What began as a pregnant pastime in 2008 became my passion and now, 100 blogs later, I’m ready to evolve and celebrate. So, to keep current with my ponderings, please join me at the next level: www.pameladoiron.com
Here, sadly…I will no longer update.
Thank you for your feedback and following. You gave safe haven to my unfolding vulnerability. Feel free to look back at the journey on this page but let’s move on together. The best is yet to be!
Love you all…Pamela
Change isn’t easy. That is why so many of us think about it, talk about it, dream about it and plan it…but never do it. Personally, I’m tired of books on change, hope and change, petty change, changing diapers, changing my mind and even changing my coffee filter. But as Robert C. Gallagher said, “Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.” Like the harried Hudson River that rushes in front of my home, life is a formidable, fluctuating and frequently fickle force. Stand still for a second and you’ll be swept up by circumstances. Tread water and the world will leave you in its wake. To be masters of our own destinies, we must embrace and anticipate life’s vacillations. We must love change for change’s sake.
So, if success hinges on a willingness to dance with the veiled unknown, it explains why the gym walls are lined. Why ask uncertainty to partner with you when you can boogie with your own predictable kind? I know this topic intimately, as I am heading into the future, leaving my temporary self behind. Once Doiron, then Dorian, I’m Doiron once again. I’ll re-instate my original self, whether or not you mind.
Truthfully, I adopted a stage name years ago when I started acting and modeling: a facile moniker to make life easier for everyone. I was tired of my name getting butchered daily in castings. So I gave up my French spelling, went LCD, and “Voila!” my new life had begun. But sometimes we make decisions that please others but take us to a haunted in-authentic place. If we were true to our core values, we wouldn’t need to poll our neighbors, gather opinions or alter our names. Like traveling to points of light in the distance, we inherently know who we must be and what we must do to reach that illuminated space. We must face risk and public scrutiny, and be willing to stare the veiled one in the face.
When we check in with ourselves, we will hear our wise voices guiding us the right way. As Zig Ziglar said, “Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.” Whether we are chasing Moby or changing monikers, we must be fearless just the same.
In my life, passion has always been a primary player. I love to pursue my passions and be around others who do the same. Perhaps this is why I was drawn to Italy and spent two years there in my college days. I felt the energetic frequency of the air around me shift the second I stepped off the plane. The hand gestures and emotional expressions were so bold, public and frequent that I wondered…”Are Americans repressed or are Italians insane?” But when a pack of handsome, well-groomed men started serenading me on The Spanish Steps, my view of what was “normal and acceptable” permanently changed.
There, among the relics, ruins and recurrent romantic displays, I felt my humanity intensify and my heart rate elevate. Each moment became a truth grander than fiction. Life wasn’t a lifeless routine in Rome. It was a cause to celebrate. Intrigued by the daily drama, I decided to investigate and I found my answer several civilizations below the city: The Basilica of San Clemente; an historical layer-cake.
As I descended the subterranean steps to the ancient temples and churches below, my life appeared as brief as a birthday candle with lips pursued to blow. Who was before me? Who also felt immortal? Where did these millions of other souls go? While the cars and Vespas buzzed at street level, lost worlds sat silently, forgotten…below. Indeed, when your whole city is a cemetery of people who thought they were “End all, Be all” too, why not live passionately in the moment..what else are we here to do? A human life is only a flicker in the fire of eternity. Early cultures are anchored to that in a way that only spotlights the serious but silly self-importance of the new.
When we are surrounded by strip malls and not San Clementes, how do we gain time-lined perspective on our ephemeral gift? We are lucky and alive atop the layer cake! How can we embrace the now with our emotional arsenal and full faculties stored safely but stupidly away? When our culture says, “play it down…don’t embarrass yourself and color between the lines” how do we get out of the boring breakdown lane? My view is that we shift our gears into awe and wonder. We take nothing for granted and start to seek out sacred symbolism. Life comes alive when we are grateful and amazed.
My neuropsychologist father lent me a book over Easter weekend. It is called “The Cry for Myth” by Rollo May. The hunger for meaning and a connection to others is simply embedded in our DNA. When we don’t have layers of civilization under our feet to remind us, mythical narratives can be our cake. Metaphors, parables and scriptures are our pathways to passion, purpose, meaning and even faith. As long as we feel unique and isolated from the chain of civilization, we will be mired in the meaninglessness of our suffering on our miserable days. Yet, when we believe we are here to have wild and wonderful growth experiences, we can find giddy joy even in our pain. It all comes down to our interpretations and the perspective paths we take. In the end, would our ancestors consider us brainless or brilliant for pursuing our passions? Would they curse us for dancing on their graves? As Rollo said, “A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world.” That is why I’ll skip the skepticism and savor the sweet symbolism of my Spanish Step serenade.
As I have happily retreated to the urban suburbs, I have started to notice an interesting internal trend. The quiet and space have invaded my being and I no longer lust for cocktail-level conversations or drama-ridden friends. The din of The Westside Highway still bounces off my balcony but the chaos of the city no longer hums in my head.
With silence, however, comes facing oneself with raw objectivity. We find ourselves drawn to depth and decisiveness in others. As Zig Ziglar said, we seek out “meaningful specifics” rather than “wandering generalities”. The vacuous and visionless might have the right wardrobe or zip code but without passion and purpose, how appealing is that state? Life is like a layer cake with some of us forming the frosting, others the soft or solid segments, and a rare few humbly providing the plate.
As a contrast, check out Chef Jamie Oliver trying to transform the diet of American school children and then turn the dial to The Real Housewives of Whatever County. Is it more patrician to don plaid and steer an inspired initiative or to wear baubles and drive a Bentley? It takes freeing ourselves from numbing noise and needless distractions to determine what part of the cake we will be.
The sweet creamy coating is the fabulous façade that cradles the candle, tempts the palate and dazzles the eye. But the perfect bite cuts through the layers; until our fork scrapes the ceramic, we will stay starved for soul food and seek out sugar highs. Shopping, texting, comparing, surfing the internet for gossip, and engaging in petty dramas will be our forte. Until we become “meaningful specifics” it is only insatiable emptiness we will bake. If our cores crave too much noise, praise or attention, they are really begging us for richer cake. So, we must scrape off the frosting to see what lurks underneath. Are we a multi-leveled masterpiece or a layer-less sheet? Are we driven by valiant values or by our ego’s materialistic needs?
John Mason said, “You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.” It is perhaps in these words that we find our most fulfilling recipe. When we find our unique life purpose, our hunger for the hollow will cease. If we are famished for frosting, we need our layers to increase. To reach the richest part of life, we simply must go deep.
If you think it is hard to motivate yourself, imagine incentivizing an imp. The final frontier of self-understanding is a tenacious toddler presented with an unpleasant prospect. Note the war of wills when I prodded my little pigpen:
(Yelling to my 3-year old daughter as I started running the water)
Me: “Ren Ciara…It is time for the tub!”
Ren Ciara: “No mommy. I don’t WANT to go in the tub!”
Me: “But you HAVE to go in the tub. Daddy forgot to give you a bath yesterday when mommy was away.”
Ren Ciara: “No momma…I don’t wanna go in the tub…”
Me: “But you HAVE to…”
Ren Ciara: “No!”
Me: “Ren Ciara. You need to go in the tub now. Your brother is in the bath and you haven’t had a bath in two days. You need to wash your PRIVATES.”
(My daughter looked at me with a confused stare and was silent. She looked back at her coloring book and up again at me and after a long pause, shook her head with clear defiance.)
Ren Ciara: “But I don’t want to wash my PIRATES mommy!”
Once it was clear that washing “pirates” was not a pleasure or a priority, I had a good laugh and wondered what could coax my child off the chair and convince her to come to me. Rumi once said, “The intelligent want self-control; children want candy.” However, how many of us once idolized impulse until our elders insisted we were not free? Before following orders and molding to our masters, our child-self simply wanted a treat.
So we learn to delay gratification and swing wildly between self-discipline and scoffing symbolic sweets. Then we become prisoners of a puzzling paradox, unaware that we hold the key. Our liberty is not found in approval or in marching to someone else’s beat. And, it is not found in fleeting pleasures or in satisfying empty needs. It is only when our deepest desires drive us, that we find we are free. When we wonder why we are not motivated or where we hoped to be, it is often because we are still stuck listening to the vacant voices of long-gone authority. We can’t hear our highest callings when we are dancing with defiance or living just to please.
Alas…The lesson takes me back to my pigpen, my agenda and my suds-less story. There was no use in forcing my toddler to “wash her pirates”. I wanted her to do it willingly. And I didn’t want to bribe or beg her and start a mommy-pleasing streak. So I let her come up with her own good reasons for taking a tub with her baby brother. It would have nothing to do with prizes, payoffs or me. After she heard her sibling laughing and splashing, she bolted for the bathroom. The struggle with self and other had ceased.
In the words of David Campbell, “Discipline is remembering what you want”. Notice he didn’t say “What daddy wants, mommy wants, teacher wants, boss wants, partner wants or what YOU at your core hate to do”? If a 3-year old can master motivation, I think we are all capable too.
It was April Fool’s Eve, when my daughter appeared before me, shoulders draped with her security blanket, a pair of Elmo underpants over her leggings and another pair covering her head. Her little face peeked out from the stretched leg opening and with awestruck eyes, she eagerly announced, “Look mommy! Look what I did!” With my internal editor absent, I broke into laughter,” Wow, you look like the superhero of the silly!” I said. But, she wanted to be praised for her poignant use of panties. Her wide eyes shrunk in sadness as reality set in. I put my hand out to high-five her. With her creativity confirmed and her toddler talent testimonialized, she slapped my palm with excitement. “Now, let’s put Elmo in your dresser, hang up your cape until tomorrow and put this cool character to bed.”
In that moment, I saw how our feelings about ourselves are formed early and unconsciously. To protect our children we chain them to cultural codes. We teach them to be foot-soldiers of the familiar and pupils of the polished and the polite. However, in our civilized society, satire is too often a scarcity. Respect comes not from playing the jester. We kneel before the knight. We’d rather suffocate from sophistication than excel in impish idiocy. It is not who I am that determines my influence, but rather, what you think of me. Folly is for four-year-olds and risk is for the rehab-bound and the reckless. But as Henry Ford stated, “Too many men are afraid of being fools.” What might we be capable of if we dared dabble in the different? What can of worms might we open if we endeavored to fully self-express?
Elizabeth Lesser, who co-founded Omega Institute, took the podium Friday, April 1st, to speak exactly of this. On the big screen, she presented us with a symbolic image: a tarot card of The Fool, arms outstretched, stepping calmly and confidently onto the edge of a cliff. Is it our fear of being foolish that makes us mediocre? Who amongst us trusts their unique calling and gifts? Are we captives of our collective comfort zone, terrified to test the water or is greatness in our midst? Don’t the creatively constipated need catalysts for catharsis and fearless fools to lead the way? Imagine if we had the untapped talents of a thousand thinkers but had spent our lives tip-toeing in tepid water while our brilliance was begging us to play?
When it comes to our fear of foolishness, the wild-haired genius Albert Einstein put it best, “Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy.” It is only because of limiting beliefs that we won’t mix patterns or profess provocative principles. The easier choice is to be led. However, like the character in The Rider Tarot, we too need our minds, arms and comfort zones out-stretched. Our fear of folly keeps us from being mavericks, maestros and masters. Sometimes to break boring boundaries, we must stumble, look silly and wear Elmo underpants on our heads. As Brian Tracy said, “The future belongs to the risk takers, not the security seekers.” To soar to our highest potential, the fool must become our friend.
As I am deep in the trenches of career building, I’m leaving nation building up to my president, NATO and Sarkozy. My no-fly zone is enforced 3 abbreviated days a week when my enemy combatant kiddies are off at playschool and not bombarding me with binkies or dropping dirty diapers at my door. No cries for crayons, demands for Dora, or shrieks over a missing Barbie shoe. Tuesday through Thursday is peacetime. It is the eye of my own 7-day desert storm. Even with Post-Traumatic Pediatric stress, I need to lace up my boots, arm myself with inspiration and work on my professional platform. However if the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm, I am not surprised by what I see. Here I am seeking sovereignty over self and dominion over drooling dwarves while Gaddafi plays “Ha, Ha…You Can’t Catch Me!” Somewhere, on a playground, my children are chuckling while I am fatigued over their yesterday. In a distant desert a delusional despot doesn’t care what I have to say. My battles for balance are only wars if I choose to define them this way.
So, I spend my peacetime on my platform: helping the wounded learn how to reframe. It is my mission to show we can shift our perspectives and find magic and meaning in the mundane. A core part of my theory is that our vernacular holds great weight. The words we choose to define our lives can vault us to victory or doom our fates. Take the word “terrorism” which Homeland Security has replaced. A “man caused disaster” doesn’t seem to scare us the same way. A “time-limited, scope-limited military action” doesn’t trigger tears or trauma. We too can leverage language and soften circumstances as my tongue-in-cheek toddler tales demonstrate. By seeking symbolism and looking for outer signs of what our inner minds won’t see, we can be fascinated by our foibles. We can find fertilizer for our flowering and epiphanies on the world stage. Everyone is our educator if evolution is our aim.
And, if “The goal of evolution is self-conquest.” As Elbert Hubert said, then our “kinetic military action” versus “war” comparison makes a lot of sense. Maybe it time to see what we CAN control and let our leaders do the rest. Whether we are fighting to get our kids potty trained or battling perceived enemies in lands far away, how we view our realities shapes the choices we make. Are we empowered to choose our peacetimes? Are we the generals of our emotional armies and the captains of our internal states? Or are we hostages of our own hostile outlooks and captives of a corrosive colloquy? No matter where the bombs are dropping, we are free to wave our white flags on worry and establish no-fly zones for negativity.
I confess. As I have been absent from the blogosphere and working on an inspiring future, I have been paradoxically wondering if the world is about to end. Though my city has not been plagued by locusts (yet), I have witnessed two suns rising, had deer approach me less than a mile from Manhattan, and been pummeled by ponderings too plentiful for my pen. Earthquakes, Tsunamis…a nuclear meltdown; a harmless town decimated by a fatal wave. I have seen the fall of false gods, war in the Middle East and the value-less and vapid hold court on center stage. I’m just waiting for actual tears to come out of my antique Portuguese Mary statue. Trust me, I look every day.
Even as a symbolist, I know it might be too darkly prophetic to think that the star son of APOCOLYSE NOW self-destructing means anything, even though he has a bloated bank account, tiger blood and Adonis DNA. Then, I watched nervously as a cocky, cool and cancer-stricken Christopher Hitchens proclaim in his human tongue…(Yikes!)…“God is Not Great”. When a Kardashian wins public office, I’m going to grab my Mary statue, my umbrella, and my family, and run far, far away.
In jest and in gravity, what might be the purpose of this confusing cultural phase? Why are we voyeurs of the vacuous? How do we watch souls sacrifice for freedom and then bow at our altars of emptiness to pray? As fortune comes before family and the office overrides offspring, we weave webs of protective denial to block our senses. Then, we crown our hollow kings. Perhaps, as we spiral from our core values, our tattered tethers start to fray.
However, our lens is our lifeline and as Corazon Aquino said, “I’d rather die a meaningful death than live a meaningless life.” There isn’t much of a moral equivalency between Charlie and children born to dictatorships when it comes to strife. I have studied Freud and his theory of psychological projection, so I am always searching for clues in the outer world for what my inner world might not see. And I think I have found the answer. This is my personal prophecy.
Though the Mayans are closing their calendar, and a sense of impending doom and overpriced oil might fill our tanks. The vacancy of our vessels will determine our buoyancy during crises. When saturated they save us, but if cavernous, our pods will pair up with Charlie and walk the proverbial plank. A hull devoid of depth and values is an irresistible zip code for a barren baron, a cushy throne for a meaningless magnate. The symbolic end of the world can be a new beginning when we realize it is not too late. A Kardashian isn’t in The White House, evil empires are ending and freedom might prevail. Heck, we can live without Two and a Half of anything. We can slide down a local hill with our kids on inner tube or our nannies can wipe noses while we are in sipping wine in Vail. In the end, our lives are a dance of decisions. We position our priorities and we decide what values reign. I see now that my world is only over if I am marching unconsciously in the wrong direction. If my pyramid of principles is noble and my tank is overflowing, it doesn’t really matter if frogs fall from the sky or if The Malibu Messiah is insane.
One of the unlikely perks of having a restless infant is that you get to occasionally watch the dawn break. While my long-anticipated vacation to France and Holland didn’t serve me in the sleep department, I found an upside to being awake. 4am feedings became my alarm clock from Mother Nature; my chance to be alone on the beach. There, I stood silently several mornings looking out at the smooth unmarked sand and rose-pink sky above the azure Mediterranean Sea.
Day by day, I could feel the temperature dropping as young European families were replaced by retirees; sand toys were succeeded by silver-haired tourists, sales on swimsuits and a cooler breeze. September signaled school season and summer’s end but happily, the resolute rising sun would never leave.
In my rare few and precious moments of reflection before the bugles, bottles, and baby bellows, I sought divine inspiration, but out of earthly fatigue, nothing came. So, I surrendered my agenda and decided to wait for my message. I could enjoy the stunning beauty of nature just the same. While I had gathered little lessons throughout the excursion, I couldn’t tie up the symbolic strings and give my theme a name. It was actually late Monday night, riding home in a yellow cab from JFK airport that my chapter was summarized. Out a dirty car window, my view was suddenly reframed.
As my husband and I pointed off into the distance, there, hovering above Manhattan was a large crescent moon. Our two-year old daughter’s gaze followed our fingers to the wondrous sight. However, her reaction took us by surprise. She exclaimed, “Oh no!! The moon is broken!” What we all saw was physically the same thing but her perspective was altered by an innocent mind. Suddenly, my thoughts raced back to so many spectacular holiday moments, where I felt my breath deepen and my shoulders drop, amazed, like a child, to see the world in a new way. Whether it was a statue, a storefront, a sunset or a market in St. Tropez, I was purged from my paradigm and liberated from my routine. My senses were awakened, my feet touched new ground each morning; unencumbered by my habits, I could re-invent myself everyday.
While we tend to stand firmly in our identities, we can become trapped by our tendencies like stones trapped in clay. Soon, the ground around us has hardened and our brains are bridled. We want a fresh perspective and to do things differently, but are prisoners of our pasts and patterns. We just can’t see another way.
So, my lesson to share was evident, call it a taxi tale or a travel theme. We possess the keys to the processing plant of meaning and despite our certainty, life isn’t always as it seems. We must question our assumptions, knowing the houses we live in tomorrow will be built with today’s mental beams. Whether we mourn or celebrate the summer’s ending or the day’s beginning, those who leave or those who remain, the moon might be whole or broken, all is open to interpretation. We choose joy or sorrow, peace or turmoil, loss or gain.
It was well-past midnight in Maine and I was watching the clock on a sleepless night; sandwiched between my feverish toddler and my restless infant’s shaking crib, I turned on my radio and heard about Steven Slater’s dramatic exit from his Jet Blue flight. Immediately I thought, “This sounds like a Seinfeld episode. Too funny and bizarre to be true.” But, by daybreak, this sliding Slater character had turned into a legend, folk hero and Facebook phenomenon too. Fed-up Americans were asking “Dude, Where’s my slide?” Who hasn’t wanted to grab a beer and bid adieu to their thankless job sometime? Who hasn’t wanted an exit ramp from a frustrating life?
Although the Slater incident was irresponsible and impulsive, his “I’m outta here!” moment made me chuckle and stirred my brain. I have been longing more and more for an escape from the “self-help” plane. The more I know the true cast of characters; the field is starting to worry me. The emergence of social networking sites has created an emergency. False prophets and phonies are gathering followers and claiming to know everything. Where transformational leaders once had to stand before their audience and show worthiness and credibility, now, one can paint a perfect persona and feign expertise.
Off the top of my head, I can count person after person that I’ve met who can’t save themselves but claim they can save you; a 40-something single female; never married, no kids, a scorched trail of failed loves is now a “relationship expert”, a woman divorced 5 times is the queen of “authentic partnership”, another woman teaches flocks of women globally (at a VERY steep price) to be sexual goddesses but my mini poll of handsome successful men titled her a “sloppy, delusional mess”, a man living on welfare wants to teach you about “abundance”, a multi-level marketing maven quotes Jesus and brings up Buddha to lure you into her web, a con artist takes artistic license with his coaching credentials, all your problems solved at his exorbitant fee. In this internet age, anyone can hang up a shingle and cast you in their own personal guru fantasy. Be very careful who you deem worthy of your adoration and acclaim. Do your homework, check references, go to trusted names.
Since I mentioned Seinfeld, I’ll make a parallel with Elaine… In one particular episode, she visits Champagne Video, is taken with employee picks of a mystery man named Vincent and decides to rent one of his favorites. Emotionally blown away by his selection, she goes back and works her way through his wall, never meeting Vincent, but falling in love with his imagined persona through his beloved films. By the time he agrees to meet Elaine, she arrives at his apartment, his vcr play button on a chain around her neck, vodka, cigarettes and fireworks; odd requests from her mystery man in her hands, Elaine discovers Vincent is a pimple-faced teenager living with his mother. It’s all a fabrication…The “man behind the curtain” is a sham.
Like Social networking status or Seinfeldian situations…it’s a slippery slope, you could say. But we all have the power to pull a Slater, raise our standards and slide away. Edgar A. Guest said, “The best of all preachers are [those] who live their creeds.” but in our current world, who knows what our teachers are up to? Who really checks those who lead? So, it is our responsibility to ask the questions, “Who are you? How do you live? Are you walking your talk? If I saw your home, your body, your bank account or relationships, would I aspire to trade place? Or are you a creation of your own wishful thinking, struggling yourself every day?” We should know that our mentors are 3-dimensional human beings, flawed but successful examples of their principles with legitimate resumes. Are you bowing at the altar of the bogus? Are you borrowing business skills from a myth-maker or a risk-taker…from a fiscal failure or Bill Gates? Are you learning life lessons from losers, or spirituality from a snake?
So as you log on to your guru’s site, think “Is this person really superior to me, is he/she in worse shape, or are we actually the same?” I’d venture to guess we all have our own experts within us; they just don’t have a Facebook page or a fancy name. Empower yourself to ask great questions. Be your own best coach and you’ll see, that those who seek your adoration most hope to profit not from your wellness…but sadly from your dependency. Meanwhile, in some moldy basement, on a crumb-laden keyboard, typing frantically on sticky keys, your expert’s life is crumbling, you simply can’t see. So the slide is waiting and you can exit yourself or eject your guru at any time. Demand truth from your leaders. They are imperfect like you but will rarely admit it. They’ll just feed you another holy quote or ego-soothing line. The moral of this observation is that I want to share the truth and open eyes; I want to empower those I inspire to look for their own brilliant gurus inside. In the end, we have more wisdom and treasures than we can imagine. We have our own answers, our own escape hatches and and our own inflatable slides.
Urban: from the city
Mystic: a person who seeks spiritual truths, experiences and hidden meaning
Musings: thoughts and reflections
