Life is a moment-to-moment happening;
any attempt to possess it, save it,
or store it, is to lose the present moment.

A Spiritual Warrior

Good day, and welcome to the newest day in all of our lives.  This entire week
has come to us completely fresh and new, and we hope that you're able to make
the very most of it, using your gifts and searching out those things
that give you joy while giving of yourself. 

The Ugly Duckling (an excerpt)
Bernie Siegel

Who Is This False Me?
tom walsh

Believing Nonsense
Gail Pursell Elliott

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The Ugly Duckling (an excerpt)
Bernie Siegel

I probably talk about the importance of loving yourself almost as much as I talk about the importance of loving other people.  I am not encouraging people to be self-indulgent and focused only on themselves.  You must love other people to have a truly fulfilling life, but you have to start by loving yourself.  If you hate yourself and neglect yourself, what are you going to do when someone comes along and advises you to love your neighbor as you love yourself?

If you have trouble loving yourself, think about the ugly duckling.  Remember how the little foundling embarrassed his mother and his siblings by being different?  How his mother was constantly explaining or making excuses to the neighbors for his behavior and his looks?  Then one day, tired of making excuses, she cast him out of the nest.

The ugly duckling wandered about the world, alone and forlorn, until at last he met kindred spirits who gave him the gift of reflection.  Encouraged, the duckling looked into the still water of a pond and saw for himself the truth his duck family hadn't seen--that he was a beautiful swan.

In life, the mirror-holder often turns out to be someone outside the family.  I held the mirror for Stewart, a chubby boy who attended a camp where I was a counselor before I went to medical school.  Every afternoon the counselors chose teams by alternating picks--an effective way of balancing out the talent but an excruciating experience for the kids who are not picked until the end.

Having had some experience as an ugly duckling myself, I saw how badly it hurt Stewart to be passed over round after round.  I decided there were better things I could do with my picks than choosing a winning softball team.  One afternoon I made Stewart my first pick.  When I saw how happy it made him, I decided to pick another clumsy camper on the next round, and another the round after that.  Before long all the really clumsy kids and poor athletes were gathered around me and I was forced to start choosing some who were only mediocre.

Did my team win that afternoon?  No.  Did we have fun?  Yes.  We had more fun before we took the field than our opponents had all afternoon.

The next day I chose Stewart first again and continued to choose someone unlikely on every round.  Same thing the next day and the day after.  By the end of the week, a group of ugly ducklings had stopped dreading the choosing-up ritual and had started looking forward to our afternoon games.  No longer outcasts, they started thinking of themselves as my regulars, and though we never won a game, we had spirit.  We were a team and we loved playing together.

At the end of the two-week session Stewart brought his parents over to meet me.  They said with surprise that for the first time, he actually seemed to have enjoyed camp that year, and they were very pleased.  I didn't tell them what had made the difference.  I met a lot of surprised parents that summer, parents who had dropped off ugly ducklings and were picking up swans.

We are all unborn swans, and have within us the power to be swans and to create swans.  A caring schoolteacher or a physician who is unafraid of showing unconditional love can be a mirror in which students or patients discover their own beauty.  I've had patients call me asking for Jack Kevorkian's phone number.  When they learned they were swans, they found self-love, repaired relationships, and cured their diseases.
   

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Who Is This False Me, and Where Did It Come from?

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you got this great shirt or sweater that you really liked?  You couldn't wait to wear it to school so that everyone could see what a great shirt or sweater it was.  When you got there, though, somebody made an insulting remark about what you were wearing, and all of a sudden, all you wanted to do was take the thing off and never wear it again.

You also might have liked a certain teacher or classmate, until your friends started teasing you about "being in love" or having a crush on that person.  In order to stop the teasing, you pretended not to like the person anymore, and you possibly lost the opportunity to make a good friend or have a strong relationship with the teacher.

In each of these cases, we see a piece of the development of the false self--the person that we present to the world isn't truly the person we are.  In the first case, your true self loved the sweater, but the self that you presented to the world hated it.  In the second, your true self liked a certain person, but the self that the world saw didn't.  As we go through life, we see that the self that we present to the world is very fussy and very demanding, and all because it wants to fit in and be accepted by others, even to the point of being untrue, unfair, and dishonest.

 I see this in myself a lot.  At heart, I'm a cheerful, outgoing person who loves to be around others.  As a kid, I was this way most of the time until I started growing up and my father's alcoholism became a factor in my life.  I became withdrawn, afraid of what would happen if people found out my family's "secret" (which of course wasn't really a secret at all).  There was an unwritten code in my family that we wouldn't expose ourselves to the ridicule of others because of my father's drinking, and we stayed to ourselves, involved in no social life at all.

The self that I presented to the world as a result of these years was a self that was full of fear--fear of rejection, of ridicule, of exposure.  And it had complete control over me, affecting my life very strongly.  Its hold was so strong that later in life, when I was exposed to the idea of "Who cares what other people think?", I saw that concept as incredibly selfish and unrealistic, for the false self wanted me to see it in a negative light so that I wouldn't adopt that philosophy and free myself to be me.

The part of me that the world saw was a nice person, but someone who wasn't sure of himself, who was often depressed, and who was afraid of "blowing it" in virtually every social situation I found myself in.

I finally realized two important things, all on my own:  first of all, this person that I was being wasn't me, and second of all, it wasn't my fault that this self had grown, but it definitely was my responsibility to do something about it if I wanted things to change.

I now do what I please without worrying what others think about who I am or what I'm doing.  I'm not worried about being selfish or arrogant, because "what I please" involves working hard, trying to help others, and trying to live by my conscience.  I'm trying to let my true self shine through, and the results have been great.  If I don't want to go to something, I don't go, no matter the way it would "appear."  I definitely do things within reason, and I don't do everything I want to--I do have responsibilities that come first--but I try to do as much as I can.

What's your false self like?  Is it afraid?  Lonely?  Is it angry and forceful?  Is it putting on a show to try to prove to the world that you're someone that you're not?  Is it overweight or underweight?  Is it rude or overly friendly?  Is it manipulative and controlling?  Remember that identifying this self is the first step to figuring out who your true self is, and once you can let that true self shine through, then you can start living the life you were meant to live.
  

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Over-tip breakfast waitresses.
Hide a love-note for your child or honey to see.
Every once in a while, take the scenic route.
When you feel terrific, notify your face.
Be the first to smile.
Let cars in traffic.
Take a night class.
Plant flowers.  And smell them.
Forgive someone who doesn't deserve it.
Wear wild, shocking underwear under business attire.
At grocery check out, occasionally allow others in line.
Or offer change.
Go to a Bookstore.
Always have a motivational tape in your car.

Team Building Success Coach Larry Lipman leads groups of 11 to 24 with interactive, fun activities that boost morale, motivate people resistant to change, and appreciate individual differences and strengths.  http://www.Funteambuilding.com.

Alone in his car heading west, it's easy for Jason to feel sorry for himself and mad at the world.  But then he gives a ride to Hector and learns life isn't as negative as we sometimes see it.  The friendship between this young man and his 70-year-old passenger is an inspiring story of love and of dealing with obstacles in life.  It's a story that you'll treasure long after you've finished reading.

Three Cavaliers, Tom Walsh's second published novel, is now available in book form!  Click on the image to the left to order!

     But then he noticed Hector’s bag still on the floor.  He sat up and put his seat back in its upright position.  He looked out the windows and he spied Hector sitting on a picnic table, his feet on the bench and his elbows on his thighs, his hands together with the fingers intertwined as he stared off into the distance.  Behind the rest area was a large field of grass that easily could have reached to Jason’s chest if he were to walk in it, and behind that started a forest.  Hector stared in that direction, and Jason imagined him at that moment a dreamer, a poet searching for inspiration or searching for words that would make his inspiration a reality, something tangible.
     He got slowly out of the car, knowing that his legs would be worse now than they had been.  He had to go to the bathroom, but he wanted to check in with Hector first.  He took his first few steps very slowly to get his walking legs back, and then he went over to the picnic table where Hector sat.  He sat down, too, not saying a word, and looked out at the grass and the forest.
     “Hello, amigo mío,” Hector said quietly.  “You have slept?”
     “I have slept,” Jason replied.  “I slept pretty well, too,” he fibbed, not wanting Hector to worry that he might be too sleepy to drive.
     “That is good,” Hector said, not removing his gaze from the scene before him.
     “What are you looking at?” Jason asked after a few long moments.
     Hector shrugged.  “I do not know,” he said.  “I am not looking so much as I am thinking.  I never have seen this particular field before, or that forest behind it.  I am wondering what kind of life there is right before me that I cannot even see.  In that grass must live many snakes, insects, birds, perhaps even foxes and mice and other animals.  In the forest beyond, how many different creatures are living their lives right at this moment, with no idea at all that I am sitting here watching the edges of their world?  And they do not care that I watch.  It does not matter to them because it does not affect them.  Why are we trained to see only the surfaces of things and people without regard for the life that is deeper than the surface?  When we learn to live life that way, we lose the opportunity to see and feel the very essence of life, the very depths of life that we only can guess at because we do not see it.”
     “Maybe it’s too scary for us,” Jason said.  “Maybe if we were able to see the depths, we’d lose our minds.  Go insane.”
     Hector turned to him slowly and regarded him very curiously.  “That is a very wise thing that you say,” he told Jason.  “I am very impressed with your insight.”
     “Thanks,” Jason said awkwardly, not sure if Hector was being serious or was joking with him.
     “You are welcome,” Hector replied, turning back around and returning his gaze to the scene before him.  “The question is, though:  What is so wrong with losing our minds?  Just what are we trying to preserve by not losing them?”
     Jason laughed.  “That’s a good question.  Sometimes I wonder.  Sometimes the people that other people call ‘flakes’ seem to be much happier than the ones we all call ‘normal.’  I think sometimes it’s good to be weird.”
     “Personally, I would not be any other way,” Hector said.  “I want to be weird always, for only in weirdness can we find the normal.  We all are trained to see the world in certain ways, and that keeps us from seeing the world as it really is.  And we create these carefully controlled façades for ourselves that become so normal that it makes me sick sometimes to see them.  In order to become ‘normal,’ people have sacrificed their sense of play, their ability to have fun, their willingness to try different things and to take risks.  It is so very sad.”