Tag Archives: self-help

Book review: The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time

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The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time by Matthew Fox. Highly recommended.

In The Reinvention of Work, Matthew Fox brings together the work of Eastern and Western mystics, ancient, medieval, and modern, to propose a new paradigm for how we work and what we do. Citing Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard von Bingen, the Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, Studs Terkel, Patch Adams, and progressive economists, Fox explores the concept of work and how it can be healthier physically, emotionally, and intellectually, but primarily socially, environmentally, and spiritually.

Fox believes that the Enlightenment and the industrial age have left us with a machine-centered, anthropocentric world that focuses on outer work and rewards at the cost of inner work and spirituality, and destroys rather than creates. Real wealth results from preserving the health of the planet, not in the artificiality of money or possessions. The result has been a world often at war, where the gaps between affluent and poor continue to spread, where the environmental health of non-industrialised nations is sacrificed for the comforts of the industrialised, and where the work that is available and that most people have serves machines and leaves the worker stressed, addicted to work, ill, angry and even violent, and unfulfilled intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Fox cites mystics like Eckhart and Aquinas to show that they understood what is important and that they prophetically understood the traps that man is prone to fall into. He also recounts the stories of people who reinvent themselves through work, who are willing to sacrifice position and possessions to find an avocation that matters, like the man who gives up a high-paying position to become a fireman and who is ecstatic about the meaning it brings to his life.

Fox carefully sets up all that is wrong with our modern concept of work and, indeed, life, since so much of who we are, how we feel, and how we live is tied up in what we do for a living, or what we mistakenly call “work.” His proposed solutions are centered around creation spirituality, which is a “creation-centered mysticism that is also prophetic and socially transformative.” While creation spirituality is not very clearly defined here — Fox has written several other books about it and refers to them — it appears to center around the idea that creation comes from within and that we create our world, which is part of a greater, interdependent cosmos that continues to undergo creation. For Fox, “enlightenment” might mean recognising and embracing creation spirituality and our responsibility and role in the ongoing creation of the cosmos — a recognition that begins with inner work and extends outer work, and that redefines wealth and poverty. Fox is quick to point out that this is neither communism nor socialism, both of which suffer from the same destructive values as capitalism.

There are many elements involved in creation spirituality, which embraces many aspects of life that have been neglected, distorted, or abused, from education, health care, art, psychology, and sexuality to something he believes is critical yet missing or misused — ritual. In creation spirituality and the reinvention of work, properly conceived and performed ritual is meaningful, bringing people together, bringing out emotions, and acknowledging what has been done in the name of war, destruction, and hate. Ritual can also be playful and energising, for example, circle dances. Whatever the focus, ritual brings us together to share our common joys and sorrows. Ritual heals.

Mysticism appeals to me, and Fox’s assessments of what’s wrong and what could be done to change our course make sense and are supported by the quotes he provides from a broad array of sources, including psychologists, economists, writers, and artists. The consequences of not changing are clear, but it is equally clear that those consequences have not penetrated to either the masses or their leaders. (Even the rising price of gasoline in 2005 has not inspired any more than cautious apprehension.) We are like smokers who are able to quit our habit only when terminal lung cancer has been diagnosed.

To get billions of conditioned consumers (and their consumers-in-training children) to give up their increasingly complex lifestyles, comforts, and amusements in the interest of a healthier, more just world for all and for better personal mental and physical health requires a utopian change that most people will not embrace. As with the Woolgers in their book, The Goddess Within, Fox tries to find a movement in the mid-1990s that has not materialised yet. Generally, people do not choose to change; they are forced to. Perhaps someday, when the gaps have widened too far, and society and our home can no longer support our appetites (and the corresponding waste), we may be ready to listen to Fox and his adherents, at which point they will need to provide practical answers. Who will “make ritual”? Who will produce the necessities and how? Who will distribute them? How will they be paid, or what will replace a monetary/barter economy? What if there is imbalance between what people want to do and what needs to be done? In practical, everyday terms, what does the reinvention of work look like? And do I want to live long enough to experience the disasters that are likely to be required to bring it about?

Eckhart, Aquinas, von Bingen, the Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching — all wise beyond their times. And beyond ours as well.

21 August 2005
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women’s Lives

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The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women’s Lives by Jennifer Barker Woolger and Roger J. Woolger. Not recommended.

The Goddess Within is an attempt to explore and explain contemporary psychological issues and social trends through the ancient Greek goddesses Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hera, Persephone, and Demeter. The premise is based on the idea that the whole goddess of more matriarchal times has been divided and wounded, that patriarchal society suffers due to the resulting imbalance, and that we need to restore the balance and the multiple roles and energies of the goddess (and women).

One problem with The Goddess Within is reflected in the subtitle. There are no goddesses that shape women’s lives; rather, humans shaped the goddesses — including their splintering. At times, the authors seem to forget that distinction, especially when they make such statements as: “. . . the two goddesses who are, so to speak, expressing their larger grievance through the two women.” Perhaps it is simply the two women expressing their own grievances, which they have in common with other women.

The most basic problem, however, is the division of everything into the masculine and feminine. Is the earth really female? The moon? Why is the sun male? The authors talk at length about the moon, but never acknowledge that, without the “male” sun, there would be no nurturing of life on earth. Why is intellect a male attribute? Emotion female? Are these the kind of labels that reveal human psychology or repress a deeper exploration? Since each goddess is held to represent certain traits, are they necessary at all? Can six goddesses represent the “feminine” in its entirety? Essentially, psychology can be made to fit into any system desired.

What is more troubling, however, is the authors’ claim that “balance” is missing in our patriarchal world and their insistence that a matriarchy should replace it. The amount of gratuitous male bashing leaves no doubt about how they truly feel about “balance.” For example: “Growing Athena soon learns to curb her frustration at male stupidity and ineptitude, however” and “All men have in them heroes, lovers, fathers, leaders, listeners, protectors of one kind or another and it is never too asking too much to make the long overdue sacrifice of the whining little boy that prevents their emergence.” The message throughout is that everything wrong with the world, from war to pollution, is due to masculine thinking.

The authors also bring a great deal of personal bias to their discussion. They believe that Demeter (motherhood) is undervalued and suggest that mothers be allowed to return to their jobs after being granted five-year leaves — a greater privilege than National Guardsmen have. They don’t point out that someone must fill Demeter’s shoes involuntarily — perhaps even a type who doesn’t want to work extra hours and who would like to experience life, too. (I’ve done my share of working late so mothers can get to day care and events on time — my own admitted bias.) They say that families with children are relegated to fast-food restaurants and blue-collar diners, another phenomenon that doesn’t fit in with my observations.

That leads to another problem — The Goddess Within seems dated. Writing in 1989, the authors discuss “movements” that the average American today has not heard of — suggesting they are not so much movements as the typical handful of people from each generation who deviate from societal norms. There has been no growing return to rural living; if anything, suburbs continue to expand. There is no growing sensitivity toward the “earth goddess” among the masses. What the authors label “patriarchal values” — war, conquest, corporate power, degradation of the earth — are even stronger today. If the question is one of balance of matriarchal and patriarchal values, as the Woolgers define them, the world is as or more out of balance than ever.

The Woolgers, however, do not seem to propose balance, but a return to the matriarchy, where patriarchal Christianity as practiced and rational science (which they tuck in together as odd bedfellows) are subject to the goddess — ignoring the benefits that Christianity and science have given western society and focusing only on the harm they have done. For example, science has brought us nuclear weapons, but it has also contributed cures, treatments, and surgeries for ailments that would have killed millions of us early in life.

Rarely do the Woolgers mention the gods — and then it is primarily as consorts to the goddesses (or, in Zeus’s case, as the ultimate patriarch). If balance of these values should be the goal of the individual and society, why not The Gods and Goddesses Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths That Shape Men’s and Women’s Lives? In their slavish devotion to the feminine (and feminist), the Woolgers devalue the masculine. To them, “no matter how much a doting father adores and is adored by his daughter, he is still far from a mother’s love of her little girl. He did not bear her in his body; he cannot experience that great mystery.” Is this really true? Does every woman who bears children experience it as a “great mystery”? And what of the great mysteries that men can and do experience? It is this lack of balance and wholeness that undermines the Woolgers’ claims.

Some women (and men) may find the goddess portraits very useful in assessing themselves and the women in their lives (for example, the Hera mother is easily identifiable) as well as their relationships. The goddess portraits and sidebars are also somewhat useful in the study of Greek and Roman mythology. Beyond that, however, The Goddess Within is little more than trendy, empty, male-bashing feminism of the worst kind.

My goddess scores:

Athena (goddess of wisdom)
17
Artemis (goddess of the wilds)
29
Persephone (goddess of the underworld)
23
Aphrodite (goddess of love)
22
Hera (queen of heaven)
9
Demeter (goddess of life)
1

5 February 2005
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

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The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D. Highly recommended.

There is no end to the ways in which human personality types can be categorised. According to Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., one of these categories, comprising about 15–20 percent of humanity, is the “highly sensitive person” (HSPs).

HSPs are individuals whose threshold for overarousal, physical or emotional, is lower than that of non-highly sensitive persons, although it falls along a scale. HSPs may be labeled “shy” or “avoidant” in school or society, when in fact they are really just trying to avoid the stress of overarousal. Aron is quick to point out that, while most HSPs are introverts, many are indeed extroverts. HSPs do not necessarily have better hearing, sense of smell, vision, etc., but their brains seem to process such incoming information at a different level. To a non-HSP, a rock concert or a casino is a loud, fun, exciting place to be. For an HSP, it is a loud, overwhelming, exhausting one that may require hours of aloneness and quiet to overcome the overarousal. According to Aron, the concept of the HSP is not mere psychobabble, but based on both psychological and physiological studies.

In American culture, and indeed in most Western cultures, HSP traits are generally seen as negative (hence, words like “shy,” “withdrawn,” “avoidant,” “inhibited”). Aron notes, however, that, in some cultures, HSPs are highly respected — in China, for example. HSP traits are neither bad nor good, but they have their positive and negative elements. While non-HSPs are warrior-kings, quick to make decisions and necessary to lead and act when such decisiveness and action are essential, HSPs are the the priests-judges-advisers, the more thoughtful group that “often act[s] to check the impulses of the warrior-kings.” Both clearly have an important role.

The Highly Sensitive Person defines the traits (with a self-assessment); asks you to accept yourself and your traits (or your HSP friends and theirs if you are a non-HSP); discusses childhood and provides guidelines for reframing experiences now that you understand your trait; and talks about such things as health, lifestyle, social relationships, work, love and sex, medicine and medication, and spirituality, with advice on how to avoid overarousal, especially unhealthy (physically and emotionally) long-term overarousal. The message is that HSPs are valuable and have a great deal to contribute to a non-HSP world that doesn’t understand us, doesn’t always value us, and sometimes is downright hostile toward us (“scaredy-cat” is something more than one HSP child has heard).

The Highly Sensitive Person is an attempt to help us understand what we need to do to find our optimal level of arousal (which is unique to the individual); manage unhealthy overarousal; and educate our family, friends, lovers, employers, teachers, physicians, etc., about our trait. It is also designed to assist non-HSPs understand their HSP friends and acquaintances. To me, it explained a lot about myself that I didn’t realise I share with others (a heightened sensitivity to loud or repetitive noises that don’t bother others, for example, and a tendency to find social events draining). There are no doubt some who would dismiss this all as self-help psychobabble — but for the HSP, this is invaluable self-help psychobabble. Highly recommended. Companion books are The Highly Sensitive Person Workbook and The Highly Sensitive Person in Love.

6 January 2002
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf