Untangling the Twisted Threads

It hardly seems fair that it is far easier and less painful to create a tangle than to untangle it. I should have learned this early-on when my mother was brushing my tangled curls before allowing me to appear in public with messy hair. When I became old enough brush my own hair, getting rid of the tangles became such a chore, I had most of it cut off. It feels as if it would be nice if we were so easily able to cut off or cut out the tangles and twisted threads we have woven throughout our minds and our relationships--including our relationship to our planetary home.

Or would it? I have to seriously question under what circumstancs I have learned the most important lessons of my life. What situations have forced me to change some of my negative thoughts and behaviors? There is no doubt that when I am willing to take a serious look at the mistakes (tangles) I have made, often due to faulty thinking (sometimes based on a faulty belief system) or due to a selfish motive that I have rationalized to be acceptable, I am forced to admit it is only then that I begin to take responsibility for untangling the twisted threads of the tapestry I am weaving. My wise father reminded me frequently not to berate myself for mistakes, but learn from them and be sure to make a new one each time. He also chastized me when I tried to blame my mistakes on others--or on groups of others. It is easy to blame our parents, our friends, our enemies and even the leaders of our country for the things that go wrong in our lives. However, bottom line, I've had to accept that I cannot change anyone else. influence some--maybe, but real change only takes place in our individual minds. Possibly the most remarkable trait we share as members of the human family is that we have the ability to change--to change our minds and our behavior when we are willing to acknowledge that the consequences of our actions are destructive. For this trait, I remain eternally grateful. Without it, Obama would not be our President-elect. Yet, he cannot change this country or influence the world without the support of individuals, who are willing to make sacrifices for positive change.

We have reached a point in our history that there is no denying that we each must commit to changing aspects of our thinking and our behavior if we are to survive as a species. It is total folly to believe that we can survive if we continue to increase population expansion, to squander resources or to have another world war, when many countries possess weapons that could (and will) kill most of us within minutes. Funny, how prone most of us are to remove ourselves from the destructive equation. We like to think destruction is caused by "the other--or others." They are the ones twisting the threads in the grand tapestry of our times. We are all in this together--every single adult alive on this planet has a responsibility to do our share to help create a sustainable planet. I have to carefully examine whom and why I hate because I know that hate hurts me more than them and hate (usually based on fears of differences ) is the underlying basis for war. The only way through this is to practice understanding and forgiving. I must even eventually forgive G. W. and his cronies for this atrocious and unnecessary war, based on greed. I cannot help but judge them harshly, however I have to force myself to realize that every ounce of hate I harbor towards others will come back to me in some form. Most of us try to do what we perceive to be right, but too often our idea of right is misguided or based on false premises. The reality is that war has become so destructive, no one wins. The outcome is more fear and hate, which leads to more war.

Each time I leave my re-useable grocery bags in the trunk of my car, I am shirking my duty as a consumer, each time I carelessly leave lights buring and appliances plugged in when they are not being used, I could be participating in depriving others of life-saving technology. Extreme?? Perhaps, but we are living in a critical time when we must take some extreme measures to untangle the twisted threads within our minds that show up in our relationships and spread farther than we can imagine. During these holidays, I hope we can each be thankful for an opportunity to change what we can about our perceptions and actions in order to help create a more peaceful and compassionate world, which can only happen when we are willing to become less self-involved and more compassionate individuals.

And if you have young daughters with curls, brush out the tangles gently. If you (as we each will) make a mistake today, learn what you can from it--then forgive yourself and make amends to others affected by it.

A Tapestry becomes a Book

My earliest memories center around the air raid drills of WWII when our family would huddle under a tent constructed of blankets on the tiny back porch of our home in Sanford, NC. My father, a minister, would hold a small, lighted candle and try to explain “war.” My immature mind just could not grasp why people would kill each other just because they couldn’t agree on something. Today my more mature mind is still haunted by the same question, especially when I catch myself in anger wishing the source of my anger (usually a person I love, or they would not have had the power to hurt me) would just drop dead. At some early age, these concepts of love and war began to weave a mysterious tapestry that has hung in the shadows of my thinking for years.

From time to time, I would be made aware of how love and war each elicited our most intense passions and fears. They both possess the power to tap into our deepest fears and our highest hopes. Fear is the basis for war. Hope is the basis for love. Both states place our very souls on trial. One could destroy us and the other could save us. For most of my life, I've focused mainly on the love threads in my mental tapestry. My first two published books explore why and whom we love and how to resolve relationship problems. However, during this past decade, I have become critically and painfully aware that the threads of fear, greed and control have the power to destroy love, our planet--and therefore, ourselves. When we deny them within our psyches, they grow, like mushrooms in the dark, and can dominate our thoughts and behaviors. It then becomes easier for us to follow leaders, who are ruled by these darker aspects of human nature, into unjust wars.

I began to realize that to fully understand human nature I must expand my psychological perspective to include our evolutionary biological history. If I were going to make a serious effort to control my own "demons'--always lurking in the shadows of my mind, ready to sabatoge me and my relationships, I needed to get help. I guess when the author is ready to stretch, a co-author apprears. In this case, it was Rudolf Harmsen, a biologist, retired from Queens University (Kingston, Canada) who shared my interest, my curiosity and my love for writing. We formed a team over five years ago to unravel the mysteries of the human tapestry and from those threads produce a book that could help us understand why we have turned so easily to destructive wars to resolve conflicts and why we must be willing to make alternative choices and some sacrifices. Our choices must be based on cooperation and compassion rather than deadly competitions, involving weapons of mass destruction, if we are to survive as a species beyond this century. We have recently completed the first draft of our book, Love and War: the Dueling Shadows of Our Minds. It has been written as a prescription to educate our minds and hearts as to how we could end war and create more enduring love. The purpose of my blog is to interest you in joining us so that we can live more peacefully while sharing our planetary home.