Thanksgiving and Your Shadow:

 

In Jungian Analytical theory there is a concept called the Shadow. The Shadow is the collection of unacceptable characteristics about ourselves, others, and society that we place in the dark nooks and crannies of our personality. As these characteristics expand, they form their own “shadow” personality. It does not enter the conscious pathway easily. For example: Only through years of repressed anger, will a simple comment by your mother release a venomous slip-of-the-tongue response that could slash her to pieces. It may feel good for a second, but then the shadow bolts back into the eerie subconscious, and you are left holding your guilt. So I wouldn’t advise you curse at your mother in front of everyone this Thanksgiving.

One aspect of our culture, and all cultures throughout the world, is the need for social mores, an important part of the function of the civilized world. As Robert Johnson says in Owning Your Own Shadow, “Some of the pure gold of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that leveling process that is culture.” Part of our culture is imbedded in traditions and holidays. Thanksgiving, a holiday formed from the bringing together of two disparate forces and giving thanks for the union, has changed over the years.

Football, turkeys, family meetings, Macy’s parade of plastic icons, and overeating.

“Every individual needs,” as Jung stated in 1966, “a revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbors under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility.”

What is it you really want to do on Thursday? What does your shadow whisper in your ear?  Are you being hypocritical by being with someone you don’t like, and feel forced to “be good”?

Why? Really.

Well, I did it! I finished my novel, Seniors Inc.  I’m happy. Very, very thrilled, and relieved. Excited. Nervous. Not nail biting. No. A bit scared. Not panicked. No. Will send her off for reviews. Reviewing. Looked at. Studied. Scrutinized. Not anxious. No. Weary. Yes. Keep her home. Yes. Safe. Yes. No. She must go. Go. Yes. Good Bye. Never to return the same.

 

That was my reaction to letting my completed work go to reviewers, a trip it has yet to take.

 

Priscilla Royal, a fellow mystery author, who writes the Prioress Eleanor / Brother Thomas medieval mystery series from Poisoned Pen Press has graciously allowed me to reprint her blog post, and share author Anne Bradstreet’s poem on this exact subject. The tenth book in Priscilla’s series, “Covenant with Hell” will be released this December. Look for it. Her website is www.priscillaroyal.com.  Here is her post from The LadyKillers Blog.

 I offer the following 17^th century poem from Anne Bradstreet, often called the first published American poet. I think she speaks for many of us when we finish a book, send it off to the reviewing wolves, and hope against hope their teeth will not leave scars… 

The Author To Her Book  

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,

Who after birth did’st by my side remain,

Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,

Who thee abroad exposed to public view,

Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,

Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).

At thy return my blushing was not small,

My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.

I cast thee by as one unfit for light,

The visage was so irksome in my sight,

Yet being mine own, at length affection would

Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.

I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,

And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.

I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,

Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet.

In better dress to trim thee was my mind,

But nought save home-spun cloth, i’ th’ house I find.

In this array, ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.

In critic’s hands, beware thou dost not come,

And take thy way where yet thou art not known.

If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none;

And for thy mother, she alas is poor,

Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

 

Would Sherlock Holmes secretly make this statement, especially in one of his drug-induced states? Does he feel the madness of his passions? I think most of us would say “Yes” to that question. Much has been written about his constraint of emotions, his logical thinking capabilities, as well as his ability to put important pieces together.

Yet in the “Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” he says to Watson after “losing it”: “Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson, it can only be an example of that temporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced minds may be exposed.” He is only human after all, and feels everything we do, but through mindfulness and memory, a superior emotional control system, and logic, seems to find a unique balance. In the “Sign of the Four,” one of Holmes reaction to Mary Mortan … “But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things.”

 So what does this mean for us? What is the uniting element of these three factors. Does it help us in detection? Does it hurt us in detection? Beyond all else, we protect ourselves and collect and maintain evidence, logic, feelings, and memories that allow us to feel that we, as a human being, are okay. “Self-Justification is deeply  ingrained in each of us.” (Emotional Competency.com). We will distort reality to increase our self esteem. We will even present a one-sided argument to make ourselves feel good. Even though we are a more logical than emotional person, we can use different types of faulty logic to support a position that we want to be true. A few of these are briefly defined (Emotional Competency.com):

Filtering: failure to consider all the evidence in an objective manner. Over-generalization:arriving at a general conclusion based on a single fact. Polarized thinking: either black or white. Mind reading: you conclude how a person is thinking without evidence or testing assumptions. Personalization: everything a person says is in reaction to you. Attribution errors: Thinking you know a person’s intention for a behavior. Disproportionate Responsibility: many causes contribute to each result. One of my favorites–very difficult for detectives to unravel: Confabulation: making up a plausible story for surprising events or behaviors. People unknowingly fill in gap in memory with fabrications they believe to be true. They often confuse true memories with false memories–they make up explanation after the fact. Asch Effect: change your opinion to agree with the majority.

Our logic can be distorted, and so can our memories. They fade over time. The effects of emotions can block memories. Lapse of attention causes us to forget. Sometime we place events in the wrong time or place. If we want a certain result, we’ll remember it the way we want it to go. Our memories are bias by our attitudes and beliefs, experiences and emotions. Memories of a critical emotional state may sometimes not leave, or not return. In this case, our emotions have ruled our logic and our memories.

So what can we do to help be the best of life’s detectives, to lessen the confusion and put ourselves, logic, emotions, and memory back in balance? Back to mindfulness, add some humility so we don’t have to justify situations, don’t deny a problem that comes to your attention, admit an unpleasant side of yourself, as did Holmes above. That’s a good start.  It’s tough for me to remember all the others  … not sure my self esteem could handle it.

 

 

 

 

 The Mind

Now you are mindful, paying attention, and in the moment. You feel centered, know yourself, and trust that you can continue to learn how to be a better detective. Detection is not an art. It is a learned behavior, a compilation of training your awareness not to take anything at face value (be skeptical), drawing from memory (now where in my memory did I place that?), assimilating facts remembered into a logical wholeness (wholeness, like putting it all together?) … oh, and let’s not forget … imagination, creativity, and motivation. Whew!

John Madina, in The Brain Rules (Pear Press, 2008) discusses “attention” at length. He says that you have about fifteen minutes to make an impact, whether as a teacher, lecturer, or book reader. Keep the most important facts short. The way to keep the attention going and focused? Link it to memory, interest, and awareness. Interest increases motivation. Interest influences memory. Interest is undeniably linked to attention and awareness. We have to be aware of something before it grabs our attention.

 As you know, the brain is divided into two hemispheres. Keeping them in balance is a feat. They share what we attend to–how we attend to it–and what we do with what we attended to. We hear something close by, our mind and ears tune into it, we turn toward it or away from it, we decide what to do about it. All the time our two hemispheres are working their neurons asking all systems on both sides to help. Attention multitaskes.

Back to Sherlock Holmes before I lose you. My time is almost up. In Mastermind: How to Think like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova (Viking, 2013), She address the attention of a poor policeman in A Study in Scarlet: “And the criminal was right in front of his eyes. Only he didn’t know how to look. Instead of a suspect, he saw a drunk man–and failed to notice anything that would have told him otherwise, so busy was he trying to focus (pay attention) on his “real” job of looking at the crime scene.” His interest, awareness, and attention was on the crime scene. In detection, we can take no observation at face value. Here, the facts about the drunk were not assimilated or logged for further use. The policeman had “attentional blindness” where a focus on one element of the scene causes the other elements to disappear.

I have that with my wine. I see it, take it, sip it, and everything else in the room disappears. Maybe that’s not the same thing … hmm.

Next … we discuss the impact of logic vrs emotions … oh, and memory.

Hmm…

My husband, Larry, who many people know because we hang together, and he loves the writing world and shares it with me, wrote an article: “Staying Centered: The Inner Game of Pool” for a magazine I was the editor, many moons ago, in Kauai Hawaii. It was a holistic magazine I helped start, called “Inspiration, A Journal of the Body, Mind, and Soul”. Larry is an excellent pool player, and was a CT, NY, and NJ champion–more than many moons ago.

But while I was trying to search out how we find mindfulness in what we do, as well as get centered in/ with ourselves, (as we all often try to do) as a continuance for my “Mindfulness and the Power of Detection” articles, I realized Larry had already addressed “staying centered”. Almost like a survival instinct, we inherently find a mindfulness in what we love, an ultimate focus where we are truly being with ourselves, and not allowing the outer world distract us. Like Sherlock Holmes, the art of detection is within ourselves.

“Staying Centered: The Inner Game of Pool” by Larry Morin

Staying centered sounds like a cliché, proverb or gold, doesn’t it? It’s an elusive phenomena that we strive to obtain; however it always seems to be slipping away from our grasp. This never stops our pursuit to maintain a center of balance in most things that we do in our lives. Although we try hard to live in the perfect realm, life pressures, unforeseen complications, self-doubt, and other factors force us from that wonderful place. We try to stay in the zone by minimizing variables and keeping things as simple as possible while concentrating on the execution and follow-through of what we’re doing here and now. Not easy, is it? It is the same with the inner game of pool; the game that is played to your full potential can take you into a world of pool ballet in motion that at times seems to defy the very laws of physics. It’s a place or zone were it is okay to selfishly steal away precious time from pressures and demands. It can yield the marvelous benefits of feeling accomplished and mentally recharge. It can be a safe and solid place to go to get centered when all else seems just the opposite. After all, isn’t it great to have a hobby, such as pool, being an ingredient to really living life? Let me take you on my path into the inner game of pool. Let’s see if my passion of 35 years relates to the guidelines of my hobby. You be the judge, and who knows, you may even decide to take up pool.

All of us get hooked on instant gratification and results. Runners is building endurance. After running the first smile, they try for two, then three and so on. For the golfer, it’s getting the lowest score, and perfecting the swing. And pool, the special feeling comes from pocketing a ball, or reaching your desired position with the cue ball to get in line for your next shot. What an exhilarating feeling when you have size up a shot, determine where you want the pool ball positioned, and have executed everything to plan! Your self confidence grows! You must know what this feels like. At times, the click of the cue ball and the snap of the object ball dropping into the pocket, and the ballet of seeing what they can do in those positions is exhilarating! You begin to think, “Hey, I can do this a second time, and a third time, too!” Total concentration takes hold and everything else is blocked out, leaving you in your own pool-table world. It’s a world where the pockets begin to invite the balls, creating snap sounds. The six doors that appear to be exits seem to open wider producing ball quick-snap music. You are lulled into a deeper trance induced by more concentration. Possibilities seem infinite. You feel like you can carry out any shot you choose. You are now on the next level of “dead stroke” where life’s worries are for the moment forgotten. It’s the magic zone where you are totally centered. You can only win. And your knowledge and experience have brought you here.

The five steps that he outlines (with a lot more pool talk) are:

1.Consistency, it eliminates confusion.

2. Seek the support of the table. Lock in to your position. Focus.

3. Take aim at the shot you want.

4. Take a risk with your shot. Make a commitment. Don’t change your mind. Go for it.

5. Follow through with your shot. Always look at the object ball.

6. Give 100 percent.

7. Evaluate.

8. Adjust, and add to your learning foundation.

Larry ended with “See you at the pool hall.”

The art of detection: Is it that much difference?

 

 

 

 

Mindfulness and the Power of Detection

Traveling cross country from San Francisco to our new New York City apartment with a caravan full of “stuff,” and the blaring sun reminding us how burning hot it can be, I thought about the word purpose, a purpose unto itself. Purpose was all around me. In fact, we were in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond store, and I heard this song I don’t know, and the crooner is singing about finding something to believe in or not living. Those weren’t the exact words, but I was holding too much “stuff” to write it down.

But what I did get to do, and I thought it quite exciting—wish I had a video camera—was to interview people I had met about what they thought when I said the word purpose. What the heck, I thought. Michael Black hit the salient features of “purpose,” and I couldn’t agree more. Carole added some purposefulness to the word, and Rita gave us many writers’ and philosophers’ quotes on the subject. All great in their own way. Susan and Hannah had existential definitions for the words as their day and adventures took them into the here and now, the ever important daily purpose, or describing obstacles to achieving one’s purpose.

A young bartender we met, Danielle, a wise 24 year old, answered that question. Here is a bit of the conversation. Larry, my husband, added a few things, also.

P: What is purpose?

D: It is cause and effect, everything happens for a reason.

P: Is it transient?

D: Yes it is.

P: So it changes.

D: Of course.

P: Does it change as your life changes, or as the experience changes? Can one experience have several purposes, or is it that you have to go through an experience, and in that experience there is a purpose?

D: For me you have to go through an experience that has a purpose, then you have another experience and that has a purpose.

L: Pat, why the meeting with Danielle and Tierney (another interviewee—is that a word?), what was the purpose?

D: Hey, that’s what I said when I went home last night. I met those people for a reason, not just to serve them wine. If I meet this Joy (a person we recommended) and she helps me with something that is life changing, then that’s the purpose of our meeting. You become the purpose.

So what I have gleaned about “what is purpose” is this: There’s a silent movement to it. Its vicissitudes in life are individual, constantly changing, and very important. There may even be an ingredient of serendipity to the mix. My cousin, Wally Gold, a songwriter (who wrote “It’s my Party” and “It’s Now or Never” and others) said that because of serendipity, he met Aaron Schroeder, the music king at that time, and that changed his life and his life’s purpose. Maybe for me, the benefit of this trip, in a spiritual way, was to help people take a look at what is truly meaningful to them.

When thinking about the word “depth,” it is hard to imagine what it really means. I naturally think of water (the distance below the surface), a drawer (distance between front and back), maybe a jungle (distance to the most remote part), or maybe even art (depth of color or three dimensional forms). When it comes to the individual, depth become harder to envision. What is the quality of being deep? Is it experiences layered with experiences layered with even more experiences? Is it a profound or intense state of feeling, as in the depth of misery?

What life could be lived, or experiences gained, without self? It is another word that is hard to imagine. Self is the core of our being, the essence of what makes us home in our body. But when I imagine it, it’s seems as endless as an oil shaft, like our center core is unlimited. There is no single image that identifies it. One women I saw in therapy said that she had lost her self, and was grieving that loss. She no longer acted in a way that felt authentic to who she was. Whew! Right?

Psychology is the study of the Psyche. Modern Psychology can help us understand more about that “self”. With Depth Psychology, we learned that the psyche is more than a conscious mind, it had depth, illuminations which are not visible, the unconscious. Carl Jung (picture to left) believed that there were aspects of our psyche that were common to us all. These aspects include images, dreams, the spiritual (soul), art, philosophy, and the para-nornormal. Jung did his doctoral research on the Occult, and studied a fifteen-year-old medium. I believe that these ingredients are also important to what make up the “depth” in all of us, the authentic self.

When exploring the characters in your life, as well as your books, or maybe even yourself, probe the most important facets of that character: spiritually, emotionally, their dreams, their fantasies (which few share), their real and imagined desires. That’s what I do to get that added dimension. That way I feel as though I’m not writing about their lives, but of their lives.

The Interactive Way to Write Your Next Book: Crowdsourcing!

Recently, I was at a meeting with my new publisher and several of the authors from Harper Davis. We discussed “Branding,” and my need to redo the way I brand myself as well as my blog, website, and name. I tend to use Pat Morin, and not the Patricia L. Morin signed on my books and short stories. When discussing the use of name, one of the marketing people suggested I crowdsource an opinion of which of the names I should use. I had never heard of it. Several of the authors had explained that authors are now using crowdsourcing to write their novels. With the help of their fans, their new stories are being created.

Wow! First let me define crowdsourcing (and if some/all of you know, please forgive the repetition).

Crowdsourcing is, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. The general concept is to combine the efforts of crowds of volunteers where each one could contribute a small portion, which adds into a relatively large or significant result. Crowdsourcing is different from an ordinary outsourcing since it is a task or problem that is outsourced to an undefined public rather than to a specific, named group. Although the word “crowdsourcing” was coined in 2006, it can apply to a wide range of activities.Crowdsourcing can apply to specific requests, such as crowdvoting, crowdfunding, a broad-based competition, and a general search for answers, solutions, or a missing person.

There is even a new platform for writers all over the world launched by CrowdSource, LLC. The new portal, called Write.com, aims to recruit new writers to enrich Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing marketplace.

Authors are able, through this new format, to change endings and rewrite books, as was discussed on LadyKillers Blog before. But now, we can include our fan base to help create the story from the start.

Out with the outline, out with the plotantsers, out with the 1,2,3. In with the new group interactive process: crowdsourcing!

What do you think about all this?

What interested me the most about the rejections that authors received from publishers and agents, beside the types of letters, and diversity of the language in the negative responses (some very positive, also), was the reaction of the author. I know when my reject slips started flooding in, I felt angry, defensive, bewildered, and sometimes indignant (usually not all at the same time). I worked hard to keep my spirits up, and push through a bit of despair to send my stories to the next publisher, hopeful of an acceptance.

We’re resilient. We’ve bended, adapted, shifted, sometimes in ways we never thought we could. I most certainly did not handle all my rejections effectively. I cursed out several agents (the one who sent the fortune cookie size response). I even wrote to one agent and told her how rude she was in her rejection letter, and would suggest no one hire her—since we do have to pay them for services.

Anyway, the resilient person, moi, does not always, to this day, handle refusal of my work well. However, the strength, I believe, is in the ability to rebound. According to Robert Brooks, Ph.D, there are four concepts that help people when confronted with rejection. All four have been touched upon in The Ladykillers Blog this week at one point or other. I’m just putting them all together.

1. Avoid self-defeating assumption. Rejections do not indicate a basic flaw in our personality.
2. Don’t magnify the rejection in terms of the impact it has on your life. It is not a forecast of your future. After about 75 rejection slips, I sorta had a hard time believing this one.
3. Don’t allow the rejection to derail your dreams. Persevere.
4. Learn from the rejection, even if there is no suggestion for change. Seek helpful feedback from others.
5. (Mine) reevaluate the agents and publishers, the people you are hoping to win over–they my not be right for you. I’ve had to change my list several times.
6. STAY RESILIENT!

Can you add to this list? What has helped you stay resilient? Cat buddies that purr on your lap are acceptable.