I am and have always been a Dreamer. Are you? Since dreams, visions and reflections have inspired some of the pivotal turning points of my life, I would include them within one of my own MyStory Life Theme chapters. I do hope that as you read any of the stories I am sharing in this blog from my own MyStory experiences, that these stories might help you to reflect on YOUR OWN MyStory stories and themes. I have always understood it is best to write about what I know best, which is why I share from my own life experiences, but the point of sharing about them here and in my books (Your Life Path, 2018; Better Endings, 2022) is TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO REFLECT ON and to write and/or creatively express yourself about your own Shaping Events, to inspire your own Better Endings. So, I invite you again to keep a dedicated MyStory Journal, wherein you can record memoirs that are most meaningful to you and could be helpful for you to collect and share as a legacy of insights with others in your life.
So, I add here one of my own MyStory short stories from the theme of Visions, Dreams and Reflections. I have been blessed to occasionally recall a very clear “visionary” sort of dream. These inner experiences usually occur in that zone of consciousness between sleeping and waking, when lucid dreaming commonly occurs. I hesitate to share many of these openly, because they are of such rare and deep significance. But since I definitely include this one in my own MyStory collection, I choose to share it here in case it may carry some insight for others.
A Visitor
Between sleeping and waking, around a decade ago: a beautiful Being appeared in my awareness as a Visitor. It is difficult to describe this Being, whom I think of as a Silent One. Male or female? Olive toned or other? Old or young? Just this beautiful Presence.
S/he/It asks me a simple question, and the following brief dialogue ensues:
Beautiful Being (BB): “So, how are things going out there?”
LW (somehow aware of the slant of the question): “Well, there are many people, with many different religious beliefs, but most people are still afraid of death.”
BB (after a prolonged, pregnant pause): “Next time, we won’t do Religion.”
Then I awoke. I felt humbled and grateful to have received such a Visitation, and I have never forgotten our clear, brief exchange. It has led me to ponder the cosmological and/or spiritual basis of this Being’s words.
Just two days ago, I was reading Michio Kaku’s interesting book, The Future of Humanity. As a footnote of sorts to my visionary Visit, while reviewing several theories about how the known universe might end, Kaku relates an interesting perspective based on Olaf Stapledon’s idea of a Star Maker:
“This takes us back to Olaf Stapledon, who imagined that there is a Star Maker, a cosmic being that creates and discards entire universes. He is like a celestial painter, constantly conjuring up new universes, tinkering with their properties, and then moving on to the next one. Each universe has different laws of nature and different life-forms.” (Michio Kaku, The Future of Humanity, pg. 303)
images are from pixabay.com
I am also reminded of a section of a book I read many years ago by Paul Twitchell, I think Dialogues With The Masters or maybe The Far Country. Twitchell similarly describes a sort of highly evolved being—I believe referred to therein as Silent Ones—who experiment with creating and designing universes.
So, what might be the relevance for my own understanding? To me this insight from the Visitor in my waking dream has helped me to accept the wide diversity of religious or spiritual viewpoints, knowing that no matter how much I might—and do—explore spiritual awareness, likely I will never achieve higher clarity than my puny mental capacity may contain until after my own translation (death) from this bodily state.
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And you? I invite you to write in your MyStory journal about some significant vison, dream or reflection(s) that you would wish to remember and share.
Following from the last post where I mentioned Carl Jung’s Red Book, which was his record of active imagination encounters with his personal unconscious archetypes, allow me to add to the exploration of (your) MyStory memoirs a way to identify your own “Archemes;” a concept which I introduced in Your Life Path (Skyhorse, 2018). Just as we each have a finite number of definite themes or threads of experience that run through our lives either in whole or during specific life chapters or segments of our lifetimes, with each of these Life Themes we also all develop specific sorts of ROLES that pertain to those themes and that transform dramatically over time just like the character arcs of any narrative epic protagonists.
For example, some common Life Themes people identify by sorting types of their significant shaping events into KINDS of events include: Family, Education, Work/ Career, Romance/ Relationships, Friendships, Spirituality or Religion, and Travel. Notice how when you reflect on some of your own significant or “shaping” moments with respect to a few of these different Life Themes, you are somewhat a distinctive character from one to the other, and these characters evolve or transform as you have developed through these thematic movements in your life.
As an educator, for example, Education has certainly been a major, lifelong theme for me. And within that theme I have been the STUDENT (role type/ character) and the TEACHER, in various modes over time. Friends have sometimes chided me when, during a conversation, I might “shift into Teacher mode.” Whereas, as a spiritually oriented person, my persona can be quite more ‘esoteric’ or even ‘dreamy,’ as I practice daily contemplation, chant mantras, keep a dream journal, and allow myself to “surrender” to inner awareness or nudges from inner guidance. Yet still, with my pets it is all about unconditional love and gratitude; I sing spontaneous song lyrics as though life is a musical while walking with my beloved dog, Sophie. So yes, I recognize a pantheon of characters within my Self, as did Carl Jung. Like Jung I also realize how we project archetypal character forms onto or into those we interact with in our life relationships.
This week then, I invite you to take some tome to reflect in your MyStory (or any) journal on who you ARE, how your character shifts with different thematic expressions of your own Self. You could simply list some of the Life Themes you recognize, and next to those, name the character Roles or personas you have been developing in your life with regard to those different themes.
Which of these Archemes are best or least mature or developed in your life? Would you like to give some of your more submerged selves some more breathing room by getting back to some hobby or pasttime that helps you expand your deeper self?
Why do we so need a good Vacation or Holiday now and again? (For our more carefree Traveler or Family based selves to emerge for some needed ‘time out’?) Why do we wear special apparel and let ourselves get so excited by some hobby or at a Sports event? More profoundly, how do your different Parts of Self relate to and interact with others as well as among themselves? Try dialoguing in your journal sometime amongst some of your own various personas, especially with regard to some difficult decision or choice you might face.
Recognizing some of our own distinctive archetypal personas allows us to move consciously in the direction of a higher integration or polishing of our individuated Self, in Jung’s parlance. Joseph Campbell noted that those who refuse to accept and exercise their own internal archetypal diversity are the ones most in danger of a ‘schizophrenic’ breakup.
In composing MyStory memoirs, we are looking at particularly meaningful events, relationships, and themes that have deeply impacted and shaped the person you have become. These are situations or events that we tend to tell ‘our stories’ about, again and again, refining and embellishing these signature tales to bring out their messages as life lessons or as highlight adventures that have come to define us. We each have these stories in us that we have shared time and again. I believe it is helpful and illuminating to collect these tales, to assemble them in a volume or journal that you can rightly title MyStory.
MyStory tales are usually about transformational moments or relationships in our lives, so recording these stories allows you to uncover and reveal the mystery of your MyStory: to unravel the interwoven key lessons and insights of a lifetime or of a meaningful chapter of your own mythic Life Story.
This week I will focus on my own Life Theme of Mentors. If you recognize a similar meaningful theme, or maybe a larger umbrella theme such as Relationships or Education, I invite you to reflect and journal your own stories around this theme this week. (Please feel free to share your story with me and I would be happy to reblog it, or you can refer to your journaling insights in Comments.)
To exemplify what I mean by a transformational MyStory tale, I will focus on one of three hugely influential mentors from my life: Dr. Antoinette (Toni) Mann Paterson, whom her Philosophy students sometimes referred to as “Tone-the-Bone” Paterson.
My Life Mentor, Toni P.
I have so many significant memories of Toni P that it is difficult to select just one or two; cumulatively her mentorship and moreover her friendship changed me entirely. From her I learned to contemplate the majesty of the smallest details of life and to expand my own potentials accordingly. I also learned that one can be a learned scholar in academia without sacrificing one’s creativity and spiritual practice. So, I will assemble a few of the most memorable insights and stories I have acquired from the blessing of this great mentor in my life.
The Mighty Acorn
I mother-sat for Toni P’s mom, Mary Mann, around three days a week for 2-4 hours a day over several years, at Toni’s old Victorian home in Buffalo, New York. Dr. P was a full Professor of Philosophy at Buffalo State (SUNY) College, where I met her while an undergraduate student. Mother-sitting provided a wonderful opportunity to spend quality time with both her mother Mary and with Toni herself. One day over lunch, while we were discoursing about religion and whether she believed in (a) God, Toni shared with me about an interaction she had with her son in Delaware Park when he was young.
Toni found an acorn on the ground beneath a giant Oak Tree. She held the acorn in her hand, studying its magnificence. Then she handed the Acorn to her son as a special gift.
“This,” Toni said to her son, “is God!”
The small acorn carries, in seed form, the grand design of a majestic, mighty oak. TP shared this story also to explain why all the furniture in her beloved Victorian Buffalo home was made of Oak. Most of her furniture she had acquired from Salvation Army stores. She loved finding gems where others might see only used, disposable objects; this too was a lesson for me.
Who Are You, Really?
Shortly after I first met Toni P (another tale worth telling!), after a Creative Studies–my Minor–class that she had visited to talk with us about ‘the philosophy of creativity,’ She asked me point-blank:
“What is your name?”
“Linda,” I answered.
“No, I mean what is your REAL name?”
I was flummoxed. “What do you mean?,” I asked her. Then I told her of how when I was around six or seven my brother had told me I was adopted, which I could not disprove because my mother had lost my birth certificate. I had created a fictional name for myself: April Thornton.
“April.” Toni repeated the name. “Yes, I will call you April.”
What was this about, in retrospect? I think she was asking me if I had yet discovered my IDENTITY. Truly at that point in time, I had not. I was whom others saw in me; I had no mature, core sense of self. I carried this question with me for many years and in fact underwent several periods of psychotherapy to explore and gradually to discover and express Who I Am. I am grateful to TP for this quest.
So What? Whan!
To complete this ensemble of MyStory tales about my dear mentor, Toni P, let me describe her a bit further and tell a classic story of how she taught me to probe deeply into the meaning of life.
Toni published a book called THE INFINITE WORLDS OF GIORDANO BRUNO, and she was a supporter (and colleague) of Immanuel Velikovsky–who, like Bruno (burned at the stake in the 1400s for the heresy of telling people to seek truth experientially Within instead of through priests), was vilified in mainstream academia for his WORLDS IN COLLISION book, where he explored historical truth via studying cultural myths.
Also, while not religious, Toni P was one of the most spiritually aware persons I have ever known. She would stand before students in her Philosophy classes lecturing with her eyes closed, and then she would open her eyes and stare directly at a particular student to ask a bold question. E.G. That first day I had met her at the Creative Studies class, she arrived early and was sitting at a round table with students to whom she had not yet been introduced. She picked up and examined a papier mache art project of a student who had come from an art class, of a human dancer, I think. “HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THIS!?” Toni asked the astounded student. “I mean, how the Hell can you do this, when I can hardly draw a stick figure?” Then as class opened and she was introduced, Dr. Paterson discoursed about a philosophy of creativity.
When I mother-sat, one day over lunch Toni explained how every day she “dived into the Ocean,” meaning she took a contemplative ‘nap’ (what Jung would call active imagination) on the little cot she slept on in her bedroom.
Now then, one day I was depressed. I came into her office for my Independent Study on a topic we had agreed to: ”a philosophy of, not Science, but Silence.
“So, what?” I asked my mentor.
She responded: “Take out a piece of paper and a pencil and write two words: So, What, question-mark.”For your assignment this week, answer that question. Bring me your answer next Wednesday.”
So, all that next week I searched the library for literary and philosophical clues to the question I had posed of “So, What?” I abstracted readings and wrote in my journal. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for instance, wrote an essay on “The Transparent Eyeball” that I found useful to the probe. Again I found this was about personal identity, whether “I” had any distinct meaning or purpose as an individual.
I arrived at Toni P’s office for our class session that next Wednesday. I told her about some of the thoughts I had arrived at but admitted I had not really answered the question.
Toni had set up a card table with a large, blank roll of sketch paper draped over it, and she called me to sit down at the table. With a large felt pen she wrote the following words at the compass points of the paper:
WHO
WHAT
WHERE
WHEN
WHAT
She placed each of these WH- words strategically in a circle on the paper, like compass points, and then drew lines to connect them to one another. She intersected them all at the center of the page, where she wrote one more word:
W H A N
“There is the answer to ‘So What?’,” Toni said. “It is WHAN.”
This solution was totally understandable and made total sense. Yes, of course. At the intersection of all the WH- questions, is WHAN. What is the meaning of Life? WHAN. The purpose? WHAN.
In other words, questions are meaningless in themselves. Life IS what it IS, and that is not only OK; It is GOOD; It is WHAN, and that is enough.
“It Just Is!”, I soon after discovered independently, is a profound spiritual Truth. Try sometime just chanting the word IS, over and over as a mantra. (I did that for several hours one day, and arrived at a remarkable inner awareness!)
There are more stories about Toni P that I will include in my MyStory logs. But this is enough to share here!
images are from pixabay.com – – – –
What of your greatest Teachers or Mentors? What life lessons have they helped you to learn? I invite you to write your own MyStory memoirs, to probe your own mystery: Who are you, really? Why are you Here?
We are in a crisis of narrative schismogenesis in the sociopolitical climate of America (at least) today. Gregory Bateson, in Steps To an Ecology of Mind (1981), described schismogenesis as an ever widening schism of viewpoints between opposing sides or persons in argument with one another. An example Bateson gave was how an argument can escalate between spouses. The more each person “digs in” to their position as antithetical to their opponent, the further apart their viewpoints become until there is no way to bridge the chasm behind the barriers of which they are each entrenched.
Let’s say the husband asks where they would like to go to eat dinner, for instance, and the wife says Chinese, knowing that her husband is not particularly fond of Chinese cuisine. He then declines and suggests a polar-opposite sort of cuisine, say Mexican for example, to which she declines and then they dig into why each of the choices they have proffered are not only the best solution but an absolute necessity for that evening’s meal. In the end, perhaps the two spouses each go their separate ways for dinner that night, leading to hard feelings for days.
This is a trite example, especially given the deep gravity of the dangerous schismogenetic chasm so many are entrenched behind with today’s fractious tribalism of the Partisan Divide. We harbor two tribes living within distinct reality fields, each accusing the other side of not only being wrong (using “fake news”) but even regarding each other as “evil” in their supposed intentions and actions.
I try to remain as neutral as possible, aware that truth is absolutely relative, after all, depending on one’s basis of evidence and their sources of information. People dig in to the banks of the side they have chosen—or to which they have been conditioned—often unwilling to even listen to let alone to hear or comprehend statements from the enemy tribe.
Anthropologically (my professional field), it is clear that schismogenetic ruptures have often led tribal groups to divide or fission into distinct, rival factions, sometimes—where there is space enough available—resulting in the opposing factions actually moving away from each other to establish separate villages. The Blues and the Reds do not have such luxury of spatial expanse to divide into. North and South are no longer culturally divided in toto, so we live side by side with neighbors from rival factions every day. We are thus divided within the same village, state, nation, and global society.
How can we overcome this Divide? We must somehow, locally and personally as well as collectively, find ways to change the narrative. Couples psychotherapists–and Bateson himself in Steps to an Ecology of Mind–would suggest mediation is a key first step to confronting and dismantling a factional schismogenetic divide. Representatives from each tribe or faction need to convene and meet somewhere at the middle, in the company of an agreed upon mediating person or agency.
Each side’s story needs to be aired—and heard, without opposition or resistance—with the mediator serving as a buffer. After both narratives are fully expressed, the mediator might summarize each point of view succinctly, validating facets of both viewpoints and helping to delineate some commonalities that could begin to construct a narrative bridge, upon which both persons or sides might at least meet upon to acknowledge the availability of a middle ground.
After such an open hearing and mediation process, each representative returns to share with their members and then of course each tribe is free to do what they will with the knowledge gained. They carry the awareness of a willingness of the Other to have at least sought mediation with them. This can lead to a gradual rebuilding of trust and mutual acceptance, at least.
images are from pixabay.com
I speak from some experience about the therapeutic value of a mediation process. I and a dear friend, she now being departed, once ran into a barrier with one another that grew into a painful schismogenetic chasm for many months. We agreed to meet with a psychotherapist, which made all the difference in helping each of us to find a greater balance in understanding and mutual acceptance. We came away remembering our ultimate friendship, which has remained vital ever on.
So when faced with an immoveable common barrier between opposing narratives, seek mediation.
Though I have other posts to get to putting up, today I have had two influences that lead me to want to add a follow up to the post last week about The Value of Now.
The first nudge is based on a wonderful quote by C.S. Lewis from Soul Gatherings, a blog I follow and love to read daily like a fortune cookie, by Theresa:
You can’t go back and change the beginning,
but you can start where you are and change the ending.
~ C.S. Lewis ~
Obviously C. S. Lewis was advocating for a practice of Better Endings.
Then today I happened upon a movie about the implications of parallel realities: Yesterday. This is a fun story about a fairly unsuccessful but well-motivated musician in England named Jack Malik who, after a bus accident caused by a global blackout, wakes up to find he is living in a reality where, among some other odd glitches, nobody has ever heard of The Beatles! So, Mark reintroduces Beatles songs as if he were the original songwriter/ singer, and he attains great success and fame for his apparent genius.
I will not spoil the ending to Yesterday for you; this is a film well worth seeing. But it led me to think about how, since Time as we think we know it is an illusion according to modern physicists as well as many spiritual philosophies, then past and present Moments can rightly be considered parallel realities.
If we consider the future, such as Tomorrow, to be a parallel reality to Now, then what are some implications for, again, the value of Today?
A betterendings visualization: Imagine that tomorrow is a parallel reality to today. Many aspects remain stable across these parallel worlds: you are still where and how you are living though a day older, most routines are intact, etcetera. But creatively envision adding one TWEAK to your parallel reality of tomorrow. What element(s) might you change as you shift upon waking tomorrow morning into a slightly more ideal or satisfactory reality sphere? To be effective with this technique, you might consider only tweaking tomorrow slightly, to a reality it is quite feasible and possible for you to realize without too shocking of a reality shift.
images are from pixabay.com
You can extend this thought experiment to a future a bit further out to add some more meaningful or life-changing, reality bending tweaks. Six months from today what might your future look like from an ideal standpoint? Write it down, describe yourself living in a parallel reality six months from now that contains the sorts of changes you wish were possible. Then consider, what steps can you take now, and in the near foreseeable future, to bring this new reality about?
Since the future IS a parallel reality to the present Moment, we CAN tweak those elements we would like to change, then carry forth in that direction.
In my early college years, I often mused over the thought that “Today is Yesterday’s Tomorrow.” Now while exploring implications of the principle of Better Endings for creative re-visioning, this phrase has come back into the foreground for my understanding.
It is a truism that yesterday’s future is where you stand/ think/ act today. As well though, consider: When you have a memory of a “past” event, this memory is transpiring in your mind’s eye only NOW, filtered through your reflection and projection in the present moment. As your consciousness changes, so does your view of the past, coloring a memory and recasting it in the present moment.
We rescript our life story and hence our personal reality moment by moment, day by day.
Likewise, when you conceive of or envision a “future” condition or action, this visualization is occurring in your mind’s eye right NOW, also as a projection from your immediate-present waking awareness (or in your dream awareness: when you dream of a future or a past event, the dream is still occurring NOW).
The future has no reality apart from our projections about it, for as soon as the next day or another moment arrives, it is NOW.
As well, your anticipations or expectations about “future” events are multiplex; you may envision a wide array of possible or probable outcomes of present conditions, yet these can unfold only as a future-NOW event.
The future, as a mere projection from our current outlook, exists as a potentially infinite array of possibilities limited primarily by the constraints we impose as determined by our present state of bias or beliefs.
The simple fact, then, that Tomorrow’s Yesterday is Today carries great value; this is the value, the amazing potential, of NOW.
images are from pixabay.com
Below is a Better Endings Seed, a visualization exercise that you may use for journaling or contemplation:
What’s Coming Up for you Tomorrow, and how may it be influenced by aspects of the thought world you inhabit Today?
If you desire to improve your Tomorrow, how might you tweak your prospective outlook today?
An easy way to apply this Better Endings visualization technique is to make a list of some of what you expect to do or aim to accomplish tomorrow. THEN: ADD ONE NEW ELEMENT that will make your tomorrow more exciting or more creatively productive. Add ONE THING that will propel you forward Tomorrow in a different, more progressive direction.
Please feel free to Comment about the results of this thought experiment!
I have recently quit a part-time job that was engaging and interesting, but that required me to accept a toxic environment. I truly enjoyed what I was learning and being able to contribute as a service to the company as well as its clients. But when I discovered the building had partially unmitigated asbestos in its old and somewhat cracked tile flooring, after some studying up on the subject online I knew I could not continue to work at that site. I had recently vacuumed and the broken vacuum had spewed a cloud of dust into my face, before I had learned of the asbestos.
So I explained that I could not work in that environment. For a few weeks I tried to to see if perhaps there was a way I could do the work from home, while also teaching the role to the second in command at my home. Ultimately I realized it it was not ideal for the company or for myself to try to conduct that role remotely.
So I finally uttered the words, “I quit.” Immediately I felt the relief that comes with a positive, self-affirming decision, bringing—yes—a better ending to an unbalanced situation. It has felt very liberating and creatively productive to return to my more unscheduled life, with no more clocking in and out on company time schedules.
images are from pixabay.com
Better endings, remember, are not always happier ones, but when they bring clarity and closure to an unstable or lingering situation, they can lead to New Beginnings!
Better Endings Story Seed: Toxic Conditions?
Have you had the experience of being able to free yourself from a toxic situation? Or, are you currently engaged in a situation with toxic elements to it? Journal about how you found your way free from a toxic situation from the past, or about the toxic elements you have been dealing with. In what ways might the principle of Better Endings potentially relate to your experiences?
A Better Endings outlook is first and foremost a choice to maintain a positive attitude, despite or even especially in the face of life’s challenges. How can we maintain optimism, though, when beset by the heavy weight of a current problem? Recently I have stumbled upon a way out from under the otherwise debilitating burden of a pressing life situation.
I am transitioning out of my part-time job, one that I have deeply valued, because of an irresolvable environmental concern. I have been troubling over this decision, but I do know it is the right choice for me based on health considerations. So I have been mulling over this situation and yesterday arrived at a breakthrough realization that I am calling my “happiness quotient.”
I started counting my blessings compared to the negative factors I am moving through. I thought, well, most of my life remains positive, so I started adding up the percentages of positive aspects I am happy about in comparison to the elements that have been weighing me down.
For example (Readers, please make your own list), What I am Happy About: * my pets, Sophie and Emily (healthy, loving companions) * my family being nearer since my relocating * good friends nearby, old and new, including my best high school buddy and her husband * good friends I am still close with after all these years (many moons and and many moves!) * My new book being released May 6 ! (see right panels for a Goodreads Giveaway and to pre-order) * Continuing to teach anthropology online (my passion) * my home environment: small hometown, river, lake, performing art center * my spiritual practice and community activities * my relative good health and prosperity * my freedom
And What I am Unhappy or Challenged About (Readers again, please compose your own current list): * leaving a job I have treasured and the people there whom I have been befriending * the state of the world
So, when I count up my current factors for Happiness (N=10) against more negative factors (N=2), add them together (12) and calculate the percentage of happy to total factors (10/12 as x/100), I realize I have a Happiness Quotient of 84%. This awareness lifts my spirits and helps me to RELEASE what simply it is timely to Let Go!
Images are from pixabay.com
So, how about you? Try this one on for size. See if it might help you to put ‘things’ into a broader perspective. And importantly if it does not; if your Happiness Quotient turns out to be lower than you would like, then I would invite you to journal about (or contemplate or talk with your loved ones about) how you might introduce some better endings re-visioning into your current life chapter. What can you do to increase your happiness and to decrease the weight of current burdens?
Please feel free to share about your results in Comments below.
A few weeks ago an odd thing happened. I found a single jigsaw puzzle piece on my living room carpet. This was odd because I have not worked on a jigsaw puzzle for over a year (and I have vacuumed several times since then!); and because the last puzzle I did put together is complete and I have not disassembled it. No missing pieces.
I showed the puzzle piece to a friend who sometimes works puzzles and has visited at my home, but no, she says it could not be from her either.
The puzzle piece itself is not so extraordinary: a sliver of the top of a white and grey cloud against a line of maybe blue mountain scape on a horizon, against a dark blue background. Let’s say it could symbolize a cloud’s silver lining—then, for me as the finder, what could be its significance?
images are from pixabay.com
Maybe that is just it: my missing piece of the puzzle of life is to find silver linings! Sometimes I do need to remember that; not to stress out when things go out of kilter a bit, either in everyday life or in the larger scheme of worldly events. Depending on one’s outlook or one’s position in a situation, there can always be a silver lining discerned: opportunities disguised as setbacks.
Still, this could be but one of my “missing puzzle pieces.” As a journaling exercise I recommend answering What Is My Missing Puzzle Piece About? Brainstorm several possible answers and then explore or contemplate each response. For example, for me (I always sample first any better endings journaling tool I offer to others), my brainstorming could include:
My Missing Puzzle Piece Could Be About:
Taking more time to investigate a situation before acting
Listening with greater, and longer, patience
More free time for sheer enjoyment
Dropping the mind in contemplation practice
More laughter, at myself, and healthy humor generally
Ways to arrive at greater clarity and conviction
Acceptance, gratitude
And so on…guess I have plenty more Puzzles to solve!
How about You? How might you answer this probe? What might your puzzle piece look like? What could it represent for you?
Better Endings, and the new beginnings that generally follow from them, start with creative re-visioning. That is the greatest lesson I have taken away from exploring the principle of Better Endings for this blog and in my life over the past several years.
Sometimes I refer to the practice of creative re-visioning itself as better-endering, a play on the phrase from Camelot of ‘happily ever-aftering.’ Of course, not all ‘better endings’ are happy ones; rather, they bring benefits of helping people to resolve situations–sometimes deeply buried in past memories but affecting current outlooks or decisions—so they can move forward with greater awareness to move toward a ‘better’ future.
So, what is Re-Visioning? It is a viewpoint we can apply to past, present, or future situations or choices that allows us to look “anew” or with a “fresh pair of lenses” from our most mature and mindful Self.
We can re-vision a past trauma, for instance, to come to a better understanding of how that came about, what we have learned from the experience, and how we can go forward knowing we could handle such a situation differently today. We can re-vision the present by asking ourselves, have we fallen into any sort of “rut” that is impeding our progress toward our highest goals; if so, how shall we move forward again? We can re-vision the future by looking at where we appear to be headed and asking ourselves, is that where we want to arrive; if not, what specific steps can we take now or in the near foreseeable future that could propel us in a new direction we truly desire to explore.
Here is a practice:
Better Endings Story Seed: Creative Re-Visioning
Make a list of 3-5 situations from your past that you feel influenced the person you have become either in a positive way or a negative way (please include at least one or more of both). Then, quietly reflect about, talk with a loved one about, or journal about each of the situations you have listed. What was most helpful about the positive influences? Why or how did the negative situations come about?
Finally, go back in your active imagination to the more challenging situation, bringing your more mature attitude and sense of greater empowerment or free will today with you. What could you do differently or tell your younger self to do differently? How might that have changed your life? Can you do something today to celebrate AS IF you have resolved that earlier challenge?
“I dreamed it, man!” – Aaron Donald LA Rams defensive tackle (2/13/22, after VLII Superbowl game)
What a wonderful contemplation seed!
The legendary NFL player, Aaron Donald, was not speaking figuratively after his team’s recent Superbowl win; he really did dream of his game-ending play. Donald sacked the opposing team’s quarterback in the 4th quarter on 4th down with 1 yard to reach a first down, and with only seconds left to play. Had the Bengals gained that first down they would have likely at least tied the score and sent this year’s Superbowl game into overtime. But the lineman who sacked the QB to win the Big Game for his team had “dreamed it!” and so it came to be.
What does it take to synch your inner dream world of goals and ‘can do’ possibilities with your outer world of physical action, resulting in the realization of your deeply cherished ideals? Here is a better endings question well worth pursuing.
If you can visualize achieving your goal, as successful athletes and stage performers learn well, then you can manifest that vision. You forge a thought mold, and then you fill it. There is nothing mysterious or magical or difficult or forbidden about this process of manifestation. But it takes dedication to a worthy goal, study and practice to achieve the skill necessary to enact the pattern (fill the mold), and strong belief in your own ability or talent.
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Better Endings Story Seed: Live Your Dream
Have you ever worked so hard at pursuing a goal that you literally dreamed of your success and then found yourself living out that dream in ‘real life’? How can you apply your faculty of creative visualization to realize or bring yourself nearer to fulfilling some worthy goal? Journal in your Better Endings Journal (any loose-leaf paper or blank page book) about a ‘dream’ or goal that you would like to bring into reality. Imagine yourself achieving your goal. What do you see? How DID you do it?
I have always loved the question, and ask it a lot both of myself and of others: “Why Are You Here?” Recently I have come to a further understanding of how this is a potentially inspiring ‘better endings’ prompt as a journaling or contemplation seed.
“Why are you here?” carries the double entendre of referring either to the immediate moment or to the ultimate question of what your life purpose is, or your sense of mission.
Why are you here?
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Either side of this double-faceted query is worth pondering, and it can be illuminating to observe as well how they might converge!
Recently I have accepted a part-time job working at an academic publishing company in my local home community. It has been quite an adjustment to be working four days a week (plus continuing online teaching mainly in the evenings for now), around 24 hours per week, after having settled into a rather comfortable semi-retirement lifestyle with a lot of daily flexibility. So, I ask myself, “Why am I here? (at the new job), from both an immediate and a more ultimate spiritual perspective.
images are from pixabay.com
Okay, so I am certainly on a learning curve at the new job, learning about the inner workings of a publishing business. I find myself in a service role there, aiming to help not only by doing the cataloguing work I am assigned to but also helping implement ideas to help the business grow there despite the transition from print to ebooks in the publishing world. While I also am earning some additional income toward my later years savings goals, the work is fulfilling as a growth opportunity. It requires me to draw on inner creative resources as well as to engage in positive co-workership with the small team that runs the daily operations of the Press.
Knowing how an experience such as a job carries value and contributes to my ultimate spiritual and social goals helps me to frame how this experience can be best integrated into the rest of my life. I do not want to allow this part-time job to prevent me from continuing with teaching—which I find ultimately fulfilling in itself—or to limit my own writing, creative, and spiritual practice activities, or to limit my time with my pets and family and friends! So, I need to monitor how things are going. I do not want to fit myself to the new job but rather intend to integrate the job into my deeper life as a whole.
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Better Endings Story Seed:
Why Are You Here?
Ask yourself this question at two different levels: Why are you Here? in your job, social life or location; and WHY ARE YOU HERE? in terms of your spiritual or whole-life goals? Contemplate and/or discuss and journal about this question. I suggest it will take several passes at contemplation and journaling to really sort this out, but as it is a question of defining your life purpose or mission and how your life relates to those, it may be quite worth your while!
I have been posting to this blog site of Better Endings, in various editions, for well over seven years. In the process of developing ideas for the blog, I have come to understand how “Better Endings” is more than a literary device. It is a principle, a creative faculty, inherent to each of us as human beings because of our capacities for imagination and rational thought. We are capable, through language and memory, to reflect on our past, to mindfully experience our current thoughts and actions, and to anticipate and plan for our future.
We are never ‘stuck’ in the present moment—or bubble—of time. The philosophical admonition that we live ‘only in the present moment’ means different things to different people, but I find for myself it is not really about the Present tense or about time (or spacetime), at all. To be grounded in the Now can mean simply focussing your attention fully on what you are experiencing. If I travel to a past event through memory or imagination, I am Here-Now. If I recall a dream to explore its meaning, I imagine myself back in that experience to ‘replay’ it, and I am Here-Now. If I consider my future potentials to choose my best path forward, as I ‘preview’ a future potential, I am Here-Now. And if I reflect on a full process of how some event or attitude or situation has emerged, unfolded, and resolved (or its forward potentials), viewing that entire process as a single extended Moment is also being Here-Now.
The Principle of Better Endings allows you to regard and conduct your life as a transformational process of Becoming: where have you been, where are you currently, then where are you headed in relation to where/how you would most desire to Be? To develop the talent of future prospection—like mining for gold!—it is helpful to reflect on past events and situations to ferret out what has worked and what could use some tweaking for going forward in a direction most in keeping with your current goals or with your sense of mission and purpose. The principle of Better Endings lets you choose how you will respond in a current condition so you can ‘aim’ to achieve a ‘better’ future condition for yourself and all concerned.
If we think of ourselves as locked within some bubble of the Present (like in a level-balancing tool), then we might think of our lives as like floating on a raft being tossed about on the open seas of chance or circumstance. Hang on! We might say, “I don’t make plans; I like to let things happen and Go with the Flow, wherever Life takes me.” (If you have set the flow in motion in a particular, desirable direction, then yes by all means!) I get the dynamic randomity of that and the sense of surfing on the waves of life experience to develop resourcefulness and spontaneity in the journey or process of living, day by day. “The journey is more important than the destination,” someone framed in this perspective might propound. I totally agree with that idea! Still, howwe engage in the Journey is part and parcel of living a fruitful, dynamic life. “Following Your Heart” to “Find/Live Your Bliss” requires more from you than ‘just getting by’ or waiting to see what will happen next.
Here’s the deal, from the perspective of the principle or faculty of Better Endings as I have come to understand it from practicing the art of ‘better-endering’ through the last several years:
If we regard ourselves as bobbing along through life in a Present spacetime-bubble, there is no reason for the future to be any more than a further unfoldment and extension of habits, conditions, and circumstances we have accrued along the way. We may become trapped in this Present bubble of time.
When I began the journey of conducting research that ultimately led to my book providing Life Mapping tools, Your Life Path (2018), I was inspired by a dream. One morning as I woke from sleep, I saw a white placard with bold black letters pasted right between my eyes, that stated:
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE TO REALIZE YOUR DREAM, NOT JUST FOR GETTING BY.
What a wake-up call! This dream vision led me on a quest to discover for myself what is my Dream and how can I realize It. This led to my research on life mapping as I piloted every step of that emerging process before sharing it with others. After teaching from that process for several years in a humanities course about Myth, Reason, and Your Life Story (co-taught with an historian of mythology), my book and more importantly the workbook for Your Life Path (2018; you can download the workbook for free from the right panel), this process has now led further for me to a new book manuscript (now with my agent) of the title, Better Endings!
images are from pixabay.com
In the last three and a half years I have moved three times, following my own heart to realize aspects of my Dream. This shows how flexibility is an important component of applying the principle of Better Endings. There are no limits to this principle, of course. As we apply it to situations and choices in our lives, engaging with this principle of Better Endings helps us realize the manifold potentials of the Present Moment.
The future is not fixed or necessarily determined by past choices or conditions.
You are free to exercise your faculty to reflect on the past, to review current conditions, and to choose your direction forward, to Realize Your Dream!
Each month this year at Better Endings for Your Life Path I am inviting you to pose a monthly question as a step toward resolving a larger, yearly Quest. My own Quest is about achieving happiness in my new life conditions since retiring and relocating last summer. This month, my question is about “How to Apply Lessons from the Past.” I aim to not have to unnecessarily repeat earlier hardships but rather to move forward, having turned over a leaf or with a new lease on life, as ‘they’ say.
images are from pixabay.com
So rather than repeating decisions and choices that led down pathways I do not choose to revisit, my quest this month is to contemplate how to practice discernment as I approach situations with a fresh viewpoint. Every step forward needs to be tempered, like walking through a labyrinth slowly, step by step, taking care at each pregnant pause to consider my options well and choose accordingly.
I do believe that if we do not learn from our lessons we are very likely to repeat the conditions that require us to learn the same lesson again. Moving is a great opportunity for growth and development, but true progress has to come from within.
I invite you to choose your own monthly question this week in relation to a larger QUEST you are aiming to fulfill.
For 45 years I have participated in service activities with my spiritual group, and I have taught university courses first as a grad student then as a professor and author for forty years altogether. Service is baked into my sense of identity and purpose. I would feel bereft without the opportunity to serve, wherever and however I can be of use. A credo I have adopted is:
In service is my reward.
I put this out there because this month’s question is about how to be of service in a new location after semi-retirement, which I feel is a fundamental necessity for continuing growth and development. Living your Dream, Now!, which is the through line of my book, Your Life Path (see right panel), does not mean “settling” into an inert, less than active life. Quite the contrary; Living Your Dream means to be following (in Joseph Campbell’s terms), yet I would say, manifesting your Bliss! For as you achieve one facet of your fulfillment, this opens doors to pathways leading forth to many more.
In Indian traditions (both continental Indian Hinduism and some Native American cultures) conceptually a lifetime can be understood to be comprised of four stages or cycles. Elder-hood can be a period of reflection that bears the fruits of Wisdom, not just head or fact knowledge. Wisdom is expressed as service to one’s community based on the wealth of experience an elder has attained. Giving back, offering insights from a life well lived, is a vital stage by which the generations turn in the gyre of transformation and continuation of growth and enlightenment.
images are from pixabay.com
So I am ready to step forward, to volunteer in my new community and to forge continuing pathways forward with writing and other creative activities. I find that having made this commitment, already avenues are opening. I dreamed of an advertisement for my life mapping services. I will add some info in the blog tabs shortly. Plus I have been welcomed to help in a political context, and ideas are flowing for writing.
Service and love are one and the same, as forms of reciprocity in community.
Better Endings 