Tag: mental-health

Social Media: The Good, the Bad

“Go to where you are kindest,” writes ​Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, composer of chamber and orchestral music, visual artist and author. Adolescents might not appreciate Lanier’s book, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Teens spend an average of 9 hours per day online, excluding their schoolwork, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. How much of that time is “kindness” a theme?

Among his many writings, Lanier states in his book, Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality, “TV and video games draw people into a zombielike trance.” And yet, he cites the incredible range for good in Virtual Reality (VR) — as in treating veterans’ PTSD or aiding physicians in performing delicate surgery.  

In 2005 Foreign Policy honored Lanier as one of the 100 most Public Intellectuals. In 2018 Wired named Lanier one of the top 25 most influential people over the last 25 years of technological history. However, his personal history was challenging by any standard. His mother was a concentration camp survivor. When Lanier was 9 years old, she was killed in a car accident. For extended periods Lanier lived in tents with his father before this brilliant youth helped design a geodesic dome home, a project encompassing 7 years. At age 13 he began college, studying mathematics that led to computer programming.

Other challenged adolescents find it difficult to imagine such productivity. Instead of savoring and mastering school, they barely handle the VR barrage. Some kill themselves or others. On three initiating dates in the academic calendar — the latest on April 11, 2025 — the non-profit “Beyond Differences” sponsors a student-led social justice project to change the culture of teen angst in schools. Middle school and high school students are targeted to respond to one another at school and online with decency. This year’s theme is “Unmute Your Kindness.” https://www.beyonddifferences.org/national-programs/

The social-emotional learning (SEL) goals of this pay-it-forward effort are twofold: stopping online social isolation, and empowering students to find a sense of community that engages them in taking future positive actions. The message to students is simple and yet profound:

  • Know Your Classmates.
  • No One Eats Alone.
  • Be Kind Online.


As an offshoot of the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, teachers can download free resources from “Beyond Differences” which feature a training workshop and curriculum. Parents can ask their home school to gain access to the lessons and student-led leadership guide.

Now, can we please get adults to plug into “Unmute Your Kindness?”

Kindness and goodness seem to be in short supply today. My mantra is, “Make something good happen every day.” All of us might benefit from kindness post-it notes to ourselves. Consider Maya Angelou’s poetic summons: “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
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Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

385. How often do you observe people treating others with kindness?

386. What is your version of a kindness post-it note?                 

A Cynicism Climate vs. Warm Fuzzy Terrain

Whatever happened to warm fuzzies, defined as feelings of happiness, hope and well-being?

Stanford University professor of psychology, Jamil Zaki, directs the Social Neuroscience Lab. Zaki and his colleagues find that the rate of U.S. citizens feeling unhappy and mistrusting of others is at a high point.  His book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, disagrees with a common belief that cynics are more perceptive than optimists. Research results show that cynics perform worse in cognitive tests. Cynicism is a destructive force. It can impact one’s well-being. While cynicism may appear to be protective, as in keeping people from taking advantage of you, it is linked to loneliness and losing out on potential collaboration. According to the Pew Research Center, a 2024 study surveyed 6,200 adults in English and Spanish about their well-being and social connections; they found that 1 in 6 Americans feel lonely or isolated most of the time.

“Cynicism is easy. Anyone can do it. Change is hard. That takes us.” Cody Keegan, speechwriter for President Obama, wrote his own speech for a New York University commencement address; this was his advice to graduates.

Jamil Zaki advocates “hope mixed with fury” to inspire genuine change. He suggests that one needs to fact-check their cynicism through increasing a sense of curiosity and first questioning their own beliefs. When one engages in conversations with strangers, or those known to hold opposing political viewpoints, there is an opportunity for two-way growth. 

Having an open mind is a hope-fueled possibility. Hope promotes personal happiness. Zaki fosters a positive spin on collective hope: “Hope doesn’t mean accepting that things are actually great when they’re not — it means acknowledging that things are awful, but that many, many people want them to improve.”

Psychologist Andrea F. Polard, founder of Zen Psychology and author of A Unified of Happiness: An East-Meets-West Approach to Fully Loving Your Life, is another peddler of hope. Her recommendations for taming your inner cynic are the following:

  1. Look deeper, feel deeper. 

Embrace your own cynicism by looking more deeply into your anger. Anger often hides our disappointment. Sometimes we project our disappointment onto the whole of society. Be brave. Confront the pain that your cynicism may hide.

  1. Find inner peace. 

Relate to others by identifying your own attachments. Admit your own biases and shortcomings. Make peace with your own human condition. [Remember, it takes us, all of us.]

  1. Try to work with imperfections constructively. 

A person does not change because someone despises them. Participate in dialogues. Be assertive against injustice and hypocrisy but lead with examples of alternative behaviors.

Be as strong as a pussy willow branch. In spite of a wild spring snowstorm that threatened a tornado, catkins flourished on strong branches that could bend in the wind, hail, and snow.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

381. How often do you catch yourself in a cynical part of your personality?

382. What might you do to increase your hopefulness?                 

Can Springtime Jumpstart Social Prescribing?

Winter aconite bulbs in buttercup family (Ranunculaceae)

There is something magical about the warming of days and the return of blooming bulbs unfurling upward, while trees are budding outward, after their winter hibernation. Spring (or vernal) equinox occurred March 20th. Vernal equinox comes from Latin vernal (new or fresh), aequus (equal) and nox (night). Spring equinox delivers daylight in equal amounts of approximately 12 daylight hours and 12 darkness hours as the sun is above the equator at midday.

March equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is the warming trend signaling that summer is not far away as this section of Earth begins showing more hours of sunlight than darkness. Look north for the Big Dipper to be at a high point. In the Southern Hemisphere, March equinox is the polarized opposite; as this region begins tilting away from the sun, the beginning of autumn occurs. According to EarthSky, the fastest sunsets and sunrises of the year occur on the equinoxes. Another Nature tidbit — auroras’ sky dances frequently happen around autumn and spring equinoxes when geomagnetic storms on the sun cause rippling disruptions in Earth’s magnetic field. This awesome feature of Mother Nature reportedly is one of the earliest patterns ever recorded by scientists. https://earthsky.org/sun/aurora-season-auroras-equinox-connection/

I was in Washington state before spring equinox and received an aurora alert on my cell phone! Being an avid sky observer, I set my phone alarm to get up at the prescribed possibility time, but a clear sky did not unfurl any aurora beams of beauty. However, just this possibility of seeing a blooming sky made me smile.

There is something healthy-feeling about warmer temperatures, as more people gather outside and enjoy Nature’s bounty. Doctors are learning to administer social prescriptions. Physicians Alan Siegel and Carla Perissinotto offer this description: “Social prescribing means connecting of people to activities, groups, and support that improve their health and well-being. These often include a range of social services, the arts, nature, volunteerism, movement, companionship and community-building.” Social prescribing is active in 32 countries. I wonder if social prescriptions are refilled more frequently in Nature’s pharmacy in springtime.

Massachusetts has a statewide program in social prescribing. For example, a hypertension research study (Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston) utilizes social prescriptions through an art-prescribing company, Art Pharmacy. Based in Atlanta, Art Pharmacy partners with programs in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts and New York. Founded in 2022, one goal of Art Pharmacy is to address the loneliness and mental health crises of U.S. citizens. Traditional physical and mental health care can have serious gaps in reaching many individuals’ needs. Social Prescribing USA, a national advocacy organization, has 8 states with pilot projects.

Springtime means the beginning of gardening season for me. All of us need sunshine, both literally and figuratively. Spring delivers more literal sunshine, but the figurative sunshine of well-being is elusive for many.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

379. What does springtime mean to you?

380. How might you write your own prescription for social well-being this spring? 

Pearls of Brain Awareness

Brain scan data, Human Connectome Project: Credit Matthew F. Glasser, David C. Van Essen

Growing up in farmland with paternal grandparents who produced their own beef and pork, I was offered cow brains for dinner in butcher season. While my parents relished this delicacy, I recoiled and could not partake of this unique delicacy. I had no awareness about missing the nutritional benefits of beef brains (vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, K, phosphatidylserine, folate, niacin, magnesium, zinc, and choline, among others), but I still am not a proponent today. I am a proponent of taking care of one’s own 3-pound brain at mealtimes, sleep times, exercise times, and well, any time!

I like the global focus on Brain Awareness Week (the third week of every March), which serves as an annual launch for year-round brainy activities. This is the 30th annual Brain Awareness Week, the “brainchild” (I could not resist) of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain. The Dana Foundation is a nonprofit organization with the lofty goal of promoting brain science internationally to create better futures for everyone.

Dana foundation-sponsored programs such as one in Bamenda, Cameroon, and promoted by physician, Mundih Noelar Njohjam (founder of Cameroon Epilepsy Awareness and Aid Foundation), delivered brain science education to 5000 students. Njohjam provided her grant feedback: It was really interesting to watch [the students] as we explained the wonderful nature of the brain and how neurological diseases occur…especially epilepsy, because in our country epilepsy is often attributed to witchcraft. After listening to us talk, one student openly told us that before we came, he was one of those who usually stigmatized people with epilepsy,” she said. “So many confessed after the presentation that their mindset about epilepsy has really changed.” Truth matters.

Consider some facts offered by the Global Council on Brain Health: https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/family-files/2025-02-24-celebrate-brain-awareness-week-all-year-long

  • Most of us are capable of learning at ANY age, especially getting involved with cognitively stimulating activities such as meeting new people, growing new hobbies or expanding knowledge.
  • Dementia is NOT normal aging. Typical age-related changes in the brain are different from those caused by disease.
  • Children are not the only ones who can master a foreign language – age does not prevent you from learning a new language.
  • Memory skills can improve with practice. The adage, “Use it or lose it,” is as important to memory skill training as it is to taking care of one’s physical health. 
  • Retaining details is just easier for some people than others, but this is true for all ages.
  • Strategies can ripen your memory. Chunk information into smaller bits for enhanced memorization. Use mnemonic devices. Practice retrieval (spacing out repetition works better than cramming). Make flash cards. Quiz yourself.
  • Neurons are created throughout your lifetime.

Being a life-long learner is invigorating! I am grateful for my many opportunities to keep my workhorse brain on the move.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

377. What new learning have you embraced recently?

378. How might you become a better caretaker of your brain? 

Attachment in Words

Are you aware of how your words land on a listener’s ear? Words can be like poison arrows or love letters. Both your flying-missile words and thoughtful spoken or written words of caring have staying power. They are not taken back easily. Words can boomerang across generations.

Whose words are you speaking on a regular basis? We do not ask ourselves this question, as we may not be aware of the answer.  I can recall the stunned look on a client’s face when she admitted that she suddenly caught herself “sounding just like her mother” in a heated exchange with her feisty teenager in my therapy office. Her insight provided an incredible starting place for real change in the parent-child relationship. Admitting that her lashing-out response was not what she had intended, but it just “slipped out,” was a healing moment for broader family dynamics.

Much of the time adults attempt to manage activated parts of their personalities with little recognition that they replicate another’s response patterns. Generations share not only DNA but some embedded ways of speaking to one another. Rage reactions do not “come out of the blue,” but often are solidly anchored in caretaker attachment issues. Early relationships in childhood can set the pace for later attachments.

Neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel suggests that (as early as age 7) children pick up on attachment patterns of adults in their world. Based on the early theory of British psychiatrist John Bowlby and later research by American-Canadian psychologist Mary Ainsworth and others, there are four attachment patterns. Here are representative take-away words from each pattern:

  • Secure — “People will respect what I say.”
  • Avoidant/dismissive – “I did not get what I needed; I don’t need anybody for anything.”
  • Anxious/ambivalent – “I don’t know if you are my friend or not.”
  • Disorganized – “I can’t regulate my emotions; I fragment. Under stress I can’t think straight.”

Michigan poet Will Carleton cautions: “Boys flying kites haul in their white winged birds; you can’t do that when you’re flying words. ‘Careful with fire,’ is good advice we know. ‘Careful with words,’ is ten times doubly so.”

Dan Siegel believes that parents are capable of creating secure attachments with their children even if they did not receive such caring from their caretakers. The key is being aware of an honest and coherent narrative of one’s own upbringing.

Siegel’s 4 S’s remind us how to foster secure attachments. ALL adults can improve their approach to family life and work life. Employers, heads up!

What a different world we would have if parents and employers had secure attachments!

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

367. What are your words for making sense of your childhood?

368. How do you view your attachment pattern today?     

Understand Compassion in Grieving

“I write to understand as much as to be understood,” explained Elie Wiesel, Romanian-American Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate. Isn’t this true for all writers? If writing is one’s career, there is motivation to put groceries on one’s table, but writing also is a powerful way to grasp and then share some deep understanding of a topic.

The tragic airline crash into Potomac River in Washington, DC grabbed people’s grief strings. An airplane carrying 64 individuals from Wichita, Kansas, and a helicopter carrying 3 soldiers collided just as the larger plane was preparing to land — on a crystal-clear evening. Undoubtedly, passengers were anticipating their meet-up with relatives and rides. Perhaps they were enjoying DC lights and sights. Aviation attorney and experienced pilot Arthur Wolk noted how numerous lights in this crowded airspace can conflict with flight instructions.

Soldiers in the helicopter were conducting a “routine training mission” to practice evacuating government officials if deemed necessary in an emergency. Instead of leading anyone to safety, the unthinkable occurred. Two days later a jet-ambulance crashed in Philadelphia, killing 7 and injuring 22 on the ground, a further tragedy. Smashed dreams and shattered families frighten even those without relationships with the victims. Encountering another’s trauma activates branches of trauma memories in one’s own life.

Journalist Rebecca Soffer, co-founder of online Modern Loss, is keenly aware of sudden death. She was 30 when her mother was killed in a car accident, one hour after giving Rebecca a ride from family camping. Then at age 34, Rebecca’s father died of a heart attack while on a cruise. Co-founder Gabrielle Birkner began her journalism career writing obituaries for a local newspaper. While 27-year-old Gabrielle was in the newsroom working on obituaries, she received unthinkable news that her father and stepmother were murdered in a home invasion. Both young adults sought companionship and compassion from those who might understand their grief.

Gabrielle interviewed psychiatrist M. Katherine Shear, founding director of Columbia University’s Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia’s School of Social Work. Here is Dr. Shear’s definition of compassion: “Compassion is defined as the feeling of wanting to help someone who is hurting or suffering or has had to confront an untoward experience. Compassion means having a sympathetic awareness of that person’s pain along with a desire to ease the suffering.” She further pointed out that women are better at taking care of others than taking care of themselves. Often women feel that it is selfish to have self-compassion.   

Actually, one needs to hone their self-compassion to be capable of compassion for another’s suffering. It is possible to learn self-compassion skills. Allow yourself to address grief as a form of interdependent love, both for yourself and others. I can vouch for writing 3 things, large and small, in a daily-gratitude journal as one runway to land self-compassion.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

365. When have you used writing (in any form) to cope with grieving?

366. In what ways do you show compassion for others?        

Is Your Screen-time Diet a Pacifier?

The same parent that tries to discourage a child’s thumb or pacifier later hands their youngster a digital babysitter to keep the kid pacified or occupied. Yet, recent surveys show that 70% of America adults have concerns over how technology is affecting their own mental health, including their personal relationships. Other research finds that the average U.S. adult spends 70% less time with friends than they did two decades ago.                                                   

Nearly half of Americans report cutting back on screen time; 67% cut out digital cookies. Were these your New Year’s resolutions? 62% of American adults admit to digital-device addiction. What will this percentage be when today’s addicted-to-gadget toddlers reach adulthood?

American Academy of Pediatrics well-being guidelines for technology usage are not being followed from my observation of many children today:

  • Under 18 months – Zero screen time, unless video communication is with family and/or friends;
  • 18-24 months – May begin screen time co-viewing with a parent or caregiver;
  • 2-5 years — No more than 1 hour per day, limited to educational programming;
  • 6+ years – Limit screen time by setting limits and boundaries (using parental controls); avoid using screens as a pacifier or babysitter.

How difficult is it to turn off all screens during family meals and outings? Parents are role models in the usage of technology for their families. Do you use a digital device while you eat? I am always amazed when I see a couple in a restaurant, sitting across from one another, both ensconced on cell phones for long periods of time. I wonder why they are not relating to each other in the present moment. In addition to the practical uses of our cell phones, The Smartphone as a Pacifying Technology (in Journal of Consumer Research) outlines these emotional benefits: “feelings of psychological comfort and actual stress relief.”

There are many possibilities for stress relief. What hobbies have you pushed to the back shelf of your mind? Is it time to develop a new interest in your life?

Whether cell phone usage becomes addictive is an individual assessment. Psychotherapist Peter Levine defines addiction: “Addiction is people needing some way to blunt their pain, attempt to regulate; until people find an alternative, they will continue [their] addiction.” Perhaps we need the AMA (American Medical Association) to write a prescription for adult screen time.

Do you need a digital detox recipe? Here are some possibilities:

  • Make a “grocery” list of replacement ingredients to the pacifier of screen time.
  • Stir face-to-face social bonding into your week.                              
  • Blend mindfulness into your daily activities.  

If you choose to detox from too much screen time, you avoid a diet of information overload. Side-dish benefits include better sleep, better concentration, better physical and mental health, better creativity, and better relating with others. Who does not wish for things to be “better”?

Bake your cookies. 

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

363. Have you ever considered whether you are addicted to screen time?

364. What possibilities do you have to redeem your personal time, starting TODAY?  

Broaden-and-build Purls and Pearls

I cannot give away my grandmother’s crochet hook…yes, this is a scarcity mindset at work (see Pearls of Peace, 1-13-25). I am hooked on warm memories of my childhood hours in my grandparents’ home. I recall many hours that Grandma sat in her rocker, wearing her hand-sewn apron and dress, making one doily after another to gift the many females in her family and friend network. I never learned knit-and-purl stitches, but I watched with fascination as Grandma created with her crochet hook, building one stitch upon the next to broaden her handiwork. Handmade gift-giving was on her unofficial resume.  

Psychologist Barbara Frederickson created her broaden-and-build theory when she realized that there was a greater amount of research on negative emotions than positive emotions. For every positive emotion, there appear to be 3 negative ones! The reason for this disparity is that negative emotions are linked to our survival in big and small ways.

The broaden-and-build theory emphasizes that the expression of positive emotions can expand one’s repertoire of psychological, social, cognitive, and physical resources. Positiveness improves one’s resilience. It may help one’s coping skills. This approach is not meant to erase negative emotions but instead allows for the co-existence of both kinds of emotions.

A negative emotion is a protective signal that something does not “feel right.” When such emotions are brushed off, sometimes there could be dire consequences. The bodymind is a listening machine, always on lookout to protect one from physical and/or psychological harm. The idea with broaden-and-build theory is to make space for ALL emotions.

Expressing frustration in a trusted relationship is often necessary before gaining access to a more centered space where one can choose a positive action. The key is having an awareness of your positive emotions so that you can repair touchy situations. Building upon a growth mindset reminds one that others roll with negative emotions also.    

Here is a list of positive emotions that you can broaden-and-build for more resiliency. You probably do not need a list of negative emotions, as they seem ever-ready for action. However, you may miss out on positivity time if you do not have these positives tucked in your pocket for ready use:  

  • Admiration  
  • Affection
  • Altruism
  • Amusement
  • Anticipation
  • Awe
  • Cheerfulness
  • Confidence
  • Enjoyment
  • Enthusiasm
  • Euphoria
  • Gratitude
  • Happiness
  • Hope
  • Inspiration
  • Interest
  • Joy
  • Love
  • Optimism
  • Pride
  • Relief
  • Serenity
  • Surprise

Best of all, positive emotions are keep-on-giving gifts. I took interest in “crewel” (Welsh word for wool) embroidery when I was in graduate school dealing with a dissertation committee at odds with one another. I needed to broaden my outlook to create something that was positive, one stitch after another, for my own well-being. I realized that one situation is not destiny. Looking back on Grandma’s knit-and-purl self-therapy, I wonder what she was working through in her mind.  

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

361. When have you used an art form to increase your positive coping skills?  

362. How often do you catch yourself with an initial negative emotion in situations?

Creativity and Well-being

Michelangelo, Crouching Boy, 1530, The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Michelangelo created 42 sculptures. His Crouching Boy initially belonged to Italian banking and political dynasty Medici’s of Florence. In preliminary drawings for a double wall tomb for Lorenzo de’ Medici and his assassinated brother, Giuliano, Michaelangelo drew two crouching figures; only one was sketched in a final design. About 250 years later Crouching Boy was purchased by Russia’s Catherine the Great through a banker who did not know it was sculpted by Michelangelo. Its current home is the Hermitage Museum. If only sculptures could speak!

One interpretation is that ambiguous Crouching Boy is removing a thorn from his foot. There was a tumultuous political climate in Florence and Michelangelo was taking shelter in the monastery of San Lorenzo. Is Crouching Boy making a political statement? According to some scholars, Crouching Boy is considered an allegory of mourning – a grieving soul depicted in an unfinished marble statue in an oddly-seated position. A second opinion is that Crouching Boy is a representation of eternal youth. Take your pick.

Michelangelo led a solitary life and worked until dying at age 89. Aside from his renown as a sculptor, he was a poet. His poetry suggests that a younger man was his love interest. Whether or not he was a gay man who had to hide this fact, people in the 1500’s noticed that mostly nude men were his art form. As artist and activist Richard Kamler suggests, “Art is our one true global language…it speaks to our need to reveal, heal, and transform. It transcends our ordinary lives and lets us imagine what is possible.”

What meaning does “removing a thorn” have in today’s world? Wars are notorious for demonizing the other and for name-calling others who are not known personally. One might ask what constitutes a “thorn” today. We live in ambiguous times. Different interpretations for our global future abound.

Perhaps all of us would do well to turn to the arts. As authors Susan Magsamen (Founder/Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) and Ivy Ross (VP of Design for hardware products at Google) eloquently write in their 2023 book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, “…[the] alchemy of art and science is transforming our biology in ways that are both measurable and effective…artistic endeavors…effect beneficial outcomes for our physical and mental health…begin to create personalized arts practices. Like exercise and good nutrition, the arts on a routine basis will support your health.”    

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as a state of well-being whereby an individual realizes their own abilities, copes with normal life stresses, works productively, and is capable of making contributions to their community.

It took 35+ years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Perhaps you select a slightly smaller project? 

 Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

 347. When have you turned to the arts for transformational time?

348. What do you notice when you are in creative mode?                              

ANGER: The Trauma Within

Le Penseur (The Poet), Auguste Rodin, 1904, Musee Rodin, Paris

Do you have anger about the Presidential election results? Perhaps your anger has other targets, but anger is rampant these days. Drivers on the expressway seem impatient and angry, cutting off their partner drivers as if broadcasting, “Watch out! Get out of my way! I’m changing lanes — whether it’s good for you or not.” This Presidential election reminds me of such drivers; voters chose a candidate with a me-first mentality, only they cannot see that they may be next to be cut off in some future way.

It’s hard to remember that anger is only a part of your personality when it feels like a dangerous drone inside your bodymind is prepped for a destructive lift-off. Whoever is in the path of anger demolition, innocent or not, watch out!

Anger is not about “the enemy within,” but the trauma within. Anger is a protective emotion. It protects our own trauma within — our fears, our grieving, our insecurities, our prejudices and other vulnerabilities we disown in our personalities. All of us have fears, grieving, insecurities, prejudices and other vulnerabilities. “Who me?” you ask. Yes, all of us.

It takes introspective reckoning to admit to all parts of one’s personality.

French Auguste Rodin created The Poet sculpture (also known as The Thinker) as one part of a large commission – Gates of Hell –– for a doorway surround in 1880. His inspiration was Dante’s 14,233-line Divine Comedy. How can it be that Dante’s opening lines in 1300 seem relevant to 2024? Well, he wrote at a time of intense political disagreement in Florence, Italy:

“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, / For the straightforward pathway had been lost. /  Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say /  What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,  /  Which in the very thought renews the fear….”

Despite its name invoking entertainment, Divine Comedy (La Commedia) is a fire-and-brimstone allegory. It depicts three layers of an afterlife – Inferno (Hell), Purgatoria, and Paradiso – for the human traveler whose life journey is one of passionate anger, resentment, love, justice and faith. There is a moral in this Early Renaissance epic poem: redemption is possible if one repents sins. Dante distinguished between a weakness-of-will sin and sins characterized by deliberate will.

If visuals interest you more than a 6-hour read, see National Gallery of Art depictions: https://www.nga.gov/stories/dante-divine-comedy-in-art.html   

Whether or not your anger feels passionate on this Veterans’ Day of painful remembrances, anger always requires our attention. I cut off weedy stalks in my garden as one way of dissipating my anger last week. Then I listened to beautiful music. Like other emotional parts of our personalities, a current anger brings up previous times we felt angry. I greeted numerous memories of anger last week. I own them and I can heal them.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

341. What role does anger play in your everyday life?

342. How do you greet and heal your anger in a safe manner?