicles; Volume I" the first part of Bob Dylan's autobiography.

At the time of writing his book Wise is young, smart, lost, has three kids by three different women and he's circling the sacred Mt. Kailash for some reason he hasn't yet fathomed with the famed Tibetan Buddhist scholar and monk, Thurman, who stubbornly refuses to be his mentor.  Dylan, at the opening of his autobiography is young, smart, decidedly not lost - although he manages to lose himself pretty thoroughly later in the book - and is refusing to be a mentor to his millions of fans who don't understand why he'd rather  be with his kids than lead a generation.

The writing is excellent, poetic, deep and flowing in both books. The "Mountain" book is worth reading for Thurman's dharma talks alone. Together they take my breath away.

You can click on the book covers on my list of recommended books to the left.

God rearranges my camping trip

Heading out early tomorrow morning for a few days camping on the beach at Santa Barbara.  It is going to be clear, sunny, warm, breezy. 

Those of you who read my articles know I love to camp and sleep outdoors.  Nature is a big inspiration for me.

We have friends we camp with sometimes who are great fun.  They bring their two larger than life dobermans who like to chew the fat with Mr. Barker.  Last time we camped they also brought caviar, crystal glasses for their Armagnac and food to feed the whole campground. (In fairness it was a birthday celebration - they don't always travel with Beluga and they also brought Twinkies and 'smores).

My husband and I have different camping styles. He would do well on one of those Reality Survivor shows where you have to catch your food before you eat it.  He loves to improvise and create and enjoys it when he is pushed to the wall and has to make do.  His favorite camping trip is the one where we left the main bag of food in our garage and we made meals out of combinations of creamed corn, hot dogs and potato chips - whatever the local camping store had on hand.

I'm sort of in the middle.  I like choices. So I may take hot chocolate, green tea, coffee and wine because I don't know what I'll feel like round the campfire.  I'm flexible and like to be comfortable and also take cues from Reality.

"What was that you didn't say?"

I'm indebted to Dr. Cynthia M. for her wise comment the other day:

"That which goes unexpressed - speaks loudest."

Coaches who work by phone a great deal know that sometimes they navigate by intuition based on the sound of the client's voice; hesitation; delay and sudden speeding up and slowing down of speech and - of course - by silence. 

The silence of your client means that you may be feeling your way through a dark room and suddenly you stub your toe. You don't know what's in your way but you need to stop and move it, or step around it, if you're going to continue.

If you're reading this and you're not a Coach -  know that you already do this to a greater or lesser extent.   You maybe haven't allowed it into your consciousness yet.  Once you do - this is a learned skill which can be fun to work with.  Try it on the phone with your clients; your colleagues or with your kids at home.  Listen for what isn't expressed; trust your intuition; navigate by curiousity; ask questions; expand your world.

What was I looking for and did I find it?

Daydreaming. Playing with time.

Came to haunched in front of one of my many old bookcases.

(I love the way the sun slices off the San Gabriel mountains and  honefies the whole room).

The light insistent. Urgent.

Like I'm standing with one hand on my frigidaire. Hmmm... what am I in the mood for?

And the cold, unblinking light says - make up your damn mind.

Okay. So what was I looking for exactly? Not something to read.  Plenty there. Buddhism, poetry, philosophy, Beachy novels,  yadda yadda yadda.

No. Actually, what I was looking for was God. 

Late on a Spring afternoon. A little tired, out of "stuff" - what else would be on my agenda?

So. - that pretty much opens up the whole shebang - God being  everywhere 'n all.

Here is what I pulled from the "grab bag".  (Improv, if you're into it).

Is this God?

                        Ask Mr. Barker!

Dear Mr. Barker,

My marriage is flatlined.  I am constantly complimenting my wife, appreciating what she does for me  and telling her I love her.  I get nothing back in return. It's killing me.  I work long hours and it's tough to put in the effort at the end of the day to try to talk to her.  We're like roommates.  I'm resentful and wonder how much longer I can go on.  Any suggestions?

Signed. Out of Ideas, In Pacoima.

A Sick Man

Well-known religious bigot, Jerry Falwell (you remember him - the" moral" leader who went on CNN and claimed that the 9/11 attacks were caused by Gays and Pro-Choicers and Feminists) stopped breathing for 5-7 minutes earlier this week because of a serious medical condition.

I feel for anyone, and I mean anyone, in such bad shape. But...

...spokesholes for Falwell say that it's been determined that he did not suffer any neurological or cognitive impairment. Uhhh....what were their criteria?  Were they looking for aberrant thought patterns, gibberish, demented behavior?  Tough call.  Let's hope they were right because he may end up back in the pulpit.