I’ll admit it; I’m a fan of Rachel Maddow. I feel distress for her every time she shares that she spent the whole day working on other stories, and then, what do you know, a new story has become more important by airtime.

And, yarg, all that work must be throw out.

I had another blog post for you today, but then yesterday the L.A. times published an Op-Ed, Second Opinion by Emily Falk that I think is more timely. Oh, well, I’ll do my other post another time.

Sigh.

(By revealing this personal story, I’m practicing what the article revealed.)

Here’s the more timely piece:

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU BOTHER TO READ STORIES?

What would you answer to the Why Bother to read stories question?

Are you in the camp that thinks taking time to read stories is a frivolous, shallow, self-indulgent, even a  lazy, waste of time and attention This would be the camp that thinks that reading a fiction story is a much less powerful way to learn than reading a something with “just the facts”.

I confess that during a strenuous doctoral training I sometimes thought of fiction reading as a “guilty pleasure.”

Uh-oh. To both you and myself.

If you are in the “It’s frivolous” camp, you’d be in the not-so-right camp. New neurological research shows the opposite is true.

In a recent experiment subjects were given a similar message in two ways, 1)  a personal story, and 2) a teaching, didactic statement.

Here are examples of each type of message:

A personal story such as, “Joe his never smoked a cigarette in his life. He has heart disease because he was exposed to secondhand smoke from his father.”

A teaching principle: “Smokers can harm other people. Every year a lot of non smokers die from heart disease caused by secondhand smoke.”

What they discovered was that when people’s reasoning was disrupted with neurological stimulation and then they were asked to come up with arguments for or against the statements, they could come up with much better arguments for or against the personal stories than arguments for just the facts.

The Takeaway The two types of messages were processed differently and the personal story had a more powerful effect.

These findings inspire me. Let me know what YOU think about the new findings.

Emily Falk, “How storytelling can promote social change: Stories processed in the brain differently from other kinds of information, more, deeply affect people’s belief” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2021. Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times, research provides some answers

I want to share one of the things I’m learning about the depth, pervasiveness, and horror of racism.

I have always hated any behavior that diminished or damaged the self esteem of another person. As a six-year-old, the first time I saw, in Chattanooga, TN, that “coloreds” had to have a separate bathroom, I cried for two days, my grandparents told me.

In in my role as a psychotherapist, the way I’ve worked for kindness and empowerment has been with improving how couples treat each other and how an individual treats him/herself.

Thanks to George Floyd–and the many before him and after him—my focus for “Do no harm” has widened to include race relations. I’m in the early stages of learning, discovering my own privileges, and unhelpful beliefs. Granted, right now my learning (enforced by Covid-19 avoidance) is from books, webinars and zoom sessions with my white women’s group about how we can be better antiracists. I have much to learn.

One of the most powerful things I’m learning is how I have been guilty of Tone Policing.

Tone policing is something I didn’t know about seven months ago. Here is how Ijeoma Oluo explains it in her book, So You Want to Talk about Race. “It happens when someone (usually a privileged person) in a conversation or situation about oppression shifts the focus of the conversation from the oppression being discussed to the way it is being discussed.”

Oluo goes on to say, “Tone policing prioritizes the comfort of the privileged person over the oppression of the disadvantaged person. . . To refuse to listen to someone’s cries for justice and equality until the request comes in a language you feel comfortable with is a way of asserting your dominance over them in the situation.”

Bam, crack, whoosh, fffft, pow. That’s the sound of my mind, blown.

This idea was a shock to me. After all, I grew up in an authoritarian household. I would be punished if I complained, argued, expressed anger, disappointment, or disagreed. Even if I showed those things on my face, without a word. I learned to “ask nicely,” contain any of my feelings except appreciation, and to “shut up” generally speaking, to avoid parental wrath.

That early family training, along with twenty-some years of white-taught communication trainings is getting dislodged and drawn out.

I’d love to talk, e-talk, with anybody who is also learning to talk about race. Please comment on this blog, or tweet, or Facebook comment. (See my website, upper right corner for social media icons.)

Warmly,

Aletta

Dating, Singles, Divorce, Separations, Ghosting, Cat-fishing, Marriage at First Sight, 90 Day Fiancé. All new stuff for Rebecca.

Divorced 50-year-old Rebecca liked married life and is searching for another partner. Online dating and singles groups make meeting lots of men easy.

The exciting learning curve of new dating sites and the entertainment value of meeting new men has long passed. It’s a lot of work to find an accountable, honest, smart, funny, attractive, self-supporting and emotionally supportive person—who wants to marry you.

As fourth grade teacher, she knows for sure no one is perfect, including herself.  And she’s faced with having to choose among the lying few, the plentiful geographically undesirable, and the personality challenged majority. That’s why I’m currently calling the story A Definite Risk.

No wonder she finds herself ambivalent.

Ambivalence, the experience of strong emotions that pull people in different directions simultaneously, can be painful. One particular man arouses both Rebecca’s tender feelings and her lonely, sad and angry feelings.

Who or what will she choose Find out by reading A Definite Risk.

What would you do in a similar circumstance?