close enough to see you sweat

objects appear differently in close proximity than they do when they are gazed at from afar.

the first time i was given the opportunity to watch a professional ballet company rehearse, i sat in the studio in awe. with no stage/audience separation and only the rehearsal piano as accompaniment, i was shocked at how loud and “clunky” toe shoes sound against a wood floor. the feats which had seemed effortless from far away took on a different look and feel when i heard the loud “clomp” of toe shoe hitting ground. the sweat soaking through the the dancer’s warm ups belied the effort with which they danced and their deep breaths were audible upon exertion. similarly, i recently attended a small studio concert of a favorite local band. i had never before heard (or even noticed) the hollow and audible breaths the cello players took as they gave themselves to the songs they played. within this tiny shared space these “from the deepest place within the player” inhales and exhales were reminiscent of those of the best yoga teachers who make their breathing audible to model for their students. while at first i was distracted, as i sat taking it in, the breath became a beautiful part of the playing and i felt sad when it was missing in the recording i listened to on the way home.

closeness gives the gift of authenticity. the closer i allow you to be to me the more you know about my internal values and external traits. authenticity means letting you experience the less than perfect parts of me. it doesn’t allow me to appear as though i dance through life making only light landings or that i don’t show signs of exertion when i try hard at things. when you’re close you see me sweat. or say stupid (or inaccurate) things.  

this is, of course, too simplistic. authenticity can be lived out even when space separates the viewer and the viewed. the hearer and the heard. and so on. closeness, however, has a way of forcing the issue of what is actual. when i keep you at a distance, i feel as though i have so much greater control of that which you see. when we communicate only via channels that allow me to maintain distance i can pick and choose what i reveal. when i merely “update” you instead of sharing time and space with you, i have the luxury of things seeming the way i’d like them to seem. i can edit and place emphasis on that which i would like you to notice.

no one is more guilty of this than me. i share in a seemingly basic and automatic human drive to put one’s best foot forward. the world of social networks, of texting over talking, and of having access to a world of information and entertainment 24 hours a day has only made this drive a more viable opportunity. if we are lonely there’s little need to “expose” this to others when we can simply numb ourselves with a constant flow of youtube clips and netflix queues. when we feel insecure we can torture ourselves by trolling everyone else’s perfect lives on facebook, reinforcing our tendency to keep making space, or amass “positive feedback” by sharing an easily likable status update. when we’re angry at being let down, a text can communicate so much more “cleanly” than our voices ever could.

and yet...what are we missing out on?

in the recording studio the band can “quiet down,” or eliminate all together, the breath of the musicians and the sounds that distract from the desired impact of the recording. the seeming effortlessness of a professional ballet performance is aided by the distance between the dancers and their audience and grand musical scores which drown out the sounds of heaving and landing and breathing like an athlete.

do we really desire a relational landscape where these “edits” and altered realities are all we know of others or allow others to know of us? sure, no one “deserves” access to your internal world without having earned it. too-much-too-soon vulnerability is rarely a good idea. boundaries are important for a reason and we all need some moments of seemingly flawless spectacle to entertain us now and again. even still, i respect ballet dancers so much more since i’ve seen the state of their feet, heard the weight of their leaps land abruptly on hard ground, and seen the strain of exertion that lies only barely behind their pleasant expressions. i listen with greater interest to the music made by cellists now that i have witnessed, up close, the embodied-ness with which they play. i am grateful for these opportunities to understand more fully the reality that goes into the gifts these artists give us.

i am similarly grateful to those of you who allow closeness. mine and yours. each of us has a gift (or gifts) to give the world and only rarely is that gift one that is spot-able from a distance. more often than not it’s something much more subtle that can’t be seen from far away. frequently you might not even see it as a gift but, to me, knowing that you sweat too, that your body feels jarred when you land, and that your breath is labored when you try hard is a relief and inspiration beyond all others. so i will keep making efforts to present my authentic self rather than my distanced, staged, status conscious one and will gladly welcome yours.

presence vs fumbling for a phone

i just completed a month of senior events and graduations. final recitals. senior plays. farewell assemblies. all topped off by the graduation ceremonies themselves. i went to several this year, including that of my daughter, who chose a very unique senior year at a waldorf high school. her graduation ceremony was a thing of true beauty. each student was honored by a faculty member who spoke of them with care and grace. corsages were presented to each parent and an incredibly appointed buffet and live band reception followed. the gym was transformed to a sacred space of sorts and a reverence hung heavy about the room. unlike every other graduation i attended, there was an absolute absence of people taking photos with their phones. this was true at the senior project presentations and farewell assembly as well. as i looked around at each of these events, i blushed at finding myself the only person recording anything on a digital device.

waldorf education is built on tending to the whole person. waldorf educators commit to welcoming their students with respect and reverence and endeavor to speak to the mind, body, and spirit of each of them. in waldorf schools computers are not introduced in the classroom until high school (sometimes middle school) and families are encouraged to limit the consumption of media in all its forms. whether one loves or questions these ideals and distinctives, i am here to tell you that waldorf adults experience their children’s/student’s important moments in a way that is increasingly counter cultural. they are not fumbling for their phones. they are not recording videos. they are simply experiencing. fully. hands free (for clapping, hugging, wiping away the tears that result when one is fully present). eyes looking into eyes (instead of screens).

when i am in a crowd with these folks, it’s noticeable how truly present everyone is. it looks so different from the images i’m used to seeing. news stories clad with photos, the foregrounds of which are filled with small rectangular cell phone screens shown recording the moment in real time. flashes from the next table over as diners capture images of their meals. concert goers working harder to video the act than to actually see the stage. it feels different too. there is a quietness. a reverence. a sense that what is happening is important. so important that you don’t want to miss it. so important that experiencing it might be more meaningful than capturing it digitally.

in beauty: the invisible embrace john o’ donohue wisely states:

“traditionally, a journey was a rhythm of three forces: time, self and space. now the digital virus has truncated time and space. marooned on each instant, we have forfeited the practice of patience, the attention to emergence and delight in the eros of discovery. the self has become anxious for what the next instant might bring. this greed for destination obliterates the journey. the digital desire for the single instant schools the mind in false priority. each instant proclaims its own authority and the present image demands the complete attention of the eye. there is no sense of natural sequence where an image is allowed to emerge from its background and context when the time is right, the eye is worthy and the heart is appropriate. the mechanics of electronic imaging reverses the incarnation of real encounter. but a great journey needs plenty of time. it should not be rushed; if it is, your life becomes a kind of abstract package tour devoid of beauty and meaning. there is such a constant whirr of movement that you never know where you are. you have no time to give yourself to the present experience. when you accumulate experiences at such a tempo, everything becomes thin. consequently, you become ever more absent from your life and this fosters emptiness that haunts the heart.”

anymore it feels like our life journeys have little intentional rhythm. we don’t live rests and patterned notes. there is little difference between foreground and background, crescendos and decrescendos. instead it often feels as though we are all trying to capture as many conversations, pictures, videos, and people as possible and hold them in our pockets. rather than leaning into the moments we find ourselves in, we often escape them to share them with others who are present only digitally. we leave present circumstances to check in with our games, the news, the twitterverse, or our social networks. without fully playing the present measure, we skip forward to the next line of music.

i believe that much of this has to do with our ever dwindling ability to be still and our shrinking capacity to be authentically, vulnerably present as full selves in an uncertain world. we don’t like to be caught off guard. we don’t know how to handle the unknown. or make eye contact. or navigate an unforeseen conversational lull. boredom is our enemy and we have made the pointing out of the “awkward” a national obsession. 

i went to what was supposed to be an outdoor concert today. the band included five musicians who had traveled 7 hours to play what would normally be a packed venue. due to rain, the event had been moved indoors. when i found the new location, five minutes into the first set, i felt instantly awkward when i entered, from a door alongside the stage, a mostly empty room. only one table was occupied and it held two people. as i settled into my seat, it would have been much more comfortable to take out my phone and surf the web, check my email, or text someone than it was to sit there, face forward, eyes open, making direct contact with everyone on that stage.

i frequently go to concerts alone specifically to be anonymous. to lean into opportunities to be lost in crowds, part of experiences that are bigger than me and that are feasts for all my senses. this was exactly the opposite. i could not blend in or be lost. my presence, as well as that of each of the 7 others in the room, was remarkably obvious. it struck me, however, that if i felt uncomfortable, very likely everyone else in that room felt the same. and so, i sat and i engaged fully. i forced myself to not look away when a band member made eye contact. i didn’t lock my face to a screen (which would have been oh-so-convenient) to avoid the chit chat that i feel so terribly inept at between songs. i didn’t say, like i wanted to, that they could really just take a long break and grab a few more beers when the others left the room because i really wasn’t enough of an audience to play for. and, i think, i grew a little. or at least i didn’t reinforce the messages i tell myself that i’m a terrible chit chatter and not a worthy audience. i gave them the gift of enjoying their offering and, since i didn’t allow myself to escape to other places via my phone, i enjoyed the offering much more fully. i noticed the skill of the slide guitar player, the nuances of the lyrics, how each song made me feel, and the way the light moved across the room. 

bringing ourselves fully to a moment requires effort and intention, especially when so many enticing distractions are available to us every moment of every day. we must, then, decide ahead of time how we want to engage in each time and space that we find ourselves in. we must plan to navigate awkward moments, pregnant pauses, uncomfortable glances (or stares). we must train our selves to be sturdy enough to stay present even when (or maybe especially when) all we want to do is capture the moment so we can “share” it with others or escape it altogether by engaging our digital universes. perhaps our desire to do so detracts from our ability to experience it ourselves. fully. with all our senses. in embodied ways. how the moment smells and feels and tastes and sounds and looks.

perhaps this kind of attending requires bringing the self to moments in new and different ways. for me this means that i experience a play differently if i dress up to attend it or a concert more fully if i force myself to keep my phone in my back pack because i’ve decided ahead of time that i am where i am to be at the concert not to tell others i am there. i attend to conversations differently when i enter them intentionally, without ringers or vibrations alerting me. i arrive to the present with a new reverence if i’ve taken time to determine these things ahead of time. if i agree with myself to be with myself and others fully in this place called my life.

john o’donohue says, “our neon times have neglected and evaded the depth kingdoms of interiority in favour of the ghost realms of cyber-space...we have unlearned the patience and attention of lingering at the thresholds where the unknown awaits us.” 

and so, i am endeavoring to live life in greater deference to the interior world.  mine and yours. i am trying to linger at the threshold of the unknown, trusting that doing so will grow me. i may not have as many photos to share or videos to show but my internal experience and the intensity of self i will have available for attending to you will be enhanced. for this, i am eternally grateful...even if i am awkward.

inconvenienced and uncomfortable

two months ago i spoke at philhaven hospital in mount greta pennsylvania. i shared the room with 40 therapists and community members who were fantastically interactive with the material i presented around technology and health. at the end of the day a truly remarkable woman approached me to share some reflections. among them was a phrase that has stuck with me in deep ways. “i tell parents that they do a huge disservice to their children when they don’t give them opportunities to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable.”

while i have encouraged parents and kids alike to maintain an ability to be bored, to require themselves to take relational risks, and to boldly attempt tasks they don’t already excel at, i’ve never been able to put these suggestions into a sentence so concise. what had taken me half of my 6 hour talk to say, this brilliant woman said in an instant.

technology has afforded us some amazing opportunities to avoid inconvenience and discomfort. gone are the days where waiting is a necessity. we can text our orders to restaurants to be picked up curbside. we download feature films to our smart phones.  we scan bar codes while shopping to compare prices at neighboring markets. we troll facebook telling ourselves we’re building a network of friends to whom we reveal our very edited lives. we avoid awkward pauses in communication by turning our attention to our devices. we auto-fill online order forms and don’t notice that all the ads that appear on our screens match up perfectly with our interests, making our devices seem to offer up all our favorites without our ever “asking.”

some of these things are wonderful. truly.

all of them are convenient. 

many of them save us from being uncomfortable.

what we’re left with, however, is the question of just how comfortable and convenienced we might chose to be if we were conscious of the choice.

my parents were fantastic road trip executers. activities were plentiful, snacks healthy and fun, and discussions lively. even having shared a small back seat, my brother and i have nothing but fond memories of our 12 hour drives between california and oregon (which contained only 2 ten minute stops). my parents also used to throw (and let my brother and i throw) really fun parties. in eighth grade they helped me move the furniture out of our family room for a party where the girls built banana splits in the boys’ mouths, we made tall human pyramids, and played twister. a few years later we turned our living room into a hawaiian beach for a date my brother dreamed up. we hosted a party every year on christmas eve that spanned the hours of midnight to 3 a.m. and, often, we loaned our house to others to throw parties when their own homes weren’t fitting for one reason or another. our house wasn’t large or fancy and we weren’t wealthy. my parents were simply resourceful and willing to be inconvenienced for a greater “good.” 

i have encountered many other families with similarly spectacular inconvenient stories. families who continue to share one desk top computer which is housed in mom and dad’s bedroom. families who forego expensive cell phone plans in order to afford farther reaching travel destinations. families who play board games, get out their instruments for community jam sessions, and volunteer together. families who organize block parties, neighborhood parades, and who give up their own rooms to sleep on couches when they have overnight company.

i know individuals who are also willing to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable. they take sabbaths (a 24 hour period where they rest or take breaks from certain activities or objects that normally keep them from being present to their lives and/or their spiritual selves) or go without expensive coffee drinks to give money to a charity instead. individuals who mail letters for the simple desire of keeping the postal service alive. people who forgo smart phones in order to keep themselves from constantly consuming technology and people who refuse to have difficult conversations via text. even though it would be easier. especially because it would be easier.

if we are never inconvenienced, if we are never uncomfortable, we will never grow. i would imagine that it is inconvenient for a seed to need to be buried in the ground, uncomfortable to live deep in the wet (or dry) earth, and possibly painful for a sprout to break through the skin, push up through the earth and make its way to light. yet without these discomforts a seed just stays a seed. it never grows.

it is easy, in our hyper-convenienced world, to begin to feel entitled to the many eases technology presents. in doing so we under-develop the ability to strive for knowledge, to seek real wisdom (over mere advice), to wrestle to find answers to complex issues, to think critically. as our technologies “learn” us they present us with ever more personalized images, information, and offers that pander to our preferences. if we don’t name (or recognize) this process we simply begin to unconsciously consume only that information that is dished up to us based upon that which we already support, like, believe, endorse. we are neither uncomfortable nor inconvenienced and, what is worse, we don’t even realize it.

we are hard wired for connection. to others. to ourselves. to God. these connections are risky. to engage in them authentically we must get out of our comfort zones and grow into new spaces.  even if we don’t chose to live in those spaces we must at least explore them. like the seed that never reaches to the light for fear of the dirt along the way, when we keep quietly to our comfortable places we eventually die a dried up seed. when we risk the reaching, when we force ourselves into inconvenient and uncomfortable spaces, we not only grow our own flexibility and resilience but we inspire it in others.

while it’s uncomfortable to venture a conversation with someone whose first language is not our own, doing so affects both parties. we may feel silly, it may go terribly, but at least in trying, we are growing. while it’s inconvenient to limit a child’s screen time to a moderate amount and it requires us to become creative in helping them find new forms of entertainment, doing so demands a host of relational skills and investments from adult and child. these investments will pay off. while it’s risky to go phoneless for a day, letting our minds wander when we’re in line or at a restaurant or walking down the street, it might develop imagination. while we may feel silly staring into space, or initiating eye contact, or asking for directions, or offering up a compliment to someone we don’t know...all of these discomforts hold the potential of great growth. i have yet to meet a person who encountered their great personal passion or unique gift or calling by sitting in one place, speaking to no one (including themself), consuming images fed to them on a screen.

being a whole, grounded, authentic, sturdy self is rarely easy. it is often inconvenient (it’s so much safer to be cut off from our selves). it is almost always uncomfortable. it is messy. it means feeling like an idiot sometimes. and looking like one alot. it means moving the furniture out for a party and interacting on long road trips and a million other large and small actions that make us feel vulnerable. it means going to places unfamiliar (especially places that stink) and trying foods that make us wince and expressing things to others that make us feel incredibly uncomfortable. it means dancing by ourselves if there is no one to dance with. or inviting someone to join us for a meal even if it’s a simple one. or the house is dirty. or all we can afford is top ramen with hot dogs.

(if you are the woman who coined the phrase, “inconvenienced and uncomfortable,” thank you! please write to me and tell me your name so that i can ask your permission to spread your amazing phrase and give you all the appropriate credit you deserve.)

mirror, mirror on the wall

it used to be that a face was just a face. eyes looked. expressions communicated. ears heard. mouths spoke and tasted and kissed. cheeks flushed after running or when embarrassment took over.

before the advent of the printing press we were able to see only those faces immediately before us. things changed as photographs became publishable and, later, projectable. suddenly we were exposed to a vast number of faces while at the same time having our own faces seen by greater numbers. the promulgation of faces on page and screen were then able to be used to influence mood, tone, and behavior. which brings us to today.

today i hear more and more about our faces as tools. computer scientists at nyu’s movement lab have spent the last three years developing technology that scans facial behaviors of fans in sports stadiums, google glass puts computers on our faces, and neuromarketers study faces in order to sell more product. this makes me sad. and a bit dumbfounded. it seems that we’re elevating the phrase, “taking it at face value” to a whole new level.

based on new camera software that scans facial expressions to identify and predict fan and consumer behaviors, we are all about to be watched alot more than we have been.  the computer scientist behind the nyu software has a contract with one pro-sports organization to roll out this summer. his cameras will scan not only for where fans are looking when, but also for how well what they are looking at is being received. by aggregating this data he’ll be able to communicate to the stadium stake holders which jumbotron ads are watched, which are well (or poorly) received, which players get the crowd emoting, which half time acts cause everyone to lose focus, and more. similar software has existed for a decade (or more) in the neuromarketing world where advertisers study facial responses in order to determine which advertising images hold attention (eye contact) and which diminish it. google glass, expected out within the year, has fans everywhere guessing that the device may include head movement and eye blinking as options to control some of its functions.

if we don’t stop and think critically, these advances just seem cool. how amazing is it that we can predict when a fan will buy a beer at a soccer game simply based upon where she is looking on field and on screen? how handy is it that she can have that beer within ready grasp at the precise moment she wants it? is it not unbelievable that we could take photos, video, and watch news and facebook highlights all while simply looking into our glasses? how convenient is it for the products we like to be projected, seemingly effortlessly, onto our screens as we read and surf and update? how fortuitous that devices (and the apps that run them) know us so well and cater to us so effectively that we are barely required to think.

while cool, these so called “advances” also give me reason for pause. while others are pausing to consider (and be concerned about) the effect all this facial recognition and camera software might have on privacy, i am more deeply concerned with the way in which it might impact our sense of self in the world. if i have “taught” sellers to market to my tastes and preferences and they have responded by making those preferences more easily available, i will be less likely to take a risk with what i try, my tastes will remain unchallenged, and i will become more complacent and uninspired. similarly, when my way of being in the world is unconsciously and seemlessly reinforced, what motivation do i have to believe that i am not the center of the entire world (as opposed to just my own)? why will i notice, affirm, or respect the preferences of my neighbor when i have my own proclivities catered to without my ever being truly, consciously aware of this? will i believe that what is on my screen is what is on everyone else’s (because “i am the world”)? taken further, if i can record images and audio from our encounters without your ever being aware that i am doing so, or be checking facebook while we converse, our face to face interactions become less organic and about you and more potentially pregnant and about me.

at root, it seems that all the “conveniences” that these technologies and software provide have the potential to deeply impact the human experiences of transparency, healthy spontaneity/risk taking, humility, and internal sturdiness. living in a time of self promotion makes it difficult enough to develop a hearty sense of self as it is. add to that a digital experience/world presenting us with a never ending flow of images, ads, and offerings all birthed from algorithms and preference charts generated by our own clicks and expressions. in so many ways we have little reason to think of anyone or anything else any more. the self that results from this intense personal focus is one that is over-developed on the outside (preferences, wishes, etc) and under-developed in the way of deep personal character and integrity. this is a self that has taught the world what it likes on the outside (to eat, to wear, to watch, to buy, to receive)  but has not spent enough time in quiet contemplation to know what it needs to thrive internally (a knowing of ones limits, abilities, feelings, and values; an ability to be quiet and bored; and a flexibility about relationships with self and others).

so why might it be important that a beer not be available at the soccer match the minute i want one? because if it isn’t, perhaps i’ll be forced to have a new experience with a new taste and a new level of awareness. perhaps i’ll sit tight longer and gain a deeper sense of attention to the game. or maybe i’ll be stretched in some other, small way that will connect me more deeply with a world that isn’t made up of my own self generated preferences. a world that isn’t all about me.

skinned knees and saline

years ago my family went wave jumping. the water was cold and the day warm and we jumped and jumped until we were exhausted and our skin was blue. long after we should have called it a day my daughter tumbled and scraped her knee. badly. not thinking, i encouraged her to wade back into the water to clean the cut. i had momentarily forgotten that salt water and skinned knees do not make comfortable playmates and felt terrible as kaija’s knee stung.

i feel this way today. stung. cold and wet and like there’s salt in a wound. it’s been a difficult year. a hard week. and it’s only april. and tuesday. i have said stupid things. i have been reactive. i have shied away from difficult tasks and have been slow to do some of the things i know would help me immensely. i have disappointed people and myself.

at times i feel as though i have a skinned soul.

i know that you feel this way too. you tell me you do. over coffee. in my office. in the text that simply says “please pray.” as i walk by you at the grocery store at 1 a.m. sensing the weariness with which you move. you tell me in the music you make and the way in which you navigate the freeway. or your life.

and, yet,  due to boredom or habit or some unconscious drive, so often you tell me that your skinned soul ends up surfing social networks at the end of the day. this, i believe, is like pouring salt into an open wound. 

when our days have been fine and we look to social networks for entertainment or connection, the risk is slight. when we feel optimistic, content, and grounded we are often open to input of all types without using it as a comparative ruler. when we are low and self doubting, however, facebook too often becomes a place for observing the  “more attractive,” “better appointed,” and “more frequently liked” others in our friend lists. from these painful places we look especially carefully for evidence that supports our internal experience. feel like a loser? check out how many parties you weren’t invited to. feel angry? watch yourself drawn, like a shark to blood, to vitriolic posts. self loathing? facebook is the perfect place to find all kinds of new ways in which you just don’t measure up.

brene brown, author, researcher, and speaker, says this in her newest book daring greatly,

“scarcity is the ‘never enough’ problem. the word scarce is from the old norman french scars, meaning ‘restricted in quantity’ (c. 1300). scarcity thrives in a culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack. everything from safety and love to money and resources feels restricted or lacking. we spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants.

what makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-driven visions of perfection, or we’re holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it.”

it strikes me that every person using social networks would be benefitted by reading this last paragraph several times a day. seriously.

so today, exhausted and self doubting, with an evening before me and a skinned soul day behind me, i am given a choice. do i focus on my lack? do i set my awareness on that which i do not have? do i chose to enter a digital world where i am presented with highly filtered accounts of how great others have it (somehow i never see the posts where my friends are saying, “i feel so vulnerable and alone right now. it hurts.”)? will i allow plentiful airbrushed images and edited stories dictate the ruler by which i measure myself? or can i chose another way? can i let my wounds be for a bit? can i wait open until i find soothing silence, mindfulness, prayer, meditation, real conversation, connection, creativity...basically, water that doesn’t sting?

feeling felt

i am giving you all the heads up. mothers day is coming up and the women in your life know it. it amazes me how many ads and offers are coming my way one month in advance of may 12. today alone i received offers to send my mother on a “girlfriend get away” to las vegas, to order a “beautiful custom made photo book” for a mere $29, or to schedule botox injections for her. i’m not sure how to feel. my mom wouldn’t necessarily love any of these gifts.

days like mothers day are rarely easy for anyone. for women who wish they were mothers (or wish they were partnered) this day is often one that stings. for mothers whose families have decided that mothers day is simply a day manufactured by card and gift companies to make a profit, the day often falls short as their own wishes for recognition are buried under their family’s boycotting. for women whose partners take the stand that “she’s the kids’ mother not mine,” or who don’t have partners in the picture at all, the day often comes and goes with little to no fanfare.

what i am left with as i ponder the offers in my inbox and the complexity of emotions stirred by the upcoming day set aside to recognize a certain group of people, is the awareness that we all want to be celebrated. we all want to be seen. to be known. to be felt.

in the psychological literature on interpersonal neurobiology you will frequently find the term “feeling felt.” it was coined by daniel siegel (who, after mr. rogers, is my hero) in his book parenting from the inside out and refers, i think (please forgive me daniel if you ever stumble across this blog and i’ve misrepresented you), to the ability of one person to empathically and authentically encounter another person deeply. when one has felt felt they experience a profound sense of having been been with. the person who is feeling felt is touched somehow by the effort the other is making to tune into their thoughts, feelings, needs, and experiences. beyond just being “listened” or “attended” to, the “felt” person’s gut/soul/authentic self is met. 

i’m guessing that you can identify a time when you have either felt felt or not. mother’s day, father’s day, valentine’s day, birthdays are all days where people often feel far less than felt. instead they often feel forgotten, unknown (consider the non domestic mom who receives a blender for mothers day), or placated (think generic ecard sent at midnight). why is this?

i believe that one of the unfortunate consequences of our hyper-connected, everything-available-at-the-drop-of-a-hat zeitgeist is a lack of persistence in feeling others. rather than working hard to truly be with the important people in our lives, we substitute knowing alot about what they are doing. we troll facebook and instagram, we follow our friends and family’s tumblr pages, we send “i love you” texts and “i’m thinking about you” snapchats. we log on to send itunes gift certificates on our special days and type birthday messages into each others’ feeds. 

none of these forms of expressions are bad. they aren’t wrong. they have their place and serve the purpose of connectedness at differing levels. they are rarely, however, the kinds of expressions that lead one to feel truly felt. similarly, gifting your mom a girl friend get away would be exceedingly generous, ordering a professionally made book for her could bring her to tears. neither of these gifts, however, necessarily trumps much simpler gifts that might express your ability to “feel” your mom, to truly “be with” her in such a way that you experience her most authentic self. then honor it. or gift it. or celebrate it. and not just your mother’s...

the trouble is, our screen time is taken directly from the time we used to spend talking to each other, interacting with each other, and being engaged in our own imaginative processing (which included thinking about the important people in our lives). this has resulted in a decrease in our tolerance for awkward moments, pregnant pauses, and interpersonal experiences of all kinds. we just aren’t as experienced at being with people as we used to be. we hardly know how to “feel” ourselves let alone each other. we have fewer and fewer opportunities to practice the uncomfortable art of “being with” others through both comfortable and uncomfortable encounters. we have little need to rely on others around us since our technologies serve both as best friend and chief occupier of time and energy. who needs to borrow a cup of sugar (which involves the awkward opportunity to knock on a neighbor’s door, introduce one’s self, ask a favor, then return the favor later) when you can order a 5 pound bag from your iphone and have it in hand within the hour? we don’t have to expect much from others and hope others don’t expect much of us in return.

the way in which we encounter and honor others reflects this seismic change in how we relate. we send more “i love you” texts than we ever sent letters (or maybe said the words face to face) and yet how often do we “love” someone in person? we pound out multiple facebook birthday greetings without taking a moment or two to genuinely consider the person we are wishing well. we spend money at the gift card center online (or in the store) when a handwritten note, a considered knick knack, or a simple phone call might mean more to the recipient who wants to feel felt. who wants to be known. for who they are. as a person.

every day we are given opportunities to be with those we encounter. we can simply meet them, letting our own internal dialogue and comfort levels dictate the tone of the meeting or we can endeavor to “be with” or “feel” them, opening the door to deeper, more awkward, unknown, wonderful, anxious, exciting, and beautiful relatedness. a relatedness that groupon gifts might never touch. and what a relief...we don’t have to give “the perfect” gift when giving ourselves is enough.

the buzzing in our pockets

one of my favorite things to do when i speak to high schoolers is ask them to take their phones out (of their pockets, purses, and backpacks) and turn their ringers on and volume up. without doing this it’s easy to forget that they are being interrupted all the time. texts, facebook updates, instagram posts, and snapchats are coming in by the second, each one creating buzzes and pings in said pockets, purses, and backpacks. this isn’t limited to high school students. plenty of grandparents, middle schoolers, and folks in between live with the same reality.

so many of us have become (ever so subtly that we hardly knew it was happening) available for interruption 24 hours a day. we eat with our phones. we read on our phones. we play on our phones. we wait in line with our phones. we sleep with our phones. they never/rarely leave us.

i loved when phone lines came with busy signals. if you think about it, other than the ring, busy signals were the only indicators of any kind associated with the telephone. it was the sound that indicated that the person you were trying to reach was otherwise occupied. unavailable. busy.

few of us are ever unavailable anymore.

not only are we available to nearly anyone at nearly any time, we also have indicators for everything. when email arrives, when an app is updated, when someone posts to instagram, or tumblr, or facebook, or pinterest. while the busy signal used to indicate, “please wait. try again later.” our ears are now assaulted with calls for our attention. right now. while we’re doing ten other things. never mind that we’re already on the other line, responding to the ten texts that just came in, or trying to catch up on the emails that amassed since we last checked. what troubles me most is how attuned we have become to these digitally based message indicators and how willing we are to drop everything to attend to them.

it seems to me that the human body is designed with message indicators of all kinds. we yawn when we are tired. secrete tears when we feel sad. we have muscles that feel beautifully sore when we exert them and skin that turns red when we’ve been in the sun too long. our stomaches growl when we’re hungry and our hearts race when we’re afraid. or excited. or in love. these message indicators, however, rarely receive the kind of attention that the buzzing devices in our pockets do. we actually check our texts, our facebook accounts, our email. and respond. our bodies send messages, however, and we disregard them altogether. we caffeinate ourselves to chase away the yawn. we push past our exhaustion, stifle our tears, ignore the longings of our hearts. 

what would it cost, now and again, to turn off the message indicators buzzing in your pocket? to send the message, “try again later. i’m currently attending to something i am present with...myself. my friend. God. the beauty of the moment. nature.” to learn to be still and attentive enough to listen to the message indicators within? and to respond.