drwillmiller

[drwillmiller]

When Glenn Sparks and I wrote our book on social isolation (‘Refrigerator Rights’) we identified the twin patterns of moving (relocation) along with the surge of media (especially social media) as the root cause of our current social distress. As Marshall McLuhan shared ‘it’s the screens, not what is on the screens that is matter’. And so this prophetic and distressing notion has come to full flower. And here we are dangerously divided and segmented. And worse, are now attached with ferocity to our new ‘communities’ and ‘our’ ideas and convictions. Worse yet we have become infamously intolerant of opposing communities that we find to be misguided and even dangerous. Whenever I speak to a group, I ask: “raise you hand if you have family members who no long speak to you, visit you or invite you to their homes based on fiercely held ideas?” And what about the other way? Of course most hands are raised. Where is the solution for this destructive social trend? Who has the answer? This is what troubles me most of all about our country. Where is the leadership that rises above crude passions that demonize ‘those others’? And I find it especially disturbing that many of our loudest voices shout out from their religious convictions! Good grief! No wonder so few want to attend religious practices? The distortions are grotesque and ripping us to pieces. But wait, don’t lose hope. I have faith that rescue is coming from somewhere, through someone. And I’m waiting (and yes, praying and meditating).

[drwillmiller]

I don’t know why I stopped posting here. It is such a friendly and easy app. I am back.

[drwillmiller]

Mindfulness and the Space Between

[drwillmiller]

Mindfulness and the Space Between

https://youtu.be/mdckX-S-rlM

[drwillmiller]

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Beautiful morning walk that felt great. I do notice my body getting slimmer and that feels great. My talk today is about the calling of Matthew the infamous ‘tax collector’ by Jesus to ‘follow’ him. This was a stark and scandalous illustration Jesus’s acceptance of people rejected by others. He calls them in the face of contrary social and religious norms of the time. In Judea these tax collectors took money from people for various reasons and was paid to the Roman occupiers after they took some profit. Of course they were reviled as pariahs by all Jews. So for Jesus to welcome Matthew as a follower was scandalous for sure. Now how do I articulate this in light of current social realities. When sides are drawn and powered by passion, social tensions escalate to dangerous heights. For Jesus to call followers from all sides was radical of course. But then going forward he demanded that all these followers leave behind past positions and passions and come to a new space in between. The space of the good news is here God calls us beyond our prior alignments and identities. We are to become a new creation in the form of Jesus himself, with passion only for loving God and loving all others. It’s the same call to us today, especially in light of our divided social passions. To follow Jesus is not to pick a side, any side. But only to retreat from social sides and align with Jesus and the Gospel and his call to humility and love. Jesus did not bow to any human religious, civil or political side, but only to God, the one he called his Father, the creator. When we leave our emotional alignments to human persuasions and focus on Jesus we enter the space, that space between self and others and all earthly things. We gain control of our life and the saving grace of the Gospel. Jesus IS the space between! Thank you Lord and be with me as I speak this for others and myself!

[drwillmiller]

Still being reminded of the matter I described yesterday and the connection I have as an ordained American Baptist Minister. The casual way I entered into the denomination was amusing in some sense. However the visibility brought to it by the social activism these past few years has gotten my attention. I have been thinking about this as I contemplate what is a possible expansion of my visibility as Christian minister in the current climate of intolerance and hate. I have always shied away from any public acknowledgement of my Christian Clergy identity based on fears of backlash and rejection from ‘friends’ and acquaintances. But that excuse is feeling increasingly lame and useless. I am about to turn seventy one years old and want to visualize and clarify my life and work. I have all the tools and capacity I need to communicate effectively. The issue is how and in what venues for my voice. And even there, what is the choice? Do I openly embrace the life and ministry of Jesus? How is that received and by whom? Dr. King was able to penetrate across the secular landscape with profound power by keeping his rhetoric and zeal focused on the essence of the Gospel. He was accepted across the divides of suffering and frustrated people because the integrity of his words was unimpeachable. This has to be my model. How did he speak? Where did he speak? What did he write? Obviously his focus was on racial justice in particular as an African American. But the broad brush of his message of love and tolerance and atonement for sins against justice still needs to be covered. I need to pray and think about this and how I can penetrate the cultural conversation in light of the toxic divisions in the society. I have to shake my fear of being rejected by those who will retreat from the words. I have to be brave here. The issue of the Sermon on the Mount comes to mind as the intellectual starting place.

[drwillmiller]

[drwillmiller]

https://images.app.goo.gl/cfZgzkRtVEAyQGG99

In yesterday’s church service we read the scripture from Matthew’s and the command to not judge others. I reminded the group that I have always found it inadequate to zero in solely on the idea of obedient. Just obeying the commands of Jesus about love and kindness and forgiveness and gentleness and love. Following solely as an act of raw obedience is essentially immature. This is the intersection of a parent to a child. ‘Do as I say and obey’ - Okay. But what is the response for us as adults wanting to be faithful followers of Jesus? What is the mature approach to this obedience? I was reminded of the psychological challenge of forgiving someone a who has offended us? Just suck it up and determine to forgive? How does that work in reality? Moving from repressing our feeling of anger to true forgiveness is a psychological challenge for each of us. I referenced the work of Sigmund Freud and especially Carl Jung. I was fascinated but their understanding of the unconscious. They posed we have a consciousness, our cortex awareness and a preconscious which includes memories readily available to our awareness. Like saying the word elephant that brings the image and thought immediately to conscious mind. Then there is the deep unconscious which is what is unavailable to our awareness, buried in our mostly inaccessible mind. And because this is within us, we are affected by it in unexpected ways. And one of the descriptions was the ‘shadow’ part of us that is projected out and seen in other people’ This is a significant psychological problem for each of us. So when I found myself having a reaction, usually irrigation or even anger at another person I need to ask myself are they behaving in ways that indicate feature of my own life and makeup? Is my anger at this evidently angry person or selfish person caused by my own anger and selfishness? This is the shadow! And the shadow knows!!

[drwillmiller]

Thursday, July w23, 2020

It’s been well over a year since my friend Christine suggested trying hemp CBD for my painfully arthritic hands. She gave me a bottle of ‘Recept’ oil from the company she distributes for called ‘Prime My Body’. She told me to put an eye dropper amount under my tongue morning and night. And she reminded me that this is not like regular prescribed medicine with a reliable time estimate for effect. So trusting her, I began the regime and forgot about it. I forgot about everything except for the excruciating hand pain that prevented me from even curling my fingers, let alone making a fist! Most nights the pain was throbbing and Advil had little effect. And then one morning, it was seven weeks later (I will always remember the day) I woke up and realize the pain was diminished, almost gone! Still unsure, I went on with the practice, but from that day and that moment on, I have had no pain in my hands! None. That was April 2019. To say I’m a believer is an understatement. My dexterity continues to slowly get even better and the real goal is to play my guitar once again. That would complete the miracle. So what is this stuff anyway? I have come to realize that hemp works on the brain and the immune system in ways that are obviously profound. And while it is hard for me to calculate the additional effects beyond the arthritis experience, I do know that there have been many other changes in my life I attribute to the product. My thinking and my mood have slowly but profoundly changed. It is reported in brain wave studies that hemp creates changes that effect other areas of experience. I do know that my lifelong struggle with severe attention deficit has been profoundly altered. I have been able to concentrate more effectively, meditate, read and study. I am a believer and will always use this amazing product, made from natural material that God has grown!

[drwillmiller]

I am grateful this morning for a good walk in the cool of the air after our storms. I am grateful for being healthy at the moment and committed to personal caution in the pandemic. I had a third night of moderate alcohol and slept well. The thought came to me this morning about our times and our history. In our age and life we casually assume our freedom of mobility. We can move about locally, of course. But we also assume that, unless limited by lack of resources, we can travel anywhere we like at will. I’m not even talking about exotic travel, but merely the freedom I take for granted that I can hope in my car - my car! - drive sixty miles to Indianapolis to shop, clothes or food I want. I can meet for lunch with friends there deciding at the last moment. It’s not even a thought about how unique this freedom is for us. I can drive a thousand miles to visit relatives in other states. Okay so what’s unusual? This was not even remote a possibility recently as a century ago. Now a century is a long time? Not really. The daily lifestyle for our ancestors of just two plus generations ago did not assume moving about daily more than a few miles away on foot or horseback. And this was necessity for supplies or maybe an activity in the town. Now imagine a pandemic and you had to avoid others and social distance. Here is our psychological dilemma. We feel impeded and oppressed for staying in our homes, our homes that would be considered luxurious to most in those past times. We need to reconsider our willingness to shut our lives down for a time to let this all settle. Consider the gift of our freedom of movement and how recent in history this has spoiled us. Let’s get a grip.

[drwillmiller]

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (Victim of a Toxic Workplace!)

https://youtu.be/5ShRkRFRoyU

[drwillmiller]

Thursday. June 25, 2020

I was listening to a routine a favorite comedian, the brilliant Maria Bamford. At one point she talks about her life goals. Her first life goal she says is to ‘conquer and defeat death’. I heard it again yesterday and laughed out loud in my car. It reminded me, of course that I’ve been thinking a lot about death these days for a number of obvious reasons. The pandemic is a story of death. And it’s a horrible tale of death. A silent invisible disease that can catch anyone suddenly. It then brings on a debilitating illness and a desperate, breathless end. The images are of being on a machine alone in a hospital surrounded by frantic medical people, but not your family. Gruesome! We are living with this scenario every day, for ourselves and everyone around us. Worst of all, there’s no real end in sight. So is this our anxious state for six more months? Is this our reality for another year or more? It’s just too horrible to imagine. Now for me, piling on top of this is that Sally is finishing her new book on, of all topics, running grief support groups for people coping with losses! So the topic of death is alive in my life and house. I don’t have an active fear of dying, mostly because I don’t actively think about it too much, ironic as that is right now. Although reality keeps pushing death into my consciousness these days, I’m not actually feeling the fear … yet. But it is an unsettling thought that keeps pushing itself into my mind. The curious and larger question I ask myself is just how long can I expect to be alive here? Of course we rarely know when we will die. But if it’s not on the immediate horizon how long a life will I have and how do I actually feel about this inevitability? We know this is a taboo subject in our culture. And I think that’s because we cannot feel assured enough that death is not simply the erasure of me. In fact this was the only unsettling sensation I had after surviving the widow maker heat attack a decade ago. Will my consciousness just be totally gone? Am I erased? I think that’s the primal fear. I suspect it’s less fearing the active experience of dying, but the existential uncertainty that it is a true end of me. As I often say ‘after all of this, there better be an damned afterlife!

[drwillmiller]

Wednesday. June 24, 2020

Everyone is familiar with, and uses the term neurotic. Usually it falls under name calling as in ‘he’s so neurotic!’ or ‘we all know she’s neurotic!’ It’s the more sophisticated synonym for “well, he’s nuts.” But what does it mean actually? Intuitively we know it’s a character slur trying to make sense of someone’s behavior. I know all about the term for two reasons. First, I’m a psychotherapist. But second and more importantly, I’m neurotic, always have been. The formal definition is a ‘functional disorder’ with feelings of anxiety, compulsion, obsessive thoughts. But here’s the beauty part: these are feelings without any real evidence of an underlying disease! There’s nothing wrong except you are a mess. Neuro is the Latin word meaning nerves: you have jangled nerves. Well okay, now what? Here’s the most useful description I have ever heard: it’s the inability to keep your thoughts in the present moment. You can’t stay in the now but drift forward with worry or ruminate, chewing on something past. On these terms, everyone has neurotic moments. But some, like me find it to be a constant challenge. It’s the anti-zen lifestyle and requires practice and discipline to feel relief. In my case I have always been dogged by attention deficit disorder. I am constantly distracted away from my present moment to some other place. It has had advantages. I don’t fear change. I adjust to new situations well, until, that is, I become distracted again by a shiny new object. It has caused plenty of problems for me, blessed as I am overall. I’m still working to discipline myself by staying in present moments, focusing especially on moments of consequence. In the current climate of the pandemic the neurotic impulse is triggered in each of us, whether you’re neurotic generally or not. The distressing news and alarming social media incites fear and especially uncertainty. And this invites us to leave our present moment and drift to another place. And here’s the important part. What I try to persuade my self and others is this reality: when you go to that ‘other place’ of worry and fear, you probably can’t do a damn thing about it! Leaving your distracted neurotic thoughts of anxious worry and returning to the now is the only technique that calms you. Being in the moment, however you cultivate this discipline, is the strategy for coping and protecting your body. When your thoughts have left the building and jangled your nerves, just go back home and just stay there!

[drwillmiller]

Tuesday. June 23, 2020

During the years I worked as a standup comedian in New York my best memory is the relationship I enjoyed, loved really with the other working comics. We bonded tightly with each those bonds of friendship remain today. We knew and laughed at each others’ act and onstage style, as different as night and day from our own. If there was ever any conflict between comedians it was usually brought on by anger for someone stealing your material. But we policed ourselves and that never lingered very long. In fact, earning a reputation for lifting someone else’s joke painted you and put you on notice. I remember the time that a comic I knew pretty well and worked with many times became a writer on a late night talk show. One night watching the monologue, low and behold there was one of my entire bits. Grrr. But he was far away and, by that time I had drifted from comedy clubs to corporate performing. So I just let it go. But these were not common. Comedians respected each other’s work and, quite frankly, the courage it took to perform each night as a professional, still unknown before audiences. The path to comedy success takes you through years of anonymity performing in comedy clubs, which were sometimes just bars, converted hotel meeting rooms and maybe colleges. The audiences were drinking, of course, and the energy was mostly upbeat. A great night performing was when you reached that tipping point of a delicious roar responding to your material. Nothing like it. Sometimes, however the audience included some noisy, angry drunks who couldn’t resist the need to participate in your act from down in the dark with their table of friends and girlfriends. Ahh, hecklers. Comic Jim Meyers once proposed we write a book with the title ‘Why Hecklers Must Die”. Yes. Usually the weekend show with the rowdiest crowd was late night Friday. The concoction of a fatigued group, four hours into drinking and impatient that you deliver on their ticket fee was preparation for a testing experience. Comedian Glenn Hirsch said it best one night in a car on our way to a club: “wherever you are anywhere on a Friday night at midnight, bow your heads in prayer for your fellow comics who are suffering.” Amen. But these are the experiences you endure week after week and year after year that give you the privilege of being called a member of that exclusive club, a professional standup comedian! Wouldn’t change it for the world!

[drwillmiller]

Monday, June 22, 2020

I often cite the late Psychologist Julian Rotter of University of Connecticut who coined the term ‘locus of control’. He used it to describe how we understand our capacity for control and mastery of life’s situations. It is observed as a feature of individuals as well as societies and cultures. It’s intuitive and easy to grasp, and you can find yourself on this spectrum. An ‘internal locus of control’ describes a conviction that you expect to meet and master life’s challenges. As ‘external locus of control’ means that, in contrast, some or most of your life are under the control of others. Here, individuals or systems have power over important aspects of your life. Imagine you were born and lived in a country with an oppressive political regime. You are an individual in a poor family of low status. You are forced to accept your external locus of control. You are limited to the smaller matters of survival. Millions live with this and adjust in their way. And for those who resist this reality and risk pushing against it, they are trying to recalibrate their locus of control. This defines activism and the seeds of social revolution. In contrast, of course, are those individuals and societies, like ours characterized by an internal locus of control. Whether achieved individually or not, the social norm is an expectation that I have power to achieve competence and mastery of my life and its demands. This defines the American norm and our freedom to pursue our happiness. When social norms begin to shift tilting in another direction, repressing our freedoms an emotional reaction is triggered. For an American feeling the weight of an external force causes a fierce reaction of internal turmoil if not external resistance. And I wonder how much of our epidemic of depression in America is a result of giving up one’s expectations, a surrender of internal control? What are the emotional consequences for someone giving up on the reinforced expectations to take charge of my life? What if, try as I might, in view of the expectations I was taught, I simply cannot make it?

[drwillmiller]

Monday. June 22, 2020

I often cite the late Psychologist Julian Rotter of University of Connecticut who coined the term ‘locus of control’. He used it to describe how we understand our capacity for control and mastery of life’s situations. It is observed as a feature of individuals as well as societies and cultures. It’s intuitive and easy to grasp, and you can find yourself on this spectrum. An ‘internal locus of control’ describes a conviction that you expect to meet and master life’s challenges. As ‘external locus of control’ means that, in contrast, some or most of your life are under the control of others. Here, individuals or systems have power over important aspects of your life. Imagine you were born and lived in a country with an oppressive political regime. You are an individual in a poor family of low status. You are forced to accept your external locus of control. You are limited to the smaller matters of survival. Millions live with this and adjust in their way. And for those who resist this reality and risk pushing against it, they are trying to recalibrate their locus of control. This defines activism and the seeds of social revolution. In contrast, of course, are those individuals and societies, like ours characterized by an internal locus of control. Whether achieved individually or not, the social norm is an expectation that I have power to achieve competence and mastery of my life and its demands. This defines the American norm and our freedom to pursue our happiness. When social norms begin to shift tilting in another direction, repressing our freedoms an emotional reaction is triggered. For an American feeling the weight of an external force causes a fierce reaction of internal turmoil if not external resistance. And I wonder how much of our epidemic of depression in America is a result of giving up one’s expectations, a surrender of internal control? What are the emotional consequences for someone giving up on the reinforced expectations to take charge of my life? What if, try as I might, in view of the expectations I was taught, I simply cannot make it?