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Obstacles won’t stop you if you’re committed.

For those of you who are regular readers, you know what I think of Brene Brown and her work (that they are fabulous.). So should Brown stumble upon this post, I’d like her to know that, as well as this: Had it not been for the list on Brown’s web site of books that changed her life, I might not have stumbled upon the book I finished this afternoon.

The Dance of Fear: Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame to Be Your Best and Bravest Self, by clinical psychologist Harriet Lerner, is the tenth book I’ve read in 2012.

Lerner tackles topics the average American is apt to avoid: anxiety, fear, and shame. As a person who studeid mental health (and as a generally anxious person), I happen to enjoy discussing (and reading about) all three.

But you don’t need to work in the field of mental health to get something out of reading The Dance of Fear. It’s part practical advice, part true stories (about Lerner [like the time a pair of her underwear she didn’t know was stuck inside her pants slipped out of her pant leg and onto the street] and about some of her clients [like the woman diagnosed with a terminal illness in her early 30s]). And it brings up lots of points I think we all ought to know, including the ones from my favorite excerpts. See below:

Preach:

“We can’t stop bad things from happening, but we can stop our relentless focus on how things were or how we want them to be, and develop a deeper appreciation for what we have now.” -page 5

On avoidance:

“When you avoid what you fear, your anxieties are apt to worsen over time. … If you fear rejection, you may indeed need to accumulate more experience being snubbed.” -page 20

“Research demonstrates that the harder phobics work to avoid the things they fear, the more their brains grow convinced that the threat is real. If you’re not phobic but merely terrified, avoidance also makes the problem worse. … you need some experience with the very activity you dread, be it dating, driving, or raising your hand in a meeting.” -page 30

Keep the following in mind when you face what makes you anxious:

“I’m never going to transcend fear, but I needn’t let it stop me. I learned that survival is a perfectly reasonable goal to set for myself the first dozen or so times I face a dreaded situation.” -page 36

On authenticity: 

“Every human life is unique, and every human life has value. We’re not meant to be anyone else but ourselves. We all face the challenge of living the life we have, not the life we imagined having, the life we wish for or the life we are quite certain we deserve. So we need to do whatever it takes to let go of anxiety-driven judgments and comparisons. Life is short, and none of us really has that kind of time.” -page 70

On the cosmic countermove:

“Warning: The universe itself may send you a countermove if you make too bold a change! For example, you buy a house and the week you move in, the dishwasher stops working and your car breaks down. You say to yourself, ‘Oh, no! It’s a message that I never should have left my old apartment!’ Well, I’m suggesting another way to look at it. It’s merely the universe saying, yes, you are making a bold and courageous change! Here’s my countermove! Prove your commitment to making this change!” -page 88

Truth:

“…what we believe is most shameful and unique about ourselves is often what is most human and universal.” -page 127

“The extent to which you hide something important about yourself or another family member is a good barometer of shame.” -page 132

“But what is courage? In a world saturated with images of action-figure bravado, we may mistakenly believe that courage is the absence of fear. Instead, it is the capacity to think, speak, and act, despite our fear and shame.” -page 196

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Click here for more information about the Dance of Fear.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. So, if you click the links and purchase the products I recommend, I earn a little commission at no extra cost to you. And when you do, I am sincerely grateful.

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Books in 2012: Are You Waiting for ‘The One’?

I’d kind of like to invite Margaret and Dwight Peterson to dinner at my house. We’ll have chicken parm, play a little Jenga and when the opp arises, I’ll thank them sincerely for their book.

Are You Waiting for “The One”? Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage is the ninth book I’ve read in full in 2012. It is a refreshingly realistic exploration of friendship, love, sex, marriage and family that challenges the status quo set by the world (which, as the Petersons point out, is often unwittingly perpetuated by Christians).

In many Christian books as in many Christian churches, important stuff like sex and gender and dating is broached only superficially. What those Christian books and those Christian churches don’t get is that it does serious damage to consider topics taboo that ought to — nay, must — be discussed deeply. The Petersons get it. And that is rare, and therefore, delightful.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

On hooking up:

“It is difficult to believe, however, that the hookup culture is anything but bad for anyone, male or female. The more casual sexual behavior becomes, the less it serves to deepen existing intimacy and the more it becomes a substitute for and even an impediment to intimacy.” -page 14

On real love: 

“Real love grows through use. You do not have to worry that if you spread it around, you will run out. Nor do you have to worry that if you enter into an intimate friendship with someone whom you do not end up marrying, that person will abscond with part of your heart and there will be less of you than there was before. If you hope to marry someone and do not, of course you will be disappointed. But a great deal of the pain of heartbreak comes not from disappointment in love, but because partners have not, in fact, treated one another lovingly. If you and your friend really do love each other, and really do treat each other well, you will grow in and through the relationship, whether or not it moves toward marriage.” -page 27-28

“Real love develops into deep, meaningful intensity. It does not start with it. The time to look for sparks to fly is after you know one another well enough actually to mean something to one another.” -page 27

On conflict, mutual submission and gender:

“Conflict avoidance is not conflict resolution, however much we might like it to be.” -page 81

“Mutuality takes time. It takes effort. It takes a willingness to talk with one another and listen to one another, for long enough that it can become clear what the issues are, what the feelings and desires of both spouses are, and what some possible plans of action might be. Headship as decision making, by contrast, can seem quick and easy and far less personally demanding. Husband and wife don’t really even have to work together: he just does his job and decides, she does her job and goes along, and they’re done. And that is exactly the problem. They haven’t actually dealt with their differences; they’ve just done an end run around them. They are no more united when they are done than they were when they began. There has got to be a better way.” -pages 94-95

“But before we talk about what a better way might be, we have to tell one more unpleasant truth about the control-and-acquiescence model of male-female relationships. Defining male headship as control and female submission as acquiescence is not just misguided; it is dangerous. By idealizing rigidly defined gender roles, assigning power in relationships disproportionately to men, and encouraging both men and women to see this as spiritually appropriate and desirable, a theological ideology for abuse in intimate relationships is set in place.” -page 95

On communicating via social media:

“Self-revelatory statements are made in isolation, and often to the world in general rather than to anyone in particular. They in turn are read by recipients who are busy with many other things or who may simply happen to be trolling the web for status updates. The result is less an electronic equivalent of conversation, and more a combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism.” -page 114

On sex:

“One of the first things to be said about sex is that it is okay not to know everything. Our culture glorifies sexual prowess—many people simply assume that sexual experience and personal maturity go together, and that anyone who is virginal or otherwise inexperienced is for that reason a mere child. … In reality, experience and maturity are not the same thing. It is possible to have a great deal of sexual experience and to be a thoroughly immature person, and possible likewise to have little or no experience of sexual relationship and yet to be secure and well grounded in one’s own masculinity or femininity.” -page 137

“The foundations for a positive marital sexual relationship begin to be built long before the wedding night. If you and your partner are cultivating an intimate friendship in which you can enjoy one another playfully, talk with one another openly, work on shared projects cooperatively, problem-solve constructively, and relax together trustingly, you are well on your way to building a relationship in which sex can play a positive and intimate part.” -page 144

On contraception:

“On its invention fifty years ago, the birth-control pill was hailed as a great advance over barrier methods, precisely because a woman did not have to negotiate its use with a sexual partner. Now the sense is that a once-a-day pill is too much trouble; people need ‘fool-proof contraceptives that require almost no thought or action.’ The obvious problem with this is that where contraception is foolproof and thoughtless, sex will be too. Is that really what any of us wants? Is that really compatible with Christian notions of what sex and marriage and human life itself are really all about?” -page 164

 

[callout]Click here for more information about (or to order) Are You Waiting For “The One?”. [/callout]

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Books in 2012: A Million Little Pieces

It is with pride and joy that I report the following: I just finished my eighth book of 2012.

I’m proud to have finished because a) it’s 432 pages, making it the longest book I’ve read in my entire life and b) as a book exactly zero percent of me wanted to read, finishing it was a feat of strength. I am joyful because having finished it means I am finally free to jump back into the stack of books of I actually want to read.

As I understand it, the book is part memoir, part fiction but was originally marketed as all memoir, which put it and its author, James Frey, at the center of a controversy that heavily involved Oprah. (Long story.) The book, written in the present tense (which is so not my preference for books), is about Frey’s six weeks in a treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction.

As aforementioned, I really didn’t want to read the book. I don’t read fiction. And even if it had turned out that every one of Frey’s words in the book were true, it simply isn’t a book in which I would have much interest. I read it because to do so is part of an assignment for the substance abuse class I’m taking this semester. While I didn’t dislike all of it, there isn’t much to report other than a) Frey dropped too many F-bombs for my taste, b) it does depict what the mind might be like of a person who is dependent on drugs or alcohol and c) the part in which Frey’s friend and fellow treatment center resident Matty uses words like “grasshole” when he’s mad, because he’s trying to stop swearing, is hilarious.

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Click here to read about all the books I read in 2012.

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Books in 2012: Bossypants

Dear Tina Fey,


Can we be friends? Check one:


_____ Yes.


_____ Probably not (but maybe).


_____ We already are.


Sincerely, 


Arleen Spenceley

is what Tina Fey would read if I were to send her a note in response to Bossypants, her bestselling book (which is the seventh book I’ve read in full in 2012). As a fan of the show 30 Rock, of the movie Baby Mama and of Fey’s ridiculous (in a good way) portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live in election season 2008, I dove into the book expecting to love it. Which I did. But if you are not already a fan of Fey’s work, fear not: When you read Bossypants, you will love it, too, assuming you a) can handle the occasional f-bomb and b) are a person who appreciates funny things.

It is because of Bossypants that I laughed with reckless abandon and possibly choked on a pretzel stick, both in public places. So, if you are eating pretzel sticks, I suggest you finish them now before scrolling down, where you’ll find five of my favorite excerpts:

I totally agree with this:

“When I was a kid, there was a TV interstitial during Saturday morning cartoons with a song that went like this: ‘The most important person in the whole wide world is you, and you hardly even know you. / You’re the most important person!’ Is this not the absolute worst thing you could instill in a child? They’re the most important person? In the world? That’s what they already think. You need to teach them the opposite. They need to be a little afraid of what will happen if they lose the top of their Grizzly Adams thermos.” -page 54

On sexism at the improv theater where Fey worked in Chicago:

“In 1995, each cast at the Second City was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the producers and directors had the same panicked reaction. ‘You can’t do that. There won’t be enough parts to go around. There won’t be enough for the girls.’ This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren’t doing Death of a Salesman. We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts? Where was the ‘Yes, and’? If everyone had something to contribute, there would be enough. The insulting implication, of course, was that the women wouldn’t have any ideas.” -page 87

It surprises me that the following came from something that is not one of my textbooks. In any situation in any relationship, be it actor/director, husband/wife, parent/child, stranger/stranger, there is always a “core reason,” as Fey calls it, that somebody says or does something. I’ll add that a person’s “core reason” is sometimes not within his or her own awareness, and usually not within the awareness of the other person affected by it. Make it a goal to find your core reasons and express them. It reduces stress by at least appx. 43% for everyone.:

“And then sometimes Actors have what they call ‘ideas’. Usually it involves them talking more, or, in the case of more experienced actors, sitting more. When Actors have ideas, it’s very important to get to the core reason behind their idea. Is there something you’re asking them to do that’s making them uncomfortable? Are they being asked to bare their midriff or make out with a Dick Cheney look-alike? (For the record, I have asked actors to do both, and they were completely game.) Rather than say, ‘I’m uncomfortable breast-feeding a grown man who I just met today,’ the actor may speak in code and say something like ‘I don’t think my character would do something like that.’ OR ‘I’ve hurt my back and I’m not coming out of my dressing room.’ You have to remember that actors are human beings. Which is hard sometimes, because they look so much better than human beings. Is there someone in the room the actor is trying to impress? This is a big one, and should not be overlooked. If a male actor is giving you a hard time about something, you must immediately scan the area for pretty interns.” -page 122

On men who say women aren’t funny:

“Unless one of these men is my boss, which none of them is, it’s irrelevant. My hat goes off to them. It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist. So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this person in between me and what I want to do?’ If the answer is no, ignore it and move on.” -page 144

Both Fey and her husband remind me of me:

“I turned to domestic violence only once. We were going to bed a 3 a.m., knowing we’d have to get back up at 5:30 a.m., and my husband kept talking and talking as a joke when I was trying to fall asleep. His exhaustion had given him the giggles, and he kept poking me and waking me up saying things like ‘Hey, I gotta ask you one more thing. Do you like pretzels?’ I flew off my pillow and shoved him so hard across the bed that I saw genuine fear flash across his face. It was one of the very few ‘deleted scenes from Star 80‘ in my life.” -page 189

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Click here for more about Bossypants.

Click here to read about all the books I read in 2012.

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Books in 2012: How Do You Kill 11 Million People?

Several months ago, Michael Hyatt — a blogger of whom I’m a big fan — wrote a post about a book called How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think by a guy named Andy Andrews. Based solely on what Hyatt wrote, I bought a copy of the book. I read it — my sixth book in 2012 — last night.

My reading it in one sitting, however, is no miracle. Around 80 pages with an average of, like, 14 words per page, anybody who can read can read it in an hour. The book is far more political in nature than I expected, but it’s timely, considering our country’s impending presidential election. Basically, Andrews uses the number of people killed by Nazis between the 1930s and 1940s to illustrate the power that can be attained and abused by people who are liars. He doesn’t take a political side, but points out that “we the people” have another kind of power — the kind enacted when we use what we learn about the past to prevent a repetition of history.

I think he makes a great point with it, but I think what he wrote requires some clarifying. It easily can be inferred that he’s ultimately blaming the fate of people who are deceived on the people themselves, when I think in reality, the entire process of being deceived is far more complex than that. I won’t put words in his mouth, but based on what he wrote, a person can infer that he’s calling anyone a fool who is deceived. But who’s the fool, really? Is it the person, or the people who raised him or her without modeling common sense or critical thought? And are those people the fools, or are the fools the people who raised them without modeling common sense or critical thought? And even then, are they fools, or are they products of another complex system composed of cultural and familial values and beliefs and habits that don’t happen to include all that much common sense and critical thought? It’s just not simple.

This, of course, is not to say I didn’t get anything out of the book. I did. Its point is applicable, really, to multiple parts of life (like mass media, mental health, relationships). A few of the excerpts I underlined are below:

“But in terms of why we do what we do, how we govern each other, what our society allows and why—very few of us intentionally connect the truth of the past with the realities of where we have ended up today.” -page 11

“You see, the danger to America is not a single politician with ill intent. Or even a group of them. The most dangerous thing any nation faces is a citizenry capable of trusting a liar to lead them. In the long run, it is much easier to undo the policies of crooked leadership than to restore common sense and wisdom to a deceived population willing to elect such a leader in the first place. Any country can survive having chosen a fool as their leader. But history has shown time and again that a nation of fools is surely doomed.” -page 42

“Why do the ages of our world’s greatest civilizations average around 200 years? Why do these civilizations all seem to follow the same identifiable sequence—from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, and finally from dependence back into bondage?” -page 46

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To read Michael Hyatt’s post about the book, click here.

To learn more about the book, click here.

To read about all the books I read in 2012, click here.