Confusing Confessions

I was born an educator. The first ten years, I taught by repeating; the next ten years, I taught from knowledge; the following ten years, I taught from experience. Now, I teach from my errors.

Nothing brings us closer as humans, than our shared foibles and vulnerabilities.  The old aphorism states that “Errare humanum est” (it is human to err)…and yet, I think it is errors that make us human. Behind every deed there is an attitude, our outlook on life. But behind that, there is a mental pattern of associations that we create from our beliefs. So behind every error, we must look for the faulty thought-sequence we believe to be true.

These are some of my errors, which I share, not with the false expectation that they will help you avoid repeating yours, because somehow we each have to live our own mistakes, but in the hope that my boldness will encourage you to seek and reset your own false belief systems.

The hardest thing in my life has not been: becoming a doctor or a master in public health, or my field training in epidemiology, or my training as a military; nor running a national program against AIDS or spiking risk among adolescents to build resilient, life-driven pathways from death to health, but rather- having been born a girl.

I was the first-born of a Mexican patriarch, and not being  a boy, I was born a disappointment. Perhaps to appease such grievance, my father named me after his first mistress and as a child I became his girlfriend; he called me:  “novia mia”. That was my first confusion. He used to give me money, while keeping it from my mother. I embedded rivalry, guilt and carried shame and misgivings.

Now, he would have had me become a lady, since he inscribed me to Vogue magazine when I was fourteen – but oops! second disappointment. When I became ‘of-age’ for the ‘sex-talk’, he insisted I shun all male relationships, lest I become a whore. Little did he know I was no longer a virgin and his lecture was only branding me: ‘disgraced’.

Now my Mom taught me that to love was to suffer. And boy, she suffered enough: being an American single daughter, who ran after her love from the first-world, to live in the third-world was in itself a sacrifice. But then having five children, each 10 months apart, epitomized it.

I also lived ten years with our British tutor with whom we sang as a family quintet, songs that set the tune and rhythm to my life: the Impossible Dream, the Quijote of the Mancha and Sound of Music.

So my guilt came from my father; my self-sacrifice came from my mother; and my idyllic fantasy, from my tutor. These became my belief systems.
When my prince charming appeared, a stalwart Catholic believer, and asked me to marry him, I felt unworthy. And of all things, out of love for him, I self-sacrificed becoming a nun; a cloistered nun at that! Of course, I was fully equipped to enter the monastery: I was a whore in disgrace, who needed penance, to love;  a “problem to be solved”-like Maria in Sound of Music.  I even remember singing to the St. Joseph’s Carmelite nuns, from a ladder, as I enacted the theme song : “The hills are alive”. Little did I know it was the first scene to the screen-play that I would play-out throughout my entire life.
Now, my monastic experience was heart- wrenching but glorifying. Away from TV, radio, computer, newspaper or even books, with a vow of silence, poverty and obedience, I learned to wash, clean, mend and soothe my soul. My past Harvard aggrandizement of self-worth, mopped away. My years as a postulant, as a novice, and as a nun committed by marriage to God (in my Mother´s wedding dress) confronted me with the inner battle between my higher and lower selves. Everything became a metaphor: medieval ceremonies such as laying in meditation in a coffin, as a symbol for the need to die to the body in order to be reborn in spirit; old nuns in brown and black coiffures singing rocking songs to an enamel representation of Jesus, throughout the night; the intention of saving souls with every spot, obsessively cleaned…are memories that have rescued me from turmoil later in life. The grounding experience would have been enough to save me had I left, from my own free will. But my belief system (and cowardice to face life) was wired to have me play out the shame of having been ‘put out’. My restlessness could not be acquitted with self-flagellation; too much of a free thinker, too much of a dreamer.  Imagine the disgrace and drama of having been rejected not only by nuns but by God himself. ..paradise lost…and with it, the hope of being ‘good’. It just ratified that I was unworthy; painfully defeated as I witnessed my prince-charming’s marriage to someone better, when I returned.
Now these are examples of how we thread the canvas of our lives into self-built dramas; the threads of thought and their color are set by our beliefs and attitudes.
I won´t abound on the same dramatic pattern I have relived over and over again: my marriage to an older, wonderful man, defeated unto death by the guilt of his son’s suicide; my remarriage to a problem drinker, damaged by resentment against a mother who let her lover abuse his sister…
On and on… I have continued playing out the Impossible Dream, fighting ‘the unbeatable foe’ of AIDS, trying to ‘ right the un-rightable wrong’ even unto court, in an international white-collar scandal that deviated AIDS funds and unjustly blamed me ; fighting for women´s rights among sex-workers, and dignifying the right to love beyond color, race, sex, social institutions and even personal judgment. Love should not be erased by contract or divorce. Love is eternal and we should strive to strengthen its bonds, networking with good will. And yet, we are what we believe.

Now, none of this is true. Its a product of my own thought formation. We build associations with what we believe.

Check your own belief patterns. Which ones have molded your lives?

Be selective. Not all beliefs are bad. My heavenly husband still walks with me and despite my unworthiness, even gave me a late child born on Christmas Day.

Some beliefs do come true.

Learning to Love: Order

The popular aphorism, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”, reminds us of the importance of counteracting the entropic tendency of everything going to chaos. We have to consciously, put effort into reverting this disintegration, by putting order. It dispenses energy and continual effort.
I have kept myself busy (and out of trouble) cleaning closets, painting walls and doing spring cleaning, these last days. It is not only good for the house, but good for my body (Reverend Mother always said, that the best exercise was doing housecleaning!) and my soul. It discharges dirt, disorder and negativity, depression or guilt, making way for singing!
My Mother’s Puritanical upbringing got me into the healthy habit of keeping everything clean and orderly; of arranging and re-arranging things for everything to have its place; of picking things up immediately after use, so as to avoid cluttering; of continuously giving things I don´t use, to someone who may need them. However, I don´t obsess about it.  I like to think our home is clean-friendly, where my rat-like nature has me saving everything; the cat and dog get on the furniture to share with us and eating is allowed in the ‘living’ room. Ceremonials on Christmas, Halloween, Easter…bring change to our daily life with re-organization of the furniture and routines.
Making a ‘home’ in a house is a full-time job. It hopefully, makes your loved ones want to be there. So it is important to keep a stress-free ambiance to allow them to relax. Not only dirt, but screaming and fighting have to be actively avoided. I was shocked when the sex-workers I gave HIV tests to, told me that husbands who bought their 'favors', frequently blamed the conditions they lived at home, for their wanting to avoid it. Rituals from shamanistic and religious settings help cleanse such negativity. In the Carmelite Monastery we would cleanse every room before sleep, going through them in choral prayer with a lit candle, incense and bell. It holds true for homes. Peace has to be borne from the heart.
Not only the home, but the body has to be cherished and cared for. Even the astral aura can be cleansed (not necessarily with shaman flowers or eggs!) but a simple shower after a nightclub or a rough day. One always picks up negativity, from people in angry or stressful situations such as traffic or endless queues.
In loving, it´s always good to shower together before love-making; perhaps a bath. At least wash your hands before touching!
I feel so ‘re-lived’ when I clean. It´s even better than confession, because you are left with tangible ‘ordi-nation’ and makes you feel ‘good’…worthy of being loved.

Learning to Love: Reality Check

Gloria Ornelas

Today I went out for a drink with university colleagues and while talking about ‘qualitative research’ for an educational protocol we’re doing, the term “context” struck a note.
“Context determines what happens”, they were saying….
I suddenly realized, how unattached I was from my external ‘context’…as I focus solely on my subjective internal experiencing.
(This is how uneventful stirrings catalyze reflexive thinking.)
‘Context’- defined as the external reality; the conditions  that determine existence, is for me, as follows: the external ‘context’ of experience, is the ‘glass’, the container; while the internal ‘meaning’ of the experience, is the ‘liquid’. The context gives shape to the meaning with which we signify our experience. The gist is trying to live both and align external reality with inner Truth. This is particularly difficult when changes in the external context have a different timing to those of internal experiencing. In linear causality, ‘meaning’ before the experience, is called ‘intention’; whereas the meaning given after the experience, is ‘justification’…all within the same context.
Lovers are contextual. They determine the external conditions for the experience of loving. However, love, before the actual loving, may be defined as the intention or desire, a priori. Love, after the actual loving, is the justification we give to the experience of loving, a posteriori . It sounds bizarre but as fragmented as it sounds, my experience in the Monastery gave my understanding of love a subjective quality, loving blindly, through prayers. The intention behind our loving then, was to send good vibes in wishful prayers, and the justification was believing they were actually helping someone. However, the ‘one being loved’ in the external context, was  unknown, being un-accessible to us in the cloister. Thus, the loved one was an abstract; unreal to the senses; and the loving, merely subjective.
Perhaps, for love to become real, there must be a lover…or as the metaphor of the “one who yells in the woods”, goes:  “you must have someone hear you, to actually acknowledge you exist”. So I must have someone feel my love, for me to exist as a lover, myself.  Amo ergo sum.
All this pseudo-intellectual gibberish boils down to..having to ‘touch base’ and make a ‘reality check’ in love. First, we have to make sure we have a lover, and funny as it may seem that’s where I’m at…wondering if I can actually love, when the only contextual contact is a long-distance phone call….

 

Learning to Love: Dying

Gloria Ornelas-

In these days that celebrate either, the Christian Easter, with the 'passing' of Jesus from this world into the next; or the Jewish 'Passover', from enslavement of the Jews in Egypt to the Promised Land, we are the wiser to reflect on 'loving'- as the choice to be willing to leave life as we know it, so as to be transformed into something Higher. That´s what Love is about: dying to EGO-self to be reborn into a Higher form of Loving.
Love then, becomes a conscious choice where we are willing to choose death, for our loved ones’ welfare. However, it´s not about suicide, self- flagellation, sabotage of our right to pleasure and happiness, or ‘suffering’ for others (been there, done that!).
Our ‘personality’ (from Latin: per-for; sonare- to be heard) is our outer ‘persona’, created to relate to others. It is a protective mask-formation that must be outgrown and set aside, for us to let go of external attachments and internalize our focus for inner development.  ‘Death,’ as a passage towards personal transformation, is an abstract projection of our own dying and letting go of ‘old ways’, to re-new internal Life. Our ego’s  outer ‘shell’ molded by our upbringing in family and social culture has to be peeled away, for us to develop inner awareness and make ‘conscious’ our ‘unconscious’.
It’s easily said, but painful, especially if our external reality is all we know. To break away from everything that we have created 'co-dependence' with, is a type of dying. It requires blind faith, courage or having the personal despair of having ‘touched bottom’. The pain comes from letting go of our Ego’s false reality, when cracking out of its protective shell, to expand our conscious awareness of who we really are. This may come as a ‘heartbreak’, when our most tender hopes, knit around a projected illusion of desire, are shattered.
We will never find fulfilling love in external outreach. It is our inner spring that satiates our thirst for Love. It is from there, that we Love others, freely, flowing with gratuity.
The steps we must take to break through our Ego shell are:
1.       Cutting off attention, on what is perceived through the external  senses.
2.       Looking inward.
3.       Stopping time. Being still. Leaving the fast track as we race for objectives projected in a linear future.
4.       Breathing…inhaling deeply, assimilating and exhaling slowly..(This will draw awareness to the physical ‘here and now’)
5.       Turning thought-processing ‘OFF’…with the mind in blank…cancelling the screening of ideas and cutting the thread of internal dialogue.
6.       Focusing on perceiving: body, feelings and inner stirrings.
7.       Inhaling ‘goodness’, ‘life’ and ‘peace’ with every breath.
8.       Filtering all ‘darkness’, ‘tightness’, ‘knots’ or blockage and expelling them, with every exhalation.
9.        Recognize and follow Inner Truth, even at the expense of 'disobeying' rigid expectations from the outer world.
10.     Honor Self.

It’s easily done, for a couple minutes, but to live every day in that state, disregarding the immediate, and disengaging our emotions from expected outcomes requires sustained awareness and self-control. Practice makes it easier, till slowly, a re-newed sense of Self transforms our consciousness of what is really important.
Practice makes change…not ideas. So die to ‘thinking’ and flow with your inner feeling.

Learning to love: Befriend your demons

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Befriend your demons

It´s hard to admit one is wrong, but harder still to re-cognize one’s a “bitch”. Yet, without it we cannot love. We tend to project our shadow-selves on others, blaming them for our worst fears.
Disowning the dark side of our soul is loving, ‘half-heartedly’.

I started thinking about this when my daughter twitted that she had stopped fighting her inner demons “…we’re on the same side , now” (@tandorantes). I was proud of her inner strength, so much stronger in her generation than ours. Hatred and evil horrify me. She takes them for granted. What horrifies her, she said “…is stupidity”. At first, I thought that was funny but the more I think out it, the closer to hard reality. Yes, man isgood and evil. That is a fact. Evidence proves it. But he has a choice, which can only be made with ‘intelligence’. To be horrified with man´s evil is to deny one´s own capacity to think, and possibly ‘react’ if given the circumstances, with the same destructive force.

“Actually”, says my daughter, “survival in this world needs demons. Only with them, can we have that added ‘intelligent edge’ which you can´t see when you´re blinded by ‘sweetness’ ”
…. So much for my blog!!!

 I suppose she is right. The more I think about it, the more I recognize the inner work I have to do, to accept my own inner demons. All this self-righteous ‘goodness’ cannot be real if it is not grounded by its shadow. Yes, I have been and am a ‘bitch’. So there!

Long before confessing or even repairing any damage I’ve done, I have to recognize: the wrath with which I hate anyone who cuts in front of me in the traffic…'I could kill them!'; my avarice that has me holding on to cluttering memories and ‘things’ that I can’t get rid of; my cowardice that prefers to smile, be stepped upon and play the martyr; my pride that looks down upon everyone, not because I’m haughty but with the certainty that  ‘I am better”.

Befriending my demons would require I talk to my shadow-self to try to understand why- the wrath, the avarice, the cowardice and the pride. Perhaps I’d learn that my wrath stems from repressed anger, for pain from constant abuse. Knowing about it, I can respond with anticipation, setting limits on time. I´d learn that my avarice comes from a hollow inner emptiness that yearns for recognition and I’d prepare for the day, asking my loved ones for an extra ‘hurray!’, so as to avoid begging for it from others at work. I’d learn that my cowardice comes from fear and insecurity, after having been rejected and made fun of so many times, and I’d learn to avoid bullies. I’d realize that my pride comes from over-confidence, from spoiling and getting my way all the time and try to do things on my own, despite my fear of failure.

So perhaps, we do have to get to know our darker selves, to enhance conscious awareness. Both foolishness and kindness may overlook negativity; the real fool, from ignorance; the kind man, from generosity.

The Kamasutra says that “virtue is a luxury, inaccessible to all”. Only those who know their inward capacity for evil can have patience and understanding for all.
It’s OK to be a ‘bitch’. It gives me the courage to stand up for myself and others, and to look at reality head on.  So look out, here I come!

                                                Even the heart has compartments unknown to itself.

Learning to love: Laughter

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Laughter

Laughter is contagious and is therefore a wonderful way to share happiness. It is kind to smile, laugh and find humor in senseless contradictions and self-importance so as to make others laugh. It releases tension. You don´t have to explain it for it is an expression in itself. It makes thoughts real, as they physically unchain the chemical release of endorphins and their analgesic qualities. MRI’s have proved that a smile stimulates the centers of happiness and enjoyment in the brain, even if it is done un-wantingly!

Laughter is a universal expression as Charles Darwin reported in “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” in 1872, recognized by humans all over the globe. The zygomaticus muscle pulls the corners of the mouth, across the cheeks, from the eyes with a contraction that makes a smile.The best face-lift we can have is a smile! Scientists initiated the study of this human response in Stanford University under William Fry, in Gelotology (Gr.: gelos-laughter), being a therapeutic complement for Medicine. Paul Ekman, world expert on expressions, says there are eighteen different types of smiles. True smiles of enjoyment are symmetrical, with genuine spontaneity and a sparkle in the eyes. The ‘laugh lines’ that crinkle the skin around the eyes are definite signs of authenticity. It´s a shame we pay to have them removed!

Humor is cultural, dependent of levels of education. Subtle associations may differ from comedy to cynicism, depending on the outlook of life. Bitterness and pain may ridicule innocence and folly. So what someone may find amusing may offend someone else. But it’s still funny! We have to be able to laugh at ourselves first, and shift the frame from which we observe and judge ourselves and others, to minimize self-importance.  Take for example, an “opinionated” blogger who uses black comedy to make difficult or prohibited subjects lighter, in his blog Harsh Reality, http://aopinionatedman.com/. Humor ranges from innocence to cynicism, but in all cases it must start from being able to laugh at ourselves. It diverts seriousness to a ‘here and now’ response.

Loving is made fun when you can laugh together (not laughing at each other, unless you laugh at yourself, first). Difficulties in a relationship are smoothened with a smile. Even love-making, that often entails nervousness and fear of being ridiculous, can be made lighter if you can laugh at yourself as you try awkward positions, or gasp for breath or are unable to get out from under him!!!

When in doubt, laugh. When in problems, laugh. When stressed, laugh. When worried, laugh. When in love, laugh. Life can only be explained through humor!

Babies remind us that laughing is loving.

 

Learning to love: Hate

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Hate

Learning to love requires reflecting on the inner movements of the soul. We have to develop spiritual literacy to ‘read’ significance into every day. ‘Reading’ actually means ‘piecing together’ and it is the associations we make of everything that happens, that allows us to thread a single pattern of meaning for that day.

Take yesterday. A friend told me of an inexplicable atrocity: an adopted daughter stabbed her adoptive mother to death. I was horrified and shocked at the evil we are capable of, as humans, as we destroy the very love we are offered. So I chose to contemplate on the meaning of ‘hatred’, questioning my Higher Self, as I looked for answers throughout the day.

Where does evil come from? Is it a natural quality in man or is it only some men who are evil. Does evil come from an external force or ‘d’evil’? Do we learn it? Is it inherited? Is it ‘payback’ for social injustice? If God created everything, did He also create evil? Perhaps it's all the above.

Undoubtedly we need Evil to know God-ness. Neale Donald Walsch wrote a lovely parable for children in “The Little Soul and the Sun”, where two little angels decide to play out a human saga where one has to hurt the other, for them to know and experience forgiveness and love.

“..But please, promise me you won’t forget who I am, when I hurt you”, pleaded the one who was to play out ‘the evil one’.

Hate is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is fear…fear of being unloved, or worse still, unlovable. Such desolation (lat: without sun) renders us hopeless, unable to love and be loved.

Hate (which etymologically came from fate) is the end by-product of a growing chain of destructive attitudes, behavior and distorted interpretations stemming from anger, rage, wrath and envy. It is the shadow side of love. Evil is born of meanness  (stingy) and cruelty.

 I remember bearing a deep grudge with self-piteous resentment against my life-long sworn lover, when he left me. The passion of Eros (Life) he had enkindled turned sour into Tanatos (Death). I felt dead. Life wasn´t possible, without him. My soul was amputated and my heart literally torn out; so much so, that I couldn’t feel anymore. I became hardened and insensitive clamming my soul shut from love, much as a child throwing a tantrum and saying ‘Well, if this is the way it’s going to be, I’m not playing’.

Time, with its blessed drips of eternity, heals everything. Now, I thank my lover because he added a string to my heart and the music I now play is richer and infinitely more beautiful. So what we hate passionately, may be the pain of love.

However, the evil of this child, was still inexplicable.

By night, I saw a documentary on the different cerebral wavelengths registered in Functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI). They tested someone in deep anguish and compared it to that of a Tibetan monk in contemplation.  When he was asked to meditate on the word “Compassion”, the nervous itching of the spikes on the cerebral encephalogram stopped and regular long, lasting curves traced the paced register of peace. Suddenly, the answer to my plight struck me.

It’s not about extremes: Right /wrong; good/bad; evil/kindness but about the neutralizing effect of a third integrating attribute- Love. We have to recognize and dialogue with our shadow-selves to fully accept and understand our dual nature, in Love.

 

 

 

Learning to Love: Cut the Crap

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Cut the crap
My daughter was upset I wrote about her in the last post, asking me to respect her personal intimacy. So I publicly say I´m sorry. She’s right, loving exacts privacy. However, she did add that loving is not all about smooching and kindness. She said “it requires balls” (please excuse my French). If they want you, “boyfriends have to be true, and prove it. Intentions are not enough. If lovers don´t value you enough to take you out, give you the best and cherish you, they are not worthwhile”. Beyoncé put it this way in the Super Bowl: “If you want it you should’ve put a ring on it”.
Her differing perspective about my believing that her father and I had actually worked out a constructive divorce, faced me with the stark truth. It’s hasn´t been a bed of roses and she has had to buffer our differences. That made me aware that I tend to overlook the flaws and weaknesses in lieu of romantic relationships, replacing facts with illusion. I love her strong-willed, clear outlook on life. She´s going to be alright. As for me, I have plenty of food for thought, as I check with reality.

Illusion and deception are fantasy, with wishful thinking being a way for denial. It´s always easier to go soft, giving others the benefit of the doubt, rather than have the courage to face things as they are. I have to justify less and ‘cut the crap’. This self-appraisal sets me on much more solid ground. It´s hard to accept you have been wrong, or in self-denial. I tend to lower the standards for others so as to look better in the picture. This is cowardice and it is a way of covering up for my errors. Worst of all, it is setting a wrong precedent for my daughter. She is right. We have to expect the best from others and ourselves. Relationships should grow together with this in mind. I have to focus not only on giving, but on expecting just as much. It’s hard for me since I have played the ‘sacrificial heroine’ all my life.

If your husband blames you for marriage, because of pregnancy or deceit, leave him. If you are harassed or abused physically, emotionally, economically or are always being put down and criticized, leave him. If your lover doesn´t take you out, or has you pay the bills, or hides you from his friends and lies about the relationship, leave him. Cut the crap.

Then you can work on your self-esteem.

Learning to Love: Impotence

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

 Impotence

How can I blog about loving and not be able to help my 22 year old daughter when she asks “How can I get a boyfriend?”
Beautiful, smart hard-working, good grades in the University, responsible and very loving…but 22, when boys her age are still playing around and older boys are thinking serious. Her girlfriends and their relations describe the gory scenario youth is confronting…one-night stands; abusive affairs with married bosses; desperate efforts to rank in beauty competitions, with extreme risks such as anorexia. Just in her generation they have had to deal with abortions, AIDS, clinics for AA, abduction and violence and chronic states of depression and hopelessness. Now, it´s not everyone. There are those who have travelled abroad to help out in Africa and Asia; those who have won international recognition and project financing; those who are working in the International Court of Justice, in the government; those who have written books and poetry and started their own recording and DJ companies. What makes the difference?

My psychoanalyst, Honorary Founder of the International Association for Mental Health, Louis Feder, said we can always expect: a thirty per cent of the population to have to deal with risk, whether potential, triggered or occurred; forty per cent will be mediocre and go with the flow with no self-determination or conscious awareness; and the upper thirty percent will be resilient and work to help others.

 

By definition, this differentiation, determined either by genetic, congenital, or early learning conditions makes a difference as they unfold as adults. There is also their cerebral maturation process, which in the early twenties, develops abstract- reasoning in the frontal lobe. So they will begin to think for themselves, questioning their parents, social mores and their very reason for living… And of course, there is also Freud. We repeat patterns set by parents in our relationships, selecting and molding our lovers according to our parents’ early modeling. So, one finds oneself establishing co-dependence, whether it be as an addict, or as ‘rescuer’ of a partner in need; or choosing partners who are aggressive and abusive, or weak and submissive according to the roles we learned as children. That's when helping a daughter implies not damaging her.

The feeling of impotence is wrenching. You want to help a loved one avoid unnecessary pain, even bear it for them, but love is made of such relentless soul-tearing. Impotence renders us needing Higher help, as we deal with the mystery of destiny and fate. We may never understand why things happen as they do; we just have to live it.  It is the way we bear that which we cannot change, that makes the difference. We must develop the bulwark of virtue (lat- vir-inner strength) to deal with life´s reckoning with staunch integrity.

But that doesn´t answer my daughter’s question. All I can do is love her and walk the way of life by her side, as she blossoms and is rejected for fear and insecurity of others. We are living times in which we have to take a stance: Life or Death; Right or Wrong and be willing to fight for it.

Learning to love. Innocence

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Lesson 31: Innocence

 The other day I heard a wonderful TED exposé by Mitch Resnick, where he proposes we teach children about coding. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/es/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code.html

Aside from the ingenious proposal, proved successful by his interactive web page http://scratch.mit.edu, I was impressed by his innocence. It is not every day you see someone brilliant, highly recognized for his expertise, talk about his mother, with such love. He used her as an example of someone unaccustomed to computer technology, who found his method of learning coding, simple. But the innocence with which he opened up and shared his emotions was deeply moving. Again he manifested innocent spontaneity when he referred to a young student thanking him, for teaching him how to add variables to an improvised, interactive game he was making. How many of us value such simple gestures. That is what true teachers are made of.

I have been in education for over 30 years and I had never thought about the importance of innocence in a teacher. We become savvy and stuck-up, critical of our peers and their difficulties. We certainly need innocence as teachers to establish empathy and recognize students’ hardships in learning. But we also need innocence as lovers.

Innocence allows us to be spontaneous; to share our fears and insecurities; to ask for help. It takes innocence to be in touch with awe, enthusiasm and humor. As its etymology implies, ‘innocence’  (from lat. Absence of- Gnoscere- to know), requires setting aside assumptions, opinions, preconceptions and previous knowledge. We have to empty our arsenal of self-righteousness and obsequious attention to error, in order to open up to learning, wonder and amazement. That is the emptiness we need, to fully perceive our loved one  as he grows and changes, every day and still, be filled with renewed wonder and amazement.

Innocence requires trust, letting go, losing control and responding instinctively. Only with this innocent attitude can we admit we need someone; can we share our vulnerability; can we admit we are wrong and ask for forgiveness, in a relationship.

 

I thank Mitch for sharing his love for his mother openly, innocently. It speaks for his soul, and his authentic desire to reach out to others. Such daring is often met with ridicule and dismissal, when, in fact it is proof of authenticity. It is this innocence, and not humility that makes us trustworthy, as teachers and as lovers. Spontaneous anger, laughter, awe and sharing are all signs of innocence. Creativity, growth and change come with it. Perhaps this is the key to avoid relationships from going stale and to deter  us from ageing. We need innocence to believe again, not only in students who fail; but in lovers who fail us and even to believe in ourselves, again.

 (It´s a shame I have grown callous and cynical. However, if innocence is not something one looses, perhaps I still have a chance to nurture its regeneration. I´ll have to try it, though the cost of giving up my self-righteous validity will hurt!)

Learning to Love. Limits

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Limits

Although love is everywhere, the experience of loving is individual. Rather like oxygen, spread throughout the atmosphere and yet contained in each cell. To individuate this experience we have to set boundaries with clear-cut limits, much as cell-membranes envelop and contain individuated life.

Differentiation makes every cell specialize in the functions of a specific tissue, such as muscle cells, bone cells, erythrocytes etc. People are also different, each able to develop specific capacities to benefit the whole of society. Membranes establish points of reference, contiguity, exchange, interaction and bonding between cells. Skin contains internal fluids and organs; it separates but also offers the possibility of contact and encounter. Limits trace boundaries in a relationship, establishing individuated rights and responsibilities.

Using the analogy of cell-membranes, to understand the interaction between lovers in a relationship, we find that membranes are not rigid, but flexible and permeable, open to receiving and excreting substances through pores. Relationships should, likewise allow interaction through flexibility and mutual acceptance. Giving and receiving is what allows life. Intolerance in a relationship makes us close all possibility of dialogue, exchange and growth.

Lovers open these boundaries to share an ethereal space of mutual loving (rather like the process of endocytosis in cells, where membranes open up to engulf external substances to internalize them). This fusion implies trust and responsibility. Once we have shared our lover’s intimacy and known his vulnerability, we are empowered with capacity to either help or destroy him. This is the risk of loving. This is the responsibility of choosing the right person we let into our heart’s hearth. Having someone break that trust and hurt us, impairs our integrity. The membrane is severed.

I´m sure everyone has suffered from heart-breaks that destroy innocence. We must, as cells that constantly repair and revitalize tissue, care and repair our hearts. Trust is built with generosity. We have to give loving, a second, third and chances ad-infinitum.  Anger is repaired with patience. We have to transform the ‘rage’ of having been hurt, into ‘cou-rage’ to uphold faith in our loved one’s dignity, especially when he forgets it.

Cells keep their shape through a cytoskeleton; bodies, their uprightness, with their bones. Souls are kept righteous through virtue. It takes kindness to ‘re-pair’.

In human tissues, a lesion takes time to heal, hardening through a process of scarring that renders it insensitive. The same thing happens in loving. We harden our hearts in distrust, becoming cynical and vengeful. We must, therefore, be selective, treasuring exclusivity. We must ‘adhere’ only to people who build us, constructively. We have to learn to say “No”, to say “stop”, to say “not now”. We have to establish clear rules of mutual  respect.

Learning to Love. Lovers

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Lovers

We have each other for love. The idea of God, without Love-made-manifest through Man, is an abstract. God man-ifests (and woman-ifests) His Love through Man (and Woman!). In loving Man, I love God (and I mean Man as Higher Self).

 A Lover is one who touches the Soul. It is not just anyone. We all live surrounded by people, oftentimes, alone. A Lover is that moment of awareness of HigherLove recognizing and embracing the Soul. Lovers are not bound by contract, social mores or conditioning. They give mutual, exclusive and inclusive Love, freely and freely (if not despairingly), receive it. This Love comes from passion. Chemistry recognizes it and empathy relates to it, most of the time, identifying with shared pain and dejection. If destiny has it, this Higher Loving will come from a husband and last throughout marriage. Out of marriage, psychologists call it ‘satellite relationships’. It is not about adultery, infidelity or treason. It is about Loving from the Soul.

Throughout the hardest moments of my life I have always had a Lover, whether a husband or not. Through it all, there was someone to love me. It is as if Lovers were the fingers of God-ness reaching out with Love, to us. It sounds ‘X-rated’ but it’s not. Lovers continuously ratify unconditional acceptance, vindicating that we are worth being loved. In my case it was as if, having challenged God´s Love through sin, I were trying Him to see if He would still forgive me, and Love invariably, reappears in my life. Not everyone needs this sort of ‘saving hand’! However, through different moments and different people, the experience of Higher Loving seems to be the same.

Yesterday, I heard a talk show where women were sharing problems with loved ones. One said she could not relate to the husbands´ infidelity, others were complaining about. Rather, she had fallen in love with one of the other Kindergarden mothers! Much to everyone´s surprise, the expert being consulted, said that although society would certainly deem it unacceptable, she should open her heart up to the experience of receiving Love; not necessarily physically, since that would be conflicting with her religious beliefs, and certainly not openly for she would destroy her marriage and lose her children.  

Such advice shook me. I am still trying to work my opinion around it. What is certain is, that the space where Lovers relate, is not external. It is a private, intimate internal experience. Lovers share the hearth of the Soul where we interact with God. Given their sacred uniqueness, Lovers should be kept private. This inner capacity to cherish Loving, secret, makes it holy, and as such, will kindle warmth in our lives forever.

Learning to Love. Eroticism

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Eroticism

“Praised be the three aims of life, virtue (Dharma), prosperity (Artha), and love (Kama)”. This is the introductory invocation in the Kamasutra. It goes on saying “Love is necessary to satisfy the mind; ethics, to satisfy the conscience; and spiritual seeking for peace of soul. Without food and clothes, the body becomes thin and weak. Without eroticism, the mind become restless and unsatisfied. Without virtue (ethics), the conscience goes astray. Without spirituality, the soul is degraded.” Thus, Master Vatsyayana describes the science of moral eroticism, leading to spiritual realization and not the sating of the passions or the encouragement of pleasure seekers.

Whether love surges from an abstract ideal or from a feeling or passion, it is manifest in the body. If there is no body there is no Eros (living vital energy). As a Science, eroticism follows natural laws; as a spiritual guideline it is a path of human development where “I”, becomes “We”. It all starts with the body and its senses.
Twitter wisdom says that without loving oneself, one cannot love another. However, it’s worse.…if I don´t like my body I will reject anyone who comes close, doubting his intentions, which I defensively see as malicious. In a society where the cult for a perfect body makes people spend fortunes for the physical torture of re-designing one’s body, it is hard to accept, much more, love one´s imperfections.
My boobs are beginning to sag and I am fatter. How can I love my body that way? (Thank goodness aging comes with losing one’s sight, so that imperfections are much less visible! ) What is heightened is sensitivity. Touch, warmth, softness, all relieve the tension of resistance that melts into the acceptance of a safe embrace. In the arms of our loved one, looks become irrelevant. It is all about feeling. Fusion begins with kissing, exchanging breath and chemical receptors in the saliva that unchain the physiological reactions of desire. In the Kinsey Institute, sexual therapy requires you to hug your partner and regulate your breathing to his or her rhythm. This allows us to develop awareness with a keener focus on our loved one. Thus we open up to a shared reality, in the here and now. Mutuality becomes commonality and the skin ceases to be a barrier. Time is suspended and the “quick of my being skips a beat”.

Learning to Love. Bonding

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Bonding

Life is bound by a meshwork of relationships. Relationships between higher and lower orders of life; chain reactions; empathy; dependence and co-dependence; homeostasis; cause and effect… Bonding is about linkage between these relationships…the contract (in small print!) that binds all life unto unity.

Bonds differ. There are tight-knit tissues in the network of the Mystical Whole. There are loose ends. There are holes and gaps; ‘see-throughs’ to nothingness.

People are the cells…relationships are the articulating construct…feelings are the receptors that bind. Like in cells, there are specific ‘gages’ that ‘engage’ with specific other cells. So, feelings link us to others, either, attracting or repelling. Some, relate in tight fitting networks; others, with laxer spacing. (Tell me, who has been married several times, bound with all sorts of different contracts).

Feelings are then basic to unify me’s into us.

Unfortunately, our society disregards educating the heart to feel with constructive bonds. Rather, we are taught to respond with feelings that destroy… such as hatred, envy, meanness. So, the social tissue of life cannot expand awareness unto another level of consciousness till we learn that I am US; that I am incomplete without you; that to know you is to love me; to know me is to love you.

We have to learn to master our reactions to feelings.

Now, feelings are not emotions. Feelings are the reactive response of sentiment to what we feel on the outside.

Emotions, as their Latin etymology implies, are the motor of passion within.

The first, respond to external stimuli. The latter, respond from the soul, within.

Feelings then, are a response set off by external stimulus. They are basic for survival. They are the body´s language that responds and alerts us to external conditions. We decide how to interpret, and respond to these stimuli.

Emotions are what moves us from within. They come from passion, not from reason. They are borne of the soul, not of the mind.

Virtues are the muscles of the spirit that willfully control response. They are the response to reason.

All feelings are immature forms of love. They are determined by our perception, rather like colors through a prism. Therefore bonding with feelings, may make our links to other people, weak and unstable, though with time and consistent usage, bonds will grow stronger.

Emotions are our unconscious response to CONFLICT. They are the filters of the passion that moves us from the soul.

Will is reasoning controlled by decision-making, from the mind.

Virtue is inductive bonding of the spirit..

PD- Did you know that oxytocin, a peptide that stimulates uterine contraction, is called the ‘monogamy molecule’ because its sensitivity to ‘touch’ stimulates mating, grooming and cuddling in both sexes?

Learing to Love. Reparation

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Lesson 24: Reparation

Man has always punished vice, crime and sin, be it as retaliation from he who was wronged, as correction from the family, as justice from the State, or as penance from the Church. However, underlying excessive punishment is always vengeance and retrieval.

With the New testament, the old Mosaic injunction “thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” was reverted with a new law, the law of forgiveness. In His sermon on the mount Christ said, “Ye shall resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also”. The new law is about loving and forgiving our enemies. Princess Mary says to Prince Andrew in War and Peace, “Forget it and forgive! We have no right to punish”.

Saint Augustine said that God rightly punished the sins he committed for “every disorder in the soul is its own punishment”. Hobbes describes it with a theory that “intemperance is naturally punished with dis-ease; injustice with the violence on enemies; cowardice with oppression”. Freud said that seeking punishment was the psyche´s way to find relief from guilt.

In an unjust society, we may have to bear the injustice of punishment for resisting the state, in refusing to obey laws that go against our conscience as did Socrates, Gandhi, Thoreau, Oscar Wilde and so many self-governing leaders.

My plight with sin, whether real, fancied, or karmic, lead me to the Monastery, a sinner in penance; to becoming a social fighter, for meritorious indulgence; to co-dependent relationships, for joint reparation. This self-assigned injunction from love, held me restrained from inner joy. Here, the underlying wrong was the pride of making my sin larger that God´s forgiveness and rejecting Love. With the recent avowal of love from my fiancé 30 years ago, I vindicated my innocence and my right to accept love and for the first time experienced inner joy. It took me almost 60 years!

Reparation (from the Latin re-parare- standing up again) is not only for the wrong-doer but for he who allowed it. It is about conscious awareness of wrong-doing and the conscious decision to re-dignify our Higher Selves. We have to repair the damage done, not to benefit others, but to get ourselves back on our feet and hold our heads up high.

When I was young one of my teachers slapped me in front of the class. Smugly, I turned the other cheek and she hit me again!!!! My classmates were shocked and called me ‘stupid’ for my reaction and for letting it go without sanction. Forty years later, out of the blue, she contacted me and after exchanging life experiences, she said she was sorry.
What other way of loving is there?