80 Things I Learned from My 80 Year-Old Teacher, Mentor, and Friend: Dr. Sidney B. Simon

1. Love unconditionally
2. Up the risk to grow
3. It doesn’t help to try to fill one’s bucket with self-esteem until we patch all the leaks that prevent us holding that esteem in.
4. IALAC – I Am Lovable (just because I am) And Capable (because I prove to myself that I can do things and because I am both lovable and capable I can conclude that I am of worth.)
5. Don’t look at the world with ‘red pencil glasses.’
6. Time alone is an important element for overall wellness.
7. Ask ‘brave questions’ to generate real and meaningful conversation.
8. I don’t have to kick myself in the butt all the time.
9. Negative Criticism is destructive – whether it’s directed toward myself or others.
10. I should only offer negative criticism after I filter it through at least 6 rigorous filters – which in my experience rarely allow such criticism through.
11. Everyone is somebody’s baby – and should be treated with the tenderness we reserve for babies.
12. Skin requires the nourishment of touch.
13. When loving words might be hard to say, loving touch communicates deeply and powerfully.
14. Words are important – and we can grow to find them easier to say.
15. Loving touch added to loving words communicates unmistakably.
16. One man or one woman can touch many lives in innumerable ways.
17. Writing freely – in the style of Ira Progoff’s journaling method – uncovers thoughts and feelings that may have been lurking beneath the surface, and helps me know what to do with those thoughts and feelings.
18. Writing, music, touch, and community – are all windows for my learning.
19. “80 is the new 60!”
20. It helps to have the right tools for the job of living.
21. Validation – giving one’s ‘stamp of approval’ helps build relationships.
22. Relationships can be fragile – gossamer thread fragile.
23. Abundant validation helps build a gossamer thread into a steel cable that can withstand the occasional inadvertent unfiltered negative criticism.
24. We are all vulnerable to attacks on our self-esteem – but we can learn to fight off such vultures.
25. It’s not only okay to have feelings – regardless of one’s gender – it’s more than okay to share those feelings with others.
26. Sharing feelings is how we develop true intimacy with someone else.
27. If I can’t remember what I did last Saturday night, then I probably need to make my weekends more enriching and memorable.
28. Creating a sense of safety is crucial to creating a great learning community.
29. Creating opportunities for learners to think, write, and speak – especially in small groups – helps them own and be responsible for their own learning.
30. To be your ally, I can ask what you specifically want me to do and then to ask you if you have felt my support. I’ll need effective feedback and validation that I’m giving you what you need.
31. Taking turns is a good system.
32. There is never enough time. If something is important, you’ll get back to it. And if it is really important, don’t worry, it will get back to you.
33. #32 is true if you’re talking about feelings that are real. If, instead, you’re engaging in melodrama, it won’t be important enough for you to remember to get back to it.
34. A component of overall wellness is having a sense of order and beauty in one’s life.
35. Another component of wellness is having a counseling outlet – someone who will listen when you need to have someone listen even if you have to pay that person to do the listening.
36. A great way to evaluate something is to ask Mamie Porter’s 3 Questions: What did I like about…? If I had it to do again, what would I do differently? What support do I need?
37. Mamie Porter’s questions can also be adapted to very practical things like job performance appraisals: What do you like about your performance? What would you do differently? What support do you need from me?
38. It’s good to be able to say “I respect myself for..” and then list as many respectable qualities as you can – even 50!
39. When you’re motive is ego, saying something publicly is a negative “Look at me,” but if you’re motive is to benefit the community, it’s not a “look at me” situation.”
40. It’s useful to look at the things – both positive and negative – that shaped one’s life – and then to make new choices to shape one’s own life.
41. Support – someone to listen, to encourage, to cheerlead, to give truthful feedback – is really important for living well!
42. It’s wise to seek out different people to fill the different roles of support listed in #41 because asking it all from one person may be expecting too much of that person who also has a life that needs supporting.
43. It’s a risk to share who we really are – a risk that helps us grow.
44. Risk needs to be tempered with safety. We don’t need to share who we are with someone who isn’t safe.
45. It’s important to forgive – the people who hurt me were probably doing the best they could do with what they had.
46. Denial is not a bad thing. It can protect us when we can’t deal with what’s happening. But getting stuck pretending not to know what we really know has a very high cost.
47. Self-blame is a rung higher than denial because it acknowledges that something has happened – and sometimes we do need to claim true responsibility for what we attract. But when we’ve been hurt in ways that we truly could not control what happened to us, we need to learn that IT WAS NOT OUR FAULT!
48. Abuse of any kind is no way to treat a little kid!
49. Victim-hood is another rung higher on the road to forgiveness and healing because we can then say, “this happened to me. It wasn’t right. I did NOT deserve that!” But we don’t have the capacity yet to draw boundaries to protect ourselves.
50. Victim-hood has several flavors – self-indulgence, whining, and mean-ness.
51. Victims – who get stuck in that stage – beget victims – people who have been hurt and then hurt others in both intentional and unintentional ways. Hurt people hurt people.
52. Victim-hood is a natural and in some ways helpful stage – but not a healthy place to get stuck for 20 years or more.
53. A powerful lever out of the stage of victim-hood is a commitment to seek and achieve overall wellness.
54. When we exercise important self-care – taking care of ourselves first – then we are less likely to hurt someone else and more able to be of genuine help to another.
55. When we can say, ‘this happened to me, it wasn’t right, I did not deserve that, AND IT WILL NOT HAPPEN TO ME AGAIN!” we’ve reached the strong stage in healing called Anger.
56. In anger, we commit that something has to change.
57. In anger, we draw boundaries around ourselves that protect us from the hurt we’ve previously been dealt.
58. A cost of anger is that we seem to attract angry people and angry reactions to us.
59. It is no fun to date a person who is angry!
60. One lever out of the anger stage is humor that helps us put our hurt into perspective.
61. Another lever out of anger is the genuine desire – and growing capacity – to help others.
62. Humor and the desire and capacity to help others allows us to slide to the next rung of survivor-hood.
63. Until we reach the survivor stage in our healing, we should not attempt to help others. We don’t yet have the capacity.
64. Surviving a hurt is a great feeling – but even here we tend to identify ourselves in terms of the hurt and not all the other parts of our being.
65. When we can acknowledge that the hurt has shaped our lives, and also recognize that we have other gifts and joys and arenas of our lives that the hurt is not part of – then we reach the stage that Sid and Suzanne Simon called Integration (and which I call Thriver-hood.)
66. Knowing the stages of healing intellectually is not the same as feeling them emotionally – but can help us prepare for the natural hurts of living and identify hopeful ways out of mire we might find ourselves temporarily stuck in.
67. There’s a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is internal, I caused it, I can atone for it. Shame is external, visited upon me by someone else, and it is neither fair nor reasonable to visit shame upon someone else.
68. If it’s good to contemplate what shaped my life, isn’t it also useful to contemplate what shaped the lives of others – like my parents, my sibs, my lover? Might that not make me more understanding of them?
69. It is not necessary to be perfect. Excellence will do just fine!
70. Taking time out to consider my feelings right here and now (using a tool called the Here and Now Wheel) is a useful process – under stress, in great happiness, and at the myriad moments in between.
71. From Louis Raths, “If a person has a cold, you don’t give them pneumonia germs.”
72. Healing unfinished business with someone who may be the next to die – and anyone may be the next to die – is important to both the person who is dying and the person who survives.
73. I can’t control what has happened already in the timeline of my life, but in the time I have left – my rainbow years – I need to frequently list what I want to have, do, experience, and/or witness in the precious time I have left.
74. When you do make a list of what you want to do, have, experience, and/or witness before you die – you get a lot more of what you want in your life!
75. Six things that trainers/facilitators need: something to teach, some way to organize it, a compelling way to present the learning, a way for learners to follow up, a way to market one’s gifts, a multitude of ways in which to renew oneself and keep growing.
76. Effective strategy sequences include: a tool to help support a concept or theory, leading from something to something, a grabber, active learner involvement followed by closure and processing time for the learners, as well as hints about where they might go next in their learning.
77. From William James: “to make a change, you must start immediately and flamboyantly, and make no exceptions.”
78. I can design and redesign a day, an hour, a minute, by considering what I’d have it contain, “In my perfect fantasy…”
79. From Louis Rath’s: “To be a value, one must choose it freely, from alternatives, understanding the consequences of the choice, prize and publicly affirm it, and act with repetition, pattern, and consistency upon it.” My own twist: it must also be morally right and good.
80. If you come up with an idea, that doesn’t mean you have to carry it out. If no one else steps up to carry it, it might be an idea ahead of its time.

Monday Moment - From a Grateful Student

This Monday finds me in a rare and rather wonderful mood that combines a high from a great weekend conference and the physical and emotional stupor from expending myself fully.

The conference was held to honor my teacher, mentor, and friend Dr. Sidney B. Simon on the occasion of his 80th year on this planet. A community of people who have learned from Sid - from the 1930's through 2007 - gathered to attend sessions led by Sid and his students. It was magical - fun, heart-warming, thought-provoking, fully and totally alive!

Sid's message had to do with how one measure's a life - the friends one keeps, what one's children say behind one's back, finding one's gifts and sharing them in ways that help others, the work one leaves, the love one has given, prayers prayed for others, and on and on. (It occurred to me too late to add it to the Sid's list on Sunday, but I've also been thinking about the FUN HAD!)

There's no doubt that Sid - the man and his work - have touched people deeply. I've witnessed people speak their gratitude for lessons learned - and I've experienced it myself.

So in my own gratitude, I decided I'd attempt a list of 80 Things I Have Learned from My Teacher, Mentor and Friend Sid Simon. Somewhere around 23 learnings, I began to think I might have difficulty coming up with 80 - but that was a premature and silly worry. By #65 or so, it was clear I'd have a surplus. This is a man who has had much and will continue to have much to teach. So I opted not to worry that my list be complete. It will grow as memory uncovers learnings that have been packed away and as I continue to learn from Sid.

So here's my list. But be warned. These are learnings that one will gain most from by reading slowly and pondering deeply. Skim if you must - but to really soak up each gem of an idea, you'll need to think and feel and journal and speak your truths out loud. Or just sign up for the next workshop that Sid offers to start or add to your own list of what you've learned.

Close Reading from Charles Frazier

The following are a few excerpts from Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons - excerpts that I NOTICED with the practice of 'Close Reading' that Francine Prose talks about in her book Reading for Writing.

p 97 - "Or maybe it is only that we are so habitually inattentive that when some rare but simple geometry grabs us by the shoulders and shakes us into consciousness, we call our response sacred."

p 143 - "We could not allow a wide space in the trail to pass without riding alongside each other and letting our hands touch. At such a moment of conclusion in later life, I would inevitably have felt a sense of failure, an overwhelming gloom in the knowledge that days such as those three were done and gone forever. But back then I simply exulted in the false but glorious knowledge that life would be exactly this way from now on. I wasn't different from anybody else. I took youth as a special pact from God."

p 313 - "Then another black woman younger and darker than the one who'd answered the door, came into the parlor carrying a wailing baby bundled in little white blankets. All you could see was a face like a barn owl's, just as round and flat and pale and fierce. Like all babies. If they had the physical means, they'd kill you without conscience to fulfill their slightest immediate desire. Same as housecats, which if they weighed two hundred pounds would not accede to our existence for a single day."

There are dozens - probably pages upon pages - of other wonderfully written passages in Frazier's second novel. These are just a few that grabbed me by the shoulders. In all, I found the story of Cold Mountain more moving than the story of Thirteen Moons, but I'd read anything Frazier ever writes again simply to wallow in his gift for language.

Monday Moment - NOTICE!

A couple days ago I got around to doing two things that I'd been meaning to do for some time. And now I wish I'd gotten to them sooner. But as a dear mentor of mine used to say, "If you'd have known better, you'd have done better. Next time."

The first thing I got to was reading in a book called Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. (Don't you just love that her name is Prose?) On the recommendation of a man in my writers group, I picked up this book over a month ago, but I hadn't yet read anything from it. On Friday I took the opportunity to occupy my mind while my hair turned a different color - Reading Like a Writer helped me fill some otherwise unspoken-for time.

Now I know that this is a book I want to read s-l-o-w-l-y - which is not generally my style. Usually, I devour books with the same immoderation I show for chocolate. I am always in a fever to know what happens next, and often can't rest till I close the back cover.

Francine (I just can't call her Prose without giggling) recommends a different way of reading. She calls it 'close reading', which honors an author's choice of words by paying attention to each and every one. What an interesting revelation. For me, the message has been - in capital letters - NOTICE!

On the heels of Francine's admonition to pay attention, I chose this weekend to catch up on my Reading Journal. You can imagine that if I devour books but don't much like paperwork, my goal of recording the books I read - and capturing the gems within - can pile up on me. It's a goal that has big rewards as I find that the physical act of writing about a book helps me remember that I have, in fact, read it.

And I learned this weekend that when I've taken the time to mark a telling passage with a sticky note and then set down that passage in my Reading Journal - I am 'close reading' in a way that lets me own rather than just rent the author's words. Wow! Here was a heart-pounding, mind-jumping revelation!

It helped that sticky notes crowded the pages of Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons . Such words that man can choose! I couldn't always remember exactly why a line, a paragraph, or a page moved me two or three months ago when I read them - until I began to record them in my Readers Journal. Then, the unfamiliar act of cursive writing pulled me to ponder every word and how it connected to every other word - and holy cow, those words mesmerized me!

I NOTICED!

Which has led me to consider all the things in my life that I habitually fail to notice. The jolt of one color juxtaposed upon another, 'the delicate, thin curve of a new moon in spring' (Walt Whitman's words that I have written frequently enough to own them for my own and observed for myself while walking across the asphalt marina of my local grocer), the rush of wind hitting me square in the face that calms in my perception when I do nothing more than turn my head, the words that spring into my own head when I take the time and demand my mind's presence to NOTICE!

So with my awareness temporarily heightened, I'm determined to NOTICE more - and with more diligence. And to continue reading Francine Prose to see what else she has to teach me about reading, writing, and living well!

Monday Moment - Hungry for More!

I've read - and I've said - that achieving any goal makes you hungry to achieve more goals. This weekend I've become more and more aware of a hunger that I intend to assuage this summer.

For a couple of years, I've been thinking about kayaking the length of Canandaigua Lake - about 16 miles - just to say I had done it. Have you ever noticed just how safe 'thinking about' something can be?

Well last year, I said - out loud in the presence of a witness - "I think some nice day next summer I'll kayak the length of Canandaigua Lake." Have you ever noticed just how safe "I think I will..." can be?

But even all that safe 'thinking' can land on a person hungry to pile up achieved goals. The thought has been germinating until yesterday, it became "I'm in training to paddle the length of Canandaigua Lake before August 1, 2007."

I'm not entirely sure the route this goal took on the way from being a thought to being a goal. I only knew that from the time I took my pretty little kayak out for the first spin on the season yesterday, I have been consumed with all the what's, how's, and when's of making this trip. I went from 'thinking' about it, to planning it!

The what - set out early one nice day and paddle from the north end of our beautiful Finger Lake to the south end. Or maybe from the south to the north - I'm weighing the benefits of either approach.

The how's are myriad. I'll do it on a weekday when our lake has less power boat traffic than on weekends. I'll carry water and food for the trip in a bag on a rope that I can retrieve from below deck in the front of my kayak. I'll acquire a waterproof container so I can also carry my cell phone so that if I should wear a blister on my feathering thumb or meet some other challenge that would take all the fun out of the effort, I can call my ride and temporarily abort the trip midstream. I'll wear a hat and sunscreen.

I'll train - and build up a callous so that blistering isn't likely. Yesterday, I paddled 2-3 miles for 45 minutes. Today I paddled what I estimate to be about 8 miles round trip for a little under 2 hours - and yes that does count toward my 300 minutes of intentional exercise a week! I'll continue to train, extending my time until I regularly paddle at least 35 miles a week. On days I don't paddle, I'll swim and/or walk and use handweights to build strength.

The when is not yet fixed in my mind. And in some respects, it won't become fixed until the morning I set off. I won't set off in a thunderstorm and I won't take on this challenge if the forecast calls for the hottest day of the year. I will - after more training and planning - set a target week, watch the weather, and be ready to go on the first good day. I think it would be fun to choose the summer solstice (though that's coming quite soon and I may not be ready yet) or my parents wedding anniversary (also pretty imminent), but it might be that I choose a new occasion that I can celebrate and commemorate in years to come.

What I know now is that I want to achieve this goal before August 1 - so I won't let myself weasel out by procrastinating too long and because I'll be traveling a fair amount of August and therefore won't be able to train. And besides, I'll be seeing some old friends and meeting new ones in August, and I want to be able to brag on my accomplishment!

A big goal always takes a little chewing before you get it down to bite-sized pieces, and I'll be chewing on this one for a while yet. But I will paddle the length of Canandaigua Lake before August 1 this summer. And then I'll probably get hungry to achieve yet another goal that hasn't yet surfaced. Hmm... I'd better start thinking now!

Monday Moment - Go Ahead! Be a Klutz!

I'm a person who gets bored easily, and therefore new experiences are something that I often enjoy. But even though my personality type (Activator Orange in the Personality IQ) thrives on unexplored territory, that doesn't mean that the thriving isn't often accompanied by equal jolts of the fear of the unknown.

It's a conundrum because at the same time that I crave the new, I am also a person who likes believing she is competent at what she does. Hmmm... Do you see my challenge? How can I feel competent at something I've never done before? And why on earth would I expect this of myself?

Yeah, I can't think of a good reason either. But it does seem to be what I expect. The very idea of not knowing what I'm doing can be daunting enough to keep me from trying something new. And if I don't master it quickly, I could be likely to give it up all together rather than face the uncomfortable klutzy feelings of a beginner.

Dumb, huh! I'm working on it though - and pushing myself to find klutzy just fine. It's a struggle - and I'm clearly not feeling competent at it yet - but I'm sticking with this new feeling. Why? There are just too many exciting things I haven't done yet - and I don't want to miss them all just because I have some unrealistic expectation of myself!

I've had a few experiences this last week that have helped me practice feeling okay with feeling dumb.

I've jumped into a sailing club with no boat and rusty, half-learned skills from lessons last year. Not only will I feel dumb in a boat, but I'll need to push myself to make social connections in this club as well. So I'll repeat my new mantra - klutzy is okay.

I'm building a website - with a program new to me and that's supposed to be intuitive, but seems to elude my intuition. I've figured out a lot on my own, but today decided to ask for help - realizing that an hour or two might well save 10-20 hours of struggling time. Klutzy is okay.

I'm trying to teach myself Italian so I can have more fun when I take a trip there later this summer. My tongue gets all tangled up in my teeth and even when I can hear the correct pronunciation, it just won't come out of my mouth. Klutzy va bene.

And the life I want to lead will be filled with many more adventurous new experiences that I just won't be able to master without feeling klutzy first. So I'm determined to focus on the real and tangible thrills of unchartered territory rather than on the angst of incompetence. Klutzy is just a sign that I'm living a full life!