Defense Against the Dark Arts

This quote comes from Brené Brown, the remarkable “researcher-storyteller” who made waves with her incredible 2010 TEDTalk about vulnerability. Her 2012 book entitled Daring Greatly focuses on her new initiative, The Daring Way, but also includes some great nuggets of wisdom such as the following:

Last year, after I had finished a talk on wholehearted families, a man approached me on the stage. He stuck out his hand and said, “I just want to say thank you.” I shook his hand and offered a kind smile as he looked down at the floor. I could tell that he was fighting back tears.

He took a deep breath and said, “I have to tell you that I really didn’t want to come tonight. I tried to get out of it, but my wife made me.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“I couldn’t understand why she was so excited. I told her that I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend a Thursday night than listening to a shame researcher. She said that it was really important to her and I had to stop complaining, otherwise I’d ruin it for her.” He paused for a few seconds, then surprised me by asking, “Are you a Harry Potter fan?”

I stalled for a second while I tried to connect everything he was saying. When I finally gave up, I answered his question. “Yes, I am a huge fan. I’ve read all of the books several times, and I’ve watched and re-watched the movies. I’m hardcore. Why?”

He looked a little embarrassed before he explained, “Well, I didn’t know anything about you, and as my dread built up about coming tonight, I kept picturing you as Snape. I thought you’d be scary. I thought you’d be wearing all black, and that you’d talk slowly and in a deep, haunting voice – like the world was ending.”

I laughed so hard that I almost spit out the water I was drinking. “I love Snape! He’s my favorite character.” I immediately glanced over at my purse, which was still tucked under the bottom of the podium. In it my keys were (and are) attached to my beloved LEGO Snape keychain.

We shared a laugh about his Snape projection, then things got more serious. “What you said really made sense to me. Especially the part about us being so afraid of the dark stuff. What’s the quote that you shared from your book – the one with the picture of the twinkle lights?”

“Oh, the twinkle light quote: ‘Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.’”

He nodded. “Yes! That one! I’m sure that’s why I didn’t want to come. It’s crazy how much energy we spend trying to avoid these hard topics when they’re really the only ones that can set us free. I was shamed a lot growing up and I don’t want to do that to my three kids. I want them to know they’re enough. I don’t want them to be afraid to talk about the hard shit with us. I want them to be shame resilient.”

At this point we were both teary-eyed. I reached up and did that awkward “are you a hugger?” gesture, then I gave him a big ol’ hug. After we let go of our this-stuff-is-hard-but-we-can-do-it embrace, he looked at me and said, “I’m pretty bad at vulnerability, but I’m really good at shame. Is getting past shame necessary for getting to vulnerability?”

“Yes. Shame resilience is key to embracing our vulnerability. We can’t let ourselves be seen if we’re terrified by what people might think. Often ‘not being good at vulnerability’ means that we’re damn good at shame.”

As I stumbled for better language to explain how shame stops us from being vulnerable and connected, I remembered my very favorite exchange from Harry Potter. “Do you remember when Harry was worried that he might be bad because he was angry all of the time and had dark feelings?”

He enthusiastically answered, “Yes! Of course! The conversation with Sirius Black! That’s the moral of the entire story.”

“Exactly! Sirius told Harry to listen to him very carefully, then he said, ‘You’re not a bad person. You’re a very good person who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.’”

“I get it,” he sighed.

“We all have shame. We all have good and bad, dark and light, inside of us. But if we don’t come to terms with our shame, our struggles, we start believing that there’s something wrong with us – that we’re bad, flawed, not good enough – and even worse, we start acting on those beliefs. If we want to be fully engaged, to be connected, we have to be vulnerable. In order to be vulnerable, we need to develop resilience to shame.”

At this point, his wife was waiting by the stage stairs. He thanked me, gave me another quick hug, and walked away. Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he turned back and said, “You may not be Snape, but you’re a damn good Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!”

It was a conversation and a moment that I’ll never forget. On the way home that night, I thought about a line from one of the books where Harry Potter was detailing the fate of several unsuccessful Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers: “One sacked, one dead, one lost his memory, and one was locked in a trunk for nine months.” I remember thinking, “Sounds about right.”

J.K. Rowling’s incredible imagination has made teaching shame a lot easier and way more fun. The allegorical power of Harry Potter lends itself to talking about everything from the struggle between light and dark to the hero’s journey and why vulnerability and love are the truest marks of courage.

Having spent so long trying to describe and define unnamed emotions and experiences, I find that Harry Potter has given me a treasure trove of characters, monsters, and images to use in my teaching.

I’m so grateful to J.K. Rowling and to the brave men and women who share their stories with me! Shame is the big daddy of dementors, but we’re stronger. Expecto Patronum!

“To be successful”

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to be successful.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Two main philosophies”

“I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday, and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be suprised how far that gets you.” – Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Bucket List Adventures

It’s been a long time since I’ve checked something off of my Bucket List. My roommate says that I shouldn’t live my life by a list, but I don’t mind. It helps me to clear my head. And if I don’t complete the Bucket List, I don’t think I’ll be that upset about it – I’ll be dead after all.

Since I last posted, THREE items can be checked off the list. Two of them were planned, but the most recent was completely spontaneous, and all the better for it. I was presented the opportunity and I took advantage of it, and that’s all that we can do in this life.

February 2014 – Donate Blood
And about freaking time too. After international travel and sports have inhibited me from being able to donate blood forever, I finally completed one of my top priorities of the Bucket List. It was a grand success! I was a little nervous going into it, but all was fine until I watched my finger prick, and almost fainted right then and there. But not to fear – it was simply further confirmation that I cannot handle the sight of my own blood. I’m rather good with everyone else’s; it’s just mine that seems to freak me out. So I drank some water, took some deep breaths, and resolved not to look at any blood exiting my body for the rest of the day. And it totally worked! My nurse told me that I was a record fast donor – I gave a pint of blood in 4 minutes & 30 seconds. It wasn’t until later when the Google told me that the average human takes between 8 & 10 minutes to donate a pint that I truly understood how freaking fast that was.

May 2014 – Go to a Music Festival
The tickets were purchased so far in advance that I almost forgot that I had them. And when the time came, I had so many other things going on that I could only go to one of the days of Boston Calling, but it was totally worth it. Highlights included near-front-row spots for Walk Off the Earth, not being the only one who knew the words to Magic Man‘s jams, and having my heart serenaded by Ben Gibbard – and it doesn’t hurt that his name is Ben, too. Even though my right foot was trapped in a boot all day, nothing prevented me from thoroughly enjoying the entire day – not even the 1.5 hours of rain we endured while The Decemberists were playing. Nor the sunburn I woke up with the next day.

June 2014 – Drive around in a convertible
This was such a spontaneous Bucket List completion, I cannot even believe it. After planning to meet my friend’s parents halfway so they wouldn’t have to trek all the way back to Boston to pick her up, we headed up to Windham, NH, to go to dinner together. WHAT A SURPRISE IT WAS when her parents drove up in a convertible! One overwhelmed explanation later and I was sitting in a light blue convertible, driving through the picturesque New Hampshire countryside, with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, just like I had always imagined. I was baffled by the turn of events, but extremely pleased.

Carpe Diem!

 

Bird Cage

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then; I contradict myself.”

Walt Whitman can say these words
And not have them carried away by birds
Who fly on winds created by the doubts in my heart
Of who I am
And who I am supposed to be

“Supposed to be” you ask?
Shouldn’t that be for me to decide?
Isn’t that why I’m on this ride?
I’m tall enough, yes
And I’ve waited in line

I’ve passed every test
Overcome every hurdle in my way
But still it seems
The questions come in between my dreams
Why are you different?

You’re not what I expected
There are layers to your cake
And don’t get me wrong, those are delicious layers
Interspersed with raspberry swirl and rainbow sprinkles
But I just didn’t expect that from you

That’s not the way you were raised
That’s not the way your family spends their days
Why change when you can just flow?
And conform to everything you already know?

Well, I say to you, there’s a person inside these genes
And she has blood in her veins
And she has thoughts in her head
And most important of all, she has a heart in her chest
A heart that beats to the steady rhythm of African steel drums
Pounding a message on her answering machine
Reminding her that she still has yet to visit them

A heart that has felt the rush of leaping off the side of a mountain
And yearns to feel it again
A heart that knows
It can’t go with the flow

But you’re from a small town
Where everyone knows your name
Don’t you understand that it wouldn’t be the same?
No more comfort
No more control
No more place to hide
Among the sameness inside

But I want to break free!
I want to be different, don’t you see?
This nature girl wants to feel the concrete jungle beneath her feet
The skyscrapers competing with the heights of the sycamores
The rush of traffic racing the waves of the ocean to see who really controls my pulse

I want to be enveloped in a sea of people
Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours and more
Wrap me up in a bottle and cast me out from the shore
Let the wind determine my path
And I’ll go

I’ll go far away and it will be okay
My roots don’t need grass to hold them in place
A couple phone calls and a couple photographs
Will keep me going until I find my way back into your embrace

I am an only child
I am your only child
Your arms are where I fit best
When my head is pressed against your chest
Just because I leave doesn’t mean I won’t come back

You taught me how to love
And how to give the world’s best hugs
You taught me that everything can be fixed with a little chocolate and a little time
Do you think I wouldn’t keep that in mind?

But I am not patient, I am not always kind
Love is something that must be found
And it will not come to me if I sit at home and wait for it

I will not leave this life with a list of shoulda/woulda/couldas
I will leave with a list full of experiences
And even if I didn’t get a chance to check off all of them
At least I worked towards them
At least I thought it possible for me to achieve them
At least I put them on the list

When you run make sure you run
To something and not away from cause
Lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere

The Avett Brothers taught me that one
Do I quote others because I can’t think of the words myself? No
I quote others to know that someone has felt my pain before
And that with pain they might have achieved more
And so can I

My confidence is wearing thin now
I think you may be able to read between the lines now
You might be able to brush away the eraser dust
And see straight through words I’ve written only in pencil
For writing them in pen would be too permanent

And I still have doubts
Enough to fill my heart and carry those birds
For maybe all I’m doing is repeating words

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then; I contradict myself.”

May 2014

“What is the song?”

“Are we biology or God or something higher? I know my heart beats and I listen to it. The beat is biology, but what is the song?” – James Frey

A Class is Currently Blowing My Mind

So I’m taking this class entitled “Creativity and Human Development” and it’s currently blowing my mind.

It’s basically psychology for the lay person. We’re reading Freud; rather, we are reading our professor’s notes on Freud. And I’ve studied enough Visual Communication Theory to understand the basics of how the brain works.

But now there’s a focus. And the focus is on how to improve one’s creativity. What? I can make myself more creative? I thought that was something we were born with, like “My body takes up more height than yours.” “Well, my brain has more creative height than yours, so there.”

I’m going to write more on this subject, for sure, as I’m only into week #2 of the class and I simply can’t wait to see where it goes from here. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a quote re: determinism that is my current preoccupation at night before dreams take over my conscious…or subconscious?

“Whatever decision we think we are making is actually being made for us, because the decision is the end result of a thought and we have no control over the arising of the thought.”

– Ramesh Balsekar

“Every book has a soul”

“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it, and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

What was the most important thing you’ve learned in college?

November 20th, 2013

I was over at a friend’s apartment last night, eating dinner with his parents who were in town for a visit. Surrounded by his roommates, we listened as his parents shared some of the most honest conversation I’ve heard in a long time. It’s times like these when I am reminded that I am, in fact, an adult and deserve to be treated as such. And boy, does it feel good when you are.

Out of the blue, his mother asked us all a question – What was the most important thing you’ve learned in college? We giggled, nervously glancing at each other, thinking of all that we had “learned” to do in college. No, no, I’m serious, I want to know, she continued. Let’s go around the circle and you tell me what you’ve learned.

Some were silly. Some were cliché. I’ve learned how to keep track of my keys, one girl said. I’ve learned how to tell what is important and what is not important to read when you have class in an hour, said another boy.

Then, the lessons turned serious. I’ve learned when to keep friends and when to let go. I feel ya there. I’ve learned not to only be friends with people who look like me. Wow. I’ve learned that being vulnerable is the only way to grow closer to one another. Truth.

And suddenly it was my turn. What was the most important thing that I had learned in the past three years? What singular nugget of information could I take away from my time spent at this Jesuit institution? I wasn’t looking to impress, so much as I wanted to be sure that my answer was the truth. I wanted to say something that I believed in, not something that I could brush off as unimportant, as if I didn’t take the question seriously. On the contrary, I thought it was a wonderful question, and I wanted to convey how pleased I was that someone had thought my experience worthy enough to answer it.

The most important thing that I’ve learned in college is that everyone doesn’t process things the same way I do, I said, eliciting a laugh. It’s true; not everyone wants to hang out with other people when they’re sad, and not everyone needs to talk through their problems out loud. Some people need space and time and silence to process. That’s really difficult for me to give, silence, because it’s not how I work. Too much silence makes me nervous; I blabber and ramble and try desperately to fill any silence that I come across. Whenever someone else is quiet, I tend to start to worry, for I know that if I am quiet for too long, it means I’m uncomfortable with something. I know how to read myself; now I have to learn how to read others. As you said before, I’m all about being vulnerable; sharing is one thing that I’ve never really had a problem with. What I’m working on now is receiving someone else’s vulnerability, and letting them process and express themselves in their own time and way.  

A smile crept across my face as I was talking. I knew that I was speaking from experience and from my heart. It was comforting to know that I had actually learned something real, something that I would be able to take with me when I leave Boston College.

And it was nice to share it.

“We are capable of love”

“We must not be ashamed that we are capable of love, friendship, solidarity, sympathy, and tolerance, but just the opposite: we must set these fundamental dimensions of our humanity free from their private exile and accept them as the only genuine starting point of meaningful human community.” – Václav Havel