Fear is a Lie.

I’ve written a bit about fear before, but it tends to loom so large in human life that it’s probably going to get more press on this blog until it feels irrelevant at last. And I’m talking about emotional fear here, not the fear of heading into Class 5 rapids without a life jacket. This is about the fear we feel in our hearts when we are looking at how we want our lives to be and weighing the possible outcomes.

I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes this morning:
Fear is just past pain projected into the future.

Once reminded, I started to pick this apart into tiny little pieces. First of all, the past is gone. It is really just a memory. And what are memories? They are scenes and events that linger in our minds. They are a construct of our minds. We don’t remember every single moment of our lives––some events just fly from our memory and they are gone forever. So why do we remember only certain things over all the others? I think we choose to remember them because they have an emotional charge to them, positive or negative. Because of that charge, we make them more important than all the other experiences so mundane that we forget them handily. We attach meaning to them, and then belief, and then truth. We do this to ourselves, particularly with painful events. And that habit starts in childhood.

Continuing to pick, now we are back in childhood where we do not have the cognition to understand in a more mature way what is happening to us. We are wholly dependent on the adults we live with, and we look to them to fulfill our every need. Thing is, they are human, they are busy, they are tired, they are maybe angry about something or sad about something and they just don’t have the bandwidth in that moment to deal with a child who is placing yet another demand on them (as children have every right to do…). So they snap, or they do or say something hurtful or they ignore your needs and make you feel like your needs are unimportant, or they go whole hog and punish you for having a need that they just don’t have the capacity to deal with right then. And a painful event is born that, in a child’s mind, easily becomes a belief about themselves, especially if it happens over and over again. It’s hard to identify where that line is formed that the belief itself begins to make it happen over and over again, but it almost always starts when we are too young to understand the context around what happens to us.

Was it your fault that your parent(s) were tired/angry/alcoholic/abusive/mentally ill/not fit to parent? No, it is not your fault. You are faultless. You were a perfect little bundle of vulnerability, and your parents (or whoever) were human. That’s it. They may have made very bad choices based on how they themselves were parented, and they may have imparted their own childhood pain onto you. But it is a lie that any of that was your fault.

What we tell ourselves about who we are is entirely self-driven. We tell our own stories, and they are based on things we told ourselves were true as children without any context or understanding of the reality surrounding the event. We made it up. And things that are made up are NOT REAL. Not until we accept them as real. If we as adults observed this very same event unfold in someone else’s household, we might understand that the parent not giving the right attention to their child’s needs is a result of him losing his job that day or her not having slept for a few nights out of worry over a health issue, or whatever the case, and we might feel compassion not only for the child, but for the parent who is overwhelmed. That is the missing piece of the puzzle–the understanding of the burdens that were on our parents/teachers/whoever when they mistreated us–that led us to make false decisions about ourselves as children. We didn’t see the whole truth of the situation. Boiled down, it was a lie. And we can continue to do this as adults, but it usually ties in to some sort of core wound that is repeating itself in an adult situation. It’s still a lie.

So if fear is past pain (lies we made up about ourselves through lack of understanding) projected into the future (a blank canvas that we can paint any way we chose if we don’t drag the past into it), then even in my math-challenged mind, that equals the fact that fear is indeed a lie.

What IS the truth?
Whatever we decide! We are driving this bus. My feeling about truth is that we are loved and we only have to have faith in that love rather than giving faith to a lie, and then we can just relax and be grateful.

Toxic lies
Hate is a lie that we are so different that there can be no love between us. Violence is a lie that we can kill hate with more hate. Negative tools do not work. They are broken and can only build more brokenness.

What are the lies you cling to?
What do you fear? That’s your answer. Write down your fears and then pick at them until you arrive at the events that happened to make you believe that you have to fear these things. What could have been happening with your “perps” that you could not possibly have known or understood as a child to make them foster this lie you made up about yourself? Now that you are an adult, can you understand that kind of fatigue or anger over something else or mental illness or inherited pain that might have made someone do something hurtful to you? Can you forgive them now to free yourself from that lie you told yourself about who you are and how life is?

I feel very humbled and kind of busted as I write this because this is the very thing I need to do myself. I don’t know where this is coming from, but someone is tapping me on the head and saying, “Um, Laurie. These tools are for you, hun. You know what you need to do.” But if they help someone else to free themselves from a lie of fear that is holding them back from having faith in a happy outcome, then who am I to hoard them?

Fear is a lie. Pick, pick, pick, and then jettison. Yes to faith in joy, and thank you.

© 2020 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Do You Always Trust Your FIrst, Initial Feeling?

It’s a time for firsts… First of the year. First year of a new decade. The first New Year’s resolution whose futility will make itself clear right around the first of February. I’m not into writing about the usual New Year stuff, but I felt inspired to write about first feelings. The next line of that very wise song by Fleetwood Mac:

“Special knowledge holds true, best believe it.”

I have never been a believer in “love at first sight.” Or first lunch or first whatever. It takes quite a bit of time to really get to know someone no matter what the relationship type, and to know whether they are going to be a long-termer or not. Several decades of keen observation have taught me that most people, myself definitely included, walk around in a thick armor of protective material, fashioned in childhood and fortified in school and at work and through relationships. We tend to present ourselves as who we think the others either want or expect us to be in order to “make a good impression.” Translation: avoid judgement and rejection. No matter how “authentic” or independent or feisty you think you are, you do it. It’s almost impossible to pierce the armor and have an honest conversation, never mind really know who’s inside that shell of iron until you’ve spent a decent amount of time, slowly letting your respective guards down. And sometimes it’s all a big surprise. After a warm and friendly first impression, time can later reveal a tendency to snipe and judge and condemn. Behind it, always, is pain and fear. And ego, which is just fear.

On the flip side, someone who appears cold, aloof and conceited can melt into the kindest person you could ever know once you take the time to break through what is really only… shyness. Is that a possibility you’re willing to consider?

I remember a cab driver in New York who just would not acknowledge my presence in the cab with a glance or a word or a grunt. I imagined he got ignored by his fares regularly. It made me very uncomfortable. I noticed lots of soccer paraphernalia and photos on his dashboard, so I asked him one question. “Who’s your favorite soccer player?” He burst into a jolly, laughing, animated person, and it ended up being the most fun cab ride ever. Sometimes it’s so easy to break down a wall if you can find a reason to try. I admit that I have harbored initial assumptions about a few people in the past and had my head slapped upside when they turned out to be anything but what I had assumed by first impression. Very humbling, but it taught me a valuable lesson. People are so much deeper and more dimensional than we can ever know based upon a flimsy first impression.

Some really do wear their hearts on their sleeves, and if they continue to do that throughout their entire lives, then they are far stronger than most of us. Maybe they never felt the need for armor. They’re lucky and resilient and full of trust, and I hope they keep it always. I don’t know anyone like that, but if I did, I would bask in their strength and hope some of it rubbed off on me.

We. Are. The. Same…
…before we get polluted with hurt and anger and especially lies.
The first cut is the deepest. That’s a first that can probably be trusted. When that first assault on a virgin heart is delivered, I believe it pierces the soul. It’s such a shocking and foreign feeling from our original innocence that it can feel like death is happening. So it’s no wonder we try to find a way to stop it from ever happening again pretty quickly by adopting a defense. Trouble is, it always does happen again and the armor is galvanized.

No one lives a pain-free life. It’s one of the things that keeps us all equal, and compassion for the pain of others is one thing we should cultivate to stop all the false assumptions that fuel anger and separation. That needs to stop, and that’s down to us and no one else. We have to stop focusing on what divides us and cultivate what fosters communication and understanding.

Something to try with a trusted friend or family member:
Even between people who are super close, there still remains some self-protection in certain situations. It might crack the heart open a bit more to sit with each other and tell each other, truly and deeply, what hurts you the most, and what frightens you the most. Obviously, real trust is necessary for this. You both have to be willing to let it rip. Communicating this honestly through a threadbare part of your armor will only bring you closer and grow the compassion and love between you. It’s great practice. See if it makes it easier to try really deep, armor-free communication later with someone else, and then someone else - whoever is open enough to try it. This is real authenticity. This is how trust is built. Lower your shields and see yourselves looking back at each other.

And just in case you have a hankerin’ to hear that haunting, beautiful song, here it is.
Crystal by Fleetwood Mac

© 2020 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

It's the ?@$#@$#%! Holidays

November is a dark month. I honestly despise November. The clocks turn back and suddenly it’s dark a few hours after lunch. I don’t know why they do this. Shouldn’t we just live according to our own circadian rhythm that responds to the solstices and equinoxes? Another perfectly natural thing that’s been usurped by suits with legislative power. Humbug.

Right around mid-October, I start to turn in on myself, think about cleaning and buttoning up the house, cutting back all the plants, knitting, eating truckloads of carbs, remembering that the Bear is one of my totems, and wondering what this holiday season is going to require in order for me not to take a taxi to The Bridge. For those who feel obligated to spend the holidays with family members who may or may not be your most favorite people, I feel you. I did that for decades, and with enough wine and champagne and later on, the flask of tequila I hid in my purse to build up enough of a force field to deflect the usual shrapnel that flew across the dining table, it turned out to be quite a lot of fun, usually. For those who are masochistic enough not to drink at such gatherings, I can only applaud your fortitude.

In recent years, I have had the distinct pleasure of spending the holidays with the family of my choice, my wonderful friends. There is a house that I call “The Orphanage” where all of us east coast transplants and unmarrieds and friends whose blood families are far away or dead gather and bask in the hospitality of a wondrous woman with seemingly boundless energy and cooking apparatus. Her name is Renata, and we arrive at her house with potluck additions to her already lavish menu, toast with gusto to her and each other, get silly, try on wigs, bounce on the couch to Motown, fall into a gluttonous stupor, and smile at how incredibly lucky we are. I have had, hands down, some of the best holidays of my life in her house. Love and gratitude to Renata.

There is something else that always weighs on me at this time of year, and that is the societal pressure of what happy holidays look like that has been perpetrated by Hallmark and Butterball and FTD florists and all the other companies who make lots of coin at the holidays by suggesting what we all should be doing to be All-American rah-rah families. For some of us, that’s impossible, and it can engender feelings of dread and lack and loneliness if we cave to it.

Think different. There is no right life. There is only the one that we were born into, and then the one we create from our hearts. If they are one in the same, you are lucky. Since the holidays are supposed to be all about love and sharing, it seems the images of happy holidays should be ones of relaxation and celebration with those you truly love. Forced affection is not fun, especially without tequila.

If you tend to dread the holidays for any of the reasons above, change them! Make them more the love-fests they are supposed to be by making a point to be with your favorites as much as you can. If they are far away, set a time for a good long phone call or a Zoom meeting if you’re a Jetson, share a remote glass of wine, remember all the fun you’ve had together, and just BE with them. Try not to focus too much on the difficult relationships, and balance them out by having as much fun with those you truly love instead.

Since Thanksgiving is the next holiday coming up, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the number one biggest and most important focus one can have–GRATITUDE. It is the panacea for all crapiness. No matter what is bringing you down, no matter what you feel you are missing, no matter what hardship or challenge you may be facing, shifting your focus to gratitude for all your blessings is the most crucial exercise of all. It is the drumstick. It is the last piece of pie. It is the gift of a lifetime, and it truly fixes everything. It fills your heart and takes away all of your pain. We have this magic wand at our disposal every minute of every day. Sometimes we slip out of that mindset when life gets overwhelming and needs feel more urgent, but the answer to everything that makes us unhappy is to just SHIFT. Look around you at all you have. All the comforts that sit there in your house every day wanting to make you happy that you ignore. We have so much EXCESS that we don’t appreciate at all, and we just whine for more instead of looking around and feeling dumbstruck at how fabulously wealthy we really are. If you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back, water to drink, food to eat, arms and legs to use, eyes to see, a brain to think, a heart to feel and people who love you, get down on your freaking knees right now and say thank you. And forget about getting. Start giving thanks and watch what happens.

Much love and deep gratitude to all my friends, clients and readers. Have the best Thanksgiving ever with exactly what you already have, because it’s a hell of a lot.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

A Most Difficult Gift

It’s the month of those holidays that are supposed to be about love, peace, light, charity and compassion, no matter what ideology you follow, if you follow one at all. I hope that in moments here and there amidst the angry competition for parking spaces and the worry over what your credit card bill is going to look like in January and all the errands that are triple what they are in, say, early March, everyone can find a few quiet moments to reflect on the tenets mentioned above that are really what this is all about.

I know how I feel in my own heart about those things and this holiday, and they have always been part of how I try very hard to live my life. I’m not always successful, but I try, and I really feel it when I fail. This world is brutal sometimes, and when you get hurt badly, the 6th tenet, forgiveness, is easily the most challenging, but the most important.

The death of my mother this year has brought that one to the forefront for me. There was a lot of deep damage done that still comes back to me frequently in my life in very painful ways, so it can feel almost impossible to quell the anger and focus instead on what she was going through and what her unmet needs were doing to her ability to be a loving parent. The kind of neglect and abuse I experienced from her was invisible and insidious, only perpetrated when there was no one else around to witness it. No bruises to show to the authorities. To me, and to a very small number of close friends who know me inside and out plus one cousin who saw it in her own experience, it is anything but invisible, and I wonder if I will ever truly be free of it. I acknowledge, grudgingly sometimes, that forgiving her is probably the only way I will ever be totally free of it. I talk to her, sometimes in rage and sometimes with understanding and compassion, because I feel that she has to hear me now and acknowledge this, as she was utterly closed to listening at all when she was alive.

There are others I have already forgiven, whether they know it or not, but this is the big enchilada for me because it seems to have such a choke-hold on my inner-most workings. One thought that has brought a grain of comfort is that perhaps forgiveness is the lesson I agreed to come to this crazy planet to learn, and she was the teacher. Give that woman a golden apple. She aced it. Now I guess it’s my turn. A life challenge. Oh, goodie. But I know how important it is and it goes hand in hand with all the other lovely tenets of this holiday season, so I guess there’s no time like the present.

Is there someone you need to forgive?
How hard will that be? Do you think you can do it? What do you need to consider about that person’s heart and soul, their pain and struggle, their frustration and anger at unmet needs, their insecurities, their humanness, in order to forgive them? What tools do you have that you think might make that easier? Who do you know that has the kind of heart you could spill this to in safety to work it out?

They say that forgiving someone who has hurt you only helps YOU, and some probably don’t give a rat’s patootie if they hurt you, offering not even scant apology. Some won’t even acknowledge that an apology is warranted. If you are dealing with this kind of a situation, unfortunately, it’s all on you. So, perhaps while you’re busy giving holiday gifts to everyone else and secretly wondering if they’re “enough” (stop it!), maybe think about giving yourself the best gift of all. Forgive your perps. They don’t even have to know about it. Just free your own heart of all that anger, throw some more wood on the fire and enjoy a rummy nog.

Happiest of holidays to all.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Does Something Haunt You?

Haunting is similar to fear but more subtle and longer-lasting, and usually attached to something that happened in the past. More like a regret of some sort. A decision you’re not sure was right. A road not taken. A missed opportunity. Something said that cannot be taken back. Something not said that it’s too late to say. A crossroad at which you have taken up permanent residence because you’re too afraid of possible future regret if you make the wrong choice. Paralyzed at the crossroad.

Guilt makes for a great ghost. It’s always right behind you, ready to steal your smile away if you dare to get happy about something. It taps you on the shoulder with its bony finger and glares at you with empty sockets until your joy is gone, if you let it.

One can certainly also be haunted by a lost love. The one that got away. The one you knew was right but couldn’t have. Or the one you had to leave because you knew it wasn’t right. What if I’d said this? What if I’d done that? It’s hard to know what to do sometimes, but if you wait too long…

I am haunted by regret at not speaking up and seizing an opportunity when I had the chance in certain situations. I felt like I was doing the “right” thing at the time, but how right it really was, I’m not so sure anymore. Do you have these ghosts?

Who ya gonna call?

Life is a kaleidoscope. You see something different every time you take a turn, and every single decision comes with good and bad. It’s this dualistic world we live in, and there is no one on this planet that makes all the “right” decisions all the time that always lead to happiness and no regret. If you feel the need for a change and you feel zero conflict about it, then it’s not really a decision, it’s just an action.

A decision is making a choice between two things that could be good or could be bad - a trade off. If you make a big change, it could bring you joy or regret. If you maintain the status quo, it could bring you comfort or soul-killing stagnation.

Here’s the thing: It’s likely that either decision will bring you some of both. Life is risky. You just have to figure out which positive outcome in both situations feels more compelling to you, and have faith that you will be rewarded for your courage if you decide to change your life.

If you are haunted by past indecision or inaction out of fear, give up those ghosts - they are dead! And repel future ones by trusting that your courage is a reward in itself, no matter how things turn out. If you never risk anything, you will never know how spectacular your life could really be.

And Happy Halloween! You get to dress up and be whoever you want.

© Laurie MacMillan 2019 All rights reserved.

How to Stop Resenting Difficult People

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone with the same mindset, likes and tastes, inner nature and demeanor could all live together in the same place, away from the people with whom they just can’t seem to connect or get along? Back in the 1700s, Emanuel Swedenborg was a scientist and engineer who underwent a “spiritual awakening”, in his own words, and was way ahead of his time with reports from the afterlife before anyone had heard of a near-death experience. He claimed to have taken regular visits to the heavenly realms where he learned that in the afterlife, we all gather together with only the people of like mind and spirit, with whom we feel comfort, love and kinship.

But that’s Heaven. We live here.

There are so many flavors of “syndromes” and “personality disorders” now listed in the official book psychologists use to determine which pill they’re going to prescribe for you (the DSM-5… which does not mean the Dope ‘em Some More-5) that the book looks like a Tolstoy first draft. It’s usually stored on the bottom shelf because any higher a perch would topple the book case. Narcissistic? Passive-Aggressive? Diva? Bully? Selfish? Drama queen? Sniper? We all know some. On certain days, we probably all ARE some. For those who have a tendency to take things personally, life among people who exhibit this behavior can be very tiring, hurtful and maddening.

So, here’s maybe something to try.

When some narcissist starts gaslighting you or some passive-aggressive tries to shred-you-with-a-smile, instead of getting upset and feeling resentment, stop yourself and wonder what kind of pain they must have gone through to have learned this behavior. It was probably learned as a way to protect themselves from someone else’s abuse, or a fear they harbor about themselves, or a feeling of emptiness they have to fill by making themselves “bigger” than everyone else because maybe somebody made them feel small. When you start to get shade from someone like this, try to separate yourself from the insult and look at them as you would look at a hurting child, because that is most likely where they are in their heart and spirit when they treat you like this. If you can focus on their pain instead of your own anger, you automatically shift from resentment to compassion, and the whole dynamic changes. You are not a victim and they are maybe not purposely trying to hurt you. Something’s going on for them that most likely has nothing at all to do with you. You’re just in front of them, or you have something they want, or they feel like you’re some sort of a threat. That’s not your fault.

Taking in this stuff can trigger all sorts of learned, negative self-talk and victim-y stuff, like “people always treat me like crap” or “I am not respected” or whatever your whine du jour happens to be. That doesn’t help you have a better life, and it’s probably not even making a dent in their behavior towards you. So a new muscle to work out is to stop taking hurt in and start sending compassion and understanding out. (Or just walk away if you have that luxury and just don’t want to deal with it at all.) But don’t take it into yourself and turn it into yet another negative belief that holds you back from your peace of mind.

When we respond from anger and resentment, it cooks up all kinds of ugly stuff like revenge, back-biting and all that stuff we won’t have to deal with in Heaven. It just adds jet fuel to the fire that could be extinguished with a little love. Very hard, sometimes, I know. Very, very hard. But if this makes it more attractive, you regain your own power when you switch from resentful victim to compassionate observer. I’ve put this to the test in my own life this year, and even if they don’t know you are thinking of them with compassion, it will work for YOU. It’s almost impossible to feel resentment and compassion at the same time. Another switch to flip when things get testy and you want to feel better.

Of course, one always has the option to just walk away, but sometimes these are folks we have to live with, work with, or deal with in some social or academic setting. If there is no escape, try a little tenderness. It certainly won’t hurt you, and it might soften them up, too. Maybe there’s a friend hiding in there somewhere.

And happy National Bosses Day! (Not at all a prompt for this topic…) and National Liqueur Day and National Feral Cat Day. And if you’re feeling blue, cheer up - Friday is National Chocolate Cupcake Day. I feel festive.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Faith vs. Fear

This colossal tussle is at the very root of our lives almost every moment of every day. It can be the biggest challenge we ever face, as it determines every single outcome. When something is hanging in the balance, depending on the sum of our past experiences and how they affected us emotionally, we either sink into doubt and fear or walk in a calm knowing that it will all be OK. Easier said than done for most of us. For those who have a past rife with neglect, hurt and betrayal, it’s almost impossible. But not entirely impossible.

I don’t remember where I heard this, but when I heard it, it hit me like a dump truck:

“Fear is just past pain projected into the future.”

Wow. I wish I could remember who came up with this magic wand. All the books and speakers who encourage us to BE HERE NOW suddenly make a lot more sense. I would paint this on my wall, but I’m in a rental.

Past pain is gone gone gone, but the stains from it do not wash out easily. Memories tend to dig grooves in our brains (literally, I think), but when we change the thought patterns that have carved canyons inside our skulls, new neural pathways open up (literally, I think). I don’t know what happens to the old ones. One would assume that if you no longer travel through them when you are contemplating the future, they fill with silt or rocks and become impassible at last. Conversely, when one or two people explore a cool hidden meadow, they may bend the grass, but if 100 people do it, it becomes a trail.

So, how to make a nice deep, wide trail in the brain with thoughts infused with faith rather than fear? The smug motivational speakers say, “Just decide to!” Gee whiz, why didn’t *I* think of that? But I’m gradually sanding down my cynicism after seeing some spectacular results in areas of life that don’t carry such high emotional voltage. So, if it works for some things, shouldn’t it work for the rest, if we just keep past pain where it belongs and not hurl it forward so that we trip over it when we get out there in the future?

Whenever I experience a period of real joy, it really strikes me that “this feels so much better than pain!” Very obvious, I know, but it feels - weightless, and that takes me aback. Like I took a strong pill to relieve a headache or something, but the pill was just driving in the sun with Pat Metheny blaring, or those rare weeks or months when I have time AND money, or a really good Valencia orange. So where does that all go? Why do we humans cling so easily to pain and fear that joy seems so weird and foreign? By now, everyone’s probably heard about how the limbic brain holds memories of caveman fears. Shouldn’t we be over the whole saber-toothed tiger thing by now? Or have we just replaced it with other forms of doom we cook up because shit happened back then? Outcomes vary, but the worst-case scenario almost never happens unless we pursue it doggedly in our heads.

So where can we dig up some faith? That word means different things to different people, but it really boils down to refusing fear. Not forgetting the valuable lessons learned from past disasters, but just refusing to get in that cab ever again, and consciously choosing to believe that something good can and has happened, too. Think about scenarios that worked out beautifully. What was your state of mind while it was unfolding? Probably not fear. Probably more a belief in goodness, or luck, or the kindness of others, or your own value. So if you could do it for those things, what would happen if you applied that faith to things that have not gone so well in the gone gone gone past? Worth a shot!

Amazing things can happen if given the chance.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Secrets

I asked my dear friend to give me a prompt - a topic to write about, since I don’t always want to write about holidays. She said, “Secrets.”  OK, I've had a  few. Mostly just secret recipes.

I’ve always considered secrets to be things that were harbored by people with more interesting lives than mine. I can’t think of a single secret I have, save perhaps my guilty pleasure in 1970s disco music. How can anyone diss a sound that gets you on your feet like that? Are there really people who prefer to listen to sounds that make you want to kill someone? Or yourself? I recall Blue Oyster Cult…. not a bad song musically, that Reaper one, but I’d rather listen to Earth Wind and Fire call me a Shining Star any day. And Boogie Oogie Oogie till I just can’t boogie no more.

So that’s my only secret, unless I really go deep and admit things that I haven’t admitted to myself yet. I know they’re there. I’ve seen their shadows cross my wall in the setting sun once in a while, but I have not fully embraced them yet, and the years are careening by. I’m not convinced that getting a firmer grip on my elusive inner secrets will really make much of a difference in my life at this stage, so I keep other peoples’ secrets instead. And very well, although some of them I really would rather not know. I do think everyone is entitled to a few secrets, especially when complete and total surveillance is breathing on us hotly in our nearly complete technocracy. Telling our secrets to each other on a deserted beach or in the car (and I'm not even sure about that anymore) is the only privacy we have left.

The kinds of secrets that cause pain are a different animal, though, and I’m happy to be personally free of those. Is there really such a thing as a true secret? People whisper that they have one and inevitably tell it, and gossip is born, which is very damaging. I have likened gossip to a few shots in the dark that turn into a hail of bullets seeking an army to fight a one-sided war. One whisper that is most likely completely ill-informed becomes a recruitment tool for people whose lives are so small that they have to entertain themselves by making up lies about someone else's. There is the type that is meant to protect the innocent from a known bad actor, and then there is the flat-out mean-spirited gossip that can shred an innocent heart. And it doesn’t die easily. One has to kill it with gusto. Perhaps accompanied by some heavy metal.

Personally, I’m an open book with no glossary at the back. I love animals but my naturopathic doctor said I can never be a vegan. I come as close as I possibly can without tipping into Addison’s Disease. Sorry, Vegan Nation, I love you and what you stand for, but I have adrenal issues. And I would literally attack with a nail-studded 2 x 4 anyone abusing an animal in my presence. Not hyperbole, I really actually would, but there would be just a lot of screaming first.

What else? I hate cilantro. Who made this a thing? I was grateful for the arugula and fennel pollen trends, but good God. This is leafy PineSol. I resent having many otherwise delicious dishes ruined by this herbal curse.

Do you have a secret? Why do you need to keep it? Are you afraid to be ridiculed as in being a disco fan, or do you feel something you think you shouldn’t feel? Is there judgement attached to it, or fear? Are you doing something you don’t want anyone to know you’re doing because something else is not making you happy? Do you keep a secret out of hurt or anger?

Someone once lifted the scales from my eyes when she said to me, “Anger is just a normal reaction to unmet needs.”  I think perhaps unmet needs also lead to things one has to keep secret. A cruel catch 22. What would the gossip-mongers do with their little selves if all of our needs were miraculously met and secrets were unnecessary? How can we figure out how to have our needs met without spiraling down into secrets that might hurt someone? I think it always comes down to really deep, fearless honesty. With others but first with yourself. You can’t tell the truth to others when you’re lying to yourself.

Are you keeping something inside to hold up the status quo? Avoid a rocky boat? Does that make you happy? Sometimes when you fall out of a boat, a dolphin gives you a ride to the warm, sunny shore. Stay adrift or hitch a ride to the beach?

Free your secrets, free your heart.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Back to School

During the summer, kids usually sneer at the idea that returning to school is dead ahead and their free afternoons and evenings will now be overtaken by lessons and numbers they will almost never use as adults. (They knew it but they had to keep us busy somehow.) Who still uses long division? I admit, I have a few times but computers have replaced our brains already, and now perhaps our livelihoods and our cars and maybe ultimately our - free will? I hope I’m dust before that happens.

I have a nice little fantasy that all those monks in the Himalayas have to say when someone asks them for the meaning of life is: Love. Love is the meaning of life, and yet so many people go without it. What is the meaning of their lives? I think the monks keep a parchment in the breast pockets of their orange wraps that says, “Don’t tell them that they have to suffer by learning hard lessons for their souls to progress. Just don’t say it.”

I’ve always wanted to question these folks who have near death experiences and come back to say that, once you’re on the other side, you suddenly know EVERYthing, including, I presume, the meaning of life. So my question is, if we suddenly know everything already as soon as we croak, why do we have to learn such hard lessons while we’re here in the meat suit? This leaves me pondering the following alternate explanations:

1. We are all in a video game written by a race of very advanced but abjectly sadistic extraterrestrials. Sadistic little grey bastards.

2. We did this on a dare. As declared in one of the more spectacular near-death experiences I read about in the 80s where a woman went on a prolonged visit to the other side, she was told: “Only the most valiant spirits dare come to Earth.” I like this one. I think this one, yes. This makes me feel like someday we will all be draped with shiny medallions while standing on a platform as they play the Earth anthem. All the namby-pamby spirits will be cheering in the stands and we will have our names on plaques on pearly buildings in some fabulous happy city.

3. This 3rd dimension—this sometimes really crappy dimension—is a school where we come to learn lessons, sometimes the hard way and sometimes through joy. I think one of the major lessons we are here to learn is gratitude, and that usually comes with relief or a gift or just a sunny sky on your day off. It sure feels like school sometimes. And personally, just when I think I have graduated to some higher level on the spiral of understanding and maturity, another lesson gets slapped down on my desk. It ain’t over until it’s over.

So it’s back to school time for the kids, and for anyone who is still alive. They say you don’t check out until you’ve learned everything you came here to learn. Many years back when I had just arrived in California, I encountered first a young rattlesnake living under my front steps, and then an enormous gopher snake on the walkway, and then another kind of snake in the wood pile, not to mention yet another one who took my rent check every month. So I had to look up “Snake Medicine” and was told that it indicated a transformation though learning lessons. Way back then, I asked, “OK, but can I learn these lessons from bunnies and hamsters? Does it have to be snakes all the time?”

I read recently that every time we learn something new, it creates new wrinkles in our brains (where I would like them to stay). I like to learn. I fight it at the start, but then I surrender, and then I’m glad I did. So I guess that’s the Back to School for us oldish people — resistance is futile if you want a wrinkly brain, so surrender and JUST DO IT. And then you’ll be glad and one more thing will be easy instead of frustrating.

Welcome back to school after what I hope was a lovely summer. I hope that part about valiant spirits gives somebody else a little shot of validation as it does me every time I think about it. And may your school year, however old you are, go smoothly, with kindly teachers, decent lunches and awesome recesses.

© 2020 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Friendship Day

I sat for the longest time trying to start this paragraph. Thoughts and emotions are all balled up like yarn when I think of my friends and these relationships that have kept me alive for so many years. It's like trying to describe how you feel about oxygen, but with your deepest heart rather than your brain or lungs. Of all the relationships I have ever experienced -- familial, romantic, or even with my dogs (well, maybe I will hold out the dogs from this because they are supernatural) -- the relationships I have had and still have with my precious, precious friends are at the center of that ball, like the core that keeps everything from unraveling, and words are inadequate to express what they have done for me, kept me from, and lifted me to. I love you all so much. You are the world to me. New and old, and as yet unmet. To me, friends are proof of God.

Part of life is seeing people come and go from your circle, even friends you thought would be with you forever. Life takes a turn and you are preoccupied with a challenge or a loss or a new path that takes up your time, months or years go by, and then the day comes when you remember. Or a thoughtless word is spoken and feelings are hurt or misunderstandings take root and choke out what brought you both to friendship in the first place. I think we should never feel like it's too late to reach out again. And we should never let cheap, worldy things come between us. Ever. This world and its assaults are very temporary. Love is not. The people who were there for you in the darkness are the ones you will stitch to you with unbreakable thread.

Time goes very fast when we're behind in things. It seems to slow down when we are suffering, and a heart in darkness can forget that light is just a few digits away. Make the call. He cares. She is there. They've needed you, too.

When we have the likes of National Marzipan Day (Have you ever tasted this stuff?... January 12th), National Cold Cuts Day (Really?... March 3rd), National Something on a Stick Day (I guess it doesn't matter what... March 28th), and National Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th or any day I didn't sleep and my software is giving me problems), I think National Friendship Day needs its own flag and parade and the post offices and banks should be closed and devices should be banned except for taking pictures of you with your friends. Actually talking to each other face to face. And there should be fireworks at the beach.

It's time to go do something fun and forget where we live for a few hours.

I send these things to clients as well as close friends, because my clients are my friends, too - they keep me in kibble and away from too much idle thought. I look forward to National Clients Day. But for now, I wish for everyone who reads this a fond remembering of why you love the people in your life, and why they love you. Make it really important and tell them often. Where would you be without them?

Friendship Day isn't until Sunday, but I thought I'd send this on a Friday so that most people will have 2 whole days to plan something fun with a friend.  As luck would have it, I will spend Sunday with one of mine.

Here's a musical tribute to you all. (It's kinda cutsie and I don't know what the kitties and the teddy bear was about, and I cringed at that and the kid with the pig, but otherwise, it's full of animal pals and how wrong could that be? Great song):

Making Friends

Love,

Laurie

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Independence Day

I wish we had it. Doesn't feel that way to me often. It feels as though we are jostled side to side by a very few people who have made promises and broken them with numbing regularity until they have broken us. The original Independence Day was supposed to free us from such people, so that we could celebrate this day with the stuff I remember from childhood. Fireflies and big, bad thunderstorms that we who were brave enough would leave the shelter of the kitchen and go out onto the screened-in porch and watch with Dad. I was always half afraid the lightning would travel sideways and set me on fire, but I went out and sat under a trusted arm and learned to love rather than fear the thunder.

In what feels to me like an increasingly graceless world, nostalgia is what links me with people of a similar age in a happier way than that we are both on AARP's inescapable and relentless mailing list. Things like riding out to some secret vantage point in jammies to watch the fireworks. Jammies with feet. Watermelon that had seeds. Running through the sprinkler. Drive-in movies! In jammies with feet. I miss the idea of innocence. I can't find it so much anymore.

I feel for the much younger generation (a SURE sign of imminent old age) that they don't remember some of this stuff. Slip 'N Slides! Those watery vinyl things that cracked so many ribs. People still do all these things in summer, I know. But it was BIGGER then, and not so drowned out by the un-innocent things that accompany childhood these days. I like to remember summers when people held ice cream cones instead of devices.

Sweet memories keep the floor under me sometimes, and I feel lucky to have lived in more innocent times than these. I hope the young can build their future nostalgic moments with real things over machines, with nature over screens, with wonder and occasional awe over cynicism. And I hope for this battered country that we can lose the fear of each other, find the love that is at the core of real freedom, and let the storm pass. Maybe we can stop judging and hating, start listening, reach for understanding, and see with love. I am softening to forgiveness in my own life, and I wish for all of you the same softening wherever it will serve you best. Have a delicious, glorious, innocent, wondrous Independence Day.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.

Fathers

The luck of the draw made itself known in my life when I was born to my father, Bobby MacMillan, a Scottish-American pistol from Massachusetts with sparkling blue eyes, a fun-loving heart and a fierce love for his daughter. He made friends wherever we went - at the lake, at the ski areas, at the Howard Johnson’s where we used to go a lot before I grew up and realized that orange sherbet tastes like baby aspirin.

“That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.”

― Markus Zusak

He had to travel frequently for his job, and when it came time for him to start packing on Sunday evening, I got quiet and started plotting how I could prevent him from going. I hid his suitcase under the bed when I was six. I hid his car keys the next year in the pocket of my winter coat when it was summer. Better but not good enough. I should have thrown them up into the chaos of the attic. I tried to tell him why I was determined to keep him there–as the antidote to his bitter other half–but he did not want to believe he was leaving me to pain as he went to do his job. He was a husband and father, and he had a duty that he took seriously. After driving for hundreds and hundreds of miles during the few weeks he was gone, he came home and drove us to the beach or the lake or the mountains, never admitting that more driving was the last thing he felt like doing. He wanted to make his kids happy.

A quick portrait of my dad (pictured): Sometime in the early 90s on their 50th wedding anniversary, my parents and other family members gathered at my house in NH to celebrate that nowadays-almost-unheard-of milestone, and my father showed up in a white shirt, white sweater, white pants, white belt, white socks and shoes and white hat. When I commented on his attire, he looked at me and said, as droll as you please, “I want to be the bride this time.”

A few months after he died, I went on a belated honeymoon to the Caribbean with my then-husband, and the veil between my world and the one my father is now in parted widely to provide a miracle of connection, a message of love that he and I had made a pact to deliver to the other when one of us died, and absolute proof positive that there is, in fact, an afterlife. It’s the best story I will ever have to tell, and a pocket of other-worldly hope living in my heart that the ones we love most are still alive and waiting for us in a much better place than this one. Our pets are there, too. Believe it. I know this for sure.

If you didn’t have such an ideal scenario with your father, then apply this to your mother, your grandmother, a favorite teacher or your “person”, whomever that might be. Today is Father’s Day and my Dad is expecting me to gush, not that I need a holiday as a prompt.

Good men with unselfish hearts are natural mentors, and they, like all of us, need to be needed. Maybe there’s a good father out there who is looking for a son or daughter to love. If your blood father fell short of the kind of love you needed, find the love of a good father in someone who needs you as much as you need him.

If you were lucky enough to have a father like mine, spend some time with him today. Even if he’s passed, he’s around. He’s protecting you still, and rooting for you, and wanting you to know it.

I love you always, Dad, with all my heart. See you when I get there.

© 2019 Laurie MacMillan All rights reserved.