Land of Oz Workshops Blog: A Beautiful Mind

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: A Beautiful Mind: A Beautiful Mind Last year I spoke at the Fielding Institute's International Conference on Positive Aging in Los Angeles. The event w...

A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind

Last year I spoke at the Fielding Institute's International Conference on Positive Aging in Los Angeles. The event was held at the Center for Non-Profit Management which sits next to Chinatown and the old Union Train Station. It is one of the most colorful and historical areas of Los Angeles. The conference presentations were divided into 4 categories: wellness, life transitions, creativity, and community.

Aligning the main hallway leading to the workshop room where I spoke were twelve prominent and huge and colorful posters, each inscribed with one of the statements below. When I stood beneath these mammoth posters, looked up and read what these wise elders had to say about the power of maintaining a beautiful mind, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down each of their quotations.

A beautiful mind feels free to discover new things and to open new doors.

A beautiful mind avoids rigid thinking.

A beautiful mind is optimistic and sees the good in life and seeks out the good.

A beautiful mind believes that excellent nutrition is a pathway to inner peace.

A beautiful mind finds enjoyment in daily experiences and savors those experiences.

A beautiful mind stays physically active and knows that exercise enhances the mind/body/spirit connection.

A beautiful mind thinks creatively and looks for solutions.

A beautiful mind lives in the moment while playing with future possibilities.

A beautiful mind takes risks and loves to learn new things.

A beautiful mind knows how to play, enjoy, relax, and have fun.

A beautiful mind is not concerned with age but instead finds ways to thoroughly enjoy the fruits of aging.

A beautiful mind notices and appreciates the splendor of nature, music, art, and dance.

A beautiful mind loves loving and being loved.

Because of the negative ways the media portrays the aging process in America, we typically have very limited and biased views of what it means to age graciously and healthily. I’ve met thousands of people through my former classes at Santa Barbara City College who were enjoying aging and thriving in their respective lives and I have met thousands of people who were dreading aging out of fear of what their future holds.

I do not regard aging as a process of deterioration. Instead, I see it as a process of change. We have the ability and opportunity to impact these changes favorably or unfavorably. We can do more to improve our health and wellness than we think we can. Our goal is to be more proactive and to take the time to educate ourselves on how we influence the development of the brain by our thoughts, feelings, quality of life, and how we view our future.

The authors of these compelling proclamations were obviously vibrant people who had discovered the secrets of transcending the world of problems and conflicts and opening their minds to a higher vision of what is possible.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Love Lessons of the Tin Woodman

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Love Lessons of the Tin Woodman: Farther down the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy and the Scarecrow come upon something shiny positioned between the trees that stops them in the...

Love Lessons of the Tin Woodman

Farther down the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy and the Scarecrow come upon something shiny positioned between the trees that stops them in their tracks. Upon further investigation they find a man made entirely of tin who stand perfectly motionless. Dorothy hears him make some sounds.

“Did you groan?” she asks.

“Yes,” answers the Tin Man, “I did. I’ve been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me.”

“What can I do for you?” she inquires softly.

“Get an oil can and oil my joints!”

Scarecrow and Dorothy find the oil can and methodically begin to oil all the places the Tin Man bends and moves. Within a few minutes he is like new again. He asks them were they are going and when they tell him, he wants to know if the Wizard of Oz can give him a heart.

Tin Man says, “The greatest loss I have ever known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one.”

Tin Man is right. To love another is one of the greatest experiences in life and to be loved in return is a miracle to be cherished. Love is essential to life. Love is life. Love shines as the subject of poets, the music of composers, and the lyrics of song writers. Love transforms ordinary life into an extraordinary experience.

Like the Tin Man says, love asks that we open our hearts again and again. It asks that we let others off the hook, forgive, and let go of everything that disturbs our inner peace. Love invites us to be more accepting and caring toward ourselves and others, to do more of the things and say more of the words that bring us closer together. Love thrives on feelings of gratitude and is enhanced when we do the uplifting things that make us feel more alive.

Love is the great healer. Love is transformative. Love is why we are here. To love and be loved is the greatest wisdom. No matter how you feel about love and sharing your life with another, the only thing that holds us back from taking the risk again is fear. Fear creates obstacle after obstacle, leads to judgments and criticism and prevents us from deeply and satisfyingly loving and being loved.

The Tin Man’s story is a wonderful tale of having been in love and wanting to be in love again. There is no blame. There is no guilt. There is no anger. Because Dorothy hears his cry for help and extends her hand, the Tin Man’s hope for loving and being loved is reawakened and his imagination is revitalized. The truth sets him free.

Like the Tin Man, open your heart again and again; for to love and be loved is life’s most gratifying gift and greatest joy.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Abraham Maslow

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Abraham Maslow: We owe a great debt of gratitude to the pioneering work of psychologist Abraham Maslow, founder of the school of Humanistic Psychology. His...

Abraham Maslow

We owe a great debt of gratitude to the pioneering work of psychologist Abraham Maslow, founder of the school of Humanistic Psychology. His research set the tone for a new and positive direction in the field of psychology.

Maslow was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and was the oldest of 7 children. After high school he attended City College of New York but dropped out after a year because he hated the curriculum there. In 1927 he began studies at Cornell University but left after one semester because of poor grades. He went back to City College, completed his studies there, and then went on to the University of Wisconsin in 1935 where he got his degree in psychology. He went to graduate school at Columbia University where he met the man who would deeply influence him and the future creation of his theories of human nature, Alfred Adler.

In graduate school Maslow began to question how the field of psychology came to its conclusions about the human mind and mental illness. Therefore, in contrast to conventional psychology which solely studied the mentally ill and created theories of mental illness and pathology based upon that research, Maslow studied mentally healthy people who were generally happy, creative, and involved with life. Maslow said that if the field of psychology only studied and classified mental illnesses, we would continue to have a ‘sick psychology’. In order for the field of psychology to truly progress and to understand the full dynamics of the mind and human nature, psychology must also study creative, fulfilled, and well-adjusted people; those that Maslow referred to as peak achievers.

Maslow’s research boldly looked at how people develop feelings of safety, security, love, friendship, intimacy, accomplishment, and fulfillment. For those who lived life more in this transcendent realm of consciousness, peak experiences were the most important and most precious things in their lives. He found that peak achievers noticed the beauty and sacredness in everyday life more frequently, felt a deep connection with a Higher power, felt a reverence for the fragility of human nature, experienced more unconditional love and fewer judgments for themselves and others, and were a powerful source for manifesting harmony and good will. These attributes created the foundation for the human potential movement he inspired in the late 50’s and 60’s.

In 1986, organizational psychologist Marsha Sinetar wrote a fascinating book based upon the work of Maslow titled, Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics. Sinetar interviewed hundreds of people and came to the conclusion that ordinary people, people like you and me, can and do live in ways that express their highest and most cherished values, values that are the most prized universally and collectively throughout history.

Abraham Maslow was a trail blazer who taught us that we have an innate potential for greatness. One of his best books, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, created a much needed consciousness and balance within the field of psychology and was the inspiration for the transpersonal/spiritual psychology movement in the early 70’s.