Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Mindfulness: Unbundling it from religion

There's a generational divide.  Geezers like Leonard Cohen and the Beatles went to get their training in being present in the now from religious folks.  Today, successful professionals get the secular version.  Hold the religion.  Mindfulness training, without all the religious trappings, is taking place at Raytheon, McKinsey, Ford Motor, Unilever, and General Mills. 

Although a geezer, I have also decided to unbundle mindfulness, or meditating, from its religious platform.  I had to.  In my search for inner peace and clarity, I had trudged off to Buddhist centers. Actually three of them.  That was enough of a sampling to convince me that religion seemed to attract to leadership those needing to control.  The experiences were brutal.  "Bullying" would not be too strong a word.  Acquaintances tell me that there is one Buddhist center in the New Haven, Connecticut Metro area which seems to be bully-free.  I plan to check that out soon. After all, given how mirror neurons operate, we affect each other cell by cell.  By being in a group of meditators I could pick up on their good vibes.

But for now, I remain in the Happy Valley of pure mindfulness.  Several times a day I stop my day.  I sit on the couch.  Next to Jason my feline companion.  We get quiet.  We find our way into the now.

In all three Buddhist centers there were few Millennials.  Will Buddhism die out in the West, if it can't provide consumers with mindfulness without all the dogma?  I might run into different demographics when I sample the fourth Buddhist center in my area.  If I do, I will keep you posted.

Loneliness Can Kill, Documents THE NEW REPUBLIC - But belonging can hurt so much

Twelve-step programs hammer the dangers of isolation.  They encourage even compulsively attending meetings to create a sense of belonging.  The why behind that is documented in Judith Shulevitz's article in THE NEW REPUBLIC "The Lethality of Loneliness." Yes, feeling alienated or apart from can lead to early death, mental illness, and physical deterioration.

On the other hand, belonging can bring horrific pain.  In our 12-step group we are stilling looking glazed-over from the suicide of one of our members.  He was buried last Thursday.  But this loss remains the emotional elephant in the room.  Those of us who managed to drive away loneliness with animal companions often suffer the same kind of devastation from pet grief.  Canine Molly Mittens died seven years ago on a vet's table.  I can still find myself crying.

The price of being part of is high.  I have compassion for those who choose loneliness over connecting.  Sometimes I wonder if it's a devil's bargain we make to live among the human race and animal kingdom with open hearts.

Mirror Neurons: Why man the social animal is returning from virtual

In the presence of each other, a number of species, including us human kind, affect each other cell by cell. Some of us always knew this.  For example, our moms told us to stay clear of "bad companions." The transmission process happens across the species. My dog Molly Mittens could pick up that I was depressed before I did. The vet, part Dr. Phil, told me she had been hanging on despite her bad heart trying to keep me together.  

But how we resonate off each other was confirmed by researchers such as Marco Iacoboni on mirror neurons in Italy. He made all that science user-friendly in his book "Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others.  Last night at the New Haven Zen Center in Connecticut we discussed why meditating together in-person can center us so quickly.  As a guiding teacher noted, we feed off each other's strength.  The same principle operates in 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

No surprise, we are returning to in-person speeches, meetups, chats by the water cooler, author presentations at bookstores, and church services. Virtual social networks were fun but they left us, well, unconnected.

For the past four months, although I was doing my time virtually on Facebook and LinkedIn, I would get attacks of extreme alienation. They were brutal enough to dry up the creative processes as I tried to write.  When I packed up the laptop and went to the public library in North Haven, CT, the juices started flowing again.  Clients raved about what I had created there.  Blog posts done there went viral. The help-wanted I answered there brought in good assignments.

We need other human beings around us. They don't have to even actively interact with us. For this very reason, we speechwriters have been busy preparing what speakers are delivering in the flesh, not on webinars. Social networks have proved to be unable to transmit from mirror neurons.

Animal Companions: Awaiting test results, consulting a psychic

Last night I knew that I wouldn't sleep.  I was waiting the last of test results for my 18-year-old animal companion feline Jason.  The blood tests didn't reveal any problems.  Would the urine one show that he had bladder or a related cancer? He had lost three pounds since his annual last year.

Desperate with angst, I contacted a brandname psychic about 10 P.M..  He didn't "see" any life or death problems with Jason.  This morning the vet confirmed that psychic reading.  Jason would probably fare better, though, he said, on a prescription diet for kidneys.

I chalk up the sleepless night and the need to perform any way today and produce deadline material for clients as the price of parental love.  Being a mother means never being without concern.

Petfoodstamps.org To Distribute Free Pet Food to Those on Public Assistance

Low-income families will no longer have to choose between feeding the humans or the animal companions. 

By the end of this month, petfoodstamps.org will be distributing free pet food to those on public assistance, reports CBS in Dallas, Texas.  That will prevent the brutal necessity of surrendering the four-legged members of the family to a shelter because there is no money to feed them.  Currently food stamp laws prohibit spending on pet food.  However, they allow the purchase of non-essential items such as brandname cola.

This initiative could generate more kinds of digital outreach which helps pet parents.  And collectively all that could improve the health of the low income.  Research shows that interacting with our animal companions lowers our blood pressure and overall anxiety level.  We tend to sleep better.  Also, animal companions tend to teach all family members love and trust.

Mother's Day for Pet Parents: Respect for the bond, finally

The bonds of parenthood might be a curse.  Across all species and between species - as with pet parents and our four-footed children - the caring is so intense. Yes, it borders on the neurotic.

Finally, others understand.  A man who I was supposed to interview on his niche business finally was free, after traveling for weeks.  However, I had told him I wasn't.  I was overwhelmed.  For one thing I had to get up to speed on a ghostwriting book assignment.  But even more depleting was that I had to continue with tests for my 18-year-old cat Jason.  The businessman agreed to wait another week.  He seemed compassionate.

So far a lot of nasty stuff has been ruled out.  The vet needs to check his kidneys.  The fake litter the vet gave me to catch urine at home didn't work. Jason was having none of that.  So, now I have to go over to the vet's and find out what other ways we can get urine and at what cost.  That will be tomorrow.  Meanwhile I am a basket case of worry.

But come Mother's Day, the pain will be forgotten as Jason and I curl up on the sofa, me reading, he purring.  He will look into my eyes with such trust.  Mothers around the world who earned that should feel such a sense of satisfaction and joy next Sunday.

Pet Grief, Tears, and a New Friend

Yesterday the vet confirmed what I strongly suspected.  Jason, my 18-year-old cat, had lost three pounds since his last examination a year ago.  Scary.  The vet took blood work and the results wouldn't be available until whenever. I went home and went on to have the nightmare that my dog Molly Mittens had died, which she had seven years ago this June. 

Obviously, I hadn't fully healed from Molly Mittens' death and I could be facing the rapid decline of Jason, the last of the brood.  At one time I was the proud parent of three dogs and seven cats.  I was also the foster parent for countless strays until the rescue folks could find them homes.

I truly thought I couldn't bare it, not one more bit of pet grief, not from the past, not what could occur in the future.  I got up from my laptop, starting cleaning the house.  I brought the garbage to the disposal area.  Somehow tears were falling.  The maintenance man was fixing something.  I made sure our eyes didn't meet.

A few hours later, there was a knock on my door.  The man was finished for the day. He asked me how I was.  Not too good, I told him.  Then it all spilled out.  He listened.  He told me his experience with trauma such as when he was recovering for a year in a VA hospital from Viet Nam. It seemed odd that something human could help with something animal.

UPDATE: Jason's tests came back pretty good.  We will do a urine screen to check out kidneys.

 

 

Clinical Depression Is Contagious: Notre Dame researchers confirm what we depressives always knew

Notre Dame University researchers Gerald Haeffel and Jennifer Hames confirmed what we depressives always knew: Clinical depression is contagious and can be passed on from one human being to another.  I have a hunch that I also passed some of it on to my four-footed animal companions.

The Notre Dame study involved freshman college roommates.  That mood of helplessness and hopelessness can be transmitted.  Because I sensed that from age 11 when I first felt despair I adopted an antic disposition (like Hamlet).  I assumed that would mask the depression.  However, the perceptive saw through the zany personality and ran for their mental health. 

Psychologists such as David W. Harder at Tufts University have begun to study the healing potential of spirituality on mental disease.  Since I have become a "regular" at the New Haven Zen Center, Connecticut, meditating and listening to chanting, I haven't had one day of what Winston Churchill called the "Black Dog."  No surprise, I have begun to make friends, after half a century of isolation.  In addition, my business has increased three-fold.  It could be that clients and prospects pick up on the optimism and want to work with me.

I have a hunch that the most helpful part of the rituals at the Kwan Um School of Zen at the New Haven Center has been the exercise: Breathe in, "Clear Thinking," Breathe out, "Don't Know." Without the burden of having to know I am free to look at the situations in front of me right now and just do something, anything.  That something, anything has been proving to have mega doses of high Emotional Intelligence and ability to make the big money again.

Dog Rehab: Second chances for abused canines (Just like AA's 12 steps for wounded human beings)

There's a saying in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): Hurt people hurt.  That is, those wounded by life usually wind up harming society and themselves. 

The 12 steps, which include taking inventory of their wrongs and making amends, provide a kind of spiritual behavior modification for healing.  The current term for that is "neuroplasticity" or the data which show that brain waves can be changed so that human beings see the world differently than they had and respond in a less destructive way.

Now, dogs which have been victims of cruelty are also getting a second chance at fitting into society.  THE NEW YORK POST reports on the ASPCA program which provides long-term behavior modification for malamutes, dachshunds, and one chihuahua which had been in puppy mills or kept by hoarders.  As a result their behavior is antisocial. 

Before this initiative those animals probably would have been put to sleep.  The mission of the program, which takes place in Madison, New Jersey's St. Hubert Animal Welfare Center, is to socialize them to become animal companions.  The data generated by this program will be analyzed to provide information and insight about how to give other abused animals second chances. 

Tsunami, Fire, No Money, After So Much of It: Grief that keeps us stuck

Sonali Deraniyagala joins the ranks of those whose grief may never heal and the best that we can expect is a period of inner serenity, now and then.

As Cheryl Strayed's review in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Deraniyalala's book "Wave" recounts, this economist lost her husband, two sons, and parents when the 2004 tsunami entered their Sri Lankan hotel room.  As yet, there has been no closure. 

Her story mirrors that of former advertising executive Madonna Badger who on a Christmas morning fire in Stamford, Connecticut in 2011 lost her three young daughters and her parents.  Her grief drove her to settle out west to receive intensive counseling.  Last Christmas season, she journeyed overseas to give children at an orphanage presents.  But when the actual day came, she simply couldn't pull it together to leave her hotel. 

Insecure from a Dickensian childhood - my mother was the cleaning lady at my high school - I accumulated material trophies such as a Victorian house on the Gold Coast of Connecticut and a cottage at the Jersey Shore.  By 2003, I had lost everything ( Download Geezerguts ).  Initially I was capable of the magical thinking that, with my new-found strength and wisdom, I would do much better financially than before.  It hasn't happened.  Meanwhile my four-legged soulmates canine Molly Mittens and felines Carlotta, Point Pleasant, Callie, and Sarah have died. Nothing I have devoured on pet grief has helped. 

Perhaps America better back off all the positive thinking about the ennobling power of grief.  Maybe we don't get what we need.  Maybe we just get what we get.