An Open Letter to Gun Advocates

Dear Gun Advocates,

Some of you want pistols to protect yourselves and your families.  Some are vigilantes, like George Zimmerman, who want to keep neighborhoods safe.  Some are police, some of whom need to use weapons more responsibly.  Some shoot defenseless animals for sport or food. Some own military weapons that can mow down large groups of school children or movie goers.

I am writing to this last group.  Please: help me understand.

It may be a constitutional right to bear arms, but the Constitution said we have the right to bear arms in a militia, those arms being muskets at the time, guns that you could shoot once, taking much time to reload. Not AK-47 weapons.

Please help me understand.

Why assault weapons?  Are you waiting for a used-to-be rare but more frequent mass shooting or another shooting so you save the day, planning to kill the “bad"guys? How many times might you have that opportunity in life?  Is that your plan?

Have you listened to police chiefs who say that they don’t want their staff entering an active shooting scene where “bad” shooters and “good” shooters are battling around innocent families and children, unable to discern who is bad or good? Do you think you can shoot your AK-47 and hit only the bad people instead of innocents as well?

Please, help me understand.

The police might mistake you for a “bad” shooter. The might shoot and kill you. The investigators will also need to determine if your bullets killed the innocent. Are you asking to be imprisoned?

Maybe you just don’t feel very good about yourself or your life, and you need to boost your confidence and self-esteem by openly carrying a giant weapon, perhaps fearful, angry and/or psychologically distressed. Maybe you think Muslims are taking over this country and if not Muslims, then perhaps Black and Brown men and boys are wreaking havoc, frightening you.  Maybe you have been severely traumatized and need help.

I still don’t understand.

Who makes you God?  Even if you were in a challenging shooting situation, are you the judge or jury?  Can you sort out facts in the heat of the moment instead of using our justice system to work through an agreed-upon process for determining innocence, guilt, and sentencing?

I, for one, am extremely frightened of you because you are holding me and my family’s lives in your hands when you carry your weapons of mass destruction around our schools, parks, and churches.  Tiny children can sometimes find your weapons, thinking they are toys, forever ruining or ending their own or others’ lives.  Who gave you the right to endanger so many people?

Please help us all understand your thinking, feelings, or logic.  And, then, maybe we can have a safe and honest conversation about your fear, your anger, and perhaps your obsession with power, control, and violence.

2016: Happy New Year?

Let’s talk about happiness and what it means to be human, not divine.  Or, maybe we are divine too, but we can agree that we are certainly human.

Everyone, including me, desires to be happy.  Not a bad goal but one that is continually frustrating in this mortal body and in this world of ours.  Philosophers and theologians, all kinds of people, have for centuries wondered about the human condition and happiness.  Pop psychologists, commercial authors, and radio and TV stars feast on their theories about what helps people be happy.  And still, most people seem to experience happiness only a little at a time, or not at all, craving that one state of being that seems if not impossible to reach, then only temporary and quick to fade.

Why be happy?  We say it feels good to be happy. But, the definition of “happy” would be unique to whoever attempts to define that overused term.  Many of us would like to be peaceful, not worry so much, be calmer in the face of life’s chaos and confusion.  Now, saturated with 24 hours news and a media that seeks not only to inform but to entertain with sensational stories about crime, celebrity, terrorism, and other horrors, we are overstimulated, overwhelmed and overindulgent as we attempt to soothe ourselves given our being human in this crazy, stressful world.

Still, we wish for happiness.  We also wish for love.  But, with any kind of love comes conflict (except perhaps in the infatuation stage of a new relationship, or between parent and child) whether with families, with friends, or with a partner. Being intimate with people is so much harder than being intimate with a dog, a creature who gratifies us, loves us, sleeps with us, adores us when no one else does, and who can often be made seemingly happy with so little attention, affection, and/or treats.

Human beings are something else.  Not dogs, but mouthy, having needs of their own that often differ from our needs.  Oh, what to do, how to compromise, how to negotiate, and live through all this without once trying to go live in a cave somewhere alone by ourselves.  Fact is, we wouldn’t like that either.

We do like our creature comforts too.  We love to be entertained with movies, vacations, books and TV.  We love to sit after a long day at work and zone out while the source of entertainment asks nothing of us. We feel momentarily not responsible for anything but our opening the computer, or other electronic device, letting it take us to places we have never been, see things we have never seen, listen to our favorite music, and provide us with consistency (usually), nourishment, and attention.  After all, as long as we have electricity, we can often manage so self sufficiently.  What else do we really need?

I know so many lonely people. Sometimes I get lonely too.  Not just for other people but for comfort, enjoyment and a respite from stress and hassle.  Sometimes we would like others to take better care of us, but, particularly as we age, damned if no one can be the good mother we have always wanted. Whether we had a good mother or not early on, I think we still want that object of our desire and she (or he) is no longer there for us like when we were babies, answering our every need, playing with us, cooing at us, looking adoringly at us (remember the dog?), feeding us, bathing us, and hopefully letting us sleep at her/his breast, rocking us to sleep until we dream sweet dreams about the next day of being so beautifully mothered/parented. Alas, we all grow up. 

So, we volunteer, we try to do for others as we would have them do for us, but sometimes, it just doesn’t work out so well.  Those others will take our giving, and we sometimes feel good about meeting their needs, but if we never get back much of what we give, we end up resentful, dismayed, discouraged and sometimes despairing.  What then?  How did I get to despair while thinking about happiness?

The world is a hard place to grow up and live in, that’s for sure. We can take pills to be happy, we can eat right and exercise well, we can hang out in nature and focus on our spiritual beliefs where we hope at least God loves us.   But, God is not mortal (although my preacher daddy would say that we experience God through connecting with people, which I agree with, but then God must have lots of flaws, given how we people tend to argue, compete, and fight with each other, fearful and angry, wanting to make sure we have enough and scared we won’t, filled with greed and selfishness and misery, too.) So, God often doesn’t really fill all our needs either.

I have been rambling, trying to make sense of why we humans have so many problems and how we can become happier.  I think it makes sense that we would suffer some, given the nature of being human with our brains, bodies and needs.  Perhaps we can hope that happiness sneaks up on us every now and then, and sometimes, we can go after it and get it through some method, practice or belief system. And, maybe in the meantime, we can at least be kind to each other, knowing that we are all in the same boat as human beings, all flawed, all dealing with something or other, and all just trying to get along as best we can without hurting others in the process.  Unfortunately, we do hurt each other even when we don't mean to, and therein lies the rub.

For this New Year 2016, I plan to listen better, “blurt out” and interrupt less, and love more. How about you?

On the use of labels: helpful, restrictive or both?

Having just read an article about bisexuality, I began thinking about labels which can be informative and useful, and sometimes restricting and harmful, depending on the circumstances (http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/5-dumbest-questions-people-ask-bisexuals?akid=13670.159567.reDZyt&rd=1&src=newsletter1045986&t=8).

Some people love clarity and certainty, the more black and white the better.  Categorizing and organizing help us understand our worlds and the people within them. Naming people, places and things helps us feel safe and secure in a world where there is much chaos and confusion. But, these same labels may also lead to rigid, irrational stereotypes.

Using adjectives, descriptors and labels helps us communicate with each other. But, we may miss out on getting to know and understand all kinds of people because of our quick, initial impressions and assumptions.

For instance, the bisexuality article points out that if one describes herself as bisexual, that does not necessarily mean that she likes threesomes though some people interpret the label that way. Some also think that bisexuality means that a person is wishy washy wanting to sample many tastes in a cafeteria of choices instead of sticking to one theme, or type of person.

When labels produce inaccurate assumptions, they can result in narrowly stereotyping in a world where people can be full of many colors, tones and shades instead of being only black or white.

We gravitate toward descriptors in order to identify ourselves to each other and we like to belong to some community, some tribe. But, in fact we belong to many communities.

I am a psychotherapist, a mother, a daughter, a wife, an activist, a friend, all at the same time.  But, which labels do I use when presenting myself to you?  Which descriptors will you use when you help me learn more about you and your life?

And, let’s not over-categorize or stick people in boxes by viewing only one part of them and not the full, whole person who has many parts.

I try to be open to learning more about people before I judge them (especially) harshly, but it is a struggle.  It is so much easier to label and cross people off my list than to spend the time and energy it might take to see if we have any similarities, anything at all in common.  We might even explore our differences and be intrigued about each other’s uniqueness. 

How do we slow down our rapid judgements of ourselves and others, so that we can be more like children, just being curious in open, non-judgmental ways, without limiting people to just one part? How can we wonder about new ideas before rejecting them quickly out of fear or anxiety?  

Instead, we often create divisions, disconnections and separations based on minimal data, while there are already many lonely people in the world. Rigid beliefs can be distorted or inaccurate leading to inappropriate and unhealthy actions.  For instance, maybe we don’t need to rush to halt all immigration just because a certain faction of people has committed horrible atrocities.

Perhaps without the need for such restrictive labeling, we can realize we are all connected, and maybe we can love one another and ourselves just a little bit more easily, even if we object to some of our parts. 

Working with Divorce (for psychotherapists)

How do we help struggling couples work through one of the worst times of their lives?  With great care. We listen not only to our psychotherapy clients about this terrible time of life but to divorcing family members, friends, and colleagues.

You have probably seen MTCA ads in NPI Reflects. The Middle Tennessee Collaborative Alliance (MTCA) group here in town offers couples a creative and different way to divorce. Some of us NPI members have been trained as Collaborative Divorce Coaches and we offer you our expertise if you are working with clients who are thinking about divorce. 

Before I became a MTCA member, I sometimes felt helpless when my individual clients and couples needed information about divorcing. I could certainly help them make some decisions about whether or not to divorce and about parenting issues, but, what often happened when my clients hired attorneys, was that I felt like I lost control or power to influence my clients’ divorce experiences or outcomes.

Not that we therapists need to be in control of our clients’ divorces but after investing much time and energy in our work with clients, we have sometimes felt like we were turning them over to an adversarial justice system without being able to assist them effectively during the process.  We often watched in horror as some of our couples experienced high hostility and severe conflict even when they may have wanted to divorce amicably, stay friends, or at least continue to coparent their children well.

In 2009, several professionals, including psychotherapists and attorneys, came together to create MTCA.  Collaborative Divorce processes had been developed and used in the US and Canada for many years prior to that time, but Tennessee was just getting on board to help couples complete their divorces with as little animosity as possible.  Couples tell us that they want to make their own decisions about their divorces instead of leaving those decisions to the courts. We owe many thanks to the founders of MTCA which include NPI members David McMillan and Julia McAninch.  

Because we believe in excellent care for our clients during divorces, some other NPI members also trained to function as Collaborative Divorce Coaches, Tiffany Davis and myself being two of them.  We 4 NPI members want you to know that you can use us for consultation about your clients’ divorce discussions, and for referrals to attorneys, financial professionals and coaches.

During Collaborative Divorce, attorneys advocate for their individual clients so that your clients will have rigorous legal guidance and support.  Also, Coaches will not work with your clients as therapists during or after the divorce, so you need not fear you will lose your clients to us.  We want to work with therapists to achieve the best results possible for families and their futures.

The collaborative process is exciting because it uses a multidisciplinary team to help each couple develop an excellent marital dissolution agreement.  The beauty of Collaborative Divorce is that the couple maintains much control of the process and outcome of their divorce, not handing over the reins to aggressive, adversarial litigators.  We have learned though that Collaborative Divorce is not for everyone and it is most useful for those couples who are communally committed to the time and energy it takes to work together. Collaborative Divorce often takes less time than a litigated divorce and expenses are often much lower than the expense of litigation.

In Collaborative Divorce, the couple designs their own parenting plan with our professional teams, and the attorneys make sure that the plan fits with the legal requirements for divorce.  Collaborative Divorce Coaches act as emotional supports to the couple, not replacing therapists but as adjuncts, facilitating the collaborative process and team meetings, and making sure that the process does not become adversarial.

One more fact: Collaborative Divorce is not always easy and nice, although we would like that to happen. Sometimes, couples who have already been having difficulties communicating will continue to have trouble in the collaborative process.  But, with Coaches helping to understand their communication patterns, their histories and inner workings, we can facilitate the process effectively, helping couples learn to work together in new ways at times.  We try to help them move forward in their lives instead of staying stuck rehashing the past.

Feel free to use any of us Coaches or any of the other professionals on the MTCA website (mtcollab.com) if you have questions about MTCA, Collaborative Divorce, or the variety of ways couples can divorce.  After all, litigation and mediation are best suited to some couples and some MTCA attorneys also function as litigators and mediators. One size does not fit all but we try our best to match clients with the most appropriate process to ensure success.

Sexual Assault is alive and well in 2015

I was a college student in the 1970’s where some young men were aggressive, some sweet and kind, just like today. Women and men participated in drinking and drugging on campuses, and rape sometimes occurred.

Nowadays, with rape so common nationally and globally, we need to understand why men still abuse women. We can agree that some men choose to physically overpower and control women in all sorts of ways. This is not just about rape by strangers in dark alleys but rape in fancy educational settings, housing privileged kids where rape is an institutional hazard, a nightmare, and a disgrace.

Rape is also the buying, selling and renting of children’s and women’s bodies in a society that prizes and rewards economic greed and financial success. Sex trafficking is rampant with children being stolen to become commercial property, thereby becoming slaves.

In the 1970’s and 80’s here in Nashville, we young women marched in protest about issues like women’s equality and rape. These days sexual assault seems not to have decreased even while gender roles and acceptance of sexuality differences have evolved positively. Probably because rape is not about sex but about power.

What can we do about this continued tragic state of affairs? First, by admitting that a large portion of the problem is that we are nested in a society whose social norms allow for and promote the abuse of children, women, minorities and the poor.

Being hesitant to say “no” to male sexual or aggressive behavior may be partly due to some girls’ and women’s buying in to the patriarchal idea that sex is something that a woman “gives” to a man, something he can “take from” her, “stealing her virginity.” Even the phrases sound criminal, describing a power exchange. Children also are taught to obey adults, increasing their risk.

These days, I would think that men would be even more careful about getting consent to sex. Even if the perpetrators and/or victims of rape are drugged, drunk, or impaired, men need to be absolutely sure their partner is a willing, adult sexual partner.

Although women are now seen as more equal to men than in the past in some ways, sexual violence is slow to change. Domestic violence of all sorts continues and Pat Shea of the YWCA encourages men to help solve this problem.

We grow up being highly influenced by our media, advertisements, movies, and magazines, many which glorify girls’ and women’s bodies as commodities. To decease sexual violence, parents need to teach their children about respecting each other’s bodies and how to deal with conflict in a nonviolent manner, something they may know little about.

Perhaps if men felt better about themselves, they wouldn’t rape. But, this problem goes further than that on a macro level. This is about economics, buying and selling products and services. After all, making money is a large part of the American Dream. 

"A Change is Gonna Come," one way or another

How in the world did we Americans become a gun-toting nation? Because of fear about our safety, or because some have decided to take control of what little we can control? After all, for most Americans, the American Dream is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

Are all police really as belligerent and aggressive as some we have sometimes witness? No, some are highly compassionate and honest, but some individual police and police departments have severe issues. Prejudice and bias reign, and some police react too quickly in response to their fears - or quotas.

We have more depressed, anxious people in our nation than ever before, whether we have better systems of diagnosing and reporting, or whether it is true. The past 50 years of our American economy, the myths about freedom, democracy, and equality along with guns and mental health problems, have all created our current crisis.

We need more nurturing, beloved communities where people care about their neighbors and watch out for each other and their kids. The extended family has gone by the wayside with our continued high mobility, and many people are often lonely and stressed by financial, physical, emotional and spiritual issues. Excellent, new technologies may separate more than connect us.

The disappointment, disillusionment and rage that grows out of poverty, racial divides, economic insecurities, and fear about the future of the planet, all churn within us. We feel helpless so often that we sometimes develop compulsive behaviors and act out against each other and ourselves while trying to manage these enormous stresses. Many experience shame and harsh judgement.

This is a recipe for disaster. Some votes rarely make a difference given our antiquated, American electoral system. The rich run this oligarchy and elections go to those who follow the rules outlined by their benefactors, until they, too, realize they are no longer public servants but puppets, controlled by money. And,  we and our ancestors are all complicit in the way things are. 

Some cry out for a revolution.  What can we do to change the tide, to improve our health and create new, more effective ways of dealing with each other and our world?

Take the money out of politics. Develop gun/weapon regulations and enforce them for all people. Take care of the homeless, the elderly, the sick, the poor, and children, providing mental health services to all who need them. Deinstitutionalize our prisons full of people who have been violated by law enforcement and judicial sentencing. Rehabilitate people. Decrease the huge gap between the incomes of everyone. Bring hope that “ a change is gonna come (song by Sam Cooke)".  Easy to say and very hard to do.

I certainly don’t have all the answers about how to change each of these systems to create a better life for all people. But, I do know that if we band together and work toward some common goals, we have the power to make healthy changes, one person/system at a time. 

Occupy Gender Neutral Pronouns

The Basics

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Office for Diversity and Inclusion asked in a post that students, professors and the administration welcome all of the students to campus this year, including those who are gender non-conforming. They suggested that the college community ask students what name they would like to be called and what pronouns to use when they are addressed. Then, all hell broke loose.

What happened
The media got involved locally and nationally, the beginning of a perfect storm. Some thought the university was requiring the campus to speak in new ways, using unfamiliar terms to many on campus. All sorts of people, including newscasters, began sarcastic snickering and hostile joking about this request. These responses are not funny.

Chris Sanders, Executive Director of the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) sent out a 9/1/2015 email with the subject line: Fight back! Family Action trying to get Legislature to stop UT-K's trans welcoming program. He added: “Now Family Action of Tennessee is urging its members to contact state legislators to get them to "neuter" UT's program. Offensive doesn't quite capture it!” Chris also suggested that we sign a “...petition to generate emails to the State Senate Education Committee and to the State House Education Administration and Planning Committee .... so that they know you want UT to make its own decisions about programming to make transgender and gender non-conforming people welcome!: The petition link: https://www.change.org/p/tennessee-senate- education-committee-provide-legislature-with-accurate-information-about-ut-k-s-gender- neutral-pronoun-program

Some state leaders began frothing at the mouth, outraged, sounding like one national radio host, Tom Starnes who wrote, “Across the fruited plain, institutions of higher education are turning their taxpayer-funded fiefdoms into gender neutral zones where free thought is outlawed,” in Back to School: Let the left-wing indoctrination begin (http:// www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/09/01/universities-are-becoming-gender-neutral- zones-where-free-thought-is-outlawed.html ). Mr. Starnes’ comments were inflammatory and inaccurate. UT-K’s request was in no way outlawing free thought.
In the 1970’s some women decided that they wanted to use the term “Ms.” instead of “Miss” or “Mrs.,” the latter two describing a woman’s relationship only to a man. Ms. magazine prompted our now common usage of this term but a similar backlash had also occurred. Some thought women were getting too uppity, they called out the feminists, labelling them extremists, femi-nazis, and even lesbians!

Why don’t most people line up to support the change in pronoun usage?

Using a variety of pronouns may be confusing at first. Some want simplicity, hate change, and wish for clear dualities: ie. man or woman, black or white. However, we are a melting pot of colors and there are unique mixtures of genders as well. Why can’t everyone welcome the transgender community with open arms, just like Jesus would do?

Most children go through a time of exploring their bodies, their identities, and their personalities. By not allowing children to freely explore, we are telling them both biologically and emotionally that it is not OK to be who they are. That there is something, in fact, wrong with them, that they need to be different. “Be like Mary or Joe, just don’t be you.”

Such shame, rejection, and distortion can make any child confused, angry, insecure, highly anxious, and/or depressed. Why would any parent or any society want to inflict that horror upon any child?

Those who rant against UT-K’s post separate people, preaching that there is a right and a wrong way to live, to be, to exist. Not acknowledging who a person really is, especially regarding gender or sexuality, can lead to trauma through violence, bullying, and possibly premature death. Why would anyone act so hostile and demeaning toward those they perceive as different?
First of all, some people are extremely insecure even if they display strong, macho characteristics. The most insecure people can be the loudest and the most rigid. They may also feel like their way of life (a rigid construct seeing life as black and white, not gray or brown) is being devalued by the “other,” threatening their very foundation, a strong, unmoving rock on which they depend for their very existence. If this foundation crumbles like sand, life can seem like a cascading, chaotic disaster over which they have no control. So, they yell and scream guarding their highly fragile egos.

If we challenge their rules, then we are asking them to examine everything that they believe to be true. No small matter. Thankfully, some will evolve away from their age-old opinions and open themselves up to discussion, maybe even changing their minds. But, many people gather their community members even closer together, circling the wagons, ready to fight and defend.

What happened next?
Top lawmakers in TN ramped up. Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey said that UT-K’s welcoming request was "the clearest example of political correctness run amok that I have seen in quite some time,” even though Margie Nichols, UT's vice chancellor for communications, explained that this was not a UT-K policy, just a recommendation (The Tennessean, http:// www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2015/09/01/lawmaker-senate-should- investigate-ut-pronouns-post/71529306/)

After several days of state and national attention, UT-K decided to pull the post that began all this controversy: “In a letter to the Board of Trustees, UT system President Joe DiPietro said he was ‘deeply concerned about the attention this matter continues to receive and the harm it has had on the reputation of the University of
Tennessee.’” (http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2015/09/04/ut- removes-web-post-gender-neutral-pronouns/71726984/) I am deeply concerned that the university has made this decision, evoking harm yet again to the LGBTQIA community.

This storm makes for a very difficult discussion about how to create a better society where all people are not only equal but treasured. It is a debate we will continue to have until a larger majority of people support this issue. Look what happened with marriage equality!

I agree with Marisa Richmond with the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition who said: “Anytime we challenge our notions of conformity and we find ourselves accepting different forms of diversity, I think society benefits” (http://fox17.com/m/news/ features/top-stories/stories/UT-Encourages-Gender-Neutral-Pronouns---Eric- Alvarez-192212.shtml#.VeYJCXi0OXl). Instead, our whole society suffers.