Emotional Make Up 101

Have you ever caught yourself wondering what was going on in someone else’s head? Pixar Animation Studios motion picture,’ Inside Out’ released by Walt Disney Pictures, offers the movie goer its version of emotional mindscape in 94 minutes of carefully, crafted, creative animation.

Inside Out, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The movie was the brainchild of Pete Doctor in collaboration with Ronnie del Carmen. This movie allows the audience to gain a privileged entrance into the lead character, Riley’s mind, where we meet the five, animated, personified, prime emotions of Anger, Disgust, Fear, Joy, and Sadness. The five emotions which dramatically surface in the movie, mirror those Pete Doctor witnessed in his pre-teen daughter and those he personally experienced in his own life resulting from his relocation from Denmark to the United States.

On the surface Inside Out is a kid’s movie but it takes an adult mind to grasp the complexity of our emotional make up. Younger members watching Inside Out will follow Riley’s attempt to return home, whereas older members will find themselves reminiscing on their own emotional journeys. Adults will grasp the reality that the five prime emotions are seldom experienced in isolation. The more mature moviegoer catches the deeper reality that emotions blend together. Our emotional intelligence helps to support our understanding of others and the developing of relationships with others. www.helpguide.org/articles/emotional.../emotional-intelligence-eq.htm

 

Christopher Haubursin, www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8860247/inside-out-emotions-graphic, has graphically illustrated the way in which the overlap of emotions creates a fuller pallet which broadens our emotional makeup. For example, joy coupled with sadness produces a feeling of melancholy and sadness and fear gives rise to anxiety as illustrated in the chart below.

For me, Christopher Haubursin chart broadens the concepts presented in the movie and stresses the mix of emotions release in encountering any situation. Hopefully, summertime will offer you and yours the leisure to enjoy Inside Out in what promises to be a thought provoking treat at the movie theatre.

Nancy Wales CSJ

A review of Atul Gawande's book "Being Mortal"

How do we live a meaningful life when facing debilitating disease or a terminal condition? Gawande takes a very realistic look at our changed social circumstances in terms of life expectancy, movement of peoples and medical technologies/treatments. Through his own reflections, dialogues with colleagues, and study he examines his approach to patients facing difficult health situations. Is he truly dong the best he can? 

When in medical school he was lectured on the differences between a patristic, knowledgeable practitioner and an information giver. Although he leaned towards the latter approach he was finding this did not seem to help his patients. Was there another approach? Perhaps guidance?

As he lives through and shares with us many patient stories, he realizes that he needs to listen and that what patients truly want is often unexpected and attainable. While families want health and safety, patients facing the reality of dying have different desires. So he becomes a guide who can offer information, discuss possible effects of treatments, and listen attentively….he learns to have the difficult conversations. The final ‘case’ he shares is the dying of his own father; his insights and new practices have a profound effect on how this passage takes place.

Hopefully he shares stories of different ways of assisting patients facing their own mortality. There are options if we are willing to creatively explore them.

Relevant to us as Canadians as we discuss the impending legislation about end-of-life, he cautions that countries who have embraced assisted end of life have not explored other options to help people with the limits that end-of-life situations find moments worth living for.

The book is readable, relevant and thought provoking with a most hopeful outlook.

Jackie Potter
CSJ Associate

The Inconvenient Indian

Thomas King, a well-known Indian author admits to his biases and takes time in the beginning to explain his choice of two words in the title; “account and inconvenient”. Even though the book is filled with names, dates, battles, treaties and facts about the ongoing relationship between Indians and Whites, King says it is not a history but rather storytelling. It is an enlightening account that should be in every school and in every library.

The book is mostly a discussion about land ownership, cultural denial, and historical Solutions to the Indian Problem. Most of the history of North American Indians has been forgotten. With his sardonic wit King tells us we can watch the movie. Hollywood has given us the image of what King has called the “Dead Indian” as opposed to the “Live Indian” and the “Legal Indian”. Behind any problem land greed is at the core. For aboriginal people the boundary between Canada and the United States was not of their making but it is a political reality that has interfered with their land and their status. They are First Nations in Canada and Native Americans in the United States. Governments now decide who is and who isn’t an Indian.

Many North Americans believe that Canada and the United States gave treaty rights to Native people as a gift, however, those familiar with the history know that Native people paid for every treaty right, and in some cases, paid more than once.

The Indian is a Steward of the Land not owners. They have a deep spiritual connection to the land, whereas the white man views Land as a commodity to bought and sold.

1823 US law: Indians had right of occupancy but they did not own the land, 1831-1832 laws: Native nations were no longer sovereign nations. Indians were reduced to the status of children and declared wards of the state. All Indian land belonged to the federal government. Canada formalized an identical relationship in the 1876 Indian Act. Indians in all of North America were property. King fears that aboriginal culture and specifically aboriginal land will continue to be taken away until there is nothing left to them at all. The issue has always been land. It will always be land, until there isn’t a square foot of land left in North America that is controlled by Native people. There will always be “Live Indians” but North American laws make it difficult to claim Indian status, to be a “Legal Indian”.  Governments past and present have always aimed for assimilation to make the problem go away. History always impacts the present. The question has always been “What do Native People want?” however the real question is “What do White People want?”

I can’t express how much I appreciate having read this book. We need to pay more attention to the laws and acts that government enacts. Native Peoples/First Nations of North America have been systematically robbed of their land, their dignity, their values, and far too often their lives because they have been inconvenient.

Thomas King took six years to write this book.  He writes as if he were in a conversation with the reader. He uses anecdotes and humorous narratives while maintaining the serious message of the book.  His underlying anger is softened by his wit and his hope.

I never realized just how many Indian tribes, bands, and nations there are in North America each with its own identity, customs, and culture.

What I especially appreciated was the accounts King relates about the “Dead Indians” and how Hollywood portrayed them and more importantly what actors played the Indian roles. Interestingly Will Rogers is one of only two Indians to get a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame yet he never played an Indian on the big screen.

King himself, having Cherokee heritage, admits that as a child playing “Cowboys and Indians” he was always the cowboy. Read the book. It is filled with history, facts, humorous stories, sad stories, wit, irony, sarcasm, anger and hope for the future relationships between Natives and Whites.

Book Review of The Inconvenient Indian: A curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King, Anchor Canada 2012. Our reviewer is guest blogger Janet (Cole) Brisson, Resident of Residence Symphonie West Island, Pointe-Claire, Quebec

Only a Stone’s Throw Away From a New Perspective

Most of us are very familiar with the epic, biblical, tale of David and Goliath. The bestselling author, Malcolm Gladwell, in his most recently released book, David and Goliath, provides a new perspective on this well-known encounter which was first recorded in the Old Testament. Gladwell maintains that we’ve got it all wrong. It was David, not Goliath, who had the upper hand from the onset in this power struggle. The author insists the mighty Goliath, weighed down by his heavy protective gear was ill prepared to meet the less encumbered David. 

Malcolm Gladwell uses this erroneous held belief about Goliath’s strength and David’s weakness, as a spring board to point out other examples of the unrecognized strengths and capabilities possessed by those considered unlikely winners. Gladwell illustrates other circumstances where apparent weakness proves to be an unsuspected strength.

Perhaps the essence of this tale and book might provide wisdom on our Lenten journey to Easter. Might there be instances in our own lives where personal limitation opens us to be supported by our higher power.

“At first I didn’t think of it as a gift,
and begged God to remove it.
Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.“
2 Cor.12:7 (MSG translation)

Listen to Malcolm Gladwell on Ted Talks.

Nancy Wales, CSJ

Not ACHOO!

In this flu and cold season it’s good to speak about contagious in a positive manner. Recently, in my opinion, there has been a very readable book on the bookshelves by Jonah Berger entitled, Contagious: Why Things Catch On. It’s written in the style that readers of Blink, Outliers and Tipping Point by the bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell will find familiar.

Contagious combines the findings of academic research with real case stories. As Berger says in his book, he sets out to explain why certain tales are told, why certain emails get forwarded or the reason behind which YouTube videos go viral.

Simon and Schuster Readers Guide pinpoints the storyline, “John Berger shares the secret science behind social transmissions.” Berger introduces the reader to the six masterful ways to spread the word and insure infectious content. Berger shares these research-based fundaments under the acronym STEPPS.

Visit www.jonahberger.com and click on Videos for a 50 second trailer to spike your interest further.

Nancy Wales, CSJ