eXpress Yourself newZletter Vol. 2000 No. 1
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:View From A Columbine Student
--- Can you make a difference?
Fire Jumping: Tosha Speaks
--- Put your heart into the fire!
One + One = Three
--- Do you know the one closest to you?
Point - Counterpoint Forum
--- Is there a "culture of silence?"
Hole In The Garden Wall
--- A tribute to true seekers
Closing Inspiration
--- The true creators and artists
VIEW FROM A COLUMBINE STUDENT
If you’ve already journeyed through the Hole in the Garden Wall website, you’ll understand why finding your own voice of self-expression is so important. The world can ill-afford not to have your true voice added to the new critical consciousness that I feel is destined to heal our badly bruised planet. This new critical consciousness can be a dramatic counterpoint to the divisive polarities that seem to have infiltrated nearly every facet of contemporary human affairs. Perhaps no one has expressed those current polarities quite so eloquently as the author of the following message I received as an e-mail. According to the header, it was written by a Columbine High School student some time after the massacre in Littleton, Colorado:
The paradox of our time in history is that
we have taller buildings but shorter tempers,
wider freeways but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more but have less,
buy more but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses but smaller families,
more conveniences but less time.
We have more degrees but less sense,
more knowledge but less judgment,
more experts but more problems,
more medicine but less wellness.
We have more religion but less spirituality,
more dogmas but less amazing grace.We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We have learned how to make a living but not a life,
added years to life but not life to years.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back
but won’t cross the street to meet a new neighbor.
We’ve conquered outer space but not inner space.
We’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul.
We’ve split the atom but not our prejudice.
We have higher incomes but lower morals.
We’ve become long on quantity but short on quality.This is the time of tall men and short character,
steep profits but shallow relationships.
This is the time of world peace but domestic warfare,
more leisure but less fun,
more kinds of food but less nutrition.
These are the days of two incomes but more divorce,
of fancier houses but broken homes.
It is a time when there is much in the show window
but nothing in the stockroom,
a time when technology can bring this letter to you,
and a time when you can choose to make a difference
or just hit delete.Do you really want to make a difference in this world? Do you really want to touch other people with your heart and mind and teach them how to fly by your example? Do you really care about breaking down the real and imagined barriers that separate you from your divine Self and the world outside your garden wall? I am not talking about the kinds of ticker tape heroics that make headlines in the evening news. I’m talking about singular acts of genuine connection and dialogue that can change the direction of another person’s life. That’s how one changes the world— one person at a time.
Do you really want to make a difference? If you do, you know that before you can heal the world, you must first heal yourself. That’s not an original thought. It’s a quote from a very old, wise woman who holds a very special place in my heart. It was this woman who inspired my inward journey to recover my silenced voice of self-expression. By sharing this story with you, I hope it will inspire you to do the same.
FIRE JUMPING: TOSHA SPEAKS
She had a name, but I just called her Tosha, a badly abbreviated version of her proper Christian name. I thought of her as my adopted grandmother. Or maybe she adopted me as she had no children of her own. Either way, it didn’t matter. In my opinion, there was no one on earth like Tosha.
For a 10-year-old girl imprinted with the weight of her mother’s shame, Tosha was my port in a storm. She didn’t care about pedigrees. She didn’t expect me to behave according to her code of conduct. Whatever the mood or moment, she just embraced me, enveloping me with her inexhaustible love, humor, joy, and respect. Many years passed before I learned the full measure of her wisdom. For a woman not educated by academic degrees, Tosha could have taught our great thinkers a thing or two about life and living.
It was in the spring of my 25th year when I experienced a particularly vivid blue funk. Anticipating I would receive a soothing dose of tea and sympathy from Tosha, I dropped by her house and deposited a gunnysack of my toils and troubles all over her carpet. I wailed, Why doesn’t Mother understand me. I don’t understand why I have such a hard life? Nobody appreciates me .... and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Tosha listened patiently, as always, and then delivered what I now refer to as a walloping wake up call. The intensity and passion of her “tough love” words snapped me to attention, penetrated my soul, and shattered the inner sanctum of my precocious illusions and beliefs. I was so moved and shakened by what she said, I went home and immediately recorded her words in my journal. This is the first time I have ever shared what Tosha said that day, the day I began to truly live my own life:
“You cannot understand that which you do not know. You cannot understand that which you have not lived or have not experienced. If you sit in fear, if you sit away from life, you will never know and understand. Understanding happens only with awareness, and that comes only from living. And you are not living now. You have chosen the road of non-living.
“You are categorizing life as if it was one of your school books, then calling that book life. You are not in life, you are viewing life. How did you ever learn not to live life? Maybe it was all that academic schooling. At some point you took a turn in the road and chose to absorb things rather than experience them. That is why you do not understand.
You must put your heart into the fire. You must get burned. You must get into life as it is, not sit around learning about life from a distance. You will not learn how to live life simply by listening to what your brain tells you. The brain alone will not teach you about life.
“What is the crutch that holds you back from living your life? That is the key question. What keeps you from LIVING?
Ask yourself, do you prefer death which is non-living? You continue to destroy the most precious thing you have — LIFE. Life is blood, sweat, tears, joy, touch, passion. Must I throw you into the fire for you to learn what life is all about? Do you not have the courage to jump into the fire yourself? It is improbable to me that you do not touch life. Life is feeling. Life is aliveness. You cry about all the things you don’t understand when you can’t understand anything you have not fully experienced. And you haven’t experienced life because you are afraid of getting burned.
“Why do you spend so much energy and time running in the opposite direction from life? Can you not cry and laugh with aliveness, or do you expect others to do that for you too? Must others feel for you? Do you want to become an old woman, alone, unhappy, and ill, and then have me come to you in a dream and say, ‘Damn you for not living your life?’
Choose life, my dear one. It is God’s most precious gift. Choose life and living and aliveness. Know what it is to be fully alive.”
If you have a similar story to share about someone who touched you and dramatically changed your life by showing you how to reclaim your own authentic self-expression, please share it with our readers.
CLICK HERE to send along your story via e-mail.
ONE + ONE = THREE — You, Me & Us
Nearly three decades have passed since Tosha spoke those words to me. In all that time, there hasn’t been a year when I haven’t struggled to preserve my integrity and expressive authenticity in a world gone mad with conformity and mediocrity.
Why is it so difficult to express what we truly feel? Why is it so difficult to choose aliveness and living? There are hundreds of reasons. But perhaps one of the most important is this— if I tell you who I am and what I really feel, you may not like me, and that is all I have. That is everything I am.
Instead of risking rejection or conflict, we opt to “go with the flow” or “not make waves” or “do what we’ve been told to do.” Choosing the conditioned response is safer than daring to voice our true feelings. But in the end, the result is absolute dishonesty, not only to others but to yourself. If other people see only your public mask, how can they truly honor who you really are? They can only respond to your camouflage, but never touch your heart and soul. And you will never touch theirs.
The more you silence your authentic voice, the greater the distance between you and every other human being. There is no connection. If there is no connection, there is no genuine dialogue. And without genuine dialogue, there can be no real healing of yourself or humankind.
Still, most of us think we are communicating honestly and openly with others, particularly that person we feel closest to. Maybe that person is your spouse, life mate, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Maybe that person is your child, mother, father, brother, sister, or other relative. Maybe a friend or colleague. The following is a little quiz to help you determine just how well you are expressing your true feelings to that one “important person” you believe you care about most.
DON’T PANIC. There are no right or wrong answers and you won’t be graded! The idea is to answer 10 questions honestly and frankly. Don’t answer based on what you think others expect you to say. EXPRESS WHAT YOU TRULY FEEL.
First, pick the person you feel closest to, someone with whom you have a close relationship. ( If you have picked more than one person, answer all 10 questions separately for each person.) Then answer each question privately, and have your important person do the same. After each of you has answered all 10 questions, share and discuss your individual responses. If you are not yet ready to share your responses, go ahead and take the quiz anyway. It will still provide valuable insights on your willingness to express to another what you honestly think and feel.
ONE ADDITIONAL NOTE BEFORE YOU BEGIN. You might want to print out the questions or write them down on a separate piece of paper, so you are not confined by the time limits imposed from being online. That way you can give deeper thought to each question. But be careful not to over-analyze a question or your almighty intellect will override what you truly feel in your heart.
Now, let’s begin.
1. When was the last time you two had a serious discussion? What was it about? How did it end? Did you feel you honestly expressed your ideas and feelings during the discussion or did you feel you had to carefully pick what words you said to avoid hurting or agitating your important person?
2. Can you tell when your important person is angry without
him/her telling you first? How? What about when he/she is happy, afraid, proud, sad, confused, guilty? How do you express these feelings? Can your important person recognize them?3. Are there any feelings you are afraid to express to this person? Why?
Does he/she have any such feelings? Why?4. Name two things that make your important person really angry, happy, proud, afraid, confused, guilty, and sad. What do you do to arouse these feelings in him/her?
5. How do you feel about your important person’s friends orassociates?
Are they the same as yours? Are you jealous of the friendships you are not
a part of? How do you think he/she feels about your friends or associates?6. How do you handle inevitable conflicts that arise in any relationship? Do you compromise? Argue? Try to persuade the other person to agree with your position? Are you happy with the way you handle conflicts? Is your important person happy?
7. What are your feelings about your important person’s goals, ambitions, or interests? Do they complement yours? How have you communicated what you feel to him/her?
8. What things do you appreciate most in your important person? What things irritate you the most? When was the last time you expressed your feelings about these two areas to your important person? How did you communicate what you felt?
9. How would you feel if your important person woke you at 3:00 A.M. to discuss a problem? Irritated? Angry? Concerned? Would you listen at that moment or delay discussion until a more reasonable hour? How would your important person react if you woke him/her at 3:00 A.M.?
10. Are there moments when you and your important person are so caught up in your individual routines you feel you are losing touch with each other? What can you do to preserve those priorities that are of greatest importance to both of you?
That’s it ... that’s all 10 questions.
Once you and your important person have privately answered all the above questions, sit down together and discuss your responses. Be very alert to how this discussion unfolds. Be aware of what you are feeling— how you react to the other person’s comments and how he or she reacts to yours.
Past results have shown that a majority of respondents, well over 88%, were surprised to learn how often they chose not to express what they were really feeling, even to someone they knew very well. What’s more, the majority of respondents discovered the responses they anticipated from their important people were, in most cases, not how those people responded at all!
So, did you gain some new insights from this little quiz? What did you discover that perhaps you were not aware of before? If you’d like to share your insights with other eXpress Yourself newZletter subscribers, we would be delighted to print selected comments in future issues. If you want to share comments but remain anonymous, simply request that your name not be used when you send along your e-mail, fax, or snail mail response. I will always honor and respect anyone’s request for privacy. As I said before, the vitality and personality of this newsletter are determined by your responses and input.
CLICK HERE to share your thoughts, comments and responses via e-mail.
POINT -- COUNTERPOINT FORUM
In the Hole in the Garden Wall website, I repeatedly refer to a new critical consciousness I believe is destined to heal our badly bruised planet. The phrase “critical consciousness” most closely identifies one of the 20th century’s most passionate humanitarians —Paulo Freire. The implications of his teaching philosophy reach well beyond his primary focus, the illiterate populations of the Third World.
Millions of people in industrialized countries around the globe have felt the same human longing Freire discovered in the villages of Brazil — to break free from the conformity of a worldwide “culture of silence” and reclaim one’s birthright of authentic self-expression. Freire’s methods empower people to transform their society through a renewed sense of self-awareness that comes from the marriage of reflective thought to constructive action. And the core of this critical consciousness is the ability to dialogue. In Paulo Freire’s words:
“Dialogue is the only way, not only in the vital questions of the political order, but in all the expressions of our being. Only by virtue of faith, however, does dialogue have power and meaning — by faith in man and his possibilities, by the faith that I can only become truly myself when other men also become themselves...It is essential people have the freedom to create and to construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a well-fed cog in the machine ... If social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death.”
For me, such words resonate with the ones Tosha spoke 30 years ago. To be fully alive is to express one’s authentic voice in dialogue with other human beings. That is why I created the Point-Counterpoint Forum — as a sounding board for you to share your thoughts, ideas, and feelings about new ways to build lasting bridges across the divisions that now separate human beings by race, religion, culture, gender, and ideology.
This is a forum dedicated to genuine dialogue, the only true form of communication. When two opinions are connected by love, openness, hope, faith, and trust, they raise the level of thought and feeling to a higher, more penetrating focus. Maybe a fresh idea or two on a new agenda for human relationships will result from the effort.
So, I pose two seed questions to initiate an open dialogue among readers:
1. How does one rise above the prejudice of closed minds in search of an inner strength that cannot be insulted or denied?
2. Paulo Freire speaks of a worldwide “culture of silence.” Do you agree? What does such a culture mean to you?CLICK HERE to send me your responses. Please include your name with your response. As space permits, selected responses will be published in future issues of the eXpress Yourself NewZletter.
To learn more about the philosophy and work of Paulo Freire, look for these books at your local library or bookstore: Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Education for Critical Consciousness, and A Pedagogy for Liberation.
HOLE IN THE GARDEN WALL
If you haven’t already done so, I invite you to explore the Hole in the Garden Wall website. Once in a blue moon, an eloquent, inspirational book is written that changes a reader’s life forever. Hole in the Garden Wall is just such a book.
I wrote this visual diary for all people who have struggled to express their unique individuality beyond the rules, roles, expectations, and beliefs imposed upon them by others. I wrote this book for all people who have risked expressing what they deeply feel so they might create something to give back to humankind that represents their highest love, passion, and purpose. Hole in the Garden Wall’s heartfelt collection of inspirational verses and fine arts photographs will point you to a higher level of personal empowerment and self-expression than you have ever known.
CLOSING INSPIRATION
“The most visible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible without brush, hammer, clay, or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt. Their medium is being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.”
--J. StoneI wish all our readers love, joy, and full expression. Thanks for sharing my inward journey.
Prudence Kohl
Author & Photographer, Hole in the Garden WallKohlQuest Associates
3271 Polk County Line Road
Rutherfordton, NC 28139PLEASE NOTE: KohlQuest does not rent or sell lists of e-mail addresses. We honor and respect the privacy of each and every one of our subscribers.
The eXpress Yourself NewZletter is copyrighted © 1999 by KohlQuest. All rights reserved. This document may not be copied in part or full without express written permission from the publisher. All violations will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
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