Why we don’t change

Perhaps you have heard this story about a frog and a scorpion:

One day a frog was sitting happily by the side of the river when a scorpion came along.

“Oh Mr. Frog,” said the scorpion, “I need to get to the other side of the river to be with my family. Will you please carry me across?”

“But Mr. Scorpion, if I do that, then you will sting me!” replied the frog, somewhat aghast at the request.

“No, I won’t,” said the scorpion.

“Do you promise?” asked a rather doubtful frog.

“I really promise–I will not sting you,” said the scorpion.

“Okay,” the frog said reluctantly. “Hop on.”

The scorpion climbed on top of the frog’s back and they set off. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog.

In horror, the frog, unable to continue swimming and with both of them about to drown, finally managed to gasp, “Please, Mr. Scorpion, just tell me one thing before we both go under. Just tell me why, when you promised you would not, why, oh why did you sting me?”

“Because it is my nature,” replied the scorpion.

With no intention of being derogatory to scorpions, this story shows how the nature of the scorpion appears unchangeable and fixed. It has no choice regarding its behavior because it is a scorpion; that is simply the way it is.

And most of us think we are just the same. We think we cannot change, that we are the way we are and that’s that–this is who I am and I cannot change and I won’t change! But where a scorpion is not necessarily able to act any differently, we can. We do have choices. We do not have to be the way we think we are; we can actually be and act differently. In the nineteenth century, philosopher William James said, “The great revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

And we do so long for change, to be different, to be healthier or happier than we are–the grass always seems to be so much greener elsewhere. Or we want to change the world so that women are not abused and there is less violence and poverty. . . .

It can appear relatively simple to make changes in the world, while making changes in our own lives can seem far more overwhelming. It takes courage to move from a familiar and known place to one that is different or without reference points, as it means stepping outside of our usual comfort zone.

So what is it that stops us from changing? What keeps us locked in ourselves, stuck in small-mindedness, thinking our view is the only view that matters? Invariably, it is the ego, the most talked-about yet least understood of our human features. The ego gives us a strong sense of ourselves; it is the “me” part. This is neither good nor bad, except when self-centeredness dominates our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of life. A positive sense of self gives us confidence and purpose, but a more negative and selfish aspect of the ego makes us unconcerned with other people’s feelings; it thrives on the idea of me-first and impels us to cry out, “What about me? What about my feelings?”

By Ed and Deb Shapiro

A Modern Psalm for Midlife and Spirituality of Aging

“I will go up to the altar of God
to sing songs of gratitude,
for God gives joy in youth,
joy in middle age
and the greatest joy in old age.

I go joyfully up to God’s holy altar,
not in the chains of obligation,
bowing, foot-dragging dreary, to do some duty,
but to dance drunk in gratitude
before the Source, the Fountain of Joy.

Thank you, O God, for theft proof joy
and ageless idealism.
Thank you for the joy of work
well and honestly done
for the easy yoke of obligations
that are embraced out of love.
Thank you, too, for the joy of wisdom,
gleaned from a glossary
of many mistakes and errors.

I will go up to the altar of God
who gives joy in youth,
in middle years and in old age”

A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon

Adult ADD – from Mona Lisa Schultz

Learn now to pay attention and feel like you’re sharp as a tack, or at least not, as they say, the dullest tool in the shed.

Woman with Satellites

In a world that drives us crazy with all that information that comes at us from everywhere, it’s so easy to feel like you’re losing your mind. It used to be that the world was so much simpler with less information to keep in mind and fewer balls to juggle in the air.

You remember when we got news on the TV or the radio. We only had four channels. Remember how you had a TV with the rabbit ears, or a hangar with aluminum foil. You’d get four channels, CBS, ABC, NBC, and if you were lucky and you put the aluminum foil a certain way, you’d get PBS. And then, when you went out to your car, you’d get AM and you’d get FM. If you had a phone, you got one call at a time, and if someone tried to call you, and you were talking to someone else, they got a busy signal, and they’d just have to wait. There was no such thing as call forwarding or people with multiple lines. But today, the world is not so simple. There are so many more channels of information that bombard your brain at any time, it’s so, so overwhelming. It makes you feel that you’re driven, distractible, and have ADD.

There are literally thousands of channels and ways of getting information, either satellite radio or satellite TV. Then we have cable, iPods, cell phones, voice mail, we have so many different ways of getting information, that it’s no wonder that we are driven to distraction. However, most of us don’t have the typical ADD that people fling Ritalin at or Adderal at. You know, the type that’s distractible, inattentive, and impulsive – the kids who get the Ritalin thrown at them usually have problems paying attention to details. They can’t pay attention to the work for long periods of time. They don’t follow through with their homework. They’re disorganized. They don’t plan ahead. They lose things all over the place, and they’re hyperactive. They fidget in their chairs, they leave their seats, they’re always running around. They’re so driven. It’s easy to say, just throw Ritalin at that person. We’re going to learn how that particular type of brain may have problems paying attention in the classroom, learning in captivity, if you will, but that type of brain may be uniquely designed to be a satellite dish for intuition.

You my have trouble, in your forties, your fifties, or even later, paying attention in the world and you may feel that you have late onset ADD or early onset dementia, but that’s just not the case. There are four basic ways in which you can feel like you’re developing attention deficit disorder (ADD), and there are ways in which to solve those problems.

The first of four different ways of feeling that you’re losing your mind, you can’t pay attention and you can’t remember is if your hormones are a mess and your immune system is on the fritz. If you have chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, environmental illness, chronic infections like sinus infections, allergies, if you have rheumatoid arthritis or some other kind of joint problem, or if you are in some type of treatment for cancer like chemotherapy, when your immune system or your hormones are on the fritz, you are not going to be able to pay attention, and you’re going to think that you have ADD and you’re going to want your doctor to give you Ritalin and that would be a mistake.

The second type of distractibility is when your emotions are a mess or you’re panicked and frenzied. If you have depression, if you have anxiety, panic, it’s hard to pay attention because all of your circuits are focused on other emotions, and there are many people who think they have attention deficit disorder and they feel somewhat better initially on Adderal or Ritalin, but after a month or so, their brain is a fuzzball again.

The third type of attention where you think you have ADD is when your attention is elsewhere, something else is bothering you inside. All your attention circuits are busy, so you’re not going to be able to pay attention to the outer world in class or at work and you’re going to make mistakes, and you’re going to think you have ADD, and you’re going to want medicine for it, and once again, medicine will be a mistake.

The fourth type of attention deficit is when you have satellite dish intuition, and that is where your attention problems are really a form of intuition. Your attention may be focused intuitively on others, people who are in pain, agony, or suffering, so much that it’s almost like your bi-locating. Your brain is with someone else and it’s not present at your desk at work or at home with your partner. In this particular situation, someone might say to you, “Hello! Base to Ruth? Come in Ruth!” You might feel like you’re a space cadet or a space shot, and they might want to medicate you, but in fact, your problem is not ADD, you have a problem with intuition.

So, what do you do if you have these four problems? This morning I did a reading on John, 29, he called me for a reading said, “What do I do? I’m making so many mistakes at work.” When I read him, I saw that he was working in an organization that was horrendous. There were people over him that were very impatient. I didn’t even think it was the right company for him. When I went to John’s body, I looked at his head, it felt all red and inflamed. I looked at his neck, thyroid, heart, breasts, lungs, every area of his body, and I saw that his bowels were in an uproar and his skin was all red. And in fact, John had hives. He said, “Why am I making all these mistakes? Why can’t I pay attention, and why do I have these hives?” I said, “John, your intuitive guidance is telling you through your distractibility and your rash that this is not the right work for you. You need to look for a better organization where you feel safe and secure.” Because John had so much inflammation in his system, his mast cells and his immune system were releasing cytokines, cortisol, and norepinephrine. They were literally frying his brain apparatus for attention and preventing him from paying attention.

The second type of attention deficit disorder can be seen in Tina, 43. Tina called me for a reading and wanted me to tell her what her health was letting her know what about her life was out of balance. I said, “Tina, you had huge trauma in your life growing up. There was drama. There was violence, and in fact you feel like the issue of home is terrifying for you.” When I got to her body, I saw that her brain and body were responding to the trauma from the past, reverberating. I saw that her brain felt like a fuzzball. Her mind was always going on panic and the fritz. I looked at her chest, and it felt like she had pressure in her chest, it was hard to take a deep breath, and in times she felt numbness in her hands and her toes. And in fact, Tina told me that she had post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder, and she wanted to know if she had ADD as well. I said, “Tina, so many of your brain circuits are focused elsewhere due to the trauma that you had growing up (she told me that she was an orphan at age 12, both her mother and father were killed in an accident), that so much of her panic circuits were in the past, that not much attention could be focused on today, and so that medicating her for attention deficit disorder would be missing the boat completely, that she has to deal with the appropriate mode of treatment for her trauma, and then she would be able to pay attention to the present.

Whether your problem is with your horomones and immune system, emotions or you have satellite dish intuition where your intuition is going to loved ones or those around you who are in need, so you can’t pay attention to the present, because you’re paying attention to their lives as well, it is important to get in touch with how your distractibility is part of your intuitive guidance system. It is necessary to learn the earliest signs when your intuition and your attention is going somewhere else so that you can focus on the present. You will want to explore ways to prime and treat your immune system if that’s what’s causing you to be distractible, to prime your attention if your emotions are out of balance, and most importantly, to learn to recognize and use your intuitive guidance if that is causing you to be distractible so you can return your focus to the present.

Perfection? – what the Spirituality of Aging teaches us

We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That might just be the central message of how spiritual growth happens; yet nothing in us wants to believe it….

If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.

It becomes sort of obvious once you say it out loud. In fact, I would say that the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy of the good. Perfection is a mathematical or divine concept, goodness is a beautiful human concept that includes us all.

From Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,
pp. xxii-xxiii
Used with permission of Jossey-Bass (publisher

Spirituality and Aging – A Psalm of Life by Longfellow

I offer this poem as a reflection on the Spirituality of Aging:

A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,–act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.