Live the Fairy Tale

Last night, our family dinner was spent watching the Royal Wedding in London. To preface this, I have to tell you that we NEVER watch TV during dinner time. It is a sacred time for us to be together as a family and hear each other’s voices utter more or less meaningful contributions to the conversation – but none the less: TV is banned. And yet, last night we sat there and watched Will and Kate move down the aisle at Westminster Abbey.

Thinking about what has been occupying the airwaves lately, there seem to be a tendency to allow ourselves to side track from the serious issues.  Whether we spend endless hours watching the Royal bliss, never-ending discussion over birth certificates and school records, who gets to marry who, or if business men who are known for brash comments and risk taking should run for president . Why this side-show? We live in a world where hunger, exploding population numbers, complex and expensive wars, ever increasingly more aggressive weather patterns, budgets that burst at the seams, bail-outs from governments that are like patches applied to the global economy. The reality surrounding us is much like an old car tire that keeps blowing out from being thinned by overuse and continually gets  patched, re-inflated and put back on the car. Well, it is an increasingly bumpy ride! And we keep having our vehicle pull over for more and more frequent pit stops!

Yet we sit and watch the Royal wedding – 1.1 million visitors from all over the world showed up in London to be packed in the streets and took part, and an estimated 2 billion people worldwide watched the spectacle on TV. Imagine if we could rally such global interest around a cause such as world hunger or incentives for reducing CO2 emissions…

Might we be too inundated with information all the time and thus overwhelmed? We can find viewpoints that state conflicting scientific data, and debate is often based on a need to win the argument rather than true exchange of perspectives looking for commonality and solutions. Choosing sides over relatively simple issues such as birth certificates and school records is easier to focus on than how to feed the growing world population in ever increasing more perilous natural surroundings of floods, hurricanes, tornados, storms, draught patterns, etc.

We find solace in the shared rites of passage, such as the big spectacle of the Royal Wedding.  We delight in the display of tradition, and the return to a simpler era: Horse ridden carriages, ministers in full regalia, choirboys singing their hearts out, ladies in hand-stitched gowns, men with funny hats and uniforms saluting and behaving properly. We delight in the feeling of communal celebration of new hope, new life and new eras symbolized by the fine-looking couple. We enjoy the absence of divisive issues and apply our own imagination to the deep recesses of our soul as we vicariously live through the spectacle of being in the fairy tale.

I think we need symbolism. We need rites of passage.  And I think through connecting to something outside ourselves we find a joy in belonging to a community beyond partisan bickering.  I believe this need is neglected in us. We do quick and efficient Las Vegas weddings. Rites of passage for our youth are less and less meaningful (or have simply been reduced to getting a driver’s license). But true community and coming together around a symbolic celebration of the stages of life are missing elements from our lives.

So what would our world look like if we took time to re-connect to some of the rites of passage of our past cultures? Or if we consciously worked to develop new ones that would have meaning and would feed our need to belong and to be celebrated? What would our youth feel if they were put to the test in a social context and not just tested and measured for individual achievement? How would we all benefit from having a sense of connection to each other through shared experiences of our common humanity?

We all hold the answers. And paradoxically maybe we might have more hope to address the global issues surrounding us, if we consciously work on surrounding, celebrating and caring for those close to us. And they in turn do that for us.

True Cool

My husband, God bless him, has been on a mission all his life to express himself. Lately he has discovered a new method – and it has been a bit tough for our 15 year old son to take: It involves driving down parking lots and driveways, with the windows down, blasting loud music and dancing around in the driver’s seat with a look of sheer madness on his face. It does not help that the favorite music chosen for this rite of embarrassment passage is of such caliber that it per definition is not just un-cool – but totally mortifying for the young lad.  Our teenage son basically shrivels up in the seat to hide himself from view when this ritual is in full swing.

So, yesterday as the car drove up in front of our house, our teenage son was sporting red splotches on his cheeks from embarrassment. He pushed his way into the house, staring at the ground in a severely bad mood. This is what had happened: Dad had driven around dancing in the seat with the windows down. As the rich and sensuous sounds of Norwegian pop from the late 80’s were blasting from the car – horror of horrors – one of our son’s friends had seen him - and heard the heretical music emanating from the car just as my husband had chimed in with the high note singing along….

I guess the philosophy behind this treatment is that if our son sees that it is ok to act completely silly, he will either leave us forever, or eventually learn that it is ok to be yourself – no matter how silly – no matter how you appear to be out of sync with the rest of cultured civilization! That you are actually super cool if you just are you – and develop immunity to ridicule!!

And this made me think…  Many of us from time to time come into contact with elements of this teenage phase of feeling vulnerable to what others think about us.  We might shudder at the thought of “sticking out like a sore thumb” or acting conspicuously – yet at the same time we also really want to be “outstanding” – and really, how can we do anything outstanding if we are afraid to stand out? In order for us to tap into any kind of personal excellence, we also have to accept that this means leaving obscurity behind. We cannot always hide in the corners of our unremarkable ways, if we want to tap our intrinsic brilliance. We cannot shine if we continue to cover up our light.

Now if we are lusting after a world of mediocrity and conformity – let us keep hiding. But if we want to experience the fullness and joy of life – We have to leave the boring safety hiding under the dashboard with red splotches of embarrassment on our face. We have to get out there and sing with the car windows down, dancing in our seats and allow life to flow through us. Guess what – the worst that can happen is that we bring a smile to somebody’s face.

So, our son might decide we are crazy, but I intend on joining in next time we are out driving.  Why not?  Click and Remember to sing the high notes LOUDLY!!!!

Take on meee, Taaaaake me ooooon, I'll be gone.....

The More Information - The Better?

The more information we have the better, right?

In a world of unlimited information at our fingertips, we should be the able to make informed decisions at a drop of a hat. We are able to google anything and learn all we ever wanted (or never wanted) to know about anything or anybody. We can wiki this and google that - cnn, facebook, huffpost, foxnews, tweet, blog and bing our way through the questions of the day.

So why is it that we often find ourselves confused and filled with a powerless sense of ever-present anxiety?

Well, new research points to the fact that as the information load increases so does activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This is the area of the brain where decisions are made - and also the area that controls our emotions. And at a certain point, as information keeps streaming in, this area gets overloaded. When inundated with a steady stream of information, the activity in the DP Cortex suddenly drops! This means that our emotions are no longer in check. As information keeps streaming in, so do feelings of worry and doubt. The research also found that along with the increased level of anxiety, our ability to make decisions disappears or gets reduced significantly. As a result we cannot make up our minds or make decisions. Instead of being level headed and clear minded, we get irritated and feel like we are in a fog of confusion. We might feel overwhelmed and just want to escape. So here we are: Highly emotionally charged people incapable of making an independent choice!

We, the people of the internet age, have become people unable to make up our minds and therefore desperately clinging to what we thought we knew!

Of course it is great to have a tool like the internet at our disposal! Doing research is infinitely easier and more convenient. It can help us gather information and make informed choices. However research shows that there is a reason to be aware that too much information or rather too much ongoing and constant information can create a sense of paralysis of our decision making abilities.


So if you find that you too are hooked on the constant stream of information, and feel a bit powerless at the complexity of it all, just know that you might benefit from slowing down once in a while and smell something other than the electronics!

Out there on the other side of our screens something real is taking place. Something that might help make it easier for us to make up our minds and clear the sense of helplessness. Something that might help us connect to our own authenticity! I know that a visit to nature outside in quiet contemplation or a few yoga poses do more to aid my wellbeing than any google search on 'wellness'. Could it be that I might be able to make up my mind about all those things on my lists if, after doing thorough research, I stop the flow of information and simply look into my heart and soul for the answers?

I'm going to give it a try! Please consider joining me in getting away from the information barrage of TV and internet a little bit more than you otherwise would each day... let's take small unscheduled trips outside, take a few extra deep breaths, feel the air around us, the ground below us. Let us grab the opportunity to let go of the constant chatter. And maybe right there in the stillness around us are the answers we were looking for all along.