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Excerpt from "Men & Women: Talking Together" with Deborah Tannen and Robert Bly

Note: this award winning  title is Free through this Wednesday evening, Enjoy!

Men's movement pioneer Robert Bly and relationship communication expert Deborah Tannen help us understand how men and women communicate differently and how they can learn to appreciate the other's point of view, as evidenced in this transcribed excerpt from Tannen and Bly's terrific program "Men & Women: Talking Together".  Recorded Live at The New York Open Center.

In a way, a conversation is a ritual. And to come home and tell everything that happened is a ritual, and it’s a ritual that women have engaged in from the time they were very little. So to feel that life is going on as it should, you just want to play out those rituals because it’s not a ritual that men understand. It’s not one that they’ve done. And I want to say right here that all evening we are going to be saying women and men. And nothing that we say will be true of every woman and every man. There are a lot of cultural differences here, too.
 
So I do hear from couples who will say the husband comes home and wants to tell everything and the wife says if it’s not a problem, don’t talk about it. Stop complaining if you don’t want to do something about it. So you hear it from both sides. But because it’s a ritual that most women understand and most men don’t, he looks for the literal reason for the talk and he doesn’t see a reason for that talk. And it’s very frustrating to do something that you don’t understand the reason for. So I’ve had people say, “Well, you know, just say to him I don’t want you to tell me what to do. Just listen to me.” And that makes perfect sense except it will drive a person crazy to sit and listen to something that they don’t understand why they’re listening and what it’s getting at.
 
So sometimes, it’s just as reasonable -- I sometimes use my own husband as an example here. I don’t think he’ll mind. He’s sitting out there. He’s smiling so far.  So I remember I was talking and he said, “Well, I know you just want to talk about it and you don’t want me to give you the solution, but it’s too frustrating for me to sit here and listen when I know the solution. So let me tell you the solution and then you can keep talking about it if you want to keep talking about it.” So that is just as good a compromise, and I’ve heard of couples, too, that compromise in the following way. Not just as you said where they both kind of find different ways of talking but they may have an understanding where she will give him a half hour to not talk and then he will give her a half hour to talk.

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Robert Bly Bio and Links

 

 

Excerpt from "Witches, Scholars, and Other Freedom Fighters" with Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem offers us this excerpt from her recording “Witches, Scholars and Other Freedom Fighters.”

 

What was true in my day is still far too true now, and so we need scholars who are revolutionaries and who dare to think what we might study if we looked at the world as if everyone mattered, and if we studied each continent in the reality of their existence instead of the political fact of their power, in our view of the world.  In fact by not doing that we are missing a very great deal. Think about what we did not learn about the Native-American cultures.  There are hundreds of sophisticated peoples, yet we are only just discovering how useful to us Native American cultures are that were already in this country before it was “discovered”.  And think about the true source of much of our democratic tradition in this country.  

I doubt very much the immigrants -- the European immigrants who came here -- knew a great deal about ancient Greece.  And in any case, in ancient Greece, only about five people voted.  It was a very limited privilege -- very limited privilege -- and in fact the source of our knowledge about democracy really came from the Native American cultures that were already here. We learned the structure of our government from the Iroquois confederacy. And those wise people advised us and were present in Philadelphia explaining that it was of course possible to allow a high degree of autonomy as they did to various nations.  The Cherokees and others still cede overall umbrella powers in a confederacy. Benjamin Franklin admitted that this is a major source of our democracy in this country, but with condescension: “Well if those savages can do it so can we.”

 

Excerpt 2 from "The Shadow Effect"

What is The Shadow Effect about?  In this excerpt from the Introduction, co-author Debbie Ford tells us what she, Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra teach us in this important new book.

Introduction - Part 2

This book reveals a new truth—shared from three life-changing perspectives—that the opposite of what we fear we will experience is what actually occurs. Instead of shame, we feel compassion. Instead of embarrassment, we gain courage. Instead of limitation, we experi­ence freedom. If left unopened, the shadow is a Pandora’s box filled with secrets that we fear will destroy everything we love and care about. But if we open the box, we discover that what’s inside has the power to radically and positively alter our lives. Then we will step out of the illusion that our darkness will overtake us and instead we will see the world in a new light. The compassion we discover for our­selves will ignite our confidence and courage as we open our hearts to those around us. The power we unearth will help us tackle the fear that has been holding us back and will urge us to move power­fully toward our highest potential. Far from frightening, embracing the shadow allows us to be whole, to be real, to take back our power, to unleash our passion, and to realize our dreams. 

This book was born out of a desire to illuminate the many life-altering gifts of the shadow. In the following pages, each of us will approach the subject from our own unique perspective as teachers. Our intention is to provide a comprehensive, multi-lens understand­ing of how the shadow was born within us, how it functions in our lives, and most important, what we can do to discover the gifts of our true nature. We promise that after reading this book you will never think of your shadow self in the same way again. 

Excerpt from the Herman Hesse classic "Siddhartha"

Enjoy this excerpt from this new translation of the beloved Herman Hesse classic Siddhartha.  Siddhartha chronicles the spiritual evolution of a man living during the time of the Buddha.  The following chapter is titled "Awaken".

As Siddhartha left the grove, leaving the Buddha, the perfect one behind, leaving Govinda behind, he had the feeling he was also leaving behind in the grove his life, up to that time, and separating himself from it. He pondered this feeling, which completely filled him, as he slowly made his way. He pondered deeply, sinking down in to the depths of this feeling as through deep water until he reached the point where the causes lie, for to know the causes, so it seemed to him, that is what thinking is, and only in this way, to feelings become knowledge instead of being wasted. In this way they become meaningful and begin to radiate what is within them.

Excerpt 1 from "The Shadow Effect"

We are pleased to share with you the introduction from The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self -- the fantastic new book by New York Times best-selling authors and internationally acclaimed teachers Debbie Ford, Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson.  These three luminaries, each with a signature approach, bring to light the parts of ourselves we deny but that still direct our life. For it is only when we embrace our shadow that we discover the gifts of our authentic nature.  

Introduction - Part 1

The conflict between who we are and who we want to be is at the core of the human struggle. Duality, in fact, lies at the very centr of the human experience. Life and death, good and evil, hope and res­ignation coexist in every person and exert their force in every facet of our lives. If we know courage, it is because we have also experienced fear; if we can recognize honesty, it is because we have encountered deceit. And yet most of us deny or ignore our dualistic nature. 

If we are living under the assumption that we are only one way or another, inside a limited spectrum of human qualities, then we would have to question why more of us aren’t wholly satisfied with our lives right now. Why do we have access to so much wisdom yet fail to have the strength and courage to act upon our good intentions by making powerful choices? And most important, why do we continue to act out in ways that go against our value system and all that we stand for? We will assert that it is because of our unexamined life, our darker self, our shadow self where our unclaimed power lies hidden. It is here, in this least likely place, that we will find the key to unlock our strength, our happiness, and our ability to live out our dreams. 

Excerpt from "Global Mind Change" with Edgar Mitchell

Dr. Edgar Mitchell  -- the sixth person to walk on the moon – talks to us about what what it means to be a human and our place in the universe in his series of lectures, “Global Mind Change.”  Following is an excerpt from that series.

I like to suggest that there is a challenge here. Throughout most of human history we have strongly believed ourselves to be very physical beings -- rooted in our physicality, experiencing what we would like to think would be a wonderful life.  But quite often, experiencing a lot of trauma and pain and all of those things that go with being human, that is the opposite of having ups and ups and ups. And the question is why? We are rooted in our physicality and yearning for a spiritual experience and trying to ask ourselves: Why me? What’s this all about? And we particularly ask that question “Why me?” when things turn sour. 

I suggest to you that the way we need to look at it is that we are not really physical beings yearning for a spiritual experience.  We are in reality eternal creative beings creating a physical experience, and it takes quite a shift in mindset to get yourself around that one.  But tonight we’re going to give it a try.  For those of you who haven’t heard me before, why is this important?  What is it about now, that I would bring this up?  What is it about the contemporary period that we live in that perhaps makes this a vital alternative viewpoint to think about and to look at? I will tell you that in the last year I have seldom spoken with a person who did not think that something very strange was going on, who did not think that the world was in a rather major crisis and it seemed to be deepening.  I will suggest to you that in the last six months it has become almost overwhelming.  I can’t talk to anyone who doesn’t feel that way.  They seek me out and my telephone is ringing off the hook.  Things are happening in ways they haven’t happened before. 

Next, BetterListen! will offer and excerpt from Edgar Mitchell's recording "Science and the Inner Experience".

Edgar Mitchell Bio and Links

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Excerpt from "Your Universe and You" with Edgar Mitchell

We are pleased to continue to bring you even more from Edgar Mitchell with this excerpt from "Your Universe and You".  

There is a fundamental original design for all of this.  A priori knowledge that the universe was constructed in thought a priori and laid out in all its glory, and we are just following a plan.  That isn’t the evidence either.  The evidence is that we’re in an evolving, creating, self-organizing, learning universe.  And the consciousness that is us is a part of the consciousness that is creating it all along.  And that, instead of being passive participants in this play, we are the major actors and have been all along.  We just forgot who and what we are.  So the ancient question can be rephrased only slightly, to give us a better picture of what it is that we are dealing with.  Virtually all of our systems of the past have talked about our physicality; we’ve expressed ourselves as physical beings yearning for a spiritual experience.  And if we turn that around and say that the alternative is that we are eternal conscious beings creating a physical experience, I think we have it closer to being right.  The problem is that it is very difficult for us to experience that.  

 

How many have heard Deepak Chopra, Dr. Deepak Chopra?  Quite a few of you. Good. Some haven’t.  Dr. Chopra is an Indian by birth. Not an American Indian -- the real type.  Trained in the west. Family of physicians.  On the staff at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Hospital and at this point dedicated to bringing some of the ancient wisdom of the ayurvedic medical techniques into western medicine.  And he speaks of these subjects, virtually the same as I do, but from the point of view of medical scientist and practitioner.  And he gives a wonderful little analogy that I like so much from his native county and it’s called precognitive commitment.  It is the notion that you take a young elephant and tie them with a small green vine in their youth, and then as they grow up -- I mean you always tether them with a small green vine -- but when they grow up they may be able to break a chain tied around their leg but they can’t break a small green vine. Because they are precognitively committed to that which confines them.  If you take insects and put them in a closed jar, and keep them alive in there for awhile and then take the lid off, very, very few will escape.  They are precognitively committed to their environment.

 

We have become precognitively committed to the idea that we are physical first and spiritual second when it is really the other way around.

Edgar Mitchell Bio and Links

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