Death of a Companion Animal

A few hours before my 50th birthday, I wanted to to share one of my favorite article that I have written. It came out right before I turned forty. I am pleased to read it tonight;  there is a rawness, and honesty, and a vulnerability that feels good. I hope my current work has advanced methodologically, but still, I am happy with this article, as heart wrenching as it is to read.

I had already been working on expressive methods of qualitative research using poetry for a few years. The term poetic inquiry had not yet been popularized.  I had just discovered the term autoethnography; I had been writing personal narratives as means of understanding sociocultural phenomena for a while-learning about autoethnography was a revelation for me. It gave me a theoretic underpinning for what I was beginning to explore, and expanded my horizons of what was possible. In a very real sense, it gave me a scholarly community.  It helped me feel like I belonged. So,  I present to you the first article in which I evoked the term autoethnography, ten years ago. It feels appropriate tonight, my current dogs/soul mates in my lap, counting down the last hours of a decade filled with so very, very much life.

Autoethnographic poems and narrative reflections: A qualitative study of the death of a companion animal

Challenge: Catch Yourself Handling Anxiety and/or Fear Well

Yesterday, I asked you to consider the strengths that you use to handle your anxiety and/or fear.

During the next week, try this exercise. Spend a few minutes each day trying to catch yourself having handled anxiety or fear well. What did you do? How did you do it? What can you do to "institutionalize" this behavior? Share it with friends. Share it publicly. Share it here! Share it with me. Make it grow.

My Writing Coach

And of course I have my own writing coach :). She is very, very demanding. Here she insists that I spend some time in my chair, writing. O, the consequences if I do not!

Rich is Turning 50!!

Pardon me if this is a bit of a narcissistic post, and not focused on writing, publishing or the academic life. I have connected to quiet a few people through this blog over the years, and so I wanted to share on a bit more personal level than I sometimes do.

I was born August 6, 1965. Perhaps that date means little to you, but it was twenty years to the day after we dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. So, my birthday is also one of the most auspicious, tragic days in the history of humanity. As someone who has long been deeply attuned to the bittersweet nature of human existence, I can create space for the joy and the pain, the sadness and the celebration. This year, I am particularly in touch with that dialectic, that paradox, that truism, or whatever you wish to call it. I think I will just call it life!

In a few days,  I turn 50. 50 years old; middle age only if I make it to 100. 50, the new 30! Here I am yesterday in my writing chair, days before turning 50.

I have been preparing for this day for the last year.  I took my sabbatical last fall in celebration of my 50th year, and felt a profound sense of gratitude and peace about where my life was and was headed. I was in Manila, the Philippines; I recall one particular night filled with a deep sense of joy, gratitude, meaning, and wonder. I splurged on a partially nice hotel room for a couple of nights. I went to one of my favorite restaurants, the Hobbit House, and I spent a couple of hours writing in my journal there, and after in my room. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of peace; everything in my life was in place. Not perfect, not at all, no life is perfect. Yet, I had this powerful sense that I knew just how my life was going to unfold, in terms of the structure, my family, my future.

Well, as the expression goes, we make plans and the universe laughs :). I am now divorced and my "baby" is turning 18 on the same week I turn 50. She is off to Switzerland for an amazing gap year adventure. I am proud of her, oh so proud. I am also going to miss her, so very, very much.

And so, I sit here in my favorite cafe, Bluebeard Coffee Roasters, which I affectionately refer to as "my office" and think about that night in Manila. I am not as filled with such peace and certitude, but damn it, life is pretty good!

I think about my health; its fantastic; I go to the gym five time a week and am able to do some pretty serious HIIT.  I feel great. I am single, and am learning to explores the possibilities of that!  I have had more adventures in my lifetime than most people dreamed of. I have raised children that I love deeply, learned what sacrifice means, and both the power and limits of love and marriage. I have good friends that love me, that have loved me for years, even decades.  A mom that has stepped up for me like nobody. I have had amazing dogs that have helped me write 15 plus books and 120 articles; could not have done it without them! My career has been amazing. Not perfect, but, that is why we call it work! Still, I am a full professor, and some of my scholarship seems to have touched some hearts. I love, love, love my coaching practice. Life, as my dear departed friend Gil Schoenstein would say, "is good."

If you know me, you know that I am on the verge of tears; I am a sensitive soul, in spite of my sometimes gruff, intense moments. A year ago I could not have imagined my life at almost 50 being the way it is now, but that is part of the mystery of it, right. Like writing (yeah, I had to throw in something about writing!), you just have to show up for it, each and every day, work on your "stuff" and wait for the magic to unfold. I am excited for future magic, as a newly 50 year old guy!

A Positive Psychology/Strengths Based Approach

One of the conundrums of writing a bout and considering difficult emotions is that there is a tendency to focus on pathology and deficit. There are a variety of reasons for this, however a century of post-Freudian thought has led us to obsessively attempt to "fix" ourselves. We have learned to our view ourselves through mechanistic, biomedical lenses. If there is a problem, you find it, repair it or remove it, and that is that.

As a product of my culture, I may be guilty of this tendency. I have encouraged you to explore your problematic thoughts, feelings and emotions and have provided you with some guidance on how to "resolve" them. Hopefully, I have not focused too much on deficit; there is another way (many ways, really) of approaching personal growth and transformation.

Positive psychology and the strengths perspective of social work suggest such an alternative approach, indeed an alternative way of living. These approaches, different yet converging, suggest that when we focus on helping people maximize their capacities, strengths, resiliencies, hopes and dreams, their "problems" become easier to bare, handle, resolve, ameliorate, and even transcend.

This approach suggests that while it is certainly valuable to work toward overcoming a difficult emotion, such as fear, it also suggests that the method of doing so is often through building our strengths and capacities.

Consider this and its application to your scholarly life.

Challenge of the Day

Its been a long time since I have posted a simple writing challenge (I was informed of this yesterday by a "disgruntled" reader :)). Sorry.

So, one based upon small, random blocks of time. Look at your calendar for the day. Find the empty blocks of time. Set your telephone alarm for three times during those blocks, spread out throughout the day.

When the alarm goes off, drop everything and write for ten minutes.

Over-time, such small blocks of writing can make a huge difference. Also, writing "by alarm" prevents you from overthinking; the brain can be both a great tool and our worst enemy.

Getting After It

I had to let the dogs outside. That took two minutes. Everything else, including brushing my teeth, was going to wait. Why? I wanted to write. I felt a great need to work on an autoethnography that I have put aside for a while.

Most thing in life can wait, really. Email. Even breakfast, coffee. Brushing my teeth and flossing (twice a day, its good for your heart!!). Working out. Ect.

I hear it all time time; I can't write until...until my house is clean..until I pay my bills..until I make X..until I do x....until I figure out the weight of Pluto, ect.

Try 15 minutes in the mornings before you do anything but the most biological essential tasks (for you or others). Write. Get after it right away. Do that for 2 weeks and tell me something does not change.

Or, keep telling yourself you can't (won't??), and waste far more time feeling anxious about not writing.

Engaging in the behavior we feel axious about avoiding creates moments of anxiety when you are doing it, but decreases overall levels of anxiety.