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Posts Tagged ‘truth’

Empowering vs. Enabling

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Click here to read my English usage blogs.

Dear Jane,
What is the difference between empowering and enabling someone?

I’ve struggled with this in my own life. I want to be compassionate, but how can I know whether I am helping or when I am supporting someone in believing they’re helpless? How do I combine a belief that we are 100% responsible for our thoughts and behaviors at the same time that I increase my awareness of our interdependence?

A few years ago a family came to live with us. They had been evicted from their apartment and because our eight-year-old daughters were friends, when the knock on the door came, we opened up, not just our door, but our hearts. They stayed with us for three months rent free…until at 6:30 one morning, the police banged on our door, arresting the mom for parole violation and theft. Two weeks later a credit card bill arrived totaling $3000+ on a card we had never used and that we thought was still in our desk drawer.

Some details I left out of that story: I knew something was amiss when I was shown the mom’s “ankle bracelet,” her house arrest monitor. On the first day of their stay, she admitted that she had embezzled $32,000 from her employer. She and her husband also admitted that they had defrauded their roommate, making her think that they had used her rent to pay the landlord when they had actually kept it.

So what did I do with this information? I counseled them; I fed them; I drove their daughter to school and events; I cooked for them. Clearly, I was enabling, not empowering, them. Why couldn’t I see that?

I have a habit of assuming the best in people. In other words, I’m gullible. But sometimes seeing something in someone that they don’t see in themselves can bring out the best in them. Hasn’t someone seeing something in you ever made you believe in yourself more?
I also cared very much about their little girl and couldn’t imagine throwing her out into the streets for the sins of her parents.

So, yes, I was an enabler. Yes, I was foolish and disillusioned for a while. I admit fully that I not only didn’t empower her parents; in fact, I made it possible for them to commit further crimes. I could have done more by insisting on their helping more around the house or getting a job or getting drug counseling. But I’m pretty sure that insisting would have made them feel too exposed, and they would have left looking for their next suckers. If I didn’t care about their little girl, this would have been just fine.

Empowering vs. enabling is often distinguished by how people receive our help. When people want to be empowered, not enabled, they don’t ask for pity; they ask for clarity. They don’t give excuses; they overcome obstacles. They show a willingness to change their thoughts and strategies. They take responsibility for their actions. They don’t try to get away with things; they want to get out of their ruts in order to thrive.

Because life is complicated, I still don’t always know ahead of time how my help will be received or if I’m being foolish, throwing away money or energy. I can always hope that good intentions will sow their seeds, even if I can’t know where they’ve been planted or when they will germinate. Maybe, just maybe, this little girl, basking in some unconditional love and living in a safe and secure environment for even a short time will help her not re-create her parents’ life. That little girl is now 15. She still calls us. That feels great. I’ll live with being a fool.

Join Jane at Club Med in Cancun
June 21-28, 2008.
I will be teaching a new, exciting program on Creating Abundance everywhere in your life.
More about this in next week’s e-newsletter.

Handle Stress to Boost Immunity presented by Jane at the KCBS Health Fair in San Francisco with Keynote Speaker Dr. Mehmet Oz
I was honored to be invited as a panelist, along with Melina Jampolis, M.D., host of Fit TV’s Diet Doctor and author of The No Time to Lose Diet; and Dr. Jacob Leone, Naturopathic & Integrative Medicine Practitioner, to discuss Boosting Immunity: Nutrition, Supplements, and Stress. I promise to have the contents of my presentation available for you on my Web site shortly.

About Jane Straus
Jane is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, www.stopenduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.

She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, www.grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes. Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.

Tags:addiction, awareness, caring, charity, child, choices, clarity, codependent, compassion, confused, dear jane, decisions, discernment, empower, enable, generosity, healing process, hearts, helping, interdependence, Jane Straus, judgment, money, parenting, parents, personal responsibility, personal values, personality type, risks, security, strategies, support, trust, truth, unconditional love
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The Gift of a “No Holds Barred” Apology

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

(Click here to read my English usage blogs.)

Recently, Ron Whitney, a life coach and lay counselor at his church, wrote to tell me that he had read my book, Enough Is Enough! He added, “I hope I am not being out of line, but as I read the chapter on forgiveness, I could not help but think that you might appreciate a letter I wrote to my ex-wife several years ago.”

Well, I thought so much of Ron’s letter that I asked his permission to reprint it for you. It is a wonderful example of (1) an unconditional apology (no ifs, ands, or buts), (2) self-forgiveness, and (3) nonattachment to outcome. (Ron asked for and expected nothing in response.)

Dear ____,

I have agonized over writing you for several years, trying to figure out how I would say what I want to say.

I want to tell you how deeply sorry I am that I offended you in numerous ways during our marriage. I am deeply sorry that I was not emotionally available to you. You were right in your frequent complaints that I “was always down the street and around the corner.” I am deeply sorry that I allowed my interests in Auburn football, softball, umpiring and church activities get in the way of our relationship. I am deeply sorry that I did not express my anger toward you when anger would have been an appropriate response. I recall on more than one occasion you asked me if I never got angry with you. My response was always, “I choose not to get angry.” I was so arrogant. I am deeply sorry that I did not confront you in a loving, compassionate way when I thought you were out of line. I am deeply sorry that I denied for almost all of our married life that I had a problem or that we had a problem.

I hope that you will forgive me for these ways I am aware that I offended you and caused you great pain. I also hope that you will forgive me for those offenses of which I am not aware.

Sincerely,
Ron

How many of us long for such a letter? How many of us would feel unconditionally loved by someone’s willingness to admit the wrongs they perpetrated against us?

I hope that Ron’s letter to his ex-wife serves as a reminder that you deserve such a letter, whether you ever receive one or not. And perhaps it’s time for you to write such a letter to someone who deserves the gift of your amends.

Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, www.stopenduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.

Tags:anger, apology, awareness, caring, compassion, couples, dear jane, divorce, expressing your feelings, forgiveness, genuine, healing process, hearts, intimacy, Jane Straus, judgment, letting go, loss, nonattachment, painful feelings, partner, personal responsibility, realizations, regret, relationship, sadness, self-forgiveness, split, truth, unconditional apology, unconditional love
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Telling the Truth About an Affair

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

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Years ago, I had an affair with my friend’s husband. The sexual relationship was short-lived because we both felt terrible. He’s remained faithful to her since and she and I are still close. You seem to recommend telling the truth no matter what. But wouldn’t confessing to her just be hurtful in this case? When should a secret stay a secret? I wrestle with this every day.

If you’re wrestling with this, it’s probably because you feel “two-faced” and have been unable to find relief. There’s good reason that secrets gnaw on people of conscience. It’s because lying “for someone else’s sake” is suspect. It’s more likely that you and her husband made a pact of secrecy out of your own fears and wants, not from caring for her well being. If you had really been considering her, you wouldn’t have acted on your attraction to begin with, right?

The question is: Do you have the right to decide what’s good for another person when you’ve betrayed them? Defining “good” is tricky because you and her husband are attached to what “good” looks like, which is how it affects you and her husband. “Good” to you means maintaining the status quo. If you told, you would decide that it was a “good” decision only if she were understanding, forgiving, or at least willing to continue both her marriage and her friendship with you. You see, the lens through which you judge whether the truth is “good” to tell is going to have filters on it that bias you.

What if she’s angry and hurt? What if she wants nothing more to do with you? What if she files for divorce? Because you and her husband are attached to maintaining everything as is, if these were the outcomes, you would probably judge telling her as a big mistake.

Yet, who are we to know what truths someone needs to find out or how they should deal with them? Maybe the truth about your affair would validate a nagging sense of betrayal she has already felt. Maybe she would be happier “moving on.” Maybe this information would allow her to explore and heal other wounds around betrayal and secrets. Maybe she has secrets of her own that she has been afraid to tell and this would help release her from her prison of fear.

So should you tell? My answer is that I don’t think you have the right to withhold the truth. Your secrecy is further betrayal and it is based on your wants and fears, not on her needs. You are covering up one deceit with another and attaching lofty principles to convince yourself that your continued deceit is noble and that you and her husband are the only ones carrying the burden of the secret.

But our secrets don’t just run and ruin us; they run and ruin others’ lives as well as I discuss in my book, Enough is Enough!. In over 25 years of private practice as a life coach, I’ve never heard one client who’s heard the truth about a partner’s affair say that they wish that they hadn’t been told. Everyone’s spirit suffers from secrets and betrayal because guilt creates separation. In perhaps dozens of ways, her husband has not been able to share himself with her since having an affair with you. And how has it impacted your friendship? How have you pulled away or hidden from her because of your guilt? How have you been emotionally unavailable to her?

The truth requires courage. When you tell her the truth, you need to find the courage to let go of trying to control her reactions or the outcome. You need to find the courage to grieve the potential loss of this friendship as well as the loss of your friendship with her husband. You need to have great courage to allow for what she needs rather than for your need to preserve her image of you.

The next part of your healing journey will then be about feeling the deep remorse that underlies your guilt and forgiving yourself for causing this kind of suffering to your own and someone else’s spirit. As you forgive yourself, make a commitment to your own spirit to always choose truth over fear.

Visit StopEnduring.com to read articles and excerpts from Jane Straus’s popular book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life; watch Jane on TV; listen to her radio interviews; and share your most personal secrets anonymously.

Tags:betrayal, dear jane, divorce, extramarital affair, healing process, intimacy, Jane Straus, regret, secrecy, spirit, truth, unfaithful
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10 Keys to an Extraordinary Life

Wednesday, June 20th, 2007

When I am asked to summarize the essence of my book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life, I offer these ten keys. I hope they serve, on a daily basis, to help you create the extraordinary life you deserve.

TEN KEYS TO CREATING YOUR EXTRAORDINARY LIFE

1. Recognize that you are enduring.
Do you feel that you never have time to stop? Do you distract yourself with eating, working, volunteering, cleaning, etc.? Do you resent that you never have time to do the things your spirit longs for? Do you feel resigned rather than inspired? If you wake up most mornings feeling anxious, bored, or numb, looking forward to some imagined future time when you will feel happier – “when my children finally start school,” “when my bills are paid off,” “when I retire”-then you are enduring.

2. Release your self-judgments.
Your negative beliefs about yourself that are holding you back-you’re untalented, too fat, not smart enough, etc.- are probably rooted in your childhood. Why would you let your “inner seven-year-old” run your life? These judgments are real but they are only as true as you have believed them to be. Give yourself compassion for having carried the burden of your self-judgments. Replace them with affirmations and find new evidence to support your willingness to believe in them. Affirmations are as true as you allow them to be.

3. Question your limiting beliefs.
When you tenaciously hold on to the belief that the world works in one particular way (against you), or that there is only one right way to do something (and you are doing it wrong), or that your actions will inevitably result in a specific and predictable outcome (bad), you are strapping on blinders. Make a commitment to take off those blinders. It will take practice and patience to stay out of “limiting belief territory,” but eventually it will become second nature. You’ll quickly start to see that life no longer feels boring and predictable.

4. Drop your acts.
When you put on the armor of an act, you sacrifice your authenticity for protection. For instance, you think no one can hurt you if you’re tough enough…or that everyone will love you if you’re nice enough…or that everyone will respect you if you never admit to being wrong. Your acts will become your prison. Instead, give yourself joyful permission to become more of who you really are. You will feel free and you will find that who you are is much more interesting than any character you could possibly play.

5. Face down your fears.
What fear is keeping you from living your extraordinary life? Whatever it is—quitting your unfulfilling job, leaving an abusive marriage, telling the truth about your past—you must face it head on. Recognize that F.E.A.R. means “False Evidence Appearing Real.” Think of the worst-case scenario and see yourself living through it with dignity. Get support from others. Create an affirmation, such as, “I am now courageous.” Then, just do it. Remember that no matter what the momentary outcome of facing down your fear brings, your worth as a person is constant and never in question.

6. Free your feelings.
If you feel bored, you are probably ignoring or avoiding something. Make an effort to connect with your feelings. Sit in a quiet place and close your eyes. Take some deep breaths. Check in with your body. Do you feel any tightness or pain? Give that pain or tightness a name, such as fear, hurt, anger, resentment, sadness. If your body feels light and open, give that an emotional name such as joy, love, happiness. Whatever emotions you feel and name, just allow them to be. If they change, let that be. Let yourself be. Learn to honor your emotions. Give them an opportunity to inspire you.

7. Heal your anger and resentment.
When you can acknowledge that your resentments are fueled by your personal regrets, you free yourself to step out of the victim role. It is not that you are letting others off the hook for unkind or unfair behaviors; they are still responsible for their intentions and actions. But the moment you uncover your regrets, you are empowered to let go of resentment.

8. Forgive yourself.
Make a list of the wrongs you have done to others and to yourself. See them as results of survival strategies. Acknowledge the consequences of these strategies to yourself and others. Grieve for your losses and your mistakes. Make amends with yourself and others. Create an affirmation to replace the self-judgments that drove you to using your survival strategies. And remember to treat yourself the way you would want others to treat you.

9. Know, speak, and live your deepest truths.
Commit to being truthful in all you say and do. Realize that being truthful is not synonymous with being honest. Truth is a complex blend of honesty mixed with compassion and vulnerability. When you are “brutally honest,” you are expressing your judgment but not expressing your truth. Your spirit knows the difference between truth and honesty. When you express your highest thoughts and intentions, you are able to live a true life, not just an honest one.

10. Create your extraordinary life every day.
To live in your truth is to allow your spirit’s energy into every cell of your being and into every thought and action. Here’s what this means in everyday terms: When you tell the clerk at the grocery store checkout counter that she has given you too much change, you make truth and spirit matter more than money. When you hear gossip and don’t pass it along, you make truth and spirit matter more than your momentary desire to feel important. When you tell someone you love him or her, unsure of whether he or she will say it in return, you make truth and spirit matter more than your fear of rejection. Make these decisions every day. It takes courage and commitment to be your extraordinary self. You will be amply rewarded with a rich and fulfilling life.

Read excerpts from Jane’s popular book, Enough Is Enough!, watch and listen to her TV and radio interviews on various topics, and sign up for her free newsletter, order her book, or have Jane as your personal life coach by clicking on stopenduring.com.

Tags:affirmations, anger, dear jane, enduring, extraordinary life, fear, forgiveness, Jane Straus, limiting beliefs, resentments, self-judgment, truth
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Being Real: Lessons from The Breakfast Club

Monday, June 11th, 2007

Have you ever tried to look better on the outside than you were feeling on the inside? Do you ever abandon your truth to please others? If you weren’t afraid of losing someone’s approval, acceptance, or love, if you didn’t feel that you had to choose between abandoning yourself or being abandoned by someone else, wouldn’t you be authentic all the time with everyone? Wouldn’t you stand up for yourself more?

Whenever I am challenged to please others at the expense of being real, I think about Anais Nin’s eloquent quote, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” It is painful to hold ourselves back. At some point, we stop thriving and begin living in endurance when we believe we have to maintain an act rather than be real. But if we let our fear of abandonment run us, we bully ourselves into submission.

In the film, The Breakfast Club, five high school students are given detention for various infractions against school rules. Their punishment is to remain in the school library all Saturday with the task of completing one assignment: Each of them is to write a thousand-word essay describing who they think they are. Because the assignment seems silly and boring to them, they begin instead to try to figure out who the others in the room are.

At first, they buy each other’s act: the jock, the brain, the crazy one, the prom queen, the criminal. They cling to their own acts too, uncomfortably comfortable with their labels. But as they spend hour after hour together, their real selves peek through, and each of them starts to chafe against the restrictions of his or her image.

As they break out of their molds, their false sense of security and identity are shaken, but they ultimately come to respect each other. By the end of the day, they decide to write only one essay among them, conveying that, like the adults in their lives who see them only as they want to see them, in the most limited of ways, they also saw themselves that way before spending the day together. They write that what they learned is that each of them has attributes of the others within themselves. They are all capable of being smart, athletic, crazy, elitist, or rebellious. They are all of these things and yet they are so much more. They leave detention as comrades, having learned something crucial: judgments are real but they are never the truth. They also come to see that their self-judgments were the most restrictive of all, forcing them to behave in ways that limited them and fed their fear of others.

When in an act, we behave incongruently with what we really feel. Whatever our reasons and fears of being authentic—hurt, ridicule, abandonment—the problem is that after we have our act for a while, we can’t remember who we were without it. And if we can’t figure out who we are, how are others going to really know us? How can we have intimacy if we are not authentic? If we sacrifice intimacy for acceptance, our relationships feel lukewarm and boring. We may keep seeking hot and exciting, never realizing that, as Dylan Thomas said, “Something’s boring me; I think it’s me.”

The Breakfast Club reminds us that molding ourselves into the image of what others want and expect is cruel to our spirit. It takes courage to be authentic in every moment. But who we really are is much more interesting than any character we could possibly play.

Jane Straus is the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life (Jossey-Bass pub.). Visit stopenduring.com to view her TV and radio interviews, read articles and excerpts from her book, or to contact her for keynote presentations or personal coaching.

Tags:abandonment, authentic, dear jane, endurance mode, intimacy, Jane Straus, truth
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Why Your Truth Matters

Friday, April 6th, 2007

Why Your Truth Matters

If we don’t know our truth—what we feel, think, or believe—we cannot tell others our truth. And if we can’t tell others, we can’t let them in. And if we can’t let them in, we will feel lonely.

If we are afraid of speaking our truth to others, we will don disguises and acts. We will become “the good one” or “the competent one” or “the helpful one” or “the addict” or “the selfish one.” Others will come to believe our acts, causing us to become resentful that we can’t be ourselves without risking abandonment or judgment. Worst of all, when we are in our acts for too long, we risk forgetting who we really are.

If we are too afraid to live in our truth, we will feel disconnected from our spirit, leading to abandoning our future while enduring and surviving in a world that feels drab and predictable.

Knowing, speaking, and living your truth matters. You matter. You have unique gifts to offer, gifts that will become ever more apparent as you explore and trust your truths. Choose truth and you will flourish. Choose truth and you will find your courage. Choose truth and you will feel happier and inspired to live your extraordinary life.

Jane Straus is a trusted life coach and the author of the popular book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. To read her articles and excerpts from the book, watch her on TV, listen to her on radio, order Enough Is Enough, or to hire her as your life coach, visit stopenduring.com.

Tags:dear jane, extraordinary life, Jane Straus, live your truth, speaking your truth, truth
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Finding and Keeping Mr. or Ms. Right

Saturday, January 20th, 2007

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While some self-help books focus on strategies to get into a relationship, anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that they require tending or they die on the vine. So how can you stop wasting your time on romances that fizzle out? What really makes a romance blossom into a long-term commitment? Here are 5 key strategies to finding and nurturing Great Love:
1.Tell the truth. Truth and love are synonymous. But be careful because telling the truth is not the same as being honest. Honesty may contain judgments, such as, “I think you’re narrow minded for saying you wouldn’t marry a Republican.” Truth is more vulnerable and does not contain judgment. Restated, the truth might be, “When you say you would never marry a Republican, I feel hurt and scared. I’m afraid that if I disagree with you politically, you will leave, regardless of the other great things about our relationship.”
If you don’t feel safe telling the truth about your past, your personality, or your quirks to your new relationship, tell your partner that you need to keep some things private still. But don’t massage the truth, don’t go into an act, and don’t lie. Remember, it’s hard to regain trust that’s been broken.
If you’ve lied to someone you’re involved with, don’t spend one more day torturing yourself with the shame, guilt, and fear that’s inside of you. No matter how afraid you are that you will be rejected or abandoned, clear the air without excuses. (The only exception to this advice is if you have reason to believe that telling the truth will endanger you physically. If this is the case, get professional help.)
Truth is sexy. Truth is passionate. Truth is intimate. Truth is love.
2. Be the love you want to receive. We all want love, loyalty, intimacy, respect, compassion, and friendship. But to deserve it, we need to offer those same things to our partner. And we need to offer them generously. An open heart is much more inviting and accessible than a protected one.
3. Become your partner’s safe haven. Becoming a safe harbor for someone is one of the greatest gifts we can offer and is very much appreciated. Allow your partner to express feelings, even negative ones, without rushing to judgment or trying to fix him/her. Feelings don’t need fixing anyway.
4. Fight fair. This is the hardest prescription on the list for many people as we’ve learned bad and sometimes destructive habits. If you can admit right now that you don’t know how to fight in such a way that you end up closer rather than more estranged, then get help. Hire a life coach or therapist or read books on conscious, loving communications (including my book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life). The sooner you become adept at this skill, the less resentment your relationship will build. Fighting well is cleansing and makes make-up sex even better!
5. Make a list of the 10 Things That Make You Feel Most Loved. Ask your partner to do the same. You may be surprised to hear each other’s lists. They often don’t match. Keep your partner’s list and look at it every day. If your partner loves to receive roses, then don’t send irises, even if they’re on your list of favorites.
In Enough Is Enough!, I talk about how I feel loved when my husband remembers that I like yellow mustard, not Dijon. We’re all quirky in what makes us feel loved. Honor your partner’s list and you will build a strong foundation that will get you through the hard times.
Does this seem like a lot of work? It is! But you will definitely reap the benefits. Even if the romantic relationship you’re in currently isn’t the one you will be in forever, all this practice will prepare you for Mr./Ms. Right as well as prepare you to become Mr./Ms. Right.

For more on living your extraordinary life in every way, please visit Jane Straus’s web site, www.stopenduring.com. Read her articles, watch video excerpts of her seminars, listen to her free teleseminars, schedule a private coaching session, book Jane for a keynote, and order Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life.

Tags:dear jane, great love, intimacy, Jane Straus, love, mr. right, ms. right, partner, relationship, relationship advice, truth
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What Really Prevents You from an Extraordinary Life

Monday, January 8th, 2007

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Dear Jane,
I am in love with a woman but she doesn’t love me. This prevents me from having an extraordinary life.

If you believe that someone else prevents you from leading a more extraordinary life, you are giving away your power, which will only fuel a belief that you are a victim. It is never someone else who stops us from manifesting our deepest truths and longings.
In Enough Is Enough!, I write extensively about how we choose our Acts in life—the thoughts and behaviors that cover up who we really are. The Victim Act is the most common because we can convince ourselves of it so easily. All of us know this one. Inevitably, it sounds like, “I can’t ____ because he/she ______.” It gives us an excuse to avoid responsibility and underlying fears.

Unfortunately, victim thinking also keeps us suffering unnecessarily. I encourage you to change your thought to, “I can ______ because I _______.” Say this ten times a day and within days, you will notice a subtle shift inside you. You will find ways to achieve your goals that were not apparent before. Ideas and opportunities will open up for you.

Free will is a powerful thing. If we give it up, we imprison ourselves. When we embrace it, we find that the key to our prison door has been in our pocket all along.

About Jane
Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, StopEnduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, Grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes.
Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.

Tags:affirmations, dear jane, extraordinary life, Jane Straus, love, manifesting, self-talk, truth, victim-consciousness
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Facing Our Own Hypocrisy

Sunday, November 5th, 2006

Dear Jane,
I’d like to know what you think about political scandals such as Ted Haggard and Larry Craig being “outed” as homosexuals? Or Scooter Libby lying about outing Valerie Plame?

When I read Congressional confessions of closeted homosexuality, infidelity, or use of illegal drugs, my first reaction is righteous indignation that others’ hypocrisies are coming to light. I tend to get hopeful that when hypocrisy sees the light of day, we human beings reap the benefit in terms of greater justice and equality.

But I have to admit that there is a darker side to my finger pointing. What I savor is the sweet revenge, which I suspect says something about me and maybe about all of us. Just as presumably a politician is humiliated by exposure of indiscretions, don’t we all have hypocrisies that would publicly humiliate us if exposed? Yes, politicians’ hypocrisies have great influence over the White House, the campaign agenda, and public policy, but don’t our individual hypocrisies also influence others?

If we tell our children to abstain from alcohol and drugs but hide our own chemical histories or current use/abuse, what impact does that have? We may argue that we want them to do as we say, not as we do. But could a politician caught with his/her hand in the cookie jar make that same argument?

If we use an illegal substance but are glad for the arrest of street corner drug dealers, doesn’t this hypocrisy have an impact? Aren’t our prisons overflowing with people who may have touched the contents of that little plastic baggie hidden in our underwear drawer? Even if we don’t support harsh punishment for drug dealing, doesn’t our participation reinforce the problem?

If we are calling an end to war with Iraq but continue to consume half of the world’s fossil fuels, much of it for jetting to distant vacation spots or filling up our SUVs, isn’t there just the teeniest bit of hypocrisy in this?

If we pride ourselves for buying organic fruits and vegetables but demand that they be available year round, hurting both local farmers as well as requiring enormous amounts of fuel to get them to the nearest Whole Foods store, isn’t there something for us to examine?

Of course, I can go on and on with this list but my point isn’t to shame us. My point is to acknowledge that all our hypocrisy causes damage. Rather than cast stones at one another, we could take the hypocrisies and downfalls of politicians as an opportunity to look more deeply into ourselves. We could remove our own veils of hypocrisy, acknowledge our own falls from grace, tell more truths about who we really are, change whatever behaviors we don’t like in ourselves, forgive others for their trespasses and ourselves for ours, and go about living life more consciously and compassionately.

This is my take away from scandals. What’s yours?

Tags:compassion, dear jane, hypocrisy, Jane Straus, justice, shame, truth
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Making and Breaking Promises

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

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I had the honor of officiating a wedding this last weekend, giving me a chance to reflect on the idea of promises and vows. What promises can/should we make to others and to ourselves? Which ones might be overreaching or setting us up to disappoint?

I’ve never felt comfortable with a vow that ended with “til death do us part.” Maybe this is because I don’t believe in adults committing to stay in a relationship no matter what, without any conditions. While the love between parent and child is the closest most of us get to the experience of unconditional love, between two consenting adults it’s healthy to have agreements for the relationship to continue and thrive.

Those vows or agreements can include respect, love, and compassion for our partner. But how many of us remain perfect with these vows? One of the most important vows is the one to tell the truth when we make a mistake or hurt each other’s feelings out of anger or hurt, to apologize without expectation of our partner’s forgiveness, and to practice forgiving ourselves. It feels to me that if we include the vows of love, respect, compassion, truth, and amends, we have a better chance of making it until death do we part.

I love the poem below by Hafiz, the Sufi poet, because it acknowledges the optimism and joy with which we may make promises but also the reality that we are students in Classroom Earth.

First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears
And a hundred sweet promises
No one can ever keep
But the universe is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.
What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken in this world
To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?
O, the Beloved will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions!

Let me know your thoughts.

Tags:commitments, dear jane, hafiz, Jane Straus, marriage, partner, promises, relationship, sufi, truth
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