​Beneath the surface
 
My spiritual intention yesterday was to look beneath the surface and see the good in each person.   Later that morning  I stumbled on a quote which is attributed to Hippocrates, “I would rather know the person who has the disease than the disease the person has.”
 
Often, it seems, I will be thinking of a spiritual intention or some spiritual lesson and throughout the day I will encounter the same lesson or thought.  It could, of course, be that when my mind has a particular focus I am tuned into what is always there.  Yet, it seems as if the universe or the god of my understanding decides that I need to deeply focus on that lesson or thought.   
 
Attempting to “see” another person does not always come naturally or easy to this human.   I can easily attend only to the covering or the label which has been assigned to them or which I dredge up from one of the boxes in my mind.   It can be temporarily comforting to see a person  as the symptoms by which they present.   They are happy, sad, depressed, anxious, obsessive compulsive, judgmental, angry, joyful or any one of the everyday labels we assign to each other and to ourselves.  Professionally I have  this very thick books which contain  names of disorders or diseases.    Many of the clients with/for whom I work often present themselves to me via a label. Hello, I am James, an addict.  Hello I am Heather the criminal. Hello I am Susie the depressed one.
 
Labels can be very useful.  They are a shield which may prevent one from identifying with or getting too close to the mirror which reflects the deepest part of oneself.  They also keep our roles with each other simplified and efficient. Perhaps I do not want to “know” that  there is a person who is much more complex than the label implies.   
 
I am reading Suggestible You by Erik Vance which details some of the research about why placebos work; the role of COMPT; the role of valine and methionine and how the balance between the two  can affect how one is able to function.
 
It is easy to observe another person and think, “Why don’t they…?”  Yet we have no idea of all the factors which affect how they are able to take care of themselves or their overall life dance.
 
One might ask if one is able to really know another person.  My friends Pinky and John in their nineties after nearly 70 years of marriage eagerly looked forward to getting to know each other better each day.  In writing, I always find out something new about myself.  I cannot really say that I know myself and certainly no one else is able to know me any more than I will ever finish getting acquainted with close friends and family members.
 
Wise men and women have eternally reminded all of us that the spiritual growth which some call an increase in faith allow the blind to see.   We all know that there is seeing and. “seeing”.   “Seeing” has nothing to do with eyesight and everything to do with what the 12 step folks call the HOW of growth- honestly, open mindedness and willingness.
 
Written November 30, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org

Thanksgiving 2019 In these United States of America
 
Some have suggested that instead of Thanksgiving we in the United States should be mourning the genocide of the Native Americans by those who came to this country after them.   Some have suggested that we dedicate this day to not only mourn the historic genocide of Native American but also that of  African Americans.  Other are suggesting that we have a national day of confession for the way these United States have treated adult and child immigrants in recent years; especially the past couple of years.   Those directly affected emotionally, spiritually, and economically by the ineffective and mean judicial system that expects negative treatment in prison/punishment to heal people would suggest that we practice what 12 step programs call the HOW (Honesty, open mindedness and willingness) in examining the assumptions underlying this system.  Many suggest that we avoid such discussions all together because  it may seem as if we cannot trust ourselves,  friends, family or colleagues to have a civil and helpful debate.
 
Today in 2019 many of us continue to enjoy a rich serving of food and many other necessities. Many of us have more than our share and are doing all we can as a nation and individuals to ensure that we continue to have more than our share of resources.  Today in 2019 we continue , as have humans and even other animals throughout history, to often feel better about ourselves by doing all we can to be or have more than others in our tribe.
 
There is certainly a strong argument to be made for suggesting that this day be set aside as a national day of mourning.   Yet, as many in the past have demonstrated, there is much goodness in the deeds we humans do even here in the United States.   Restaurant owners I know today will close cash registers and open doors to welcome those who need both a meal, a warm respite and a reminder that they are a blessing to be celebrated.    People I know are setting up temporary tables, digging out the family china, resurrecting chairs and benches  and serving up a feast to the friends, family and those who remain a stranger up to the moment they are not.    
 
Today I personally have pages and pages of people and items for which I am grateful.  When I use the term grateful I do so in the context of grace – unearned gifts.   As Father Gregory Boyle has often stated, some of us won the lottery in terms of intellectual, mental, economic and physical health.   Some of us were gifted the ability to  get an education and to have the opportunity to use that education to make a decent living; even to do work for which we have a passion.
 
I could easily take the reader on a tour of my home and point out the luxuries which impose on me a responsibility .  Luxuries provide one with the opportunity and responsavility to leave a footprint commemorate with those luxuries. 
 
So today I will shed tears, laugh, love, eat  more than I need, and give thanks. Today I will do my best to practice gratitude which has been baked with love and huge amounts of humility. Today I will  celebrate the rich bounty of my life while recommitting myself to use the gifts I have been leant to practice justice – to walk the talk.
 
Written November 28, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
 
 

​Expectations
 
My spiritual intention for today is to notice how often I impose expectations on others and even on non-living things such as this computer, my car, and especially the coffee maker!  Those expectations, especially with other people, frequently result in damage to the relationship.   Expectations get in the way of unconditional love. Even if I think that I unconditionally love another my imposed expectations can make them feel as if it is conditional.
 
I think I was 27 years old when I first had the ah ha moment regarding expectations.  I kept waiting for my mother to be the person I thought she could be and no matter how much I conditioned my love on those expectations she remained the bright, hardworking, good person she was.  I chose to focus on her anger and what I experienced as her conditional love.  I am not sure what happened to make me realize or to accept that the only power I had was to attempt to practice unconditional love for her, but I do recall that ah ha or forehead hand slapping moment when I realized the problem was me and not her.  Thee was nothing wrong with my mother. Of course, she was human and had her own issues.  Yet, at 27 I no longer needed her to validate my worth. Not only did I not need her to do that, but it was my job to validate myself and to work on being the best I could be.
 
I have not been 27 years old for many years – 62 years to be exact – and I am still at the stage of spiritual development of noticing when I preface my love with expectations. It seems as if I will have to live to be older than Methuselah.  He was purported to have lived 969 years.  Mercy!
 
For today I will continue to be intentional about noticing my expectations of others; the fact that even while I am advising them to bring the focus back to themselves I am focusing on what others are doing or not doing. 
 
Daily spiritual intentions do not bring me to perfection, but they do bring me back to a focus on what I can to today . Today I can strive to come a little closer to loving myself and others unconditionally.
 
Written November 26, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
 
 

​Don’t drink the Kool-Aid
 
In 1978 Jim Jones, ordered his followers in Jonestown, Guyana to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide.  913 of the 1100 Jonestown residents drank the Kool-Aid and died.
 
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid has become a popular way of referring to the phenomenon of falling under the spell of a group dynamic. That phenomenon has been extensively studied by social scientists.  The saying is also used to describe the phenomenon of falling under the spell of a charismatic person. This could be a political, religious, or even scientific group or a  leader.  Once one has fallen under the spell of the group or the leader one is likely to shut off the value which leads to the logical or even common sense part of brain.  Falling in love can be an example of this phenomenon.   When one falls in love – that limerick stage  of the relationship – one does not see all the “fake news” news which one is absorbing.  The person who may be very emotionally, spiritually and mentally ill is “wondaful, wise,  kind, a victim, the perfect potential partner, the sexiest….  Later one might be shocked to find out the motives of that person had nothing to do with your needs or health.   One may then wonder how one could have been so blind and stupid. The facts were “as plain as day”.
 
The same thing often happens  with a religious or political leader.  When one finds out that they are an ordinary, sometimes ill human one is shocked and may resist believing a many volume report on the truth of their behavior.  
 
For this reason currently it can be very difficult in the United States and many other countries to have a respectful, logical discussion about certain political or religious subjects. 
 
All of us need to come to terms with the fact that we too could be vulnerable to “drinking the Kool-Aid”.  In order to minimize this possibility we need to:
 

• Have a healthy group of friends and colleagues will let us know when they detect pre Kool-Aid drinking symptoms.
• An a priori decision to listen to and follow the advice of his group of friends and colleagues.

 
Those individuals who are using a 12 step program to recover from active addiction will be told to not take any action before checking in with their sponsor or other healthy members of their ‘we’.    Their “Kool-Aid” has been their addicted brain which will often tell them to seek out their drug of choice (alcohol, other drugs, sex, money, power, or things) to celebrate, avoid sadness, or to side step any uncomfortable feeling.
 
If any of us do not have such a healthy group of friends and colleagues we should be prepared to write out a check the next time someone  offers to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge.
 
Written November 25, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
 
 
 

​Sunday Musings – November 24, 2019
Oh wise one
 
Writing has been for me a way to access the wise person  within, for getting some distance from some of the thoughts which, when left unobserved ,command my voice, my legs and other body parts to action when, in fact,  the words and action are diametrically opposed to my best interest, my core values and often the interests of all who are affected.
 
It is curious to me that even though it is me, myself and I having a thought  and directing words and/or other action it is also me, myself and I who has a much wiser voice.   Yet, the wise voice, if it stays in my head, often will not communicate with those other voices within me.
 
I am well aware that many individuals access that wise voice by writing music, creating a sculpture, choregraphing a dance or just allowing it to speak for itself, through a character in a play, by debating or discussing with another person, or by drawing or painting.       Each of us can access that wise voice which I believe resides in all of us.  We have much to learn about what happens to that wise voice when various  brain diseases makes it impossible to access that voice. With brain diseases such as addiction the wise voice might be present but it is not able to take charge of one’s behavior.  With diseases such as clinical depression, the voice may be blocked out by the dark curtain which prevents one from seeing a different reality.
 
Letter writing was always a part of my childhood.   Generally it was the women in the family – my mother, Grandma Fannie, Grandma Drake, Aunt Pleasie and others who write cards, letters, or kept journals. Yet, historically many of our most wise males have also kept extensive journals and were prolific letter writers.   In many families it is still the case the adult females areis in charge of relationship health – relationship with self, children, other relatives and even friends.   Of  course there are exceptions. In some families it is one of the males who are in charge of maintaining and nurturing relationships. In rare cases it seems that this role might be shared equally.
 
When I am working as a general counselor or an addiction counselor I often strongly advise those for/with whom I am working to write, write, write unless, of course they can use music, art or dance to access that voice.
 
I am blessed in many ways. Chief of those blessings are friends who love me unconditionally while challenging me to think and act outside my often small box of thoughts.  They also gift me in many other ways.   My friend John often gifts me to a play production.   Yesterday he gifted me with the production of the play “One Night In Miami” which is being performed by City Theater in Pittsburgh.   The play features a conversation in a Miami motel between Cassius Clay, James Brown, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X – a fighter, football player, musician and strong spiritual leader in.   Actually they are all strong spiritual leaders.  These powerful African American men, during the course of the evening, challenge each other to explore the most effective and moral way to confront racism.  As four gifted men who have “made it” in their respective fields they each know they all have some particular responsibilities as leaders.    Two other characters in the play are body guards whose job it is to ensure that Malcolm X stay within the confines of the box outside the box.  (That is purely my interpretation.) 
 
Again I am reminded of the strength of those who live outside the box; of those who refuse to internalized the messages of oppression; of those who , despite the ease with which one could just experience outrage, struggle with how to actively confront oppression and, yet, align their actions with a moral code.  That code may be based in  a religion or from other deep place within oneself – that wise voice which will not be quiet and yet does not want to merely react.     These are what I refer to as the intentional misfits; the humans who struggle and are not rendered comatose by the internal struggle.     Misfits thinks outside the book of the oppressors, of those who rationalize injustice; of those who decide that violence is the answer; of those whose religions or philosophical belief system itself  becomes another voice for oppression; a voice which knows that one must not respond to hate with hate;  a voice which says that one must respond to hate with love; a voice which is not fearful of its own contradictions; a voice which is always evolving in a dance which can be as vicious as the fight dance of a Cassius Clay, as soothing as a love ballad, or as challenging as a spiritual song which reaches deep into the pain and brings it to light.
 
As we prepare to enter  what, for many, are religious holidays I pray that they will also be spiritual holidays of struggle; of struggles on a base of love and outrage.
 
 
Written November 24, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
 
 

​Something out of nothing.
 
I have been thinking a lot recently about creativity. As “luck” would have it yesterday two talks on creativity popped up on my Ted Talk app – one by Elizabeth Gilbert entitled “Your Elusive Creative Genius” and another by Amy Tan entitled “Where does creativity hide?”  Then this morning, again as “luck” would have it, the On Being podcase with host Krista Tippett of November 21, 2019 features novelist and science lover Marilynne Robinson and physicist Marcelo Gleiser having a conversation entitled “The Mystery We Are”.
 
The fact that the subject of creativity and creation just “happened” to confront me from different directions is itself part of the creative process.   I need to be present enough to be able to tune in and consider how I am to use this nudge.
 
Elizabeth Gilbert reminds the listener that the Greeks “believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons. The Greeks famously called these divine attendant sprits of creativity ‘daemons’…..The Romans called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius.”
 
In my mind creativity is a cousin of  faith and hope.  I am reminded of the poem by Emily Dickinson “Hope Is The Thing with Feathers” and the quote from the Christian bible in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Hope is a significant theme in most religions.
 
Marilynne Robinson says of the first creation story in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, “…it does anticipate the modern cosmology, the creation of something out of nothing.”
I am reminded of the nurturing of the creative spirit in us adults who have often long forgotten what we “naturally” knew as a child.  As children, barring early traumas or other neurological issues, we know magic is real; we are constantly creating stories and a reality from no recognizable past.   We  are not afraid to anticipate the arrival of daemons.
 
All to soon we are told to color within the lines; to be realistic; to sing or dance to someone’s dictated rhythm.  Soon we are no longer able to duplicate the magic of our conception; the magic of the divine spirit introducing a particular sperm and egg to each other to create this body and spirit which is us.
 
As Mr. Gleiser reminds us “The way we understand the world is very much based on what we can see of the world, right”.  Yet, faith and hope are based on what we cannot see or not what we think we cannot see.  The artist, the musician, and the writer know that it is only the space outside of the lines, the space between the note, or the space between the words which give meaning or holds the object, the notes or the words.
 
Similarly, in the work that I do as a counselor I must see beneath the depression, the active addiction, the brokenness of what has often been a lifetime of trauma to that soul which can soar; to that person waiting to be reborn.  We all can, if we allow ourselves,  see beneath those labels – immigrant, illegal, criminal, male, female, professional title to that which is the divine spirit waiting to ignite.
 
We must all be willing to be that divine spirit; that genius; that embodiment of hope for ourselves and others.
 
Written November 22, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
 
 
 
 

Delusions
 
Recently, I read another editorial in the  local newspaper commenting on a proposed bill in the WV legislature recommending reducing low level drug possession to misdemeanors and increasing penalties for drug dealers.  The author of the editorial was concerned that not giving individuals “ harsh penalties for drug possession would mean that they would wind up in much deeper trouble or even dead.”  The author goes on to say “If lawmakers want to reduce the harm a criminal record could do to those who are truly interested in turning their lives around, fine.  More provisions should be made for making sure those who receive less harsh penalties for drug charges are able to get the help they need – and take advantage of it.”
 
Reading the entire editorial again makes it seems as if most of us want to recommend treatment while, at the same times, make the symptoms of addition a criminal offense.
 
This editorial is very symptomatic of  our ongoing conflicting feelings about illnesses which affect the behavior of an individuals, especially addiction related behavior.   While there may be still a lot of unanswered questions about a more effective treatment for addictions there is no question about the fact that addictions are a thinking disorder which are a result of a brain disease.     
 
The author of this editorial indicates those with addictive disorders need help  and not punishment.  Yet the author continues to talk about penalties.  Penalties are not the same as helping individuals comes to terms with the fact that are consequences for getting the help they need to  get and stay in active recovery. 
 
In my work with those attempting  recovery from active addiction it is obvious they  are often conflicted about whether addiction is a choice or a disease; a disease such  that once one feeds the addiction the command center of the brain functions changes drastically.  The changed brain now directs that one must put core values aside and make feeding the addiction primary.    The process is no different than it is for the person with an obsessive compulsive disorder who cannot ignore the commands of the brain to wash their body in a certain order and if they fail to follow exact instructions start over.   The person suffering from this sort of disease can take hours to take a shower or do other tasks which are very simple for the person without an obsessive compulsive disorder.
 
If we, as a culture, are serious about reducing the financial, emotional and spiritual costs of addiction we must:
 

• Consistently treat it as a disease.
• Come to terms with the fact that we are an addictive society.   A majority use money, alcohol, other drugs, food, sex , things  - anything outside of oneself –  to prove our worth or to give our life meaning;  This is a symptoms of the underlying belief that one not enough.   
• Accept that addiction can also begin with a treatment for emotional or physical pain.  Certain drugs  will change the function of the brain;  even the healthiest person.
• Accept that penalties in the form of punishment do not work.   It is true that there is that occasional person who gets arrested and quickly realizes that they need help.   It is not punishment but the interruption/intervention which makes the person stop and realize that it is okay to seek help.  This person typically has already been wanting help but may have been too embarrassed to ask for it.
• Accept that It is true that there is a core group of people who are not able to respond to current treatment methods.  We must find a non-punishment, compassionate method of dealing with such individuals  while also protecting other members of the community.
• Accept that treatment is expensive but punishment is more expensive.
• Accept that addictive beliefs and behavior may start very young.
• Accept that the concept of free will  falsely assumes that the brain is always able to access and act on core values which consider the rights and needs of others.
• Accept that free will is a delusional concept.  How thoughts are formed, accessed and acted on depend on  the balancing of a myriad of factors including environment, genetics, nutrition, exercise and a various of other influences. That may be a frightening concept for many but if we are to attempt to create a healthier community we must come to terms with this reality.  Delusional  or wishful thinking is not a reality which serves anyone.

 
Written November 20, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org


 
 
 
 

​Many stories or a single story
 
This morning while at the gym I listened again to a Ted Talk, “The danger of a single story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.   
 
I often need to remind myself that no matter how much I am tempted to look for stories which reinforce a single story I have already logged into my memory bank,  if I am truly interested in being part of universal tribe I need to take the advice of wise people such as Ms. Adichie.   As a child the books she read painted a picture which did not include her.  It was only when she began to read African books that the stories included her.  She gives many examples of seeing others only as the poor hired help in her Nigerian family household, of others seeing African as a country with a single story and not a continent of many people with many stories.
 
As a counselor I am often acutely reminded that early in our childhood we learn or create a story of ourselves, others  and the universe.  Often when I see those children as adults those stories still dictate the parameters of their thoughts.  Some, such as my friend  Beverly, learned that despite some physical differences the world was theirs to enjoy.  Others, learn a story which  dictate a very tiny world with few opportunities,  Often if one was to take on the role of a street mime and accurately intimidate the walk of the person with a tiny world, they would discover a lot of fear about changing or enlarging their story.  
 
Just last week I spent time with this man whose life dance was the story of this very tiny man who did not deserve to have a strong, joyful dance.  At the end of the hour I “discovered” that he was much taller than I and could claim a story the details of which had yet to be written.  This morning I saw a man whose story has often been written as one of shame for being a human.  His story was largely written by what he “heard”
the elders of the church teaching him about the sins of his feelings and his powerlessness to be a person who deserved to be loved and respected.  That often repeated story became his single story which,  no matter his enormous achievements, determined his worth.
 
Recently when I was talking with someone I made what I intended as a casual remark about the reception of immigrants in this country.  Silly me. I should have known that one cannot these days make a casual remark about this subject without being told that there is a single story which dictates the rights of people to come to this country.  My story which allows for a variety of ways to be welcomed to my home is a different story than what the other person has learned and believes.
 
Today my spiritual intention was to open my mind and my heart to many stories about a range of subjects; to listen without determining its validity by comparing it to my single story about the subject being shared.
 
There are many stories about who we are as United States citizens.  There are many stories about who we are as North Americans or one of the countries comprising the Americas.  There are many stories of who we are as Native Americans or immigrants; about who we are as a neighbor; about who we are in relation to other countries around the globe.  There are many stories of who we are spiritually; about what it means to be human; about who we are as males and females; about who we are racially; about who we are sexually.   A single story always limits us and limits how or if our story can live with other single stories.
 
Written November 18, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
 
 
 
 

​Sunday Musings – November 17, 2019
The right way!
 
Yesterday I was chatting with an acquaintance whom is a  delightful, ,kind, good person.   I especially appreciate the way she embraces and enjoys life.  When I mentioned that I was pleased with another friend of mine when he was officiating at the swearing in of new United States citizens and suggested we remember that we are all, except for Native Americans, immigrants she remarked that, yes, it is important to welcome immigrants who come here the “right way”.  (Actually she implied that or I inferred that when she said disagree on that subject.)  One of our state senators sent a video to the same event applauding these individuals for becoming citizens the right way.  I can only assume that those who do not have the financial and other resources to be accepted as legal immigrants and who can then do all the hard work necessary to apply for and pass all the tests required to become citizens will be consigned to doing it the wrong way; will have to forego their responsibility to attempt to bring their children and other family members to a safe place. I can only assume that those who travel, often hundreds of miles  on foot or in cargo carriers in which many will die, because they are not able to provide for themselves and their families or cannot evade abusive partner or authorities who pursue them because of political or religious beliefs or because they are not good at hiding their sexual identity are doing it the wrong way and, thus, are to be shunned and left to die.
 
In the gym setting in which I was talking with this acquaintance one cannot have a detailed serious discussion of how we each come to believe what we do.  I did say I would love to talk over lunch some times.  I never want to come across as self-righteous; as if I  alone am the processor of  “the truth”.  Yet, I really do not understand what is wrong about attempting to protect one’s family when pursuing citizenship in the United States the “right” way is not open to one.
 
On this Sunday morning I am acutely aware of my life long struggle to be that person who sees life in either or terms; that person who sits in a  church, temple or mosque on the Sabbath and honestly believes that one knows the one true god and if one just obeys the rules of that one true god as understood by ones ancestors and current elders that one is assured of eternal life while all “the others” are consigned to eternal damnation of one form or another.   
 
Whether it is the area of the so called justice system, the political systems which decides who is a criminal/bad person and who is good person; in the religious institution worshiping a god who shall judge the quick and the dead; a god who will soon masquerade as Santa and determine whether one has been good or bad; a god who knows that the facts of science does not determine who is capable to considering the needs of others but who is just plain evil; a god who know what sexual acts are “right”; a god who knows that as soon as a sperm and egg have a casual meeting that one has to celebrate a pregnancy and  be a parent no matter what emotional , financial or other resources are available; a god who determines that some are born to a blessed life and some are born to poverty, violence and without the resources necessary to be that perfect blond, blue eyed, bright, athletic child who is adored by all.
 
I really do want to be that person who is able to relax and to be on the “right” side of all the pious,  god fearing people who are the holders of the truth and know which of us deserve to be loved; which of us deserve to live in a safe home; which of us should have the resources to be the parents we want to be; which of us are doing “it” the right way.


I really, really do want to relax and be that person but daily my mind complicates my experiences and perceptions leaving me on the wrong side!
 
Written November 17, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
 
 
 

Viva la darkness
 
On the November 14, 2019 podcast of On Being, the host Krista Tippett talks with Robert Macfarlane, an explorer, “linguist of landscape”, and author.  I encourage to reader of this blog to listen to or read the transcript of this podcast. Mr. Macfarlane posits:  “Since before we were Homo sapiens…humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which to find and make meaning….the underland has been prisoners and forced laborers. But it has also been a place of discovery and revelation.”
 
As a counselor trained in clinical psychology and as an addiction therapist I am often in the position of inviting individuals, couples and families to face and explore and bring what they experience as the darkest part of their being and their life to the surface.    Whether one is attempting to come to terms with a combat related past, sexual abuse, a history of  addiction forcing one to override one’s core values or any other trauma it is only when we allow those traumas and the accompanying angst to see the light of day that we can begin to make peace with the fact even those traumas have been real and often enormously painful, they do not define or determine who one is at their best.
 
Just this morning I had a note from someone who arrived in my life feeling broken and unable to move one. Only by facing the traumas which left him feeling broken and owning his part for ignoring the dysfunction of his life could he begin to rebuild the image of himself in his various roles as worker, father, son, and friend.  Eventually he created a healthy home for he and his son. His son has blossomed personally and in school. The dad discovered that a healthy potential partner was attracted to his courage and strength.  Today they are talking of marriage.   Only by going deep down into the worst of his fears and the pain of that fear was he able to discover his strong, healthy self.
 
Whether we are talking about our history as humans; our understanding of the earth and its interdependence or the history which is revealed in the earliest cave homes, the history which is revealed in the deep underbelly of this earth, that we can discover who we are  as a small, but necessary partner with the all else that comprises this universe(s)
 
A wise sage might say to us: Face our history. Learn from our history. Learn why it is so necessary to live in harmony with all that exist.   We will not progress if we fail to face the depths of our darkness.   From those ashes we can experience  revelations and a new birth.
 
Viva la darkness

Written November 15, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org