Developing a Better You

Tag: Susan Stocker (Page 2 of 3)

Begin With YES

I have a gift that is also a curse.

When presented with an idea, a suggestion or an opportunity, my mind can almost instantly think of a myriad of problems or obstacles that could arise from pursuing it. Over my life and careers, that ability has saved both me and my employers a lot of unnecessary headaches.

It has also robbed me of a lot of growth and joy.

Having a default position of “No, here’s why that won’t work…” is not a healthy way to live. And it hardly makes me the life of the party. So when I read my good friend Susan Stocker’s recent blog “Begin With Yes,” I knew I’d been gifted with tools to develop this particular growth edge. I’m sharing it here in hopes that it will help you take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

SUSAN:

One of the most helpful parenting techniques I ever learned was: “Begin with yes.”

No matter what that child asks, answer with yes, and then qualify the yes. “Daddy, can I go jump off a ledge?” Hell, no, is the response that leaps to mind. However, “Yes. When you’re older, you and I will go look for a nice, low ledge and I’ll help you practice jumping off it. That’ll be a fun little adventure for us.”

“Mommy, can I have some ice cream?” Don’t say, “It’s 9 o’clock in the morning!” Instead, “Yes, tonight after you’ve eaten your supper you can have some of the chocolate ice cream you picked out at the store!”

And there is only one answer to the most frequently asked question in childhood: “Mommy, can I help?”

Each of us knows people who begin with yes, and each of us is undoubtedly related to people who begin with NO. Boy, are they annoying. No matter what you say, a fact, an opinion, a compliment, even — they’ll respond, “No.” Then they’ll explain why you’re wrong. I gave someone a compliment recently, and she told me I had misinterpreted what she had meant when she did what I thought was clearly a kind deed.

Starting with yes, or something positive, is always possible and keeps dialogue flowing. I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me I’m wrong, I shut up and shut down. If things are going to be absolutes — like NO — the person stating the absolute leaves no room for conversation or compromise. There’s no where to go and nothing about which to talk.

Photo by Drahomír Posteby-Mach on Unsplash

There are a million ways to say YES. And yes doesn’t necessarily mean YOU ARE RIGHT. To me, yes means, let’s talk about it. Yes, I can see that there are multiple ways to look at things. Yes might also mean, “Yes, I’m listening.” It might mean, “Yes, I’m engaged in what we’re discussing.”

I remember having quite a conversation with a man who worked at Liberty University. We were in an airport. He almost missed his plane. I just kept asking him to explain to me how the policies and beliefs of Jerry Falwell, who took a yearly salary of 1.25 million from the “non-profit” Liberty University, squared with what Jesus taught us.

No one’s mind has ever been changed by being told he or she is wrong. All that does is close a mind and a heart. And, as my grandkids will tell you, I say frequently, “Nothing is harder to open than a closed mind.” Nothing is sadder to see than a person with a closed heart. (Closed minds and hearts tend to show up together. They are evident in people’s faces — the scowls and sneers — in people’s posture, and, scientifically, verifiably evident in people’s predispositions to illness, disease and accidents.)

We can do our small part by starting with “yes” or some version of positive response. My heart always sinks when I hear that the peace talks have stalled or been discontinued. Yet many times a day we stall and discontinue possible avenues toward interpersonal peace and understanding by responding negatively, assuming nothing is to be gained by extending the olive branch of “yes.”

One quick and dirty little suggestion. Even if you can’t make it all the way from NO to YES try to at least get as far as the most useful word in the English language: “OH.” When all else fails, say OH while nodding yes. Oh, that’s interesting. Oh, I’ll have to think about that. Oh, I never thought of it that way before. Oh, well, I wish I had more time, but gotta go.

Peace, the icing on the cake of positivity! YES. Love, Susan

Susan Stocker is a blogger, novelist, and Marriage and Family Therapist with Masters degrees in Communication and Counseling. She served as a mental health ambassador to China in 1998 and has volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, and many other organizations. Her published works include Only Her Naked Courage (2013), Heart 1.5 (2013), The Many Faces of Anxiety (2013), The Many Faces of PTSD (2010), and Heart (1981), as well as her blog The Many Faces of PTSD (manyfacesofptsd.wordpress.com). She is on a lifelong journey toward Becoming Herself. You can contact her at sraustocker@yahoo.com.

Giving Thanks

My good friend and fellow blogger Susan Stocker recently wrote such a compelling perspective on Thanksgiving that I decided to share it. I hope her words expand your view of the holiday and helps you take another step toward Becoming Yourself (you can subscribe to Susan’s wonderful blog here).

Can you believe we are fortunate enough to live in a country which sets aside a special day for THANKSGIVING??? Maybe that is the first thing for which we might be thankful! Of the 195 countries on this earth, only 17 have a celebrated Thanksgiving.

In 1621, fifty-three Pilgrims entertained ninety indigenous people who had helped them adapt to a new world, plant crops, learn to fish for strange and different fish, grind meal, make unusual crops eatable, build dwellings, hunt wildlife and, put simply, survive. For three days this assembly celebrated, feasted and learned from each other although everything about them was different, from language to customs to which fork to use for which course — just kidding about the forks! 

Next year our Thanksgiving will be the four hundredth such celebration. 

We might suppose this holiday has lasted because it’s built around food and eating ourselves into a coma. (Actually, I think that might be a modern addition to the original intent.) We might also assume that the giving of thanks was to God. That does not seem to be strictly true, either. These Pilgrims were English separatists who were breaking away from the church. Nonetheless, while they were surely thanking God, they also felt a need to thank the native peoples who had helped them live long enough for a celebration.

I think they were giving thanks to the American Indians who, instead of killing them, had welcomed these strange foreigners although earlier groups of Pilgrims, who had returned to Europe, had apparently kidnapped some of the “Indians” and taken them along back to England as slaves. Despite that, the inhabitants of the land — Native Americans never believed in such a concept as “owning” land — shared not only the land but their knowledge of how to live in harmony with the land.

That’s my understanding of how this whole gratitude day got started — gratuitously. The Native peoples asked nothing in return. They welcomed the refugees. “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free,” was the invitation offered to the Pilgrims. We’ll help you find a home here. We’ll show you how to acclimate. “Mi casa y su casa.” My house is your house; my home is your home. “This land is your land, this land is my land.”

My friends… what do you think? How have we done four hundred years later in retaining the spirit of the celebration?

Maybe there’s a real opportunity for us this year when we are encouraged not to gather in the same way with the same crowd of people with the same limp phrases on our lips. Clearly, we need to sit out a year or a century and see if we can realign ourselves with the original meaning of a day of giving thanks. Maybe we can figure out a way to share with those who are different, diverse, disadvantaged, and disheartened. What a chance to reassess and re-design. What a possibility. 

I can’t help but believe nothing would please that God of ours more. I know that many of us, as parents ourselves, not THE parent that God is, just A parent, are pleased more than in any other way by watching our children live in harmony, happiness, gratitude toward each other and thankfulness with and for each other. Here are my three posing for a picture for their (thankful) mother.

Love, Susan

Susan Stocker is a blogger, novelist, and Marriage and Family Therapist with Masters degrees in Communication and Counseling. She served as a mental health ambassador to China in 1998 and has volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, and many other organizations. Her published works include Only Her Naked Courage (2013), Heart 1.5 (2013), The Many Faces of Anxiety (2013), The Many Faces of PTSD (2010), and Heart (1981), as well as her blog The Many Faces of PTSD (manyfacesofptsd.wordpress.com). She is on a lifelong journey toward Becoming Herself. You can contact her at sraustocker@yahoo.com.

Wrong Every Time: Stereotyping

My dear friend and fellow blogger Susan Stocker recently wrote something that I felt was so important and timely that I decided to share it. In lieu of my own words this week, please take a few moments to read hers and subscribe to her inspiring, encouraging, and challenging blog here. I bolded the lines that especially spoke to me.

Sometimes, something is so unique that it defies comparison, labels or categories. This stunning picture is an example of that.

Most of the time, however, we think and talk in a very dangerous and harmful shorthand: stereotyping. When we group together “All” of anything, from people with the same color hair, to folks who drive the same car, to those who share an occupation or an opinion or a classification, we are stereotyping. Stereotyping is a “thought distortion.” In other words, we are thinking incorrectly when we don’t differentiate individual redheads from all redheads, or individual lawyers from all lawyers. We are wrong. Every time.

Nothing is more prominent these days than stereotyping:

All politicians are crooked.

All Republicans are racists and bigots.

All Democrats are socialists and communists.

All police officers . . . All Muslims . . .All southerners. . . 

It is intellectual laziness to group and dismiss. People never stereotype positively, only negatively. I’ve never heard anyone say, “All hairdressers are artistic and talented. All Hispanics are hard-working.” No, the grouping and the generalizations are always negative. And they are always wrong.

If you were bitten by a dog, you will be tempted to say, “I hate dogs.” How can that possible be true? You had a bad experience with ONE dog and decided to throw out the entire canine population?

I mention this now, particularly, because it causes so much hate and misunderstanding when we talk about “immigrants” or “lobbyists” or “mega-churches” and draw a “One Fits All” conclusion. 

For those of us trying to live in peace, catching ourselves when we stereotype is a great step toward exchanging our golf shoes for ballet slippers; we walk more gently through life. Giving up stereotyping increases our ability to be heard and to be able to have a discussion instead of an argument.

Catching others when they stereotype is a legitimate, non-aggressive conversational tool. “Wait. You said, ‘All politicians.’ That is unlikely, unproveable and does not pass my fact checker. That’s a stereotype and a generalization.”

Every profession, every nationality, every hair color, every dog is different and unique. All of us, when threatened or scared, are likely to bite. All of us stray from the moral high ground some of the time. All of us have spells of being ditzy or fiery, whether we have blonde hair or red hair. 

One fundamental criteria of talking the high road and following our North Star is not judging. There is no more contaminated form of judgment than stereotyping.

Here’s to our piece of peace this week: no stereotyping, given or received.

Love to each of my unique and individual friends — Susan

Susan Stocker is a blogger, novelist, and Marriage and Family Therapist with Masters degrees in Communication and Counseling. She served as a mental health ambassador to China in 1998 and has volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, and many other organizations. Her published works include Only Her Naked Courage (2013), Heart 1.5 (2013), The Many Faces of Anxiety (2013), The Many Faces of PTSD (2010), and Heart (1981), as well as her blog The Many Faces of PTSD (manyfacesofptsd.wordpress.com). She is on a lifelong journey toward Becoming Herself. You can contact her at sraustocker@yahoo.com.

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